Bloody Pizza Murders - Franklin, New Jersey

Summary

Small Town Murder Podcast

Episode: "Bloody Pizza Murders - Franklin, New Jersey"

Hosts: James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman
Date: May 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Small Town Murder Express, comedians James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman dive into the bizarre and senseless 1997 "Bloody Pizza Murders" of Franklin Borough, New Jersey. James and Jimmie detail the circumstances in which two teenage boys, driven by delusions and a desire for criminal infamy, murdered a pizza shop owner and his delivery man. As always, the hosts balance the horrific aspects of the case with their signature dark humor, vivid storytelling, and offbeat commentary on small town quirks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Franklin, New Jersey: Setting the Scene

• Town Profile:
  • Population: 4,904
  • Median income: $76,729
  • Home cost: ~$207,500
  • "The Florida of the North." (04:09)
• Local Color:
  • Town’s nickname: "Fluorescent Mineral Capital of the World."
  • Noted for its mineral museum and mediocre online reviews.
  • Limited things to do besides mineral-digging, local bands, and a less-than-thrilling Walmart.
• Quote:
  • “You could take a kid and move them to Cinderella’s castle in Disneyland. In three months they’d be like, 'It’s boring here.'” — James (09:25)

2. Introducing the Killers

• Thomas (Tommy) Joseph Koskovich
  • Traumatic upbringing full of violence, drugs, gambling, abandonment, and family dysfunction.
  • “He was raised in a home plagued by... infidelity, violence, substance abuse, gambling, criminal behavior, and suicide attempts.” — James quoting a psychologist (13:17)
  • Father told him: “I love you the least of my three children.” (14:25)
  • Parents were step-siblings — a detail met with comedic shock (“Who the fuck marries their stepsister? This is pornhub.” — James, 16:19)
  • Abandoned by both parents; raised by a grandmother described as a prescription-drug-addicted, alcoholic, gambling-compulsive caretaker.
  • Exposed to drugs and crime early; emotionally arrested at age 11.
  • Childhood aspiration: join the Mafia as a hitman.
• Jason Arthur Vreeland
  • Also from an abusive and unstable background.
  • Labeled "the kid who would do crazy things and take a ton of drugs." (26:10)
  • Seeks companionship in outcast peer groups.

3. The Descent into Crime

• Early Criminal Activity:
  • April 8, 1997: Tommy and Michael Conklin break into Adventure Sports (hunting/fishing store) for guns.
  • Stole three handguns; plan was to sell guns for cocaine and flip for profit.
• Plan to Rob (and Kill) Pizza Delivery Drivers:
  • Motive: Not money, but to kill for "the thrill" and forge a path toward imagined Mafia glory.
  • “I just want to kill someone for the thrill of it.” — James quoting Tommy (38:03)
  • Multiple friends told of Tommy's plan; none took action at first, thinking it was adolescent bravado.

4. The Murders — April 19, 1997

Timeline

• 10:03 pm: After several failed attempts, call is made to Tony’s Pizza & Pasta; confirmed delivery to the remote, empty house at 196 Scott Road.

• 10:45 pm: Shop owner Giorgio Galera (25) accompanies deliveryman Jeremy Giordano (22) due to unease about the address.

• At the scene:

  • Tommy and Jason, armed, wait at the curb. Upon delivery, Tommy unloads a .45 into the car; Jason fires his .22.
  • Jeremy is killed instantly; Giorgio is fatally wounded by a .22 shot to the head.
  • The killers loot their pockets and the car, net less than $200, and leave two pizza pies untouched.

• Notable Quote:

  • “They don’t even take the pizzas. Talk about disrespect.” — James (51:32)

Aftermath

• Killers attempt to move the victim’s car, fail, and flee, stopping at a church to make the sign of the cross (52:41), then go bowling.
• Evidence (bloody clothes, check bill, and personal items) is discarded haphazardly, later recovered by police.
• Both boys are arrested within two days, having confessed (Tommy, in a 46-minute confession, detailed every step).

5. Investigation & Trial

• Community tips hasten arrests:

  • A friend (Christine Slater) comes forward after hearing of the murders.
  • Neighbors recall seeing Tommy’s distinct blue Cavalier with one headlight and a loud muffler.

• Home search uncovers murder weapons, bloody clothes, the victims’ property, and Tommy’s bizarre “menu” for crime-related services.

  • “A price list for crime-related activities... fake IDs, credit card frauds, things like that.” — James (68:03)
  • Five strips of paper above a coat hook, each noting someone's "spot" and ending with "He'll kill you." — The origin “Cocoa Puff Spot. I'll kill you” is never explained.

• Courtroom Drama:

  • Tommy’s defense: severe mental illness from childhood trauma and substance abuse.
  • The prosecution emphasizes the premeditated nature of the crime and Tommy’s lack of remorse.
  • Ensuing death penalty debate includes heartfelt testimony from family and friends, including Jeremy’s mother opposing capital punishment:
    • “My whole family would like to see Thomas Koskovich take the evil that he’s done and turn his life over to Christ. We’re not in favor of the death penalty.” — Loretta Giordano (76:12)

6. Sentencing & Aftermath

• Tommy Koskovich:
  • Convicted on all counts.
  • Originally sentenced to death; later commuted to life in prison after New Jersey abolished the death penalty.
  • Earliest possible parole date: 2072 (at age 94).
• Jason Vreeland:
  • Also convicted, sentenced to life plus 35 years.
  • Eligible for parole in 2044 (at age 65).
• Civil suit:
  • Victims’ families awarded a multi-million-dollar settlement against the murderers and Adventure Sports for improper gun security.

7. The Bizarre, the Absurd, and the Host Commentary

• Failed Mafia Aspirations:
  • Tommy truly believed killing a pizza man would land him in the Mafia ("AA ball of organized crime." — Jimmie, 38:15)
• White jeans anecdote:
  • Tommy changed into white jeans after the murder, prompting disbelief and mockery from the hosts. (“Let me tell you. No teenagers wore white jeans in 1997.” — James, 53:49)
• Family dysfunction and dark humor:
  • The hosts unpack the wild familial background, blending empathy and sarcasm throughout:
    • “Who the fuck marries their stepsister? This is pornhub.” — James (16:19)
• Not caring about the law after double homicide:
  • After the murders, Tommy refuses to drive Jason home because he doesn't have valid insurance:
    • “Traffic laws are very important to me.” — Jimmie (67:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Franklin's reputation:

  • “Franklin, New Jersey. The Florida of the north, everybody." — James (02:09)

• On small town life:

  • “You gotta Walmart, it’s got a toy aisle, you can keep them occupied.” — Jimmie (09:35)

• On parenting skills:

  • "Glad you’re learning to count today, because you’re number three.” — Jimmie (15:43)

• On family dysfunction:

  • “They don’t just marry their stepsibling, that’s just fucking weird… it's the next taboo on the homepage.” — James (16:54)

• On Tommy's criminal price list:

  • “This included fake IDs, credit card frauds... it was like a thing.” — James (68:03)

• On mob initiation:

  • “The Mafia really want you to rob pizza delivery men. That’s how you get into the Mafia. That’s AA, AAA. It’s the minors.” — Jimmie (38:15)

• Post-murder bowling:

  • “They went bowling, as you do, right?” — James (53:05)
  • “Quick bro hug before we hop in for our murder getaway... just a quick one, yeah, love you, man.” — James (51:56)

• On not caring about law after murder:

  • “I didn’t want to break the law. Traffic laws are very important to me.” — Jimmie (67:00)

• On the civil suit:

  • "I hope Adventure Sport just didn’t claim bankruptcy. I don’t know how that works." — James (80:55)

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Major Timestamps

• Town Introduction: 04:07–13:35
• Backgrounds of Killers: 13:36–26:24
• Adventure Sports Robbery: 34:06–36:13
• Plotting the Murder: 36:13–46:03
• Murder Event: 46:03–52:41
• Evidence & Arrests: 54:44–59:29
• Interrogation & Confessions: 64:48–67:42
• Trial & Sentencing: 72:59–79:28

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Summary & Reflection

This episode is a showcase of Small Town Murder's ability to blend true crime depth with gallows humor and insightful commentary on rural American life. While anchored by the shocking story of a misguided quest for Mafia credentials ending in brutal, pointless double homicide, the hosts never lose sight of the human tragedies at play. Their comedic tone is ever-present, but so too is their critique of generational dysfunction, American crime, and the surreal choices of their subjects.

Listeners come away with an understanding of both Franklin's small town quirks and the dark, chaotic spiral that drove two boys to an ultimately self-destroying crime.

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For full context and more offbeat asides, listen to the episode in its entirety; this summary covers the core narrative, notable asides, and the hosts’ uniquely irreverent tone.

Transcript

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

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[James Pietragallo]

Hello everybody and welcome back to small Town Murder Express.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yay. Choo choo.

[James Pietragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely wild and crazy New Jersey edition of Small Town Murder Express. New Jersey, the Florida of the north, everybody. And here it is. We have a very, very crazy one for you today. Before we get started though, definitely do me a favor, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com and get all your tickets for live shows, get all your merchandise, live shows upcoming. Next ones with tickets available is September 18th in Milwaukee at the Pipes, which is a great venue and we love going there. It's beautiful. It's like our third time there, I think. Minneapolis, the next night, September 19th. Get your tickets right now. Minneapolis. Let's do it. And then October 3rd in Dallas, October 16th and 17th in San Jose and Sacramento. And then November 13th and 14th in Tarrytown and Boston. So get your tickets right now and do that. Well, Minneapolis, get in there. Minneapolis, get your tickets. Buy them now. So shut up and give me murder.com definitely get yourself Patreon. What are you waiting for? What is that? Patreon, what is that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tell me more, Jeff.

[James Pietragallo]

Patreon.com CrimeInSports, which is the name of our other show.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn it, let's go.

[James Pietragallo]

You should listen to absolutely anybody. $5 a month or above. You're gonna everything we put out, including as soon as you subscribe, you're going to get hundreds of back bonus episodes you've never heard before. You can binge on those. Almost 400 of them actually. Then immediately after that, every other week you get two new episodes. One crime in sports, one small town murder. This week, which you're going to get for crime and sports. We're going to talk about the Christian power team, which were these guys that were just roided to shit, jacked up, huge lunatics that would go on the religious channel and bend rebars and tear phone books and then scream about, thank

[Jimmy Whisman]

you, Jesus, thank you, give me the power.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh boy. And there's some scandal that goes on after. It's a lot of fun. Then for small town murder, it's Internet salad time, everybody. We're gonna go all over the Internet and find everything that we find interesting that we want to make fun of and talk about, except for politics because we feel like you probably hear enough of that shit. So we'll keep it to the other stuff. So patreon.com crimeinsports and on top of that, you get everything we put out. All the crime in sports, all of your stupid opinions, all the small town murders, all ad, ad free with your Patreon. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. Jimmy will mispronounce your name all sorts of different ways while trying to get it correct. Now that said, I think it's time everybody. What do you say? Let's all sit back here. We gotta clear the lungs here. Let's get going. Here we go. Arms to the sky and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Yes. Let's do this, everybody. We are going on a trip here. Let's go to New Jersey. Hear the excitement ripple through the crowd here. Franklin, New Jersey. Now this is also called Franklin Borough, New Jersey. Where's that at? Either way, it is in northwestern New Jersey in Sussex county up there. It's about an hour and 15 to New York City. And most of that is traffic because the distance is not that far. About 2 hours and 15 minutes to Philly if you go the other way. And then an hour and 10 minutes to Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. Our last New Jersey episode, episode 659. We remember that one. Well, Suitcases full of murder, that was called. That was disturbing. Yeah. This is in Sussex county, like I said. Area code 973. Population 4904.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

So not too big here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

4904.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. Pretty small. That's it. Median household income here. This isn't very expensive either, which is strange because it is very commutable to New York City. Certainly the median household income here is $76,729, slightly above the national average, but not much. Median home cost here, 207,500 bucks, which is well below.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How did you pull that off?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. I don't know. Commutable to New York City and $200,000 home. Seems so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nuclear waste.

[James Pietragallo]

Has to be. Well, it's New Jersey. It's all. I mean, it's all New Jersey, let's be honest. But New Jersey is an expensive place. There's a lot of very expensive towns in New Jersey. Nickname of this town. I could give you 7 million guesses and you'd never guess it. Because I was like, what, the fluorescent mineral capital of the world? Okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is it fluorescent because there's nuclear fallout? What's going on?

[James Pietragallo]

That's probably it. Well, part of it is we're just gonna do a drop of history. Cause we have a pretty lengthy story here. Basically, this town is located on a rich ore body containing more than 150 minerals, many of them fluorescent, and 25 of which are found nowhere else on earth except for northwestern New Jersey. Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like neon and shit like that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Wild fluorescent minerals that are only found here, nowhere else on the planet. Wow. You can go to Thailand and dig forever and you never find shit. But here in northern New Jersey, they have that. And decent pizza. That's all they have. So reviews of this town, here it is. It has 3.3 stars on niche. So again, you wouldn't go to a Chinese restaurant with 3.3 stars on anything. So here we go. Here is five stars. Crime is mostly low here, to my knowledge. Unfortunately. That I'm aware of that I'm aware I mean, I don't see everything. I like when someone does that, when they're like, listen, I'm not, I don't know everything. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I didn't see that one.

[James Pietragallo]

To my knowledge. Unfortunately, illegal drug usage sale is prevalent here. Yeah, it's called America. You find me a town where there's not a prevalent drug use that's outside of Utah and I will.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You know what, it's pretty high there too.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, it is. I'm just saying they might hide it better.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, probably just not in like the rural areas. I'll bet.

[James Pietragallo]

Rural Utah. I think it's more in the rural areas in America. That's how it is. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rural Utah. I just see like Colorado City, Arizona,

[James Pietragallo]

shit like that or that. It's either, yeah, FLDS or that. But I mean like you go to small towns in Arizona, they are meth dens. All of them. Every single one of them is a meth den. It's the only way the place goes. The police force and justice system are doing their best to remove drug related crime. Other than that, the police are good at what they do and there is a strong sense of safety here. Okay, here's three stars. Franklin is a typical small town. Very quiet. It does not have many employment opportunities. You're an hour and 10 minutes from 1 of the biggest cities in the world. Calm down. It has a couple of supermarkets and a Walmart. Okay, that's not great. The town is famous for the Franklin Mineral Museum, which is worth a visit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Also. All those minerals.

[James Pietragallo]

All those minerals. And finally, one star. I grew up Franklin. It's pretty. However, it doesn't have many employment opportunities. Also, it isn't a diverse area. I personally found it difficult. I recently moved back to the area. However, there is now less for children to do than when I lived here 20 years ago. The school is mediocre. My children are bored living here. Every kid is bored living anywhere.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's your fault.

[James Pietragallo]

You could take a kid and move them to Cinderella's castle in Disneyland. In three months they'd be like, it's boring here. They would never even anywhere you move them, they're born.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You got a Walmart, it's got a toy aisle. You can keep them occupied.

[James Pietragallo]

There you go. Yeah, like any other small town, people go do your time spinning those aisles, my man. That's it. I have found it hard to find employment and a nice place to live. I've decided that it was not a place that I wanted my children to grow up. It is still not at all diverse and my children also find it difficult to fit in. I will say it is a nice place to visit, but I don't recommend living here, which for a one star review, that's pretty mild, honestly. The whole thing is like. I don't know. It's all right. It's a little boring. Things to do here. Here we go. The mineral museum, like she said.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Gotta do it. They have days at the mineral museum where anyone can come and dig for minerals for $75. You pay $75 and they give you a little shovel and a bag probably, and you go out there and do whatever you want. Go find some shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where are you digging? Just a wild field.

[James Pietragallo]

I have no idea. Wild mineral field. I have no clue. And I don't know what you're getting. Is this value or is it just. I don't know what you're doing, but that sounds fun. I mean, I'll dig around for some shiny rocks. That sounds fun. What the hell? It's fun for the kids, probably. There's also the Franklin Day Festival, and that is. They say their motto here is bringing the community together, Right? Oh, yeah, we have a couple of bands playing there. Swing Sabroso is coming.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, yeah. Since its inception in 2000, it's generated a growing number of loyal fans throughout the Tri state area and abroad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

They even get outside of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, into the wilds of Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Maryland, even these states.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We may be in Philadelphia before you know it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I like this, though. Swing Subroso was formed by Ray Rodriguez, who struggled with cancer and lost his battle in April of 2006.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Pietragallo]

What the fuck are we doing? You're trying to. This is supposed to be an upbeat. Fuck. No, other paragraph. They're talking about how this is upbeat, like Latin swing shit. And it's fun and like, you know. And then all of a sudden, our founder's dead. During his long battle, he turned over the band to Eddie Munoz, who has been with the band from the beginning and was a friend for many years. So, you know, don't be mad at Eddie. It's fine. They also say they've completed their third cd. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, they got those still.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, boy. Yeah. And then there's. Full blown. Yeah, full blown. Full blown. What I was gonna say. You could put a lot of things on there. That's the first one I thought of, obviously.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did the founder of this die of aids?

[James Pietragallo]

What the fuck? They're a vibrant New York Based live band rooted in funk, soul and urban classics. So they just play covers. Full blown covers here. Their performances often featured in venues like cutting room, NYC, Oakley Kitchen, Kumo 27. Who cares? Okay, there's also concerts at the pond, where they'll have some concerts and you know where they are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where's that? At the pond?

[James Pietragallo]

Right there in the water. We got the Glenn Roberts Band.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. There's also the Miss Franklin Pageant that night, so that's fun. Then there's Unhinged, who plays classic rock, hard rock, alt rock. Then there's the Franklin Band, I Wonder. Sing songs about the town. And then mile 39 band will be there as well. So those are on different weeks.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very vague sounding.

[James Pietragallo]

Everything, everything. Very vague. Not a lot of descriptions, just that's it here. Okay. Concerts begin at 6, by the way. Get your asses in there. Some lawn chairs and shit. All right, that said, let's talk about some murder. What do you say, everybody? Let's get into this. Cause this is heavy for an express. Okay, let's talk about a young man first. Well, not a young man anymore, but a young man in the or. I'm sorry. Thomas Joseph Koskovich. TJ Koskovich, TJ Goes by Tommy. Tommy K, C, R. I'm sorry, K, O, S, K, O, V, I, C, H. Now, keep in mind that name, Koskovich, because it doesn't sound very Italian, does it?

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, but it does sound familiar, doesn't it?

[James Pietragallo]

Eh, Koskovich. It sounds like they own like a. It's like a sausage company or something. They make, like, you know, sweet sausages in the Midwest. It sounds like a Chicago sausage outlet. Sure. You know, now, old Tommy Kaye here, born May 6, 1978. He is raised. Well, we'll just let what a psychologist said later on kind of sum up his childhood here. He was raised in a home plagued by, and I quote, infidelity, violence, substance abuse, gambling, criminal behavior and suicide attempts. Wow. Nice household he's got there. His parents are Steven and Victoria Koskovich, but they won't really raise him the whole time. Don't worry. No.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, they're busy gambling and cheating on each other.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, no, That's Grandma who does that. These two are different. Steven has multiple kids. And what did I tell you about Steven and Victoria, by the way? We'll get to them in a second. But Steven has multiple kids. And told Tommy when He was young, 7, 8 years old, and he'll admit to this later, he told him, I love you the least of my three Children. Which is hilarious. The fact that it's fine to love everybody. Let's face it, we say I love all my kids. Equal. Bullshit. You got a pecking order like everybody else does. We all do. And they change from time to time. Oh, yeah, Someone's. You're jockeying for a position over here. I would never tell them where they are in the pecking order. That's. No one should. Don't tell me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If they get arrested and I have to and it costs me money, they know where they stand.

[James Pietragallo]

They're in third place now. You just went from first to third like you're in Mario Kart and you spun out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You cost them money.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You hit a banana. I'm sorry.

[James Pietragallo]

Sorry, bro. I don't know what to tell you, but he told him that. I mean, to feel the need to sit a child down and make sure he knows that you love him the least, that's wild, the thought. Yeah. It's one thing to know it and feel it, but to sit him down and tell him is wild. In between, you know, episodes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hello. Number three.

[James Pietragallo]

Wa Wa wubsy. You're doing this? Yeah. Now his parents.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Glad you're learning to count today because you're number three.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. 1A. 2A. Now, on top of that, Steven's judgment is terrible anyway. The father. That's a terrible judgment, but that's not the original sin by any stretch of the imagination. Okay, Steven and Victoria, Tommy's mom and dad, are step siblings. So right there. What in the fuck away. Back away from the mic. I don't even know what to say about that. Who the fuck marries their stepsister? This is pornhub. What are you doing?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Somebody's done it. They're not the only ones, but that's. That's the first piece I've heard of.

[James Pietragallo]

There's no blood relation, but it's just not done. You just don't marry your step sibling. That's just fucking weird. I mean, that's disgusting. Wow. That is the next step of porn. There is no, actually.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no. It's on the homepage.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, no. But that's the next step, actually marrying them. There's no porn said, I married my stepsister. That's fogging them. They don't come in, in a tux and a wedding gown and start going at it. You know what I mean? Like, this is, like, out for the afternoon. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's the next taboo on the homepage. It's gotta be.

[James Pietragallo]

That's the next one. So, I mean, raised in the Same house. I mean, gross. It's gross. It's just gross. Steven leaves the family when Tommy's about 10 years old.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So really he left two families. He doubled up there. He left a lot his. Okay. Now Victoria, a couple years later, she just takes off too to go live with a boyfriend and leaves Tommy. Leaves Tommy, 12, 13 years old, just with the grandma. With her grandma, with her mom, I believe so. Parents abandoned him. Completely gone. They don't care. And you know, probably better if the dad tells you I love you the least. Probably better he's not around. So he basically both parents just kind of shit him off there and send him off to the grandparents. Oh, by the way, he's got some interesting issues. Number one, he feels that his toy soldiers and trees and things of that nature are sentient and can feel things like his toy soldiers.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do they talk to him?

[James Pietragallo]

No, that's another level of whatever. But he just thinks that they're that. And also he says this for years, that from the age 6 on he heard what he called whispers. Hearing voices from a quote, evil false prophet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. It's almost like you shouldn't fuck your step siblings.

[James Pietragallo]

It's weird. Yeah. I mean, not that that's gonna have any genetic basis on it, but it's gonna make a weird kid. I'm sorry, genetics aside, it's gonna make a fucking weird kid. It's just weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're gonna find out how you met.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. How'd you meet mom and dad? Well, when I was. She was six, her dad brought her over and oh boy, was I intrigued.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll tell you what, her dad married my mom.

[James Pietragallo]

Wait, I met her at a wedding. Our parents wedding. So they send her to live with Bertha Lippincott. I believe that is Thomas, Mom, Dad's mom. Bertha is an addict. According to everything here. An addict. She abuses prescription painkillers at the time apparently, according to, you know, other sources. I don't know for sure, but according to everybody's sources, she was an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler. I also heard birth and attempted suicide on multiple occasions.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's. All those things were just Bertha.

[James Pietragallo]

That's just the grandma.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn.

[James Pietragallo]

Which to me that's like, you know, my parents could have been a little whatever and you know, but the grandparents were always like the safety, the safe spot. Yeah. They'd send me to the grandma's house and I knew everything was fine. So. To have grandma be insane. My grandma was insane, but in a loving way. She wasn't like this. She was Just from Italy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And this is safe Pocket.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, this is a safe place. And it's described as a house that's filthy, chaotic and overcrowded. And when I say filthy, wait till he hear from his uncle later who says he slept in abandoned buildings in Harlem in the 80s. And he felt way more clean than being in this house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It was cleaner than this house.

[James Pietragallo]

It was clean. Yeah. He said the rats better. Everything was better. No, we're talking police come from time to time. Not a lot of food in the house. Laundry's not getting done. No supervision. Kind of run wild. It's not good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Live like one of the wild and wonderful whites of West Virginia. Now at the house, he's got an uncle named Leonard Koskovich. Uncle Lenny. Now, Uncle Lenny is basically in the couple years when he's got formidable years here, Tommy from like 13, 14, 15. These are the only years that Lenny is not in prison in his adult life.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

And he's spending them being the male role model for this child. Yeah. Which is obviously not good. Lenny himself describes himself as a, quote, menace to society.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice.

[James Pietragallo]

An addict and a career criminal. Spent his whole life in prison. He. This is. Uncle Lenny said that he taught Tommy how to be like him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Pietragallo]

He gave him drugs, he gave him pills. He gave him all sorts of shit. They said that. Basically they said Tommy was smoking cigarettes by age 8, which is too. My grandfather told me he started smoking when he was 9. And I was like, holy shit. But that was like in the 30s. And like, his father's an immigrant. And they were like, you know, he dropped out of school at 12 to cut hair, like my grandfather. Like, it was a different time. Depression was going on and shit. I was smoking 80s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I smoked cigarettes on and off from 10 till 10. 10 I was smoking, but I wasn't. I didn't have a habit.

[James Pietragallo]

Eight is crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's insane to have a habit at eight.

[James Pietragallo]

It's insane to not be afraid of being burned by one when you're eight. Eight. Eight is a very small child. That's, you know. What is that, third grade? That's third grade, yeah. You still have, like, cartoon character backpacks. You can't be having a pack of Newports in there. That's crazy. Hey, get me my cools out of there. Open up Dora's mouth and get me my cools out, would you like? That's insane.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I had a whole ass habit when I was. I was 16, though, that I was supporting on my own because I had

[James Pietragallo]

a job well, yeah, 16 is different. A lot of kids smoke at 16, but eight is a whole different deal. That's crazy. He was drinking beer by 12 or 13, which I've heard worse. In Wisconsin that's considered a late bloomer. Yeah, that is late bloomer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Then let's wait until retirement.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, weed, hard liquor, pills, lsd, everything. He's into prescriptions, a lot. Opioids and barbiturates. He likes a drug called Fioracet, F I O R I C E T, which is acetaminophen, caffeine, a barbiturate also. All mixed in. It's for migraines apparently.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sounds like fucking syrup. You know what I mean?

[James Pietragallo]

Now they're pills. Oh, they're pills that you take for migraines. So he would also steal Bertha's pills out of her purse and him and his uncle would get high, they said. Basically, later on, psychologists will say that Tommy pretty much is emotionally arrested at about 11 years old. It's about where he.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's not good.

[James Pietragallo]

Where he goes. He wants life in the fast lane. Little Tommy. This is the thing. This is what little Tommy wants. At some point in the midst of this childhood, he starts telling people that he can't wait to grow up and kill people because he wants to join the Mafia. It's not the army. First of all, you don't really join. You kind of have to. There's no draft. He wants to be a mafia hitman. You don't have one very specific qualification for being in the Mafia. Number one. That's one. They're not going to hold you back. That's number one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're already in the hole.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You can't just show up and be like, who do I got to kill to be in the club? Guys, that's not. That doesn't work. He thinks that killing someone. If he kills someone, then he can go to the mafia and be like, look, I killed this guy. And they'll be like, oh, well, yeah, you're a private now. And they give him a little uniform, you know, a little suit with like no stripes on it, you know?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right. They got a guy that yells at him to do push ups.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, well, you know, no, it's eat that pasta and you gotta keep eating it. There's different things. Yeah, stuff. That's more pasta. Yeah, more meatball. Get that meatball. Let's go. Come on. Making it a ball.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Say gaba.

[James Pietragallo]

Ghoul. Gabagool. Come on, drop the O off the prosciutto. Let's go. He Also would like to be a Navy seal. So he's got very high aspirations. He wants to be a mafia hitman. Navy Seal. Yeah. Which sounds like what a 13 year old would say.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Absurd.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, that's what a kid in seventh grade would say. I'm gonna be a Mafia hitman and a Navy seal. Oh, okay, great. And then an astronaut and a movie star. And so he's got a buddy who's not quite as fucked up, but he's pushing it. Jason Arthur Vreeland. V R E E land. Okay. Born September 5, 1979. His parents are. He's got a dad named Arthur. We'll talk about here. His dad is described as violent and abusive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So clearly we bond over that. That's gonna be our.

[James Pietragallo]

That's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, that's our talking points.

[James Pietragallo]

We're not sure if he knows his ranking among the children, though. That's one thing. We don't know if he knows that. And they moved constantly. They have to move all the time, different towns. And basically every time Jason get in a new school, he'd get picked on because that's New Jersey. And I did the same. I moved a lot when I was a kid. Went to a shitload of different schools in New York. And people try to fuck with you. This is. He was born in 79, so 80s our age. Basically, these guys. So that's what you got. You got picked on. And you better be funny or quick to punch or something, or just take

[Jimmy Whisman]

it out and fucking move along if that's what you're gonna be.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Now Jason's got an incident that happened that he describes as the bus incident. He said, quote, I got pulled off a school bus by a bully. The bus driver didn't care. The bully opened the door, pulled me out, and started to beat the living hell out of me. He said the driver didn't care and so he didn't trust adults. After that, he gets a broken arm. And he said the driver watched the whole thing happen.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Broke bones. Jesus.

[James Pietragallo]

Hey, you know what? It's none of my business. Jersey's a very none of my business state, you know. Hey, I don't know what the hell's going on between the two of you. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know who did what. I don't want to get on the wrong side of this.

[James Pietragallo]

Ain't my problem over here right now. Age 14, he's using drugs. He said, I really acted out in school so I would fit in. The other kids saw me as the kid who would do crazy things and take a ton of drugs, which is another way to not get picked on if you're the crazy guy. And it seemed every time I moved and went to another school and being the new kid I was picked on. The only kids who didn't seem to pick on me were the druggies. Now, druggies are very accepting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're very passive folks.

[James Pietragallo]

That crowd is very accepting in high school. They really are. Because they're the outcasts. That's why they're doing drug when they're 16.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So also because what we're doing is illegal. Yes, if you're doing it too. We're both criminals.

[James Pietragallo]

You probably got a similar background. A lot of the jocks might come from a different background. They'd see that you're different and they pick on you. Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a better way to sleep on a Casper mattress.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, casper dot com.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. People always say you spend a third of your time asleep. But you know, I want to spend about half of my life on this mattress.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I'm telling you, it's great stuff. And my mattress and I, we get familiar with each other. And this Casper mattress, we're getting to be very good friends as I have nice good night's sleep on this. I really, really love it. And good night's sleep can make all the difference for you. This podcast is sponsored by Casper. Casper makes reliable, high quality mattresses designed to deliver consistent, comfortable sleep night after night. And they do, by the way. Casper's mattresses are highly rated by Consumer Reports and out of 99 mattresses, Consumer Reports named Casper quote named Casper's the 1 Mattress as their top rated all foam mattress of 2026. If you're in the it's great, I'm telling you. If you're in the market for a new mattress or a mattress upgrade, just head to Casper.com and save up to 30% on the mattress. You deserve, you deserve this mattress. You need this. You work hard, you do things. You got a lot going on. Get yourself a good night's sleep. Casper's mattresses are built to be durable and long lasting so you're not replacing your mattress every few years. Also, their products are designed to withstand the test of time, maintaining support and comfort over the long haul. And Casper has their also, this is great 100 night risk free trial so you can give Casper's mattress a try. You can do it risk free. Although with 110,000 plus 5 star reviews, we think you're Gonna love it. It I do. Casper mattress has made a big difference in my sleep. It really has. It makes me feel good. My neck isn't all messed up. It's excellent. My back feels good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I love the cooling mattresses too. They're fantastic.

[James Pietragallo]

Don't forget about it. That's a whole other thing. That's amazing. And you're gonna love them too. Pick one that you like because Casper offers a wide range of mattresses. So whether you like your mattress firm, soft, or somewhere in between, there is something for you. @casper.com plus, they just launched a brand new kids mattress. So even the youngest sleepers in your family can get the same comfort and quality that you do right now. Save up to 30% on mattresses and up to 35% on everything else. When you go to Casper.com one last time, that's C-P-E-R.com and save up to 30% on the mattress you deserve.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

This show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp.com youm know it, Jimmy. You know, we're big proponents of therapy. Everybody could use some therapy. It's saved Jimmy's life and it saved a lot of lives out there. And May is Mental Health Awareness Month. A reminder that whatever you're going through, you don't have to go through it alone. Life is long and it's hard. Some days are great and some days aren't. And some days are just even worse and overwhelming and everything. You'll get kept up at night by something. And you know, it's easy to feel like you have to figure it out on your own. But the truth is you don't have all the answers. Nobody does. And no journey should be taken like that alone. Having someone with you to listen and to understand and support you, that is the big deal. That's the difference maker. It's everything. And you know, we've had hard things go on and therapy is some way that you can really solve it. And it really, really is. And a mental health awareness model. Everyone should be aware all the time of their mental health. It's huge. It's a big deal. It can even impact on your physical health. It's a lot. So telling you betterhelp is the way to do this. They have quality therapists. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct, but are fully licensed in the US now. The way they match you with their therapist, that's the difference too. Better help. Does the initial matching work for you? So you can just focus on your therapy goals. There's a short questionnaire that helps identify your needs and preferences. And they use their 12 years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate, which means they usually get it right the first time. But if you're not happy with your match for any reason, you switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. No charge. They just want you to get help. It's great. And with over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works. It really does. With an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. What are you waiting for? There's no reason to suffer anymore. Get in there. Help yourself out. You don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] SmallTownMurder that's betterhelp.com Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

He went to a technical school on and off. Got bad grades, got in fights all the time. Just looking for friends and looking for a place to fit in and looking to not get picked on. And then he meets Tommy, who's kind of a crazy guy and he's a year older than him and kind of sees him as kind of not a protector but almost kind of a guy. He can have some sort of little

[Jimmy Whisman]

worse for the wear. So he's a little tougher. He can have maybe.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, exactly. Like you go to his grandma's house, you're like, whoa, this place is fucked up. Makes my house look like Little House on the Prairie here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They say you were number three. Is that right?

[James Pietragallo]

Number three. So Jason really latches on to Tommy and you know, and Tommy's, he's full of shit and he's charismatic and a lot of times kids who are looking for something will gravitate toward kids like that. He's talking about guns all the time, Tommy. Talking about killing. He talks about the mafia. He's got a car, a really shitty beat to crap Chevy Cavalier with a fucked up muffler that's insanely loud that you can hear from a half mile away. And a broken headlight. So he's got a fucked up loud Padiddle Cavalier. Not good. Not good. There's also a guy named Michael Conklin. C O N K L I n who's 19 years old, is another one of Tommy's friends. But he doesn't figure too much into the story, but we'll talk about him. April 8, 1997. Tommy proposes to Michael Conklin. Let's break into Adventure Sports, which is a hunting and fishing store, like a Cabela's or something, but small, just one off. Sandbox, small.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bass pro.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it's on Route 23 in Franklinboro. Sells camping gear, fishing rods, guns, things of that nature. You know, outdoorsy shit. Now, Tommy had been in the store and scouted it out, even picked out which guns he wants in there. Really. So Conklin agrees to help. They get into Tommy's blue Chevy Cavalier. They drive past the Franklin Borough police station to see if any cops are milling about. And they don't see us.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And if they are, they're gonna hear us because my muffler's fucked up.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, they're probably gonna pull me over. No cops around. So Conklin drops Koskovich off at the store. Well, Tommy gets dropped off at the store. Conklin parks the car at a nearby apartment complex and waits. Apparently, Tommy takes a baseball bat and smashes the front window of the store in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So much for subtlety.

[James Pietragallo]

No alarm.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, yeah, that's one way to know.

[James Pietragallo]

If you hear the glass, then it's one thing. If not, it's fine. No subtlety here whatsoever. They're not picking locks or anything.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You tell me. A place that sells guns has a window that you can bash through and no longer goes off.

[James Pietragallo]

No Wii U goes off. That'll come up later. Don't worry.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well done, guys.

[James Pietragallo]

He takes three handguns, a.40 caliber, a.22 caliber revolver, and a.45. Also big ones. Big ones, yeah, except for the.22, but whatever.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Two big ones, though.

[James Pietragallo]

Two big ones. After about 20 minutes, he's back at the car, and they're driving away. They drive to a laundromat, where Tommy stashes the three guns under the hood of his car, changes his pants, and then they go back to Conklin's house, and Tommy crashes out there. The next night. The next morning, Tommy's showing the guns off. He gives Conklin the.40 cal, and he keeps the.22 and.45 for himself, puts them in a duffel bag, and leaves. Now, the original plan was to sell the guns, or at least some of them, to be able to buy cocaine, to be able to flip the cocaine for profit. So they want to start a coke business with these guns.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, yeah, you got to get that seed money, James.

[James Pietragallo]

And at the same time, this is an Odd thing we've seen any kind of. I've seen it in real life, too, but, I mean, you can watch any movie you want or TV show when someone's starting drug dealing and Stu stuff. It's a pretty. You know, it's an involved endeavor. You gotta get into it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All you gotta know.

[James Pietragallo]

They also have a side thing they want to do since they have a gun or two now. They want to also. This is Tommy's idea. They want to rob pizza delivery drivers, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard because I delivered plenty of pizza. Every time you go back into the store, you drop your fucking money off for the most part. Or you might keep. What do you got, $80 on you? There's you. You don't have thousands of dollars.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can't run around with 100 pizzas in your car. By the time you get to the last one, they'll be like, I'm not eating that.

[James Pietragallo]

No.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nor am I paying for it.

[James Pietragallo]

One place I keep the money. At the end of the night, you'd cash out like a waiter, basically. But it still was like, what do I have $120 on me? It wasn't worth killing a person over. It's silly. So Conklin asks him the question. He says, why? Why you want to sell cocaine? That's one thing. You make some money or whatever. Why do you want to rob pizza delivery people? That sounds stupid. Better people to rob than that. Yeah. Out of all these kids, he's the only one that went, why? Why? And everyone went, huh? I don't know. Like that old mister. Remember the old mister show sketch where they were going to blow up the moon? They were going to blow up the moon, and they had a monkey who was going to press the detonation button, and the monkeys did sign language and the monkey asked, why? And they all went. And then they went and got a new monkey that didn't have no sign language. That's what they did. That was the solution.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sucks.

[James Pietragallo]

So Tommy said, quote, they're easy targets. I just want to kill someone for the thrill of it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, so now you're not robbing people,

[James Pietragallo]

you rob them, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, but that's not the point of it.

[James Pietragallo]

That's not the point. And the Mafia really want you to rob pizza delivery men. That's how you get into the Mafia. That's double A, Triple A. It's the minors.

[Jimmy Whisman]

When you bring your resume, if there's a zero next to pizza delivery men killed, you're not getting hired.

[James Pietragallo]

They're like, how many pizza guys you off, huh? I'm not seeing any on here. I don't know what the, you know, go back and, you know, kind of work that resume a little more, you know, go dig some holes, come back in a couple of years. So for the next week and a half, they put a murder plan together of they're gonna try to basically just let's rob a pizza guy and kill him just for the fun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. So April 18th, 1997. Tommy tells his friend Christine Slater, a young lady here, a teenage girl in the friend group he's hanging out with Christine, and he tells her basically everything. He says, I'm going to order a pizza, I'm going to have it delivered to a remote address, and I'm going to kill this delivery person. And she said, why?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why?

[James Pietragallo]

Yup, that's exactly what she said. Why, pray tell? And he said, well, because I want to join the mafia, duh. And you join by killing someone. Which is again, not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're going to. I'm not even going to have to go find them.

[James Pietragallo]

It'll get through the grapevine. A guy in a suit will come knock on my door. Just a guy in a track suit will come and, hey, come here. He's eating a sandwich, you know the guy. She doesn't call the cops or anything like that because she thinks it's Tommy running his mouth. He thinks he's going to get in the mafia for killing a pizza guy. He's just an idiot who cares?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Because this is. This is a dumb thing to think.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And I've heard people say, duck kids when I was a teenager say dumber shit than that. And you just ignore them and nothing ever happens. That's the way it works. Now he tells Michael Conklin as well. Conklin said, I don't want any part of that. He's the why guy. He was like, I don't see a point to this. I'm not getting involved in this. He also tells a kid named Jason Kelly. It's a long story, but Jason Kelly, the Kelly family, Robert and April are his parents. Tommy helped them out while a member of the family had cancer. And Tommy, like, did things for the family and fucking mowed the lawn and like, was a real big help to these people while this somebody in their family had cancer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So he tells a Spanish music band

[James Pietragallo]

that I'm not sure about. So he tells 2016. He lasted till. So he tells Jason about this too. And he asks Jason, can you get me some 45 caliber bullets?

[Jimmy Whisman]

He, yeah, you were just in the

[James Pietragallo]

shop, didn't get those. He got the guns, but forgot to get any bullets for them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck?

[James Pietragallo]

So Jason Kelly, not Jason Vreeland, Jason Kelly gives him the bullets.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's got them on hand.

[James Pietragallo]

He asked him for them. So then the next day, Saturday, April 19, 1997, they're at Tommy's house, Tommy's grandma's house. He spends part of the day with his girlfriend, Kimberly. Prestage at 8pm Tommy is over at Conklin's house now, Mike Conklin's house. The Y guy Conklin's mother, Florence sees. Tommy said that he seemed anxious at that point. About 9:30, Jason Vreeland and Tommy, they're at Tommy's house and the two of them get all dressed up to leave the house. Tommy straps on the.45 caliber semi auto across his chest, underneath his shirt. Vreeland puts the.22 caliber revolver in his chest under his shirt. So they take a phone book, because at the time he needed a phone book. And then they go to Dunkin Donuts with a phone book. Okay. Which all the teenage kids do. You grab a phone book, you go to Dunkin Donuts, It's a party.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Remember, he doesn't know the phone number to the pizza joints.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, there's a thing here. They copy down a list of phone numbers of local pizza places on a piece of paper.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, so they'll go through the list.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. They'll see where they are. They get change. They even bum some change off Kimberly, Tommy's girlfriend. She gives them some change so they can make calls. 11:30pm now, let's fast forward two hours. That was 9:30. At 11:30 they end up back with Kimberly. She says later on that Tommy and Jason came back around 11:30 and they were wrecked and falling all over the place, quote, unquote. She said that earlier in the day, Jason Vreeland had nothing in his wallet. Now he had a $5 bill. And the next day he's got about $170. And she doesn't know where it came from. So let's find out where it came from. At 9:30 they're at Dunkin Donuts about 9:50. Or they were heading to Dunkin Donuts about 9: 50. They're driving in the Cavalier. They have their. Their pizza place numbers. They drive the blue Cavalier out to Scott Road in Franklin Borough. It's a middle of nowhere country road, basically. They pick an address. They're looking for addresses on this street. They pick 196 Scott Road, which is an abandoned house, empty, and nobody lives there. And the house has got some distance between them. There are houses there on the street, but they're not right on top of each other. But this house is empty and dark. So they drove past it, got the address of it, and then went to dunkin donuts. From 10pm to 1006, they're on the Dunkin Donuts payphone making phone calls. Yeah. Here we find out at 10 o' clock, they called one pizzeria. So they call pizzeria number one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yes.

[James Pietragallo]

They refuse to go to Scott Road. It's too far out there. And they don't know where it is. So they're like, we're not fucking going where we are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We're not sending a guy to be vulnerable out in the middle of nowhere.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, it's too far. That's it. Pizza, they call 1001. Pizzeria number two. They're not doing deliver. They don't deliver to that area. 1002 Pizzeria number three. They don't deliver to Scott Road out there. Too far. Cause every pizza place has a radius of where they.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, they got a window. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Now, I worked for small, you know, family owned pizza places. It's not like Domino's where it's a hard window or something like that at a small town place. They're like, it's all right, fine, yeah, take the other one. We'll come to that one. I remember asking the owner, will we deliver here? And he goes, see how busy they are? And they're like, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, what the hell? I have done that before. 10:03, they call Tony's Pizza and Pasta in Hardyston, New Jersey. How many Tony's Pizza and Pasta are there? There's one. There's three within three miles of my house. Three Tony's. So they pick up the phone and they ask, is Jeremy Giordano working tonight? And the guy on the phone says, yeah, Jeremy's here. And then they hang up the phone because they know a guy who works at one of these pizza places who does deliveries. Okay? They call pizzeria number four. They say it's too far out, not doing it. They call pizzeria number five. The kid answering the phone says he'll do the order. But then the owner, the boss, says, no, Scott Road's too far. So they cancel the order midway. Then they call back to Tony's Pizza and Pasta, and they said, will you deliver out there? And they said, yes. And so they place an order for two large cheese pies. Okay, two large cheese pizzas. It's $16.50, which I love. 90s Northeast pizza prices, that's like exactly. $8.25 is like exactly what they were at the place I worked at the time. So that's pretty funny. Going to 196 Scott Road. At 10:30pm the kids are back at Scott Road. Tommy and Jason, they park the Cavalier in a way that they can basically, they backed into the driveway of this house. They load the guns,22 caliber for Vreeland,45 for Tommy, and they stand out on the curb of the house in jackets waiting for the pizza. 10:35pm Here. Jeremy Giordano, by the way, who's 22 years old.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They know the guy.

[James Pietragallo]

They know the guy, he gets the order. He's been delivering pies for a while at Tony's. From all I can understand, he sounds like a real nice kid, this Jeremy too. Everybody says, oh, sweet kid. He's been a delivery driver, so he knows all these roads. Believe me, I delivered pizzas when I was a teenager. I knew every fucking road in the delivery area. Every little tiny road, which was great because there's a lot of little places to go, smoke weed and places like that. Good to know. Side pockets, sure, you know how it is. So he knew every shortcut. He knew everything. Now the owner of the pizza place is Giorgio Galera. G A L L A R A goes by George because, you know, it's easier. He's 25 and he owns the pizza place at 25.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

He bought the pizza place when he was 21. He'd been working there since he was 13.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, parking cars.

[James Pietragallo]

Parking cars out front. So, yeah, I guess when the owners wanted to retire, he said, I'll take over. So he did.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, Georgie got it. That's nice.

[James Pietragallo]

Little Georgie. Little Georgio. So George, George has a girlfriend named Lara who's waiting in the parking lot for him. They have a four year old daughter as well who's also in the parking lot out there waiting for Georgie to get off work. George to get off work. They have a camping trip planned for the morning. They already have the car loaded. They're all ready to go. Now George, though, being a decent guy and a guy who owns a pizza place and gives a shit about his employees actually says something doesn't feel right about this. I don't like it. It's out in the middle of nowhere, it's late. It's just a weird call. The hang up, they called back Two

[Jimmy Whisman]

minutes later, very east coast and Italian to have some suspicion. I don't like this.

[James Pietragallo]

And he says, he doesn't say, don't go. He goes, I'm coming with you. How's that go? Together, me and you together. Okay. So they hop in Jeremy's 95 Pontiac Grand Am, which is a great car

[Jimmy Whisman]

for back then, a Grand Am.

[James Pietragallo]

If I was in 97, in 1997, if I had a 95 grand, nevermind what it is, it's two years old. Every car I had at that point was 15, 10 years old. It was a piece of shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, the seats in these were so comfortable. They were that like plush. Oh, I remember, like plush velvet velour. They were such. Yeah, great fucking seat. Yeah, puffy as shit.

[James Pietragallo]

They're nice. So they drive out 1045 to Scott Road and basically they get up to the house. Jeremy's driving, George is in the passenger seat. Car pulls up to the curb with the passenger side facing the boys on the curb there. So it's on their right on the car's right now. They ask, they say, 1650. George is the guy in the passenger seat. He says, 1650. So Tommy looks at Jason and says, you got money? And Jason says, yeah. And then Tommy goes, oh, no, nevermind, I got the money. And reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out the.45 and empties the clip into the car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

Empties the clip. Seven shots. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Quick as he could, Jason then fires the.22 into the car as well. They're just opening fire on this car like there's Sonny Corleone in the fucking car at the toll booth. So two of the bullets from the.45 enter the right side of Jeremy Giordano's neck and exit out the left side. The medical examiner later will say those bullets killed Jeremy pretty much instantly.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, dumb.

[James Pietragallo]

Two more.45 caliber rounds hit Jeremy in the left knee. Both bullets will be recovered later. Now, Giorgio Galera in the passenger seat. Five bullets on him, five wounds, a graze across the bridge of his nose, two wounds to his right elbow, one large caliber wound to the right side of the face. That's the fucking.45. And then the fatal shot, though, is a.22 caliber bullet that enters the back of his head.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. So One came from the.22, one deadly bullet came from the.45. Then Jeremy's foot comes off the brake because they were still in drive. And the Grand Am starts rolling and gets kind of stuck in a muddy brushy area there. Engine still running. We don't know. So Tommy and Jason run to the car, open the passenger door. They grab Giorgio Galera by the jacket and pull him face down onto the ground.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right? Because they got nothing out of this so far. So far. It's just ridiculous murder.

[James Pietragallo]

The pizzas are on the ground, by the way, because they handed the pizzas out to him. So then goes over to the driver's side, does the same to Jeremy, and then they didn't know it was Jeremy till now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Jason, when he pulls him out, he yells, that's Jeremy. That's Jeremy. We shot fucking Jeremy. Didn't want to shoot Jeremy. That's why they were not fucking. Didn't want to do that to begin with. Now Tommy doesn't know either person. Doesn't give a shit, doesn't care. So that's how we know that Jason was making the calls, because he knew about Jeremy, and Tommy doesn't know Jeremy. So Tommy starts rifling their pockets, basically for cash. Just crazy. They climb into the Grand Dam, search the interior, the glove box, get a few more bucks. They get a wallet off of a small amount of cash in the wallet. And Giorgio Galera, two pizzas on the ground next to the bodies. They don't even take the pizzas. Talk about disrespect.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A waste.

[James Pietragallo]

Two good, decent.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's good pizza.

[James Pietragallo]

North New Jersey pizzas on the ground. I find that offensive. Like, obviously, the murder's effective. Murder's terrible, and it's horrible, and it's obviously the overriding main horrible thing. But on a side note, this hurts me. This hurts my heart. I don't like seeing pizza wasted, really.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But the war on pizza in this country is alive and well. This is just a brutal waste of two pizzas that were very edible. I'm sure of it.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely fucking delicious. I bet. Yeah. So Jason tries to back the Grand Am out of the mud, but it's stuck in the mud. So Tommy says, forget the car. They're gonna steal the car, too. They said, forget the car. They run back to the Cavalier. As they're running, Tommy says, I can't believe we did this. I can't believe we did this. And then Jason says, I love you, man. And then they hug in the middle of the street. Quick, bro hug before we hop in for our murder getaway commercial. Just a quick one. Yeah. Love you, man. So that's what they do. Then. They get in the Cavalier, drive away. By 11pm they stopped at the Presbyterian church, where they got out, walked to the front Door and made the sign of the cross and left.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay? Now they think they're the fucking Boondock Saints.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean. This is ridiculous. He doesn't know. That's what a mob hitman would do, right? Yeah, okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. As long as you ask forgiveness.

[James Pietragallo]

What do you think they did next, Jimmy?

[Jimmy Whisman]

They go burn a St. James? Is that what they did?

[James Pietragallo]

They had their own ceremony?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did they take that phone book and look up the mob?

[James Pietragallo]

They went bowling, as you do, right? I mean, I love bowling, but. So on the way home, they ditched evidence, too. Jason been wearing black gloves and had a blood stained shirt. He threw the shirt into a stream as they drive past. Which will later be recovered, by the way. Along with receipts from Tony's Pizza, the bill for it, the guest check thing. And also Galera's identification card and driver's license and all that kind of shit. Now Tommy takes off his khakis with blood all over them while he's driving and puts on a clean pair of white jeans. Who the fuck wore white jeans in 1997? What a dork.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's so wild. Why does he have those?

[James Pietragallo]

Let me tell you. No teenagers wore white jeans in 1997.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not males.

[James Pietragallo]

You'd get a pic. Oh, yeah, Women can wear whatever they want as long as their ass looks great. We would have got picked on unmercifully for that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In the Northeast, white jeans, your friends would run by you and drag their shoe on your fucking thigh.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Kids would kick you right in the ass. Yeah. Now my shoe's on your ass all day. You can't have that. So they put the stuff, the khakis into a gym bag. They get back to Tommy's house, they stuff both guns and the bloody khakis into a gym bag and hide the gym bag under a pane of glass outside the house. Just leave it there. Okay. Then they go bowling. I don't know if this is an. We don't know if this is like an alibi. We don't know what they do. I think Tommy, not bad, about a 175. He's pretty good. I'll tell you what. So then they go home and they fall asleep on Tommy's couch. Now, Kimberly was in there at some point and said they were wrecked and all over the place at 11:30.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, so were they drinking? What were they doing?

[James Pietragallo]

That's what we're trying to figure out. What happened after that? I don't know if they were just pretending like, hey, we went out and got Wrecked. And that was our thing. Not murdered people. Sunday, April 20, 1997, comes along the next day. And the Pontiac Grande dam is still stuck in the mud, still sitting there. There's a 911 call pretty early. And a patrolman, an officer pulls up, finds the Grand Am, the muddy, you know, in a muddy patch, Both doors ajar, two adult males face down in the grass. Large amount of blood both inside and outside the car. And two pizzas sitting there. Now, after eating a couple of slices,

[Jimmy Whisman]

of course, you know, you gotta process

[James Pietragallo]

the scene, see how it's. That's part of the report. Was the pizza any good? You know, people are gonna want to know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The report had a lot of grease on it.

[James Pietragallo]

It's the thing. Greasy sauce stains. So they find six spent.45 caliber shells recovered on the road in front of the abandoned house. 2 more spent. 45 casings recovered from the front passenger seat of The Grand Am. Two large caliber bullets in the left knee. A.22 caliber bullet in the back of the head. Yeah, so this is crazy now, the investigation. Tony's Pizza and Pasta gets a phone call from the police the next morning. They said, yes, the two pizzas went out around 10:30 the night before to 196 Scott Road. Because the owner was going to be away that weekend. So she's got a manager opening up. You know what I mean? They said, yes, Jeremy Giordano was doing driving, yes. Giorgio Galera, the owner, went with him. They never came back. We didn't know what happened. Then they talked to the girlfriend, Giorgio's girlfriend, who waited in the parking lot. She waited for a long, long fucking time. She tells them about that. At the same time, this is becoming news around town. And Christine Slater hears about it. The friend that they told about it, who blew it off. So she calls the goddamn cops. Right away, she says she called the cops. She's like, I know who did it. She said, my friend Tommy told me two days ago he was gonna do this cause he wanted to join the Mafia and he wanted to kill a pizza delivery person and steal the car. And then what you do is you give the car as a tribute to the mob boss. And then he lets you in. Here's a 95 grand am. And he goes, you're my son now. And then you burn a saint.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In five years, when it's out of warranty, you will call it a 95 goddamn cause. Every two weeks, this thing's gonna give you problems.

[James Pietragallo]

It's gonna be a fucking problem. So he said he wants to do that, he said. He told me how he was going to do it and this is exactly what I heard happened. Wow. So this is not good. Now number one, she heard about it ahead of time and didn't say anything. So this could be a crime for her. But they don't really care because she's a teenager and she said, I didn't think he was going to fucking actually do it. Seriously, he talks all the time. He's been saying this for years. Then they get a second tip though. Steven Madden's a guy who lives on Scott Road. And Saturday evening before 10pm he sees a blue Chevy Cavalier with a loud muffler drive past his house. Very distinct car. Maybe 15, 20 minutes later, he sees the same car drive past again, loud muffler. Two other Scott Road residents saw and heard the same car. One headlight out, loud muffler. So yeah, so they talk about it. He calls the police. So now they have the guy putting them at the scene. They have the friend saying she, you know, told him to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They said they were gonna do it. And we've got two people that saw his dumb fucking car.

[James Pietragallo]

Stupid car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Idiot.

[James Pietragallo]

So April 21, 1997. The next morning, we're talking middle of the night, not even morning, 2:30 and 5:30 in the morning. They arrest both of these idiots at their homes, asleep. Oh, yep. They pull Tommy out of his bed at his grandma's house. They read him his rights like seven times by the way, at the scene, in the car, at the station, before they interrogate him. I mean he gets his rights read a lot by the. When they search him, they find just his person. A pouch containing 26 pills, later identified as Fiora. Set 12 marijuana seeds just loose in his pocket. Who the hell keeps seeds in their pocket?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Loose kept this like he's going to grow.

[James Pietragallo]

This is loosey goosey in your pocket.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm going to grow that. Throw them away.

[James Pietragallo]

Five dollar ten bills. Big haul from this robbery here. They take him to the police guard, he signs the Miranda sheet, they do an inventory search, they do all that. He signs a waiver twice, by the way. Miranda waiver. Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about our SafeST sponsor, SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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[James Pietragallo]

Then he sits down and for 46 minutes tells the cops every goddamn thing in the world Tommy does. Just tells them everything. Confesses to the murder. Not a good mafia audition here, guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He thinks when he gets out, he's got a career now.

[James Pietragallo]

He walks them through the planning. Then he tells them, well, I burglarized adventure sports 11 days ago. That's how I got the gun. So then they close that case. They know what happened to that. He says, we went to the pay phone, goes through the entire thing basically word by word, step by step. Everything I told you before came from his and Jason's own mouths.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He told them how he premeditated a cold blooded murder that turned out to be too fortuitously.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. And a robbery. And he even told about how they hugged in the street. It's not good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He even admitted, I love you, man.

[James Pietragallo]

And then he said, yeah, he took some drugs yesterday, but he's of clear enough mind to figure it out today to talk to them. He's fine. He denied. He said the police weren't coercing him or putting any pressure on him. He said he was treated fine with no problems. Here's a couple quotes from him. Quote, the guy was screaming all the way to the bushes. It rang right through my head. I don't know why. I was scared. Then another quote. It makes it so you can't do any. So you can do anything. It's not so much you don't know what you're doing. You're fearless or heartless. I have no remorse because I didn't know the people. Jay felt bad for Jeremy. Wow. Okay, interesting. Now Jeremy sits down, or Jason, I mean, sits down. And he gives a partial statement, too. He claims, though, that he only shot at the dashboard with his gun. So that's it. So I pretended to be doing it. Meanwhile, you missed. You missed and you hit a guy in the fucking head. Yeah. His confession here, when they. This is the funniest thing. They're talking about murder. Yes, we did it. Yes, we did all this. But when asked how he got home, the Next day he told police that this is Tommy. He told police that he didn't drive Vreeland home. And they said, why? Why did you refuse to drive him home? He said, I didn't have valid insurance.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I didn't want to break the law.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't want to do. Jesus Christ. I mean, come on here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Traffic laws are very important to me.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I am sorry, but I don't want tickets. My insurance is going to go through the roof over here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't have any, but it'll go through the roof. When I get it, when I get

[James Pietragallo]

it, the rates are going to be ridiculous. So in the search of Tommy's room while they're doing this, they find a lot, a lot of evidence. They find the.45 caliber pistol. Two. The.22 caliber revolver. Blood stained khakis with the victim's blood all over them. Two empty.22 caliber cartridge boxes. Giorgio Galera's gym photo identification card.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We can stop looking now.

[James Pietragallo]

And 14 gun magazine. Like combat handguns. Handgunning. That sounds like a little.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a magazine.

[James Pietragallo]

Handgunning and guns and weapons. Okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Then Mike, he's like just finger gun guy's going like that.

[James Pietragallo]

Then a price list for crime related activities. Like his price list that he's going to put out. I'll do crimes for you. For his menu, if you will. Yeah, his menu. This included fake IDs, credit card frauds and things like that. So this was like a thing. They also found a pair of black gloves. This is Vreeland's gloves. An empty wallet, which is Galera's. Bags of clothes and paperwork. Then also handwritten song lyrics about killing people. Tommy had.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He writes songs too.

[James Pietragallo]

And five strips of paper taped above a coat hook. God damn it, we're running out of time. There's so much more to this. I don't know what to do here. This is crazy. There's so much more to this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Five strips of paper.

[James Pietragallo]

Five strips of paper taped above a coat hook. Handwritten in marker in Tommy's handwriting, they read weapons spot one. Anyone else? We all kill you. Then one said, Joe's spot. Anyone? Anybody else? He kill you too. Tom's spot. Anybody else? He kill you too. Jason's spot. Anybody else? I kill you. Then Cocoa Puff's spot. By the way, we have no idea who Cocoa Puff is and we'll never find out. It says Cocoa Puff Spot. I'll kill you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. Now both the confessions line up perfectly with forensics and physical evidence. It's crazy. Then they find out Also that they charge him with the Adventure Zone robbery there. Then they talked to Mike Conklin, who participated in the robbery. And Mike said after the murder, he talked to Tommy. Tommy came out, stuck his hand out and said, how does it feel to shake the hand of a killer?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Pietragallo]

He's such an idiot, man. He's such a fucking idiot. By the way, Jeremy Giordano's cousin Nicholas said, there are some people in my family who've never come to terms with Jeremy's death. Some people consider him Saint Jeremy. I live with this every day. Every day I think about it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's fucked up.

[James Pietragallo]

They charged Tommy with 16 counts of shit, everything you can imagine. Murder and robberies, and this while doing this, felony murder. They didn't charge him with that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They didn't get him with eventual marijuana possession.

[James Pietragallo]

Someday the state will seek the death penalty on top of. Because he's over 18. Jeremy's only 17, and they can't seek the. Or Jason's only 17. They can't seek the death penalty against him. Yeah, he's a minor. So, anyway, Tommy, while awaiting trial, is charged with heroin possession in prison or in jail after him and other inmates receives smuggled heroin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Idiot.

[James Pietragallo]

Then July, they're talking about him pleading guilty. He might, and he's saying he's gonna plead guilty. But then he tries to kill himself with an overdose of prescription pills and changes his mind.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Has it dawned on him how fucked he is? Is that what happened?

[James Pietragallo]

I guess so. He's gonna plead guilty and sit there forever. So during the trial, death penalty on the table, they're going to allow the strips with the names on it. The Cocoa Puff thing. Now they insist it's a Stripes reference. The movie Stripes with Bill Murray, John Candy, John Candy, Harold Ramis and Judge Reinhold and all those guys, they insist it's a Stripes reference. Even Jason Kelly, the guy who gave him the bullets, testified that it is a Stripes reference. And that was a joke among their friends. Don't know. The trial court said, no, no, they're all coming in. The price list is allowed in the gun magazines. That's to say he was experienced with guns and knew what he was doing. And his confession. Everything's allowed in. A detective reads the murder. His song lyrics about killing people in a deadpan voice to the jury, which. It's a bad right, if a detective reads anybody's lyrics. I mean, you could take the greatest lyrics in the world, you could. Sitting there with just a fucking list of Nas lyrics. It would sound horrible coming from a Deadpan detective Mom's spaghetti. Yes. Over and over. And he says, quote, about killing people. You can kill by. And then it's illegible. Or on by guns. One night you break in somebody home and you take their money and kill by drive something illegible down the road and shout and shouting by the big heads. The best. Those are lyrics. They don't work, they're bad. So they bring everybody in. The friend who you know, a Dunkin Donuts employee who saw them on the payphone, you name it. Everybody. The people who you know, the girl who heard him talk, the Jason Kelly guy, everything. The defense case is, you know, he didn't really do this, you know. What are you talking about? That's basically their case.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He wasn't there.

[James Pietragallo]

Their case is. But he's a fucked up kid. He's got mental illness. So they bring shrinks in to say he's got mental illness in grandma's house. It's all fucked up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So verdict comes in. Unsurprisingly, he's guilty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. Now after he's guilty to that, on the same verdict sheet, they say, did Tommy, by his own conduct, fire the bullet or bullets that killed Jeremy? Yes or no? Unanimously. They vote yes. Now that makes it go to the penalty phase. And now the death penalty can be used. If any of them said no, they can't have the death penalty. There's like a double, you know, safety mechanism there. So there's not just random death penalties given out. So they sentence him during sentencing, they bring up a lot of mitigating witnesses, talking about how horrible his childhood was. His grandmother fed him pills, his uncle fucking fed him drugs, all this shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

His parents grew up together.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. The Kelly family said that Tommy helped them out. That's Jason Kelly's father. When Robert had cancer, he ran errands. He's kind. His Uncle Lenny takes the stand and says, quote, let me tell you something, and I'll tell everyone in this courtroom, I'll tell anybody in the whole world. And I mean it. This comes from the heart. I would switch places with that boy right now, today, in a heartbeat. Give me his sentence. Let him go home. That's what he says.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's not how it works.

[James Pietragallo]

He said, I did this. This is my fault. Oh, he said, this is my fault. I put him on this road. I fucked them all up. And he said that it's something to do with basically a psychological breaking point. And he said, everybody has a point. He said, I had that point too, but mine happened when I Was in jail. He just happened to be out on the street so he could do more about it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So you want to let him back out to do it again?

[James Pietragallo]

He said, everybody in my family's dysfunctional. Tommy released his anger at the age of 18. I let it out in the Sussex county jail. I let it out in reform schools. They talk about that. He said, the very people in this institution right here name me a menace to society, a poor risk to the community. And I've been proven that time after time. Send me to give me the lethal injection. Give me his sentence right now. Let me switch seats with that boy and give him psychologists find out what made him do it so you can teach the other kids not to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

He says that? Yeah, he says that my life got all fucked up. They said, what happened to your life to turn it on? He said, my mother's former lesbian lover, who was a bossy, mean drunk, hogtied me for three days when I was little and beat me up because I tried to set fire to her bedroom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

He said I wanted them dead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a fascinating day.

[James Pietragallo]

Then about the house he grew up in. He said, I found cleaner living conditions in abandoned buildings in Harlem. Rats and dirty syringes were next to me and I was much happier.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

They bring in the dad to say, I told him I loved him the least of all my children. And he says he did that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I gotta get home to fuck my sister.

[James Pietragallo]

You gotta go fuck my sister now. Bye. Then they bring in a psychiatrist that says that he's been receiving whispers from an evil false prophet. He believes he can predict the future and that on this year in 1998, the Chinese were planning to invade America on July 1st. That's a prediction he wants everyone to know about. He said, quote, he's a very disturbed young man. He's mentally ill. Okay? The prosecution rebuttal was, who fucking cares? This was premeditated as shit. Then they bring out Loretta Giordano, Jeremy's mother. Oh, no, I love this lady. She's a wonderful woman. She reads a 15 page victim impact statement about how much great her son was and also that her son was super into Jesus and religion and all that kind of shit. Okay? Then on cross examination from the defense counsel, they ask her a question and this could go either way. They hear she's real religious and they say, what's your family's views on the death penalty? She says, this is a great, very, very. This is what? Like, I think if you're going to be Jesus, y. This is how you should be. This is Jesusy stuff here. Quote, my whole family would like to see Thomas Koskovich take the evil that he's done and turn his life over to Christ. We're not in favor of the death penalty. I would like the jury to evaluate everything according to what they feel their job is to do and according to the laws, according to how they feel they have to answer to their God. Oh, we're not into it. So the jury on the other hand says, you sir, may fuck off. Death penalty. They are into it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We'll answer later.

[James Pietragallo]

But if it's okay. The whole point is, if it's for the victim's family and they don't want it, then what the fuck are we doing? This is. It's silly anyway.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's very funny that they were like, we take your words, lady, we'll answer it another day.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, well, it's fine. Vreeland also has a trial. He's tried as an adult, but no death penalty. He is also found guilty as well. Obviously it's the same evidence for him though. You, sir, may fuck off. Life plus 35 years. Eligible for parole in 2044 when he's 65.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's still not. He's right in the middle of it now.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. Tommy appeals and gets the death penalty taken away. By the way, the state appealed also saying it was error to let Loretta Giordano testify about her opposition to the death penalty. Oh, it's fine. When the victims families come up there and say, please put this guy to death for my. That's fine. But then when they come up and go, we don't believe in it. No, no, no. That's what I mean. They rig it against. It's the same reason you have to have a death qualified jury, which is 12 people who say that they believe in the death penalty rather than having some. So it's crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's wild. Why can you do that?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. He gets resentenced though here to his earliest parole date will be 2072 when he's 94 years old.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The fact that he gets that opportunity is insane.

[James Pietragallo]

It's. He's going to be 94. What opportunity is that he should not have?

[Jimmy Whisman]

It should be life without no fucking chance.

[James Pietragallo]

There is no chance he's gonna be 94. What do you think he's gonna do? Rob pizza guys at 94 chance. If he makes it to 94, spending 75 years with him, who cares? That'd be funny as shit. Yeah, let him Live there forever. No pizza.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He'll have a heart attack when he walks out the door.

[James Pietragallo]

Now there's a civil lawsuit where the family, the Galera family sues Tommy Koskovich. They sue Vreeland and. And they sue Adventure Sport for not having a goddamn irresponsible gun. Fucking well done.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So anyway, the way that works is there's a settlement with figures for the combined civil claims appear to be in the range of $17 million. So we don't know how that split up, but the boys aren't paying shit. Adventure Sport, probably.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But there's a settlement. They got it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. 2007, New Jersey abolishes the death penalty. Yeah. So he ends up, by the way, Tommy starts writing Marshall Project essays and shit like that. And there's a book, David Laoza called the Pizza Killers, that Tommy's family's very angry about because they say he lied and didn't talk to Tommy. Called him a liar. There you go. Everybody there is Franklin, New Jersey.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What a story.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a crazy. What a story, Mark. That's a crazy fucking story. And honestly, we might have been able to do a regular full length episode on that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Possibly just on all the aftermath.

[James Pietragallo]

There's so much to cover with all the aftermath. But we didn't want the story to be two hours of court proceedings, so we did it this way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I hope the general taken care of. Very well taken care of.

[James Pietragallo]

I hope so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a fucked scenario of how he got the gun in the first place.

[James Pietragallo]

I hope Adventure Sport just didn't claim bankruptcy. I don't know how that works. I hope not. But either way, there's New Jersey, Franklin and Franklin Borough, however you want to say it, there it is. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this show, get on whatever app you're on, give us five stars, give a thumbs up on Netflix. It helps a lot. Thank you. And it's literally this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's right there. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So you have to do.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's on your remote.

[James Pietragallo]

You know how hard this was?

[Jimmy Whisman]

You don't have to stand up.

[James Pietragallo]

You could be whacking off. You could be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Doesn't matter.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If this is what you do, whatever you got, this is what you're doing to.

[James Pietragallo]

That's fine. Well, I figure it's over now. You click it. Not while it's playing. That would be weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who cares? There was brother and sister fucking in this.

[James Pietragallo]

There's two dudes in their 40s talking about murder. That'd be fucking weird. So thank you for doing that. Definitely head over to shutupandgivememurder.com get your tickets for September 18, Milwaukee at the Pabst. September 19, Minneapolis State Theater. Get your tickets. Minneapolis. What are you people doing? Get in there and do that. Shut upandgivemerder.com patreon.com crimeinsports $5 a month or above. You get everything that we put out. Hundreds of back bonus episodes. New shit all the time. As soon as you subscribe, you get almost 400 episodes. Then you get one crime in sports. One small town murder every other week. This week, crime and sports. Christian power team bending rebars, yelling about Jesus while they're taking steroids and there's some scandal. Small town murder. Internet salad. Let's go over and make fun of everything that's going on in the world. That's a lot of fun. Can't wait to do that. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you get everything we put out ad free as well. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. You can't beat it. Let's do that. You want to find us? Shut upandgivemerder.com has links to social media. Everything you could possibly want. That said, till next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bye.

[James Pietragallo]

Hey, everybody. Listening to small town murder out there. Hi.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hello.

[James Pietragallo]

Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy too. And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for updates. Yes, Come see a live show. The 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now starting at with. February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets though, to your stupid opinions. On 21 March, Salt Lake City sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2nd. May 29th, Buffalo sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30th, we have September 18th, Milwaukee. September 19th, Minneapolis. October 3rd in Dallas, October 16th in San Jose. October 17th in Sacramento, November 13th in Tarrytown. November 14th in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're gonna meet so many people. You're gonna have fun. Make some new friends like crazy and make some new friends. Come out and see us. Shut up and givememerder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now while they're hot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

See you on the road.