#583 - Charming Serial Killer - Kirkland, Washington

Summary

Summary of Small Town Murder Podcast Episode #583: "Charming Serial Killer - Kirkland, Washington"

Release Date: April 3, 2025
Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman

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1. Introduction

In Episode #583 of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman delve into the unsettling case of George Russell Jr., a serial killer from Kirkland, Washington. Combining in-depth research with their signature comedic touch, the hosts explore how Russell's intricate crimes went unnoticed in an affluent suburb.

2. Setting the Stage: Kirkland, Washington

James [08:46]: "Kirkland is a beautiful small city on the east side of Lake Washington."

Kirkland, a suburban area approximately 20 minutes from Seattle, is characterized by its high median household income, expensive real estate, and low crime rates. The town's affluence creates an environment where significant crimes can remain hidden beneath a veneer of prosperity.

3. The Early Life of George Russell Jr.

James [35:04]: "George's family wasn't doing very well, and his mother, Joyce, decided to leave when he was just six months old, leaving him with his grandmother."

Born in April 1958, George Russell Jr. experienced a tumultuous childhood marked by abandonment and a strained relationship with his stepfather, Dr. Wonsel Mobley. Despite his high IQ and engaging personality, George struggled academically and socially, often feeling like an outsider in his wealthy community.

4. Descent into Criminal Behavior

Jimmie [48:19]: "George was obsessed with the cops and loved to be involved with them."

George's interactions with law enforcement began early through a truancy program. Rather than deter him, this relationship fueled his fascination with authority figures and crime. His minor offenses escalated over time, including shoplifting, drug possession, and theft, as he began to manipulate and intimidate those around him.

5. Escalation to Serial Crimes

James [81:19]: "He was a major criminal of minor crimes, but his actions hinted at something far more sinister."

By the mid-1980s, Russell's criminal activities had intensified, shifting from petty theft to more violent and invasive crimes. His modus operandi involved stealthily entering victims' homes, often while posing as a trustworthy individual, and committing brutal assaults that left no obvious signs initially.

6. The Murders: Marianne Polreich and Carol Marie Beath

James [28:02]: "Marianne was found posed with a Frito Lay dip lid over her eye—a bizarre and deliberate act." ([28:02])

Marianne Polreich, 27, was discovered dead in the parking lot of a McDonald's and Black Angus restaurant in Kirkland. Her body was unnaturally posed, suggesting Russell's intent to send a message beyond mere murder. Similarly, Carol Marie Beath, a 35-year-old bartender, was found mutilated in her home, with signs of extreme violence and post-mortem torture.

7. Investigation and Unraveling the Truth

James [115:30]: "The prosecution's case hinged on circumstantial evidence and behavioral analysis." ([115:30])

The investigation into the murders revealed unsettling patterns in Russell's behavior. Expert testimonies from Dr. Robert Keppel highlighted similarities in the victims' treatment, suggesting a single perpetrator driven by deep-seated rage and a desire to degrade his victims. Forensic evidence, including DNA fragments and possession of type-specific antigens, began to link Russell to the crimes.

8. The Trial and Conviction

James [175:43]: "The jury, convinced by the mounting evidence, found Russell guilty of all three murders." ([175:43])

Despite attempts by the defense to challenge the admissibility of certain evidence, including Russell's statements and the use of forensic tests, the jury concluded that the evidence was compelling enough to convict him. Russell received two life sentences without the possibility of parole, effectively ending his reign of terror in Kirkland.

9. Conclusion and Reflections

James [181:44]: "Wrongful accusations and mistaken identities highlight the complexities of true crime investigations." ([181:44])

The episode concludes by reflecting on the intricate nature of Russell's crimes and the community's struggle to reconcile the image of a charming individual with that of a ruthless killer. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding the motives and methods of such criminals to prevent future tragedies.

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Notable Quotes:

• James Pietragallo [08:46]: "Kirkland is a beautiful small city on the east side of Lake Washington."

• James Pietragallo [35:04]: "George's family wasn't doing very well, and his mother, Joyce, decided to leave when he was just six months old, leaving him with his grandmother."

• Jimmie Whisman [48:19]: "George was obsessed with the cops and loved to be involved with them."

• James Pietragallo [81:19]: "He was a major criminal of minor crimes, but his actions hinted at something far more sinister."

• James Pietragallo [28:02]: "Marianne was found posed with a Frito Lay dip lid over her eye—a bizarre and deliberate act."

• James Pietragallo [115:30]: "The prosecution's case hinged on circumstantial evidence and behavioral analysis."

• James Pietragallo [175:43]: "The jury, convinced by the mounting evidence, found Russell guilty of all three murders."

• James Pietragallo [181:44]: "Wrongful accusations and mistaken identities highlight the complexities of true crime investigations."

Final Thoughts

Episode #583 of Small Town Murder offers a chilling exploration of George Russell Jr.'s descent into serial killing within the affluent backdrop of Kirkland, Washington. Through meticulous research and engaging storytelling, the hosts shed light on how charm and intelligence can mask deep-seated malice, serving as a sobering reminder of the hidden dangers that can lurk beneath seemingly perfect exteriors.

Transcript

[James Petrigallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

That is nice to be able to pop something down on the floor for him that looks like something that you'd put over rice or whatever and eat it yourself.

[James Petrigallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

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[James Petrigallo]

You know the actor. Well, now I'm an actor and podcast host. From Piece of Work Entertainment and Campside Media in association with Olive Productions comes Big Time, an Apple original podcast. Each episode follows the story of one misfit with big dreams. Who isn't afraid to bend a few.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rules or take a shortcut to get there?

[James Petrigallo]

Well, who steals bees? I was duped.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I shoot you in the leg.

[James Petrigallo]

This is big time. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts this week in Kirkland, Washington. What seems like one horrifying but simple murder quickly turns into a serial killer stalking the area and escalating his horrible acts to a Ted Bundy level of brutality. 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 Petrigallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Petrigallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane, brutal and awful and hilarious episode of Small Town Murder. We have a crazy episode for you today. Another serial killer in our midst and really strange one too. Just an odd guy and lucky he was caught when he did, put it that way. We'll get into all of that and more. But first, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com get your tickets not only for regular live shows which in May we're in Chicago at the Riviera. Get your tickets right now. St. Louis is sold out in May. Also the virtual live show April 19th. It's the 4:20 virtual live show takes place Saturday, April 19th and you can buy it, watch it, do whatever you want with it for two weeks after that. So you can watch it over and over, do anything you want anywhere in the world with Internet. You can watch this just like a regular live show except you're wherever the hell you want to be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wherever that is.

[James Petrigallo]

We're going to have the screen, the pictures, the costumes. I'm going to force Jimmy to smoke at a crazy contraptions. Going to be a wild time. Can't wait for that. And like I said, get your tickets also for the rest of the year because they are going fast and a lot of the dates are sold out like after the summer. So get those right now. Shut up and give me murder.com. also listen to our other two shows which are crime in sports, which if you haven't heard, if you haven't listened to, you don't have to like sports. Especially what we're doing now, it's like a 10 parter on Evel Knievel. So you don't need to like sports. You just need to like crazy people who do insane things and want to hear us make fun of them. So definitely check that out. And also your stupid opinions which is absolutely Hilarious. Where we go over one star reviews and things like that from all over the Internet. And then if that's not enough, you need Patreon.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There you go.

[James Petrigallo]

Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above. You're gonna get tons of stuff. First of all, you're gonna get hundreds of episodes that you've never heard before immediately upon subscription of bonus stuff. And then you get new stuff every other week. One crime in sports, one Small town murder. You get it all. This week we're going to talk about for crime and sports, some cheating scandals and things like. That one really is the highlight though. The Spanish Paralympic team, who had no actual disabled members. Bad news there, good news. They did win the gold. So I mean, that's pretty impressive. Good job, guys. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about American Nightmare. It's a documentary on Netflix and I read the whole book that goes with it. Too long book. And it's the craziest story I've ever heard in my life. Honestly, it's insane. Edge of your seat. You think it's a Sherry Papini fake kidnapping situation. Then you don't and then you do again. It's the craziest thing you ever want to hear.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You've ever been in.

[James Petrigallo]

It's so wild, man. We'll get into all that. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the regular show as well. That said, disclaimer time is a comedy show, everybody. We are comedians now. That doesn't mean anything in this show is not real. Every last little detail is real. Nothing's embellished for comic effect or any garbage like that. This is meticulously researched stuff and we're gonna find places for some humor now. Oh, for sure, Michael. How does that happen? Very easily. There's a lot of dumb things to make fun of in this. Here's what we don't do though. We don't make fun of the victims or the victims families because we're assholes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But.

[James Petrigallo]

But we're not scumbags. See how that goes? That's how it works. But otherwise there's plenty to make fun of. First of all, someone go, I can get away with murder. This seems pretty easy when you have no experience doing that. Probably a bad idea. That right there is going to get made fun of and a whole lot of other things like that. But if you think that true crime and comedy should never ever Go together then maybe we're not for you, but maybe we are. You should check it out. I think we're for everybody. We're for the children, damn it. Small town murders for the children. No, it's not. It's one thing it's not for is the children, but to protect the children. It's to protect the children. Yeah, there you go. But for the rest of you though, that want to hear a crazy story and want to hear some wild. I think it's time to sit back, clear the lungs here and let's all shout. Shut up. Give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. We are going all the way to Washington state this week, heading out to the west coast. We're going to Kirkland, Washington, which is a little bigger town than we usually cover, but still a burb, you know what I mean? It's a suburb, so. Well, we'll talk about that. Actually, it's, it's in. Yeah, I was going to say, I was wondering if you're going to bring that up or not is one thing. I was like, he'll probably bring up the Walmart brand or not. Walmart, Costco. Costco. Costco is Kirkland. Yeah, no, we'll talk about it. This is in western Washington and it's about 20 minutes to Seattle. So suburb outside of Seattle. About an hour and 40 minutes to Everson, Washington, which was our last episode there. It was an express episode called Ghost Hunter where a woman said that she thought her boyfriend was a ghost so she shot him. Which is, you know, likely excuse obviously because I shoot at ghosts when I see them. That's what I would do right away. This is in King county. Area code 425. The motto here. They're really sucking on Seattle's teat here. The gateway to Seattle. So sure come through here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now there's gotta be a door there somewhere.

[James Petrigallo]

Has to be history, a little bit of history. In 1886, a guy named Peter Kirk, where the Kirkland came from, was a British born businessman who wanted to expand his company's or his family's steel production company and wanted to go to Washington and do that because he heard iron deposits had been discovered in the Cascade Mountains. So under this Kirkland land and development company, he purchased thousands of acres of land in what's now downtown Kirkland. But this was in 1888 when it was just nothing. So they started the construction of a new steel mill and they, he was saying, telling everyone that this was going to be the, quote, Pittsburgh of the West. Yeah, yeah. Didn't quite happen. And the company ended up amounting to nothing. And another steel company opened up and took all what they want. Totally over. But he did get the town named after him, so there is that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's helpful.

[James Petrigallo]

Now, Costco previously had its headquarters in Kirkland. Oh, headquarters are in a different place. But they kept the namesake of the Kirkland Signature Store brand. That's because that's where they were based out of. That's the only reason why.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, well, you got to keep the name because otherwise people won't know that.

[James Petrigallo]

What the hell is that? Yeah, Walmart's got great value stuff. Kirkland. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is it great value?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, great value. We've done several on your stupid opinions, like the Great Value Pizza.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, right, right, right.

[James Petrigallo]

So, reviews of this town. We've never been there. What' Find out what the people think. Here's five stars. And there's a lot of good reviews of this town, too. There's tons of good ones.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're not a Costco shopper, are you?

[James Petrigallo]

No, I'm not. I don't have seven kids. What the fuck do I need? Why would I need to buy things in that volume? I don't need. No, I don't need three cases of chicken nuggets. I just don't need that to come in one box. It's crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A pallet of cheese puffs.

[James Petrigallo]

It's a. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pallet of kegs of cheese puffs. It's crazy the amount that they sell people.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, I don't want. I don't want a, you know, like a dresser full of Raisin Bran. That's too much Raisin Bran for me. I can't eat all that. So it's going to be bad stuff here. So let's get to reviews here. Five stars. Kirkland is a beautiful small city on the east Lake of. Or east side of Lake Washington. Downtown Kirkland is a lively seaside area often populated by swift walking locals and their adorable dogs. Oh, well, even the dogs are cuter in Kirkland. That's nice. With summers, there's a weekly farmers market that brings new trinkets and delicious food options to the area. So my personal experience in Kirkland has been nothing short of wonderful. Wow. This is crazy. All right, here's five stars. I've lived in Kirkland ever since I was born in 1997 of May. That's how he writes it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know, 97 of May.

[James Petrigallo]

Of May. I've grown to love the beautiful atmosphere of nature and friendly neighbors. The local food is amazing and the parks are always clean. It's a quiet place to raise a family, but not great if you like to go out to clubs as most suburbs aren't real big on nightlife. The rent is incredibly inflated as well. This is a very expensive area by the way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. This is like a. An upscale suburb of an expensive city. Seattle's already an expensive city.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And the burbs are expensive too. Here's three stars. Properties on the water are expensive, but very nice. Mostly apartment housing. Very few abandoned properties. Yeah. Places where there's high real estate values. You're not going to get a lot of abandoned, not a lot of boarded up houses. Someone's going to get in there and sell it. Then two stars. Street lights are not great for nighttime driving. That's it. That's the whole.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the only thing they're good for.

[James Petrigallo]

Whole review of the town is that. That's like saying that this Taco Bell isn't good for 2am drunk eating. What else is it there for?

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's its job. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So people. This town population is 91,656. That's now when this all happened. There was less people there. The exactly 50, 50 male and female here which we never see for some reason. Median age is like exactly the national average to 37.8. Like exactly what it is. Family here 55% married. Way less people are have children and are single. Everybody's like married with children. Expensive suburb, that kind of thing. Race of this town, 72.6% white, 1.1% black, 14% Asian and 7% Hispanic. So spread around there religious. It's about 38% religious. And the highest group here is going to be Catholics with 15.5% which isn't that high. Yeah. As we know the Catholics are the Baptists of the Pacific Northwest. Obviously we all know that Willamette Valley of the entire the Cascade Mountain region. So the unemployment rate here is about the national average. It's pretty low. And median household income here is very high. It is. National average is $69,021. Here it is 121,998.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Almost double that.

[James Petrigallo]

Is a healthy income they got going on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're doing fantastic.

[James Petrigallo]

The problem is the cost of living is equally as high. That's the issue here. 100 is regular in the United States for cost of living. Here it is 158. So yeah, high and a half.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's expensive.

[James Petrigallo]

The housing is the high one. That's the big one. Here the housing is a 329 out of 100. So the median home cost here, $1,055,900. Median. Median. That is rough, man. That's what I mean. This is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Your average house is a million dollars. That's your pricing out the riffraff, I guess.

[James Petrigallo]

I guess so. And wait till we tell you about these houses. I mean, these start.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

With our matter of fact. Let's get to it right now with the Kirkland Washington real estate report. The average two bedroom rental here goes for $2,680, which is almost like Manhattan prices. That's a lot. That's crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's over twice what the average.

[James Petrigallo]

Wow. Yeah. That's insane. Here is a six bedroom, three bath. Sounds like they made a couple of big bedrooms and two smaller bedrooms type of thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Somebody had some extra kids and just added some bedrooms.

[James Petrigallo]

That's possible here out in the hallway. Line up out in the hallway. As long as there's a master bath. We don't care what you do out there. You kids do. 3,059 square feet. It just looks like a basic house. It's like a. Like a raised ranch looking house. It's not like anything spectacular, nothing wonderful. You can't even really tell what the inside looks like because it's all photoshopped to like be staged basically. So that's weird. It is $1,775,000.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bottom rung. Home.

[James Petrigallo]

No, no land either. This is on a lot, like a little lot of a house. I mean there's no like, you know, acre of woods or something. None of that shit. Next up, four bedroom, four bath, Tea hull. T bowl. T bowl. T hole. Tea bowl for each and every 3,520 square feet. This is on 0.32 acres, so third of an acre. It is like a. It's a fancy log cabin, you know, got nice windows and it's 3,000 square.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Feet of this fucking.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. A rich person's log cabin is what it is. A rich person pretending to be a woodsman over here. Yeah. Yeah, you're a real Abe Lincoln. Look at you over there. $2,800,000 for this. It's fucking crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, no land you got.

[James Petrigallo]

I don't even know what to do here. Next up, three bedroom, five bath. So t bowl for everybody's b hull. 3,990 square feet. That's almost 4,000 on 0.69 acres. This is on the water. Okay. Another kind of acres. 0.69. Not a lot. It's on Lake Washington. It says spectacular Kirkland, Gold coast waterfront on coveted Lake Ave West. It's a. It looks like a. Like a small. Like a hunting lodge. That's fancy. Like a fancy lodge. $12,950,000. $13,000,000 your ass. $13,000,000. You got to be out of your fucking mind. That's crazy things to do here. Let's do this Kirkland uncorked. Let's get into it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wine time. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Where wine meets street fair. Fun. Fuck yeah. We're drinking in the streets. Happens. That's what that is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's fascinating that Costco uses Kirkland as. Like this as their brand. And it's like, you know, it's store brand so it's like the lower rung. But they are treating Kirkland like it's Covid.

[James Petrigallo]

$13 million for a house there. It's expensive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You tell me Kirkland wine in the street. I'm like, I know the people that are going there.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. No, you would think so. But no, it's great. It's what's wild about it. Yeah. You would imagine it would be like this is not, you know, it'd be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Guys in like cut off sweatpants with.

[James Petrigallo]

Six kids traveling behind them just standing in the TV section while they're. While their wife shops for fucking clothes that are for some reason in the middle of the store next to dry goods.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know why Calvin Klein's that wouldn't sell elsewhere. And she's dragging that fucking cart. That wagon, that foldable wagon they had.

[James Petrigallo]

They have Adidas sweatsuits. Do you want. Should I go?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do you want just the pants or do you want the matching set?

[James Petrigallo]

It's only $38 for both. Costco's fine. I mean I've gone there in Arizona.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's like a weird number too.

[James Petrigallo]

In Arizona. We went there at some point. I have a problem with Costco because of the receipt checking thing that I've ranted and raved about the whole time. So they can go fuck their mothers all together. So this festival is split into two parts. A 21 plus tasting garden and an all ages street fair. All ages. So you can wander out drunk from the garden into where the kids are. The tasting garden. This seems like where the fun is. Features wine tasting, live music and a Saturday food truck feast. The street fair features artisan booths and crafts. So nothing. Just walking around ticking off. A band called the Chancellors. Will be there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that's good.

[James Petrigallo]

That sounds okay. And then soon as they wrap up, they clean up all their instruments, get the drum set off the stage, and then there's a dog model contest, which is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yes.

[James Petrigallo]

Which is awesome. I'll stay away. Yeah, I'm gonna stay away. I don't want them to just, you know, I don't want Oscar to make them all feel bad. So kiss my ass.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bunch of male dogs walking around with their dicks out.

[James Petrigallo]

With the dicks out. Balls clipped.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whores are just dropped.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, look at them. These bitches are everywhere. So there's also a Harvest festival and says save the date for Kirkland's fourth annual Harvest Festival. And it takes place at a beach. It features food trucks. We got live music by Roman R O E M E N RO Men. And yeah, they're really in favor of Roe versus Wade. They're just. They're really. The Roman. Yeah. And the Whereabouts. The Roman and the Whereabouts, That's a band and also a band called 24 Madison. All right. That's where we'll be practicing if you need to find us later. And activities for children at the kids Corral with two K's. It's a kid and then corral with a K. Luckily it's not like the, you know, could have been a lot with the Kirkland Kids Corral. Could have gotten real ugly real fast. So I'm glad there. There's also a cornhole tournament, of course.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petrigallo]

Register your team at. You go to KirklandParks.net and you search cornhole. It says just pop cornhole in your query. Search there and see what happens.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everybody throw cornhole in your search engine.

[James Petrigallo]

I love that so much.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do it with your pants off. You're going to need it.

[James Petrigallo]

You are going to need it for sure. Holy shit. Crime rate in this town. We're interested in here, property crime. Now, this is a very expensive area. So I would. Yeah, I would assume zero.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It should be low, but that's kind of where the riff raff goes to steal shit too.

[James Petrigallo]

But like, I would. I would assume in like a neighborhood like that. Like, remember when we went to. We went to do some shit in LA and we went and found OJ's house. We were driving around Brentwood at some. Every turn we made, you just expected three cops to pull up on us and tell us to get the fuck out of there because we're scumbags and don't belong here. Right. That's what I picture. This area would be like. Hey, Scum you don't belong here. You're not wealthy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Get out of here in a 2012 Honda Civic that screeches when you shift gears.

[James Petrigallo]

This is in your Jeep. This is in your Jeep.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Was it in my Jeep?

[James Petrigallo]

It was in your Jeep. Which kind of made us look worse. It made us look like somehow it made us look worse. I don't know how that was after you upgraded to the gc.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's right.

[James Petrigallo]

But yeah, just about average on property crime, so that's odd. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime, that's low. So that is one third of the national average. So two thirds under it. Very, very low there. That said, let's talk about some horrible murder, shall we? All right, we're going to jump right in and jump in hot here. Let's go to June 23, 1990, and let's meet Jimmy. Let's meet Jimmy. Not neither of us Jimmy. He's a Mickey D's employee who's at work at 5:00 in the morning, so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God, the poor bastard.

[James Petrigallo]

Jimmy's not having a great run in life here at this point in time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Early for this shit.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, man. Imagine getting up at 4 to make the fries like that sounds fries.

[Jimmy Whisman]

James, you're making hash browns and shitty eggs.

[James Petrigallo]

Bad eggs. So here's Jimmy. Here he is, he's coming out, he's got a heavy. You know, it's going out to the dumpster, taking out, I guess last night's trash or whatever, which. God, fucking overnight McDonald's trash. This guy's. You know, it's leaking everywhere.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, nasty. Dumpsters smell so bad.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, they're so disgusting. They're so disgusting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Nothing smells worse for some reason than a Chinese food place. Dumpster.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. I worked downtown in Phoenix and there was a dumpster that was for this Chinese place. And it was. It's the most. This is an alley full of dumpsters. And this one stood out as particularly rank.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I used to have to take the trash out at the pizza joint. And that yeast and milk.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, that'll do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Too bad. Shit soaking in there forever. And then people just throw the bag into the back room. And then once a day somebody has to go back there to take the, you know, throwing like 13 bags of giant amounts of trash that are leaking. It's so gross.

[James Petrigallo]

We could have. That's the thing here. I'm picturing lots of like, Diet Coke and orange high C leaking out of this fucking thing. It's gonna be Nasty sour juice. So he gets over the. Gets to the back door and he is, gets out of the back door. He's got like a gurney thing that he's taking it out on like multiple garbage things. And he's heading out toward the dumpster, which those dumpsters are kind of in the middle of the parking lot because they share a little dumpster bay with the Black Angus restaurant that's also right there. So that's what's going on here. So he's walking and it's very early in the morning and doesn't really. Can't really see very much going on. And he does see something kind of laying in the, in the parking lot between him and the dumpster. So he sees that. He's like, what's that? It looked like, looked like a long white and long and twisted like a tree branch is the way he thought it looked like. So he was like, what the hell is that there? Not a lot of white tree branches unless it's like kind of birch tree or something. So they were like, what is this? They didn't know if it was like he said, didn't know if it was something from like that fell out of Black Angus's trash cans or it's like, I don't know what Black Angus does over there. I don't know what the hell kind of shit they throw out. So it's very odd. So he's looking, he's like, what the fuck? He stops for a minute and then he thought, oh no, is this some kind of animal or some shit? I don't want to get close to it. If it's a wounded animal, it's going to bite me. My life sucks already. I'm taking McDonald's garbage out at 5:00 in the morning. I don't need to get bitten by a rabid raccoon now too on the way to do it. So he goes a little bit closer and he thinks it's a mannequin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They always say that. God damn it.

[James Petrigallo]

It's like a mannequin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's never been a mannequin ever.

[James Petrigallo]

In one of our Facebook groups there, I noticed somebo put. I know, I hear that it's never a mannequin, but. And then posted a picture and put, I was walking one day, it actually was a mannequin. She had a whole story about how she was walking. Thought it was. Assumed it was a dead body because she listens to this show, right? And it was a mannequin. So that's pretty fun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Saw it and walked closer.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Because he was like, what is it? He's got to go to the dumpster. It's McDonald's, man. Yeah, you want that? You want that? Big payday. You got to go to the dumpster.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Saw a mannequin. Yeah, I thought it was a mannequin. Then you're like, well, it's never a mannequin. I'm gonna go look.

[James Petrigallo]

I'm gonna investigate closer and then look closer. And that's one of the other things we said is keep walking. You think you see a mannequin? You didn't.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'd call 911 and say, it's never a mannequin. Don't get it.

[James Petrigallo]

Just. I don't know. It could be a mannequin. But he's like. He's looking, and he goes, it just. It looks real. It just looks really, really real. And like, you know, no clothes on. This mannequin just looks like it's laying there. Then it's got to be a person. It can't be a mannequin. He's like, you know, processing all this and going, what the fuck is it? Some kind of. Some drunk over here. Felt like a homeless person fell down. What's going on? But the way this form was twisted.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Unnatural.

[James Petrigallo]

Was very unnatural. So he looked closer and then said, took off, ran back in the McDonald's. And so he. Later on, a police officer would say he sees something really strange, and it's the body of a woman. And so he rushed in, called 911. Police arrive at the scene, and they find a young woman dead. And they're looking at her. She's got no visible gunshot wounds or stab wounds or anything like that. So that's interesting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's a naked dead lady.

[James Petrigallo]

Naked dead lady in the McDonald's Black Angus parking lot there. And the odd thing is, her body has been posed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Twisted up like that.

[James Petrigallo]

Clearly posed. This is not an accidental. An accidental deal here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just a dumping. And the body rested like that. They put it like that.

[James Petrigallo]

They put absolutely. She was found partially inside the dumpster corral area. You know, those dumpsters with a little gate that opens up in the parking lot there. And it's definitely posed this the way they say it is. The she's nude, wearing nothing but small articles of jewelry, and bent into shapes that are, you know, human. Doesn't bend into. The cops said it looked like complete degradation is what it looked like somebody was trying to do. This is from Dr. Robert Keppel, who is John Douglas's partner in the profile and all that. Yeah. Wrote a million books and all that kind of thing. From the FBI. Yeah. He says the victim was left lying on her back with her left foot crossed over the instep of her right ankle. Her head was turned to the left. And a Frito Lay dip container, you know, those little fucking cans basically rested on top of her right eye. Weird. Real weird. And in one hand they find a Douglas fir pine cone. She's holding a pine cone. So there's a Frito layer dip can on her eye and a pine cone in her hand. And there's no. Like, this isn't like a big pine trees above and they fall over. There's no other pine cones around, so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the shit?

[James Petrigallo]

That's very interesting. That's what I'm saying. She's wearing two pieces of jewelry, arms are folded over her stomach, legs extended, crossed at the ankles, and had a pine cone in her hand like we said. A detective said somebody had taken quite some time staging the body. I had noticed there was a large size coffee cup lid covering her right eye, which it's not. It's a Frito Lay dip lid. That's what it is. One foot was crossed over the other. Her hands were folded over her stomach, and they were holding a pine cone. The post mortem injuries and spending a lot of time with the body, really isn't that common? It's not. It's really. Yeah. Especially in a public place like this. Because you. It's one thing to pose someone in a private place. It's another thing to kill someone and then just dump them. But to take somebody to a public place where there's. You're fully exposed in an. In a. In a. No cover. In a. In a parking lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. And take a naked dead body.

[James Petrigallo]

A dead, naked body. And. And. And be posing it. You got to have some nerves of steel to do that. Like. I couldn't fucking do that. I'd be shitting my pants. Wouldn't you? Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. I don't like running red lights. You know what I mean? Fuck. It wasn't you. God damn it. I'm looking all around. This is crazy. I don't want to be around dead people. So they find out that the young lady who they have discovered is Mary Ann polreich. She is 27 years old, and that's who it is. So. Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about our safest sponsor, Simply Safe. The days are getting longer. We got longer daylight hours, which Means you might be spending more time away from your house, which gives burglars more time to rob your house. That's what happens here. FBI crime data shows that break ins are more likely during daylight hours than at night, actually, which you don't think of that. But you need to protect your home with Simplisafe's proactive security that helps stop threats before they even happen. We love SimpleLife because, number one, they're great. The alarms are great, the cameras are high quality. I love the fact that they can tell somebody and yell at them to go away from your house and they can call the cops. Right? And it's easy to install. I was so worried when we first got it. I was like, I'm not gonna know how to do this. It's super easy. They have installation if you need it. But you can do it. If we can do it, you can do it. Visit simplisafe.comsmall to claim 50% off a new system with professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's Simplisafe. S I M p l I safe.com small there's no safe like simplisafe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So now back to the show.

[James Petrigallo]

This show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp Therapy. Number one. Can feel like it's a big investment because it's a. It can be very expensive over time. But your state of mind is just as important as your physical health. If you had a physical problem, you wouldn't be going, well, I don't know, I'm gonna go to the doctor and they're gonna send a bill. You gotta get it taken care of. So, you know, traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from 100 to $250 a session, which, that'll add up very fast. But BetterHelp. BetterHelp's different. BetterHelp online therapy. You can save on average up to 50% per session. That's incredible. This is an affordable way to do this. Your mental health is worth it. And BetterHelp will put it in reach for you here. And, and we are huge proponents of therapy because I know for a fact here I have my partner sitting here next to me because of therapy because it's helped him with a lot of problems and just give him the tools to cope. And that's what therapy can do for you as well. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com smalltownmurder today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com smalltownmurder now back to the show. They're gonna have to investigate all of this. And it's really clearly somebody is a sick fuck and they know it. So this is a dangerous person out there. And they don't know if it's personal. They don't know anything about it. That said, let's talk about a man here. Let's talk about. Let's start over here. We'll talk about George Waterfield Russell Jr. Waterfield.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Russell.

[James Petrigallo]

George Waterfield's middle name, which I'm sure that's somebody's maiden name or something. Russell Jr. He's born in April of 1958. He's born down in Florida and he'll spend his first few years in Florida. Here. Goes from Florida, he'll end up in Washington, so can't get any farther away than from Florida, really. So he's the oldest of three children that we'll find out step brothers and sisters that come much later. His parents are separated when he's about six months old. So his mom has a lot of ambition. His mom, Joyce here, and his dad, George Waterfield Russell Sr. So they had him. They looked fine, but apparently the family wasn't doing very well. And Joyce decided when, you know, young George is about six months old that she's had enough and she wants out of this whole thing. She wants a different. Not just a different situation, you know, romantically or whatever. She wants a different life completely. She's like, I'm done with all this shit. Yeah. So she left her husband and also leaves George behind with her mother.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, she wants out of everything.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. She wants a different life or a mom, nothing. So leaves George with the mother and she went off to college. She said, fuck that. I had. Had the kid too early, got married too early, going back to college now. She said she'd be back. She's like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go to college and I'll come back. I'm gonna have a degree and I'll be able to take care of my son better. So. And she does come back, actually. Really, in 1964, and she'd gotten her diploma. She'll be end up being a college professor.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

She's pretty smart lady. And not only does she come back with a diploma, she comes back with a new husband. I got this paper and I brought you a new dad. Here you go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

I don't hear, by the way, anything about George Senior for the rest of the story. He just might as well have disintegrated, just vanished into Thin air here. So this guy that she has, this new husband is a very successful dental surgeon that does very well for himself. He's like. He's the dental. He does all the dental work for the University of Washington sports teams and all that kind of shit. Yeah, he's a real, really successful guy. And she comes back saying, I'm picking George up and we're moving to Washington State. We're moving to somewhere very, very wealthy also. And ritzy here and not Kirkland. Somewhere much Ritzier than that. So, yeah, the problem here is George is never ever going to feel like he's a part of this family, ever. Which from somebody who has done that, I get it. But a lot of that looking back on it as an adult now as part. You too, because you feel like you're not welcome doesn't mean you're not welcome. You know what I'm saying? Sure, that's what I'm saying. They could have been very welcoming and very conciliatory to them and everything else, but. But still, he could have felt like that just because that's how people feel. You know what I'm saying? That's how I felt. And it wasn't anybody's fault, really. So I don't know. But he never really feels like he's as close to his mom as he should be because she has the new husband. And he feels like an add on. Just attack on a responsibility. I had to go get my son. So they move out to this area here. By the way the dentist names. Dentist's name is Wonsel Mobley. Dr. Wanzell Mobley, that's the dentist here. Now they end up. This guy makes a lot of money and they end up going to Mercer Island. That's where they move. Which is extremely wealthy little enclave up there. I mean, it's its own little planet, really. It's the best way to put it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's all kinds of little islands up there that are just dominated with incredibly wealthy people and their homes.

[James Petrigallo]

And they have their own goddamn. It's their own ecosystem on these little islands. I mean, there's not. The outside world really doesn't matter because it's all about the looks of this and how your house is. And do you have the right clothes and the right cars. And one thing is described as a. They said on Mercer island, poverty is driving last year's Mercedes. That was a quote that somebody had. I was like, wow, that's. It gives you a pretty good idea. Now George is with his mother and his stepfather here by the way, they're the only black family in the neighborhood.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, they're the only black family in this neighborhood. There's a couple other black people, I guess on Mercer island, but right where they are there, they're the only ones there, so. And they don't seem to mind. I mean, like, the doctor doesn't mind, the mother doesn't mind. George doesn't mind either because it's. It's a pretty nice area and he's got. So he doesn't feel left out or anything like that with that at all. That doesn't really come up for him. But he does feel like an afterthought in the family, though. He feels like they don't care about him. About 1970, ish. He's in about seventh grade and he meets a kid named Boris Brockett, which is a tough name for an American kid to grow up with. That's just tough. Boris Brockett.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Shit. Last name, too.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, man. So he had seen George walking around. George had a Saint Bernard, a big Saint Bernard. He's a little guy. George too. Even when he's an adult, he's small.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So how big you are around the St. Bernard?

[James Petrigallo]

Well, St. Bernard's like bigger than him. Like, taller than him. Like, you can't. Like if the dog's walking, it looks like it's alone. And then you're like, oh, there's a kid over there. Okay. And by the way, there's, I think, like in this area, there are exactly two black families. It is this one and Bill Russell. Oh, yeah, Bill Russell. Bill Russell, the all time great basketball player with like 11 rings and all that kind of shit. And Bill Russell's. Bill Russell's kid is about George's age and everything like that too. So they. Yeah, they'll. People. Yeah, well, he'll. People will be like, oh, you must be Bill Russell's kid. He's like, no other black family. So Boris. This is a quote from Boris. He said he liked George right away. He said he was short like me. He had big, round, bubbly face. His eye, big eyes. A loud, infectious laugh. He's your best friend. In a second, he emphasized that his name was George Russell Jr. I asked him if he was related to Bill Russell and he said he thought so. He's not at all related to Bill Russell.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Crazy that he moved to an area where Bill Russell's the only other black guy and he's got his same last name.

[James Petrigallo]

So people just assumed he was like, you know, Bill Russell's nephew. That he moved up there, having a hard time somewhere or some shit. He said, yes. He said, I got the idea. He didn't want to get too personal. He said, my mother took one look at George and said, watch out for that boy. He's trouble. But after she got to know George, she was totally charmed. He was polite, respectful. Even as a little kid, he had this uncanny ability to make you like him. An easy style, warm, very Southern. He'll lose his Southern accent later on on purpose, but at this point, he's got a real, like, heavy. Like, he said his favorite food was the way this kid pronounced it grits. G, R, E, E, its grits.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

I'm not saying that in a Southern accent. I'm saying it like he's saying it. And he called me Boris. Oh, yeah. So he said. When I asked him what part of the south he was from, he shrugged. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know.

[James Petrigallo]

The fuck are you talking about?

[Jimmy Whisman]

How do you not know?

[James Petrigallo]

Around. I don't know. He finally said he was from Maryland. Not true. I thought grits must be fish eggs. He didn't realize that meant grits. He couldn't put that together. He didn't know what that was. So he said, on his second visit to George's house, little Boris met his mother, Joyce. And he said he had difficulty finding the right word to describe Joyce.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What does that mean?

[James Petrigallo]

He said, I thought about it. He goes, dignified, austere. These aren't warm, motherly words, really, that you want to hear. Kind, nice things.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dignified as good.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, dignified is fine. But I don't care if my mom is dignified. I just want her to be nice to me. You know what I mean? Like an austere. That's not a great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That means.

[James Petrigallo]

That's. If you're slashing budgets, you're being austere. You know what I mean? That's like. She's very, I guess, sleek and streamlined.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Before he finally said, I think I found the right word. Ominous again.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's real bad.

[James Petrigallo]

Doesn't sound.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I know that word.

[James Petrigallo]

Real motherly. Austere and ominous don't sound like warm traits. That much. So Boris went on to say she was small, like George. Slender, short black hair, nice face, looked like Coretta Scott King. Okay. He's like, I know one other black lady who exists. I think it's that one. She had a thin voice, not threatening or overbearing. Sounded a little British. She's not at all British. She's Southern. But she went to school. And they very much want to speak in a certain way in this area to be accepted. They're both highly educated. One's a doctor, one's a professor. So, yes, she's exuding. She's exuding that. Yeah. She had a thin voice, not threatening sound, a little British. George said she taught school English, drama, black history, stuff like that. He said, tell you one thing, she didn't make you feel overly welcome. Her look kept you quiet. He said her look kept you quiet. You didn't hear her talk about griots. George was kind of subdued around her, and so was I. She scared me. She scared me. The kid said, but don't forget we were trying to slam dunk our socks in her living room. That's the other thing, too. He talks about this game they played where they would. Over the curtain rod, they would play basketball with these socks and fuck up the curtains and fuck up the curtain rods. And they played mostly at his house because shit would get broken and then they'd go to George's and he didn't want to play. And now he understood why, because he was afraid of his mother. So when Boris asked George why he was a Russell and his mother was a Mobley, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck?

[James Petrigallo]

He's like, I don't understand that because it's like 1970 and he isn't really. And with all these rich people, there's probably not a ton of divorces, you know?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So he explained in a few words that his natural father lived back East. The man George now called dad was his mother's second husband, the dentist. So Boris attempted to ask another personal question, and he said, george just turned away and stopped talking and then never invited me over again.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just quit talking.

[James Petrigallo]

You're too close. He's like, can't do it. So George has some arm's length shit that going on here. That's a little bit weird. I guess it's his family would cause that, I suppose. So he gets into some trouble here right away. And a lot of times, too. If you're new and you're trying to make friends, you might get into trouble, try to show off and, you know, and kids having balls as currency as a kid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Truth. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

You know, like, especially with boy. I don't know how it is with girls. I don't think it's the same. I don't think girls are like, that bitch is crazy. She's awesome. Whereas guys are like, that motherfucker's crazy. He's the. He's the Coolest, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I do think that that is something with girls, though. Like braver. I don't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's the one that'll take us out and be the crazy one.

[James Petrigallo]

There's that, but there's something to a. With boys, it's like if you'll do something that definitely defies authority. Yeah, that's cool to all your. You know what I mean? Like, oh, man, I wish I would do that. Whereas I don't know if girls are quite the same. They don't have the same weird drive that boys do to be assholes here. So he has a little bit of a problem. Him and two other kids from the seventh grade, they snuck in to a beautiful waterfront home. They crept in. Do you know what these awful kids did in here?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What'd they do?

[James Petrigallo]

They made toast.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, really?

[James Petrigallo]

That's all? Then they left.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We've snuck in, made toast and left.

[James Petrigallo]

And left. Somebody was out of bread, I suppose. I don't know what happened, but.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

But they didn't steal anything. They just. Except for toast.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, real dangerous cut ups, these kids.

[James Petrigallo]

That's what I mean. So, yeah. Then they ended up Boris and two other kids, not George, just two other kids, stole several electric guitars from a music store called Music west and took them all to their fort. All these kids have tons of forts, by the way. There's a bunch of woods and everybody's building forts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everybody in the woods, they do that. Kids in the city are jealous of that.

[James Petrigallo]

It's fucking magical shit. Yeah, forts. But George takes it to another level. He's got several forts, he's got underground tunnels that he made. He's like. He's like the Viet Cong. This fucking guy out there, he's. It's crazy. He's. It's tunneling. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So Boris was excited to tell George, dude, I fucking scored all these guitars. You do bad shit with me. But George wasn't impressed. No, no. He said, that was a bad move, Boris. Bad move, my friend. That's the way. That's the quote from Boris. Bad move, Boris. George said, what were you thinking, man? He said, you know, what the fuck, bro? He's like, you can't be doing that. He said, Boris said, I don't know. And he said, maybe we can sell it to like, rock bands. And George said, who's gonna buy hot guitars, man? That's not gonna work. You don't want that. Nobody wants that. So George said, man, you're crazy. And George went home. That Evening. There's a knock on Boris's front door and it's fucking a shitload of cops with a warrant for Boris's arrest.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, what Boris do?

[James Petrigallo]

He stole guitars from the music center. Boris said they came on like Joe Friday, we got the goods on you, better come clean. They said it ended in a stern lecture. They had to return all the stuff. And you know, they were 12 so. And 12 year old rich kids, so you know they're not going to get in trouble. So they said the probation officer sure got our attention is what Boris said. Shape me up nice and early. I got a new respect for the Mercer island cops. They nailed our asses good. They weren't such a comedy anymore. So the cops. Yeah, the thing is, George obviously told on them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, really?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, George went right to the cops and told them everything. George, for some reason is obsessed with the cops and really likes to hang around them. Loves to. He's very Ed Kempery like that. Like he's always wanting to be in the mix and I don't know if that's to know what they know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You know, he just loves the whole crime aspect.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, to him, absolutely. So they were impressed to the cops were like, wow, thanks a lot, kid. That's Great. You get 24 hours. We cleaned up a robbery. Fucking awesome.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

We even got all the guitars back.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like accommodation for you.

[James Petrigallo]

Shit, man, this is awesome. A few days later he gave them more information about some stolen bikes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

So they were like this kid's, you know, got the goods.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. So they got a little informer.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, they got Later. More later, by the way, on his love of police and informing and being part of it all. Because it's. He, he has, he has some, some ulterior motives, let's just say here to that. So the forts are a big deal. Like I said, in the woods, all the boys have forts. Some in trees, some hidden in the woods, some in long abandoned logger shacks and shelters and shit like that because there's all sorts of cool places. So George took Boris to his fort. Let me show you my fort here. And George, by the way, would like to try to, like, he would make it a challenge for people, try to find my fort and then laugh at them when they couldn't. Stuff like that. So it was well hidden in the woods above the old islander tavern behind that, concealed with BlackBerry bushes, vine maples and a prickly aggravation called Devil's Club. That's from a book that we'll mention later on. George said that Boris would be his first and only visitor. He said this fort was off limits to the world, quote unquote. That's what George said. This is my private area. So he's got that. He's got his own little lair now. In school he became a real loud, boisterous kid. Very funny, kind of class clown kind of a kid, but very charming, too. Even the teachers liked him even though he was a class clown.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Very high iq, very shitty grades, way more concerned. Sounds like a comedian, smart guy. But not here, not here. Not in this place. So he had the. Like this book says he had the vocabulary of an English teacher's son, because Mom's an English teacher, but couldn't really make that into a coherent paper or a thought or a report or an essay. His teachers liked him, though. And Mercer island also is a very good school system because he's very rich up there. 8th grade science teacher described him as bright but immature. Small for his age, antsy, hyper, all over the place. You couldn't get mad at him, though. He wasn't the least bit malicious. He kept us all laughing, but he just wasn't interested in schoolwork. He wanted to play. As long as I knew him, he was a playful little boy. And the other thing is, he doesn't even hit 5ft until high school. He's a tiny guy, little guy. Smallest kid in the class. Always smallest boy anyway. Yep. And George, by the way, backed up the teacher's thoughts. He told his friend Boris, I only pay attention in classes I like. I don't need those goofy little art classes. I always feel like, let's speed this up. Not interested. Which is exactly what I did in school. Social studies got 100.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, but if you speed art up, James, you can play all over the fucking place.

[James Petrigallo]

Art. Didn't give two fucks about that. Don't care. I like art, but I'm not making it. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just I'm not an artist. I'm not good at it. So I didn't give a shit about that. Same exact way my report card looked like. Did you send two different people to classes? What the fuck happened here? F, A, F, B plus F. It makes no sense. So George was trying to figure out. He's trying to figure out his role and what's going on here. What his life is and what his every. Kids go through that. You're trying to figure out who you are and where you fit into the social structure of the world here in school. School is Your world when you're 12. So about 1971, 72 cops found him. Just a couple of weird things. He's peering through some BlackBerry bushes at night. At one point, find a kid peering into the. From out of the bushes, which is weird. Nothing that's like a crime, but just weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Certainly lends to some bizarre behavior.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. And now he gets in trouble for truancy. So the cops start like a program around him. Basically, that is, come hang out at the police station. We'll give you some work and hang out with us. Like a kind of a mentor program. Free work. That's a mentor program?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

So they make him do, like, paperwork and shit. Now, while this is going on, his stepfather makes it clear to the police that George is absolutely not his son. Like, he's like, I don't take biological blame for anything that's happening right now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So they asked the dentist guy. He said, well, he's not your son. How'd you. How'd you end up with him? And he said. He said, quote, I lived in a boarding house when I was going to dental school in Washington, D.C. and this little orphan kid was living there. I picked him up and put him under my arm.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I've had ever since.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, you just married his mom. Weird. So, yeah, he liked the whole. He liked the attention that police gave him. It made him feel big and important that if he was hanging out with these people. One of the cops said, the first time I saw Georgie, he was in trouble for some petty thing, maybe truancy. And the Youth Bureau had given him. Youth Bureau had given him some work around the station. He was 13 or 14. Little bitty kid, well dressed, frail, innocent, very likable. He could charm your socks off. So he said he was the last kid on Mercer island you'd expect would turn into the biggest nightmare. He became a fixture at the Mercer island police station. One of the cops said he'd come around a couple times a week and we'd let him straighten things up. Wipe the blackboard, sharpen pencils, empty the trash. We thought, hey, if we're giving him some responsibility, maybe we're helping him a little bit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're giving him all the responsibility of a kid in detention, though.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Kid has to stay after school.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's all the punishment at the school. And you're making him do it at the police station.

[James Petrigallo]

We call it the breakfast club down there at the old police station. So they gave him his. His own official cubby hole as well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Got his own cubby at the police station too. How about it?

[James Petrigallo]

He was telling classmates then he wanted to be a policeman. Before that he was saying he wanted to be a fighter pilot. Now he switched to a policeman. And one of the officers said, it was the first time we ever took in a kid like that. But there was something different about him. He said, you know, he's just a nice kid. They said the cops would buy him snacks. And he really seemed to take to all the cops that worked there, except the black ones. Didn't like the black cops? Nope. Wouldn't talk to him. Wouldn't be a part. Had no interest in the black cops whatsoever. And they tried to be real nice to him and he was like, don't care. Fuck off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I. Wow. First black cop that I think I remember and was fucking Carl Winslow. I don't. No, no. Maybe it was. Maybe it's the other Winslow in police academy that.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, you're talking about Michael Winslow. You're talking about like in movies at all, really? I guess you grew up out there. That's. That makes sense. All the cops are like cops that much. No. And all the cops in Arizona are like white guys from the marines. That's. Yeah, they're like mps that are now. Yeah, like square headed dudes like that. Yeah, they're not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We're in the military. Got it discharged. And they're like, now what?

[James Petrigallo]

One of my dad's best friends from high school that lived across the street from us was a cop and he was black. So I never. Tons of black cops. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Cop I saw was Hightower.

[James Petrigallo]

That's. That's fucking funny. So, yeah, he said that he didn't like the black cops, which is strange. So after a few months, they said he would talk one on one with him and he'd listen to your troubles like you were the most important person in the world talking about the kid. You'd have to keep reminding yourself you were talking to a kid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. They're like, yeah, my wife, man. I gotta tell you, man, I'm a. Marriage problems. And he's like, lay it on me, brother. Let's fear you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Weird.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, it was odd. They thought it was odd too, that he would be basically making a bunch of cops into a substitute family for a kid that age who had a family. It just seemed odd. So a lot of them said that he didn't get very personal about his own stuff, and they thought maybe this cheerful exterior and all these jokes are a cover for Some darker shit. You know, Like a comedian. So he said. We wondered why he didn't illuminate things if we got too nosy. He made it plain he didn't want to talk about his home life, so we just stopped asking. Hardest thing in the world for a bunch of nosy cops. But we like Georgie enough to give him the space. Was he. Was it what was bothering him? He would never say. So he's having this home life that he doesn't want to talk to people about. His mom is austere and ominous.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petrigallo]

His stepdad makes it clear that this did not come from my dick.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's not mine.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. This did not leak from my pipe here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So I just picked it up and put it under my arm.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck. Yeah. So May of 1973 is kind of high school area when it starts to go. Now in high school, he just hits five feet as he's a freshman.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And that makes him a little bit uncomfortable in high school. And that's. That's tough for high school to be five foot tall. So he'd start hanging out with younger kids who look more like him. That was kind of the way he'd do it here. And they said that one of the cops said he noticed that George was definitely hanging out with the younger kids. He said. One of the cops said he was always skinny, didn't reach 5 foot till high school. And I think he felt sort of intimidated by people his own age. He could be a big shot with the littler kids. He craved that attention, people looking up to him. It was something he didn't seem to be getting anywhere else. Somebody get this kid to an open mic. I just have to say either an open mic or a prison cell. One of the two. Because those are your only options somehow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And. Yeah, but it's funny.

[James Petrigallo]

That's. It's probably hilarious. So by the time he entered the ninth grade, he's not hanging out with Boris much anymore either. Boris says, I changed and George didn't. I was getting interested in girls. George was too, but he was secretive about it. It was something else. He kept to himself how he felt about girls. Yeah. His style attracted younger kids. I preferred older company. So. Yeah. And he said he realized that he never really knew the guy is what he realized, too. So him and his classmates. He has two classmates, and they disappear from school one day and run away when he's 14. This is May of 73. He just turned 15. And he and two classmates, they disappeared. The next afternoon, they were arrested in a little town 50 miles east of there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They got 50 miles away.

[James Petrigallo]

They got 50 fucking miles away. Somehow, I don't know how, if they hitchhiked or what. 73. You could hitchhike your way across the country back then. So, yeah, they end up there at Cle Alum, which is a town 50 miles each of there. So the Mercer Island Juvenile Unit comes to pick them up. One of the officers said they told the local deputy they were on a ski trip from North Mercer Junior High. Said they didn't know how to ski. So they wandered into Clee Alum to look around. It was a good story. The deputy asked for their phone numbers, and George and one of the kids gave their right numbers because they knew nobody was home. George had prepped the third kid with the number of a phone booth because he knew his parents were home.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice work.

[James Petrigallo]

But the kid panicked and gave up his home number. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. Not exactly nerves of steel over here. So they got caught, they said. But it was all planned out like the Brinks robbery. And most of the thinking was done by George. He was the one telling everyone else what to do. So they asked George, why did you want to run away in the first place? Are you unhappy? Are you mistreated?

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a deal, Georgie.

[James Petrigallo]

Can we help you? And he said, no, I got everything I could want. And they said, well, then why'd you run away? And he said, we heard you guys were trying to frame us for a burglary. And they were like, okay, no. What are you talking about? It's a very odd thing to say. So they said. This is a pattern that forms, though, whenever George gets into trouble, he blames someone else or claims it's all a big misunderstanding. That's how he goes. So they notice that it's just a repeated thing. He will not take responsibility. They could watch him do something and he'll blame it on somebody else. Okay, very.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm being framed. Why?

[James Petrigallo]

Are you very. Yes, it's very much like Ted Bundy getting caught with all that stuff in his car. And he's like, well, I mean, I have an ice pick for my. It's a common household item. And I have this tape because I have this, and I have this because I have that. Yes. I keep them all in a ski mask and some nylons because I put it on under my ski mask. When I go, one of any of those items is fine. But when all of them are in one bag, it's an issue. That's when it becomes a problem. Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about our fashionable, stylish friends over at Quint's. Spring's coming up. People want to travel. You've been in the house all winter. You want to get out. You, you want to do things. Vacation season's here, road season for us is here. And we're going to treat ourselves to some of the little luxe upgrades that we deserve with Quince's high quality travel essentials at a fair price like lightweight shirts and shorts from $30, pants for any occasions, and comfortable lounge sets. Also, you can get premium luggage options and durable duffel bags to carry it all. And the best part, all Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We like quints a lot. I've ordered stuff. I have a leather jacket, I have sunglasses. Jimmy's got pants. And I'm looking for more stuff because we got to travel.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So they got great flannels too.

[James Petrigallo]

They, they do. And I do need travel stuff too. So we need this for the road. Quince is going to help us out for the road. And for your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from quints. Go to quince.com smalltown murder for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. 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. Hey everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit about life360. And I know this is Jimmy's favorite thing in the world.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I love it.

[James Petrigallo]

Jimmy has, I mean, he's out there, his son is driving now. So yeah, he goes through all the scenarios in his mind of where could he be. And he doesn't have to do that anymore. No, he just gets right on Life360 and sees exactly what he's doing and what speed he's doing it at. As a matter of fact, it's great. Whether it's your spouse, your kids, your parents, even your friends. You love somebody, it means you, you're going to worry about them a lot. We all do it. Life360 will address this anxiety with this location sharing app that puts the real time, location, location of everyone you love right in the palm of your hand. And I'm telling you, I know you tell me all the time about how you're texting your son, he's not texting you back. And call him. You're like, I'll see where he is right now. I've seen you do it 30 times. And then you'll text him, I see you're on this road and it makes you feel better. Get peace of mind in the palm of your hand with Life360. Visit life360.com or download the app today and use code Smalltown Merchandise murder to get 15% off. That's life360.com code small town murder.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And now back to the show.

[Steve Buscemi]

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[James Petrigallo]

He also likes guns here. So two, him and two of his friends took a bus to the gun exchange in Seattle to look at guns. Then he leads them, his friends. I don't know how he knew about this, but he leads them to a porn movie house and snuck them in. So this is fucking amazing. Here's a friend of his talks about this, and he talks about this as like, you know, a great day. This friend, he said, me and George and another guy like guns. So we all got scrubbed up and took a bus to the gun exchange in Seattle. Then he led us to a porny movie house. Porny.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Porny, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Never heard it put like that before.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pornish.

[James Petrigallo]

Pornish. No P, O, R N, I E. Not even like with a Y. So it'd be like corny and porny. No, porny. I don't know. I've never heard of that before. Movie house called the Green Parrot. We went down the back alley and up the fire escape and into an empty building. Then climbed through the rafters to a big cooling fan. They're looking fucking it's die Hard going on here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. What the hell are they crawling through?

[James Petrigallo]

What are they doing crawling through vents? We skinnied through a ceiling hatch and dropped into the men's bathroom of the porny house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And that's how we snuck in?

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. He said our clothes were smudged, we were a mess. But they got in to watch the movie.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, they just walked out of the bathroom and right into the.

[James Petrigallo]

Right on in. Yeah, like they'd been in there. Watch. Watch me a porny. So he goes on to say the movie was about a hillbilly family. The man's getting a blowjob in a rocking chair. The woman says, why'd you go limp, Big daddy? She looks up, says, big daddy's dad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

She sucks him to death? Yeah, it was so corny. We were laughing out loud. Yeah, she sucked him. That's a blowjob. Wow. Sucked the life out of a hillbilly as a blowjob. They showed a famous old short. A knock on the door. The guy says, pizza delivery. A woman answers and he unzips his fly and says, here's your pepperoni. Oh, we loved it. We were laughing so hard we got caught and had to run out the exit doors. Yeah, everybody else is there to whack it. Adults go there to whack it. Not for entertainment. Anybody laughing is underage, obviously. Anybody there who's 40 is there concentrating, fucking staring, looking through the screen, burning a hole.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And Big Daddy.

[James Petrigallo]

No shit. So he said that George went back a couple days later with a black kid from Mercer Island. They pulled the ceiling hatch and looked into the men's room and there's a guy standing in one of the stalls. They wait and wait for him to leave, but finally another man walks in and the two of them do anal sex. So they watched these guys have live anal sex from the ceiling.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petrigallo]

George's friend had a fro comb in his hair and it slipped out and fell into the men's room. And everybody ran. Yeah, you heard like a cork popping, like a champagne bottle as those two guys separated. And one guy ran one way, one guy ran the other. They went through the fucking rafters again.

[Jimmy Whisman]

One ran and took the other guy with him.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, either way, he said, I always. It's a three legged race now, he said. I always wondered how George learned about the Green Parrot. How did a 15 year old kid even know about something like that? I asked and he just kind of winked. Yeah, how would you know that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

That's so weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I wouldn't know I didn't know where to watch it. I know there were those existed around, but I didn't. I didn't know where to go.

[James Petrigallo]

Not even where you live too?

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, that's.

[James Petrigallo]

Someone said, like you. If you were growing up in Phoenix when you were 12, and someone said, you know, there's a porn place in Tucson. You go, how the fuck do you know that? This is pre Internet, you know, get to Tucson. Yeah. How does Halloween supposed to get there? That's crazy. You want us to take a bus to Tucson and you know a place? So he earned some nicknames in school here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

George.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, George. Apparently he's very agile, so they call him the Fly. Because he's little and agile. Yeah, they also call him Chicken George because that's a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's not good, is it?

[James Petrigallo]

No, but that's. Chicken George was in a book, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

I can't remember. Something. Some book that I've forgotten because it was a school book they made us read in school.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You make me read it. I fucking hate it.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep, pretty much. They called him the Mouth because he talked a lot and. Leaping George. Yeah, Leaping George. So by the time he got into high school, that's what he is. He's the Fly and all that kind of shit. People called him Leaping George after Leaping Lee Winfield of the Seattle SuperSonics. That's. That's why they called him that. But they said that they also called him Chicken George or the Mouth because he chattered a lot. And he would always, when he's playing basketball, would always say he got fouled on every play. So they. They said he was a game player, but it wasn't basketball. It was chess, backgammon, checkers, poker, things like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Cerebral things.

[James Petrigallo]

Cerebral things. They said that he was so skilled that he would complain to friends that he had to play beneath his skill to get a game with these fucking people. His friend Tom Hagar loved hanging out with him. He said, quote, he was so bright, so entertaining. He had an incredible memory. He wanted to be a writer and kept an ongoing list of our dead schoolmates.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

There's a whole. I'm not gonna go through it, because it's like four pages, but it's. All of these kids have died from, like, weird accidents that happen to rich kids. You know what I mean? Like fucking skiing accidents and like kids killing themselves and horse collision and polo. Yeah. Tried to. A dressage accident. You know how things go when you're rich kids doing shit like that, crashing their parents, Porsches. One kid, actually, this is a Fucking thing that happened. He cranked up his parents very expensive car, him and his girlfriend in it, popped Free Bird on the eight track, cranked it up and ran into a wall as hard as they could and killed themselves.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my. Suicide.

[James Petrigallo]

Suicide with Free Bird fucking blaring through the A track. That is crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Suicide.

[James Petrigallo]

That's a wild suicide. That's what rich kids do to kill themselves. But it worked. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, they smashed the wall going 80 miles an hour. And fucking. Back then, no airbags, you know, just impaled themselves on this fucking. On the steering wheel. So he said he'd sit in his room and write out their stories. Good stuff. Publishable. He had stacks of yachting magazines, how to find the right sailboat, how to make your own, how to rig for storms, hurricanes, stuff on motorcycles, guns. We read spy magazines, went to spy movies. He said it's odd, considering the way things turned out, but in our adolescence we weren't big on girly magazines. We read them, but they weren't a special interest. Mainly, we were dreamers. Anything was possible. We'd smoke a joint and ramble on. We'd get on our bikes and ride to Luther Burbank park and talk about sailing around the world. George had maps of every ocean on his walls. He figured out the winds, how to cross the Indian Ocean, how to handle the currents at Tierra del Fuego. Wow, he said. We read Popular Science and decided we were going to build a submarine. We went down to my dock and got two plastic garbage cans with locking tops. Made a seal, locked them and put a hole in the top, screwed a hose in it. And then I said to George, we got to be crazy. And we both started laughing and George said, this will never work. And it didn't. Two garbage cans they tried to make a submarine out of. That's not gonna work.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's amazing that he has so many adult dreams.

[James Petrigallo]

Very, yeah, 14 at this point. He's really smart. That's the thing. He's got a really high iq. But he doesn't translate that into anything that could be helpful for him at all. They said he wanted to be a detective, but we didn't buy the crime magazines. He was into CIA stuff, where you nicked somebody with an umbrella tip and they died three weeks later. You know, like James Bond shit. Spies. Yeah, spies. Intrigue. He had secretive ways. He'd stand outside my room at night and flash his little light till I saw him. That was a way better than throwing little pebbles, I guess. He'd say things like People in lighted houses can't see out their windows. That's important to remember. That's what he would tell his friend. I'd say, why is that important? And he'd just shrug and smile. Nothing seemed to bother him. He got along with everybody. He said, no, I take that back. George didn't like to be excluded from anything. If he got left off a team or didn't get invited to a party, he'd sulk. I always wondered, what the hell did George get left out of when he was a little boy in Maryland? What was it that made him this way? And I never found out. He got left out of his family, that's what. He got left out of his mom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He already knows that. If the light's on inside the room, anybody in the room can't see outside the window.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, but you can see inside. Real creepy. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. He's thinking about shit that it's one thing to have I'm going to sail around the world, fantasy or some shit like that, but to think that in depth about something like that at 14 is creepy. So yeah, he gets into smoking a little weed and partying a little bit, but nothing real big here by like the fall of 73, he gets angry when people call him black.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He doesn't like to be called black.

[James Petrigallo]

It's not the term. You could call him anything you want. You can call him black. Call him African American. Call it, doesn't like it. Don't call me that. One friend said as a kid he never wanted to be referred to as black. You could get him hackled up real quick. He was visibly annoyed when a high school coach mentioned that Bill Russell Jr. Was developing into a better basketball player than him. Gee, the son of a top 10 all time player at the time, a top two all time player in the history of the league, is better than me. Weird. Is he 611 also? Because that would help. And he said that Buddha, that's what they called Bill Russell's kid, Buddha. Buddha's headed for the NBA and you're not. Gee, thanks. I wasn't planning on it. George complained to his friends. Why did he compare me to Buddha? Why not compare me to a white kid? Which he got a point. He did. I mean, they classified it as that. So he also didn't like black women at all. Black girls at the time, no interest whatsoever. Only likes white girls at the time, they said after a while. This is from the book, an excerpt here that I'll tell you about. Later on what the book is. After a while, the color that George disdained gave him an entree into the high school elite. He was the perfect token, a walking proof of his friend's tolerance. He became the group of rich white kids. And they have a black kid and they're like, see, look, we're not racist. We have a black kid friend. Yeah, they said. But therein lie the problems. As his friend Hagar recognized early, this is his friend. To quote from him, they treated him like their favorite eunuch. Jesus, that's a coming out the gate hard. God damn. He projected the image of the pet black. And that was fine with the socialites, but they left him out of things that mattered. They pretended to accept him as a friend because they knew they'd never have to take him seriously. I always felt this helped to cause the rage that came out later because he knew he was tight or cause he was tight with a lot of girls. And they tempted him like they tempted the rest of us. But they never let it go anywhere. George was permanently excluded, and he knew it. Those lily white socias were never going to put out for the local black guy. George just kept suffering, never complained. That would have been uncool. But we all felt that pain, not just George. Raging hormones. He rarely confided about girls. It was just another subject he wasn't open about. He told me he wanted love, not sex. He was always looking for the ideal woman to put on a pedestal. But the ideal woman wasn't looking for him. That's what his friend said. So also during this time, he sneaks. This is so 1973 or 4. He sneaks his friends into a Led Zeppelin concert.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck yeah. Rock on. Well, they played Seattle. $12 per ticket. Now, George told his friend Michael O'Hara, we don't need to pay shit. I got us covered. So this is his friend's quote here. He told me to meet him outside the Kingdome fence an hour before the concert. The Kingdome is where the Mariners and the Seahawks used to play. Yeah, gone now, but was big. When I got there, he was wearing a parking attendant's jacket, brown and orange polyester. So uncool. So unlike George, but it put me in hysterics. He flips a bundle over the fence and there's an attendant jacket inside. I slipped it over my clothes and walked right into the Kingdome parking lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

George and I are directing traffic as we edge toward the employee entrance. They'd stop every once in a while, pretend they were working. I slipped out of the outfit in the men's room so George could bundle it up for another friend. He got nine of us in. Just kept throwing the outfit over. And people would walk right in and direct traffic for a minute and then change. He said we were in total admiration. How did a teenage kid from Mercer island outwit Kingdome Security. He was always doing things like that. It seemed like scams had become his life. He said, quote, and a lot of us were drifting, not just George. Half the high school smoked pot. Maybe 20% took harder drugs. Acid, mushrooms, hash. Maybe 90% drank. We spent a lot of time in our forts, smoking, drinking. On Friday nights, the cops would come storm trooping through the woods, and George would disappear. Interpol couldn't have found him. After the cops left, he'd climb out of his foxhole, grinning. He loved to outwit people, especially cops.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Especially the Thorpe.

[James Petrigallo]

Especially the fuzz. Yeah. He also stole pills from his stepdad's dental supplies and shared them with his friends. He was caught by the cops with some weed. Got in a lot of little trouble. Trespassing after hours in the park. Curfew violations, shoplifting, drinking, having Valiums on him. He stole a rare penny from a friend's coin collection, but then talked his way out of it somehow. Yeah. So it's very odd here. Then he starts doing. Then he started, like, sneaking. Stealing things from people's school lockers and stuff like that. Soon he was sneaking into people's houses while they slept and taking souvenirs, as he called it, like cash and jewelry. And also just standing over women while they slept and watching them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, that's too much.

[James Petrigallo]

That's really fucked up. And that's weird. The local cops didn't know what to do. And they thought that they just had, like, this mystery burglar going on. People breaking in, but nothing major being stolen. That's the weird part. I mean, like, there. Yeah, there could be a stack of $100 bills and 120, and the 20 be gone. That's the way. Weird shit like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can't report your dignity stolen or.

[James Petrigallo]

Your safety or your comfort in your own home. Your peace of mind. Yeah, yeah. Just your comfort here. So anyway, the cops knew him from the truancy program and all that kind of shit. So they try to keep him closer. They're like, all right, let's get him closer. You know what I mean? That kind of thing. Soon things at home get worse, which isn't great. Stepdad, the dentist cheated with a businesswoman. Now, in this time they. That couple had had a little girl, a little sister of. Of George. So mom and the sister mad at all. The sister's not mad. She's like three. But mom very mad at the stepfather, leaves him and takes the sister and moves to Maryland and leaves George with his stepfather.

[Jimmy Whisman]

With the guy that just picked him up and refuses to admit that it's his dude.

[James Petrigallo]

How many times can you be abandoned by your mother and not feel shitty about it, you know? And to be left with this guy who's not even your dad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's just and actively and aloud proclaims it.

[James Petrigallo]

It's fucking crazy. So that's wild. She apparently accepted a teaching position at the University of Maryland. And it's crazy. One of their friends said they both wanted out meaning of the marriage. Both participants. Wanzel was seeing a white businesswoman. And Joyce hated the idea of being in the same town with the two of them. Maybe running into them socially. She needed to get as far away from the situation as possible. She and the Wonzel family agreed that Erica, the daughter would move east with Joyce but spend summer vacations on Mercer Island. When it came to George, it was like, you take him. No, you take him. No, you take him. No one wanted him. So they said. Wanzel ended up with a 16 year old kid who was already stealing him blind. You got to give the man credit. He tried to do the right thing. Think about it. They weren't even blood. Which is true. That is true. Just just to feed him is more than he's required to. Give him a room. He doesn't need to do shit for him. Just before Christmas. 74 is when Joyce and Erica moved to Maryland. And they said close friends noticed an immediate just dampening of George's boisterousness. Just not. Doesn't have the same thing anymore. One of his friends called it a slippage of spirit that he would try to just gloss over. Now Shortly after that, Dr. Wonzel Mobley has a new wife and he's got a new stepmom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Which is weird as fuck because he's got. That's like a step stepmom. Is that a double step?

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's. That's. No, it's a couple of friends.

[James Petrigallo]

It's either a double step or nothing. Right? It's nothing. It's step, step or nothing. I don't know what the. Yeah, it's just this. This my ex. Stepfather's wife. I guess I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

My old stepdad and his broad.

[James Petrigallo]

But I guess they loved this lady. Her Name was Chris. And his friend Tom Hagar, this is George's friend, said Chris was nice to us. Prim, proper, respectable and gorgeous. When she arrived, all us adolescent boys went, ooh, la la. I'm sure she tried to play down her looks, but she was 12 years younger than Wanzel and still a knockout. She really had our motors running. George's mother had always worn hats and glasses and looked like a professor. Not unattractive. But Chris was different. Yeah, Chris was a second wife.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Not a first wife.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's why his mom's got it going on.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, exactly. They said right from the start, she tried hard to work with George, to change his ways, and she helped Wanzel fit into the neighborhood. The older, wealthier people always considered him, quote, the black guy. They didn't know him, but Chris arranged cookouts and get togethers and old islanders then said, My God, Dr. Mobley's black, but he's not that different. Wow, what a thought. Took that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

My God. In front of that.

[James Petrigallo]

My God, my God, what was it? Fucking blast from the past. Oh, my lucky star's a Negro. That's what they said. Feels like that's what they're saying. Oh, my. Look at him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I can't believe it. We're just like him. Just different colors.

[James Petrigallo]

Strange. I mean, I look too. It's a different color. It's weird. It was an astounding discovery for some of those dinosaurs. Yeah, incredible. How many black people do they know living on Mercer island their whole life? Pretty soon, the Mobley's were the only racially mixed couple in Emmanuel Episcopal Church. The kids went on to say, my mom wound up crazy about Chris and very fond of Wanzel. After that, they were always a part of my family's lives. So now, around this time, there starts to be some stories that confidential police files have somehow made their way from the police station and locked drawers to the halls of the high school on Mercer Island.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wonder how that happened.

[James Petrigallo]

Real weird, right? Strange. So several parents called to complain that their children's reputations were being tarnished by leaks of juvenile information that was supposed to be secret. That's what he was doing. He was saying, like, oh, I found. You know, Billy did this and that. Check it out. So after an investigation, they came to the conclusion that it's George that's doing this shit. So they said he's using his police information to try to inflate his image at school of being cool. So the cop said, we had no proof, but it was obvious we hated to cut him loose. We never told him why. We just said, georgie, you can't come around here anymore. You could see it bothered him. It bothered us too. You couldn't not like the guy, no matter how bad things got. So at this point, he's just cutting classes, he's drinking, he's stealing, he's popping pills, he's smoking weed. He's in juvenile court all the time because he's getting caught. He has some problems at home here also, he likes his stepmom. And I mean, he likes his stepmom. Yeah. He began sneaking into her room and watching her sleep, which is never good behavior, which ends up getting him kicked out of the house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, she woke up.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. He gets caught doing that, the stepfather's like, okay, that's enough here. I don't even. You're not even my kid. And she's not technically related to you, so I don't want you whacking it on her, please. So. So then George would go between family members and friends, couches and all this type of shit they do end up shipping him off to. Off the island to a guy named Dr. Michael Washington's house. This is his stepdad's old classmate. So one of the patrolmen from Mercer island ran into George at a place called Totem Lake. And he said he was at a hardware store there. And he said we'd all wondered where he went and why he wasn't causing any more problems on the island. I met this dentist. He was staying with a tall, good looking, muscular guy, very nice, very responsible. Just what George needed. He moves him there. This guy said, I'll straighten him out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

And he does. He takes him like he has to go out running every morning. They go hunting all the time and they'll be out at 4 o'clock in the morning and they won't get home till late. And then he'll make George do all the, you know, clean all the boots and clean. Wash the dogs off and all that kind of shit. And like, trying to keep like a military school, basically, but at his house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Keep him so busy he can't do anything bad.

[James Petrigallo]

Absolutely. But the problem is he's not going to. That's not going to last very long with this kid. He's not going to do that. And he doesn't do. He ends up back in Mercer island hanging out with kids and kind of bullying his way around here. Well, he likes to borrow cars, quote, unquote. Borrow means I might be back in an hour. It might be four or five days. You never know. That's that's borrow. I want to go to the store. So they said that at this point he's coming back and all of his kind of classmates are graduating, going off to college. And now even all the kids he knew were hanging out with and shit. They're all gone now. So now he's kind of alone again. So he starts hanging out with younger kids again.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're stuck there a while. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And he can boss them around. He can. They'll do whatever he wants. He can hustle them out of money. He can, you know, do shit like that. He would. He did that like crazy. One of the cops said, quote, he developed a bunch of wannabe George Russell's. They met in video stores, Denny's, the 7 11. There'd be a hundred kids milling around that store and King George would go inside and buy beer for them and stash it in the woods.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. He said he also supplied weed. And discipline is what this cop said. Discipline. He never liked to fight, but he kept those kids cowed. It was almost impossible to prosecute him because the kids were too scared to snitch. If they got out of line, he'd flash his knife at them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's carrying a blade.

[James Petrigallo]

Multiple as we'll find out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

16 year old kids, 14, 15.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Once they have a license, they don't want any part of him. They can go drive around, look for girls at that point. But when you're 14, you're riding your bicycle around. This guy's cool. Fucking sad. Yeah. This is like their Satanic Bill. This is. Remember we've talked about Satanic Bill a bunch of times. This weird carny guy that would come around and he'd buy his 40s and he'd do all that kind of shit. Sure. Satanic Bill. He knows where to get coke, you know, whatever. So he said he'd take one of those rich kids and say, lend me your car, I'll be right back, I gotta pick up a friend. And the kids were too afraid to complain. When he kept it a day or two, that became a habit. He was borrowing cars the same way 10 years later. One day, Sergeant Glendon Booth spotted him putting a stranglehold on a boy who reached to his chin and he said. The cop interceded and George said, quote, this punk wasn't cooperating. I mean, what do you want from me? I gotta choke him. The parents declined to press charges. Then he beat up a nine year old boy. Nine. Not a lot of challenge there. It's a fourth grader for putting A slug in a video machine. Slug coin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

We have to say, by the way, for people who are under probably 30, what a slug is because you don't even know what a quarter is at this point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a fake coin.

[James Petrigallo]

It's a fake coin that was just a smooth lump. And people used to sell them. They'd sell them like 100 for $5 or some shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You get a quarter and you. And you cut a bar, a sliver off of it. That's the same size and weight.

[James Petrigallo]

It worked.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Throw it through a video game and that's a whole credit.

[James Petrigallo]

That's it. The cop said it offended George's sense of control. It was okay for him to put slugs in the machines, but nobody else. Don't fuck my thing up. They're going to crack down on this if you all start doing this. Yeah, so also they said that he would pick out a parked car and bet he could clear it on a single bound with a jump. He would jump over the hood and then collect the money. He'd say, he promised. He said, I never said I'd clear the roof. He's doing Evel Knievel shit now. Yeah, like all right. I didn't say I'd do that. One day him and a friend of his. This is a cop. A cop and his partner took up positions on a hillside to check out the 711 action through binoculars. They need some crime in this town. Or less. Cops.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If the cops, they're searching out crime.

[James Petrigallo]

Not just one cop, a team of cops just lays on a. Searching out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The 711 for solicitors for 14 year.

[James Petrigallo]

Olds to commit crimes. Yeah, that is loiterers. Loiterers, yes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There it is. Those are the two most.

[James Petrigallo]

Jesus Christ, that is wild. So they saw George come out of the 711 with several six packs and disappear into the woods. They also saw drugs change hands from time to time. When the cops patted George down during the arrest, he had a kitchen knife up each sleeve. Kitchen knives up each sleeve? Yep. And several bags of weed. So he's selling weed to the kids now? A judge put him on probation, but then he got arrested again. Charged with criminal trespassing, possession of marijuana, second degree burglary, possession of stolen property and nuisance noise, whatever that is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But now it's gonna start stacking up and he's got minor infractions that are gonna look bad over time.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, and he just turned 18 too. So now it's going to district court, not juvenile court. He was sentenced to three days in the King County Jail got out reoffended, served four more days, got out reoffended, went back in for 32 more days. And his arrest record just grows and grows and grows. He called it later on those little Tic Tacs of trouble. Tic Tacs. You shake them and they're loud, but, you know, individually, they're nothing. So, yeah, he's doing all sorts of shit like that. 1976, there's that. There's all of that shit happened in 32 days. And all of that. Now, Tom Hagar, his friend who loved him, remember that? He says that George lived at night. He would hide in bushes and learn your habits. He was patient. He'd watch a house for a week if that's what it took.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's called stalking.

[James Petrigallo]

It's called. Yeah, it's called what BTK did. It's fucking crazy. He could slip through any opening. He got into one house through the dog port. He's so tiny. He's a little skinny fuck, too. He knew that our doors were always unlocked and the keys were always in our jack. So when I was away at college, he started borrowing it after midnight, taking the car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The Jaguar?

[James Petrigallo]

The Jaguar. When he finally got caught, he told the cops he had permission. The Hagars, I know them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They told me where the keys are.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, they told me to take it. It's fine. So this guy. Continues. This was just too much. And our family decided we had to do something. We had put together a complete dossier of arrests and convictions, plus everything he'd gotten away with since junior high and presented it to the judge for this crime. When he got caught for it. When you saw it on paper, it was an eye opener. George ended up serving 35 days. It was his longest stretch, and everybody hoped it would straighten him out. When he was released, did he stay away from our house? Not George. He made it a regular target. We had a sliding glass door that was his entry point. My mom had a stash of silver dollars that she gave out as rewards. George took six or seven at a time. I guess he figured she wouldn't notice. Think about it. The guy's slipping into our house at night, risking a felony burglary charge for pocket money. Made no sense. He said there had to be some other motivation. But we didn't learn about it till it was too late. He said other stuff began disappearing. I came home from college on a break and ran into him at Luther Burbank Park. From 35 yards away, I recognized my old orange coat. He was wearing my sweater and pants. Too. He asked if I wanted to get high. He looked terrible, wasted, like every other bum on the street. It brought a lump to my throat. George was the brightest, the most interesting kid I've ever met. He still had that smile, that big laugh, but you could see he was lost. I said, george, that's my down coat.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Coat.

[James Petrigallo]

He said, oh, is it?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is it?

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, it isn't really. He sounded kind of vague. Here, let me give it back. Avoiding the question of where he got it from. Oh, here, Yeah, I must have borrowed it. I said, christ's sakes, no, I don't want it back. It was beat up and dirty. He said, I felt guilty because of this huge gulf between us. And I said, george, if you'd asked me for the coat, I'd have given it to you. The point is, how did you get it? He evaded an answer and I wasn't going to push. So that's it. Now the Mercer Island Police Department starts getting persistent complaints of a night prowling, small person with dark skin, baby black. Somebody out possibly. Yeah, and I doubt that Bill Russell's kid is this guy's size. Gotta be a foot taller by now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Crouch that much.

[James Petrigallo]

No, exactly. And his kid has got to be taller. So they began getting persistent complaints and they also, when the sergeant here of the police force called his stepfather, he learned that George had taken liquor money, clothes, and then was banished from the house. So he's gone. He drops out of high school, never graduated, poor attendance record, failing classes, and then dropped out as a senior.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So in retrospect, by 18, everybody should know, oh, this is going to go so bad for this not looking good for him.

[James Petrigallo]

But with these rich kids, it doesn't really work like that. You can always figure it out. And if you keep propping them up, give them an internship, enough of the time, eventually they'll get burned out of this shit. And if you, you know, that's how rich people deal with shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dig it into coke too, at that point. Oh, terrible drug problem. Still, by 35, they got three kids.

[James Petrigallo]

Ah, they're born again Christian. They're fucking doing great. So at this point, he's sleeping in abandoned houses. George is under. Under houses that are occupied. He gets under them just in the high grass. Sleeps in the field sometimes. In his old forts, he removed the vent from the swimming pool heating duct and crawled in there at a park. Did the same with the grate at a bank. Just. Yeah, people would come home and find their bed messed up, the heater turned on and food on the table. They said if there was snow on the ground, you could track him in and out every yard. You could see exactly where he went. One family, the Ferris family, had a boat, a boat cabana. And they'd come down in the morning and they'd find him wrapped up and around the base of the toilet in the boat cabana. Little boathouse.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. A friend let him sleep in his crawl space. Not that great of a friend. If he said, I mean, I guess you could stay, but you got to go in the crawl space. That's a pretty shitty friend.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You go under the house if you want.

[James Petrigallo]

I give. I give my friends couches and shit. Maybe even a bed. There's a crawl space if you could squeeze into it, I guess.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, there's certainly protection from the elements. Jesus.

[James Petrigallo]

Yes. Wow. There was an old garage back in the woods near his home, and he finally just moved in there. There's no heat, no light, no toilet. And the cop said, we'd shine our police flashlights through the BlackBerry bushes, and he'd peek out and yell, no problem, Officer. Thanks for checking. I'm fine. And then he'd say, how's the wife? How's everything at the station? Gee, I'll have to drop in and see you guys from the BlackBerry bushes. In a stalking. That's odd. They said some of those nights it was below freezing and we didn't have the heart to turn him out, so he'd have unsteady jobs. He's depending on petty thievery and other misdemeanors and shit like that. Sergeant Booth became one of the first to realize that what he's doing isn't so innocent. Basically, he said, George would try every car door he passed, looking for change, cigarettes, cassette tapes and small stuff. Then he'd sell it or trade it. He'd go to parties and leave with a ring or a watch. Steal shit, yeah. Mostly he operated in the north end of the island where he was raised. The south end was uphill, and George was lazy. Literally didn't want to walk up hills. When we stopped him, he was usually on foot, unless we caught him on a stolen bike. And then he'd say a kid loaned it to him. What kid? George? I don't know. I just met them. He'd say, I bet he stole a hundred bikes on Mercer Island. Mostly from boys who thought that he was their friend. Then he moved to a little bit more shit here. He'd steal somebody's wallet, and if he'd get caught from somebody else by the Cops. He'd smile and go, I was teaching him a lesson.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hang on to that. Better.

[James Petrigallo]

Gotta be a little street smart. Yeah. He said everything was a game. They said he'd meet some rich family and get in with them and then just long enough to figure out where they hid their heide a keys and then they'd get burglarized. That's how it would work. And people. They said a lot of the neighbors couldn't bring themselves to turn him in. One guy said. One guy said, how could you hold a grudge against good old George?

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's just adorable.

[James Petrigallo]

He's just a charmer. And that's the thing the book on him is called. Charmer. That's the name of it. That's what it is. So they'd said you'd ask how he was doing and he'd give you 10 minutes of how things were fine with him and his dad and Chris and his new baby brother who he's not related to at all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Brother at all.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. How is his mom? Oh, great. Teaching back east, giving lectures. She just sent me a nice birthday present. I talked to her on the phone last night. Blah, blah, blah. Was all bullshit. He was living on the street and talked to these people anymore. Had nothing Dr. Mose Mobley said about this to the cop or the cop says about Dr. Mobley. Dr. Mobley had me check his closets and under his bed kids because George was sneaking back in at night and they didn't want to confront him. I got the impression that George was still bothering Chris too. And I agreed that this could turn dangerous. And they said every time we stopped him, by the way, he had the same things in his bag. He'd have a duffel bag with a police scanner.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petrigallo]

Miniature chess and backgammon sets. A Playboy or a Penthouse something and general pictures of girls.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, just random.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, random. Yeah. Odd. He would take people's cars and the. The police scanner is a big deal, so he knew all the local cop channels. So he would listen in what was going on and listen in whether he was going to get caught or not. One of the cops said we seldom nailed him for burglary. We usually had to settle for criminal trespass, which means we caught him where he didn't belong. Said he'd trip an alarm and we drive up and he'd be doing the George Russell heel and toe down the street with the scanner at his ear. Oh, hi, officer. How's it going? He knew they were on the way, so he got out. That's what he would do. They said he had a long string of burglaries on First Hill. Chippy stuff. He was a major criminal of minor crimes. People would call and say, I had $40 in my wallet when I went to bed. I heard a noise in the middle of the night and now I got 20. He wouldn't even take the whole 40. That's what I mean.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Thoughtful fella.

[James Petrigallo]

It's a. It's fucking weird. It's just.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a genius though, because how many times have you ever, like, woken up from. And you got cash and you don't know?

[James Petrigallo]

Almost. Gaslighting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, almost, but not quite that steal anything from you?

[Jimmy Whisman]

You spent it? Probably. I don't know.

[James Petrigallo]

So weird. But that's just a strange. Yeah, I guess he thinks that maybe they won't notice that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it's.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Or they'll go, did I have 40 or 20? I guess I must add 20.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Because if I had 40 and somebody stole any, they'd steal all 40.

[James Petrigallo]

That's what. Yeah, that's. It doesn't make sense. It makes you sound crazy when you call the cops, so. Or they'd say, my front door's open and I'm sure I left it closed. Or I heard somebody downstairs, but nobody answered. By the way, this is such a ritzy area. People call the cops for that. My front door's open and I'm sure I closed it and I would never. Yeah, then close it, stupid. Yeah, well, good, then no one's in your house. Go back to sleep, you fucking idiot. That's what the cops would have told me where I'm from. Like, what are you wrong with you? He said, we knew it was George. Who the hell else would ignore thousand dollar rings and steal a Mickey Mouse watch? He'd hit the same house three or four times. I began to suspect that there was a sexual aspect to it. In nighttime intrusions, there often is said if we could have caught him with the goods, things might have been different. But he had rat holes. We'd find his stash in the woods and we couldn't tie it to him. It was like connecting a squirrel with his acorns. Loot didn't stick to him long. He'd trade it or hide it or give it away. George had a big need to give as he had to take. But first he had to have something to give. Earrings, rings, bracelets, all from his burglaries. So, yeah, he would take the small shit. He would impersonate a cop too. He'd Tell. Yeah, he'd go into, like, a bar and be like, yeah, I'm investigating a bunch of coke being sold in here. So I'm gonna be, you know, investigating all this shit. So you should go ahead and give me free drinks now and shit like that. Spend a lot of short stretches in jail, two days a week, things like that. Tom Hagar, the kid who was his best friend, who then got his Jag stolen all the time, said the first time I went to visit him in King County Jail, he'd been there less than a week and was already a trustee. Handing out milk, running errands, working in the dispensary, already doing the whole. Oh, less than a week.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Doing the. Like four or five years in.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. Doing the fucking lifer shit. Yeah. Jail was the closest George ever got to the pension system. He really needed three meals a day, cable tv, full medical and dental. He figured that King county jail beat Dr. Washington's tough love. If only they'd let him sleep a little later, he'd be fine. Doesn't get along with the other black inmates. By the way, they all call him Oreo. That's his name. His name is Oreo because they say that he looks black and talks white and acts white.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, it's not even. He's not light.

[James Petrigallo]

No, no. It's the behavior you act. Yep. So they said he had a few flare ups he did not like. He didn't like them either. He thought they were beneath him, the jail guys there. One of the prisoners said he didn't. He. When George acted like a brother, quote unquote. He was doing an impression of a black guy, basically. Yeah, it's weird. He's basically like Carlton from Fresh Prince.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Racist. Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. So they said that they called him Oreo all the time. They called him House. N word. They called him Tom, which is short for Uncle Tom. And they called him a snitch, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, they said he would if guys that didn't know him came up and talked to him in, like, slang and street shit. He would look at them because he didn't understand. He was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Which they were like, all right, Oreo. And then that would be that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petrigallo]

So, yeah, he said. He enunciated and things. He said he would say that this didn't happen. It transpired. It transpired that transpired. He didn't say I graduated. He said, I was graduated. You know, proper English in. You know, I'm not in jail. I'm incarcerated. I don't talk to people, I interact with them. Uses words like consensus of opinion and shit like that, which doesn't get a lot of shit thrown around jail, probably. I would think so. He 1978. Ish. He's out of jail. He's hired as the assistant manager of a teen disco perfect for him called Tonight's the Night. TNT or ttn. Tonight's the night you're finally gonna get fingered. Here it is, everybody. It's happening. Ah, it's a friend of his that knows him, that hired him for this whole deal. He checked IDs, collected tickets, you know, worked the ropes and you know, the velvet rope outside there, you know. Cause you gotta make it like a nightclub, even though it's for kids. And he would also steal shit as well. He would pass his friends to the front of the line and really be a real hard ass on troublemakers. And one of the security guards said he would lose it real easy. Whenever a kid would ask, would question his authority, especially if the kid was female, they'd say, well, who are you? And George would yell, hey, bitch, I'm the guy that's gonna throw your little ass out of here. Little aggressive, I would say. And it said he was normally so jolly and jocular and then this would happen here, but when he got drunk, he'd be a different guy completely. They said a barroom acquaintance complained to George that her boyfriend hit her. And he said, where's the guy live? Let's go. We'll blow up his car. I'll show you how. Come on, we'll go get some gas. Wow.

[Steve Buscemi]

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[James Petrigallo]

In the early hours of December 4, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at and the suspect, he has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was meant to sow terror. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. He steals thousands of dollars from tonight's the night over a couple year period, as to be expected. Oh yeah, absolutely, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just right out of the till.

[James Petrigallo]

Right out of the till. And also causes more trouble. Here's a police story from him. At a private party, we had a complaint that he was causing trouble at a private party. We found him hiding under a bed. Okay, George, we said, come on out. He knew we couldn't arrest him. He just says, I'm. Hell, I'm just helping these guys clean the house, you know, get under the bread, under the bed and everything.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He said, they want all these diamonds.

[James Petrigallo]

There is dust bunnies under here you wouldn't believe. So they said, they want you out, George. And he said, I'm staying. And they said, you're out of here. And at that point the guy said, George completely lost it. This is the first time they're seeing the other side of him. They said he completely lost it. He slobbered, he spit, he went crazy. Called us white trash, honky bigots, screaming. He'd always kept his temper concealed. Whenever I handled him after that, I didn't think of him as cute little George or the station mascot. I of him as a mean son of a bitch.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No shit.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. At one point here he wrecks a car. Also he had a BMW that he took from a friend of his. And I guess he. His friend said he was doing 60 and a 35 weaving back and forth across the center line. It was worse than bad driving. It was like psychotic. It was psychotic. He claimed he knew all about performance cars because he'd driven his dad's Ferrari. Because by the way, the dentist has a Ferrari.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Of course he does.

[James Petrigallo]

But you could see that he didn't have a clue. Then three weeks later, George rolled that car on West Mercer Way and he had an explanation. They said, quote, the cops checked the skid marks and found out that those special T7 nylon tires have no traction till they're warmed up. It was also the tires fault when he totaled a friend's Datsun on a drive from California. At 5am he spun off Interstate 5 near Reading and broke through the median rail, fracturing his femur. He blamed the accident on a blowout. But police Thought he fell asleep at the wheel. Then he lost control of his 1981 gold Honda Civic, wiped out a fence and crashed into a tree. When police arrived, he was on his feet babbling. And the report from the police said Russell denied driving the car, stating it had been stolen from him. Even though he's there with it. He stated he just happened to be driving by and found his car crashed there. So he got in and tried to drive it out. There's no other car there, though. Where's your car? You drove? Yeah. Russell stated to me when I arrested him, quote, you're lucky. If I had a gun, you'd be dead. He sold the cop that. Oh, God damn. So he also sentenced to one day in jail for using plates from a stolen. Stolen from a friend to put on a car. His stepmom went to court after one of the car accidents and blamed his bad behavior on his biological mom leaving. So he's had a hard time, so he deserves another chance. Yeah. Also tried to break into the Tonight's. The night club owner's car was arrested, but escaped out of a holding room at the police station. I'll say that again. They took him to the police station and he escaped. They know who he is. He's like, this is ridiculous.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They've taken your fingerprints. They know your name. They know your face. They know you.

[James Petrigallo]

They know you. He evaded two chases on foot. He evaded the helicopter and three canine units. He finally got caught and arrested and convicted finally of his first felony, which is escaping the police station. Not allowed to do that. He is sentenced to 10 months in county jail for that. Finally. Now, around this time, obviously, he had also, at the same time been, like, giving the cops tips about drug dealers and shit. Like, just anonymously forming. Yeah, very weird. Very, very weird. Also, they said he had a unique way of using his police connections to gain women's trust. That's why a lot of times these serial killers pose as cops. They pull women over. Like Ted Bundy did that. Other people did it. It's terrifying, they said, and it worked a lot of the times. But if his advances fell flat, he'd take the rejection personally and get really angry and be, like, all heated for, like, 10 minutes before he'd calm down and then go to the next chick. He couldn't just be like, oh, well. So they said his temper was starting to worry his friends. He couldn't hold a legitimate job. He carried all his possessions, including his collection of porn mags, in a duffel bag and in paper bags. And his daytime home was the apartment of whoever the fuck he could. Was his friend at the time, basically. And then he told everybody he worked as an undercover cop at night. Wow. So people liked him still because he showed that good side of him. It's great. But people said he showed no emotion, no guilt. Growing hostility toward women. He was a growing obsession with sex. They said he'd hit on anybody. Didn't matter. A bartender started calling him the Schizo because his personality changed so profoundly after drinks. He's also one of these guys, you get booze in the system. Different guy. They said cool, lovable George annoyed women and barely avoided fights with their boyfriend. He seemed to revel in baiting females then slipping away to stir up trouble somewhere else. A friend said George tried to surround himself with girls, but they never really liked him. You only had to watch him for five minutes to see it. Nobody knew why. Probably because he's like 5 foot 1. I would assume boost probably has a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Crazy effect on that guy.

[James Petrigallo]

Oh, my God. Yeah. He comes up, he's like a tiny. He's like a drunken dwarf. Nobody wants to fight. Who wants to bang that guy? You know what I mean? Verne Troyer was the only one that could pull that off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That wasn't even laid. I don't know. That was scary. It's scary to see a little guy that hammered.

[James Petrigallo]

It's weird. Yeah, it's fucking weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't like it at all.

[James Petrigallo]

It's strange. Yeah. I feel. Well, that's because as an adult, and this sounds so bad because it's. We know these are adults and everything like that, but we look at little people as children for some reason, even though they're not. You know what I mean? Obviously they're not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And if we don't look at them as children, we look at them with our brains. Yeah, yeah. Just with the care of a child.

[James Petrigallo]

I don't mean intellectually think of them as children. I mean, our brains react to, oh, it's a little child, that's cute. Or that's a cute little per. It's like, no, that's an adult person. But our brains, intellectually, we know that. And that's why we don't go up to them and offer them candy and stuff. So. But 82 to 85 here in this era, he is phoning tips into Crime Watch. He starts using younger, he starts having sex with young, with teenagers. Now has a relationship, if you could call it that. We'll say he molested a 14 year old girl. Let's just say she said the sex was consensual, though, which. You can't have consensual sex with an adult when you're 14. Just can't. That's impossible. That word's definition doesn't work for that. Later, though, he forced her to perform oral sex on him. He admitted that he tried to leave his younger sister, who's like 3 years old at this point. Not even his sister. His stepfather and step stepmother's kid, his ex stepdad's kid at a gas station when she was younger, just tried to leave her there. He's arrested for stealing a TV, lottery tickets, selling beer to minors. Sentenced to 30 days in jail, but he ends up serving seven months because he's a dick in jail too. Gets out, hangs around Mercer island and he's doing his same old shit. Now, a lot of his friends, they'll still let him crash at their house. He'll borrow their car, you know what I mean? Because they said he'd turn around and cook you a gourmet dinner, treat your friends to a round of drinks, give you earnest advice and be all of this. And be all cool and smile and huggy and all that kind of shit. And they were like, oh, wow. They just liked him. One of the police, the police chief said Russell was regarded as more of a character than dangerous and said he was more of a sneak thief or anything like that. Every time they picked him up, though, he's armed with a knife, anything from a kitchen knife to an old bayonet. So, yeah, he's always got some form of blade on him of some kind. Now, they never heard of him using the knife to hurt anybody, but they said they did have information that he had brandished the knife on a couple of occasions. Yeah, the one. The police chief said he was a good talker. He was, I suppose, for lack of a better word, charming. Yeah, they said he probably could have been anything he wanted to be. He was very knowledgeable about a lot of different subjects. Often when police arrested him, he'd have a backpack with books on him. Now, they all had pictures of pussies in them, but still they were books. They said the cops didn't fear him. They said there are people like that, they don't assault police officers, they make you chase them. He's a chaser. He's not a. He's a. He doesn't run at you. He runs away from you. He's that guy. He's also the only prisoner who ever broke out of the city's temporary holding cell facility as well. Never happened before. Yeah, he kicked a window out, crawled through and escaped. And he said.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Anybody could have done that.

[James Petrigallo]

That's what I mean. He said. I mean it wasn't like a diabolical. It wasn't Tango and Cash, you know what I'm saying? Where they had to slide down an electrical wire to get out the gates.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Paper mache head like Alcatraz. He just fucking kicked a window and walked out.

[James Petrigallo]

Come through the fucking ground. Like raising Arizona. John Goodman popping his head out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's more on you than it is him. Jesus. Gave him an opportunity to break a window.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck. They said he was a model prisoner who seemed to do very well in a controlled environment. Except for that one escape. So he at some point wants to marry a 14 year old.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why?

[James Petrigallo]

I don't know. He wrote letters to this 14 year old talking about marriage and that they have forever. And also would talk about anal sex fantasies with her. And he got her pregnant and she had an abortion.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petrigallo]

So he got a 14 year old pregnant. May of 87.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So much for the anal sex.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, no shit. He was going the wrong route there. May of 87. Released from jail after seven months. So biology isn't his strongest subject, we figured out. Five weeks later he ends up pleading guilty to a charge of criminal trespassing and possession of a dangerous weapon. Spent five days in jail and finally underwent but psychological counseling. Let's see here the results here. They found him to be. Let's read this out. Self centered, limited in capacity to form deep interpersonal relationships. Quite impulsive, demonstrates poor judgment, having little patience or frustration tolerance. A risk taker, often rebellious toward authority figures and has trouble incorporating traditional standards and values of society. He is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Which doesn't mean you don't like people, it means that you're actively. Yes. It's around that time that he gets banned from a Denny's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Now to be you can be kicked out of a Denny's, that happens. But to be banned permanently from a Denny's. You gotta really do something, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

To set yourself up apart. As lower than Denny's clientele.

[James Petrigallo]

Yes. Lower than the other drunks at 3am that are smoking and falling asleep into their mozzarella sticks. Like into their fucking moons over Miami. Wow. He got banned for stealing tips off the table. Oh, he didn't work there. He'd just go in and steal tips off the table.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Remember when that was a thing?

[James Petrigallo]

Wow. Wow. So he gets banned. 1988, he's hired at an arcade, the Nintendo Arcade.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They had a Nintendo one.

[James Petrigallo]

Well, Nintendo Seattle. Think about it. That's their big deal there. He ends up skimming $23,000 in eight.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Months from the arcade.

[James Petrigallo]

From an arcade.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that how much those fuckers were making?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah, fuck. Especially the Nintendo one. Yes. Probably. Big words at the time. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. He walked down the street jingling and jangling like crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a lot of quarters.

[James Petrigallo]

It's weird because normally he weighed about 130 pounds, but after a shift he weighed about 210 pounds. It was very strange. Then in 1989, after he's fired from that job for stealing, he tells everybody that will listen that he has turned over a new leaf and he is now a born again Christian. So no need to fear anymore. He's all fine. He even meets a nice lady. He moves in with an an of age woman named Mindy. She's a blue eyed beautiful girl named Mindy. He of course began physically abusing her and showing just an US level of interest, which is an unhealthy level of interest in the Green River Killer murder case and the 49 victims because that was when they were still looking for him. So yeah, an unhealthy obsession with the Green River Killer. He went to jail for five days for drug charges. Committed about 60 burglaries in Kirkland during this time. February 20, 1990, he's arrested for domestic assault for beating up Mindy, I think. 1990. Right after that he's banned from the Black Angus restaurant. This guy is really class. That's class right there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What did he do at Black Angus?

[James Petrigallo]

So you're telling me. Yeah. You're telling me I can't go to fucking Denny's and I can't get a shitty steak either. Jesus. Come on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's really, he's really running the gamut on bottom rung of whatever it is the restaurant offers.

[James Petrigallo]

No shit. He. He was a regular customer at Black angus apparently from 89 through March of 1990 when he's banned from the restaurant. And we'll find out why in a little later. But he was very angry about being banned from the Black Angus. Like wow, that was furious. Furious potatoes, man. What's next? Outback Texas Roadhouse? I won't stand for it. June 22, 1990. That is when Mary Ann Polreich, remember her from the beginning of the show. She is 27 years old. She works at a medical device manufacturing company. Remember she was found on the 23rd. This is the 22nd. She went to Papagayo's. P A P A G A Y O. Yeah, it's a nightclub here known as a place where you go meet people. It's like a singles bar type of job. That's exactly what meat M E E T. They say it was known as a, quote, meat market. So she went with her friends that night. This is in Bellevue. The three drove in Marianne's 1984 Camaro.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's driving.

[James Petrigallo]

Her two friends left at about 9:30pm but she stayed behind. She wanted to hang out and party. She's like, I didn't come here to fucking bitch out at 9:30. You guys can go wherever you want. Now. George is also there that night with his friend Smith McClain to have dinner, hanging out with his buddy, having dinner. Once they were there, Russell and another friend talked to Marianne a little bit after they ate dinner. Russell here. George borrows the keys to his friend's truck. Smith McClain explaining that he had to change into a shirt with a collar because that's what the dance floor required at the bar. He had to have a collar on for some fucking reason. So.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Russell, those guys don't rape people, James.

[James Petrigallo]

No, no, no. You put a collar on and you are aces from then on. Now he's got a collar. So he had a duffel bag in the truck and he was gonna go change. So he goes outside with the keys and doesn't come back in. Never comes back. Smith McLean looks outside, his fucking truck is gone. So is his buddy. They're all gone. So this Smith McLean is pissed off. And he spent the rest of the evening waiting at the Overlake Denny's restaurant in Overlake, where. That's where people from Papagayo's would go after closing to the Denny's. That's how hard it is to get kicked out of Denny's. That's where all the drunks go, guys.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not getting laid, all that.

[James Petrigallo]

So that's. He waits all night. He never shows up. At about 5:30am this guy finally finds a ride home because he doesn't have his truck. So that morning, the morning that Marianne's body's discovered, that same morning, George calls Smith McLean's house and he said, oh, man, where you been? This is George talking. He said, where you been? I was looking for you all night.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All night.

[James Petrigallo]

Well, I was at the bar till closing. You know the place you said you were gonna be back in five fucking minutes. That's where I was for most of it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And then I went to Denny's until sun came up.

[James Petrigallo]

What the fuck, man? Until the drunks fell asleep. And then I left. So at about 6am McLean's sister saw George return in the truck. So shows up to McLean Smith McLean's house with the truck. George told her he borrowed the truck to drive a friend home and then he couldn't find her brother. So that's what happened. During this conversation, the sister notices a reddish orange stain on the passenger seat of the truck that wasn't there before. Russell said, oh yeah, my friend that I picked up vomited clam chowder everywhere. Manhattan, apparently. Yeah. Not New England, I guess, here. So George declined the offer of a ride home from the sister and just walked away with his duffel bag. Now, Smith McClain woke up well after George had left and went outside to inspect his truck. He smelled a strong offensive odor that reminded him of vomit or the smell of a deer gutted after a hunting kill.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Those are two.

[James Petrigallo]

Those are very different things.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that what they say?

[James Petrigallo]

It's either death or vomit? I can't tell.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm getting notes of gutted venison. No, that's.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. No, it's either the canal of an interior of an animal or that puke.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Is that rib cage of a deer? No, it's vomit.

[James Petrigallo]

It's vomit. Yeah. Jesus Christ. So George called Smith McClain later that morning and told him that he had thrown up in the truck after drinking too much. Wasn't his friend. George also told Smith that he had driven a woman home in the truck because he didn't want to be seen in the woman's Porsche. Now, George Russell had spoken previously about a woman with a Porsche. That woman's name was Tamara Francis. Now, Frances knows him, but never left that bar with him at all. So now that same morning, that is when old Jimmy finds the body of Marianne outside the dumpster by the Black Angus. Now, a little bit more of this here. They say here that the. The post mortem injuries obviously are spending all that time with the body like we talked about, is not normal. They decide from a medical examination here that there's a number of significant injuries. The most likely cause of death was manual strangulation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petrigallo]

She also. Her skull is fractured and has numerous facial injuries that appear to be inflicted by a fist so beat until her skull fucking cracked her liver. They assume that someone was kicking her so hard that it. It split her liver basically in two pieces. Broke her liver. She also had a distinct anal tear that the medical examiner opined was caused by a solid non human Object. Her blood alcohol level was 0.14 at the time of her death. So drunk, but not falling over drunk. And the. And they said, yeah, the posing and all of that. Very strange here. Now, back at the bar, her car is still there. It's still at the bar. The 84 Camaro. And inside the bar is her purse and sweater as well. What woman leaves anywhere without her purse if she's out with it? A purse and sweater, you got to have that. Yeah, you gotta have that imperative.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No matter where you go, especially if you're going out, you're not with somebody, you're by yourself. You gotta be able to pay for drinks and shit.

[James Petrigallo]

Absolutely. You gotta have your license to drive all that shit. So they said, finding the car and her purse and sweater at the bar, the police detective said that tells us she wasn't intending on leaving that place. She'd left against her will. So they investigate. One of the bouncers is an a Bellevue police officer that was working off duty. And he often spoke with George, who was a frequent patron of Papa Guyo's. And that night he saw Russell twice. He said once shortly after his shift began at 10:30pm and again approximately an hour later. On the second occasion, George told this officer that he was going to, quote, take this girl over to her place to get something. The officer did not see the woman well enough to identify her. However, he described her size and general description and it's similar to Marianne. And he also said he noticed the woman seemed pretty intoxicated as well. So that night, that's what happens there. Okay, now let's talk about Carol Marie Beath or Beathy. B E E T H E. I think it's beautiful. Probably she's 35 years old. She is a bartender at Cucina Cucina, which is a restaurant in Bellevue. Double Cucina. She lived in a condo with her two kids. Her ex husband Paul lived very nearby, very close. Now, August 8th, 1990. Carol speaks with her ex husband Paul at about 9:30pm at about 10:30pm she spoke with her boyfriend Mike Sewell, with whom she's planning on going on vacation. They talk at midnight. She's out. She's out and about. She meets a friend at a restaurant where he was the bartender and Left at approximately 2:15pm this, this bar is called the Keg. Okay. Now they describe Carol as pretty, blond haired and svelte. So small, thin, pot blonde woman. They said that this is from the book slotted well with her crowd. She, they talk about she's a shit Talker. She's smart.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

She trades sexual innuendos, teases the men. They say that she invites their flirtations and then would, you know, turn them down. She's breaking balls. Yeah. So they said it was kind of her game and kind of what she did for her ego type of thing. One night though, on this night they said she was talking to the bartender and wasn't talking to any of the other guys. And so she hadn't realized though that someone's been watching her here. Now she left the keg a little past 2am like we said, she drove straight home. A neighbor out walking his dog later said that he had seen Carol unlock the front door of her home and then enter at about 2:30am she was alone and she looked a little tipsy. They said there was no one with her or near her or on foot or cruising by or there was no like anybody that could have like ran in the door behind her type of shit. Inside her home she looked in on her two daughters. She's a 9 and a 13 year old and they're both asleep. She takes a quick shower, gets ready for bed. She has to work the next day, the late shift and she attends bar at Cucina Cucina like we said. And she didn't like leaving her kids alone so often at night. But she thought they were responsible and her ex could check on him because he lives nearby. So she little after three laid down to sleep and the moon apparently was very bright. So she turned away because she has french doors that in her room that the moon is shining through. So she turned the other direction. Now she figured and her yard was private, so the French doors looking over her yard isn't a big deal. She doesn't have to close the drapes, whatever. She also doesn't really lock doors that often. Really not a big door locker. Now at 4:30am The 13 year old daughter Kelly heard someone in the hall of the condo. Then saw a person shine a flashlight in the bathroom into her sister's bedroom and then into her bedroom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Him.

[James Petrigallo]

She thought the person was Mike. Her mom's boyfriend was coming over. So then Kelly went back to sleep. She woke up at 8:30am and her mother was not up as she usually mother was already usually up doing shit and she wasn't. She went to go check on her mom and her mom's bedroom door was locked. So she tries knocking on the door, she's yelling for her mother. Mother never answers, no answers. She won't wake up. So Kelly goes outside, around to the Sliding glass door to her mother's room. And she saw her mother through the door and freaked the fuck out. Because. We'll tell you why. She ran back in and called her father who came home and came over and actually entered the room through the sliding glass door. Wow. Carol was on her back on the bed. The bedspread was pulled all the way down to the foot of the bed. She's completely naked except for a pair of red high heeled shoes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Weird.

[James Petrigallo]

Her feet are together with her legs spread apart toward the door of the room. And her knees are bent. So you can picture that blood had been smeared on her legs in a manner that resembled finger painting. They said it was definitely on purpose. Somebody had smeared it. Now, under her bed she had kept a Savage.22 long rifle. Yeah, a gun. This rifle has been placed. It is resting symmetrically between her legs with the. The stock, the butt of the gun on. On. No, the butt of the gun on her shoes down there. And the firearm, the barrel of it is inserted into her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petrigallo]

It's five and a half inches into the vagina.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, dear Lord.

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. That is just obviously fucking disturbing as shit. Her left arm was bent upward at the elbow while her right arm was bent down at the elbow, nearly touching her hip. So picture that. Now the weird part is they see a. There's a pillow over her face. So they think maybe she's suffocated. They take the pillow off and find her head is wrapped in a dry cleaning plastic bag. Bag. It's over her head with a belt tied around her neck to keep it in place.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dear Christ.

[James Petrigallo]

So this is definitely not an accident. Obviously she's been had her head beat.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In here with a bag over it.

[James Petrigallo]

Bag over the head. And they're calling it blunt force. Blunt force trauma to the head and really bad stuff. They said that she was killed by beating. And also there was bites on her arms. At her post mortem, medical examiner found that her death had been caused by head injuries. The head injuries were inflicted by an instrument swung with considerable force. In rapid succession, the blows left a distinct Y shaped marks and crushed the entire left side of her skull. So that's fucking weird. Also, whatever this was had sliced her ear and left 13 distinctive Y shapes on her body. She had been bitten and kicked with such ferocity that two broken ribs penetrated the chest cavity.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Good Christ. Anger, Rage.

[James Petrigallo]

Yep. She'd been struck many times with a knee or a fist in the torso. And her liver was also lacerated.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the kids heard none of this.

[James Petrigallo]

Didn'T hear a fucking thing about this. Now she had rings on her right hand, but not on her left hand. At the time of her death, she owned two wedding ring sets. One from her mother and one from her previous marriage. The rings were kept in a jewelry box in her bedroom. But they were never found.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They were gone.

[James Petrigallo]

They were gone. Now during the investigation, the police will publish photographs of the ring in the newspaper and everything of these rings. Her family was also informed that she had a half dozen small Crown Royal bags. I'm sorry? Her family told the police she had a half dozen small Crown Royal bags in the top drawer of her dresser containing silver dollars and other change from tips. When police allowed the ex husband to re enter his wife's house, he noticed all the bags were missing. That's why where they found out that he's like all the loose change is gone, but nothing else. And wedding rings and possible wedding rings. Yeah. So they investigate. They interviewed the neighbor who had seen her returning home, but he had no other details other than I saw her coming home. They spoke with some neighborhood children who'd been camping out next door and they seemed to be. They said that she seemed to be in a hurry as if afraid of someone or something that was outside. Who knows? I mean she also priced. It's 2:30 and I got to work tomorrow. Who knows. So they questioned John Comfort, he's the bartender who she hung out with at the keg that night. And the police learned that she, Carol, had helped him close up the bar, then went with him to the car where they made love.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh really?

[James Petrigallo]

Yes. She's supposed to leave for the trip with her boyfriend the next day. Here he said he saw no signs of life in the parking lot nor any suspicious characters hanging around the restaurant at closing time. He said there'd been a few last minute stragglers, but they were all gone by the time they locked up. So they obviously detain him for a minute. So you're saying you had sex with her and then we found her dead five hours later. Well then let's have a chat, sir.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the boyfriend will both talk to. Oh yeah, very, yeah, a lot.

[James Petrigallo]

And the ex husband for that matter? Everybody, all of them. So he was detained, but then they let him go and placed him under surveillance. Let's see what he does. So they refused to believe at this point that they, that this was some kind of serial killer? They said no. The MO between Marianne and Carol's crimes were different. One was outside been the one they thought that Marianne had been the victim of a spontaneous date rape gone awry. And Carol had died. Died at the hands of a housebreaker who may have actually been mad at her personally. They said that both. Both crimes. But they didn't recognize this, though, that both crimes bore signs of graphic sexual deviancy. Both women's bodies had been treated with. With sheer contempt by the killer. Both corpses were posed to laugh at and malign the law. And even though the MO had altered, the signature had not fucking altered. That's the thing. That just means you're more ballsy, right? They will develop different things. Ted Bundy wasn't going into people's houses and doing that shit till later. You know what I mean? Like, there's the people, they. They grow, you know? I mean, an artist grows, a comic grows, a serial killer grows. You grow. Yeah, you evolve. So they also find out that George, Russell and Carol were acquaintances. And one person said that both of them frequented the Overlake Denny's. Also a waitress at the Black Angus restaurant, by the way. The Black Angus that is next to the McDonald's is the one. He got banned from that. They found Marianne outside. Now, a waitress at the Black Angus testified later that on two separate occasions, she was talking to Carol about a situation between George and her and saw George glaring at them. They're just hanging out at the Black Angus. Who just doesn't go there, eat dinner and go home. What are you doing? They said this occurred before he was banned from the Black Angus. And after these two murders, George told his friends that he knew the victim of the second murder and that she was a bartender at the Cochina Cucina restaurant. And then also they find somebody that says that George tried to sell him rings that resembled the missing set as well. Oh, now they try to work up a profile here. So they call in an expert on sexualized crime who said the murders are the work of one man because you're looking for one guy. The expert said the serial killer would be a young white male. But police zero in on Russell, who they said grew up in a white upper class, middle class neighborhood. So much to the fact that all the prisoners said he acted white. So they're like, that's kind of his personality. So they. They do that. Now, George reads the paper clearly because friends say that he cut pictures of the first two victims out of the newspaper and called them skanky sluts, then taped them up to the wall. On the wall.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In the cell in the jail?

[James Petrigallo]

No, at his house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, at his home.

[James Petrigallo]

He's not arrested? Yeah, he's out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's just got.

[James Petrigallo]

Okay, yeah. He reads the newspapers, tells his friends, you see the skanky sluts that got killed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And he's putting those clippings on the.

[James Petrigallo]

Wall and then said, they're never gonna find who killed her. Never gonna find who killed these two ladies. So. Yeah. Now, about three weeks after Carol's murder here, Russell and a friend drove to a wooded area on Mercer island, and George informed his friend that he had to pick up some money owed to him. George stepped out of the car and returned with a paper bag full of silver dollars and change, probably from one of his little hidey holes that he had there. Yeah, so we're using BTK language with that hidey hole shit. Now, forensic evidence reveals none of George's fingerprints in Carol's residence. There is a fabric glove impression left on the sheet of her bed that suggested that gloves were worn. And they find hairs on her sheet, pillow, and underwear that were from a black person. No, they were from a black person. The hairs they found, but the fragments were not suitable for any kind of comparison. This is the very beginning of DNA, too. You need like, a whole hair with a root attached and everything else. So. August 30, 1990. Andrea Levine is 24 years old. She goes by Randy with an I. And she goes to some of the same places everybody else went, the same nightclubs the other two went to. She rented a basement apartment in the home of Robert Hayes and his wife here. And on August 30, 1990, the landlord, Robert Hayes, saw Randy after she returned from work. Later that evening, Randy met her boyfriend at a restaurant in Kirkland where they discussed plans to go to the San Juan Islands. So somebody else going on vacation. Yeah, she was known for her sarcasm and being witty as well. This one, same as. Same as Carol. Same as Carol. They said that she is known for urging on, going along with flirting and then rejecting a guy and being like, I don't think so. Fuck off. So the night, this night, she met several of her girlfriends for a drink, but left the bar alone, according to her friends. Now that none of her acquaintances could recall her chatting with or teasing any guys that night, they said. Was she breaking balls that night? No, they said she hadn't been there that long and she wasn't in her usual high spirits. So she took off from the Maple Gardens, which is a bar, not long after midnight, they figured, saying she was tired after a long day. And they figured that she drove home in her pickup truck and went straight home and went to bed. So she declined to ride home and drove herself home to pack for her vacation at about 1:30am so drove herself home. Now the next morning the landlord Bob Hayes and his wife woke up about 5am they opened the back door to let their dogs out. The dogs began barking like fucking crazy. Soon as they let him out, he stepped out to look around and saw a dark figure just in the dark. Couldn't see who it was, just a figure silhouette about 25 to 30ft away. So yeah, he was roaming along the exterior wall near Randy's rear window by the basement. Now he threw on his robe and put a leash on his dog and went out to confront what he thought was someone trying to break into his house. But they said that the, the dogs must have scared the guy away and he took off. And the guy took off and he couldn't catch up to him the landlord. So he said, all right, scared that guy off. He checked his, his property, didn't find any broken windows or jimmy locks or any. Everything was in place. So he figured, hey, I thwarted it. Good, good for me. So he checked the window closest to where he spotted him and inadvertently realized that it was Randy's bedroom window. And he said he could see her asleep in bed. And he felt like, oh God, I intruded. I, you know, I'm looking in the window at this girl sleeping. Holy shit. So he said he's, he's. Yeah, he said he stepped back, went into his own house, gave the dog some treats. Like that was. It felt like a, felt like a pervert and a piece of shit. You know, I didn't even, I know I didn't whack it, but I was.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sleeping and I felt gross, felt awful.

[James Petrigallo]

So he said that he was glad to get rid of that guy. He said there had been some break ins in the building. Only a couple days earlier, Randy had told him there'd been a number of things missing from her apartment. So someone must have broke in. He said since then he's made a habit to keep an eye out. And he said maybe he scared the guy off for good this time. But he never saw the person. He said it was a look like a thin, young and agile man. That's all he could get out of it. We don't know. Could have been a ninja. We have no idea.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It was dark, I don't know.

[James Petrigallo]

It was dark. Yeah. So he said it was just an adult with a white, with a white form approximately 2/3 the width of, of the person or in front of the individual's. Abdomen. He said he called out and fled. He called out, the guy fled. He said he chased him a short distance but stopped because he was unarmed. And he just called the police. And the police examine the exterior and said, all right, everything looks good and that's fine. So days go by. Days go by. And the following Monday, the landlord's wife here, the land lady, I guess, went into Randy's apartment because one of Randy's cats was crying and crying and crying. And she know if she was hungry or what the hell was going on. As she walked down the hallway, she said she smelled something like old blood coming from the bedroom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or was it vomit?

[James Petrigallo]

It could have been clamshell or vomit, we don't know. Someone could be gutting a deer in the living room. We're not sure. So she opened the door to the bedroom and found Randy. She was on her back on the bed, face turned toward her left shoulder, legs spread with her knees straight. So extended out this time not like making a diamond shape. Her right arm extended above her right shoulder while her left arm rested by her side. This sound familiar?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

Under her forearm. Her left forearm. Was the book. More Joy of Sex. Oh, the sequel placed right under her. And a plastic dildo is in her mouth. Her brains are leaking on the bedroom. There's brain matter all over the bed. This is fucking. This is a bad one. It's another pose. Medical examiner determined that she died from several. Multiple, multiple head wounds inflicted with an object such as an iron bar or an aluminum bat. She's also covered with post mortem stab wounds. They said she was stabbed and basically covered from her scalp to the bottom of her feet with. With 231 small knife wounds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petrigallo]

What's 230? Some of them are in patterns. Like on purpose? Yeah, like an art project. They appear to have been afflicted after death. And I guess this is a peakerism they call it. It's a necrophilic perversion peakerism there because. Yeah. So the forensic evidence reveals the presence of a single pubic hair from a black person at the crime scene. The hair could not be matched anyway to any samples there. Fingerprints. No fingerprints found. They said it looked like somebody had wiped the scene down. They found no fingerprints of anybody. They also found the bat and the killer had wiped down the bat because that was there and clean. So they think it was an aluminum bat that did it. And taken every knife in the kitchen.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

That's all it's missing? All the knives.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Knives.

[James Petrigallo]

Just all the Knives. Yep. So they theorize that he used a kitchen knife to violate this poor woman and then took them all so the real weapon couldn't be identified ever. You get all of them if you take the one you used. You know that's the one. And her favorite amethyst ring was missing. They said that she had been wearing a ring that was removed during the assault. And obviously the one cop said, I know that all of us felt that when we found the ring, we'd find the killer. Well, no shit. So the Seattle Times is now running articles titled the east side Killer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, because there's a bad man on the loose.

[James Petrigallo]

This is now a serial killer. Referring to the geographic placement, and basically said, since when do. Since when do lunatics have their field day? A local paper asked. A cartoon analogized that. The Bellevue basically compared Bellevue freak to Jack the Ripper. One commenter remarked that Ted Bundy, though he was dead, I'm sure had been resurrected and went to Bellevue. So people are just. It's all that shit. Now. Remember John Comfort? He's going to get a little more comfortable because they take him off surveillance. He has an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, but they also doubted that, knowing he was under watch, he would have attempted another crime like that. So he's not the serial killer. They're thinking now, whoever killed one killed them all. So if you couldn't have killed that one, you didn't kill the other two. Now they find out George knew her. On one occasion, Randy's boyfriend drove her home in her truck, and George followed in the boyfriend's car. So he knows where she lives. A few weeks later, George and some friends drove out to Renton, which is a town, to help Randy put a new battery in her truck. Then George rode back to Kirkland with her. On a third occasion, Randy was at a bar, and George came over to talk. So they know each other. He's been to her house more than once. After the murder, George made disparaging remarks about her, stating that she slept around used men and that she was a whore. Okay, now where the fuck Was George on August 30? Where in east here? Well, he. As it was Labor Day weekend, he and some friends were. Were going to Canada that weekend.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

And on August 30, the night before they left, the group stayed in a motel. He. George, left the hotel dressed in dark pants, white tennis shoes, a blue dark sweatshirt, and a dark cat. He said he had to go to work. Okay. He doesn't even have A job? What are you talking about? He returned at 6am wearing the same clothes. He didn't have a car, by the way, so he did this on foot. Randy lived about a mile from the hotel by car, but walking distance was shorter because if you took the direct route. A friend of George's said that she received a ring from Russell several days after Labor Day. It's an amethyst ring and she wore the ring several times, then gave it to a friend who pawned it. They later retrieved the ring from the pawn shop and Randy's sister in law identifies the ring as the one that she had given to Randy. So police brought the ring to the jewelry store where the employee identified it as the one he worked on for Randy in February 1990. And so then there's a guy named, a kid named Matt McCauley who's 16, he's a neighbor of Carol Beith. Soon after the murder, McCauley told police that he saw a blue Corvette with a black top driving near Carol's house around the time of the murder. He also said he heard a cat scream around that same time. Weird. So they interview him and he described using alcohol and drugs and having drug related hallucinations that whole summer. And he also said that he definitely drank some bourbon that night. So we don't know how reliable of a witness he is is what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But he's fun.

[James Petrigallo]

Here we go. He's fun. September 12, 1990. Robin Oldenburg. She is a young lady packing up for a trip when she notices a strange sound. She said, all of a sudden I heard a knock on my window. It was a very firm knock. I was really nervous. Everything was going on, but my first thought was, you're being paranoid. But the noises continued. So she called the police. When they arrived, they found the screen from her door was missing. Someone was in the process of breaking into her house and they had a suspect because someone had been driving away as the cops drove up. Oh, they ran the plates and learned that it is George Russell. And they also learned that he had a warrant out for his arrest for impersonating a police officer. So they chased him down. They said he can have all the excuses he wants while he's here. He's going to jail for that. So she said. The woman here, Robin said she was shocked to learn that this potential assailant was George because she knew George well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Friends with him, familiar.

[James Petrigallo]

She said, the first time I met George Russell, I thought he was a fun, happy, go lucky, great guy. But things started to Change. And I realized there was a dark side to him. So George is arrested on outstanding warrants and under investigation here. He said they asked him about the other women, and he explained that, yes, he knew Marianne and he knew Randy, and. And he said he had an alibi. Well, he gave an alibi for his time of the murders. And he also told the police that the night with Mary Ann, with the truck, he used his friend Smith McClain's pickup truck that night. But I didn't kill anybody. I just used the truck. He denied killing people, but he also refused to hand over a DNA or hair sample. Don't do that, though. Yeah. So they had to continue the investigation because they don't have any physical evidence at this point. After he was questioned by the police, he telephoned one of his roommates and asked her to give the police his copy of Crime Scene Search and Physical Evidence Handbook that he has. The handbook outlines police procedures and gathering evidence from the scene of a crime and contains chapters on fingerprints and body fluids, but does not contain a chapter on DNA testing. So I don't know if he's fucking with them. Like, tell them so you know how to investigate a crime scene. He also admitted having basically every book that was ever written about Ted Bundy, but denied that he was a fan of his or like, you know, thought he was cool or anything. He just said it was just very interesting. Now Smith McClain is tracked down and he says, yeah, George Russell asked to use my truck that night to take a girl home. And the next morning when he returned, he claimed that he had to get it clean because a girl he knew threw up clam chowder at it. So he said he remembered saying it smelled like blood or as if something had been gutted in there instead of a person vomiting. So based on this here, everybody's saying he had the. He had the truck. They go to do tests on the truck. On October 11, 1990, they removed the interior of the truck. Now it has been cleaned and detailed during the summer. But the floor mats had not been cleaned in detail. The seat did. So McLean had removed the floor mats, which were made from house carpet remnants.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petrigallo]

Weathertech, eat your heart out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Here's a four by two that I.

[James Petrigallo]

Cut out of the bathroom carpet scrap from the fucking guest bedroom here. He had put them in the garage because they smelled so bad. Didn't throw them out, just put them in the garage. So the upholstery in the truck reacted positively for blood and antigens that matched the blood and ho and a antigens which matched the HO and A antigens in the vaginal swab taken at Marianne Polrick's autopsy. Both antigens could have been contributed by her herself because she was a type A secretor. George was type O. Although he could have been the source of the HO antigens. He could not have contributed the A antigen antigens. The state also spent sent the vaginal swab and upholstery samplings for DNA testing. Poor quality of the samples. But they did conduct a PCR test. Which is kind of like the most basic DNA test they can do. That's like the first one that they do just to see if you're even in the ballpark.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Got it.

[James Petrigallo]

And then if certain things match up, then you go to more specific DNA. This is one of those, you know. Yeah, one in 5,000 type of thing or whatever. One in 10, whatever the number is at that particular thing. But it's not the 1 in 8 billion type of shit. So the PCR test results indicated that neither George nor Smith McClain could have been the source of the blood in the truck, but that Marianne could have been. The testing also revealed that only George, of all the comparison samples, could have been the donor of the sperm. Only George, in addition to the sperm and blood. And the one hair from a black person consistent with Russell's, was found in the debris on the sheet in which her body was wrapped. By the way, five fibers in the pubic combings were consistent with the truck carpet, as was one fiber from the sheet debris. Another fiber in the sheet debris was consistent with the truck's upholstery. Yeah. They also were able to track down her ring, like we said. They got that. Apparently, it was discovered that in a pawn shop in Canada here, they were able to get the ring back, identify it, and really tie him to the murder. So they charged George with murdering Marianne, Carol and Randy Levine. All three of them. He wants all of his statements tossed in pretrial. Sure.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Of course.

[James Petrigallo]

He said the police failed to read him his Miranda rights prior to questioning. He sought to have them suppress not only that statement, but also fruit of that statement. Him saying he was in the truck led to the truck search, which he wants that out, too, because that's part of it. They got that from a statement here. Now they. The trial court concludes that the questionings occurred in a custodial setting, requiring police to read the Miranda warnings. But due to conflicting testimony, the court found the state had failed to prove by a preponderance that Russell had been advised of his rights. So the state was not permitted to use his statement in the case. The court found, however, that his statement was voluntarily given that he was and that his free will was not overborne, noting that the atmosphere in the interview room was relaxed and friendly. Evidence also indicated that Russell had been Mirandized on previous occasions, including one occasion four months before the questioning. Well, that doesn't. You have to do it every, every time they do it when they like they'll leave the room for an hour, they'll remorandize somebody like just for shits and giggles here. They said he knew his right to legal counsel was also clear since he eventually terminated the questioning by asking to speak to an attorney before his statement was voluntarily given in a non coercive atmosphere. The trial court ruled that the evidence derived from his unmorandized statements would be admissible now. Oh, so before it got contentious, the court excludes the defense evidence of similar attacks. And I say evidence with quotes around it. They want to put two other assaults into the mix here that occurred in September of 1990 and they state that the incidents were similar to Carol Be than Randy Levine because the female victims lived on the ground floor of an apartment building and both received head injuries inflicted by a heavy object. But they said there's absolutely no, no connection. They said the first assault occurred early in the morning. The victim had locked herself out of her apartment building and was banging on her door when a man approached offering his help. They walked around to the back of the building to see if she could climb in a window and he struck her on the head with what appeared to be a rock. She screamed and he fled. There's no posing, there's no anything. So nothing there. Second assault happened when a victim was surprised a burglar in her home. The burglar struck her once in the eye, then fled with money. He had an. Yeah, he had an alibi because he was in custody. But they said there's no similar, no similarities here at all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's also. Just because there's a murderer and serial killer that breaks into place doesn't mean that every burglary is him.

[James Petrigallo]

Is this exactly. Yeah, they were trying to do that. They also said he has. They said he. They want to get in. The court refuses to admit evidence that two men, George Grums and Brett Carlson, may have murdered Marianne and Randy. George Grums was considered a suspect in a rape murder case where the body was left in a parking lot. The victim in that case was a black woman with a history of prostitution and a heroin habit. She had been seen driving with Grums, although her body was left in a parking lot fully clothed and not posed. So nothing like this is what they're saying here. So anyway, also there's condoms he wants to have exclude the unused condoms found in his belongings. The state asserted that the condoms were relevant to rebut an argument that Carol Beath and Andrea Levine had been killed by someone other than Marianne's killer. Because semen was found at the scene of Marianne's murder and not at the other two murders. So the state intended to argue that the absence of semen in the bodies of Levine and Beath could be attributed to the use of condoms. Now, they said, the court indicated here, they concluded the condoms are out. And then the next day they came back and said, change my mind. Condoms are in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Condoms are in.

[James Petrigallo]

Condoms are in. It's fucking wild. So the trial comes up here. DNA. I could do a four hour show on the fight over the DNA and I'm not even gonna get into it. I'm not gonna get into it. Not gonna get into it. Prosecution succeeds in admitting into evidence the controversial DNA tests for the hair, semen and bloodstains, the PCR tests. But winning a conviction here is going to rest on more than this, I think here. So the Levine evidence. They say George knew Levine, knew where she lived. On the morning of the murder, he was staying at a motel that was less than a 15 minute walk from her residence. Early in the morning, he left the motel. At approximately 5am an intruder was seen leaving her residence. The intruder, like George, wore dark clothing. An eyewitness saw something white about 2/3 as wide as the person superimposed against the chest or abdomen. And he was wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with a white logo on the front. After Randy's murder, George told some of her friends that he was a whore. She was a whore who'd been sleeping with a friend of his and had used men. Hair found on her body was similar to his. And finally it was discovered that a distinctive ring obviously was given away. So there's that, that's, that's a lot right there. Also the crime scene book. They argue that the handbook was relevant because it showed knowledge of techniques that were apparently used by these killers. The trial court initially ruled it inadmissible and then changed its mind again. This judge is real flighty with shit. They get Matt McCauley, the 16 year old there, to try to support the theory that Carol was killed by a boyfriend, Mike Sewell. He identified a photograph of Mike Sewell's Wife topped Corvette as possibly being the car he saw on cross examination. He denied drinking any bourbon that night. And then the state reminded him of his statements in which he admitted consuming a shitload of bourbon that night. He then admitted that drinking some bourbon that night, but denied it was enough to affect his system.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

And he also said he's been having hallucinations all summer. Wow. So the state repeatedly questioned him on discrepancies in earlier statements because they said it was a different color top. Now he's saying it's a white top. Corvette. Before he said it was blue, it was black. Yeah. The mindhunters are here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right.

[James Petrigallo]

John Douglas and Robert Keppel both testify at this trial.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

Yeah. This is big shit. They absolutely do. They. They have all of this. They talk about the posing, they talk about the hits. And the ViCAP computer programs that they've built all these profiles and up. These programs use forms filled out by local law enforcement officials listing the various characteristics of homicides. And they enter it all in there. Now, the defense pursues the issue of the similarities and differences among the three murders. And the court allows Keppel to testify that his opinion of all the murders, that they were committed by the same person. He said that all were killed within a short period of time of contact with the offender. Each crime involved the sexual insertion of a foreign object that the offender needed to display these victims and ensure their discovery. And all of that. They said that the fury that was expended at the crime scenes and the obvious lengths he went to to show whomever found his victims bodies the contempt he felt for those women. But speak of kind of deep residing cauldron of anger that's way beyond normality.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. He's so mad.

[James Petrigallo]

Wow. I guess so. Absolutely. They call him a violent necrophile and a sadistic necrophile. And they said that because they were what he told them. Basically, he's saying that these women needed to suffer pleasure came when he was able to deliver it with the wax of a baseball bat or an iron rod or whatever he used to smash their skulls. The physical act of killing sparked such a fury that he reached a form of sexual satisfaction releasable only through prolonged violence. That's why, although he knew that they were dead, he'd still keep going at them because it felt good. The same reason why BTK came in his pants when he would fucking kill somebody. So they said, of course, his warped sense of justice. The murders wouldn't have been a success unless he could tell the world what sluts they were. So he would pose them into erotic, erotically weird shapes and then degrade them with leaving something phallic in them. So yeah, they said that the, the reinforcing the concept of degradation he placed in and on the victim's sex toys and sexual propaganda such as that book, all that kind of thing. They said also he displayed a steadily increasing guile and confidence, spending more time with each victim as his killing spree progressed, which is absolutely true. Now, Douglas, John Douglas here says that all the victims repose that night and that exhibited the same signature. He talks about signature a lot. He said that the victims were penetrated vaginally, anally or orally with some type of device or foreign object and said the timeframe of the murders pointed to one perpetrator. Douglas agreed there were differences among the crimes, but explained on redirect the differences were insignificant compared to the similarities. The significant part is the posing of the victims. The posing in this degrading type of position, that's critical. In addition to them, they bring in another bunch of detectives that testify that the body seemed posed. And only one said he'd ever seen another murder scene involving posing. Oh, so they're trying to show how rare it is for posing, that this isn't going to be some other guy doing this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Manipulating the body after post mortem is so rare. It doesn't happen that much.

[James Petrigallo]

It really does.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Run the fuck away.

[James Petrigallo]

They get the fuck out of there. They don't. You gotta have some serious guile to stick around and do this type of shit. And it's gotta be a thing you need. The defense brings in their own posing expert who's a retired 20 year FBI veteran who says there's too many differences in the way they were killed, degraded and posed to have been the work of one person. Their bodies are in almost the exact same positions. What the fuck are you talking about? On cross examination they elicited his. His current opinion that all the murders were contributed, were done by the same person, though. But he said at first he didn't think they were okay. Now the defense in closing, the public defender team of Miriam Schwartz and Brad Hampton. These poor bastards, they gotta talk about a fucking mountain to climb here. They tried to poke holes in the. No. They tried to poke holes in the case. They told the jury that if George, a high school dropout, were indeed a serial killer, there would have been more victims sooner. He just started, now he's 30. What do we. He was 32 years old. What are we talking about? They said that the one Defense attorney claimed that Carol Bead's boyfriend who left a fingerprint on a Coca Cola can in her house. That's your killer right there. Problem is, he's got reason to have fingerprints on Coca Cola cans because he goes there because that's his girlfriend. George has no reason to leave a hair or any sperm behind anywhere. Yeah. So the verdict comes in 22 hours of deliberation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

22 hours? I'll tell you why in a minute because it's fucking hilarious. The jury returns guilty of all three on first degree murder or. I'm sorry, first degree murder for Marianne and aggravated first degree murder for Carol and Randy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petrigallo]

Yes, because they did a lot more post. Now what the fuck took them 22 hours? Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What were they talking about?

[James Petrigallo]

Jurors told reporters that they weren't in any disagreement. They were never an argument. They thought he was guilty from the beginning. They just took a long time to discuss how weird everything was.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is fucking crazy.

[James Petrigallo]

They sat around like, dude, and then that. Could you. That one dude, like, they just talked about the case and they were like, we should really. I mean, there's a whole courtroom of people waiting for us. We should probably go out and tell them what?

[Jimmy Whisman]

We hammer all this shit out, dude.

[James Petrigallo]

They couldn't vote and then be like, let's get together at fucking Denny's later.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Isn't some black Angus fuck.

[James Petrigallo]

Fuck it. Yeah. So the sentencing comes around and obviously you can imagine what the. What they were saying about him. He's a monster, menace to society. Our greatest nightmare. Obviously, he is sentenced to. You, sir, may fuck off. Two life sentences with no parole and then another 29 years in prison on top of that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

For the other one, yeah.

[James Petrigallo]

For the other one, yeah. Consecutive. So bye bye, George.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's never happening again.

[James Petrigallo]

Very quickly, his appeal says he wasn't Mirandized. So there's that. He wanted the cases severed. He wanted to sever count one from counts two and three. And they wouldn't let him sever it. He said John Douglas's testimony was ridiculous and that the court. It's inflammatory that both they say that, you know, they shouldn't have been able to testify about the posing. The court ruled that. That's what I mean. They say you get the fuck out of here, George. You're gone. No. So that's denied. Now here's an article I found from 2025 with an interview with George Russell.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petrigallo]

Junior. Yeah. I'm a fucking idiot though. Cause I went right to the middle of it to see what the Meat of it was. And there's some like talk of the south and stuff. So I thought it was him. And then I went to the beginning and it says, I'm here for the Conservation History association of Texas. We're in Huntsville, Texas and we've got the good fortune to be visiting with George Russell who's a forest activist and conservationalist in East Texas.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And I'm like, poor bastard.

[James Petrigallo]

Shit, wrong guy. Okay. Mistaken identities are a motherfucker, man. Now his story here was detailed in the book that I quoted a lot in this, Jack Olson's 1995 book, Book Charmer, A Ladies man and his Victims. So the also it was examined in Serial Violence Analysis of Modus Operandi, Operandi and Signature Characteristics of Killers by Robert Kepler. This book is $93 on Amazon.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn.

[James Petrigallo]

The Kindle version is $92. A fucking scan are you talking about? It's crazy. The case was dramatized in several investigation discovery shows including Dead of the Night, Secrets of the Morgue, City Confidential and Murder by Numbers. And also George was analyzed in Most Evil. That show where he was ranked at 17 out of the 22 level scale. Very fucking evil. Very evil. Also examined by the new Detectives and mark of a killer on the Oxygen network. And there you go, everybody, that is Kirkland, Washington and a fucked up ass serial killer. I mean, a Ted Bundy in the making. He would have been. Ted Bundy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Ted, so many, so many bad guys in that area of the country.

[James Petrigallo]

Why it's so strange. It's, I mean, it's so fucking weird right after that too. Because you had the Green River Killer, you had Bundy, you have him, it's all happening. So anyway, if you like that show, tell the world about it, please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars because it helps the show so much. It takes 10, 30 seconds to do so. Please. It takes way longer to put this show together. So thank you so much for doing that. Head over to shutupandgivemerder.com tickets for live shows. We are in Chicago in May. We're also in St. Louis, but it's already sold out. So that isn't going to do you any good. But at the Riviera in Chicago. Get your tickets for that. Also get your tickets for the 4:20 virtual live show. Oh, baby. It takes place on April 19th. It's a Saturday night and it's available for two weeks. After that you can watch it 100 times. You, you can buy it a week later. Do whatever you Want with it for those two weeks, just like a regular live show. But you're in your living room and we are performing for you. Got everything just like we do on a stage, except also we're going to have costumes and I'm going to force Jimmy to smoke out of increasingly crazy apparatus. So there's that. Definitely do that. Get your tickets now. Shut up and give me murder.com also get all your merch there and everything. Patreon. Fuck. You want Patreon? Yeah, you do. Patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com Smalltown. No, damn it. P A T R E O N.com CrimeInSports is what it is. Just like the name of our other show that you should be listening to. And anybody, $5 a month or above, you're going to get a giant back catalog of stuff you've never heard before immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week. Two new ones. One crime in sports, one small town murder. And dammit, you get them all. This week. What you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to talk about some scams in sports, including the spirit Spanish Paralympic gold medal winning Spanish Paralympic team. Congratulations to them. Only problem is none of them are disabled. That's the issue. And then small town murder. The bonus. The absolute craziest story I've ever heard. The documentary on Netflix is called American Nightmare. Never been on the edge of my seat more. It's like a Papini situation. You think it's a kidnapping, but is it fake? Are they faking it? Maybe they are, maybe they. It's fucking crazy. And there's a resolution too. So we won't leave you hanging. Yeah, thank God. That would have been too much. So that is patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never ever, ever pose us in crazy in crazy sexual positions after we've been murdered. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This executive producers are Gary, Howard, Seta and Bug. Amanda Brennan came and Wendy Koshwara. Happy birthday.

[James Petrigallo]

Happy birthday.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jordan, Bennett and Simon, they made it back to England.

[James Petrigallo]

Happy travels, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, good for you guys.

[James Petrigallo]

They go tomorrow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They'll make it.

[James Petrigallo]

You guys got this?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, they'll hear it. And Jared McMillan. Thank you guys for everything you do. You're amazing. Other producers this week are Happy hour in Hobbs, New Mexico. Janice Hill, Peyton Meadows, Adam with no last name, Leslie with no last name. Bad. A. Davis. I think that means they're. I think the A stands for ass, James. I really do. I really. I really believe that.

[James Petrigallo]

Nice. We got a rebel.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Saquon person. Rose with no last name. Lacey. Renee. Heather. Kirkwood. Riley. Rumpus. Leah. Basket. Yep. Basket. Brooke Dolan. Stephanie Deshazo. Brian Watkins. Courtney Rathbun. AJ Beldonza. Yep. Justin Boone. Karen Frenning. S. Valera. Valerie. Not. Not. Not. Weane. I.

[James Petrigallo]

Not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know what you're trying to get me to say. Yeah, maybe it's not Weenie. I don't know. James not Weenie.

[James Petrigallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Notorious G Man. I got that one. Chris with no last name. Jimmy P. Angie with no last name. Cody Pinkstock. Lori Davis. Burgundy Escobar. Valerie. Ayala. Noah H. Colleen. Sam's. Terry with no last name. Lindsay Benedict. Caroline Moore. Oh, boy. Hajni. Hajni with no last name. Hunter with no last name. Megan Grice. Maybe Grise. Who knows? Maybe it's greasy. Courtney Douglas. Elevate. Lavate. Brie with no last name. Dave. Kearney. Kearney. Kearney. John with no last name.

[James Petrigallo]

Christopher.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All of them. Oglesby. Christopher. Oglesby. Christopher. That's you. Liza. Lisa. Liza Rodriguez. Grover Sharp. Katie Bowers. The Theoreba Theorem. D Therapy. Oh, what is that? That's no last name. Just theo. T. Hero. B.D. i don't know what that is. Don't look at me. Delaney Ellenberger. Shelby Roberts. Stacy. Neri. Jen Murphy. Sarah with no last name. Linda Madison. Melinda Chapman. Zach Goodwin. Odie. Odie. Audie. What is that?

[James Petrigallo]

I don't know what you're trying to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Get me to say. I. I did my best. Zach with no last name. Brenda with no last name. Serena. Emery. Anissa C. Alicia with no last name. Dana with no last name. Natalie Nagin. Crystal Canny. Sean with no last name. Amy. Pritchard. Sweeney. Abigail. Udi. Abby. Masiag. Mazadar. Rose Ambrose. That can't be right. But that's. No one would do that to you.

[James Petrigallo]

Sandwich.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Melissa.

[James Petrigallo]

Melissa Burke. Rosie. Bookends.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Susan Davis. Krista. Yanko. Maribeth Gandy. Natalie with no last name. Robin Bucci. Kruska. Matthew Larson. Leaves with no last name. Hannah would know. Last name. Tammy. H. Stephen Persons. Sandra Ertman. Dustin Snyder. Squid with no last name. Squid. Would you have for dinner Squid? Have you seen that chick that screams at her friend and calls her squid and she just wants Wingstop? It's the greatest. I can't get enough of it. Would you eat squid? Thomas Dilg. Conor N Big Miss Steak. Oh, got you. All right. Is a show. And that's no last name. Trish Mystic, Andrea Stack. Bella Turner. Turner Turnip Turchiano. Kathleen Bowley, Nicole Schoenfeldt, Maisie Leach, Leanna Ledbetter. Fucking shit. Griff with no last name. Nick Sanderson, Gina Bean. 5713. April Deese Kale, Raymond Ruby. Ruby Soho. Shannon Lamothi. Lamoth. Lamoth. Jamie Carman, Nick Carlitin, Christian Perez. Your kind Canadian kin. Dylan with no last name. Sam Richardson. Kevin with no last name. Courtney Enrich. Yep, Enrich. Lori Taylor, Melissa with no last name. Edward Chandler, Nicolette Primley, Jim Bradford, Katie Kavanaugh, Kaylin Kailyn Sandvig or Caitlyn. Is that a T? I don't know. It's one of those two. Caitlyn or Caitlin Sandvik. That's who it is.

[James Petrigallo]

James Names.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Allison Combs, Sharon Schneider. Dylan. Carmenique Cormanic, Jesse Joy. And all of our patrons. You guys are the best. Thank you.

[James Petrigallo]

Thank you so much, everybody. We cannot tell you what you mean to us and the people that do that. Yeah, you are the core of the fucking show. You're everything to us. This we don't. I mean, it's one thing we got ads and all that kind of shit. Patreon is it, man. We give a about that. So thank you for being part of our little crew and our demented little. Our demented little circus that we put on here every week multiple times. So thank you for everything you do. If you want to follow us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com drop down menus. Take you everywhere you want to go. That said, thank you so much everybody and until next week, 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. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballan's medical mysteries should be your new go to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.