#567 - Til Murder Do Us Part - Lebanon, Maine

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder Episode #567 - Till Murder Do Us Part - Lebanon, Maine Release Date: February 6, 2025 Hosts: James Petregallo & Jimmy Whisman

---

Introduction to the Episode

In episode #567 of Small Town Murder, hosts James Petregallo and Jimmy Whisman delve into the dark and tragic story of Steven Brown and his wife Debbie in Lebanon, Maine. Combining in-depth research with their signature comedic flair, the hosts unravel a case marked by domestic abuse, kidnapping, and murder, highlighting the complexities of small-town dynamics.

---

Setting the Stage: Lebanon, Maine

Lebanon, Maine, a small town established in 1767, serves as the backdrop for this harrowing tale. With a population of approximately 6,437, Lebanon is characterized by its limited amenities, including a single Dunkin' Donuts and a local pizza shop. The town's quiet and peaceful façade masks deeper societal issues, including higher-than-average unemployment rates and a predominantly white population.

James Petregallo:
"A lot of attractive feet in this place, apparently. Lebanon, Maine, our feet are the nicest jerk off to our feet."
[13:48]

---

The Protagonists: Steven and Debbie Brown

Debbie Smorella, born in 1963, met Steven Brown in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1981. Their whirlwind romance led to marriage when Debbie was 18 and Steven was 19, shortly after Debbie became pregnant with their son, Steven Jr. Their relationship was tumultuous from the start, marked by Steven's volatile behavior and substance abuse.

Jimmy Whisman:
"He’s gonna turn back and leave me alone? That’s the answer."
[29:24]

James Petregallo:
"What's going on with this lady? She's fucking wackier than anybody else in the story at this point."
[97:27]

---

A History of Abuse and Instability

Steven's upbringing in Newfield, New York, was fraught with behavioral issues. Described by his mother as a "problem child," Steven's inability to adhere to rules and his aggressive tendencies set the stage for future conflicts. After an early discharge from the Marines due to disciplinary issues, Steven struggled to maintain stable employment, often relying on his family's fuel delivery business.

Debbie, on the other hand, worked multiple jobs to support the family and began to recognize the severity of Steven's abuse. Friends and coworkers noticed Debbie's deteriorating mental and physical health, underscoring the toxic environment at home.

James Petregallo:
"Well, why are they making weed smoking for basic bitches?"
[22:31]

---

The Catalytic Incident: March 1999

On Sunday, March 28, 1999, Debbie and her new boyfriend, Chris Brilliard, were staying at the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth, Maine. That night, Debbie noticed suspicious activity: armed individuals surveilling their rental car and attempting to lure her out. Shortly after, at approximately 12:57 AM, Debbie was forcibly taken from the motel by Steven Brown and his accomplice, Patricia Teeter.

Debbie's Account:
"He grabbed my ears and said, 'This is a promise, not a threat. If you leave me again with my kids, I'll kill you and the entire family.'"
[77:25]

James Petregallo:
"Steven Brown, to the press, agrees with their account of how it went down."
[157:25]

---

The Crime and Immediate Aftermath

Steven abducted Debbie, Patricia Teeter, and caused the deaths of Debbie's brother, Donald Wood Jr., and her boyfriend, Chris Brilliard. Utilizing a lead pipe, Steven fatally injured both men, subsequently burying them in the woods. The ordeal left Debbie traumatized, with her daughter Whitney witnessing the abduction and killings.

Jimmy Whisman:
"This is why you mind your own business. This is why you don't help people."
[106:54]

Debbie's Plea:
"Please, I ask you to put him away so he can do no more harm. I beg you not to be light with him. I'm still in fear of him."
[152:18]

---

Police Investigation and Trial Proceedings

The police swiftly responded to the 911 call made by Whitney Brown, leading to a manhunt across multiple states. Steven and Patricia were apprehended in New York, where Steven attempted a failed suicide by hanging, resulting in severe injuries but survival. During the trial, Debbie testified extensively about the abuse suffered at Steven's hands, while Patricia's defense centered on her manipulation and conditioning from her own abusive past.

James Petregallo:
"This is crazy fucking Los unhinged. So this is how small town murder shit goes."
[145:19]

Defense Attorney:
"I'm not asking the court to find if there was adequate provocation and render a verdict of manslaughter."
[147:13]

---

Sentencing and Legal Outcomes

Steven Brown pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges, attempting to mitigate the severity of his crimes. Despite his plea, the court found his actions premeditated, resulting in a sentence of 20 years in state prison and 29 years in federal prison, to be served concurrently.

Patricia Teeter also pleaded guilty, receiving a lighter sentence due to her role as an unwilling participant under Steven's coercion.

Prosecutor's Statement:
"His aim was to kidnap his wife, and he would have killed others if they had gotten in his way."
[148:19]

Judge's Ruling:
"There is absolutely no indication that this defendant acted out of fear, coercion, or dispute, distress."
[160:18]

---

Aftermath and Reflections

Debbie Brown, now divorced and a single mother, has dedicated herself to helping other abused women, sharing her story to prevent similar tragedies. Her daughter, Whitney, continues to grapple with the traumatic events she witnessed.

Steven Brown, despite multiple failed suicide attempts and severe injuries, remains incarcerated, serving his time in a federal facility in Jessup, Georgia. His early death in 2012 due to a successful suicide ends his chapter of violence but leaves lingering scars on those affected.

Debbie Brown:
"I lost my family, lost my kids, and he was starting to lose his material possessions. He just doesn't have control over himself anymore."
[175:13]

James Petregallo:
"That is wild. You're not going to get that all the time from different shows. That's some small town murder shit right there."
[173:52]

---

Conclusion

Till Murder Do Us Part serves as a stark reminder of the darkness that can lurk beneath the surface of small-town tranquility. Through meticulous storytelling and candid discussions, James and Jimmy shed light on the complexities of domestic abuse, the challenges of law enforcement, and the enduring impact on survivors. This episode not only recounts a tragic narrative but also underscores the importance of awareness and intervention in preventing such devastating acts.

Notable Quotes:

• Debbie Brown on Fear and Safety:
  "I'm still in fear of him. Please put him in a prison outside of the state so my kids and I won't have to worry about him no more."
  [152:18]

• James Petregallo on the Incident:
  "This is a ridiculous jailbreak. That is too messed up."
  [137:00]

• Jimmy Whisman on the Aftermath:
  "She's capable of being... a few times he said, 'I'm sure.'"
  [52:59]

• Prosecutor's Summary:
  "His aim was to kidnap his wife, and he would have killed others if they had gotten in his way."
  [148:19]

---

Additional Information

For more detailed insights and direct quotes, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to Small Town Murder on their preferred podcast platform and follow James and Jimmy on social media. Live shows and merchandise can be accessed via shutupandgivemurder.com.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about Shutterfly. If you're like us, you take a lot of pictures because you have a camera right in your hand all the time. How would you not take a lot of pictures? And we're taking all these pictures more than we've ever taken in the history of the world.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But it's.

[James Petregallo]

That's the thing. You used to get a solid picture and then you'd look through them and you could enjoy them. Now they're like back on your camera roll. You can't even find them. You don't want that. That's why the cool thing you need to do and what I did, and I think it's pretty cool, is create a shutter photo book. Oh, what I did. And you're gonna enjoy this, Jimmy, because I haven't showed this to you yet, but took all of our pictures from being on tour this year. All live show pictures, us backstage, us on doing all that stuff and like some of the. Just the venues and things and made a little photo book out of that. Also, they have free 24 hour designer service as well. With their 24 hour designer service, a professional designer is gonna lay out the book for you for free in just a day. Make something that means something with Shutterfly. Enjoy. 40% off orders over $29 with promo code. Small town C site for promotional details.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody, Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you about noom. Has NOOM helped you? I believe it has.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, it's got an app. You can do tracking. It's terrific.

[James Petregallo]

It does. NOOM builds personal plans that can meet individual needs. That's the thing. Takes into account any dietary restrictions, medical issues, other personal needs. That helps build a plan that works for you. And yes. So you've. I know that you've had your own personalized program here that you've been working.

[Jimmy Whisman]

On and weight loss, that this is, this is weight loss results that last. They stick around because you, you get yourself into a lifestyle change and that's what matters.

[James Petregallo]

That's mainly. You can't just say, I'm going to cut that out for a month and then go back. That's not what it is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But you don't.

[James Petregallo]

So I'm glad it's helping you. That's great. And it really does. I like the psychology and biology based approach here. Noom weight uses psychology. That's why they say losing weight starts with your brain. But it also takes into Account your unique biological factors Jimmy all of your multitude flora and fauna that goes on inside of you there. Stay focused on what's important to you with noom's psychology and biology based approach. Sign up for your trial [e-mail] noom.com, n o o m here based on 3.5 year study of actively engaged Noom users with minimum starting BMI of 25. Individual results may vary. Visit our website for more information.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Thumbtack presents the ins and outs for caring for your home out indecision, overthinking, second guessing every choice you make in plans and guides that make it easy.

[James Petregallo]

To get home projects done out beige on beige on beige in knowing what to do, when to do it and who to hire.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today.

[James Petregallo]

This week in Lebanon, Maine, a dark plan unfolds as a man lures people to their horrifying deaths so he can try to convince his wife to return to him and that everything will be much better now. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Oh yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We have a crazy, crazy show for you. As usual, just wild stuff going on in this episode. This was one of those. As I'm reading it, I'm shocked at every turn. I'm like, oh my God, this is insanity. We will get to all of that and more, of course. But first before we do, head over to shut upandgivememurder.com get your tickets for live shows. The entire 2025 calendar is for sale. Pittsburgh, February 7th, you are up first. Get in there. Columbus is not an option the next night because Columbus is sold out 100%. So get your but to Pittsburgh and come see us there. And then all the other dates too. Madison just about sold out. Portland I think is sold out and that's in November. So Seattle, D.C. philly, all these places. Get your tickets, Chicago, get them now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Chicago's almost done too.

[James Petregallo]

Get in there. Get those tickets. So thank you for everyone that's done that. Shut up and give me murder.com, also all your merchandise and everything else there. You should definitely listen to our other two shows, your stupid opinions, which who doesn't want to hear people's dumb opinions and reviews from the Internet and then crime and sports as well, which we promise you you don't have to like sports to like it. It's us making fun of a moron who threw away their entire career. That's good stuff right there. So we will get to that. And then you certainly want Patreon. Patreon.com crimeinsports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above. You get an entire giant back catalog of hundreds of episodes immediately upon subscription. Then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. And how much of that do they get? You get every bit of it. Every damn drop of it. And this week, what we're gonna give you is for crime and sports, we are gonna talk about Kobe Bryant's little problem he had in Colorado there, the rape accusation and everything that happened afterwards. And we'll get into all that. We have the depositions and the interrogations and everything. And then for small town murder, it is Internet salad time again. Feel like every once in a while we feel like people are getting tense and we're like, let's have an Internet salad where we're gonna talk about everything that doesn. Basically, it'll be just like we do before the show starts and we're looking around going, God, you see this idiot. Stuff like that. No politics, just fun. It's going to be a good time. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well, where Jimmy will mispronounce your name while he'd love to get it correct. So that's a lot of fun. Disclaimer time. Names are hard, too. Let's be honest here. Disclaimer time. This is a comedy show.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It is.

[James Petregallo]

We are comedians. There will be jokes here and there will be dead people here. The stories are 100% real. Unfortunately, they are not, you know, embellished for comedic effect or anything silly like that. These are real crazy stories that are just nuts. And the only way to tell them properly is to have to sit back and laugh once in a while and go, oh, my God, not at the gross parts. That's the thing. We're not like, oh, my. And then her head got cut off. Hilarious. That's never fun. But when people try to do crazy dismounts and everything else, and I think I can get away with this, that's hilarious, objectively. But what we don't do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victim's families.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, why is that, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes. Yes, but we're not scumbags. That's how that works. See how it goes? So that's going to be a good time. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together for any reason whatsoever. I don't know. We disagree. But hey, you have the right to disagree with that and no complaining later. Let's just say that. So that said, I think it's time everybody to sit back.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

Let's all clear the lungs. What do you say here? And let's all shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay, let's go on a trip, shall we? Here we go. We are going to Maine this week.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, we love Maine. Obviously this is far west Maine here. This is the westernmost town in Maine, as a matter of fact.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. So as far away from the ocean as you can get here it is called Lebanon, Maine. Just like the, the Middle Eastern place here. Lebanon. It's about an hour to Portland, Maine. Over by the sea there. And it's about an hour to Concord, New Hampshire in the opposite direction. Sits right in the middle there. And it's three hours to Old Town Maine, which is our last Maine episode. The Facebook Catfish killer. Oh yeah, I remember that one. That was a fucking weird one. Whenever social media is involved in murder, it's always strange. So this is in York county, area code two zero seven here. Little bit of history, just a drop here. It was first granted this area for a town in 1733, very old, by the general court of Massachusetts Bay as the township at the head of the Berwick. That's what they called it. I guess so. So then. But they said they basically gave this to about 60 families given a charter, but no one came here for like 10 years. So what if you started a town and no one showed up? That's what happened here, apparently. So the first meeting house was built in 1753 and then it kind of went on from there. And then in 1767 it was finally incorporated as Lebanon and it was Maine's 23rd town. So this is early, early Maine stuff here. Yeah, I guess farming was good here. There's some good level ground in this area with extensive pine plains to the northwest of this area. The chief crop here, hay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Just hay? What are we growing? Dried out grass. Okay, great. Let's do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm shocked.

[James Petregallo]

Hay. Yeah. Also at the Salmon River Falls and the Little river were water power sites for mills. Lebanon had four sawmills, three grist mills, a shingle Mill making shingles, pumping shingles out. A wood carding mill. Wood or wool carding. Not wood carding. Wood carding with a D card.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. And a tannery of course as well. So sure. Then it grew from there and it hasn't grown very much from there. We'll say it's still a pretty small place. We've never been here. We like Maine, but never been here. Let's find some reviews of this place and see what we got here and maybe they'll know more than we do. Let's see. Five stars. I love the town I live in. Even though we all we have is a Dunkin donuts spelled out not like D O nuts like donuts. Dunkin donuts and our local pizza shop. It's the best. I highly doubt that my high school has kids from my town. Berwick and North Berwick, all our towns come together. Towns together create an even bigger community.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. We just. Meaning we just built one school for all of you and they're trying to put a positive spin. A lot of people complain that if you go to high school in this area, it's a long drive to the high school because that's the closest one because it's small. Here is four stars. Lebanon's a very quiet and cute town. Everything is pretty far apart. But there's lots of busy towns nearby to go to and do fun things like going to the movies or going shopping.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Woo hoo. While I'm usually home during the colder season, summer is pretty fun here and there are lakes in town to go cool off and a few ice cream shops to get a cool treat. The town is also working on getting more stores in like the new Dunkin Donuts and the new shop being built next to it. Apparently that's the pizza place. It just hadn't arrived yet. Yeah. Overall it's a nice town for quiet and peaceful place of residence. Sounds like a final resting place. The way they said it. Like it's a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You only got two places. I mean you got morning and evening food and then you gotta figure out lunch on your own.

[James Petregallo]

I guess not a lot there. I guess the pizza place hopefully has something you can get. Two stars. There are several aspects that I would like to see changed for the better in Lebanon, Maine. There's a limited number of resources within the town. It lacks a grocery store, pharmacy, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. You know shit that makes a town a town.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Things that people need.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Places people go. The center of the town. We're missing all of that. The roads Are poorly taken care of. Another feature that would be a great addition are sidewalks. You know, we could just walk around. That'd be good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Not asking a lot. Unfortunately, without sidewalks, I do not feel safe running on the road. There's a little to none, Little to none entertainment options or shopping experiences. In Lebanon, there's very little to do within the town. On the other hand, an aspect of Lebanon I do enjoy is that the houses are not extremely close together. There you go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, there's plenty of room.

[James Petregallo]

Plenty of room. Why be crammed in here when there's nothing around you? People in this town, 6437, which is too many to not have like a couple of restaurants and a grocery store.

[Jimmy Whisman]

To just have a pizza joint and a dunk. What are we talking about?

[James Petregallo]

Really? Yeah. Off there. Way more female than male here, which is definitely. It's almost. It's over 52% female, which is definitely different. I guess people may be retiring, Women live longer. I don't know. I know that much. But median age here though is just about around the national average. It's only 39. So I don't understand it. About 60% married. It's 50. 50 the rest of the country. So this is like a very kind of family ish kind of a place here. Race in this town. I mean, it's Maine. 98.4% white, 0.8% Hispanic, 0.8%. Two or more races. Yeah. Small town Maine. 30% here are religious, which is 50, 50 in the rest of the country. And the highest is not shockingly Catholic, of course, because as we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the north. They are definitely going to be the majority wherever they are in the north here. The unemployment rate here is high. It is almost 7%, which is much higher than the rest of the country, which is in the fours here. Median.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nowhere to work.

[James Petregallo]

No, that's where the Dunkin donuts. But apparently they found somewhere to work because the median household income here is $92,117 a year, which is over 20,000 models. What's happening? A lot of fucking. A lot of attractive feet in this place, apparently. Lebanon, Maine, Our feet are the nicest jerk off to our feet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No hangnails.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Holy shit. What a weird. That's a weird stat. Cost of living here, 100 is regular. Even the rest of the country here is a 110. So a little bit high. And the housing is a little bit high as well. The median home cost here is $313,600.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. So stay the fuck out.

[James Petregallo]

Get the fuck out of here. Stay out. Take your feet picked somewhere else. So if we've convinced you, you love pizza and Dunkin Donuts and this is just enough for you, we have for you the Lebanon, Maine real estate report. Okay. Your average two bedroom rental here, very much more expensive than the national average. It's $1,690, which is, golly, almost 17. Way up there. Yeah. Here is a three bedroom, one bath, 1400 square foot dwelling we'll call it because we'll get to what it is. It's on 2 acres, which is nice. It's a. It's a trailer, but it's a trailer that they like attach some stuff. It's not just the lattice work around the bottom. It's. It was like, you know, it's. It looks. You can't just pick it up and take it somewhere. It looks like it's in there pretty good. It looks kind of shitty from the outside, but it's not that bad inside. It's clean, it's livable, it's nice. It's. Okay. The listing says it's a charming ranch home, which. Calm down, it's manufactured. Relax. Here, this house, 374,000 bucks for that though.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my.

[James Petregallo]

Which, I mean two acres is nice, but 1400.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're buying the land.

[James Petregallo]

You're buying the land. Yeah. Here's a three bedroom, two bath, 1056 square feet. Feet, which is three bedrooms and a thousand square feet is cramming them in there. Point, 75 acres. And another, again, it's the same thing, a mobile home, a manufactured home that's been made to look like it belongs there. This house. $399,900 for a thousand square foot trailer. Yeah, that is bonkers. And then here, this next one, this isn't really a, you know, family house or anything like this. More of a vacation spot. It's a two bedroom, one bath, 1060 square foot place on.73 acres. It's a little house, but it is lakefront. You have a dock and everything. Like it's. It's right on the water and it's all wood inside. It's nice. It's a. It's a, you know, cabin getaway. The inside that they show in all the pictures, there's like beds everywhere. It's like families of 14 are going to a two bedroom lake house to sleep. It's insanity. It's crazy, but it's on the waterfront. 635,000 bucks for that bad boy oh, my. Not even an acre. They're out of their minds over there. Yeah. That is crazy things to do in this town. Well, let's start out with the New England Death Metal Bonanza. Sure, why not? Rock on. Here we go. It's the New England Death Metal Funtime. Bonanza is the full name of this place, which makes it hilarious. It makes me want to go to it. I'll just read the description. It is the most extreme outdoor music festival in the New England area. You can hear the like an fucking early 90s guitar lick. It's extreme, bro.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's extreme.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's fucking extreme. No fear. It's hosted in Lebanon, Maine. The Bonanza brings artists and vendors from all over New England as well as bands from all over the country. And they're going to be into it here. This year's festival features 45 bands from all over the US spanning multiple genres, including death grind thrash, which are all just formed different, and even folk punk, which I don't know what that is and I don't know how it fits in with this, but. Okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

They said it was carefully curated this lineup to deliver equal parts brutality and fun. We'll also be hosting many games. You know, the throw your baby in a. In a. In a pit of acid game is fun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's a pin the head on the live chicken.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's a good one. That's fun. The poster for this has like all the band's logos, so it's really hard to read.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I love that they do that. They make their band name impossible to read.

[James Petregallo]

All right. Belushi Speedball, I see is one of them, which is obviously. What is that? Can't read what that is. Joe Buck yourself is another one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe my fan, maybe my favorite band name ever. Poon Tickler. That's amazing. The Poon Tickler. Okay, sure. That sounds like something we do on your stupid opinions. For a personal item, here's the Poon Tickler with three stars on Amazon. Anti Sapien. So I guess they don't like people dead, Alive. Narcotic Wasteland. I don't even know. Deterioration Bonginator. Okay, that's kind of right on the nose there, I think.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Work harder. This is bad.

[James Petregallo]

Dude. Look at. I'm going to look at the posters.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is going to drive.

[James Petregallo]

It looks like a bunch of tribal tattoos. They don't even look like so painful Mutation Barbecue is one of them. I see.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's so dumb.

[James Petregallo]

What does that say?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jar or tar?

[James Petregallo]

I have no. Beats me. No clue. Well, if that is also Black Mass, I see. That's one of them here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay. That's gotta be a Massachusetts band, right?

[James Petregallo]

I would think. Yeah. Maybe Black Mass. Mutation, Barbecue. I like Nailed Shut. That's one I can read.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's cool.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Nailed Shut. I want to see the poon tickler. If you get the poon tickler in there, maybe they won't be so shut. That's the thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're not getting radio play with your band called Poon Tick.

[James Petregallo]

That was the Poon Ticklers with Stab Me Harder. Jesus Christ. That'd be so weird. Tar. It looks like tar.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or jar.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe jar. Yeah, that's possible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The T is really awkward.

[James Petregallo]

It looks like. Look at this. That doesn't look like they need to work on their fucking J. Because that doesn't look like a jerk.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, right.

[James Petregallo]

It looks like tar, but I'm sure it's jar.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everything's got to be like all jagged lettering and it's all the same. Then you can't even fucking read it.

[James Petregallo]

If I was a death metal band, my logo would be like bubble letters. Just because it's gonna stand out on every poster I'm on. That's what everyone's eyes are gonna go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

To have it stamped like Black Flag. You can't miss Black. You know what that says?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's the. Yeah, absolutely everything. Deterioration Mall. M, A, U, L. Immortal Suffering will be there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think I've heard of them, too.

[James Petregallo]

Malignancy Looks like one of them I've definitely heard of. Well, I don't know who the fuck.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who the fuck.

[James Petregallo]

Who the fuck knows? Those are all the ones I can read, but there's literally twice as many bands as I. Yeah, I've actually practiced Practical Gore. Not that I can see there's shit in big letters, but I can't even read what they are. It looks like, I don't know, maybe the biggest ones, like Belushi Speedball will be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I think. I swear I've heard of them.

[James Petregallo]

It sounds familiar. But I mean, we've also heard about a lot of John Belushi doing speedballs, so maybe not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Good point.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And then if that is too much, let's say that is like a little too extreme for you. There's also the complete opposite of that, which is the Cannabis Church of New England. Oh, really? That's way too much. I'm going to chill out now for a while and smoke some weed. And they say, we believe in freedom of religion. Our motto is do unto others as you would have Others do unto you. Well that's a, a lot of people's mottos. That's I believe. Isn't that the golden rule as a matter of fact called like it's pretty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure that's in the Bible.

[James Petregallo]

Wow, it's in a lot of shit. Our annual membership meeting is always the third weekend in August at our live Laugh Love Festival.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh no.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus. We also meet annually two Saturdays before Halloween. What a fucking weird. Not the second Saturday of October, two Saturdays before Halloween. So what if Halloween's on a Saturday? Does that mean that how it'd be so confusing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why are they making weed smoking for basic bitches?

[James Petregallo]

No shit. Well why are they making it confusing for people who are stoned? Also? That also makes you over analytical. So immediately because I am stoned, I thought well what if it's on a Saturday? Then what is it? Is it the last Saturday? Is it two Saturdays or three Saturdays before that? Because that's the thing that fucking blew my mind. I'd never show up for this thing. People showing up on the wrong Saturday. That is our Hallow Harvest Fest. And then it says we also gather randomly throughout the year. We are open to and for all by appointment. So you gotta call and say you're coming and then you're allowed to go there. So what the fuck is happening death metal and weed is happening in this town. Crime rate in this town. What we are interested in here, property crime is about one third of below the national average. That's good, that's not bad. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about 2/3 under the national average. So one third of the national average. That's very safe, very safe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean a lot of people here.

[James Petregallo]

Not a lot of people and there's nobody out doing anything. So how the hell are you going to we going to get in beef with someone at dunkin donuts at 8 o'clock in the morning? Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a weird one. So that said, let's talk about some murder and just one of the weirdest things ever that we've ever had. It's so strange. Let's start out March 29, 1999. Okay? Everyone's scared of Y2K for some reason and we're all terrified here. This is 12:57am so one in the morning, 911 call comes into the York County Sheriff's Department and it's a report of what they believe, what they're calling is a domestic dispute. It's a Monday evening, Monday night, you know, whatever. So the person making the call is a 12 year old girl named Whitney Brown. And she is freaking out saying I don't know what's going on. My mother got in her car and there's other people out there and my mother was screaming he's here, he's here. I heard it from the inside. She was out in the driveway. And from the window she tells them that she heard he's here, he's here. From her mother outside the trailer. And then from the window this Whitney, 12 year old Whitney looked out and saw two armed figures descend on her mother's car and smash their way inside the vehicle. So she's on the. Yeah, she's on the phone.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Know who, who he is but she can see him and two other and somebody else.

[James Petregallo]

It's one in the morning. Yeah, it's one in the morning. So it's just shadows and figures and you know, even if lights are on, they're not great at one in the morning like that. And then they were gone, they disappeared. So she tells the police, I think it's my father that did this. I think my father just did this to my mother in the driveway. All I heard is he's here, he's here. And then I see two people with guns, armed people smashing into her car. And then they were taken off with her car. So I don't know what happened. So the police show up. Obviously everybody's gone from here and they don't know. They're trying to figure it out and piece this thing together and they're gonna find some surprises out behind the house and. Oh yeah, and this is gonna lead to a crazy fucking unraveling of a wild story here. So let's, let's find out who the these players here are. Deborah Smorella is her mother. That's her mom, Debbie, she goes by Debbie Smorella. Debbie is born in 1963 and that's like I said, Whitney's mom, the woman who was being who screamed he's here, he's here. She grew up mostly in Kittery, Maine, but then also moved around a lot from Maine, Around Maine. Yeah. Her mother, her father was gone from a young age but she had a stepfather so mom and stepfather had to move around a lot but she spent most of her time in Kittery. I guess they'd end up back in Kittery Maine a lot and stuff like that. Not bad at all. So at age 18, Debbie is going to find someone she describes as a charming bad boy. Which are always the. That's always the right guy, ladies. That usually works out great. That's the guy. Fuck that guy. Then find somebody nice, you know? So I guess this is when she lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And there's a small Navy shipyard there. And that's where she met this guy. His name is Steven Brown. Now, Steven Brown's about her age, born a year later. And Debbie remembered the exact date and time she met Steven Brown. Which means she either really loved him or really hated him. One of the two.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. It's an extreme circumstance, extreme emotions.

[James Petregallo]

Here it was 10pm on July 17, 1981, in Prescott park, on the waterfront in Portsmouth. Hell yeah, she met him. She said she saw him sitting on a motorcycle. She was smitten from there, buddy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. She had later on said, he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. And we just drove around all night.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, just. You want to go for a ride? And she was like, sure. He's like, hop on, baby.

[Jimmy Whisman]

On the back of his bike. And off they went.

[James Petregallo]

No helmets I see in this at all. Yeah, yeah. No.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, it's New Hampshire. Live free or die, baby.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Who the hell knows what's going on? And she said, from that point on, we were inseparable. All he had to do was go, you want to hop on the back of this bitch? And he was. That's it? Yeah, that's it. She was into it. And at 18, you can pull that off. Yeah, at 18 you could be like, what's happening, sexy lady? You hop on the back of my bike and an 18 year old will go, sure, yeah. Whereas a 40 year old will be like, get away from me. Do you have a car also? Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Got something with seat belts.

[James Petregallo]

You dumbfound anything. This isn't your only mode of transportation, is it?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, you've got a car.

[James Petregallo]

That's what they'll ask. You don't like it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the allure of a guy on a motorcycle. It's like, oh, he also has a motorcycle. What if he only.

[James Petregallo]

That's the problem. That's what I see anyway. Like, I see a guy in a motorcycle and I'm like, he might have no choice.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That guy touches the rain.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Yeah. Especially in the rain. I'm like, you made an. Either an active choice, you're either a dummy or this is the only form of transportation that you have. One of the two. No other option here. So, yeah, Steven, let's find out about him here. They're going to date all through 1981 and all throughout the fall. And by the end of the fall of 1981, she's already knocked up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Golly.

[James Petregallo]

Which I believe you can get knocked up just from riding on the back of a motorcycle, I think. I'm not sure the wind will blow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That semen right into it.

[James Petregallo]

It is. You got a horny 18 year old guy driving it. I feel like the osmosis through just holding them around the waist. You're gonna get pregnant like a mogwai. You just touch them in there, kids are gonna start flying out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Especially if it rains. Fuck.

[James Petregallo]

Especially if that's his only form of transportation. Then he's very fertile. That means.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I didn't even ever think about that. Really. Just the biggest motorcycle. Really?

[James Petregallo]

Really? The bigger. Do you have a car also? That's what I would want. But as we know the rule with men are the bigger scumbag you are, the more fertile your sperm is. That's just the way it works.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The more bills that you that go unpaid, the more, the higher the sperm count.

[James Petregallo]

It fucking really jacks your sperm up here. So Stephen grows up the oldest of three sons. So all three boys in the family. He is the son of Ken and Donna Brown. He grew up in a house built by his parents. So he had. There's no reason for him to be a shithead, this guy, by the way. And he's not just a shithead because he rides a motorcycle. That's not. We're saying Jimmy has a motorcycle. My dad and my brother have motorcycles. That's not what we're talking about here. He's an asshole and he has a motorcycle. It's just both.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You don't have to be a good guy to buy anything.

[James Petregallo]

No, you're really, really don't here. This show Small Town Murder is brought to you by BetterHelp. Get yourself some therapy, everybody. Honestly here. We often hear about, you know, red flags that you should avoid. That's a lot of a thing. It's become a real phrase now. Real cliche. But why don't you focus also you look at like green flags and friends and partners look for good things as well. And maybe you're not sure what that looks like, though therapy can help you figure that out. What are positive things? What are the green flags? And then you can practice them in your relationship. It's absolutely effect. And so honestly, we absolutely are huge advocates for this. It really, really helps. BetterHelp is fully online making therapy affordable. It's convenient. They serve over 5 million people worldwide. You can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists. Wide ranges of specialties there. Here's the coolest part. You're not getting along with your therapist. You're just not feeling it. You can switch at any time, no extra charge. Wow. The thing is, they want you to get help. That's it. And you can do it with BetterHelp. Discover your relationship green flags with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com Smalltown Murder today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com Smalltown Murder now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the safest sponsor ever. SimpliSafe. Absolutely. These people will keep you safe. It's amazing, you know that every 26 seconds, a burglary takes place in the United States. According to the FBI, that means that by the time this podcast is over, dozens and dozens of homes will have been targeted, ransacked. God knows what happens here. So protect your home before it's too late. With SimpliSafe proactive security system. SimpliSafe helps stop threats before they even have a chance to break in. Named best home security system by U.S. news and World Report five years in a row. And by us for about the last eight years as well, if you trust us. Believe me, you want SimpliSafe. So visit simplisafe.comsmall to claim 50% off a new system with professional monitoring plan and your first month free. That's simplisafe.com small there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

So this is. He grew up in the woods in Newfield, New York, which is as central as you can get as far as east to west. It's central New York. It's near Ithaca. It's up there. Oh, yeah, yeah, right in the middle, you know, not a lot going on there. It's 10 miles from Ithaca. It's where. Where's Cornell is, by the way? Yeah. So it's a town of about 5,000 people. And all these college towns up in New York, like, there's all the SUNY towns, which are State University of New York. They're all just these little college towns. It's weird. It's just. Yeah, these little towns.

[Jimmy Whisman]

New York is chock full of those fucking.

[James Petregallo]

There's so many of those fucking colleges.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So many colleges.

[James Petregallo]

Every little town in western New York has a suny. Like, they all do. Otherwise there wouldn't be a town there. Probably once the mill closed, that was what they had. You know what I mean? So Newfield's an old farming town and everyone around here knows each other. Families stay here for generations. Oh, that's the. That's the Wilson farm, and that's the so and so farm. And everybody knows everybody's shit. It's one of those type of towns here. Now, Steven. And this is funny because when you grow up in a big city and you're like a ne'er do well kid, nobody gives a shit or notices. But when there's a town of 5,000 and you're a shithead kid, everybody knows who you are and that you're a shithead. That's everybody. There's no way around it. So he, his mother, his own mother called Stephen a quote, problem child. Oh, yeah. Redhead, adopted, little asshole. You know how it goes. No, that's not him. Just like the movie. So John Ritter couldn't figure it out, how to raise him. You know how it works. He had trouble sitting still and taking instruction at school. Now that's also, you know, ADD and shit like that. Adhd. Nowadays we'd realize that, that. But at the time, they were just like, fucking, he's an asshole.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Won't sit still. Won't sit still. Listen to this boring bullshit. Yeah, yeah, get the ruler. Let's whack him a couple times. But the problem is too, he was bullying the other kids as well and constantly getting in fights with people, including his brothers. Insecure, beating the shit out of his brothers, who he's the oldest of. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Feels inferior because he's got something happening somewhere, something here.

[James Petregallo]

His mother said today they would have sent him to a psychiatrist and put him on medication, but back then he was just labeled as a bad kid. That was a bad kid. Hyper. So Stephen never gets along with his father. That's a problem. Over the years, his father keeps trying and keeps trying, but his father is kind of a strict guy and a disciplinarian type of guy. And his Steven is having none of that shit whatsoever. So Steven leaves home at 16, just hops on his hog and fires it up. Rides off into the sunset here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Headlight towards something better.

[James Petregallo]

Aims that headlight toward Texas is where he aims.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. Much different from Maine to live with an uncle in Texas. That's. Wow. At 18 years old, he joins the Marines. Yeah, it was around 1982ish. He's assigned.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's typical thing yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He didn't have much else going on. And, you know, why not? There's no wars going on at the moment, so fuck it. That's how it works.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pretty. Pretty chill.

[James Petregallo]

So he was assigned to an infantry assault battalion. Wow. Problem is his inability to pay attention and follow orders.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Isn't just school or his dad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

It doesn't get fixed in the Marines.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's gonna carry over the rest of his life. Huh.

[James Petregallo]

Back then they'd be like, you send him to the Marines, they'll straighten him out, you know. But not everybody is straightened out by the Marines. Some people are just fuck ups and that's all there is to it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sometimes you gotta get hit.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So whether it's by life or whatever.

[James Petregallo]

Sometimes you gotta get kicked in the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Mouth to figure it out.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, shit. That was dumb.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So his mother said that he was transferred to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to work as a security guard before they gave him an early discharge. That's what a pain in the ass this guy was. They were like, let's send him to the Navy and make him stand there by himself from 10:00 to 7:00. 10:00 at night to 7:00 in the morning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's just get him up to a shipyard.

[James Petregallo]

A shipyard.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nothing's happening.

[James Petregallo]

No. And they go stand there for eight hours. Good. Great. He can't bother anybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. It's the equivalent of an eight year old being put in the corner.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He got put in Marine timeout is what he got. Put in at the Navy Yard. Standing there all night. So that's where he was working when they met. When he meets Debbie and he's discharged early in 1982 and Debbie's father, Donald Wood Sr. Said he had a motorcycle. And my daughter was crazy about motorcycles. That's it. He had tattoos and a motorcycle and tattoos in 1981 were.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's. Yeah, that's. That was in the edges. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You were edgy. I mean, a lot of the military guys had them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

But that's. That, that was an edgy thing. That wasn't like, you know, normal for everybody to have a bunch of tattoos. So I remember when my uncle got one at dude.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It was like, good Lord, what's wrong with you?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's. That's what you would think back then. Yeah. My mother had a boyfriend who was a Navy seal and he had a bunch of like Navy SEAL weird tattoos. And I was like, wow, you got a bunch of them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He had a clown Making out with a woman. So his hands were on her ass. It was like, why would. And it's right on his fucking forehead.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that's weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where are you gonna work?

[James Petregallo]

That's fucked up, man. Never mind work. Who are you gonna talk to? What is that? A clown molesting a woman? What do you have on your arm?

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's crazy.

[James Petregallo]

This guy had a giant, like from his shoulder almost to his elbow. A giant like fucking creepy Grim reaper with blood dripping off the sickle.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where are you gonna go, man?

[James Petregallo]

Well, that was his Navy SEALS unit's tattoo.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

They had it drawn up and they all got it. They. So I'm like, yeah. When someone asked him about it, he go, yeah, because we had to murder a lot of people. That's what he would say. We had to kill shitloads of people. That's what we did.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We were the reaper. Yeah, you better fear the reaper.

[James Petregallo]

That's what it was. So January 11, 1982, with Debbie four months pregnant.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They fucking shuffle on down the aisle and get married. Steven is not going to, you know, shirk his responsibilities here. He's going to marry this young lady and they're gonna hopefully live happily ever after. A 19 year old and an 18 year old with a baby. As we all know, that always works out. It always works. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it does not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

My grandparents figured it out, but yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Lots of people did.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they had a civil ceremony. Didn't like do a church wedding or anything like that. A few days later, apparently Steve turns a little bit dark here. A few days into this marriage, he told her, tells Debbie that he owns her now, you know, like a motorcycle. And she told people that he also threw her across the room, quote, like a rag doll as well. He told her this marriage license is my title to you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Like a motorcycle. I got two things. I got a motorcycle and a woman. These are what I own. No car, though. She should ask that ahead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Ownership with the marriage license. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Is my title to you? Like, yeah, this is my. Like a car. So, yeah, get it notarized. Debbie recalled Stephen telling her that she, you know, telling her this as she. As he's throwing her around the room and treating her violently, basically. And this, obviously, if this happens three days after you're married, this is the honeymoon phase.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's not good.

[James Petregallo]

So it's not going to probably get a lot better over time, I would think. And she's fucking pregnant, for Christ's sake. He's throwing her around the room so that's a very little disregard for really anything.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This will likely deteriorate further.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. She said that he began kicking and punching and shoving her within a week of the marriage. It never happened before. And just like that, she said one night he was drinking heavily and doing coke, which is terrific. What a great combo there. When he came home, she was standing in the kitchen. He came home coked up and drunk, which is a real weird combo. Sometimes you're a little more paranoid, sometimes you're more drunk. You never know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Perfect course for a scumbag on a motorcycle.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, kind of fits a 1981 scumbag on a motorcycle.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the guy.

[James Petregallo]

I've been drinking and doing coke off my bike seat. Doing coke off my bike's gas tank.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sucking it off the saddleman.

[James Petregallo]

So she said, next thing I knew, I was being picked up and thrown across the room. Just fucking horrifying. He just comes home fucked up. She's standing there pregnant, you know, by this time, she's five months pregnant, six months pregnant, and he's tossing her around the room. This is crazy. So they're gonna end up having a son. This first child is going to be a son named Steven. Let's name it after. Yeah, give him a real, real fighting chance here. And then later on, they're going to have Whitney in about 1987, so they're going to stay together for a few years. But it's a lot of rocky. It's real rocky. And it's a lot of. Who knows what mood he's in. And he's okay for a few months, and then out of nowhere, he starts being violent for a while and abusive, and then he's not again. And. Real strange guy here, Steven. So after Stephen is discharged from the Marines in 1982, Jizz charged from the Marines after he's fucking booted from the Marines. This guy just reminds me of my friend who starts stories with. So I was AWOL from the Navy, right? In a real Philly accent. He's from Philly. A Guinea from Philly. He's like, so I'm AWOL from the Navy, right? Oh, my God, that's a great way to start a story. And I'm like, I gotta hear the rest of this. I know this is gonna be interesting. Jesus Christ. So after he's discharged, they start moving all around the country, just no stability. Looking for a place to lay down roots here, which. Good God, if you have to be in a. You're in this horrible, abusive relationship and you're forced to pack your shit up and move around all the time too. That's never good. They move around different places. They're in Florida for a little while, Virginia for a little while. You know, all around, I guess, where there's work probably He's, I think is where he's going. Finally though, after a while here in the late 1980s. Now they have two. Two children and everything like that. They end up settling back in Newfield, New York, where Stephen is from. Steven gets a job that he knows he can get because his father gives it to him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So little Nepo baby.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. Well, he's delivering home heating oil, so it's not like he's not like he's inheriting a fucking NFL football team or something.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But it's a low rung in that O, baby.

[James Petregallo]

Not exactly Mark Davis or whatever the Al Davis kid is, but still. He's delivering home eating. Yeah. That fucking weirdo. Jesus Christ. Yeah, delivering home heating oil, which we just had a problem with and it was really annoying. Oh, yeah. Never mind. Long story. So it just makes me angry at Steven because I'm like, oh, you deliver this shit. Yeah. Let's talk about it over here. Get over here. So, yeah, they settle in new field where Steven works delivering fuel to the masses. Apparently here he works for his father's company, Agway Fuel Co. And they live in a. The family lives in a house owned by his parents, Donna and Kenneth Brown. So basically he moves back in and just is taken into the. The womb of his parents here again, just here's a house you can have. Here's a job at my company, you know, that sort of thing. No, no, no. I mean, if it's a good job and a good house in a nice area, it's fine, I guess. But his own way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right. It's also. You got to be personally invested and willing to fucking evolve and get better. Because yeah, given the opportunity you got.

[James Petregallo]

To capitalize on, you just want to go out and ride your bike and fucking do coke off the steering wheel or off the fucking handlebars. And you know, everything else, if the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pay raise, it just means you buy bigger amounts. That's not good.

[James Petregallo]

That's gonna be a problem. Yeah, that's not gonna be great. He was irresponsible, by the way. He hasn't grown up at all. He's still kind of a jerk off, which is why he keeps moving around the country because he can't hold down a job because he's very irresponsible. He would lie to his father and Tell him he was working when he wasn't. Yeah, no, I'm at work. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm working. Yeah, I'm going in today. And then he wouldn't do anything. So his mother said Steve could be very lax. He only does a good job when he wants to. He is a natural truck driver. He can back between two trees and not hit the mirrors. Unfortunately, the laziness sets in. Right fucking. He's fucking lazy. Yep. And that's. And they know that's why he's back here, and that's why he hasn't been able to get anything else going on in the last eight years. Because he's a fucking lazy asshole. They know it. That's. They were, you know, relieved. They probably were. When he joined the Marines, they were like, okay, at least he's the government's responsibility. Yeah. Not ours anymore.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I've heard they're really tough on him.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Yeah, no shit. So he's being lazy. He's lying to his father, and after a while, he's so bad that his father. His own father, has to fire him. No. Yeah. His father has to bring him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But he does it.

[James Petregallo]

He does it. He fires him. Yeah. Yeah. At some point, if you're not making your fuel deliveries, it's fucking cold.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You're gonna lose customers, and then you're not gonna have a business anymore. So.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And you're gonna get a lot of phone calls about people that don't have oil.

[James Petregallo]

It happens. Trust me. We made those phone calls a few times, and it was fucking great. I'll tell a short story here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

Had a delay in the oil delivery. Okay. My house has heating oil. And we're waiting and calling them. And they go, oh, well, we thought. We thought we had a wrong address. They said it was undeliverable. We're like, no, no, no. We've been here for three years getting fucking oil. Constantly give us our oil. Right? So yesterday, the oil guy pulls in, he's gonna give oil, but I didn't see him putting the hose in the oil thing and doing it. So Sarah has been fighting with these people and everything. So I look out the window because she runs out the door to make sure he's doing it. I look out the window. She is standing on the top step of the door of the truck, holding on to the grab bar thing, talking to the driver in the window.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Climbed.

[James Petregallo]

So I'm like, oh, my God. This guy tried to say, I'm not delivering the oil. And she's on the side of the truck going, fuck you, bro. You're. You're not leaving. I will hang on the side of this truck.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's the kids from breaking too, dude.

[James Petregallo]

Totally. She's fucking Shabadoo.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So climbing on the side of a.

[James Petregallo]

Front end loader, it's wild. So I run outside to, like, try to fucking quell the situation or I got her back. I'm like, yeah, motherfucker, you're not going anywhere. And then I see her laughing because the guy was just, like, settling in and he could. She couldn't hear him through the window. That's why she climbed up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hilarious.

[James Petregallo]

I thought. I was like, I'm going to have to fight a fucking oil delivery man today. That's why this is funny to me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hold the back of it and dig your feet in.

[James Petregallo]

It's happening. I'll get on the passenger side. I guess I got to get her back. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Get on the roof and start break dancing.

[James Petregallo]

Tell them you're going to deliver my oil and save the community center, motherfucker. That's right. Bet you can't do this. Put a piece of cardboard down and bust some shit out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I just watched it recently. That's what I know.

[James Petregallo]

I remember you. We were texting about it. It was hilarious.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Ice Cube's rap is so bad.

[James Petregallo]

It's so funny how bad he isn't that. Yeah, well, that was pre everything. That's right when he first started. So. Oh, my God. Now, while this is all going on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Here, Iced T. Did I say Ice Cube?

[James Petregallo]

You did say Ice Cube.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And I saw Ice T in my head when you said Ice Cube because I knew he's in, but I was like, yeah, yeah. So. Well, Ice T was never the greatest rapper. No, he said that too. He was like, I'm not a fucking rapper. I just knew how to hustle these people into paying me. So. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And he does dress like a good punk rock rapper.

[James Petregallo]

He's good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn.

[James Petregallo]

Body count was good. Shit. So anyway, they get fired and the couple. Or he gets fired, and Steve and Debbie move back to Maine with their children here. So they moved to Maine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What town in Maine?

[James Petregallo]

They're moving around in Maine because they're trying to. They're trying to just figure it out because she's just short. Wants to. They don't have. There's no stability with these two.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No. And he just got fired from his dad's joint, so it's like they're gonna.

[James Petregallo]

They're gonna go to Kittery first and then end up in other places as well. So bad while they're doing this, basically, he keeps his abusive nature up. And Debbie would take the kids and leave after one of his outbursts. And that happened all the time. She'd take the kids, she'd leave. And this, by the way, wasn't for. He didn't freak out over anything big. You gambled away our mortgage money or anything like that and yell at her. This would be. The dishes are dirty in the sink. I didn't like that meal. Oh, that. You made me. So he'll freak out, throw the plate against the wall, say it's shit and she's a loser and, you know, attack her. So it's a lot. It's. She's a. He's a fucking monster. So now, neighbors didn't see any of this, though?

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Their neighbors said they look like a couple that like doing shit together. Yeah, on the outside, they. He keeps up the appearance on the outside of everything's great, but behind closed doors, it's not wonderful. Neighbors said they liked fishing together and they'd go motorcycling together and, you know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah, Steve. If she's behind him, he can't hit her.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. Yeah, just an elbow, maybe, or something. So he's also known as a big hunter in the area as well. And, yeah, they said that nobody knew about any real problems in the neighborhood. One of the neighbors said, like, we couldn't. We didn't have any idea. So in 1990, that's when they're going to stay in Kittery for a minute. Here in Kittery, Maine, he gets a job with the highway department in the town of Kittery. So, okay, that's a stable job. And in April 1990, though, he transferred over to the sewer department because, you know, he stood on the highway and went, I want to wonder what's under this. That's what I need to know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's below our feet. You guys ever think about that?

[James Petregallo]

Where's the poop go when I flush it? That's what I want to know. I'm going to follow it to its source, find out. So he would maintain trucks and clean sewer lines, which sounds absolutely disgusting. He did that by choice, by the way. He was like, I want to work with poop. That's what I want to work.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably one of the last choices, but.

[James Petregallo]

It'S still a choice during this time. Let's go over some problems they're having during this time here. So this is some. This is some ugly shit here, everybody. Deb. Debbie said that at one point he put a shotgun in her mouth and threatened to kill her. Yeah. She said he also abused the children as well. This isn't, this isn't just the wife. This is anybody as we know, kids at school, his younger brothers, anyone who's around him that he feels like he can physically push around. He does. He does pretty much. He would kick and punch the kids. He would call his daughter. We're talking an eight year old. He would call her a whore.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Alrighty. She's sitting there watching. Wow, wow, wubsy. And he's like, whore. That's crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's capable of being.

[James Petregallo]

That's insanity. And she, he'd call his son stupid. So she's a whore and he's a moron. I mean, all right, but I mean, he's like, he's like, you know, what, 12 or something? He might be stupid by now. We don't know. You don't call him that. But it's possible. It is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I doubt it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Social issues. He's. He's frustrated by a lot of things and it comes out in name calling and violence.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he's frustrated that he. My non, completely non medical psychological opinion here. I think he's upset that he can't get any fucking footing anywhere. He's upset that no one looks at him as great as he thinks of himself. Yeah, he can't get any footing. So when he goes home, that's when he can have some control. He has no control over the outside world that doesn't give a shit about him. But this fucking woman and these two little kids, they're stuck here with me. I can fucking knock them around all I want. That's what it feels like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's so sad.

[James Petregallo]

It's fucking crazy, man. Now Debbie's relatives said they didn't know about any of this. They didn't know about this abuse while the couple was living in Maine. She wasn't telling her relatives about it or anything. Her uncle Terry said that Debbie left Stephen and moved into a Sanford main shelter for battered women. But he came and apologized and sweet talked her and she moved back. And this happens all the time with him and her, all the time. Donna and Ken Brown, those are Steve's parents, they only visited them once in Maine and they said they were appalled at the conditions they were living under. Not the way he was acting, the conditions of the house. They said they were. It was fucking appalling. They said they looked like they were just living in abject poverty. Like it was like crazy. The Mother said they weren't on welfare, but they looked like they were. It was hard for us to accept. Just, yeah, they went there and like, our son is trash. That's what they figured out. Yeah, our son is white trash. Perfect. So Steven's parents, after seeing all of this, and they have two little kids running around in squalor and everything else, rather than going, holy shit, we really made a mistake here with this kid. We fucked up. They said, let's offer him something. Let's get him out of here. Let's get them out of this situation. They tried to save him again, even after the last time. They offered to build a modular home on the front of their property. And they'll live in that. The parents and you guys with the kids can live in the house that we live in now that you grew up in that I built with my hands. You can have that, and we'll move into a fucking modular home in the front yard. That's how much they give a shit about this kid. And then Ken gives him a job delivering fuel again, delivering oil, even though he fucked up last time. So. Wow. His mother here. His mother said Ken gave him a second chance and told him if he didn't make good, he would have to make it on his own. He basically told him, I'm gonna set you up for success here. And if you do well in the business, something tells me it's his father's business. His father's trying to set him up to be able to hand this business off to him. All goes well when I'm dead, you're living in the house with your kids and you own a fuel business. That's. That's what the goal is. All Steven has to do is not be a disaster.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

All he has to do is not fuck up. So he seemed to be happy back in his own town, own hometown there in Newfield. He had a lot of friends there still from, you know, growing up here. He'd do his job in the early mornings, but then in the afternoon he had free time and he liked going hunting and fishing and golfing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who the fuck does it.

[James Petregallo]

I mean. Yeah, that sounds great. Why not, right? Debbie, though, doesn't have really any friends that much because she didn't grow up here. And it's a small town. It's 5,000 people. So if you don't know everybody, it's gonna be really hard to make friends. You just have to hope that some of Steven's friends have wives you don't hate.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Which is brutal. The worst as we all know, we've been put in that situation of you two are the same gender, talk to each other, and it's not great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So his wife. So hang out with him.

[James Petregallo]

Hang out with him. Yeah. No, I don't like that at all. So they. She also would work two and sometimes three jobs at this point, too. I don't know if that's to get out of the house and to keep herself occupied or what. Here she worked at a garden store in Ithaca, and a lady named Joyce Fox that worked there for nearly three years said she could tell that Debbie was having some trouble at home. This woman said she never said anything, but I knew there were problems. She'd come into work in tears, and she couldn't concentrate. It got to the point where she was losing a lot of weight as well, getting too thin here. So this woman said she didn't say anything. She didn't say anything to Debbie, and Debbie didn't say anything to her about it. It was just something she noticed that obviously something was wrong. But, you know, it's a co worker. You don't know exactly what's wrong in their life. You don't know if their parents are sick or you have no idea. Who knows? So this woman said, though, she was pretty sure that Debbie was being abused by her husband at the time. That's what it seemed like, she said. If not physical abuse, there was mental abuse. After going through a divorce myself, I told her, you don't have to take that. She eventually recognizes it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She got a friend who's like, hey, listen, that's, you know, this isn't cool, what's going on here. Which sometimes you need an outside voice to tell you that, and you go, oh, yeah, what the fuck am I doing?

[Jimmy Whisman]

And it's. Sometimes it's refreshing as much as it's frightening that somebody sees what's going on, recognizes it, is able to name it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, without you knowing that you're offering that as something up. You know what I mean?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As much as it's embarrassing, at least it's, as some people take it, as embarrassing. It's also might feel like you're not alone for a minute here, which is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Also seen for a sec. That's.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's pretty good. She worked at Kohler Inc. Kolar Inc. Small manufacturing plant where she assembled machine parts. And Steven made a point of dropping by the plant nearly every day to have lunch with her because he got off around her lunchtime. Remember, he gets off, he goes early mornings and then he gets off early, goes and has lunch with her. She's the only woman on a 12 person crew, so. Wonder why he's there every day. Yeah. While visiting, he would talk to the other workers that, you know, her friends from work and undermine her by telling crude stories of details of their sex life.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

So now she's the only woman that works there. And all the guys know about her sex life, which is pretty shitty, honestly.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's super fucked up.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he. He even bragged one time, right in front of her to all these people that one time she had to go to the hospital because we had sex so hard. The hospital. I put that. I put her in the hospital. He was bragging. Jesus Christ. So anyway, 1997. Ish. Around 1997, Steven's parents decide that 37 years is long enough in the fuel oil business.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Time to get out, huh?

[James Petregallo]

Time to get out of this game. Ken's going to retire and then the parents are going to move to Florida. That's how this is working.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Doing the northeast thing. So basically Steven is not offered the company or anything like that. His dad sells the company. I mean, yeah, he's. So basically, Steven loses everything here. He loses.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He can't even work for whoever just bought the company.

[James Petregallo]

Not really. Unless it's. Well, he can. He was able to get work as a driver, but he got a big pay cut because his dad was paying him what he could live on with the kids. And also now his boss isn't his father, so he can't fuck up. He's actually got to do his job here, so that's tough. Here. Ken and Donna Brown. Apparently his parents asked Steven and Debbie at one point during this time period to go on a motorcycle ride with them to Elmira, which is about 15 miles away. It's a scenic journey there. So they went to a restaurant. And apparently at the restaurant, this is in front of his parents, by the way. You know, four of them are sitting there eating. He lashed out and yelled at Debbie for taking too long to order.

[Jimmy Whisman]

For heaven's sake.

[James Petregallo]

This is Steven's parents remembering this. This is so. You know, he said his. Stephen's mother said that he was screaming, can't you make up your mind? That's why I hate taking you. That's what I hate about taking you out. I guess we won't be going out to eat anymore. He's screaming at her at the table, what the fuck? Which is insane.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's such a weird thing to do.

[James Petregallo]

That is crazy. Like if everyone else is ready to order and it's a half hour later and you're still not ready to go, you start making, like, jokey comments like, hey, why don't you just order one everything? Or, you know, well, what don't you want eat at home?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Because we're not waiting for you anymore?

[James Petregallo]

Well, at that point, you start helping the person. Well, what don't you want? What sounds gross? Okay, let's narrow it down to something and let's all help.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can read, right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. You are lettered, aren't you?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sanskrit, you know.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Gee, can you make your ex. So this is crazy, though. To do this not only in public, but in front of your parents, too is fucking nuts. So Donna the mom, said Debbie broke down in tears. And Donna and Ken, the parents said they just sat there embarrassed as all, fuck, just what do you do here? She also said, we talked to him and said, that's no way to treat a person. And then the rest of the meal was uncomfortable. Yeah, that sounds like it would be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you all sorts of good stuff about chime. That's what I'm talking about. There's so many extra fees you have to pay in life. Everything. You go to the airline, there's an extra ticket on that. There's extra fee on your every fee, hotels fees, all this type of stuff. We're trying to make progress, and the next thing you know, here comes another fee coming at you, and it's more money than you expected and your whole math is thrown off and it's awful. Learn [e-mail] Smalltown Murder Chime is great with that stuff. I mean, you can't beat if your things are a little tight, especially around the holidays or after the holidays. You need that money a couple days early or go grocery shopping, you got a car payment due. There's so many things that don't cross over exactly how you want them to cross over. Make progress toward a better financial future with Chime. Open your account in two minutes at Chime.com SmallTownMurder that's Chime.com SmallTownMurdeR feels like progress. Banking services and debit cards provided by Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members FDIC SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible CHIME members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission of payment file fees applied out of network ATMs and.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, Everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about a healthy, delicious item, Herobred. And we're both trying to get healthier this new year. Jimmy had an eye opening, doctor's appointment and things like that. So we're trying to get healthier. And I'm telling you right now, this Hero bread is a good step in this direction. It's delicious and it is really good for you and it's really excellent. They have the sliced bread is good, the bagels, the tortillas. I know you've been ranting about the tortillas, they're so good. With herobread, you can focus on your health goals and still indulge in the soft, fluffy experience you love, but guilt free. I really love the little Hawaiian rolls too. Yeah, they're so good. They're so good. The Hawaiian rolls, they're legit. They're fluffy. They're exactly how you want them them to be. You'd never know it's low carb and high fiber bread. From the texture you get the soft, fluffy experience you know and love with your savory breakfast sandwich. Late night grilled cheese taco Tuesday. Do it. No compromises, just flavor. Ultra low net carbs, zero grams of sugar, high in fiber. It's fantastic. Herobred is offering 10% off your order. Go to Hero Co and use the code. Small town murder at checkout. That's small Town Murder at H e R O Co. And now back to the show. Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about a very cool place, Thrive Market. Yes, we are both looking to get into the healthy swing this year. The problem is I don't, I don't know what's in everything and I don't know if even I'm qualified to even read the labels to know if that's good or that's bad. There's chemicals and things and there's things floating around. I don't know what I'm doing out there. One of my favorite features I know you were talking to me about, this is the Healthy Swap scanner and the Thrive Market app. Yeah, it's simple. You scan any item and it'll instantly suggest a cleaner, healthier grocery alternative, which is amazing. That's great. Thrive Market also takes the guesswork out of finding these safe, healthy foods. For example, like I'm trying to get my protein intake up for energy. I'm always moving around. I need stuff. And I love that you can filter their site by the high protein options. It's very cool. And you can personalize this portion and you can put filters on it. And get ready. You should be ready for a junk free start to 2025. Get ready for it and head to thrivemarket.com Smalltown Murder and get 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. That's T H R I V E market.com Smalltownmurder thrivemarket.com Smalltown Murder now back to the show. But the parents try. Like they didn't just ignore it. They said, hey, you don't treat people like that. And I think that's probably been his whole life. But he just doesn't listen. I bet the other two sons are upstanding people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If they're not upstanding, they're probably just guys that they don't worry about.

[James Petregallo]

Normal people, not abusive lunatics, you know what I mean? Because none of that came from his home life or anything. His parents didn't have any kind of relationship like that. So this isn't something he saw at home.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Went on.

[James Petregallo]

Don't know. So fall of 1998, Debbie decided that's about enough of this bullshit. I have had it with this. She's ready to go getting screamed at in restaurants and it's crazy. So she announced to family members that she and Steven were getting separated. And this is when she starts telling everybody that he's been. He's been abusing me for almost 20 years now, so I'm fucking done with this shit. Yeah, one of her. Her friends said that. She told me he once held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. We knew about that. So she has to figure out how to leave him because she's scared of him, right? So she's got to do some Julia Roberts sleeping with the enemy shit here and escape, basically. So she left her car at work so that he would think she was at work and give her a couple hours of a head start to get out of here. A friend at her job hid her car on her last day of work so Steven wouldn't know she was there also. So she hid it somewhere else so he thought she wasn't at work. Meanwhile, she was at work on her last day and then she went to where the car was and fucking took off. So she took the children to a battered women's shelter in Oswego.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. New York.

[James Petregallo]

In New York, Yeah. In this area. So Stephen manages somehow to get in touch with Deborah on the phone at the battered women's shelter.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, geez.

[James Petregallo]

Apparently call screener isn't a job that. That's there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. What's. What's going on? Why is he.

[James Petregallo]

Every time. Yeah, if they can talk to him, I would assume every time the phone rings, you just go, well, whose abusive husband is this calling otherwise? So, yeah, she got in touch with Deborah and arranged for her to talk to his parents, his brother Randy, and his best friend Larry. Okay. Stephen told Larry Brown, no relation, by the way, that Debbie had left him because he had videotaped her having sex with a co worker in a lunchroom and then confronted her with it. That's what he says. He said she just left because she was cheating on me and I caught her on tape. And then she got embarrassed and took off. Nothing to do with abuse or anything like that. I don't know how he would film their lunchroom and get surveillance on the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Lunchroom at their work.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, and usually the lunchroom's the hottest place at work to get it on, too. That's where you really want to get it on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everybody has access to. That's where you.

[James Petregallo]

Everybody has access. Wide open door all the time. And the room stinking like a fucking filthy microwave. Also, that's just terrific.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Somebody, like, whatever. Somebody just microwaved.

[James Petregallo]

Some asshole made microwave popcorn. Somebody else made fish in it 15 minutes ago.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Some leftovers from the night before.

[James Petregallo]

We're all dealing with it now. He also said that his wife had been fired from a job at Ithaca College after she made sexual advances to another woman.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

So that's what he told his friend. He's like, listen, my wife, you know, skanky.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's fucking everybody.

[James Petregallo]

Women, Mac. I don't even know. I can't even. Not even around the ladies. I can trust her. She just doesn't care.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She can't get enough.

[James Petregallo]

So much so that she got fired for it in the 90s, when you could, like, you know, it wasn't quite as strict.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You could sleep your way to the top.

[James Petregallo]

Then you could actually ask people out and probably grab them if you wanted to back then. I don't know what the hell's going on. So that's what they. She got fired for that. But he also told his friend he'd do anything to get her back, you know, because according to her, she said him, she sounds like a real prize that you'd want to get back. So Debbie acquiesces and calls Larry Brown, his friend, to talk about the marriage. So now she's talking to an intermediary who is not a mediator. It's his friend who knows Way too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Much that isn't true. And also just knows too much.

[James Petregallo]

Knows exactly. It's fucking ridiculous. So she. I know too much. This friend said. She said she was scared and needed time away to think. She said she knew she had done wrong and she wanted to get her life back again. That's what Larry Brown says, right? I don't know what the hell she did wrong, but I don't know if she said that to get off the phone. Like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I know I did wrong. Shit, it's fine. Okay, so Debbie called Larry again here. They went back and forth a couple times. Now, while Debbie is in the shelter, Steven is going to hang out with his brother Randy a lot. And Randy Brown here said that, quote, he was pretty devastated. I helped him buy new appliances for the house, and he scrubbed everything. He wanted her to come back and promise that things would be different. So it's going to be all different now. I scrubbed down the fucking. The burners on the stove. So now, you know it's different.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Spring cleaning in August, you know, it's.

[James Petregallo]

Going to be different. Um, Randy said that Steven had a strong personality and wasn't afraid to speak his mind, but he didn't think it was an abusive relationship at all or anything like that. He's just. That's. Stephen's just got a strong mind. He then says, quote, he's not a violent person. Not a violent person at all. He had a temper. But as far as a physical abuser, no. I'm sure she got slapped a few times, but it wasn't a daily thing. He just. Larry, that was in 1999. So I'm sure she got slapped a few times. Yes, that's called abuse. You can't slap your silence, Larry. Yeah, that is not okay. But it wasn't a daily thing. Oh, well, then it's fine then. Yeah, I mean, gotta take a slap every once in a while. Gee, yeah. Christ. Every once in a while. You know, dinner's not what I wanted. Of course they're gonna get smack. What are you crazy? Jesus, that's insane. He said, I'm not saying that it was right, but I've known him all my life, and he wasn't a violent person. If he smacks his wife, he's a violent person. I have never. I've been married. I was married for 15 years to someone I didn't even get along with. Never fucking laid a hand on her ever. You know what I mean? Like, that's not an option. Sorry.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A few times he Said, I'm sure.

[James Petregallo]

She got slapped around like that is around a few times or she got slapped a few times. It wasn't a daily thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

You know. Wow. Debbie also talked to her mother in law, who she kind of trusted, I guess. Donna said, quote, she said he was being extremely abusive. She told me he gave her a black eye last winter. At the time, they had said Steve hit her with a snowball. And I believed her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, well, Larry said, said, it's not violent.

[James Petregallo]

It's not violent. Slap around once in a while. That was Randy, the brother that said that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, okay.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, the other Brown. So she said. She goes on to say, we talked to Debbie and said they should try to give it one more chance. Oh, this is. Yeah, his mom, Donna. We said, you have a family and you can't just throw it away. We didn't know how bad it really was. If we did, I would never have done that. At least the mom knows. I wouldn't have convinced her to go back if I knew there was abuse. We just thought they weren't trying hard enough like a lot of people don't today. Okay. This is why you mind your own fucking business. And don't worry about whether people are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So much effort they put into the relationship.

[James Petregallo]

Don't judge it. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Shut up and mind your business. So in late November, Debbie Brown returns home to Steve. Yeah, returns home. Stephen called Larry Brown and asked if they could come to church with his family. Hey, can I. Can I piggyback on you guys and go to church? They had never done that before. Apparently this was a new thing. So Larry Brown saw this as, wow, they're really turning over a new leaf of the relationship. He said multiple friends said they looked like high school lovers at the time. They were just all over each other and arms around each other, walking. And everything was hunky dory, man. Everything was great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What did he say that made black eyes? Okay.

[James Petregallo]

He didn't beat her up for a couple of weeks and clean the house. Yeah, but the problem is that shit isn't gonna last forever. And it lasts about two weeks.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It lasts until there's frustration.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. If this guy could control himself, he wouldn't have been hitting you for the last 20 years. So obviously he can't control himself. So I would be even madder. Like, oh, so you can control it, but you just chose not to for 20 years? Well, fuck you then. I'd be even madder at that. So. December 21, 1998, Donna here came home from one day from the fuel company, I guess the mom. They were still there before they went to Florida. And she sees Donald Wood Jr. Debbie's brother. Helping Debbie move out of the house. That's what she comes home to. So Donna Brown said she was crying. I said, oh, no. Is it bad again? And she said, yes. She told me he tried to strangle her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So is it bad again? Is it bad again? Should I not have convinced you to do this? Like. No, Donna. So apparently this wasn't the first one too since she's been back. She said that Steven choked her and ripped out her belly button ring.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Lord.

[James Petregallo]

Which would hurt. And then Debbie took the kids and said fuck off and moved to Maine. Here, her brother Woody, and that's what they call him. And that's Donald Wood Jr. Since they're both Donald's, they go by give him Woody. And her father, Donald Wood Sr. Drove to New York to pick them up. And they moved into Donald Wood Jr. Her brother's mobile home. On Lower Middle Road in Lebanon, Maine. Okay, so Debbie said that he's gonna try to find me. Like it's gonna happen. So this is gonna be a thing. She said that he, quote, he grabbed my ears and said, this is a promise, not a threat. If you leave me again with my kids, I'll kill you and the entire family. I will kill everybody. So, you know, she believed him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

It was taking him at face value on that, sure. And Steven believed she'll be back. This has happened before. I sweet talker. She comes back, no worries. This is bullshit. He even to the extent this happened, by the way, she left on December 21st. She takes off. He goes out and buys Christmas gifts for the kids. Put it under a tree that he put up. He puts up a tree, decorates the house, puts lights up, all this shit, thinking they'll all be back by Christmas. Ain't no thing. It's Christmas. She's not gonna stay gone the whole time. But then Christmas comes. He can't get a hold of her anywhere. No one will tell him where she is. And she ain't coming back. So he's sitting here with a Christmas tree. That's a sad Christmas for this asshole. A deservedly sad Christmas.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, he's earned it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, no shit. So Steven tried to turn to Debbie's relatives to find her. Her Uncle Ed said he called me, my wife, other family members, too. Now, Edward Strong, who he called her uncle, Is a police chief in the area as well. He Said that Stephen had threatened to commit suicide. He was just a time bomb waiting to happen. So basically she moves in with her brother. It's a brown double wide trailer in Lebanon. That's where they live. And this is with her brother Woody Donald Jr. And her brother, his brother's or her brother's longtime girlfriend, Linda Malcomb. And also living there was a friend of his brother's named Christopher Brilliard. So there's three people in the double wide already. Let's bring one more in. Let's bring one more in. Yeah. With two kids and everything. But you know, that's your sister. You obviously you'd want her to come there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's just a full house.

[James Petregallo]

It's crowded, it's tough. It's at 61 Lower Middle Road. It's a mobile home. It's on a wooded road about a half mile off Route 202. So she also filed for a protective order and a divorce right away too. She's fucking serious this time. And so she's settling in, living here now. Donna Brown, Steven's mom here, lived next door to them for a long time. But she said after hearing from other people what's been going on, she said she was shocked at how bad. She couldn't believe it, right? Yeah, she couldn't believe it because when she files for divorce and goes for a protective order, she goes to court and Donna hears what's been happening here. And Donna said, my eyes were opened that day. It was disgusting. I never knew. I really didn't know that kind of thing was going on. If we had known he was hitting her, I would have turned him in even if he is my own son.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She said, he tried to choke me.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I guess she thought that was semi. I don't understand it, but thought it was hyperbole.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, roasted glasses.

[James Petregallo]

What are you doing? Yes. But the parents seem to, they don't take his shit. That's one of the things, like they're not big on, you know. Oh, just forgive him. It's okay when they know what's going on. So it's very strange for him to come out of this relationship and out of that, that family.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Debbie started working as a maid and she starts dating Chris Brilliard as well, who's a 30 year old guy. He is described as a mud racing buddy of her brother's who lives there as well. They love to go mudding. That's their thing going out mudding. They built their own trucks for it. They help, they build other people's trucks for it. That's what they do. And Chris Brilliard Debbie told family, Chris said, I'm not going to let anybody hurt you. So yep, I guess they said that. Whitney, the daughter said that this new life and her mom's new relationship and everything being chill in the trailer was a huge weight off my shoulders at, you know, 10, 11 years old like that. Kids feel the stress, you know what I mean? It's on them. So this she said we were actually like living a normal life, not in fear. We weren't wondering what's going to happen when the door opens. Is dad going to come in and be pissed off. So yeah, this is going on. Neighbors around say everybody that lives in the trailer is friendly, sometimes a bit rowdy. Yeah, they get partying a bit over here. I mean they are mud racing trailer dwellers. So there's going to be a party once in a while. Let's be honest here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There might be a little booze fun from weekend to weekend.

[James Petregallo]

Gets more than that. One neighbor said they would sometimes go out and shoot at 1 or 2 in the morning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Which is just rude at that point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And you're not doing that sober.

[James Petregallo]

Not two in the morning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

I'm gonna go out and get the guns and go do some target practice at 2 in the morning is definitely a drunk thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's everybody just wake up sober like me at midnight. Let's go shoot.

[James Petregallo]

Let's go shootin'this. Is drunk shooting in the dark. He said as long as they didn't shoot in my direction, I didn't mind. That's what the neighbor said. I guess he goes to bed late too. So fuck it. Now Debbie said she felt safe in Lebanon. She's working at York Cleaning Company as a maid. So she's getting a little life going on here. Steven also, I guess, sort of moves on, but not really.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How so?

[James Petregallo]

Well, he finds a girlfriend, but continues to tell her how he's going to go get his wife and kids back. Which is very weird, I would say. Right? That's not normal. That's not moving on at all. And what's wrong with this lady who's like, okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, you are okay.

[James Petregallo]

All right, well I'll just be riding on the back of your motorcycle till you do like no one's doing it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Take another spin around the block.

[James Petregallo]

All right. Jesus.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who the fuck would stick around with that?

[James Petregallo]

Well, who the fuck is Patricia Teeter?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

T E E T E R, which sounds like an affectionate name for a small pair of boobs you got some nice little teeters on you there. Look at that. All right. I like them small. I don't mind. Yeah, nice teeters.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, she's a good girl. How she stacked? Well, she's got teeters but taters on her.

[James Petregallo]

But they're nice, though. Nice little taters on her. So she's 39 years old. She's a divorcee as well, and raising two teenage daughters. So great. Three women to put Stephen in the middle of is perfect. Yeah. She had been through a difficult divorce, apparently. So a mutual friend of theirs said, well, your wife left you and you're having a hard time with it. And she went through a difficult divorce, so you guys might be perfect for each other. And hooks them up. Other friends said, went to Teeter and were like, don't go out with that fucking lunatic. That guy's a lunatic. Like this one mutual friend's the only person that said, this is a good matchup. Everyone else was like, no, no, no. I guess. Teeter worked at WHCUAM radio and a newscaster there who worked there. Teeter was a receptionist there. She wasn't on air talent or anything like that. Said that she told him about Stephen and the strange things he was saying. She said that Stephen had been threatening his wife in front of her. Like, I'll do this, I'll do that. Saying, quote, she's gonna get it. If she wins custody of these children in court, she's gonna get it. Why do people do, man, so. And she's at work. My new boyfriend says his ex wife's gonna get it if he doesn't get the kids. He's just a wonderful guy. So this guy at work said, quote, I told her to back off. You have your own life. You don't need to get involved with this guy. And another talk show host from the radio station said that Patricia Teeter told him that Steve had threatened to kill himself. And so this guy said both. Both of those things. I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill myself. These are all red flags you should be looking at in a new boyfriend. This guy, the talk show host guy, said, whenever there's a suicide threat, you need to consider them at risk of committing homicide as well. A majority of times when there's a suicide, there's also a homicide at the same time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Murder, suicide.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know if that's the majority of times people commit suicide, but it happens.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I wonder.

[James Petregallo]

I don't think so. I think a lot of people just kill themselves. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. It's rare that people take people with them.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, murder suicide is much more rare than regular suicide, I think.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Anecdotally, off the top of my head, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Robin Williams kill.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly, yeah. Did Phil Hartman's wife kill herself?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Did she? She did, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

She did.

[James Petregallo]

She did. There's a murder suicide. There you go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So did. Did Aaron Hernandez? I mean, apart from the ones that got him in prison.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, shit. Well, yeah, I guess those are gonna be really long. Is it prolonged, late. Late stage murder suicide. That would be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do you call that murder suicide?

[James Petregallo]

I don't think so at that point. I don't think you can. So February 1999. Here, Debbie visits the office of Colonial Homes, it's a company that builds homes in Lebanon and Lebanon, Maine, to speak to a saleswoman about buying a mobile home. She's ready to settle down. Then she returned a week later to fill out an application as well. This. The woman who was working with her said. She said her divorce would soon be over and she was looking to purchase a home soon. So filling out an application now. March 22nd, 23rd. Somewhere in here, 1999, a New York court grants Debbie Brown custody of both children, or at this point, 16 and 11. So that day, she also gets the court to do a restraining order against him as well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Randy Brown, Steven's brother, said that Stephen was fucking furious because Debbie showed up at court with her new boyfriend, Chris. Brilliant.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Pissed him off good. Yeah. He had Patricia there as well, but she's not allowed to do that. He was also infuriated even more when he came home after the hearing and found out that his wife's relatives had taken everything that belonged to Debbie and the children out of his house. All the children shit. Everything. Yeah. While he was at court, they went in and cleaned the fucking place out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, and what, gave it to her? What happened?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. Just to take with her all the kids shit and all of her shit, but not his shit. They left his shit, but the kid's shit and her shit. So anyway, he was infuriated anyway, and then he walked in the door and found that out and was like. You can imagine the choking that he would be doing if there was someone to choke.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He lost control of her, then lost control of the kids and then lost control of anything to affect her with it because he's restrained by it now. He lost all of their shit, so he can't even control that.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, there's nothing that you can't even say you can't have Your stuff. Then there's nothing to control.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He just disarmed the shit out of this man.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. So, yeah. Now at this point, apparently somehow the money, I guess he's supposed to pay child support. He's supposed to do all this stuff. He can't afford his truck anymore. He's got a brand new 99 Ford Expedition, which he probably shouldn't have bought.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a very expensive car.

[James Petregallo]

At the time, that was a $50,000 truck. $55,000 truck, which now it's $100,000 truck. But I mean, that was at the time a very expensive truck. So. Yeah. And Randy, the brother said that quote, it really sank in when he found out Debbie had a boyfriend. Then the judge said he lost his family, lost his kids, and he was starting to lose his material possessions. Things happened and he didn't have control over them anymore.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tailspin, babe.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. And we know Stephen does not like not having control.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

So the next day, the day after the hearing, Patricia Teeter tells her boss at the radio station she needs a few days off. Go up to Maine with her boyfriend.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She said she'd return in time to chaperone her 12 year old daughter's class trip to Washington D.C. later in the week. But she's got to run up there for a few days. Okay. Now Debbie, meanwhile, she goes back to Maine and has a nice week. Nice week. She does things with the kids, her brother and Chris, they went mud racing, they hung out, they went fishing and, you know, they did family things. They said, we just hung out with. Family things. Yeah. Maine summer. Not summer, but spring. Family living here. So March 28, 1999, that's a Sunday, as we know as Monday morning is 12:57am so anyway, one of the friends said, I sensed something was wrong that day. Now, that afternoon, Debbie and Chris Brilliard took the kids to the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth to swim in the pool. Oh, the Holiday Inn pool.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that a thing that we do?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. And it's, it's. Maybe it's a heated pool because it's March 28th in Maine. That is not swimming weather at all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's probably an indoor.

[James Petregallo]

Indoor one of those. Yeah, probably. She said that outside. I think it was outside, though. She said outside she caught a glimpse of a stocky man staring at them through a sliding glass door. She didn't see his face, but she suspected it was Stephen. She said then she saw the man because he was outside. They were inside. Then she saw the man get into a car so she went out and looked, and the car had New Hampshire license plates. And she got really nervous, and they took the kids home. Like, they were like, let's get out of here. Let's get out of here. I think that's Stephen.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sorry about it.

[James Petregallo]

So Chris told her not to worry about it. Look, I'm here with you. Don't sweat it, you know, I'm not gonna let this guy do anything to you. Now, as they went to bed that night, Debbie noticed that the motion lights behind the house kept turning on and off. Now, but they live in the woods. So believe me, as someone who has motion lights and lives in the woods, it's a deer. It's a fucking skunk. It's a raccoon. It's a fox.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The wind blew a tree. It's a cat.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, there's tons of animals, wind, everything else. So they were doing that. And Chris told her it's an animal so that we have tons of it. Don't worry about it. Just go to sleep. No one's stalking you. You're good. Then at 12:57am we get a domestic violence call from Whitney.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

Now you go, where's Chris? What's going on? Where is everybody? Well, let's find out here. Okay? This is what happened, according to Whitney, in, you know, 12:30 in the morning here. A woman frantically knocks on their door, okay. Of the trailer. She said she was having car trouble. So this is Debbie's brother, Donald Wood Jr. He's a mechanic. He says, well, I'll come out here and help you, no problem. I mean, it's a small town. Someone knocks on your door, says they have car trouble, you help them. That's all there is to it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Your car was running and it stopped running. There's a reason for that. I'm sure I can diagnose it.

[James Petregallo]

Let's give it a shot here. Let's go. So he walks outside and goes to help. Okay. Half hour later, another knock at the door. Now he is nowhere to be seen. Donald Wood Jr. It's this woman again. Same woman. Now, Whitney answers the door, and it's the same woman again. She said that? Yeah, the guy that came out, Donald there, he's working on my car right now. But he told me to come back and ask if you could get Chris. I don't know who that is. He just said, tell whoever's in there to tell Chris to come help him. He needs help from Chris. So, you know, I don't know, whatever. So they said, okay. Whitney went and Told Chris. And Chris said, well, I mean, if he needs help out there in the dark, I'm not going to tell him to fuck off. So Chris gets up and heads out, follows the woman down into the dark, basically out into the street into the car. So within 15 minutes more knock on the door. Oh, my God, it's this woman again. Okay, now she knocks on the door and asks for Donald's girlfriend Linda, and says, I've been told to tell Linda to come and to bring her Chevy Blazer as well. Not just to walk out with me, but to get in the Chevy Blazer and come there because they need it. They need it now. By now, Debbie Brown is awake and hearing stuff going on in the living room. She's hearing her daughter's voice talking. She's like, what the fuck is going on out there? So she was thinking that something's not right here. And I guess one of the things she thought that she told her daughter is, why would they keep sending the woman back? We don't even know. Wouldn't one of our people come back and say this shit? Like, why would they send her back? But I guess they're really arms deep.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're holding up. One's holding the transmission up. 1. Yeah, we need somebody else to.

[James Petregallo]

And they're not saying, like, go get my tool or go get this. They want people and cars and shit. Which is like, how many people do you need? And why do you need a Chevy Blazer to fix a car? It doesn't make any sense.

[Jimmy Whisman]

One person by one person by one person. This is.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Unless they need a jump. I don't understand it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Debbie gets out and gets in her own car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

She goes, okay, yeah, I'll go with you. Gets in her own car and is about to pull out of the driveway here. She's pulling out of the driveway, and then out of nowhere, Whitney hears her pull back up the driveway. And I mean, laying on the horn and screaming, he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here. Oh, laying on the fucking horn in the middle of nowhere, you know, in the middle of the night. Now, the neighbors don't mind because they don't mind gunshots, but this is loud, so. Wow. That is fucking crazy. Apparently, Debbie had gone out and gotten into the Blazer that was requested. Linda's Blazer. She. And she ended up. She pulled back in because she saw a rental car parked next to the driveway, the same one that she saw at the Holiday Inn. That's why she fucking Went back up the driveway. She started yelling for her brother and Chris. She didn't know they were gone because she was sleeping kind of half out of it for the beginning of this. She tried to use her cell phone to call 911, but couldn't get it to work.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking out of. Not in service range. Yeah, thanks a lot. Exactly. So she starts screaming and yelling, he's here. He's here. Help me. Help me. Help me. Because she thought the guys were in the house and they could come out and help her, but they didn't. And it's only Whitney in the house. She's the only person in there. And Linda, the girlfriend, she might be still sleeping. So this is from the window. Whitney watches two armed figures descend on her mother's car, smash in the window and climb in the car and take off with her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

With her in the car.

[James Petregallo]

With Debbie in the car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Took her with him.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. So this is why she's calling 911 frantically going, I just watched this crazy shit out my window, and my mother is gone and all this shit. Steven Brown, by the way, obviously is the culprit here. When she was backing out of the driveway, Stephen broke the window and climbed into the passenger side of the Blazer with a shotgun in her face.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. And ordered her to drive to a nearby parking lot. And when they get to the parking lot, he tells her to get out of the car. And then Debbie is forced into another car with Patricia Teeter sitting there and him. Okay. And he keeps telling her, if you do as I say, I won't hurt you. If you do as I say, I won't hurt you. Okay, this is fucking nuts. And Debbie doesn't even know this other woman. She's never met her, saw her before. She doesn't know who the fuck is this lady. That's why she was effective as a door knocker. So, yeah, this is wild. And Patricia Teeter is trying to keep telling her, too. We're not gonna hurt you. Just do what we want and we're not gonna hurt you. Don't worry about it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What do they want?

[James Petregallo]

Patricia then tells her, this is fucking insane. Tells her, quote, we're all gonna live happily ever after. We're both going to be his wife now. What?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's going on with this lady?

[James Petregallo]

She's fucking wackier than anybody else in the story at this point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No kidding.

[James Petregallo]

She is. Wow. She is, like, so. So abused that she just. That's. Her role is just secondary person, extra wife. Holy shit. We're all Going to live happily ever after. We're both going to be his wife now. It's okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We're all wives. We're all wives together.

[James Petregallo]

It's gonna be fine. That's what she's telling her. This is gonna be great. The guy you're terrified of, who you want nothing to do with, now you're gonna be in a threesome marriage with him. Isn't that great?

[Jimmy Whisman]

We're a throuple now.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. That is fucking nuts. And they also said, hey, don't worry about your brother and his friend there, because we just tied. We tied them up and put them behind the house. So they're back there. So whoever finds them, you know, they're just tied up behind the house. They're all right here now, back at the house. Because the police show up, right? The cops show up. They've been called Crazy911Call, screaming, yeah, now they're. All the cars are gone. Now everything's, you know, everything is done. But the cops show up and they immediately start looking around the house, you know, with flashlights for clues here of anything. And behind the house, about 50ft from the house, they find Chris Brilliard and Donald Wood Jr. Partially buried in the woods. Whoa. Very dead. They both suffered head trauma and multiple stab wounds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What in the hell?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's fucking crazy. So Whitney tells the cops my mother has been taking, but taken by my father, period. That's what happened, period. So she said, we just had a custody hearing. You know, we. He tried to tell the family judge his ex wife was unstable and he said that she abused him. All this shit. Now inside the kidnapping car here, they drive all night. The three in the car, this is Patricia, Steven and Debbie. And it's fucking nuts. They. They drive all night. They end up in. They stop in Hampton, New Hampshire to pick up Patricia's Ozmobile Achieva, which is probably the worst. That there's no achieving in an achiever, put it that way. You have achieved. You have achieved nothing. If you have an Oldsmobile Achiever, the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oldsmobile, I mean, it was ugly making it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, this was an ugly one. I remember it was like rounded. It kind of looked like a Taurusy type thing. I believe the Achieva, like a, like a mix between a Taurus and Alumina is what I remember. No, not a good car. I see it looking like that Mid size sedan. Yeah, 90s, late 90s, midsize, four doors, rounded edges. I don't know, I'm just.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think I can't even Picture it.

[James Petregallo]

I think so. So I see this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It was a. Something. Not the Skyler. What is that? I remember one skylark, the fins on it. You know what I mean?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, I don't know. Maybe not like Finn's fins, but like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like that fin metal with the. With the brush strokes in it kind of thing. Okay, that's what I'm seeing, but I don't remember.

[James Petregallo]

The chief is a rounded off thing for some reason, the late 90s, but I could be wrong. So Achieva in tow. They pick up the Achieve. They're eventually going to drop off the rental car, return it after wiping it down thoroughly of all fingerprints and anything else. So they're heading toward New York. They're heading west toward New York State. And during the drive, Steven starts quit, just like harassing Debbie with questions, saying, do you love me? Things like that, which clearly not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

These are the worst questions, like the most comfortable ones. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And she would say no, and then she'd say, maybe. I don't know. And she was essentially trying to get him to not lose his temper at this point and, you know, murder her in the car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's the answer that makes you turn back and leave me alone?

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. That's the answer. That's the one here. What doesn't get me killed. So in the. Early the next morning, Tim Wood, who is Debbie's brother, calls Donna Brown, Steven's mother, and wakes her up. And he said, where's Steve? Where's Steve? And she said, he's at work. And I guess the brother. Then Tim Wood started crying and he said there'd been a double homicide in Maine and Donnie's involved and we don't know what's going on. So Donna Brown said, well, let me. I'll go make sure he's at work. So she apparently had a broken knee, but she crutched her way out behind her house to look and see if his. If the fuel truck was there or gone. And she saw Steven's oil delivery truck parked in the driveway and knew he wasn't at work. And she said, quote, I didn't think I'd be able to make it back to the house. I had this sick sense that there would be something wrong. So even the mother's like, oh, so family said they think it is. It must have been the restraining order that did it. Debbie's uncle, who is the Kittery police chief, Edward Strong, said that's definitely what set him off. The judge awarded her full custody with no visitation rights for him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Because of the abuse, they said no anything for now it's a complete restraining order. Can't go near your family. Yeah and it's interesting. So the, that's fucking crazy. So there's a obviously a multi state manhunt now because they don't even know what goddamn direction they went in and Right. But they have no fucking clue.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We know he didn't go east.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's we know that for sure. So a they're searching everywhere. They got helicopters searching, they're searching all over the place in a they find at STS construction company they find a black Chevy Blazer registered to Linda Malcolm, the girlfriend there who lived at the home. Now she was unharmed at home.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And inside the vehicle though there's broken glass and blood stains in the vehicle. So they're like oh this isn't good, it's a lot. Now they're also they, they know Patricia Teeters meet missing as well. So they're looking for her but they released a sketch of her but did not identify her as definitely the woman traveling with Brown. There's a person we like to talk to basically of interest. Yeah, person of interest of chit chatting with here. So police are searching for Debbie's 1999 Ford Expedition and a black 1996 Oldsmobile Achieva owned by Teeter. Both have New York plates. And the authorities caution people that Stephen may be armed. A spokesman for the main police said that the only lead was a possible sighting at about 3pm of the suspect's car with a man and a woman inside. It was on Route 13 in Leo Minster, Massachusetts. But the reported, it wasn't reported until like 5:32 and a half hours later. So obviously nobody could go look at it and that's not the direction they were going in anyway. So it doesn't matter. It wasn't them. Yeah. So they, the authorities in Maine said they didn't know that Debbie even had a protection order against her husband. But they did say it does apply even though it's not in the state it was issued in. Now, now Teeter's work friend here, he said I can't believe that Patricia would have gone with Steve if she knew that he planned to kidnap his estranged wife. I don't think that that was part of the plan. Murder people and kidnapper. This person said quote she's not a saint, she's no Mother Teresa, but she's a very level headed person. Okay. And he worries that Teeter is also going to be murdered here as well. So there's already two Murders and possibly going to be two more here. So they said. One of the friends said, the only thing we can hope for is that he hasn't done any harm to her. Hopefully he'll come to his senses and release her unharmed. Yeah, one. One neighbor said they're optimistic that Debbie's gonna be found safe, but they'd also fear the worst, obviously. What a dumb thing to say. I mean, you know, I'm optimistic, but she's the. This neighbor said that they're all distraught over the deaths of the two guys because they were good guys. One guy said they were just nice people. That's what they did. They helped people. And look what happened to them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is the reason you don't help people.

[James Petregallo]

This is why you don't help. This is why you mind your own business. So Steven's mom here, Steven's friends and family, and mom and everybody else are trying to figure out what the fuck is happening, why. How did we not know this is going to happen? Donna Brown, the mom, wondered if she could have done anything to prevent this, maybe I could have helped. But people say that, you know, this type of thing, and domestic violence experts, that sort of thing. They say that this is. A lot of times you're not going to see it, so there's no way to know it's behind closed doors. And they keep it behind closed doors on purpose. You know, this is, you know, One of the director of research and Criminal justice for the New York State Office of Domestic Violence said very often batterers have a Jekyll and Hyde personality. He may seem like the nicest guy in the world to people on the outside, but behind closed doors, he's a very different person for his wife and family. So where the fuck could they be?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where.

[James Petregallo]

Okay, well, Teeter gets on the phone with a friend from work. They get a call, and she said that she was on a weekend camping trip with Steve. So she's like, I don't know what the hell any of that's all about. Because they're like, dude, there's a lot of shit going on. And she's like, I don't know. I'm on a camping trip. And the friend said, dude, your name's on the news in connection with murders and kidnappings. This is not good, bro. Like, you need to fix this shit. Teeter said wouldn't give her location, but she did tell her friends she could see the Albany skyline from the parking lot, which is a sad skyline to look at. Albany. Not much going on there. Not much of a skyline. So around 5:45am this day, they check into two rooms at the Econo Lodge in East Greenish, New York. It's outside of Albany. There's, I guess, you know, they get in there. There's two different rooms. One for Steven and Debbie and one for Patricia. This is weird as fuck, right? It's getting real weird. I guess Stephen pulled the phone out of the wall and went and gave it to Teeter. Like, here, you keep this in your room with you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I need you to be in your own room while I'm in here with my ex.

[James Petregallo]

That's wild shit. Okay. Then we'll all be happy together. Excellent break.

[Jimmy Whisman]

When do we get to Thruffle?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. What is that going on? So Steven went into the bathroom and scrubbed himself off. He's got blood and all sorts of shit on him. After a while, he came out with his clothes and Patricia took them away to go wash them because they had blood on them and shit. So Debbie was kept in the room. She had no idea that there was even a search to find her. She has no idea if anybody knows that she's gone. She has no fucking idea anything. She doesn't know her brother and her boyfriend are dead. She knows nothing. At this point, just sitting in the room, the two here, Teeter and Steve, were telling her that they were tied up behind the garage and gagged. So that's it. So at one point, Steven was out of the room. She tried. Debbie tried to turn on the TV to get us the news on maybe and get, you know, something. But when she heard him coming back, she had to turn it off quick. So I guess she would. Patricia was asking Debbie. She was telling Debbie the whole time, look, if we get caught, you'll say, I wasn't involved in this, right? Like lady to lady, right? You'll be cool about this, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're incredibly involved.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So Debbie would tell them. Yeah, yeah, no, don't worry about it. Yeah, no, you're good. You're cool. You know, that's fine. Now, during this, Steven doesn't beat her, but they won't get into exactly what it is. But I think we can guess he does in the court documents. Sexually assaults her twice over the course of the night. I think we can probably extrapolate from that. And he kept telling her that all of this is her fault.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

All your fault, Debbie. So Steve told her he'd release her in the morning. But I doubt she believed that. You know what I mean? You know, I don't think so. Here I died. It's gonna probably kill Teeter too. Who the hell knows? So Steven kept telling her, though, he loves her. But I love you and I want to be with you, but I'm not gonna be taken alive, by the way, if I get caught, you know, whatever. You know, she's used to this. She's dealt with him before, but now she's trapped in a motel room with a guy with a sawed off shotgun and an assault rifle laying on the bed in front of her. So this isn't good. He kept saying that he wasn't gonna go to jail and that there's gonna be bloodshed and all this type of shit. So. Wow. 6:00am Somehow, based on her friend telling the cops it's a motel that you can see the Albany skyline from. They check out all the hotels in a circle around Albany. All the motels?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And they find. They find their car in a motel, in the motel parking lot. So they find the fucking Econo Lodge and the SWAT team comes in. Shortly before they surround the area. Shortly before 6am they heard explosions. They did flash grenades and kicked flashbangs and kicked the doors down and everything else. They find Steven, they find Debbie. She's alive. Wow. He didn't kill her. She's in the fucking room. So there's obviously they take everybody. Debbie said, next thing you know, I'm in a cruiser. The officer pulled the handcuffs off of me and said, I can't believe we got you out of there alive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No shit.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. Like there was. We thought, no way we're finding this woman alive. No fucking way. Especially. He already killed two people. Why the hell would he leave?

[Jimmy Whisman]

He was gonna do it today, right? He was gonna torture her all night and then do something today and then get back home and act like he was home the whole time.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. Act like they were on a camping trip because that was apparently their alibi here. So they take everybody to the police station here. Stephen insists to the police that he, quote, didn't want any of this to happen. Well, I mean, you know, you kind of did a lot there. He tells a Maine State Police detective that his loss in court and a letter requiring him to pay child support angered him so much that he drove to Maine with a shotgun and assault rifle and a knife and some rope to, quote, talk to his wife.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a fascinating interview, kid.

[James Petregallo]

That's what he brings to talk. That's what I do when I want to have a chat with anybody. I was like, well, where's my rope knife and fucking shotgun and assault rifle so they said, well, how'd you even know where she was? How did you know about that place? And you know how he knew? Restraining order.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, it's got the address.

[James Petregallo]

Has to, has to. You have to tell the person where they have to stay away from.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So it's a double edged sword because.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now they can't just say, stay away from me. Well, what's, what's away from me?

[James Petregallo]

Stay away from where? Then you could be in the same place as her and you wouldn't be responsible for. Because they didn't tell you where to stay away from. But they said, you can't go to 61 Lower Middle Road. And he went, well, that's where she is right there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about our stylish friends at Quint's. That's right, let's go. Elevate your styles, people. Get it going. Look good out there and you can do it now without breaking your wallet, without breaking the bank. Because at Quint's you can get high end, versatile pieces at prices we can all actually afford, which is very nice. You want to get good stuff that lasts and it's good. And they have quality stuff that's very affordable. And you can do like we did, upgrading our stuff here while still being a very reasonable price. Quince only works with factory factories that use safe, ethical, responsible manufacturing practices along with premium fabrics and finishes. It's all quality stuff. You're gonna love it. Trust us. It looks good. And I've got the leather jacket. It's a very high quality item. Real nice, soft leather. Jimmy's got his linen pants he's rocking.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're terrific.

[James Petregallo]

Come on, be like us. Be fashionable. Get in there with Quints. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quints.com smalltown murder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com smalltown murder to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com smalltown murder now back to the show.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Calling all dog owners. Your furry friend deserves top notch nourishment. And Ollie delivers the clean, fresh nutrition your dog needs in five flavors. They'll absolutely flip over. Ollie is made in US Kitchens with ingredients carefully sourced from trusted and producers around the world with absolutely no harmful fillers or preservatives with protein. First recipes like fresh beef with sweet potatoes, fresh turkey with blueberries, or fresh lamb with cranberries. You Might start thinking, dang, my dog eats better than I do. And that's probably true when it comes to Ollie. Give your pup a fresh start this new year by letting them taste test a personalized meal plan with ollie. Head to ollie.com wondery tell them all about your dog and use code wondery to get 60% off your first box of meals when you today. Plus they offer a clean bowl guarantee on the first box, so if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's o l l ie.com wondery and enter code wondery to get 60% off your first box. Start your dog's new year off right with Ollie. Start your dog's new year off right with Ollie.

[James Petregallo]

It's wild. Debbie said in a written statement, quote, to protect abused women and children, they shouldn't be asked to give their address in court proceedings. But then the court says then it wouldn't be a legal document because you can't tell the person where to stay away from. So it's specifics. Yeah, there's nothing good. There's no way to do this here. And also she said that she wants to help battered women after all of this because, you know, now police here are like, oh, so you went to talk with knives, guns, you know, duct tape, rope, that sort of shit, you know, kidnapping shit in case we run.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Out of things to talk about. I want to talk about the amount of strands on this rope.

[James Petregallo]

It's pretty good. Yeah. It's made of hemp. It's a good one. Telling you. So now Teeter over here is trying to minimize her involvement at first.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

She said she just thought Stephen wanted to talk to his ex wife and that's it. That is fucking wild. By the way, the executive director of a family crisis center said abusers regularly tipped off to their spouses whereabouts through court records. There's no way. And they said that, but we can't not have them on there. So again, he said that sometimes that this guy said he sometimes or she sometimes advises people not to seek protection orders if they don't want their spouses to know where they're staying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

They'll say like, do you have a good safe place that no one knows where you are? Just stay there and don't fucking do this because otherwise he's going to know right where you are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So it's a situational thing. Yeah. And she said you can't tell someone to stay away from someplace unless you say where that someplace is. Fair enough. So Teeter After a while, you think Teeter's gonna sit in the fucking interrogation box and be hard as nails. No, no. Teeter's gonna spill it and she does.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. She told the police that she and Brown left Newfield on March 27 so Steven could talk to his wife and children about her family's interference, quote unquote. He asked her to bring a shotgun. And when she picked him up, she saw he was carrying a knife and some rope in a camouflage. Camouflage bag. They drove to New Hampshire where they rented a car and approached the mobile home. She said that shortly before midnight, though, he just. His anger just exploded. It's too much. So she said she lured Wood out of the house. Donald Wood Jr. By saying her car was broken down. When he got outside, Brown. Steven jumped out from the bushes and hit him over the head with a. Hit him in the back of the head with a pipe that he had picked up off the side of the road on the way there. At some point, he saw a pipe on the side of the road and picked it up. Pull over to keep that too. Yeah, pull over. I'm grab this pipe quick. So he hits Donald Brown or Donald Wood over the head and drags him into the woods. Okay. At this point here, Teeter goes back to the house and said that Donald Wood needs Chris Brilliard's help. Now, as a. As Brown was attacking Chris Brilliard the same in the same fashion, Teeter told police she had to walk away because she didn't want to or need to see what he was doing. Okay. But then she returned to lure. To lure Linda outside, but Debbie came out instead, and she said she saw her husband. She jumped in the blazer and drove up and down, drove up the road, honking the. Drove up the driveway and back, honking the horn and calling for help. And you know, Whitney Brown was in there. Teeter said Steven told his wife that he, quote, could have killed her, but all he wanted to do is talk. Teeter said that Brown told his wife the other two guys were tied up and put in his father's. In her father's camper, which was parked next to the garage. So acting on Steven's instructions, Teeter says she rented two adjoining rooms, one for herself and one for them. And to prevent Deborah from calling for help, he ripped the phone out and gave it to her. And during the day, Sheeter was the one who washed the blood stained clothes and ran errands for him. And while she was away from the motel, she called a friend who told her that there was murders and that the police are looking for you guys. So basically what happened was he hit Wood over the head And Donald Wood Jr. Fights back, as we'll talk about. And then it got ugly from there. Yeah. So this is what the Attorney General is going to present. Although Teeter knew that Brown had threatened violence against Debbie if he lost custody of her offspring, she nonetheless agreed to this excursion. She then watched Brown pack her car with a small arsenal, including an SKS assault rifle, a.20 gauge shotgun, ammunition for the weapons, and a pair of knives. He also stowed duct tape, rope, and two handheld radios aboard the vehicle as well. This is a plan. This is crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Planning to be separated from someone and still needing communication, that's frightening.

[James Petregallo]

That's terrifying. So they departed from New York early the next morning. Once in New Hampshire, they temporarily abandoned the car. Titor's car, rented another one, went to Lebanon, Maine, located the trailer, and they spent the afternoon and evening spying on Debbie and her brother and the kids, stalking and formulating a plan of how they were going to do this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yep.

[James Petregallo]

Okay, so this is crazy. She said they watched them go swimming at the Holiday Inn. They pretended the rental car broke down on the roadside. And what they did was on the way back from around the Holiday Inn time, when they were going to the Holiday Inn, I believe it was, they pulled over. Teeter and Steve pulled over. He hid in the car, and Teeter acted like her car was broken down on the side of the road, But Debbie drove right past them. Oh, they were hoping Debbie would pull over to help, and she didn't. They just kept driving.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Doesn't help people.

[James Petregallo]

No, not interested here. So then they watched them swim and do everything like that. So anyway, Stephen Brown picked up a piece of lead pipe by the side of the road, which she added to all of his other weapons. And obviously we told you, Teeter came up to the door. Brown instructed Teeter to approach the trailer and attempt to lure one of the male occupants outside by claiming she was having car trouble. So Brown told her that if she succeeded, he would incapacitate them and, you know, just put them off to the side. So she did. She got Donald Wood. Brown hit him over the head with a pipe as he approached the rental car. Wood tried to fight back and kicked Steven in the balls. Oh. Which is great. This is. I want to watch this scene. Clang. Ow. Fuck you. Motherfuck. Pow. Oh, my balls. Jesus. Get back here. This is in the pitch black in the woods. This is if he didn't end up dead, this would be hilarious in the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He really went deep. That's great.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. And then he again smashed him over the head with a lead pipe. And so badly that the medical examiner would later say that was a fatal blow with this lead pipe. But he still. Stephen still stabs his body several times and buries it under the leaves in the neck, torso and head. Stabs him. So he's angry. That's what that is. Yeah, that's what that is. The blow to the head, according to Teeter. She said it made an eerie sound and she said she'd never forget it. Yeah, Cracking a fucking skull open as an eerie sound. So she said he then dragged Donald Wood into the woods out of Teeter site and stabbed him a couple of times. And obviously that. That wasn't even necessary. He was already dead. So then 45 minutes goes by. That's when she went back for Chris Brilliard. And when he came out, he didn't. Stephen was like, I better get a good shot in first. My balls are sore. Yeah, yeah, it's sore balls right now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he hits. He. He hits Chris in the back of the head with a pipe and does the same thing. Drags him into the woods and all of that. Now apparently, as he's hitting him in the head, he's forcing him to the ground, questioning about him, his relationship with Debbie, you fucking my wife, shit like that. According to this, he strikes him in the back of the head, drags him into the woods, stabs him in the head, neck and chest as well. Then that's when Teeter went back to ask for Linda. And then Debbie came out instead. And Steven forced her at gunpoint into the rental car, drove away. And Teeter said that the whole time he was saying, you better hope we don't get pulled over because it's going to be a bloodbath if we do.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That is crazy. Their plan was to eliminate everybody one by one. That's.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fucking disturbing.

[James Petregallo]

One comes out, kill him, stack him up. Another comes out, kill him, stack him up. It's fucking really creepy. Wow. So Debbie said that her husband here, Steve, made her tell him that she loved him and that she wanted to, quote, make love to him. She said that he made promises that he would. That she would. She made. He made her promise that she would keep in touch with him if he went to prison or to the, quote, nuthouse for his crimes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I need you to keep talking to me forever.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And he's like. She's like, absolutely. I'd never leave your side. You know, she's just like, get me the fuck out of this room with the psychopath. So, yeah, she. Then Debbie gets. You know, she's free now. And she said, holy fuck. She talks to the press about the ordeal. She said it was a shock learning that her brother and her boyfriend were dead. And I had no idea. And she said, they said they'd take care of me and that they'd always protect me and that nothing would happen. And now they're both dead. So she feels guilty also that this has all come stemming from her. They were nice enough in her mind. Her brother was nice enough to bring her into his house and all this. And he got. He's even nice enough to go out at one in the morning and try to fix somebody's car, and he got killed for it. So offering protection, she said also she used all of the skills she learned during her abusive marriage to survive the ordeal. She said she knew how to manage him at certain times. Certain times, he's in a rage. There's no managing him. But after a while, I guess she learned a lot of tricks of how to manage his emotions.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Knocks him off the walls. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Her uncle, the police chief, said she's a survivor. Abused women like her know how to appease the abuser, to get along and wait for the opportunity to escape. And that's what she did. Right now, Steven at the jail here. He's at the jail and his family, by the way, is like, they're talking about him like he's dead. Like they're. Oh, he's. They're talking about Stephen like Steven's dead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're done with him.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. That's what they said. Ken Brown, the dad, said, those families have lost those two boys, and we've lost our son. A lot of lives have been devastated. Like, he's fucked. Yep. Donna Brown said the family will soon visit Steven at the. At the county jail where he's being held, the Cumberland County Jail. They said that that might be the last time they see him. They don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

They said we're grieving terribly over it. He's gone. There's no way to reach out to him. We love him. We just don't know what more to say. We'll always love him. He'll always be our son. He's. They say, like, he's just dead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So they. They've. Johnny Tyler.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he's done now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's over.

[James Petregallo]

He's out. Yeah, he's just done.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He is a man. He is a crazy man. So I don't blame him.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's what happens. So Debbie here, her uncle says that she is eager to return to that trailer that they lived at her brother's lower middle road trailer here. And she said she's going to move back right in there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, the, the threat's been eliminated.

[James Petregallo]

It's gone.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's as safe as it can be.

[James Petregallo]

Now the uncle said she knows that Linda needs her and she needs Linda because both their people have been murdered. So she's gonna stay in this house and be like trauma.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice.

[James Petregallo]

Be like an 80s sitcom with Kate and Ally with two ladies raising their fucking kids. That's what it is. I don't know. Pulled that sitcom out of my ass from the 80s. That was good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't remember that one.

[James Petregallo]

It was, it was Jane Curtin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So yeah, she's fucking great. National treasure, man. So she's doing that. He said, the uncle said that Debbie spent most of her Wednesday hugging and kissing members of her immediate family. She also visited her dead boyfriend's parents. And she said, the uncle said she's in shock and unable to fathom everything yet. Yeah, I don't even know how you would. I don't know how, number one, you would unpack and deal with what happened to you. Just the trauma you went through of the middle of the night, going outside, having somebody come, your ex husband, the guy you're most scared of in the world. This isn't just some stranger. This is the boogeyman for you. Bust through your window with a shotgun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. All day long. She's probably seeing him at the, at the hotel. She probably is like, I'm, I'm losing my mind. He's not here. And having that actually be her suspicions, all are true. Like, yes, that would be mind blowingly scary.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. That's the exact thing. Because when she's told Chris that, you know, Chris was like, come on, he's not fucking out. He's not stalking you outside the Holiday Inn when he fucking was.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How would he know we're here?

[James Petregallo]

That's like she has like a sixth, a sixth sense for him of like, I know when he's around, I can smell him. I can smell it. He's just all over it. And like, I don't know, like I said, I don't know how you'd unpack the fact that I was kidnapped, dragged two states over.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Kept in a fucking motel against my will. Raped multiple times by my fucking husband. Threatened to be Murdered guns are pointed at me. This is like. And then you survive it just that alone would be so much. But on top of that, they killed your boyfriend and your brother right beforehand because of you. In your mind you feel so. The guilt, the fear. I feel terrible for this lady.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Trauma of the daughter. Had to watch it. Watch the kidnapping.

[James Petregallo]

Dude, that's crazy. 12 year old girl to have to watch that. Disturbing. And she's already terrified of her father. This is, you know, this is fucked. So Debbie said though, she and her children will move on and move ahead with their plans for a new life just like they had. They're moving back into the mobile home. Her and Linda are going to be roommates. They're going to build two new bedrooms in the back of the house. And yeah, she said last. A few days after this happened, she drove back to New York and took all of their belongings from the Brown's house. Anything they had left from the parents house or anything like that. The kids. Debbie said that the kids quote, trashed their father's things. Like I think that they just went in fucking his shit up in the house. Yeah. She said they'll tell you they don't have a father anymore. There's died. That's what they're telling people. My dad's dead. That's just what they. Yeah. What's your mom and dad like? Oh, my mom's okay. A little bit of trauma. My dad's dead. Yeah, that's that. She said she wants to go back to school to become a certified nurse's assistant and hopes to tell her story of abuse to high school girls in hopes of preventing someone from, you know, same shit going on here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oof. That is. That's a. That's a weird fifth period there. Sure enough, we're gonna bring in Debbie and she's gonna tell you the most harrowing fucking story you've ever heard in your life. Buckle up, ladies. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

What the fuck? That's gonna be a rough, a rough day hearing about that shit you gotta hear about. Oh my God. See, I was worried I wasn't popular. Now I got much bigger fears. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You had to watch all those like domestic violence videos, right? Like, no, I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

I'm trying. I remember one health class.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I remember one specifically because it was a video of a woman that said she spent $2 on a top at Kmart. Like the, the boyfriend and the. The whole class was laughing. This shops at Kmart. I'm like, he's about to beat her Ass.

[James Petregallo]

This is about to not be funny here in the next 10 seconds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You guys are ridiculing this poor woman.

[James Petregallo]

For being broke because she's poor. She's a. An abused woman who only has $2 to spend on a shirt. And you're like, haha. You dumb. What the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It was a little like shocking moment of my. Of high school for me, like realizing.

[James Petregallo]

That people don't understand people are huge.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like, nice. Nice of you guys to have such rosy lives. Jesus Christ.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, everything's perfect for you guys, I guess. Shadow Mountain. Did this take place at. Yeah, those North Phoenix twats.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Upper mid class fucking jerks, man.

[James Petregallo]

What? Douchebag. Like, yeah, who do you think you are?

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's wearing like this cute tank top and the guy's like, where'd you get that? She's like, I bought it today. Do you like it? I spent $2 at Kmart and he flew off the handle about the $2.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus. That is, I guess, something that people need to hear about. I do remember those slightly. I remember the syphilis videos more though. Those were.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

I remember those where they were showing like actual syphilitic, you know, growth.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I was worried about showing my penis to anybody, so I didn't care about those videos.

[James Petregallo]

I was terrified of that happening to my dick however it happened. It was like. That was really. Oh God. I don't want that to happen. Jesus Christ. That looks awful. It's rotting off. But yeah, those are terrible videos.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So awful.

[James Petregallo]

But I guess, I mean, this is a story that you kind of need to hear if you're.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. You do got to know that it's possible.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe not at 14, but at 16. I think it's, you know. Yeah, something. So she expects her divorce to become final in May. She's still married to this man. Wow. Because it's, you know, she had filed for divorce and then she said she and the kids plan to change their last name. Yeah, 2Brilliard.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, for Chris.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. She said, chris and I did have plans to get married and this way we can honor his memory.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Wow, that is hardcore, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a very interesting choice.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, shit. Slapping it on the kids too is interesting. That's. But I don't know. Whatever, I guess. Now Steven and Patricia, they end up arriving in Maine. They get extradited from New York to Maine. Here, a New York State police airplane carrying them arrived at Portland International Jetport with them. And there's a picture of Patricia with like a bottle of water in her hands. Cuffed and she looks miserable. Let me tell you something.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking miserable.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Writing a bunch of decisions.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, man, she does not. Her look on her face is like, oh, I did it. I fucked it all up. She has two minor children also.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's like what we were gonna be a throuple.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. It was going to be me, two wives, him and what, the four kids from the two relationships move everybody in together. I don't know what's going on here, but the police, Maine state police officers met them at the plane, shackled Brown and Teeter, and took them to separate cruisers. They sat in the front passenger seat with detectives sitting behind them, which I think is an odd transportation, odd way to transport. So, yeah, they said that. Teeter leaned forward in her seat, trying to hide her face. She's embarrassed. While Stephen just kind of looked the other direction, but was like, you know, chin up in the air here. Now the funerals. They did funerals, joint funerals here for Donald and Chris and they had a funeral at the mobile home.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Where most funerals take place, the guests were asked to be. To dress casually. Yeah, Just act like we're having a barbecue. And we'll also bury people. Main casual, main cash flannel will be seen.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So afterward, dozens of friends of Donald and Chris will form a funeral procession made up of four wheel drive trucks that they.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the coolest funeral ever.

[James Petregallo]

That's pretty goddamn cool. Yeah. Linda said that's the way he would have wanted it. That's pretty good. At least they're not just doing it the way they want it. They're trying to send them off. Right. The parents, Stephen Brown's parents are attending the funeral.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Donna and Ken, they don't. Yeah, they. They right away tried to contact the families to apologize to them and all that kind of shit, but Terry Wood, the uncle, Debbie's uncle, said that the family won't accept it. Their apology. Not because they're mad at them. Quote, we have not responded to their apology because there's no reason for one. There's no reason for one from them. We don't hate the Browns. Nobody can control what their children are going to grow up to be. That's super mature. That's very mature. Yeah. It's not their fault.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We're not accepting or rejecting their apology.

[James Petregallo]

It's just. It doesn't. Doesn't even need to happen. Yeah, they don't need to apologize. Basically. They can show up at the funeral and no one's gonna be like, oh, God, they're here. It's very interesting. So in the woods next to the house, family members erected a small memorial to Donald, who is 43, and Chris, who is 30. And they had flowered crosses and rose bouquets and a yellow toy monster truck as a tribute to his mudding habit here. His longtime friend Vicki said, if Wood had to go, meaning Donald the brother, if Wood had to go, he wanted to go out helping somebody and he wanted to go out on his own property. He got his wish helping somebody, not being lured out there to be murdered. Yeah, if you went out to help somebody and they were like stuck under a giant tree that fell on him and then you got swept off in the rapids, yeah, that would be like an honorable way to go. But going out and not being murdered is not the way you wanted to go out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't think that's just a way for somebody to process this horrible event.

[James Petregallo]

And a funeral like this is also a way to process the event because you're trying to make it a celebration rather than let's all be sad. So I get it. Everybody processes different. So they said. Debbie walked slowly and unsteadily to the pulpit at the church to pay tribute to her brother. She said, he was my hero. He always treated me with respect. And yeah, 150 family members and friends attended these services at the church. Then they had the thing at the house after that. Apparently Debbie became overcome with emotion and had to leave halfway through the whole thing. When these services ended, she made a short statement. She had her uncle, the police chief next door. She said, I want to thank everyone who helped rescue me from my ordeal. We have a long road ahead of us. We must mourn in our own way. We want to leave Chris and Woody in peace. That makes sense. Now, court for these two idiots. Man, teeter. They describe her as hands and shackles, quivering and sobbing quietly during her 10 minute hearing. I don't think she expected any of this shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's really got out of half ass.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she feels like she doesn't see 10 minutes ahead of her. You know what I mean? No, it's like a. I don't think.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She sees 10 minutes behind her either. She's got a memory of a goldfish.

[James Petregallo]

She's just a goldfish. Wait till you hear what a psychiatrist says about her. Basically the same thing you'd say about a goldfish generally. She comes into court, by the way, with her left eye bruised, which I have the mugshot I will post on social media as part of this, that her left eye Was bruised. This was an injury sustained during the police raid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, that's how that goes. And her defense attorney, who. The same defense attorney represents both of them, by the way, Steve and Patricia. He said he doesn't know how they're gonna plead. He said, quote, I was just appointed to this last night.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I just got the case.

[James Petregallo]

I don't even know anything about. He said. So I haven't talked in detail with either client about what went on that night. He's just there to do the preliminary hearing. He doesn't know what's going on here. He said that Steven has no criminal history that he's aware of. I don't know. He said Teeter has two children, 14 and 15, and has only a one misdemeanor charge on her record from, like, 10 years ago. So that's. These aren't like he's saying that. They don't seem like career criminals to me. So I don't know. So Stephen Brown, as the prosecutors give their whole thing. Steven Brown, to the press, agrees with their account of how it went down. Yep. Apparently, a state charge of kidnapping is dismissed because a federal kidnapping charge has a heavier penalty. And he took her across state lines, and that's federal kidnapping.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he's gonna be charged with that, and so is she.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now, if he. Any crimes he commits in New York, if it's a federal kidnapping charge, doesn't that just all stack together then, like, sexual assault and all that can be charged too?

[James Petregallo]

There's two separate. There's two separate. He's gonna have two separate things. There's gonna be a federal and a state deal. Because murder is a state crime.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So they're gonna. The murders are gonna be the state trials, and then the kidnapping and all that other shit is going to be federal trials because he's got weapons. Fucking kidnapping, this. There's a whole lot of shit that he's stalking. They're really lining it all up for him. So he pleads innocent to the federal charges, which includes crossing state lines to violate a protection order, stalking, and violations of federal gun laws. Teeter pleads innocent also to state charges of murder, felony murder, and kidnapping. Stephen Brown's lawyer said he advised his client not to change his plea from not guilty. He said there's been no promise of a lesser sentence for cooperating. So I told him that pleading guilty, even though he's admitted he did it. Yeah, Pleading guilty isn't really the best option. We might as well give it a shot here. But he did Say that Brown wanted to take responsibility for his crimes and spare his family the stress of a drawn out procedure.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He said. The lawyer said, I don't think there should be any unrealistic expectations. A harsh sentence will be well within the realm of possibility. No shit. I would hope so. So he's sitting in the Cumberland County Jail in August of 1999 when he tries to take the quick way out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, really? We're going to.

[James Petregallo]

Tries to turn it into a murder suicide. Yeah. Aaron Rodgers way, very separate here. Aaron Hernandez way. If only. No, the Aaron Hernandez way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he takes the disposable razor blades they get for shaving, slashes his neck with it, and then tries to hang himself by tying a sheet around his neck, knotting the other end to a railing and vaulting over the railing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Which would break your neck probably, and at least hang you if not. Problem is he's. I don't think Steven ever was in the boy scouts. Bad knots miss knot tying 101. Apparently the knot didn't hold, so he. As soon as there was any pressure, he was just free falling from the neck tear on down.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, damn it.

[James Petregallo]

And instead of hanging himself, he hit the ground and broke his ankle like a fucking dipshit. Yeah, Broken left ankle, leg, possible broken right heel.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that would have been a spectacle too, though.

[James Petregallo]

That's what he was going for. Yeah, he's a drama queen, this Steven. He really is. He likes even the crime is such a drama queen thing to do. I'll kill them. Then I'm gonna get her in there and talk to her and make her say she loves me. And like, what a drama queen, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Question a man as I beat him to death about whether or not he fucking.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking my wife. Yeah, don't say it in front of my girlfriend though. She gets sensitive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's gonna hang himself in town square of the prison.

[James Petregallo]

This is totally. He tried to fucking jump off the tier. That's so funny, by the way. Did nobody notice a man with a fucking rolled up sheet trying to tie it around a fucking railing? Does anyone? Anybody watching in prison at all? Well, his blood squirts from his neck. What a. I mean, anybody paying attention? This is a county jail. This isn't Attica. Like, pay attention.

[Jimmy Whisman]

People in prison have a pretty good sense of humor. They're pretty funny sometimes. Sometimes somebody had to say some shit like, oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit, you dummy.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, damn.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Somebody said something hilarious. I guarantee it.

[James Petregallo]

It was the first time the word the phrase epic fail was uttered ever you know what? No one ever used that phrase again. Not only because it's annoying, but because no matter what happens, it's not as epic of a fail as that. This is an epic fail. Slash, slash. Goodbye, cruel world. Ow, my ankle. Fuck. Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Somebody says something like, you're not good at this.

[James Petregallo]

Damn, why didn't I learn to tie knots better? And then he's. He's fucking laying there with it tied around his neck with blood everywhere and just a sheet hanging off. Like, what a mess.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You'd walk up to Superman after.

[James Petregallo]

Dude, if you're one of the fucking COs, you just walk up and just shake your head and go, this is a sorry ass scene I'm looking at right now. You sorry motherfucker.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, Superman turned into Clark Kent midair quickly.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Oh shit. It's like it's not supposed to happen like this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nothing super about you, man.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. 8am too. He tried to do it early in the day. They described his neck wounds from the disposable razor as generally superficial. So he didn't really. I think that's why he had to hang himself though. He couldn't get deep enough there. So Stephen decides that, I mean, they have a lot of evidence. I mean, he was in the room with her and the guns and you know, his girlfriend spilled it and he agreed with the prosecutor. So he's gonna go ahead and plead guilty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Have to.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know what a trial would be for this. It would be, you know, it would be painful, man. Yeah, just use his statements. It's fine. You know. So he's gonna plead guilty to murder and kidnapping at the state level.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And then multiple federal charges as well in another separate proceeding that we'll discuss here. So sentencing comes around for the state charges. They describe him as sitting impassively manacled to a wheelchair, a broken ankle and a 4 inch purple scar below his right ear. The remnants of his September suicide attempt. So now he looks like a complete dipshit. Not just a murderer, a complete moron on top of this. So his lawyer said it was an explosion of rage and not a careful plan. This wasn't some kind of premeditated sick fuck thought out thing. This was just rage that exploded from him. Said Steven Brown had suffered a series of crushing disappointments in the months leading up to the murders. When a judge in their divorce case ruled that he couldn't contact his wife or children, that was it. He lost control, couldn't take it anymore. And he said that the fact that the mere Fact that he killed the two men with a length of pipe he'd found along the roadside and not the shotgun he brought with him from New York indicated rage and not planning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hmm.

[James Petregallo]

To me, that indicates not wanting to wake up anybody. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or alert her.

[James Petregallo]

That's the thing. If. If the shotgun is for Debbie, that is not for them. If she hears a shotgun blast outside after this, she'll might call 911 before she comes out, and you're not gonna get her, and then you're fucked so bad. That's a bad strategy. And then he said, this is amazing. He said he carried the gun just to protect himself. Oh.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Cause he was scared.

[James Petregallo]

An assault rifle and a shotgun just to protect yourself.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And knives, evidently.

[James Petregallo]

And knives and ropes and duct tape and fucking pipes and everything. And he said, or at the very least, either to protect himself from others or to kill himself. One of those two. But not for people. That's crazy to think that he was trying to do that even though he killed people. He said. Or the lawyer's not helping at this point. Said he carried the gun to protect himself. Okay. I don't believe it, but whatever. Or maybe to kill himself with. Okay, calm down, lawyer. Then the next one is. Or he might have been trying to engage the police in a shootout that would cause his own death. What we know as death by cop.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

You're not helping your client. Stupid. Shut up. Stop talking. He's. Wow. His lawyer here said that if there had been a trial, Stephen Brown would have challenged his wife's assertions that she had been abused during their marriage, even though she's been to multiple battered women's shelters and told people about the abuse for years. And, yeah, he said the order that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Has culpability and proof, evidently, to acknowledge it.

[James Petregallo]

Totally. Yeah. The lawyer said that the court would be on shaky ground if it passed a strict sentence based on just allegations. Okay, well, they think it's based on murder and kidnapping and raping is what they're really talking about. He then says, quote, I'm not asking the court to find if there was adequate provocation and render a verdict of manslaughter. Okay, yeah, adequate provocation. You drove two states, hid in the fucking dark, and have somebody come out. Yeah, that's a real. I mean, that's provocation right there. What are you talking about? You stalked them for a day. That's insanity. He said, but I'm not asking the court that the court blame. I'm not asking the court that blame should be focused anywhere but on Stephen. But I'm asking the court to consider each event after event after after event which put him in this condition so shortly. This guy, this is how full of shit he knows he is. This seems like if you tried to like, you know, pass a football out of your ass, like, this is what would happen to you. Soon as he was done finishing his argument, the lawyer asked for a recess and walked out of the courtroom complaining of nausea and sweating. Within a few minutes, he's in an ambulance being taken to the hospital, to the special care unit and remaining in stable condition. And through the rest of this, he's represented by another lawyer, his other lawyer that does the federal shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Having to say that shit caused him deep anxiety that caused him a panic attack right away.

[James Petregallo]

If I'm any. If I'm the judge, I go, well, I don't believe anything he said. If he had a fucking full blown meltdown after saying it. Yeah, a Tony Soprano pass out after he said it. I'm not buying that shit. So the prosecutor described him a little bit more simplistically as a controlling, narcissistic, just plain dangerous lunatic. Basically came to Maine with a plan to kill. Used the pipe instead of a gun because it was quiet and it wouldn't stir up the other people sleeping in there. He's a Marine Corps veteran. He knows that massive blows he struck to the back of the head would kill them and not just knock them out. Said that his aim was to kidnap his wife and he would have killed others if they had gotten in his way. However many people came outside, he would have killed until he got to Debbie, period. That's it. So the lawyer said she did precisely what she was told to do and saved her own life. And possibly Patricia Teeters too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So she then said it was. It was wrong to think Stephen Brown lost control when he could have no more contact with his family. The lawyer said, this case is not about love. This is about if I can't have her, nobody will. It's about winning and losing. It's about a guy who does not take an L well, at all. The. His lawyer then said that he doubted that Brown intended to kill Chris and Donald when he left New York. But, you know, whatever. And the judge agrees. He said, I don't know whether he agree intended to kill them or not, but at some point he planned it and he planned this attack and it was premeditated. The judge says he was prepared to do what was necessary to initiate contact with Mrs. Brown, including taking forcible type actions.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Kidnapping. So the Impact statements here, victim impact, they come up and friends and family come up and do this. Terry Wood, who is Donald and Debbie's uncle, he said his family has been scarred by Steven Brown. He said, my poor brother will never recover. My niece will take several years to heal. These two children will never heal knowing that their father is a murderer. And Whitney gets up there at 12 years old. Yeah, she does. And she says, I am a Christian and I can't hate anyone, but I dislike my father. I can't even stand to look at him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that has to fucking sting, man. Sure, he deserves that shit 100% like my father.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She. And he had to hear that.

[James Petregallo]

I can't even stand to look at him. From your 12 year old daughter.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's right there.

[James Petregallo]

And then she, then she. He called her a whore. An open court. No, he didn't. But she's had a lot of reason to not like this guy. So then Debbie gets on the stand.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

That's the, that's the victim impact. She said, please, it's very rare, by the way, to have a murder case where there's also a victim who's still alive to give an impact statement that's really damaging to a defendant. It really is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the target of it, you know what I mean?

[James Petregallo]

And the main target, she said, please, I ask you to put him away so he can do no more harm. I beg you not to be light with him. I'm still in fear of him. Please put him in a prison outside of the state so my kids and I won't have to worry about him no more. So she doesn't want him in the same, even if he's in prison in the same state. She's scared. I don't even want him locked up in the state. Stephen turned down the chance to speak on his own behalf. Made no eye contact with anybody around. And no witnesses stepped forward to speak for him. Not even his parents. Nobody. He asked the judge to sentence him to death. That's all he did. He just said, I want the death penalty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Incapable of this.

[James Petregallo]

Please do it for me, please. The judge said, well, how about this? You, sir, may fuck off. Two life sentences without parole. How's that instead?

[Jimmy Whisman]

But it's gonna be ugly.

[James Petregallo]

Much worse and slower. And you're not good at tying knots, so you're gonna be there a while. So more sentencing for Stephen now in the federal court here. He's still got a bunch of more crazy, you know, charges that have life possibilities attached to them. Here. Debbie Brown again testifies and her uncle Terry asked the judge to show no leniency. Debbie said, my biggest fear right now is that he will escape from prison to finish what he started. He's a monster. Death does not bother him. As a matter of fact, it turns him on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking gross. So then Stephen gets up there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's gonna.

[James Petregallo]

Anything to say for yourself? He's. I got something to say for myself this time. Yeah. Now, he could apologize, he could say he doesn't know what happened to him. I went off the deep end. I'm a horrible per. I feel terrible. I'll never outlive this guilt. There's a lot of things you would say in this situation. The things you would not say in this situation here, by the way. By the way, came out, I guess he raped his wife three times that night. And they're all there as that came out later on. So this fucking asshole instead says this quote. I've never ever denied responsibility for what happened. But for the past several months, there's been a lot of things said on TV and in newspapers. Everything's always one sided.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, he wants some defense.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Yeah. He said, where is my fucking, you know, other side news? Yeah, where's that? Where's the news that says that that fucking guy who admitted he murdered two people and kidnapped and raped his wife actually isn't too bad of a guy? Where's that news?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where's my nose? Spin zone?

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So, yeah, he made no excuses. He denied harming his children. He said, I never beat up my children. He then, during his please be nice to me accused Debbie of being unfaithful to him during their marriage.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, they're still married. And if she slept with Chris, that's unfaithful.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, that is. Couldn't be more irrelevant at this moment in time. Holy shit. But he used that as. That's the excuse.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

He said, yes. I was enraged. I just. Then he said, I just want to get this done, okay? So the judge says, no problem, chief. Got you covered. You, sir, may fuck off again. How about. What do you got? Two without parole. Here's another three, Five life without paroles. Bye bye. Three federal, two state. So you can appeal here in the air. Even if one turns it over, you got either three or two more. You're fucked, Steve.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Even in cards, you can't have five of a kind. You got it, man.

[James Petregallo]

You got it, brother. That's it. So Teeter here, Patricia Teeter, she is gonna go to court as well, and she is going to plead guilty to murder and kidnapping as well as multiple federal charges. She does the same thing. She pleads here. Her thing, though, she has a little bit more leg to stand on on the plea because she can throw herself at the mercy of the court and say, he's a monster and I didn't know and he lied to me and all that kind of shit. Whereas he has nothing to say here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, there is the. If you did know that somebody was murdered after the. I mean, she didn't. Let's say she didn't know that the first person was going to die. As soon as she walked, he says, now go ask for Chris.

[James Petregallo]

Now get more.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Knock on the door and say, call the police. Let me in. Shut the door.

[James Petregallo]

Call 911 right now. Don't come out. Lock the door. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tell Chris for sure, don't go outside.

[James Petregallo]

Instead, she came back for the third person.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's nuts.

[James Petregallo]

This is nuts. And she's just as fucking. I mean, obviously, I think she's been manipulated and probably whatever, but we'll talk about it. And like I said, the shrink, what he says about her, too, is interesting. She's gonna plead to avoid getting a life sentence. Her plea, she gets her a lighter sentence. Basically, she won't get life on the federal kidnapping charge, which carries a mandatory life term, will be dropped, as will a more serious state charge of murder, which carries a possible life term. So it'll be like conspiracy and after the fact and all that kind of shit. So the length of the sentence is decided by a judge here. They said that during her sentencing, she stood at the front of the courtroom with her head bowed. Her voice barely rose above a whisper as the judge questioned her about her case. When a prosecutor read a description of the deaths of Donald Wood and Christopher Bulliard, Teeter reached for a tissue and cried quietly. A single mother of two teenage girls, Teeter did not know any of the victims. She'd been friendly with Steven Brown for just a few months before he asked her to drive him to Maine. Teeter went, even though she knew that Brown was barred from a court order, from seeing his wife or their two children. Teeter also knew that Brown was armed with a knife, two guns, one of which she loaned him. So she definitely knows that the shotgun's hers. But the assistant attorney general here, the same one that prosecuted Brown, said that it doesn't appear Teeter had any intention of kidnapping or killing anyone. What then? She just doesn't ask questions, right? I go up, get a guy, you kill him, and then you say, go get another one. You go, okay. Like, you don't ask any. Are you gonna kill him, too? Like, what the fuck? What are we doing here? She just does it. Wow. The prosecutor said Patricia Teeter appeared to be simply helping a friend. What? I mean, she's an idiot, but no. She lent him a shotgun and then drove to the place that she knows his fucking wife has a restraining order against him on. I'm sorry, you're friend.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just a friend.

[James Petregallo]

Just a friend, yeah. It would appear that she did not come to Maine to participate in killing two men. I believe that. I believe when they left, he didn't say, here's what we're gonna do. We're killed. Two people, they kidnap her. I think that happened. But by the second murder, if you're still on board. Yeah, what the fuck? You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm sure he said, we're going. We're not going camping. And she knew that, right?

[James Petregallo]

I would fucking hope so. Jesus. She lent him a shotgun. So she said. Then they said, should she have known? Should she have been brighter? Should she have foreseen this? We say, yes. The prosecutor says, yeah, been brighter is funny. You've been adjudicated a dum dum now, which is hilarious.

[Jimmy Whisman]

At least dim.

[James Petregallo]

At least slightly dim. Well, wait to hear what the shrink says, too. It's funny. So her defense lawyer said that his client pleaded guilty to avoid the murder and federal kidnapping charges. He said that Patricia did not know what was happening outside Wood's mobile home until it was too late. But she described the sound of the skull being smashed in and then went to get someone else.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

She was afraid of Steven Brown, the lawyer said, and did whatever he told her to do. He also said that Teeter had long been a victim of domestic violence in her own marriage, which conditioned her to obey Brown. That sounds correct. Probably. She said that he then said her conduct is consistent with her history as a battered woman. Yes, but you can't just kill strangers if you're a battered woman. That doesn't hold up in court. You know what I mean? So the doctor, Prudence Baxter, a Cambridge, Massachusetts psychiatrist, examined Teeter and described her as. This is great. Startlingly naive and a gullible person. Incredibly, startlingly, if yours. If your shrink uses the word startlingly in any description of you, you're a mess. That's not good. Wow. She also said that Teeter may have been conditioned to intimidation and control by 10 years of domestic abuse during a prior relationship, which sounds very reasonable. Now, Debbie's uncle, though, says Horse, he gets on the stand, Terry Wood, and says that she's no less responsible for the crimes than Steven Brown and she should also spend the rest of her life in fucking prison. He said, quote, she knew when she came to the door the second time that my nephew was dead and Mr. Brown was going to murder Chris. All she had to do was say, dial 911. She could have put a stop to it, but she didn't. Exactly. Exactly what we said. So Teeter, during her sentencing here, she has previously expressed remorse and all that kind of thing. She doesn't say much during her sentencing hearing, though. She said she learned the during the 10 hour car trip that Brown wanted to talk to his estranged wife alone in violation of a court order. And she said she'd help do it. She said, I was disappointed. I thought it was going to be a nice weekend. It had been a while since anyone had ever treated me. If I ever wanted to do something, I would always have to pay. She said, I thought we were having a nice date weekend. And I was wrong. She said then, yeah, and I'm the one who has to pay. Like, nobody likes me. And I thought he liked me. That's essentially it. Which, I mean, yeah, she's a. When you see her too, she's kind of like a. It's hard to describe her, but she looks like a woman who's kind of sad. Just a person who's not real. Like, she doesn't go out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Hasn't had a lot of positive relationships.

[James Petregallo]

It seems like it, yeah. Then Patricia said, he said he was going to knock him on the head and tie him up for a brief time. I didn't think it was all right, but I guess I was afraid. Then he told me he could do it without hurting them. So he's like, okay. So he told Teeter to go back a second time despite her protest. He said, she. She said, he grabbed me by the arms and looked me in the face and said, you have to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No choice.

[James Petregallo]

No choice. She said, I just thought if I went in and they went out, he could get in and talk to Debbie and it would be done more or less peacefully and nobody would get hurt. The defense attorney said this conduct is very much out of character for her. She's never been in any trouble in her whole life. She's well thought of in her community. And the judge disagrees with all of this and says, quote, there is absolutely no indication that this defendant acted out of fear, coercion or dispute, distress. The judge dismissed a Psychiatric report that said that Teeter was afraid of Brown. He said he believed Teeter's statements to an interviewer were, quote, fabricated in an effort to avoid the likely sentence in this case. So she was just discounting her own participation. He cited evidence that he said pointed to Teeters active participation, including her willingness to tap on the wall of their motel room to warn Stephen Brown of any police in the. In the area.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

So, yep, he's. The judge says that shows, in my view, a fixed determination to pursue it right to the end. You, ma'am, may fuck off. 20 years in state prison, 29 years in federal prison, but to be served concurrently.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

She was eligible for parole in 2024.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoa.

[James Petregallo]

We'll talk about it. Now, Debbie said she was satisfied with the sentence. Yeah, I mean, she said yeah, not ideas. She knows that Debbie's not going to get out of that. Patricia Teeter is not going to get out of prison. And come Hunter, you know what I mean? It's that. So she doesn't really care. She said that Teeter had plenty of opportunity to escape from the motel to call the cops to help out. She ran errands for him all fucking day. She was out and about. She was making phone calls to friends and shit. Debbie said. She told me I should go back to Stephen and not be fearful of him and that he wasn't a bad guy. Now Steven's gonna appeal this sentence. Yeah. This sentence here. He claims he was prejudiced by the lack of fair notice of the charges against him. Did he not think there'd be serious charges against him when he got arrested for murder and kidnapping? That is fucking wild. I think. Anyway, they said, if true, this would seriously affect the fairness, integrity and public reputation of a judicial proceeding. Wow. So notwithstanding his protest, protestations to the contrary, Brown's claim that he lacked fair notice of the charges against him cannot withstand even the mildest scrutiny, the court says. First, though the kidnapping count did not allege the kidnapping resulted in a death. The conspiracy count explicitly charged Brown with killing Wood and Brilliard from the beginning. Then Brown was on notice that he was being charged with conduct that included the deaths of two people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

You think he wasn't going to get charged with that? Second, Brown knew before pleading guilty that he faced the mandatory term of life in prison because two people died during a kidnapping. Before entertaining Brown's guilty plea, the district court instructed the parties to file briefs on the issue of whether the death of any person resulted of kidnapping is an element of the offense or A sentencing factor. The court ruled that the statutory provision at issue was a sentencing factor that informed Brown and informed Brown that if he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charge, he would be sentenced to a mandatory life term in prison. By the statute, that's the federal kidnapping charges. If the death of any. If the death of any person results from. During a kidnapping. Thus Brown was aware of the charges against him and of the corresponding penalties before entering his guilty plea. Keep on keeping on. Enjoy, enjoy. Patricia's gonna go ahead and try it too. Said, fuck it. I'll give it a shot. I'll appeal. I'll throw down. That's. Wow. I can't even believe he tried that. So they said during the change. This is teeters now. During the change of plea colloquy, the district court questioned the appellant concerning her overall understanding of an acquiescence in the terms of the plea agreement, but did not direct her attention to the waiver provision. As we've said, the validity of a waiver of appellate rights depends on whether or not the waiver was knowingly involuntarily taken. This has to do with a lot of times included in a plea deal is a waiver of all appeals. That's part of it. They'll accept a plea deal, give you a lower sentence, but you're not going to clog the courts up with more shit it. Okay, but there's sometimes when there's a waiver. But the. The attorney didn't explain it. The judge wasn't explicit about it. So once in a while that waiver will get thrown aside and you can still appeal anyway. And that's what she's trying to do here. They said that they asked her do you understand that both you and the government will have a right to appeal any sentence I impose? They said this unqualified query to which the prosecutor not the same person who appears as counsel for the government in this court inexplicably failed to take exception. Drew an affirmative response from the appellant. The premise of this question directly contradicted the tenor of the waiver provision. So given the court's failure to make inquiry to the waiver, it's unfortunate contradiction of the waivers terms and the lack of any correction or then or thereafter, we cannot say the. With the requisite assurance that the appellant surrender of her appellant rights was sufficiently informed. They talk about her role in the offense. The court says the facts can be marshaled in a way as to put the appellate in a more sympathetic light. The appellant's able counsel strives valiantly to transform the case into this fashion. He claims the appellant agreed only to spend a romantic weekend holiday away with her boyfriend in Maine, and what happened thereafter was largely out of her control. The judge says. The judges say this spin does not carry the day, however, because the sentencing court was fully entitled to draw a different, more set of inferences from the largely undisputed facts. So they're like, no, that's not how it works. And they tell her that it's affirmed. So take your ass back there now. 2012, Steven Brown is in a facility. They're in federal facilities, by the way they're taken to. So Stephen Brown, she goes to. She's in Danbury for most of her time. Danbury, Connecticut, there. And he's at another facility he is in. No, he's in Jessup, Georgia.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, way far fucking away. He went to Jessup, for Christ's sake.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's no good.

[James Petregallo]

So he's in a facility which houses about 1900 male inmates since about 2009. So 2012 is about three years. And they said that they couldn't release information about, you know, disciplinary issues and suicide attempts and violence or anything like that, but. But on this day in 2012, he does somehow figure out how to hang himself.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You did it.

[James Petregallo]

Good for you, Steven. You finally pulled it off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're finally successful at something. You fucking loser.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking loser. You did it. It took you two tries, but you did it here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Two tries in 35 years. How fucking old is he?

[James Petregallo]

God Damn jackass. He's 50 when he dies here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fuck. First time he's successful. He's 50.

[James Petregallo]

50, trying to hang. And he goes for the same one that he failed on before. That's what bothers me. It's crazy. So. So anyway, Debbie says she's pissed off at this. She says, I do believe he took the easy way out because he didn't want to suffer behind those walls. She said her life still hasn't begun, still is trying to get back to normal. Even though it's been 12 years. She still is 13 years. It's a disaster. She says, the nice thing is I don't have to look over my shoulders anymore. I don't have to live in fear. I can actually go outside and not be afraid to be out after dark.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And she was going to be like that for the rest of her life, even if he didn't do it, because she doesn't know if he's in that joint still.

[James Petregallo]

That's. She always.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, didn't escape. Nobody Found out yet?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's what. That's why she said that. You know, at one point, I'm pissed off at him for whatever, but at the same time, now I know he's dead, I don't have to fucking worry about him anymore. Breaking out and coming and killing me. So in. There's been a couple TV shows on this, including Investigation, Discoveries series, Wicked Attraction called Till Death do Us Part.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn.

[James Petregallo]

How would they not call. How did they. Okay, the show's called Wicked Attraction.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

How did they get. Unless this is the first episode. How do they get to this episode without using Till Death do Us part as a fucking title for a show?

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is the first one.

[James Petregallo]

You think that'd be at least in the top three right away? Well, Till Death do us part, I guess.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll bet every series, 48 hours, Dateline, all that shit, has until death do us part.

[James Petregallo]

They all do everybody. Yeah. Maybe that's what we'll call this one. I don't fucking know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We haven't used that yet.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe. I don't think so. It's kind of hacky, so I wouldn't use it. Probably that's the. Come up with something weird or a reference to the show or, you know, something like that, or just something that's, like, eye catching. But Till Death do Us Part just sounds boring. So. 2024, Patricia Teeter and her teeters are up for parole from Danbury at this point, and she is released from federal prison. Wow. On November 11, 2024.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

She is on the streets.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Telling her the teats is on the streets. We got teats on the streets, people watch out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Real dumb ones.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They said one of the provisions should be, you're not allowed to date anybody ever. You're too gullible to date. We're sorry.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're too dumb. You'll do whatever the. They deleted.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. Now, the property, 61 Lower Middle Road in Lebanon, Maine, at this point, there is nothing on it. The picture of it is just woods. The house is gone. Trailers. If the tr. If there is a trailer, it's back there. And it's not even listed as a home. It's listed as a. A dash, bedroom. Dash, bedroom, bathroom, dash. Square footage. It's just land. Yep, that's it. So. And they don't even have a zestimate on it. It's just sitting there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We don't know. Because it hasn't been sold in a long time.

[James Petregallo]

No, it's been a. It's off the market. It's probably been in the same family for 50 years. They don't know what the hell it's worth. So there you go, everybody. That is Lebanon, Maine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Petregallo]

That's quite the fucking harrowing tale, I would say. That's wild. You're not going to get that all the time from different shows. That's some small town murder shit right there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Teeters don't stay in Connecticut, right? She can't afford Connecticut.

[James Petregallo]

No, she's probably back in Newfield. I would imagine that's where she lived. Or back in somewhere in central New York there, who knows? But watch out for the teats, people. Check that out. They're out there. So definitely, if you like this show, please let the world know about it. Get on whatever app you're listening on, give us five stars. It helps a ton. Say something nice about us. It takes two seconds and we can imagine how long it takes to put a story like this together. So help us out. Hook us up there. Do that also. Shut upandgivemerder.com tickets for live shows. February 7th, Pittsburgh, you are up first, my friends. Next night is sold out in Columbus. So if you're in the Ohio Valley, you want to see us this year. Pittsburgh, February 7, get in there right now. And if you want tickets to a lot of these shows, they're almost sold out. A lot of them. Yeah, it's Madison just about sold out. Portland may be sold out at this point, actually. Seattle getting close. We got D.C. and Philly getting close. Chicago getting close.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Grand Rapids very close.

[James Petregallo]

Grand Rapids, very close to us. That might be sold out too. It's close. If it's not. So get your tickets right now if you want to come see the show this year, I'm telling you right now, get in there and get those damn tickets. St. Louis too, that sells really fast. So if you want to see us there, get in there. Shutupandgivemerder.com Also, tons of merch on the site. All the phrases you love to tell people. You want to tell people. You, sir, may fuck off on a shirt. We got you covered. You could put it on your shower curse. We don't give a fuck it's sold. You can coffee mugs, anything you want. So get in there. Do that. Certainly also follow on social media. We are at Smalltown Murder on Instagram, at Smalltown Pot on Facebook. Definitely get Patreon. Holy shit. Listen to crime and sports. Listen to your stupid opinions and get Patreon. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all of the bonus episodes. Anybody $5 a month or above, you immediately get hundreds of bonus episodes right to your phone or whatever you're listening on. As soon as you subscribe that are you haven't heard bonus stuff. And then you get new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murdering. God damn it. You get it all. That's right. This week, what you're going to get, we're going to talk about Kobe Bryant's swept under the rug rape case there and see what happened with that. We have. I mean I don't why it wasn't there, I don't know. But we have police interrogations, we have depositions from everybody and then everybody comes and see what they think. I don't know. Then for small town murder we are gonna do an Internet salad episode, which is when we kind of give you a sneak peek behind the curtain and show you what we do before we record, which is sit around, look shit up, see what people are doing today and make fun of it. And that's what we're gonna do. All sorts of anything from the Internet except politics. This is gonna be light and easy and neither of us are gonna get into a rage. It's just gonna be a lot of fun. Can't wait to do that. It was great last time and we're jacked for it. People wanted it back so we said okay, let's fucking do it. That'll be fun. That is patreon.com CrimeAndSports oh, one more thing. You get a shout out too if you do that. And when did we do those shout outs? Say right fuckin now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never kill two members of my family and then kidnap us in a hotel room and make us do horrible things. Hit me with them right fucking now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This week's gangster producers are. Jordan Bennett. Happy birthday. Birthday Jordan.

[James Petregallo]

Happy birthday Jordan Bennett.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They are moving back to England. That's bananas.

[James Petregallo]

I heard that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Canadians. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Good luck with that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Robin Hanniberry. Happy birthday as well. Zach Bowles in Philly and Ashton Wilcox. Thank you all so much for what you're doing.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn. Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, the land of voodoo hoodoo and all kind of weird. What is that from cool?

[James Petregallo]

That is now I can't even remember.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I forget what that's wrong.

[James Petregallo]

All kind of weird. Yeah, I can.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Voodoo, hoodoo and all kind of weird.

[James Petregallo]

Sounds like maybe a baseball player baseball movie.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it sounds like a hillbilly something. Oh, is it the the guy that hates Toronto.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. That's what I was thinking at first, but maybe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know. Buttered toast. Legion President Jonathan Phipps said hello.

[James Petregallo]

James. Well, hello there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The buttered toast people are gonna get mad. Happy hour checking in in Memphis. This like an autistic child. IG page. I don't know what that is. Okay. Don't like them too much signing on it. Janice Hill. Amanda Potter. Oh, what is this? Tavi. Octavio. Escamillo Hotel or Octavio, I don't know which that is.

[James Petregallo]

Octavia.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not so old. Martha. What is this? Pierrick. Is that real? Pierrick? Is that a name?

[James Petregallo]

Someone couldn't decide whether they wanted to be French or an American kid born in the 80s. They couldn't decide.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nestoragan Kern with no last name. Kali Gianidos.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Gianitis.

[James Petregallo]

Something Greek. Let's just say that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Gareth Schneider. Crystal H. Stephen Mancuzzo. Anon O. Mus. You know what I mean. Alice Francis. Seth tarcelli. Ally Watts. J.C. the letters JNC. Megan Skeel. Maybe it's Megan. Lisa Press. J and D. The letters J and D. Sam Low. Ron. Rona. Kev. That is a first name or a last name. Ronnie Cave. All right. Patrick Dobbins. Jason B. Haley. Cruiser. Alexandra. Alexandra Marie Turket. Turley. Turled. That's Russian. All right. Charlotte Gervais. Caleb with no last name. Josie Zavala. Jennifer Stark. Stephen C. Kristen Taylor. Paul John. Hannah Barron. Kicha Kitcha Halloran. Uh, Meredith Hahn. Big Al. Fitty cow. Uh, Chris. Chris. Chris Hayward. Uh, Amber with no last name.

[James Petregallo]

Eureka.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jan Valdez. Ellis Valdez. Ellis A. Saleet J. Farm junkie. Nice lady. Ben Harden. Amy A. Ruby with no last name. Ken with no last name.

[James Petregallo]

Berber.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Searsima Terry. Martin Miller. Jason Welcher. Todd with no last name. Jason Willis Wilson. God damn it. Michelle Thomas. Chris Moser. Chastity. Chastity. No, that's only one.

[James Petregallo]

Tasty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No. Chastity Smith. Or maybe. Maybe it is Cassidy with an H in there for no reason at all.

[James Petregallo]

So we don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jen King. Nicole Cochran. Hannah Johnson. Melissa A. Tyler with no last name. Jennifer Piankowski. Jason Constant. Kim Bayer. Ian Arseno. Cassie with no last name. Mick Jagger. Probably not. Stephanie Whitten. If it is, he should have sent me more than $5.

[James Petregallo]

You. He gets bored on the road, you know, he needs more episodes. He's got kids, Jimmy. Small children. He's got small children now. He's, like 90 years old.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, brand new one.

[James Petregallo]

He just had to save that money.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stephanie Whitten, Rachel Santana. Jan Summer. Jen. Oh, it's yawn. Jan Summer.

[James Petregallo]

Stevie.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stevie Mack Ryan Sparks Steven. Nope. Steve Peterson, Matthew Anderson, Jill Womack, Tilma Tima. Tima Wilson, Ronald Morton, Jade O'Hare. Karen Sprouse, Wendell Helm Jr. Pete Pedacone Pedicone Carlo Ferroni. Ferroni Delane Delaney, Delane Allison Shady 307A 30320 driver Amy Annie. Annie Bailey. The Wolves. That's the Wolves. You guys, you can't do it enough. That's against English tradition. Moxie Goodwich, Jenny Michalski. Michalowski Elizabeth Cp Robert Lorenzoni, Megan Good Heather Holy Shunan.

[James Petregallo]

Heather Holy Shuna.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Taller.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whiskey smoker. Michelle Bozen James likes big nuts. I'll bet she doesn't. How about that? Somebody probably just remember there was probably a sentence that you said that you said you like big nuts. Had to be. Why else would somebody want me to say that to you? Jenny Bates, Claire Calder, Kurt Burkhart. Burkhart Truck Butters Adam Stockton Fake Faith Powers, Stephanie Riley, Brittany Hall, Alicia Douglas, David Adams Egan with no last name Melissa Burrows, Heath Peters, Maris and Carmichael Mikey Mindy. Mindy Burr, Jess Bearup, Jamie McGinnis. This is getting tough. Matthew Ford, Carolyn Green C Match Jerry Gary maybe Tulio Sandy with no last name Kayla with no last name Katie Roach, Shannon Martin Cass at Bod Guerrera Mill Bodgara Beverly Rose on Katie Chandley, Kate Iten, Maddie Reuter Candy Nybert Rose Logan Surgeon Charlie Boland, Kelly Sullivan, Erica Copeland, Cheyenne with no last name Victoria Summer Samar, Michelle with no last name Tabitha Daley, Matthew Boyer, Dawn Ann Brett in Florida and all of our patrons. You guys are the best. Thank you.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you so much everybody. You wonderful, fantastic bastards. We cannot thank you enough for what you do for us on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. Thank you for everything and tell your friends. Keep hanging out with us. You want to follow us on social media? Shut up. Drop down menu. Take you everywhere you want to go. That said, 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. In the 1980s a swept the country. Hey Mike, I really like this white zinfandel. Well, good, good. Now put it down. I'm gonna try another one. White Zin became America's top selling wine. But most don't know that this sweet drink has a sour history. What began in 1986 with counterfeit bottles, a big fraud, a multi million dollar fraud sent investigators chasing one of the most powerful families in the business, the Licciardis. But the closer the Feds got to them, the more dangerous things became. It's a story of deceit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

At the time, I was paranoid.

[James Petregallo]

Threats, you touch my kids, I will kill you. And murder with a.22 caliber bullet to the head. What started with a scheme to mislabel wine spilled into a blood soaked battle for succession. Welcome to Bloodvines. You can binge listen to Blood Vines exclusively and ad free on Wondery plus. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify.