Serial Killer Desires - Waterford, Connecticut

Summary

Small Town Murder — "Serial Killer Desires: Waterford, Connecticut"

Podcast: Small Town Murder
Hosts: James Pietragallo, Jimmie Whisman
Episode: "Serial Killer Desires - Waterford, Connecticut"
Release Date: January 1, 2026

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Overview: A Haunting Tale of Lost Potential and Murder in Small-Town Connecticut

In this episode, James and Jimmie dig into a pair of eerily similar murders in Waterford, CT, during the late 1990s, whose victims were vulnerable women with tragic life stories. The show’s core is the heartbreaking journey of Renee Pellegrino—a gifted, once-promising woman whose life spiraled into addiction and street sex work. With their trademark mix of exhaustive research, dark humor, and empathy for victims, the hosts chronicle Renee’s unraveling and the investigation’s long, winding path to justice. Along the way, the case broadens to reveal systemic failures, the grim realities of sex work, and the escalation of a violent local predator.

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1. Setting the Scene: Waterford, CT

Town Profile (05:38–15:52)

• Waterford described as quiet, family-oriented, with low crime but little nightlife.
• Demographics: ~19,500 people, median age 46.6, more women than men.
• Economically average for Connecticut, culturally typical of blue-collar New England.
• Noted for small-town quirks: free (brief!) outdoor concerts, Pumpkin Fest, and humorously unambitious late-night food options.
• Violent crime below national average—but not always so.

Memorable moment:

• “It’s a town that doesn’t dance. We got a lot... Married with children, low divorce rate…no dancing here. It’s a town that doesn’t dance.” —James (12:01)

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2. The Unraveling of Renee Pellegrino

Early Life & Talents (21:08–39:41)

• Renee grows up poor in Westerly, RI, with an abusive, alcoholic WW2-veteran father and a tough but loving mother.
• Shows prodigious musical ability—plays Beethoven by memory at 4, multi-instrumentalist, fluent in French.
• Fiercely intellectual, but ashamed of poverty; turns to shoplifting as a teen to get the clothes she covets. “Shoplifting was her forte...it was her gift and she did it extremely well.” —Friend, Jacqueline Malagrino (37:08)

Academic Ambitions and Struggles (33:48–47:49)

• Excels at prestigious Catholic schools thanks to her mother’s sacrifices.
• Dreams of Smith College, attends Rhode Island College and later Connecticut College, impresses professors with intellect and curiosity.
• Periodic disappearances linked to stints in Las Vegas—where she’s arrested for prostitution.

Quote:
“She understood what men wanted and she was ready to supply it if it was in her best interests. To her, it was an exchange. It was a business.” —Sister Diane (44:36)

Downward Spiral: Addiction, Mental Health, & Loss (53:00–87:11)

• After sister’s accidental death and her own failures at law licensing (due to criminal record and persistent shoplifting), Renee succumbs to depression and cocaine/crack addiction.
• Cycles through rehab, therapy (which she resists with intellectual gamesmanship), and relapses.
• Prostitution becomes her primary means of survival; she is described by friends and family as both brilliant and deeply troubled, “almost too smart for her own good.”
• Loses custody of a daughter born in jail, continues using, and lives in “an endless cycle of drugs, shoplifting, and prostitution” (81:17).

Quote:
“She became quiet, more easily angered and aggressive…if you have someone who’s cynical and acerbic in their nature, you add a coke habit into that—holy shit.” —James (71:27)

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3. The Murders: A Serial Predator Surfaces

The Murder of Renee Pellegrino (109:21–115:36)

• June 25, 1997: Renee’s naked, posed body is discovered on Waterford Parkway South—crucifix-like, arms outstretched, no belongings, single pink hair tie. She is 17 weeks pregnant.
• Cause of death: Both manual and ligature strangulation—a rare method (only 3 of 6,000 autopsies in CT chief ME’s experience).
• She had been seen getting into a car just after release from jail.

Key quote:
“They said the arms and legs were very thin…track marks…no clothing, no jewelry…body appeared to have been placed during the rainstorm—so that gives you a timeline.” (111:52)

Another Victim: Michelle Comeau (118:43–123:44)

• May 1, 1998: Michelle’s body found naked, posed identically, same cause and method of death, evidence of restraint, also a crack-addicted sex worker recently released from jail.
• Background: Abused, institutionalized from age four, lifelong mental illness and addiction.

A Pattern Emerges (121:00–131:30)

• 29 M.O. similarities: Victims’ backgrounds, circumstances, posing, strangulation methods, and substances in their systems.
• Investigation stalls despite efforts, rewards, and media attention.

Quote:
“That’s a signature, that’s an M.O.—that’s a calling card.” —James (131:17)

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4. Catching the Killer: The Anderson Connection

Pattern of Violence: Dickie Anderson Jr. (141:38–149:03)

• Series of assaults, specifically against women, several involving strangulation; domestic violence, criminal history detailed extensively.
• Notable: DNA required after a 2008 felony strangulation conviction leads to match with evidence from Renee’s murder.

Police Work & Interrogations (150:17–155:32)

• Dickie initially denies knowing Renee, then admits to sex—but blames an invented “Darryl” for her fate. For Michelle, claims only to have “exposed himself” at his father’s house.
• Multiple witnesses place Dickie with victims near their times of death. Ex-girlfriend and sister testify to his confessions.

Jailhouse Informant Revelations (156:27–158:04)

• Arthur Moore, a seasoned felon, placed in Dickie’s cell. Dickie describes killing a prostitute after refusing to pay her; dismisses culpability in Michelle’s case.

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5. Justice (or Not): Trial and Aftermath

Arrest, Trial, and Verdict (158:04–169:05)

• 2010: Dickie arrested, charged with both murders.
• 2012: Dual trial. Prosecutor ties distinctive M.O., DNA, confessions, and history of violence. Defense points to other potential suspects and challenges informant credibility.
• Jury convicts Dickie of Renee’s murder, but deadlocks (mistrial) on Michelle’s.

Memorable Trial Moment:
The prosecutor having to stop the jailhouse informant to translate street slang for the jury:
“He said he caught a body. —The prosecutor said, ‘What does that mean?’” (165:34)

• Sentencing: 60 years, maximum allowed.
  “You, sir, may fuck off. 60 years in prison, which is the maximum.” —Judge (169:56)
• Michelle’s family never gets justice by conviction.

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6. Lives Shattered, Lessons Echoed

The Victims’ Families (169:06–175:08)

• Emotional victim impact statements: compassion, sorrow, prayers even for the Anderson family.
• Renee’s mother: “If that dear baby couldn’t save Renee, nothing could.” (90:22)

Communities & Systemic Failure

• Both Renee and Michelle fell through systemic cracks (mental health, addiction, criminal justice).
• Anderson likely responsible for more unprosecuted violence and perhaps additional murders—“Who the fuck strangles and kills two prostitutes and then stops and then quits?” (175:37)

The Reward (173:49–175:08)

• $50,000 reward ultimately partially awarded to Dickie’s ex-girlfriend, whose cooperation was crucial.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “She was so clever, so bright, such a little manipulator...she could get away with it. She was funny, witty, attractive, and would flirt with police.”—Friend on Renee (38:26)
• “She had this big tote bag…would take 15 CDs and go back for 15 more and then want to go back to get the last three. It was absolutely an addiction.” —Diane, sister (66:38)
• “Sell sex, smoke crack. That’s what I’m doing.” —Renee, to author Mark Bronstein (98:38)
• “My job today is to see to it that you are separated from society for as long as possible...You, sir, may fuck off.”—Judge at sentencing (169:56)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Waterford Town History & Real Estate: 05:38–15:52
• Renee’s Childhood and Talents: 21:08–39:41
• Addiction and Prostitution: 53:00–87:11
• Discovery of Renee’s Body: 109:21–115:36
• Details on Michelle Camo: 118:43–123:44
• Discussion of Serial Pattern: 121:00–131:30
• Dickie Anderson’s Background: 141:38–149:03
• Interrogations and Informant: 150:17–158:04
• Arrest, Trial & Outcome: 158:04–169:05
• Impact, Lessons, and Reward: 169:06–175:08

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Conclusion

This episode masterfully intertwines the individual tragedy of Renee Pellegrino—a woman of immense potential hostage to her demons—with the chilling procedural of small-town serial murder. The hosts underscore both the horror of predatory violence and the silent epidemic of addiction, mental illness, and lost women in communities everyone likes to imagine as “safe." This is true crime with deep empathy, sharp insight, and unflinching honesty.

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For More:

• Listen to the full episode for further darkly comic asides, town reviews, and post-case reflections.
• Follow the hosts for updates on new episodes and live shows.

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Quote to Remember:
“Both were caught and trapped in one of life’s deceiving webs, as many others are.” —Juror, reflecting on the murdered women (169:56)

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Note: All ad breaks, intros, and extraneous content omitted. For timestamps and segment highlights, see above.

Transcript

[James Pietragallo]

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[James Pietragallo]

This week in Waterford, Connecticut, when multiple women's bodies are found placed on rural streets and posed in a certain way, detectives are pretty sure that it's the same killer. But finding that killer isn't as easy as it sounds. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yay.

[James Pietragallo]

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

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely crazy edition of Small Town Murder. We got some wild, insane stuff for you today, man. Not that we usually don't, but it's every week. But it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's so, so hard to say it.

[James Pietragallo]

I know, but it's true. Every week when I spend all this time on it, I'm like, you guys don't understand. This is crazy. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was crazy last week. But it's so crazy though. We'll get to all that. First of all, head over to shutupandgivemerder.com get all your merchandise, get your tickets for live shows starting out with February 21st in Nashville birthday weekend. There you go, kicking it off. Let's celebrate Jimmy's birthday right there. Then we're going to be in Durham and Atlanta in March. In Phoenix, also March 20th and 21st. The 20th is small town murder. 21st is a your stupid opinions live show. Then Salt Lake City, sold out. Don't worry about that. Denver on May 2, May 29, Buffalo. And that is selling fast. If you want to go to that, get your tickets. May 30, Royal Oak. September 18, Milwaukee. September 19, Minneapolis. October 3, Dallas. October 16, San Jose. October 17 Sacramento, November 13, Tarrytown. November 14 Boston, November 15, my funeral.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's gonna be fucking wild. That's the schedule we got that October to November.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh boy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that is in New York and.

[James Pietragallo]

It'S gonna be a lot. So get your tickets right now. Shut up and givememurder.com we can't wait for another year of live shows. Those are a blast. So do that also. Get yourself Patreon. Do yourself a favor. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all the bonus material. All you have to be is $5 a month or above and you get everything that we have to offer. You're gonna get hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before immediately upon subscription. Then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder and you get it all. Take it all this week, which you're gonna get for crime and sports. And this will be fun for anybody. Cause it's just a good time. We're gonna talk about the worst weather NFL games in history. So we're talking about 80 mile an hour winds where you kick the ball and it goes completely to the sideline. Yeah, Literal floods where the ball floated away, things like that. Blizzards where they're playing in piles of snow. It's gonna be so much fun to talk about. Then for small town murder, it's up to you. And this is the. You gotta get this in because you have about 24 hours of voting left here. Either a mall collapse, it turned into one of the defunct malls that turns into a flea market that collapsed, or old timey crimes, one or the other. Because people love those old timey crimes. You guys choose. The poll is up on Patreon. Patreon.com crimeinsports Just like the name of our other show that you should also check out. That said disclaimer time. Yeah. This is a comedy show, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure is.

[James Pietragallo]

We're comedians. Jokes are going to be made for sure. Also deaths are going to happen. Obviously it's called small town murder, so that's unavoidable. The thing is you go, well, how do you do that? How do you make that work? Very easily. We don't make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why is that, James?

[James Pietragallo]

Because we're assholes. But. But we're not scumbags. See how that works? It's real easy to be decently respectful and still make fun of things because there's plenty to make jokes about. We make jokes about small towns that we're in because we're all from somewhere that deserves to be made fun of. Maybe a bumbling police force that lets a murderer free to kill more. Or we make fun of the murderer. Why not? We have no other recourse against him. That's what we got. We're comedians. We have jokes. And that's what we're gonna do. Direct them right at these people. So that said, that sounds good to you, man, you're gonna hear a wild story. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together. We might not be for you, but I'd give it a shot. Cause it might not be what you think it is. That said, I think it's time everybody to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs here and let's all shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

[Jimmy Wissman]

We shall.

[James Pietragallo]

We are going to Connecticut this week to Waterford, Connecticut. It's in southeastern Connecticut over in that end of the whole deal here. About an hour and 50 to Boston. So kind of borderline commutable to Boston if you really want to spend some time in a car. About two and a half hours to New York City, the other direction. And about 50 minutes to our last Connecticut episode. That was New Britain, Connecticut, episode 613, the sick ripper. That guy was a bad guy. That was a bad guy. And this guy. This week's almost as bad. So it's Connecticut. You are producing some bad, bad people here. Let me tell you something. This is in New London county, area code 860-959. Can't hold this town to one area code. Little bit of history of this town formerly known as the west farms of New London. Oh, that's a very fancy sounding name. Sure.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

That sounds like there should be like, you know, lords and ladies wandering about there. The town of Waterford was incorporated in 1801 and became the 109th town in the state of Connecticut. Oh, that's quite the distinction.

[Jimmy Wissman]

109Th and 8th until this.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. It got its name for its proximity being to being in between two rivers. So it's Waterford. There's water everywhere. The residents of Waterford, until they made houses, they just lived in wigwams here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. They saw Native Americans do it. They were like, yeah, it looks like that works.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What exactly is that surviving?

[James Pietragallo]

They've been surviving. Not sure exactly. I think. Well, I think it varies from region to region of what it's got to. Right? Yeah. Because if you're in the southwest you don't have the same things you have in the Northeast or the Plains or. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

So I think it's essentially a hut of some sort.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Whether nature sod or whatever, you know. Yeah. Who knows? So then they ended up digging up plots for 38 houses near the Great Neck area. English colonists first harvested crops here in 1645 at this place. The tribes that were there then, they got into sheep farming and dairy farming for a long time, that was the big deal here. After World War II, though, that's when the development blew up. Whereas kind of everything after World War II, that happened and people had a little bit more money, things were going well, so they added new roads and new buildings. 1957, the first stoplight is added. Here we go. Now we're doing something. And then at night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Slow people down.

[James Pietragallo]

Fuck. And then it's really a town. In 1960, the first strip mall was built. Now we're talking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now we're street lights and strip malls. Now we're.

[James Pietragallo]

That's it. Throw up an Arby's and we got it all. That's it. So here are some reviews of this town because we've never been there. Here is five stars. That's perfect. Perfect town. Yeah. Waterford is an amazing town. They say it is very quiet, but I love peace and quiet, so no worries there. Yeah, I don't need the nightlife. I think it's. Yeah. Who doesn't like that? I think it's a great area, A great town for those looking to start a family, but not great for those looking for a nightlife. Yeah. This isn't the place. If you're single and, you know, want to go out at night and meet people, this probably isn't the place for you. It's a family town. Here is five stars. The beaches and parks in Waterford, Connecticut are really nice. I also really enjoy the small cafes we have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So we're painting a picture of a quaint place at this point. Here is three stars. The area isn't terrible. That's the ultimate three star review. Is it terrible? Okay. Neighbors are okay, though some are harsh. They're just yelling at you in Northeastern accents. It's fine. You know, you might get a little Boston in there and that's. You get that accent. Everything sounds harsh in that accent. You know, someone could be telling you how much they love you and how wonderful you are, and you'd be like, dude, fucking relax. Why are you being so aggressive? It's harsh. Here's two stars. There are absolutely no Places to get dinner or even a pizza after 10pm in my area. See, that's what's tough about the small town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's sinking it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it's nice, it's quiet, it's all that. But if you're hungry at 11 o' clock and you go, I'll order some pizza. That's not gonna happen. That's a problem.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did they say ever or late?

[James Pietragallo]

Late. After 10pm After 10, which is tough. Also no nice places to go out and dance and enjoy your evening. Particularly during the winter months. Yeah. What you want is a city is what you're looking for. Yeah. Where they have late night food and clubs. That's called the city.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Dancing is rarely in a small town, right?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Unless it's like the dance that we're having in town. Hey, the dance is Saturday. It's one of those. During the summer months there are free outdoor concerts I enjoy. However, they only last two hours. How long do you want the concert? How long do you want a free concert?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Isn't a concert about two hours?

[James Pietragallo]

Usually I would say, how long do you want it to last? It's free. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you need?

[James Pietragallo]

What do you need? Here's two stars. While crossing the road to get to the bus stop, I was almost hit by multiple times. That's what it says. Almost hit by multiple times. I assume by cars. I know a few people that were actually hit by cars.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, well, there you go.

[James Pietragallo]

Sounds like all of your friends are idiots and so are you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Maybe you guys don't go on red.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I don't know. But like I've never almost got hit by a car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, when walking as a kid. Yeah, for sure.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't think I got out of the way. I feel like I got out of the way. That's the idea. I feel like when you get hit by a car, it's because you made a risk. I know kids who got hit by cars and it's because they were doing dumb shit. You know what I mean? So I don't know, maybe I could be wrong. Here are people in this town. 19,558 people. So not huge, not tiny. Decent size. More women than men. 52.2% women, which is way out of the average for a town that's got 20,000 people in it. Median age here, about 46.6. About eight years above the national average. Here it is 54% married people. So this is a. Wow. Yeah, it's a small town. Not like I said, not really made for the single Life or for looking for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not a lot of dancing.

[James Pietragallo]

Trolling for chicks. Yeah, no dancing here. It's a town that doesn't dance. We got a lot. Married with children, low divorce rate, low single with children. All that is low race in this town. 83.8% white, 2.9% black, 4% Asian, 6.3% Hispanic. Religious here, 45.2% of the people are religious. It's normally about 50, 50 in the rest of the country. And no surprise here since it's the Northeast. 32% of the people here are Catholic and that's obviously the number one religion. As we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the north, obviously. So we have that. Let's see. Unemployment rate is a bit high here. Not too bad, but a little bit above average. Median household income also well above average though. Rest of the country it is about 68,000. Here it is $95,880.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's pretty good.

[James Pietragallo]

That's not bad at all. But it's Connecticut, which I don't mind. Connecticut, Connecticut's fine. It's a nice place.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But it's very expensive to live there.

[James Pietragallo]

And that's the thing, it's not that expensive here. Cost of living, 100 is normal. Here it's 106, not that terrible.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And the housing is right about average. $316,400 is the median home cost.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's fine. And for Connecticut, that's what I mean, bargain. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Now if it was a half hour closer to Boston, you could double that. That's the problem there. Now, if we've convinced you, you don't care how close to Boston it is and you don't like to dance. We have for you the Waterford Connecticut real estate report. Your average two bedroom rental here goes for about sixteen seventy dollars. That's well above the average. Yeah, it's about four hundred above the average. So better off buying if you can afford to buy here. House number one, three bedroom, one bath, 1582 square feet. It's a two story here, I'll show you here if you want, I'll turn it on. It's a two story siding.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, wow. That looks like a small Beetlejuice house.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, if you shrunk it down to 1500 square feet. 44 acre lot, so you know, almost half an acre. Decent size. 289,000 bucks for that. They just had a $10,000 price cut on that bad boy too. Built in 1900. Next one up here, three bedroom, two bath, 1764 square foot. I'll show it to you here. It's that weird shape. I don't know. I don't know what that style is called, but it's a very specific style. That's a. Yeah. Not Swiss, not German kind. It's kind of. That kind of. But It's. It's on 0.25 acres. 399,000 bucks for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not bad.

[James Pietragallo]

Looks to be in a little better shape inside than the first one. Just had a $25,000 price cut, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And then finally, we have this bad boy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy.

[James Pietragallo]

It's a big one in the woods there. Four bedroom, six bath, tea bowl for each and every B hole. Matter of fact, a couple left over here. 5,002 square feet. It's a big house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a big one.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. 0.92 acres. Almost a whole acre. $1.6 million for that? I mean. Yeah, but that's what it is. It's a big house. I mean, and it just had a $200,000 price cut. Oh, yeah. It was 1.800. Was 1.8 million. Now it's 1.6 million. So there you go. Things are. Every single one is a price cut. It's crazy. Every week we go through that. Everybody's chopping the real estate prices down. So things to do in this town. Let's find out what these people are up to. Well, let's. Let's talk about the aforementioned Waterford summer concert series that that man enjoys. But they're only two hours.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He loves it.

[James Pietragallo]

There's a bunch of them. They do them every week. Let's find out what bands they have here. We start out with June 18th, the mystic dead. Oh, I don't know. I know. Mystic, Connecticut. Maybe they're from Mystic, Connecticut. June 25th. Don't tell Lisa.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I will not.

[James Pietragallo]

I will not. That's your ex wife's name. So you have a habit of not telling Lisa anything. For years now, even through the marriage, you'd show up at comedy shows and you'd say, don't tell Lisa.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't tell us.

[James Pietragallo]

I'm here. Jimmy had a band. Are you in this band, Jimmy? Don't tell me. God, I wish everybody knew how funny that is to us, because I wish you were there 12, 13 years ago, when Jimmy would show up at a comedy show and his wife thought he was at work. Don't tell my wife. Don't tell my wife. Soul Sound review, July 2. It sounds like they do covers of old soul songs. I would assume. July 9th. I petty the fool not I pity the fool like Mr. T. Oh, so this is I, Petty, the Fool.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Tom Petty stuff?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I assume so. July 16, Braden Sunshine. July 23, Fusion. July 30, Cartels with two Ls. Oh, no.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Z, though.

[James Pietragallo]

No. You would think so. No. August 6th, Sugar will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And August 11th, Nick Bossy. B, O, S, S E. Boss or Bossy and Northern Roots will be there. And they also claim to always have the best food trucks as well in this place. That's what it says right on the poster quote, always the best food trucks right there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

When you're advertising your food trucks, that means the music sucks.

[James Pietragallo]

It's gonna be great. Oh, come on. You don't want to hear the I, Petty, the Fool? No, not really. You don't think their version of American Girl's gonna be blowing your mind? Breakdowns are gonna be great. No, don't see it. Huh. And it also says on here, sponsors needed, so if.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, and we can't pay these folks.

[James Pietragallo]

By the way, help us financially. There's also the Waterford Pumpkin Fest. Oh, no. No mystery what time of year that takes place. So they have everything and they're saying thank you. They made this Pumpkin Fest memorable and special this year. It was great. There's a parade. There's line dancing. It's organized, too. It's like a whole, whole thing. A soapbox derby, a midway with rides and shit. Like a fair, a car show, a Halloween decorating contest, and more free live music. This town is full of free live music. We have Beggars for Hire. We have the Echelon. We have the old barn doors. Will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. That's all. On one night from 5 to 11. Pack them. All three of them. No. And then also the next night, Maddie and Paul. That doesn't sound like a pan. No, that sounds like a magician. And their assistant, Ryan. And friends, we don't even know who their names are. At least we know Maddie and Paul, who they are. This is Ryan and. I don't know, a bunch of other people. Friendship on a Stick. That's the name of a band. The Mississippi Friendship on a Stick. The Mississippi Bends, B, E, N, D, S Bend, Z and Kill in Time will also be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Correct.

[James Pietragallo]

And then KT's crew, Amber and Nolan, who I assume will have a death match with Maddie and Paul to see who comes out on top of that for supremacy. Onion Honey will be there. Ew, that sounds disgusting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There was a band called Mud Honey, wasn't there?

[James Pietragallo]

Yes, I was gonna say. Yeah. This Is onion honey, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're gonna make it less appealing.

[James Pietragallo]

As if mud honey's not appealing enough for you. How about onion honey? And then free live music from the tree line? And then on top of all of that, line dancing. This is a ticketed event. It says next to it. So this isn't even like tickets are required. Everything else, you can just show up to the line dancing. They're gonna check shit at the door here. Line dance with the urban cowboy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So dumb.

[James Pietragallo]

This is almost the Atlantic Ocean. This is almost the Atlantic Ocean. You can't get farther away from country western dancing. You don't need to do this here. This is weird. Okay. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here, the property crime rate is just below the national average. So decently safe. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. That's the kicker there. Also just below average. Sounds fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Great place.

[James Pietragallo]

Sounds fine. Let's go back and find out when it wasn't such a great place and talk about some murder. Let's do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Great. Plays, no entertainment. Terrific.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. No dancing. That's the only thing. John Lithgow will yell at you and tell you not to dance if you come around. Now, let's talk about a lady first. Okay. One of the most interesting people we've ever covered on this show.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

Honestly, like, I look into a lot of people and, you know, newspapers and go back and find articles and do all this shit. And very few times is someone fleshed out so much in terms of what people had to say about her and just the information that you have on her and just a very interesting person. Let's find out about Renee Pellegrino. P E L L E G R I N O. Pellegrino.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like the sand.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes. And like the water. Yeah. Sparkrin. Exactly. That's like that. I didn't know if everybody would have got the same. Oh, okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got it.

[James Pietragallo]

So I was just trying to clarify dreams.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I know.

[James Pietragallo]

Ye. No, I was agreeing with you. That was for them, not you. Just in case. So she has. Her parents are John and Jean here now. She's born in 1956. Her parents are John and Jean, which is interesting because growing up, I knew a guy named John Pellegrino very well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. Yeah. One of my good friends growing up. Yeah. In high school and shit. Yeah. John Pellegrino very well. So it's funny to see another guy named John Pellegrino. And they have a kid, too, named John Pellegrino. So I'm Like, I wonder if that's my friend's dad, because my friend. My friend was a fuck up. So I assume that he came because John is going to be a fuck up. So anyway, parents are John and Gene. They grew up pretty poor. They grew up in Westerly, Rhode Island. And not poor. Not. We don't have food poor. But I'd like a new bike. You can't have a new bike, you know, at all for that. Yeah. Maybe Christmas you and your sister can share one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And ps, I just spent your bike money on last night's dinner.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. Yeah. On the rent. So, yeah. Not poor. Paycheck to paycheck. Lower middle class, as we both grew up as well. So. Oh, boy. We understand that her father was a World War II veteran. He was in the Navy in World War II and he was a chef. That's how he made his living outside of the Navy. He worked at several different restaurants all around Long Island. He had a problem with alcohol. Oh.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Johnny Pelagi.

[James Pietragallo]

Which a lot of that era guys did. I mean, they told him, drink as much as you can in World War II. You could be dead the next day. Drink and smoke as much as you can.

[Jimmy Wissman]

At least you'll be drunk.

[James Pietragallo]

We'll give you a cart in a week. And we'll give you, you know, you find booze, go ahead and nail it. And. And then they come home and they're like, okay, stop doing all that now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Live a life now.

[James Pietragallo]

Live a life. Yeah. By the way, you're fine. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's nothing wrong with you.

[James Pietragallo]

No. You just beat Hitler. But there's no PTSD from that at all. You'll be all right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just a lot of your buddies never came back.

[James Pietragallo]

But, yeah, you did go back and move to the suburbs and yell at your wife for not keeping the house clean enough. It's weird, weird stuff. So he was a cook. Chef, whatever. Sometimes if he worked at a decent restaurant, he's a chef. If he works at a bar, he's a cook. That kind of thing. But he drank. That is absolutely a thing. And even Gene, Mom, Rene's mom, said that he found it difficult to be a loving father. He just didn't really do that. Wasn't good at it. And again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And you know, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

A lot of those guys back then, they weren't good at it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

They weren't good. They were taught they were raised to have no softness at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. And you just tasked him with defeating one of the hardest and most dangerous villains in the history of the world. Now go home and be soft.

[James Pietragallo]

Well, also, you grow up. You grow up also during the depression, which is also a thing. Gotta be tough and you gotta do that. And then they go to war. That's that generation. Then they come home and yeah, everybody expects everything to be fine and nobody helped anybody. So you had a bunch of alcoholics that, you know, were a lot of times violent too. Now, according to Renee's sister Diane, dad was, quote, frightfully abusive with his mouth, which could be taken way worse than horrible. That could be taken really bad. Horrible. That is one of the worst statements I've ever heard in my life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stop chewing on my asshole.

[James Pietragallo]

That would be the best thing that could happen to you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

With that getting chewed out.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow. So Gene, mom was like a stay at home mom, as kind of the 50s dictated in late 40s. And she tried to hold it together in the house. There's a lot of times, though, they didn't have heat in the winter where they talked about huddling against the gas stove for warmth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is rough. That is rough times, you know, with blankets on and all that shit. Yeah, that's a hard, hard life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The Western, Western United States does not understand the heat bill. They don't understand how important the heat bill is.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. They don't understand how you have to drop thousands of dollars every year for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Heat just to stay warm, to stay.

[James Pietragallo]

Alive, just to live.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck warm. Yeah, I'm freezing in here, but I'm alive.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Keep your house from fucking falling to the ground from exploded pipes and shit. It's horrifying. So there's four kids altogether here. Diane, Renee, John. That's the one boy. And then the youngest is Lori. So three girls and a boy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

And I believe Renee is second oldest. I think Diane's the oldest, if I'm not mistaken. I could be mistaken about that though. But Renee seemed like the chosen one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Everybody said it. Renee was the chosen one. She seemed like if anyone's gonna get out of this and make something of themselves, it's gonna be her. She has talents that are just inborn and can't be taught. Like what? We'll talk all about that. Don't worry. Diane said about their financial status. Oh, yeah, we were poor. We never went out to dinner. My mother was the greatest economist on the planet. We drove a car that wouldn't start. We had hand me down clothes. We had one pair of shoes for the year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's a sarcastic comment about mom. Yes.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no. I think that she actually made nothing and stretched it to we had one pair of shoes for the year, right? Okay, I think yeah, she made something out of nothing. She took fucking lemons and made lemonade out of it. At least is what she's trying to say.

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Keep your resolutions on track. Start the year right. Join the Zero Proof Resolution at rkbeverages.com now. About Renee Gifted in many different ways. Many different ways. Mainly musically. She's really gifted. Kind of socially too, but musically she is like a little musical genius here. She has. She has a piano, she plays piano, clarinet. She plays all these different instruments. She's one of these people that can just pick up an instrument and play it. Really? Yep. One of those people that we've talked about before that just pissed me off to no end. Just to no end. Just you asshole. My mother had a boyfriend like that back when I was a kid. He'd pick up. I saw him pick up a flute and play it. Never Saw a flute before, just played it, looked at it, a couple. Literally took, like, five seconds. And just playing a song, I'm like, I'm gonna kick you in the balls. I can't take it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So he's gonna lead a Civil War troop, and.

[James Pietragallo]

He'S fighting the redcoats over here. And I'm like, I can't even play Heart and Soul on the piano, you dick.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can't even put that flute together.

[James Pietragallo]

No. I don't even know how it works. I don't know which end to blow in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So Diane remembered a piano recital when she was about 6 and Renee was about 4. 4. Renee is 4, doing a piano recital, first of all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is pretty impressive. And Diane said, I remember someone saying, she's not turning the pages of the music.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's just playing it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. She said, she didn't have to. She could turn her back on the piano and know the music. She was doing a Beethoven piece. I was doing some kind of bumblebee piece. She's saying chopsticks in the speeches. She's playing fucking Beethoven without looking at the music at 4. So that tells you something. She's gifted. She played the flute, she played the clarinet. She played the piano. She performed a Mozart sonata from memory and a piano recital a couple years later. She's impressive. I mean, that's just. You look at that person, you go, they just have more things than I have going on. You know what I mean? There's more neurons firing in that area of the brain, whatever it is. So Renee just didn't. She didn't like being poor, didn't like this upbringing. She wanted out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, Learned Beethoven at 4, you're destined to get out of here.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. That's a good way to do it. Diane, her sister, said that she detested her life by comparison of other people. She just hated it and wanted out. She said other kids, like the rest of the siblings. When you're poor, you just adapt to it. You don't know anybody. Like, if you were rich and then got poor, you might bitch about it. But if you're born poor and you come up poor, and you're just poor. I was just poor, and I was like, I guess we're poor. I don't know. I don't know. Everybody I knew was poor. That's fine. That's a good part about growing up poor is you got a lot of poor friends. But Renee, almost like she had lived another life, you know what I mean? Like, knowing the difference, because I don't know How a kid would know the difference other than just seeing what other kids have and you don't have it. But she said that. Diane said Renee was ashamed of it. Oh, yeah. She said she wanted her home to be like some of the friends she favored. She saw what other people had and she wanted it so she saw that young that I don't. You know, and it wasn't just like, well, I guess that's the way it is for her. She was like, I gotta get fix this shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And I mean, I had a desire to not be poor, but I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to play Beethoven.

[James Pietragallo]

I knew this sucks. Yeah. But outside of that, I really didn't have a lot of real nuanced take on the whole thing other than this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I knew my carpet in my bedroom was not the same as everybody else's.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. In high school, I knew I drove a $150 car. I knew that. That I had down. I knew that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. My steering wheel came off if I shifted too hard.

[James Pietragallo]

Mine stopped.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Mine was in trouble.

[James Pietragallo]

Mine stopped turning. You go to turn and the wheel would get stuck and you'd start to panic as the turn came up. So then finally it would go. The steering rack went bad. And I just drove it like that. Delivered pizzas like that. I could have just ran into a tree, for Christ's sake.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or a person.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. The steering rack cost more than the car. So that wasn't happening. So in high school, Renee started. She ends up going to a Catholic school, which is about. A Catholic school, the Prout school, which is about a half hour bus ride away in Wakefield, Rhode Island. It's better than the local public school. It's kind of academically prestigious as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

And this is kind of almost like a prep school type situation. Like these kids are going to college. Most of the kids that are here now. Her mother, Jean, believed that education was the way out. And she had been scrimping basically over the years because she knew Renee was going to. She knew that she had academically, she was talented, and she knew that they had to do something for her. So she would take a dollar here, a dollar there over the years and squirrel it away for Renee's college fund.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

So she could actually go to school. She took all the money she had for a college fund and sent her to the Catholic school. That's how she went there. So this was just her college fun. And Renee was super happy there. She enjoyed there as a school. She enjoyed being amongst smarter kids. I think stuff like that. And it made her feel fancy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It doesn't make it much easier when raising your hand. And there's other kids raising their hand.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, you're not the only one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They all know it too.

[James Pietragallo]

It's not a bunch of people giving you the side eye, like, hey, dickhead, know it all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Shut up, fucker.

[James Pietragallo]

I remember those days. So Jean here, mom said it's where she got more grandiose ideas, meaning the school. She had a friend who had a mansion in Narragansett. The other children accepted their circumstances, meaning the other three children in this family. But Renee was ashamed of it. I think that's why she wanted to be a lawyer. Lawyers drive BMWs, don't they?

[Jimmy Wissman]

They do, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, they shoot lawyers, don't they? So as a teenager and a young woman, she's also a real health nut. She never even, like, you know, smokes a joint at a party in high school or anything like that. And it's not because she doesn't want to. That'll affect her body. And she's into her health and she doesn't want to do that. Doesn't like even going to the doctor for shots. Hates needles. Once in a while you might see her at a high school party. She might take two sips of a beer or something, but not enough to get drunk or anything like that. She's very, very, very kind of on a straight and narrow and not trying to get off the track here. And she had real long dark hair that she really loved and she would brush it, and she had pride in that. A high school friend of hers, this is a woman named Jacqueline Malagrino instead of Pellegrino. She's from Westerly. She knew Renee since high school and she said she saw some evidence of some trouble coming in high school. She said she was a very beautiful, fun loving young girl. Very naive. She had struggled in her early years at home. She had a difficult early life. Her mother was the mainstay, raising four children on a fixed income. I didn't like Renee at first. She had this gorgeous long mane of hair. She grew up with just the necessities, no frills, nothing more. So do you? Do you do. What do you do when you're young and you want things you steal. Oh, Shoplifting was her forte. Yeah, that's what she's into. Yup. It was her gift and she did it extremely well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's good at that, too.

[James Pietragallo]

She's really good at Beethoven and shoplifting. Those are the two things that she's naturally gifted at. Which is impressive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I am very impressed because I only.

[James Pietragallo]

Had one of those talents and not really even Italian. You got caught all the time. It's not even a talent. I did get caught. She got away with it. That's the point. You didn't have a plan. He's. So she said, anywhere, anything. Because her girlfriends were in John Meyer clothes or papagallos. Whoa.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck is that?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know. I've been introduced probably that way by several bad hosts at Comedy Show. Yeah, James Papagallo, I don't remember. But she would take those if she wanted them. So she wanted the clothes the other kids had. She stole them. Yeah, she stole them. Now, another one said Renee was so clever, so bright, such a little manipulator. As a youngster, she wanted to be part of the people who had stuff like clothes and expensive shoes that matched. She would shoplift. Her mom said she was certainly manic. If someone had some kind of designer shirt. Not only. She not only wanted to have that one, but she wanted it in every color. Then she wouldn't wear any of them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's stealing every color.

[James Pietragallo]

But then she didn't even wear them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's crazy.

[James Pietragallo]

She just stole them to have them. That's even crazier. She wants to acquire things, you know what I mean? And her friend said she could get away with it. She was funny, witty, attractive, and would flirt with police.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That'll do it.

[James Pietragallo]

That'll do it. She had long black hair to her waist and a figure to die for. Men drooled for her. And she is. She's curvy. She's got boobs and butt. But she's small and she's got long hair. Yeah. Hot would be the way to put it. Yeah. Here is something about Diane, a story from Diane, her sister. Her older sister. She said they were once, when they were young, three sisters, meaning Lori, too, including Diane and Renee. They went outside of a Dunkin Donuts in Westerly, and this was early, early in the morning, late, late at night, four in the morning type of thing. They ordered and returned to their car parked in front of the shop's plate glass window. So Diane says, quote, there was this little old man on a swivel stool inside, and I guess he was looking at him or something. So Diane said, quote, she just took everything off her top and sat on the hood of the car, took her top off. She just showed. Popped her titties on the car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She scared him. Yeah. Dumped them out.

[James Pietragallo]

The man swiveled around and looked at her and he just swiveled back and put his head down like he wasn't supposed to see.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, he's like, oh, God. Oh, jeez, I'm embarrassed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's titties out.

[James Pietragallo]

Those are like 16 year old titties. You can't look at those. Yeah, so that's. She has balls. I mean, she's fearless, obviously, but she also knows.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's interesting too. She's very well aware of what this world is already.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely.

[Jimmy Wissman]

At a very young age.

[James Pietragallo]

And psychologically, she knows how to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

How to get a. Create warfare and how to make an older man feel like a dickhead, which is impressive for young. It takes women usually many, many years to figure that out, if at all. You know what I mean? They're trying to make people like them a lot of times rather than that. So she doesn't give a fuck now she wants to go to Smith College. That's what she's fixated on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Is that in Connecticut somewhere?

[James Pietragallo]

It's one of the Seven Sisters schools. It's in Northampton, Massachusetts. Yeah, it's one of the. These are. There's. God, I can't remember all of them, but there's a bunch of these schools that are like. They used to be all girls schools. I don't think they are now. They used to be all girls schools and they're kind of like all girls Ivy League schools. Kind of.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Now, Diane said Renee believed if she went there, her whole life would. Would be different and better.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I mean, if you go to college, it's definitely.

[James Pietragallo]

And especially at that time, a fancy college too. But the family can't afford to send her to fucking Smith. No, they can't afford that. That's crazy. So what she does is she goes to France for a year. Yeah, obviously she boards at a Catholic school there. She graduated from Honors from Prout, the Catholic School, in 1973. And she went to France. She's fluent in French too, by the way. Of course. She speaks perfect French and picks up clarinets and plays them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's got the mind of a governmental spy. She would be so good at that.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. She could have taken down the Nazis.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

She could have been cracking codes and shit. So 1973, she goes to France for a while, then comes back, but doesn't go back to. Doesn't go. Come home and go to college. She instead moves to Las Vegas. Oh, of course. Yeah. She told Diane essentially her goal in moving to Vegas was to, quote, get rich.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, Yeah, I don't know what.

[James Pietragallo]

The plan is of. I don't know. There's slot machines going off and stuff. Seems to be a lot of money. I guess I go there, I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You say Vegas. I hear that ringing in the change.

[James Pietragallo]

I hear all that. So she ended up with an older man. She's living with an older man. Oh, and he was a car dealer and also a bookmaker. Okay. Yeah. So what year is this? 1973. So he's a bookie. Card dealer. This is when the. Vegas.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Early Vegas.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Vegas is. This is all mob Vegas here. This is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is dangerous Vegas.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. The guys that worked at these places, a lot of them were connected. That's why they work there. It's one of those things. He also. She was 18, 19 at this point. He also with her approval. Renee doesn't really let people do anything to her. Would charge men $200 to have sex with her. Oh, so at this point she's like a high, high dollar prostitute at this point. Basically high end call girl. So $200 in 1973 is a lot of money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's a good.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a good one. Yeah, that's a good prostitute. You're paying high end shit.

[James Pietragallo]

People made that in a week in 1973. That's. Yeah, that's a lot of money. So that's what she was doing. Now, I don't know how enthusiastic she was about this, but she was doing it. One of her. I think this is. Oh, this is her mother. Quote, she did the casino thing. A dealer, cocktail waitressing. She used to call me up frequently. Depressed. She had a kind of breakdown. I said to her, come home. She said she wanted to kill herself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, come home. How about that? Yeah, yeah, don't kill yourself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get the fuck out of there.

[James Pietragallo]

There's a photo from the period that shows her leaning against a Las Vegas bar wearing a low cut dress, popping cleavage and everything. And in this article, they said they called her smart, personable, pretty with a knockout figure. And she knew it. She knew exactly what. She had opposite qualities. Yeah. And her sister later described. This is Diane describing her attitude towards men. This is Renee's attitude. She said she understood what men wanted and she was ready to supply it if it was in her best interests.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

It's a commodity to her. Right. That's how she's looking at it. You could say it was cold, but I think she thought that she was just being honest. And the other person Was being less honest to her. It was an exchange.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a business.

[James Pietragallo]

She looked at it very. Just kind of an intellectual overview. Took emotion out of it, which. That's interesting. Now, when Diane asked Renee if the sex trade bothered her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She said, quote, oh, it's just like brushing your teeth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Except you don't get cavities. What are you talking about?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know if penises prevent cavities, but, you know, something's in your mouth that's like brushing your teeth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Other than that, it's certainly an in and out motion.

[James Pietragallo]

It's the same motion, but. Yeah. And that's what Diane was like. Really? I don't think so. Renee also was picked up a couple times on prostitution charges in Vegas. Oh. So she's arrested a couple times now. So that's odd. And she said that she told Diane that she'd seen other women drawn into relationships with pimps that were not good for them, Whether they were into drugs or whether they were just being used up or whatever. And she eventually came home and said, I can't do Vegas anymore. Diane said when she got back, she was, quote, a complete wreck. She was a mess.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She said that. There's a photo from this period that she has that where Renee's, like, curled up in a chair, and she looks very small and lost. Diane says, you're not Renee. You know what I mean? Vegas broker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. High mileage Iceberg slim. Couldn't use her anymore.

[James Pietragallo]

It's tough, man. I mean, that's a fast life to be living. And she thought she could do it. And it's not healthy for anybody to be living a crazy life like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. It's also not for an intellectual person.

[James Pietragallo]

No.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It'll drag you down. And if you have too much smarts and you think about this situation, forget about it. It's gonna beat you.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. Now, her mom took her to a psychiatrist because she was depressed. Now, this is in the mid-70s, so I'm pretty impressed with mom. Yeah. Mom really tries to hold everything together. She really does. Like, I mean, between the saving a dollar here and a dollar there to send her to school and to, you know, figuring out that she might need to see a psychiatrist, when back then it was much easier to just ignore it, because psychiatrists were for crazy people, and that meant your family was bad and you shouldn't send anybody there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And there's only, like, seven of them.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There wasn't as many to really dig to find them.

[James Pietragallo]

But 70s is when it started taking off and then the 80s is when it really. I mean, forget about it. Every goddamn sitcom. Everyone's going to a shrink in the 80s. That was the joke. So her mother takes her there and her mother said he suggested lithium for her, but that required blood tests and she wouldn't go for the tests because she doesn't like needles, remember?

[Jimmy Wissman]

So they want to drug her, not just talk about it?

[James Pietragallo]

No, they want to give her lithium for Christ's sake. Which is strong. I mean, that's. And usually for bipolar also. So that's interesting, certainly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's an interesting drug.

[James Pietragallo]

So her mother said she never took medicine. She never ended up doing it. 1976, she will meet a man named Paul Vincent and he will be her on again, off again boyfriend for the next 17 years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My word.

[James Pietragallo]

He's gonna be sticking around for a while, I guess this was. She's gonna enroll in Rhode Island College in Providence and that's where she meets him. Okay. And yeah, so he does like construction and stuff like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So she is like a world class pianist and does all this stuff and she's. She meets a construction worker guy, which is fine, but I'm just. Opposites attract, you know what I mean? I guess in this situation. Then later on she's going to enroll in Connecticut College, where she'll do very well. We'll talk all about that. So at Rhode island, she renews a relationship with Paul Vincent, who she had known before. He had a small contracting business in the area at the time. And she started commuting to Rhode Island College from Connecticut. So in the spring of 1977 is when she transferred to Connecticut College. She tried living in a dorm at first. Didn't like that. It's hard to live if you're smart. It's hard to live among people your age who are idiots. It's just difficult, I think. So she moved off campus and Diane said she paid her tuition with a combination of help from mom, financial aid loans, and possibly whatever she does on the side for a couple extra bucks. She took several semesters off and we know only from police records what she was doing in that time. She took semesters off. We know she was in Vegas for a while again because she's arrested a few more times in Vegas while she. During this period, she's doing great, she's in a relationship, she's doing great in school, everything's fine, and then she'll just disappear for two semesters, go to Vegas, get arrested for prostitution, do stuff like that, and then come back. It's really odd.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, it is fascinating. You think there are, obviously, there's reasons people do the prostitution thing as their job. Because monetarily, it can be lucrative.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And if it is for a little bit and then you leave it and then you struggle a little bit, then you're like, I'm just gonna go make a few easy dollars and come back. But that lifestyle suck you in, too. So it's.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it's hard, especially in Vegas. That's a whole thing. Yeah. So now in school, though, all of her professors really liked her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And we'll talk about this. Jean talking about three specific faculty members that Renee really liked. Three of her favorite professors here, one here, Frances Boudreau, who's a sociology professor, said she was a very bright young woman. A very bright young woman. If you met her. My impression of her is she'd be somebody you'd like to be friends with. She said that Boudreaux said she was surprised when Rene proposed a term paper based in part on her Las Vegas experience. Oh, she's going to write about it. Boudreau said, actually, I'm not shocked by much. Probably that's one of the reasons Renee and I got along so well. The class, she said, was about deviant behavior, social control, which was a subject that Renee was kind of interested in. Here, the teacher said it applies to illegal activities and also to activities that violate significant social norms. She talked about pimps and their relationship to prostitution. She said she left Vegas because she refused to be associated with anyone who controlled her behavior. Okay, that is going to be something that comes up a lot with Renee. She not a fan of control, will not be controlled. And she won't be controlled even if you pay her to do whatever. Well, it's on her terms. She's very strong like that, which is good for her, especially if you're going to be in this kind of type of world, you better have serious sense of yourself. So she said that. Boudreaux went on to say, when I talked with her, there was always the feeling that this was in her past. She was a feminist through and through. She said women could make choices and do with their bodies what they wish, that they could conduct prostitution as a business, and that it's not really exploitative if they were on board with it and wanting it. Okay, so, yeah, you can't. If I want to do something, you can't tell me someone's exploiting me because I said I want to do it. So it's more about personal domain over your Own shit, it seems like for Renee, she said, we could argue that point. We probably did argue that point. She said, bitter is too strong a word. Disillusioned is not strong enough of a word to describe Renee. So somewhere between bitter and disillusioned. So I'd put cynical in the middle there, certainly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You know, which is healthy, especially if you're going to be doing the things she's doing. A professor of history named Marian Doro thought to write Renee's mother letters about her. They were corresponding about her daughter. She said that she was not only one of her best students, but one of the nicest as well. She said, I wanted her to know that somebody believed in her daughter. I don't want the good parts to get lost in anything. So that's what she said. She said that Renee would drop by my office. I remember I enjoyed having conversations with her. Her interests were wide. I found her to be more mature than most of her classmates. I enjoyed reading her term papers. It's a pleasure to deal with a student who has a mind of her own. Yeah, a lot of the kids, they just want to get it done. And they probably are half, you know, copying off of something else or, you know, just whatever. So she said, this teacher said of Renee, there has to be two people there. She said that she only saw one of the people. And she could not fathom how Renee did other things she did because she didn't see that at all. She said, I can't. You know, I just didn't get it. So she said that, you know, she did. She hoped that she wouldn't get, like, out of. Basically out of reach. Yeah, yeah. She said that she has a personality that's wanting something and not getting it, basically. Another anthropology professor now, June Macklin, she said Renee's mind was such that she thought of her as a junior colleague. Yeah, they talked about literature all the time, she said. But she sensed a conflict within Renee. She thought Renee might have been more comfortable at Harvard or the University of Chicago schools where intellectual competition is stressed. She needed that, she said. She said, I think this was a young woman who really got excited about ideas, but thought it wouldn't have been cool to show it. So this college in Harvard, it's cool to be enthusiastic. It's cool to raise your hand.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

With this college, it seems like she's describing it as like high school with ashtrays, essentially. You know, basically. Back then, she said she always seemed out of her element. She didn't fit in at Connecticut and didn't necessarily want to fit in. It's the thing. She doesn't want to be one of the pack either. She said that she detected a trait in her that her family also saw here. She said she had such an ambivalence about pretentious people. She really punctured illusions, which is funny. So if you were acting all high and mighty, she would try to knock your fucking legs out from under you to cut you down to size.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bring you back to reality.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. Which is a cool thing to do, she said. I did think she had a very cynical take on human beings, including herself. It's hard to have half decent brain power and not be cynical about human beings. People who aren't cynical about human beings, number one, they're probably. We'd be better off if we had all them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

If the whole world was those people, we'd probably have a better world. But I don't. Are you blind? Are you not? Are you just wanting it to be good so you pretend it is? Like, I wonder people that are like that. I got a question.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There are people that inherently just see good in people and don't understand that. There's also a lot of really fucking awful.

[James Pietragallo]

But if you're like 30 years old. To me, the difference. The difference between dumb people and smart people is the ability to take in information and use it to your advantage.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And if you see what's going on in the world till you're 30 and you don't go, wow, there's a reason to be a little cynical. I have to think you're probably not that bright.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or.

[James Pietragallo]

Do you have something in you, some kind of spirit that I just don't know about? You know what I mean? I mean, I'm sure that's possible too, because I'm not. I'm an idiot. So what the hell do I know? What do I know about people? So she in Connecticut. She flourished here. She did really well. Like I said, her Professors liked her. 1978. Dad dies.

[Jimmy Wissman]

John Pelagini.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. John Pellegrino is dead. He is killed. This sounds like he was drunk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Pietragallo]

This sounds like he was drunk. As I described this. It's a callback to earlier, too. He walked at night along a road in Warwick, Rhode island, and got hit by a car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

That sounds like you're drunk and you're walking home and you got hit by a car. So that's rough. He was only 53 years old. Yes, but this was kind of, from what I understand, was kind of almost a Relief for the family. So she graduates from Connecticut here in 1981. She graduates Phi Beta Kappa. She's in Phi Beta Kappa. She graduates, does all this stuff. She's doing everything. Her boudreau, the one professor talked about her turn paper and said that she was a feminist through and through. She said women can make choices with their bodies as they wish. They could conduct prostitution as a business. She also said this. This is her professor. She said. A writer friend once told me, you should never unmask another person. If you do, you've got to know the price you're going to pay, what it makes you do. If you can see through them, then you're also going to see through yourself. I have a feeling she was like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

It's as if she had given up all illusions. And when one does that, life almost becomes unbearable. If you deal with reality completely on reality's terms, it's depressing. It is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Certainly.

[James Pietragallo]

It is that whatever thing that makes you go, everything will be all right. Even against all circumstances and logic is what keeps human beings sane.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And from eating your own brain. Her mother said she thought the world was a terrible place. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And she's seen the terrible side of it. So. Yeah. She said it was this red tooth and claw idea. Oh, yes. She had almost a cruel perception about her. She said she would find anybody's Achilles heel. If somebody had a weak spot, she would expose it. If she thought you thought you were better than anyone else, she'd take you down a peg or two. And, yes, she was brilliant at it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She sounds fun. Honestly. Sounds pretty cool. So, one time. Yeah. So it's a lot here now. Graduate school. She applied to Columbia University's graduate business school, which is in New York City, and that's Ivy League. And she's rejected from that. Wow. So she decided instead of going to graduate business school, she's gonna go to law school instead. Wow. The University of Connecticut Law School in Hartford she's gonna go to. So in 1984. Here. It's gonna take her a while in law school, as we'll talk about. She's gonna have some breaks. In September 1984, she wrote a letter to Diane, and she's talking about a professor that she has set sights on here. Okay. Quote, He's 45ish, thin hair, huge, gray, black beard. In short, he's ugly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Take it easy, lady.

[James Pietragallo]

You see Jimmy, he's just got his arms out, looking around, going, the fuck, man? Hey, what did I do to you?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. She was gonna take us down a peg. She wasn't lying.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Jesus, he said in short. At least he didn't. She didn't call him short. She said in short. No, Jimmy's. Jimmy's fine. He's not the same. No, I'm not. No, you're fine. You're all right. So he said. But he's very kind and a veritable genius. See, I told you she's not talking about you. Just kidding.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She got the kind fart. I'm pretty nice. Usually.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, sometimes I can be. You can be very nice. And you can be a total dick. Which is why we're friends and why we've always been friends. Because that cracks me up the worst. Whether you're into unsolved mysteries, solved mysteries, or creating your own mysteries, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just download the Amazon Music app and.

[James Pietragallo]

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[James Pietragallo]

That cracks me up. I think when we were introduced to each other, our friends said, you two are the biggest assholes I know and the best comedians in the town, so you should be friends. We were like, okay. Yeah. We were like, all right. And we did. She said, he looks like the school janitor, but has written a few books. Right now I'm trying to decide whether coming to school looking like a hippie would score any points. Put away the silk, pull out the burlap. So she's gonna get into character to try to be in this guy's favor, which is really fucking funny. And on the law school letterhead, next to the official seal, she wrote, big deal. Which that was on the letter was on law school, law school, fucking whatever in 1984. Then something tragic happens, and this is tragic for anybody. The youngest sister, Laurie. I don't know if she's the youngest or John's the youngest. Haven't figured that out yet, but it's the youngest sister. Youngest sister is killed in a car accident in Exeter, Rhode Island.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

When she lost control of the car. And she can't be more than in her early 20s at this point. So that's. That's brutal, obviously.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do we know what time of year was it? The ice. Probably the ice, right?

[James Pietragallo]

Not sure. It's just 84 is all we know. So not positive. But she'd been studying nursing at the University of Rhode island, and she was driving Renee's car. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that'll hurt.

[James Pietragallo]

So Renee felt insanely guilty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which, I mean, not her fault, obviously. She didn't mean to lent somebody her car. It's a nice gesture.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right, Right, right.

[James Pietragallo]

You know, But Jean, who's her mom, said Renee took it very hard because it was her car. She kept saying, oh, if I only had a better car, like a Volvo. Oh, she's ready for the national Volvo ad campaign. Just people sobbing over their relatives, corpses going, why didn't I buy a Volvo? They have a safety cage and a 28 point braking system. God damn it. Very interesting to say, right? If only I had a Volvo.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I've never bought that in my entire life.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't think any human said, why didn't I buy a Volvo ever? That's never happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, there were times that I seen a Volvo when I was driving a piece of shit car.

[James Pietragallo]

And I'd be like, wish I could afford that Volvo. Yeah. Said that. Wow. For sure. Now, Jean also said that her daughter's use of drugs started really ramping up. It was just a fun, once in a while recreational thing. Once Lori was killed and Renee felt guilty because Renee loaned her the car. And she also had introduced Lori to the man that she was driving to go visit that night. Yeah. So she said over two. If it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have been going out that night and she would have maybe been in a Volvo and none of this would have happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So that's brutal, man. She really never gives up on shoplifting, by the way, which usually most people get out of by their teen years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You're not really embarrassed as a teen to get caught, but most adults don't want to get caught stealing things. That's embarrassing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's embarrassing.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So Diane said that she also was a shoplifter. Diane, she said.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Diane said that was the addiction they shared, was they were compulsive shoplifters. Yeah, she said. Diane said she managed to quit and stop shoplifting, but Renee never quit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm off the sauce.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I grew out of it like normal. Yeah. When she said no, she said she had this big tote bag that she would take and that's what she would steal shit in. And that was her jam. Renee. She said Renee viewed shoplifting as like a daredevil game. She thought it was like a fun thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

She said she'd take 15 CDs and go back for 15 more and then want to go back to get the last three. It was absolutely an addiction. Yeah. That's crazy. No, you have enough. Stop. So she curtailed her shoplifting a little bit, but not quite while she was in law school. There's a letter to Diane dated September 21, 1984, and Renee said that she was broke and that she was only stealing to help a friend's mother at this point. Yeah. In the letter, she also said that the other guy here. That was the letter where she talked about that professor and everything like that. She also said law school is a bunch of shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Bunch of shit. Not especially hard, just time consuming. So. Yeah, it's just annoying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They also have things that you have to turn in on a certain cycle. So it's. Yeah. And you can't just turn everything in and be like, I'm a lawyer.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. It's a lot of just precedents and remembering cases and stuff like that. And then knowing that, you know, how that applies to the law. And honestly, it's a lot to remember, but it's not that hard to look at stuff. People will say to me, like, oh, you know, lawyers will be like, oh, you know, all this stuff. I'm like, it's not that hard. I just read the document and it explained that this means that. And this means that you just have to read a lot. And it's annoying because there's a lot of, like, citations in between and the words, and it's annoying, but it's not that difficult. I wouldn't want to do it. It's a lot. But they said that Renee wasn't really depressed at the time. She was just kind of doing her thing. Then Diane got a phone call from Renee around this time. She said, renee called me one day on the phone and told me, I have some friends, and we took some coke. You should try it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

She said, it took all the pain away. Yeah, coke did. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it'll do that, and then it'll bring different pain. That's the problem. I said, oh, Renee, please. I had read such horrible things about it. I told her, they can't stop. They can't stop doing it. It's an addiction, so you shouldn't do it. She said, I know what I'm doing. It's recreational.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right?

[James Pietragallo]

This is 1984, 85. This is when coke was like, the cool people were doing coke, the rich people were doing coke, the smart people were doing coke. That's who was doing coke. I mean, this is right in the beginning of crack. So coke was still considered, like, a classy drug at this point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You do it. Go into a room with someone and be, ooh, fancy, and you do some coke. So she. I guess depression kind of runs in the family, too. Jean suffered from some depression. Diane suffered some from depression. Lori's death triggered Renee's depression. Cocaine is not good for your mental status. It just isn't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[James Pietragallo]

It's great while you're on it, but soon as you come down and in between, you're not feeling good at all, it makes shit worse. A high school friend of hers said, I lost touch with her for a few years and reconnected after I married and had a family. She was in law school. She started using cocaine with a girl in mystic. Just for fun, just dabbling. This girl was in the kind of society that Renee wanted to measure up with. Renee started hanging with her after she started snorting. She started doing it a lot. Then she started getting hooked up with street people. Drinking and drugging on a regular basis. She was just consumed by that lifestyle. The crack cocaine ruined her.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

She's gone from fucking Beethoven by memory at four.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

To crack on the street. Crack, crack, crack. Which was never chic. It was never, like, a cool society thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. It's never been. Oh, my God. Do you know that guy? He does crack.

[James Pietragallo]

He does crack.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's amazing.

[James Pietragallo]

Once a flame and some baking powder and shit got mixed up in the mix and baby laxative and shit, it all went. People. Hey, that's different. I don't want any of that shit. Not that the coke wasn't stepped on too, but it's different. So her mom said, quote, she also had been dabbling with cocaine. She kept saying it was recreational. She did it again and again. By the time she graduated from law School in 1986, she was hooked from the do it all, lick the world person she was. She became quiet, more easily angered and aggressive. She became less generous. She was quick to find fault. Yeah. If you have someone who's cynical and acerbic in their nature, you add a coke habit into that. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that gonna be an insufferable asshole.

[James Pietragallo]

Wow. Yeah. It's gonna be so much more cynical and so much more servant. Totally. Yeah. Or an insufferable asshole. Either one. People on coke are hard to deal with. I can't help.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I can't do it. You can see it. And.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And it's the worst is when they try to act like they're not on coke.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

I was just talking about this with my cousin last week. A friend of ours that used to do tons of coke, he would come over to my cousin's house. Jaw moving.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

And he'd be like, jesus Christ, man. And he'd be like, no, no, no. I'm just. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just sweaty. Yeah. Clammy and sweaty in a snowstorm. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was jaw moving and his skin is gross.

[James Pietragallo]

He'd be like, no, I'm not on anything. I hurt my jaw. So I'm just working it out. And he's like, dude, come on, who you talking to? You know what I mean? Give me a fucking break. So 1987 is when she graduates early 87 and gets a job in Westerly. She passes the bar exam. She takes the bar exams in Connecticut and New York. Wow. Yeah. Diane said that she only really took it in New York because she heard that JFK Jr. Not president, but junior, had failed the bar twice in New York. Which is a famous thing. And Renee wanted to prove she could do what a Kennedy couldn't do, you know, because they're fancy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. I mean, he did it the third time, right?

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I imagine.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was a lawyer. I do know.

[James Pietragallo]

Maybe he gave up, started a magazine and plummeted into the sea is all I know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or just went over to Massachusetts where it's probably a little easier for it.

[James Pietragallo]

Possibly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So when she applied to take the Rhode island bar exam, they did a judicial background check on her and found some shit that she'd been hiding. Oh, the prostitution stuff, which is 14 arrests.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whoa.

[James Pietragallo]

She's been arrested 14 times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

14 times.

[James Pietragallo]

Mostly for shoplifting. Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's got caught a lot too.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Think about it. Out of the thousands of times she still gets, she's really good at it. Still gets caught a bunch of times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So, yeah. That's what's crazy. That's insane. So July 1, 1988, is when they sit her down and talk to her here. This is the Committee on Character and Fitness to see if she's fit to be a lawyer in the bar of Rhode Island. She's forced to explain herself here. That's what they did. At first she was evasive, but gradually they would talk about Basically, in her third year of law school, why did you steal a $40 power tool that you had the money to buy and.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Probably didn't even need?

[James Pietragallo]

That's what I mean. Well, if you had the money to buy it, then you know what I mean. So they're like, that shows. That's not stealing something because you need it. That shows you, like, you're dishonest is what they're trying to say.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like that guy from the jinx that stole a sandwich when he had like fucking five grand in his pocket.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's such a bizarre thing.

[James Pietragallo]

It's like fucking Marlo with the lollipop on the wire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because he can stop.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. Why? Why? I'm much happier to plunk money down and go, I can afford this. Isn't that cool that I'm not as. That feels good to me. I don't know. So anyway, she explained that she began shoplifting in junior high and for fun. And she says that children of alcoholics tend to be obsessive compulsive. And that's her. She also says it's a thing that you do in order to be in control. In other words, when I'm in school, I overstudy. I escape into studying. I think I was 20th in my class out of 400. I think it all stems from feeling like you're no good and inferior and you need to be better in order to be just good enough. So that's what she said. Now at the end of the hearing, she said, you can see I'm not a bad person. Right. You know, I'm really normal. I'm really okay. Just don't listen to my lying arrest record.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Rhode island rejected her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, really?

[James Pietragallo]

And then based on that, Connecticut withdrew its initial approval.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

And then renewed it on the condition that she get psychiatric counseling. So they said, we will admit you to the bar in Connecticut, but you have to get counseling.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. So she met with a recommended psychiatrist and made a proposal to him or her. I don't know. She said, you're gonna wanna see me for 10 sessions. Right. How about I pay you for 10 sessions and you give me the note? Yeah. And we just call it a fucking day here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which. A psychiatrist would see flashing lights and red flags if someone said that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Then when the psychiatrist said no. Renee criticized the psychiatrist's grammar. You asshole. Jesus. Diane said she remembered. I guess her point was, how is she going to help me? She can't even. She doesn't even know fucking tenses.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She doesn't know I have a 4E. Fuck this lady.

[James Pietragallo]

So it's weird. Diane also said Renee had developed a contempt for. For all counselors. She even told the Rhode island examiners she'd quit the counselors in the past because she didn't think they helped because she didn't like them. Diane said Renee would argue with psychiatrists and delight in poking holes in their theories. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you go to therapy to argue shit, you're not there. It's not gonna work. So Diane recalled that Renee met at least once with the young psychiatrist. Remember that from this. And, you know, talked about the proposal. But Diane said Renee had begun to use drugs more heavily by this point and could not go through all the months of counseling. Just couldn't do it. Wasn't capable. Diane said it was a crushing blow. I think it was like, well, fuck it. If they won't let me be a lawyer, I'll be a drug addict, basically. So she also became, according to Diane, more vulnerable to men. She said, this is Diane. She strayed off into these desperate relationships with abusive, alcoholic men. She'd call me and say, what am I going to do if they don't call me back? I'd spend two or three Hours on the phone with her, almost every night. It was becoming like a recording. Gee, who else? Who in her family? What could have made her attracted to abusive alcoholic men? What could that have been?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I wonder. And it's crazy that she's going to therapy, but, like, not even confronting the demons. And the reason she just wants somebody to tell her, you're doing great.

[James Pietragallo]

She just wants to be right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

So in therapy she'll just argue till she's right because it's an intellectual exercise. In therapy, everything to her seems like an intellectual exercise.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Can I outsmart this therapist? Can I go around him? Can I go over him? Can I fucking poke holes in him or her or whatever the fuck, you know? So that's what it seems like. And this, obviously these abusive alcoholic men are. Her father's an abusive alcoholic. This is why you need therapy, to deprogram yourself from this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

Because you can't help it. That's what your brain does. It looks for that shit. Now, they said she did complete a 14 day program in 1991.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Then in 1993, Renee was in for two days for cocaine detox, but was discharged because she was contentious. She wouldn't do anything that they asked her to do. Yeah, she's combative. She was in for five days later on in 1996 and discharged for the same reason. So we're seeing a pattern here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Renee's almost too smart for her own good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And she's stubborn as fuck.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, that's being smart. Doesn't mean you're happy or fulfilled. A lot of times you torture yourself like this. So it's a lot. One of the. Her counselors said in February, I had a long talk with her, imploring her to take more responsibility. Her response was sarcastic and hostile and she's usually. This is the thing about Renee. She's always been able to avoid trouble, sidestep it, see it coming, feel it, know it. You know what I mean? She's always been able to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I mean, that's what.

[James Pietragallo]

Get out of it with her brain.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Those people are very capable of shoplifting because they have emotions and they feel when it's not safe to take them.

[James Pietragallo]

Yes, that's true. They're very intuitive. And that usually helps on the street too, because you can feel that thing, you know, I mean, that thing bubbling up. What was that? It. Was it on the wire where they were talking about, you know, when to get the fuck out of there? You got to know when to get out. You'll Feel it. You'll feel it, you know, get out of there. Yeah, maybe I can't remember. It was. It was a movie where a woman was talking to another woman about turning tricks and saying, you got to know. You got to have it. You got to know it's there. Fuck, what movie was that? Damn, that's annoying. Anyway, Pretty Woman. No, definitely Monster rattle movies. Yeah, yeah. No, no, it was in a larger context of another movie. It wasn't about that. So. Yeah. Renee has always been able to evade jail though. That's the thing, because she's smart.

[Jimmy Wissman]

14 arrests, no jail.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And she would get them dismissed. She'd get it reduced. And judges would always note her education, her background. You shouldn't be here. I'm gonna give you another chance. And you know, your ability, basically your potential to do well. It's not like if I let you out, what can you do but go back to the street? You have a fucking law degree. You can do a lot of stuff. So that's what they would do. Now after all of this. So mid-90s is coming around. Here she is, full blown. Drugs, shoplifting, and now prostitution is now her career.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's it. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

It's not just a little on the side. She ended her long term relationship that she had with Paul Vincent. Eventually she begins shooting up the drugs rather than smoking crack. Now she's shooting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A girl with aspirations of being a lawyer is sitting on a street corner shooting crack.

[James Pietragallo]

Shooting up with a law degree. Yeah, with a fucking law degree. And passing three states. Different. Three different states bars. It's a lot like she starts. Basically her arms are all fucked up with neat track marks. And at one point she had to shave her head because her hair got so matted and fucked up. She's not taking care of herself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Apparently she's shaving dreadlocks.

[James Pietragallo]

It's fucking horrible, man. Yeah, it's bad. Now there's little. Nobody really remembers her working much at this point. Her mother mentioned having brief. Brief little forays as an aide at the Westerly Hospital and at a nursing home in Westerly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just a waste.

[James Pietragallo]

Other friends talked about her always getting fired at waitressing. She would have waitressing jobs and get fired because she'd probably mouth off to customers. Yeah, she can't help it, you know, or the cook or somebody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, sure.

[James Pietragallo]

So. And again, what's her father? A cook. Maybe she was drawn to that. I'm gonna be abused and argue with this cook who's probably an alcoholic too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

So a lawyer who represented her in a Couple of civil suits, at least one involving a car accident and several shoplifting cases. Said also she had criminal stuff with drugs, too. Now she's starting to get arrested for drugs. A superior court judge said that she had seen Renee before. Had Renee in their courtroom. Said, she probably appeared before me a half dozen times. I had the impression sometimes she'd start off with a chip on her shoulder, hoping I'd knock it off. But she was always cordial. It was too bad we couldn't have done something for her at that point. It was such a waste with all of her accomplishments. But we tried, and after a while, we felt we weren't getting anywhere. Yeah, they said, oh, she just needs to get her shit together, but she just won't. That's the thing. Renee also likes to like. She likes to manipulate. Her sister says this, not me. Her sister said that Renee kind of likes to manipulate with sex.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She said Renee seemed to view sex as some kind of performance, is the way they put it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

Diane said that Renee dated male professors at Connecticut and at the UConn Law School. And later on, she would date most of the bosses she had as well. Oh, she's looking for either power dynamic, love, structure, or to try to fix the father thing, too. You know, someone in authority and all that kind of shit. I wonder how many of them were alcoholics, too, you know? So she. When she began to get arrested in the New London Westerly area, she told Diane she was angling for a judge. She was going to try to fuck her way out of trouble, is what Diane said.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is. Wow. Two male law school professors and a male attorney whom Renee once listed as references didn't respond to this newspaper article asking for comment. They said that that doesn't mean they slept with her, but they were just kind of doing that. Renee's mother said her daughter's view of humanity went from bleak to bleaker. Oh, yeah. She said that she had an almost cruel perception about her, which is very interesting. And she said, did she care what people thought? Not at all. Did she think prostitutes she worked with could be noble? Yes, she did.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, you could be a decent person and be down on your luck and have to do that. Yeah. It doesn't mean you're. It's not a moral judgment, you know. So. 1994, she's incarcerated at the York Correctional center in Niantic, Connecticut. This is ridiculous. This sucks. While she's there, she discovers that she is pregnant.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pregnant.

[James Pietragallo]

God damn it. A pregnancy test given when she Was first jailed, Registered negative. Oh. So that says one of two things. Either she was pregnant inside. Either she had just gotten pregnant when she got arrested, or she got pregnant inside. Wow. Which based on what she says and what her sister says, it seems like she might.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's possible. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So by the time she realized it was pregnant, it was too late to get an abortion, too. So she was like, fuck. Her mom said the last thing she wanted to do was bring a child into this place. She hates the world. She doesn't want to bring any children there. January 14, 1995. She has a daughter named Lindsay. The baby tests positive for cocaine, so it is taken away from her and placed with foster parents, which is obviously fucking heartbreaking. Here. Now, her friend. Remember Mellegrino from back in the day? She cared for the infant for the first 10 days, and then it was taken away and put in foster care.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

The state was aware that she was pregnant while she was in jail and took the baby on the grounds that she was an unfit mother. And the baby, Lindsey, will end up being adopted later on by somebody else. But Renee's gonna try to fight to keep her. Summer of 1995. She's gonna try to get her shit together. She's gonna move in with mom and live with her mother and try to just go with the program, get off of everything. So she lived with Renee Jean and Renee lived together in Westerly with Renee Jean trying to help her get clean. Gene said, I was believing that brown rice and tofu and salads and B vitamins and a jog in the park would cure her of her drug addiction.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

Unfortunately, that is not how it works.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A jog in the park, that's not it.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. In the mid-90s, you'd say, you just need to get out of it and be in a better environment. You won't want to do drugs, and that can help for an hour, but then you still have it there. You're still empty. So Renee started taking prozac at this point, which her mom thought to be actually, you know, a positive step because she's. At least she's taking someone's advice. That's good. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And at the time that. I don't know. I've got a lot of feelings about antidepressants, but that particular one is really fucking wild, man. It can. It.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You should. Obviously, it's also saved, like, hundreds of thousands of people lives, but that one's a. That one's a very aggressive one.

[James Pietragallo]

No, it's like anything like cars or Fire, you know, does. Well, sometimes it hurts, you know? You know what I'm saying? We need it. And also burn your house down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So Prozac and fire both will either save your life or fuck you up.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, antidepressants are great for some people, not great for other people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But that one is a very aggressive.

[James Pietragallo]

One, and I don't have much of an opinion on it because I'm not a doctor. So I'll have his anecdotal. I'm not going to be one of those dipshits on a podcast casting on a spurgeon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stay away from those.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, stay away from that shit. Like I, you know, like I know anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't do medical stuff to yourself. No, it's all bad.

[James Pietragallo]

Not me. So we don't know now she, or. I mean, I have my opinions, but, yeah, worthless, basically. So anyway, she earned weekend visits with Lindsay at this point with her new daughter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

Jean remembered one day when Renee was sitting on a swing with her baby, and Renee said, oh, look at her laugh. She makes my heart so happy. And, you know, she said, oh, that's great. And she said, I'm glad I'm home. You know what I mean? She was just happy. Child welfare authorities promised Renee she could have Lindsay back in September if she kept her shit together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's good.

[James Pietragallo]

So a summer of being clean, and.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We have a timeline and a goal and achievements to make to make our life better.

[James Pietragallo]

And Jean, mom said that the baby might be great motivation for her to be able to do this. She never had motivation before. Now she does. So she said that, yeah, that's a big deal. She said that. When Renee said she was so happy, she said she hadn't heard Renee say anything like that for 20 years. So it was a big deal. She said things were going well. Renee had energy. I had her jogging. I was giving her good nutritional food. She was painting the apartments. She was going to counseling. But I had a deadline to go back to work. She took the summer off of work to stay with her daughter and help her, and then she had to go back to work. So she had to leave kind of Renee on her own at this point. So Jean said she started missing her counseling sessions. I learned she was taking drugs again. And in the final days before she had to stay clean and everything to get her daughter back, she flunks a drug test.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oof.

[James Pietragallo]

Good God, man. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Has to do almost to the finish line and ruined it all.

[James Pietragallo]

That sucks, man. So it's really Difficult. By the way, her mom's a postal clerk at Connecticut College and that's why she had to go back. And yeah, she said it was brutal. She said, I gave up and accepted she was who she was. If that dear baby couldn't save Renee, nothing could. A mom and a baby who made her happy couldn't get Renee off of drugs. Her mother and her baby. She said she loved that baby, but she still needed the drugs. So. 95, 96. This is from the newspaper. I will just read with how they describe her. Quote. She's known as a drug addict and prostitute. About 5 foot 5, full figured with dark hair gone gray. A charmer, manipulator, a street smart hustler, a shoplifter. That's how they describe it. Wow, that's pretty apt. It's bleak. And yeah. And her mother said she was obsessed with death as well and susceptible to depression, sometimes to the point of suicidality. And they said her life just was fucked at this point with the drugs. It's all drugs. She said that. She also said that her daughter turned to prostitution because shoplifting couldn't support her addiction. She said once you get to be such a drug addict, it sucks a lot out of you physically. To be a good shoplifter, you have to have style. And that's the truth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes.

[James Pietragallo]

You can't go in looking scraggly or they keep an eye on you. If you go in looking fantastic, nobody looks twice at you. You have to have style.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It just looks like this person's shopping, not shoplifting.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. She said. So you have to have style. You can't look like a drug addict. She was. This is a great one. She was snorting crack. That's how innocent Gene is. She was snorting crack, which would hurt and it gets lodged in your. When the rocks get lodged in your nostrils, that would hurt.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I mean, I suppose you can. There's ways to do it, I'm sure.

[James Pietragallo]

But you'd have to break it up again. You have to break it down to where you got it to begin with. I know somebody who ate crack once. They were all fucked up and drunk and they went to try to buy coke on the street in New York City and ended up with crack. And they were like, what the fuck? We thought we were buying cokes and then they had crack. So they didn't know how to smoke crack because they're not crackheads. They don't have crack pipes or anything like that. So they were so drunk swallow it. They started eating it, just chewing it up. And eating crack. God. Chew, don't chew.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Pietragallo]

That story ended with this person waking up the next day in their bedroom in an apartment in New York City with all the windows open, naked, with porn going on the computer and a Reuben, half eaten Reuben sandwich in their hand. That's how eating crack will end your night out. They woke up and said, what the fuck? Was I trying to jerk off while I was eating a Reuben? What did I do to myself?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And it got real hot in here.

[James Pietragallo]

It got real hot. No, no, no. Blinds open. Not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, jeez.

[James Pietragallo]

Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just letting everybody see it so everyone.

[James Pietragallo]

Could just see your shit. He's like, it's bad. Anyone in any of the buildings around me could absolutely see this mess I was in. So this is bad. She said she was snorting crack and shooting crack. The only two things you can't do with cracker. Shoot it and snort it. Neither of those.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that's not what you should be doing, that's for sure.

[James Pietragallo]

No, she was fucking. She was shooting. Yeah, yeah, she was shooting coke. You can do that, Sheets, but you can't shoot crack. Once you turn it into crack. That's for smoking. She told me it was okay with the prostitution. She got more money for it. Okay. She said she was down on Green and Tilly streets. She was favored because of her ways by certain clientele. They would meet her and like her. So well, they wanted to take her home and save her. She wouldn't do it. Yeah, several of these guys said, you're too smart to be out here. Yeah, whatever. Now, this is her mom. Jean said. I said to her, just go with one of them, Renee. So her mom is advising her, just go with one of the. Just go with some john that picks you up and let him take care of you just for the home and the money. She would tell her daughter, at least you're not out on the streets. She would say to me, every form of refuge has its price. I'd have to do whatever they'd wanted whenever they wanted it. I'd be more of a prostitute than I am now. Wow.

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[James Pietragallo]

Going to be beholden to somebody?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

For more than it takes to get their money out of them that one time. Otherwise she wants to be independent. Now here is an author quote unquote big quotes on author named Mark Browstein Bronstein. Sorry. He is a Connecticut college art librarian who's also a paraplegic. He also does nature photography. He's an animal rights activist, a published vegetarian philosopher. I don't know what the fuck that means. And a marijuana advocate. At least I know what that is. And I guess they said that he was trying to write a book about street women in this area called Good Girls on Bad Drugs. That's the book you wanted to write.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, I like it.

[James Pietragallo]

It's an interesting statement.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can't wait to read it.

[James Pietragallo]

Especially. Yeah. If you find I can't wait to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stutter my way through it.

[James Pietragallo]

If you find women that shouldn't be in this position, that makes a lot of sense or, you know, would traditionally not seem like they're going to be in this position. People say he used his paraplegia as a sword and shield to get people to trust him for interviews. People in wheelchairs seem trustworthy. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

They don't seem like they're gonna fuck you over unless you don't believe they actually need the wheelchair. That'd be the only way. Like, are you faking this? Yeah. Feel. Let's move.

[Jimmy Wissman]

At all. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I'll read some shit here from an article about this guy. The first night Mark Brownstein met or picked Rene Pellegrino off a New London street, he got an earful of abuse from her and a fistful of rocks. The real kind, from a crack dealer. Pellegrino had sex for sale. But that wasn't what Brownstein was buying when she stepped out of his Car to score her rock of crack. Bronstein watched it all from his side view. Car mirror. Rocks began to fly after Pellegrino and the dealer wound up in an argument. Okay, okay. For this evening out. In late May 1996, Bronstein paid Pellegrino $20 over a year's time. About a dozen more would follow. He considered them a deal. So they say. Paralyzed from the waist down by a 1990 swimming accident. Bronstein is what he calls his neutered state. He says, and he said he would call it that he'd be real frank. And she was the same way. So they got along here. She said that. Sell sex, smoke, crack. That was all there was to it. That's what she told him in an interview. Sell sex, smoke, crack. That's what I'm doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Tattoo that on your belly.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, I remember the old. Some old comedian would go, write, joke, tell joke. That's what I do for a living.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There it is.

[James Pietragallo]

It's the same thing. Sell sex, smoke crack. It's the deal. So he said that's all there was to it. She told him. And he said he'd been picking up these women for about two years and paying them to tell their stories so he can turn them into a book. He's paying them for their time, not for their actions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he said, I think all of the street walkers like to talk about themselves. Bronstein said. He says, I don't own a tv, but I can hop in a car and drive a half mile into downtown New London and it's like a free real life TV show. It's like the Kensington YouTube feed in Philly there that we talk about. All the other johns out there are just interested in a blow job. When I say, tell me the story of your life, they do. That's a break, and you're getting paid for it still.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He said that Rene Pellegrino is the most interesting because it's the most unbelievable. He said that was just, you know, you didn't believe why she was even here. He said that she enjoyed debating the finer points of liability, such as the difference between stealing and not repaying a loan. She's made to be a lawyer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She wants to debate.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's so good at this. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

She could sit up there and go, that depends on what the definition of the word is is. And you'd go, whoa, tell me what I mean. Yeah. What are you running for? Yeah. So she said, you know, that that was a big deal. Bronstein said her big thing she would tell me, is she's not like everyone else. Okay. To prove it, she once borrowed $10 from him and promised to repay $20. That night. Bronstein made the loan, he says, and she didn't give him the $20 back. But she was trying to prove that she was different and could be trusted. She said of all the streetwalkers who read parts of his manuscript, Renee was the most critical. Yeah, yeah. She's going after a psychiatrist grammar in her session. What do you think she's going to do to you? He says that she called it sophomoric and accused him of romanticizing her colleagues. He said, she's the only one I didn't like speaking with. He said he was attracted to her, though, because of her education for one and her obnoxiousness for another. Something about that's attractive for a guy. I don't know what it is. That's what it is. He said, the first day I met her, she started making ethnic slurs against Jews, knowing I'm Jewish. That's just her. She's gonna see where your fucking. Where your soft underside is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Find your comfort level. Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep. And she said that Pellegrino called him every day during one of her stints in prison, then stuck him with the phone bill she had promised to repay. Bronstein says that he saw Pellegrino one night when she flagged him down in New London and she was walking her usual turf, Washington, Tilly and Huntington Streets. He said she had almost waist length brown hair, but tried to look like a tomboy. That's what you see a lot. She wears a lot of short jean shorts and a hat. She always wears a hat. A lot of times with the pictures I've seen, there's a few of them with a hat. There's that, there's one of her wearing a. There's a picture that's out there while she's in her, his car. He took a picture of her. She's wearing a cap from the New London Fire Department. And Bronstein said she got that hat at the fire station. They gave it to her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She just went in and they're like.

[James Pietragallo]

Can I have a hat?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is if you're a hot chick, you can go in and ask for a hat and they'll just give you one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, that's a better way of stealing. Just like wandering in, being hot and manipulative and then just getting the shit and being like, thanks, see ya.

[James Pietragallo]

Walk into a fire station and go, can I get A hat. They go, get the fuck out of here. Get out of here, loser.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Presley. The fire department near me is the Peoria one, obviously. And because it has a pee on.

[James Pietragallo]

It, I want to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Presley wants me to wear shit with. Anyway, I asked them for one and they were like, no, you can't have.

[James Pietragallo]

Presley's his daughter, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You cannot have a fire department. I've asked them for that.

[James Pietragallo]

You don't work.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I do not want to give them away. We do not want to give you our uniform.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, no, I don't at all. I'm not talking a helmet either. No, no, no, no, no.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just a baseball hat.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So for the prop in the photo, Bronstein gave her a newspaper essay he'd written touting the benefits of marijuana for people with spinal injuries such as his. As for Pellegrino, he says crack cocaine was her drug of choice, which we knew. Bronstein says Pellegrino told him she'd been treated for manic depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. And quote, all those legal drugs never took away the pain. Like crack. Motherfucking crack, as Clint said. And love. After lockup, he said twice she knocked on his door early in the morning. He said, renee knew my driveway before she knew him. He said it's a long, secluded path off Benham Avenue near the railroad tracks. And he said street walkers have been bringing their tricks there for years. I'm the one who's always picking up the used condoms. That's a lovely task. Jesus Christ, I'd leave a sign. At least pick up your condoms, please.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're piling up again.

[James Pietragallo]

Take them with you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Clean them up.

[James Pietragallo]

At the end of the driveway is a house where Bronstein rents the first floor. On a Sunday morning in March of this year, Bronstein said he told Pellegrino she could sleep it off on his couch. He said she stunk her body, her clothes, particularly her shoes. While she slept, he put her clothes through the washing machine. He said, with my bare hands, I washed her shoes. When she woke up two hours later, all she did was curse him out because her shoes were still wet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

So also on the street, she wants people to think she's crazy. She is smart enough to realize that's what you need to do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Keep safety.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, yeah. She's in prison, smearing her own shit all over herself, going, I'm crazy. That's not literally, but that's pretty much figuratively. One woman, a 21 year old streetwalker, that's what she calls herself, calling herself Melody said that she tried to wean herself from the streets. She's trying to wean herself off the streets at this point. She said Pellegrino only wanted people to think she was crazy, but she really wasn't crazy. Melody is also a subject in this book, by the way of Bronstein's book. He says that Pellegrino, or she says Pellegrino, would twirl her hair in a funny way, make clients suspect that she was a police officer and curl up in a ball for privacy. These are the weird things with dealers. She'd say, don't buy that stuff. It's garbage right in front of them. She was gutsy, which, wow. While Brownstein thinks that Pellegrino did all this to provoke, he says she has a death wish and that's what she's doing. Melody thinks she did it for protection, probably. And Melody would know. Melody would know better because she's in the same position. So I believe Melody. She said everyone thought Renee was crazy, but she was smart as hell. Melody says Pellegrino treated her like a daughter and once harassed a cop to keep him busy while she escaped his custody. Yeah, so she got her out there. She said that's what Renee loved to do, beat the law. Yeah, she should have. God damn it. She'd have been such a good lawyer, man. Yeah, and it's fucked because in the 80s, so many lawyers had coke problems, it's not even funny. So she could have just been a normal lawyer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She would have sit right in.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, that's what I mean. She would have been. Fuck, man. Melody said Renee had a lot of fun out there. She was not an unhappy person at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no, no, no.

[James Pietragallo]

That's what she had to show on the street. But we know that behind closed doors, that wasn't there. So June 24, 1997. Okay. Renee, on June 9, was incarcerated at the York Correctional Institution on a prostitution charge. She remained in York all the way through June 25th here. So for weeks, she tried to get her mother to bail her out. Now, someone bailed her out, but we don't know who. Not mom, though. Mom said. She called me and I said, you're safe where you are. She said I'd gotten her out any number of times for thousands of dollars. This time. I said, renee, I'm not getting you out. You're safer where you are. She got someone else to do it, so that's tough. She said, at least you're not on the streets and you can't get crack in there, so this is good. Apparently some guy who was sort of an on and off boyfriend bailed her out, so. Brother John, by the way, is also a fuck up. Which I could say John Pelagi, her little brother, I could say is about my friend. John Pellegrino is a fuck up. He was at the time. He could be great now. He could be doing. She's got to be dead by now, though. Jesus. He was a mess anyway. He's crazy. Good guy, though. Anyway, real good guy. Liked him. He's the only son. He had his troubles with drugs, too. Oh. He was released from Osborne Correctional Institution in Summers where he served a one year sentence for third degree burglary. Then he was arrested again by Westerly Police where he was soliciting money outside the annual summer pops concert. Remember that? Yeah. He was charged with obtaining money under false pretenses. Was he like in a Santa costume ringing a bell that didn't exist? Maybe that's what he was doing. I got line dancing tickets. They're hot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Free man. It's a free concert.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, man. And was sent to the Rhode island prison in Cranston. So, yeah, Sister Diane, the one she used to be, her shoplifting partner is not a fuck up at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

No. She's a graphic designer at this point in the 90s in Mystic. She studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York. She married an attorney in New London. Oh, doing fine. Diane struggled with depression and obsessive compulsive disorder too. But she sought treatment and got treatment and felt better and had a normal life. June 25, 1997.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

Waterford Parkway South. It's a rural road. It runs parallel to Interstate 95, which, if you know, the east coast, goes all the way to fucking Florida. And it used to connect to the Waterford airport, which no longer exists. It ends in a cul de sac. So it's. You don't go here unless you're going here. There's only on purpose.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's reason to be there.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. When you're a teenager, this is where you'd go hot box in your car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The cul de sac is clearly where people go do nefarious shit.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. You go roll up the windows and smoke three blunts in there and. And then open it up and laugh as the smoke pours out. That's that type of shit they said, basically, unless you're looking for it, you don't know it's there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You'll never find it.

[James Pietragallo]

Now there's a Patrolman named Steve Whitehead, who started his shift that morning. And he. This is part of his beat as he goes down these roads to look for people doing just that. He sees what he thinks is some kind of debris in the road. So he stops and gets out, and it's not debris. It is the naked body of a white adult female. And the body is clearly posed. Oh, this is not a natural way to fall. Knees are bent, feet together, arms completely outstretched to the side, like crucifixion style. Eyes closed, head turned to the side. Yep. It's a clear pose, obviously. So they're like, that's not good. They said the arms and legs were very thin. Looked like a heavy drug user based on the wasting away of the fat. And also track marks and things like that. No clothing found anywhere near this body. No jewelry, nothing. Only thing on her was a single pink hair tie wrapped around her wrist. Oh, that's it. Now, an officer previous night had patrolled that section of road at the midnight shift and not seen this at all. So this had to happen. She said that it rained that morning during her lunch break between 5 and 5:30am which will become important. A detective arrives at the scene about 9am and notes that the body appeared to have been placed at the scene during the rainstorm. So that means it had to be in that time period. There was water underneath the body, pooled in a silhouette shape and water in her belly button. And her hair was wet and matted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, so she was rained on.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And it's. They do the testing. It's Renee's body.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah, damn it.

[James Pietragallo]

It's Renee's body. So this is not good. She had sand and road dirt on the bottom of her feet and in her genital area around her neck. Ligature marks. Looked like a rope or a cord used to strangle her. The medical examiner, and this is very big here, he came to the scene and determined the cause of death to be asphyxia by neck compression. Now, the big deal about this, I mean, that happens all the time. The big deal is there was evidence of both manual and ligature strangulation at the same time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Which is extremely rare. How extremely rare? To be choking somebody with. Well, or choking somebody while you're pulling on something just trying to make it go faster. Now, the deputy chief medical examiner who performed the autopsy would say that in his entire career, he's done over 6,000 autopsies. He can only recall three cases that had involved both manual and ligature strangulation. It's very rare. Which for investigators is actually a good thing because easier to find. They said that she also had occipital trauma, a blow to the back of her head. And also when they go through everything, she's 17 weeks pregnant.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, four months. That's a whole pregnant. Yeah. And she tested positive for cocaine in her blood. The one thing that wasn't a surprise. Now they do a vaginal swab to see if possibly this is part of a rape murder. It contains DNA from an unknown male. All right. Okay. And this is the 90s, so they're gonna just go ahead and put that in the cabinet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not a big list.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, not much you can do with that. So she is identified as Renee. They have a funeral for her, obviously. About 40 people show up and gather at her funeral. She's buried a nice spot under a maple tree within view of the graves of her sister and father. That's nice. Childhood friends showed up. Other streetwalker girls showed up. She was popular. People liked her. One, the deputy chief of the New London Police Department, also showed up. He'd known her for years. She was close to one of his cousins. Oh, so like, the groups that are showing up at this funeral are vastly disparate here. So that's how it goes. She, you know, it's rough. I mean, Diane said she accompanied her mother to the funeral. They each dressed in blue jeans for the funeral. She said it was in honor of Renee. She said that that was Renee's uniform. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt. She could have worn anything she wanted. She could have gotten anything she wanted. Jeans, a sweatshirt, and a baseball cap on backwards. That's what she wore. So that's what I put her in. So that's what they buried her in. Paul Vincent, remember him? Yeah. Construction working boyfriend. He was one of the pallbearers, off and on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Ex boyfriend. Yeah, they were 17 years, I guess. You know, you'll go. You'll do what you do here. He wouldn't be interviewed by the newspaper. It's brutal, man. They've lived together before, by the way. At one point, Renee and Paul Vincent co owned a five apartment building in Westerly. So at one point she had business going and stuff like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, she had a job happening.

[James Pietragallo]

So. Yeah, now the investigation comes. She had been released from jail the day before. Oh, she was released the evening of June 24th and found on June 25th in the morning. Wow. So they said obviously she'd gone straight back to the streets from jail. She was last seen in the very early morning hours, climbing into someone's car in the area of Green street in New London. So people talk about her. There's a deacon at the First Congregational Church of New London named Peter Roberts who remembered meeting Renee. He said he was cleaning his pickup truck and listening to opera when she approached him, wanting to bum a cigarette. She walked up and said, what an eclectic guy. A pickup truck and opera.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He asked her, where'd you learn the word eclectic? Right. Not a lot of prostitutes walk up and call you eclectic. Usually they call you dickhead or something like that. So he said he was sad to hear about her death. He said she chose a life that most of us would not choose, but it doesn't take away from her humanity. She had so many gifts. That's true. Now, what about the author? What does he think? Bronstein. Yeah. He said, quote, she wanted to die. Pardon?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Pietragallo]

But she was too cowardly to kill herself. He said instead, she courted death by provoking clients and drug dealers. Hmm. Wow, that's a weird take. He said she cooperated with police on a lot of things and advertised it. She'd say things like, I have to go meet a cop at 10pm she was so blatant.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Pietragallo]

My feeling is that whoever picked Renee up, she's like bubbles, basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Whoever picked Renee up a few nights ago, she probably insulted him. And that's why the only weapon he had was strangulation, he said. But it might have also been vengeance because of her snitching. So who knows? So the investigation goes cold. Pretty much here. Goes cold? Yeah, goes cold. They have nothing going. And that's 6-25-97. Nothing to do here. So they're pretty much fucked. Almost a year goes by. Wow. They still have that swab. But that's it now. May 1, 1998 at 8:26pm, New Park Avenue in Franklin, Connecticut, which is close to the Norwich line, near the Norwich Industrial park by Dodd Stadium, which is a minor league baseball stadium. Basically, this is a road that you don't go to by accident. You're going to go somewhere off of this road. A man is driving with his two daughters. Their names are Tara and Amy. They're ages 10 and 6. They're going to the Ramada Inn to go swimming. That's why they're driving. They see something in the road. It is a naked white female.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Knees bent, feet together, arms outstretched, head to the side, same way. Okay. She's still warm.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Now, Tara, the 10 year old, said that she remembered seeing a truck Leaving away from the body.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

She said she was 75% certain that she saw the body fall from the truck as it sped away, which I don't think is correct because it was posed right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Couldn't have fallen.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. Couldn't have fallen in that pose. So the six year old at the time said we were driving to the Ramada Inn to go swimming. My father stopped. He wouldn't let us get out. I just remember the woman lying there. She was nude. It's not something you'll ever forget. Not when you're six, no. You're gonna go to. There's a couple years of therapy waiting for you on that one. Another witness stopped as well, seeing the family's car in the road, thinking they must have hit a deer. They stopped. When he saw it was a body, he felt for a pulse. No pulse, but still warm. Covered her with a jacket from his car. And somebody went to call the cops. Obviously. Now they find out this is Michelle Kamau. C O M E A U. Camu. Camau. Camus. Camus. Like the loss? I don't know. So Michelle Camus, whatever. November 26, 1968, she was born or November 16, 1968, she's 29 years old. That's who this is. They find out. Doing a little background check on her. They find out that she is a local prostitute institute who has bipolar disorder, a history of group home placements at mental institutions, and is a crack addict. In addition to that, she was institutionalized at a young age and put in the care of the state. Then when she got out on her own, she began a history of getting arrested all the time and a lot of drug problems, really. Michelle's story's sad. She's like Renee. She's same profession and same predilection for the crack and everything like that. She also had recently been released from jail. Cause of death here is asphyxia by neck compression. They do the autopsy. She has evidence of both manual and ligature strangulation. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Very rare.

[James Pietragallo]

So this is MO Is set. We have posed bodies, same pose, same. The victims have very same. Similar profile. And you have the same way of killing them. This is an M.O. at this point now, so it's interesting. So now, she had also, in addition to ligature marks on her neck, she also had marks on her wrists and ankles as if she'd been bound as well. She has occipital trauma as well. Hit in the back of the head. It's the exact same thing. Cocaine in her blood. No jewelry or clothing found. Anywhere nearby. Now, a local beat cop from around there said he had been on a foot patrol in 1998 and said that he had seen Michelle walking along Franklin street on the day her body was discovered. So he'd seen her earlier. He said he'd arrested her several times for prostitution and drug possession. He said. She was someone I saw regularly on my beat. Michelle was kind of a sad individual. She admitted she had medical problems, bipolar, manic depression, Tourette's. Oh, she does have Tourette's. And she'll have these outbursts of the Tourette's that makes it difficult. She's also got. We'll talk about it, but her background a little bit here. She was last seen alive shortly after 7pm so she's alive after 7. By 8:26, she's dead in the road. This was in the area of Troy's Cleaners at Franklin and Chestnut streets in Norwich. Investigators also learned she'd been living at 220 Franklin street staying with a man named Dickie Anderson Sr. Who's in his 50s. We'll talk about Dickie in a little while here, but let's find out who she is first. Okay, Michelle, let's find out. March 4, 1987. She's 18 years old and she is having a lot of problems. This newspaper article from the Day. Newspaper, by the way, the Day. Remember that newspaper, because that'll come up in the story.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Pietragallo]

They say, quote, michelle spent the last 15 years in hospitals, foster care and group homes. She spent the last five nights in jail, according to her lawyer and the judge on the bench. When she appeared Tuesday in New London Superior Court. Her case illustrates a larger problem for lack of a better place. She has been kept behind bars since last Friday, first at the police station and after her arraignment at the prison. Michelle was charged with disorderly conduct after police responded to a call for help from her mother, Christine of Huntington Street. They had been there earlier in the day, Michelle said, or no, that's her mother, Christine said, because her daughter was uncontrollable. Also called to the apartment that day was a psychiatric emergency response team from Norwich, which tried unsuccessfully to talk Michelle into going for temporary treatment. He said, there's no question we're going to have to find places for people who we know as street people who are not mentally ill or so ill that they need hospitalization. There's got to be something in between for that. Her mom said in court, I couldn't handle her. She physically abused me. She gets very violent when she gets going. She was arrested after her mother told police that she had been punched, her hair pulled and her head slammed against the door. The mom signed the complaint but said she didn't want her daughter taken into custody, only given help. Now she is jailed less than 24 I'll read this article from the day less than 24 hours after she left jail and turned down an offer of shelter from Norwich Treatment center in New London, a woman is arrested again since 3-6-87. Again, she spends the night in the police station, charged with breach of peace following a domestic disturbance with her mother. Again, she was arrested for disorderly conduct last Friday after she assaulted her mother. Allegedly, she spent three nights at the police department lockup awaiting her arraignment. Her plight prompted comments from her lawyer and a judge called concerning the lack of homes and treatment programs for people like her. She had spent nearly 15 years of her life in the care of the state Department of Children and Youth Services. But after the department reportedly arranged an initial meeting with her natural mother, that's not her mother, Christine, her natural mother. It's her adopted mother, she chose to remain in New London rather than return to the group in which she had been living. Her mother said that or this is her mother, but it wasn't. Sorry. Christine is her mother, but not who raised her. She was raised in all these homes. Christine is her birth mother and exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got it.

[James Pietragallo]

Okay. So she had met her birth mother and decided to stay and hang out with her birth mother instead of going back to this group home. Her mother said that this week that Michelle suffers from a condition that makes her prone to violent outbursts and there are times when she can't control her. So she thought that outside help from the police and Psychiatric Emergency Response Team might fix that. Sure. Her public defender criticized the system and accused the department of, quote, dumping the teenager on her mother because she was 18. Basically, she's too old for the youth services, so you take care of her. A DCYS spokeswoman said that because Michelle is 18, the decision to remain with her mother is hers. We can't tell her where to go. She's fucking 18 now. Her mom said her daughter was only 4 when she was taken away. Michelle was 4. She said she tried unsuccessfully in the intervening years to locate her, but only learned of her whereabouts last November when the Department of Children and Youth Services got in touch with her. She says she wants Michelle to stay with her eventually. This is in the 80s. In the meantime, she'd like her daughter to be placed in the nearby place, wherever they put Her. She said, I want her close by where we can keep contact. I don't want to lose her again. Now, now. March 19, 1987. There's more articles about Michelle in the day. I'll read this. This is not flattering. Quote, a mentally retarded and mentally ill New London woman is scheduled to return to the Bridgeport group home. She left in December after spending much of the last three weeks in jail while efforts were made to find her shelter and help the need and the help she needs. So she's got a lot of ingrained inborn problems, this poor woman.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Societally, she's not gonna be able to function well.

[James Pietragallo]

It's difficult for her. It's gonna be very difficult on her own. On her own, exactly. Yeah. They said, this is her, I guess. Her lawyer acted on the recommendation of a doctor from the chief of forensic psychiatry at Norwich Hospital who examined Michelle for competency and testified she suffers from complex problems associated with mental retardation and neurological condition. And a neurological condition that makes her prone to outbursts of profanity and violent behavior. He's talking about Tourette's at that point. He said, I feel that in this case, the Department of Mental retardation has already worked with her and therefore she should not be committed to them. Committed to them. Because social services are already making appropriate arrangements for her placement. So they didn't. Nobody knew. No one knew what to do with this poor girl. Essentially, no one knew what to do with her. They said that department said 90% of the cases we deal with are really social instead of criminal. They're charged with crimes, but they're usually minor things like breach of peace or disorderly conduct. And they said, these are people who are caught in the middle. And the courts ask where they're more, whether they're more mentally ill or not. And it's not always hard to tell, not always easy to tell what the problem is when there's multiple problems. And you put drugs in the mix too, and stuff like that. Who knows? So she's got it. This is bad.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not good.

[James Pietragallo]

She's got it hard is what I. Yeah, she's got an uphill fight. So April 1st, 1987, they say that. Here's another article about her. She's been arrested three times within a month, prompting state agencies to consider how to provide proper services for people with similar problems. So she actually opened up a bigger question and made these people actually investigate it and try to change their policies. They said they've made different agreements and everything else they Said, here's a client who's not really mentally ill, who's not really mentally retarded, who's not abused or homeless, but clearly a client who needs something. They said, we need to do something not just for Michelle, but for any of the Michelles who come along. Absolutely. So they said her latest arrest was third degree assault was for allegedly assaulting a staff member at the JC house on Broad street, which is a group where they put her, basically where she was placed. She had come to New London just to visit her mother in December and decided to move in with her after a 14 year separation. So that's how that goes. Now, November 10, 1990, she was arrested again and charged with two counts of failure to appear in court. Yeah, and I kind of lose her trail as far as her arrest record goes, but by 97, she's on the streets. Yeah. With a terrible drug addict. With a terrible drug addiction. And she's now dead in the road. So this is awful. Now the police are obviously wondering, are these two connected?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

Maybe two women, 10 months apart in the time they're found, 15 miles apart in difference the bodies are found. So it's the area. You know, they're both crack addicted streetwalker women. So they're both recently released from jail, both strangled manually and with a ligature combination. Both bodies found naked on rural roads, opposed in the exact same way. No clothing, no jewelry, head trauma, cocaine in their systems. I mean, it doesn't get any more of the same. So the state argues that's a signature, that's an mo. That's a calling card. That's how you can tell. They compile a list of 29 similarities between the two murders.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow, that's a lot.

[James Pietragallo]

29. The prosecutor does that. But they have all these similarities and they're pretty sure they're the same person. But who is this person?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who is it?

[James Pietragallo]

They don't fucking know. Yeah, the investigations, both of them go cold. Can't find it. There's a missing poster for Renee. $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of and conviction of whoever. It's a big half a fucking newspaper page. It's not some little tiny thing. Half a newspaper page. Call the Waterford Police Department or State's Attorney. Renee's mom said, quote, I lost a child and a grandchild. She said that. Renee's mom said she had to go to the doctor to find out what Renee's final moments were like. She had to know, she said. I pleaded with them to tell me how long it would take to Die from that? They said up to five minutes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ah, Jesus.

[James Pietragallo]

I'm tortured by this concept of her being terrified. So. She said that she has regularly spoken with Detective Lieutenant Donald McCarthy of the Waterford Police Department, who's in charge of the investigation. She said, I used to call at first every day, and then two times a week, and then once a week. If I don't call now, he calls to reassure me they're still working on it. And McCarthy said the detective Bureau is working on the case daily and that he's confident that an arrest will be made. He said, we've developed a number of suspects and conducted intensive interviews, and it's just a matter of time before something cracks, somebody gives it up, somebody tells. So the police at this point are so confident that they're gonna find this killer that they're begging for tips in the newspaper. Begging. Just anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Anybody say something?

[James Pietragallo]

One says, this is the. And the cops say, I know there's one person out there who has that fear or suspicion of that person who will still contact us. Meaning fear of the murderer who will contact us. We hope they come forward for the reward. Or out of fear. If someone's living with this man, they should be afraid. Yeah. So basically, if this is your boyfriend, turn his ass in, he's going to strangle you and leave you in the street. So they get a tip here. Police end up arresting a man for leading investigators astray in the murder case of Renee. Yeah. Yeah. Arthur D. McFarland was charged with falsely reporting an incident and interfering with a police officer acting on a July 3 phone tip from McFarland, who called the police station from a bar and spoke with the dispatcher. Three officers spent several days conducting a background check on another man here. McFarlane attributed a comment about the murder to the man and supplied police with the man's license plate number. And they found out later on that the man who he. The man who the police won't identify, adamantly denied any involvement in the murder and any involvement in a conversation with nothing. Basically, yeah. Now, McCarthy, the guy who called it in, said it, or I'm sorry. The police officer said McFarland calling this in, quote, seemed like a grudge thing. He didn't like a guy and called the cops and said, he told me he killed that girl.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Feels like that's a murderer.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So the cops fucking the cops go spend four days of resources and time wasting their time on purpose. So, yeah, the detective lieutenant said, it's my opinion that the man who's involved is a killer. A Murderer in the true sense of the word. He's a bad man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what they are.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, it's an understatement. He's a bad man. Wow. He said if he feels you are a threat to him, he will kill you in a heartbeat. I feel very strongly that he wouldn't hesitate to do it again now. 1999, the reward is upped. Okay, it's upped now. It was 10,000. Now it's 50,000.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, more than upped.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a lot. Yeah. They said the task force believes that the public may have some pertinent information concerning Pellegrino's death that for some unknown reason has yet to be provided to task force personnel. As investigators continue to piece together the scenario, all information becomes invaluable. Therefore, the task force is once again requesting. If you have information, fucking tell us. And 50 grand's a little more of a motivator. They said that those involved in the investigation, also, the police said, took exception to an article that ran in the Day and other publications announcing the increased reward. The announcement, they said, characterized Pellegrino as a drug addicted prostitute and all these things. And they said they made it basically less likely that people will want to do that. But you have to put that. Because they have to know. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

You have to know where and when the circumstances are. Because if you said, oh, yeah, I know that girl. She was at. That lady was. She worked with me at the thing. No, it's not her. You know what I mean? You have to know. You saw her on the street, that's probably where you'd see her. But either way, they thought it was a little shitty the way they did it anyway, which probably was. Now the case is cold and Renee's mom is upset. She's upset. She said she can't stand that her daughter's killer is free to go about his daily business, which, that would be infuriating.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She said, if you murder somebody, you shouldn't be able to just go wander around.

[James Pietragallo]

She's right. No, she said, whoever did this is having their day. He's probably having his coffee and his scrambled eggs, smoking a cigarette. I'd like to see the maximum prison sentence for this man so that he can be unfree. To think about this as we are forever unfree. Unfree. That's a fun word. Yeah, it is. It's like the UN Cola. Now, the cops here, they've reviewed similar killings in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington, Nevada, Utah and New York. And police have Also had Input from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit trying to get a profile here. They said that, quote, this message for the killer. We're not giving up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're going to be unfree.

[James Pietragallo]

You're gonna be unfree someday. So time goes by, 2002 comes along.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Pietragallo]

When in Mohegan park in Norwich, a young lady named Hope Becker, another young prostitute, is found strangled to death there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, they found her dead, naked body on a street at the foot of the Mohegan park near the intersection of John Edwards Drive and Wilderness Road. She had been strangled. Wow. They said a woman from the street with a nickname of Double D. Wonder where she got that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wonder what that means.

[James Pietragallo]

Said I think she was going out there and ended up with the wrong trick. She said that was a close friend of hers, Hope. She said one of those men who are crazy and maybe wanted more than she and she wouldn't give it to them. She was so fragile and skinny, it wouldn't take that many hits to knock her out. Double D said she knew this Hope Becker for more than a year and she thinks becker was about 33 or 34 years old. She said she last saw Becker 9:30pm on a Saturday night when Becker told her she was going out to make some money. So Double D And another guy, Mr. Brown, who's another friend of Becker's, who asked not to be identified only by a nickname, said that Becker was well liked and always offering to help people in times of need. He said she'd help you find a job, an apartment. She was a cool person. She took me in her house until I got another place to live. So she was found dumped in the park wearing only socks and a hair tie again. Oh, she also had ligature marks on her neck and wrists, but not manual and ligature on the neck.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So just tied up.

[James Pietragallo]

Just the ligature marks on the neck, too. Now this. The police are comparing this to Michelle and Renee's murders, but they end up arresting a man named Clifford Gilliland who has nothing to do with Renee and Michelle's murders, they say, but killed Hope Becker. Got it. Now, when interviewed about Pellegrino, he adamantly denies any involvement in that and everything like that. So, 2008. Now let's go to. It has been 10 and 11 years between Michelle and Renee's murders respectively. So New London, Connecticut, there's a man named Dickie E. Anderson Jr. We remember Dickie says that's you remember Sr. Oh, this is Junior. This is Junior. Now, Junior's born March 27, 1970. So Dickey Jr. Here he is a newspaper mailroom worker, works for the day newspaper in New London. Just started that job earlier that year or Christmas of 2007, some shit like that. Or April 97, he started working as a mailroom clerk for the day newspaper. He's got a longtime girlfriend named Tony Wilson, who he has two kids with. And he also has a third child as well. He has been arrested a whole fuckload of times, including for domestic violence, specifically for strangling his girlfriend. Likes to choke. Here's his illustrious record. And this is just a tip of the iceberg of what I could find going through newspapers and shit. He has five prior assault convictions. Whoa. Has a conviction for third degree strangulation and has a documented pattern of violence against women. I found. 1990, 20 years old, arrested for breach of the peace. I found that. April 25, 1992, two men charged after chase and accident. Police charged Dickey Anderson Jr. With first degree larceny, reckless endangerment and interfering with a police officer. Police said they saw him speeding in a Trans Am across the Gold Star Bridge in New London about 2.30am he was accompanied by Shawn Carter. Not that one, I don't think, but maybe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who is that?

[James Pietragallo]

Jay Z?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Jay Z. Was he born in 1970?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Maybe it's him.

[James Pietragallo]

He could have been 22 in 1992. That's real likely. He was fucking 80s. He was rapping in the 80s. He was part of that whole shit now. They said when police signaled to Anderson to pull over, he tried to elude them by driving into the New London shopping center, but lost traffic control of the car and struck the trooper's cruiser head on. What then hit two more cars? I don't know how you go from chased to go in opposite directions, but it happens.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know.

[James Pietragallo]

Pit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pit maneuver. There's a lot of different ways, but to hit a. I guess, I mean, it starts with being chased by the police. You're supposed to stop.

[James Pietragallo]

You should just stop. Then he hit two more cars. Police say Anderson and Carter fled on fire foot, but Anderson was apprehended after a brief pursuit. Carter jumped into the Waterford reservoir off the i95. Write a fucking rap song about that. But a state trooper in a K9 tracked him, locating him in an apartment on Laurel Avenue in New London, 1990, that is April 25, 1992. October 25, 1992. Dickey is going to be. A charge of second degree larceny is subsequent substituted for a charge of first degree larceny and was not prosecuted against Dickey Anderson. That's for another thing. In 2002, a new London prostitute claimed that Dickey picked her up and became violent with her while smoking crack. She managed to escape by slipping out a car door, but Anderson got out of the car and tackled her. Witnesses saw him slam the woman to the ground and kick and beat her until police arrived.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Kept hitting her until the cops.

[James Pietragallo]

He wasn't done. Wow. It could have gone on indefinitely. He only stopped because the cops showed up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

Former girlfriend said that he is rough during sex, quote, unquote. One said Anderson threatened her and told her that he has already, quote, gotten away with killing somebody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

She said he described fighting with a prostitute who kept asking for money. He said he hit and killed the girl in Bates woods in New London. Police also interviewed a girlfriend who broke up with him in the year 2000. She recalled twice that Dickey choked her so hard he left red marks on her neck. She turned over photos to the police, pictures of her injuries that a friend had taken. Now, 2002, October 14th, Dicky is arrested for third degree assault, driving an unregistered motor vehicle, driving without insurance, and driving with a suspended license.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pretty bad guy, but I mean, these are minimal, but it's still.

[James Pietragallo]

He's just a fuck up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It all piles up.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. May 25, 2003. Especially when it's every year. He is charged with third degree assault, second degree failure to appear in court, failure to renew motor vehicle registration, operating a motor vehicle under suspension, and failure to have insurance. So he just has a car with nothing attached to it and he's going out there to second and third degree assault people in his unregistered, uninsured car with no license. Okay, then. November 2, 2004, Dickey Jr. Again here. Charged with two counts of risk of injury to a minor, second degree criminal trespass and breach of peace. Sure. September 10, 2005, Dickey is charged with first and second degree failure to appear in court. October 13, 2006, Dickey again. Disorderly conduct and third degree assault. He's arrested for. Are we sensing a pattern here with this fucking guy?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He likes to hit people.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. And these are only the ones I found in the newspaper.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

So God knows how many more there are. Another former girlfriend whom Anderson was convicted of strangling in 2008, said that the two had argued about her getting a job and that Anderson threw her to the floor and began choking her. She said if the police did not break into the apartment and physically remove Anderson from her person. She thinks she would have died. So this is twice now he has physically attacked a woman until police literally pull him off of her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's bad.

[James Pietragallo]

He doesn't even, like, hear a siren and be like, oh, shit, I better. They have to fucking pull him off physically. He's lucky I didn't get shot, for Christ's sake. Another former girlfriend, the one he was convicted of strangling, said that during that argument, he threw her to the floor and began choking her. She told police officers the same thing. If you didn't save me, whatever. Another girlfriend recalled that Anderson choked her twice during their relationship. So it's not good. 2007, though he does have time between all these arrests to write to the editorial page of the bulletin newspaper under the what voters want in upcoming elections section. What he said. Quote, I'd like to see them do more for retired veterans. The Social Security increases aren't nearly enough. Yeah, thanks, Dickey. Thanks for your. From you. That means now. I don't want them to have that because you want them to have that. I want them to have that, but not you. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Selfish. He sounds like he wants it.

[James Pietragallo]

It just sounds like he cares about people when he doesn't, you know? So, Michelle, the reason why we're talking about him. Michelle was living with his dad, Dickie senior, during this time. When she was found dead, she was living with Dickey Senior. Dickey Senior, extensive record dwarfs his son, certainly. Yeah. Just a few highlights that I found in the newspaper, and I stopped picking them out because a lot of them were breach of peace, disorderly conduct, shit like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's just a menace.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. 10, 1989, December 23rd. Charged with fourth degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, not good then. 92, disorderly conduct and threatening. 1994, possession of crack cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia. 1995, Norwich drug bust yields several arrests, including him. This is search warrants executed. They seized crack cocaine with an estimated street value of $500, which is 2 grams of it or whatever. And marijuana valued at $200. Ooh. An ounce of dirt weed back then. But they still. They were charged with possession of cocaine within 1500ft of a school. Yeah, that's the fucking problem. This is several people, including Dickie Anderson here, who is charged with possession of cocaine within 1500ft of a school, possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia within 1500ft of a school. October 23, 1998. Dickey Anderson, second degree assault possession of crack cocaine. Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, 2000. Dickey Senior. Disorderly Conduct, 2004. Dickey Sr. Possession of an open container in public. And there's more. Drug busts and disorderly conducts and everything else. So now why the fuck are we talking about Dickey Jr. Because he got arrested for domestic violence, strangling his girlfriend. He got convicted of that under Connecticut law. Luckily, that's a felony strangulation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They take a DNA filon.

[James Pietragallo]

They take your dua.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, take your duis off.

[James Pietragallo]

When you do that. Take it off. Felons are required to provide samples to the state database, so they form the Southeastern Connecticut cold case unit. By the way, around this time, they end up matching Dickey Jr. S DNA as the unknown male DNA from Renee Pellegrino's vaginal swamp. Okay, so the police would love to have a chit chat with this guy. They bring him in, they sit him down. There's multiple people in there, by the way, local and state police. Anderson was in prison serving the sentence for attempted strangulation and unlawful restraint on his girlfriend. So they go to talk to him. Several. A retired detective sergeant, another detective sergeant, detectives, a lot of heavy hitters here. So they record this interview without his knowledge. He's in prison, so he has no rights. You don't have any rights in prison. Basically, they can record you whenever they want. So first they show him a photo of Renee Pellegrino, which was a mug shot from when she'd been arrested, and said, do you know her? And he said, no, no, I don't know her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Can't say that.

[James Pietragallo]

He signed a statement saying, I don't know who she is. So they said later on, one of the detectives said, we knew he was lying because of the DNA hit. We said, we know you're lying. They didn't tell him about the DNA yet. They just said, we know you're lying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We know you're lying.

[James Pietragallo]

He said, DNA. He's clamming up. He's fucking slamming shut. So they said, we know you're lying. And then his story changed. Now he'd said, all right, all right. Yeah, I'd seen her before. I know Pellegrino. He said, I worked a split shift at the day newspaper's mailroom on June 24, 1997, from 5 to 9pm then back from 12am to 3am that is a horrible work day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure is.

[James Pietragallo]

What a shit split shift. No, that's crazy. After the first shift, he said he had a beer with a CO worker at Ernie's Cafe met up with a friend and started walking toward his sister's home on Fern street in New London, on Washington Street. He said they saw Pellegrino arguing with a man in a blue station wagon. He said that she walked back with them and then left. Now the detectives. That meaning walk back? Yeah. These people. So he said they left a huge part out. Though he didn't mention how his DNA was with Renee.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. How did they have not just DNA? You jizz, man.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, they go, listen, you know, I meet a lot of women. My DNA isn't inside the vagina.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm rarely that happy to meet someone.

[James Pietragallo]

Exactly. Or even if I am, they're less happy to meet me. So he admitted, okay, fine, I had sex with Renee Pellegrino that night. So he goes from I've never seen her before to I had sex with her the night she died, which is a big leap and shit. He said, I gave her $20. He said he used a condom. They said, then how the fuck did we find DNA evidence? And he said, okay, no condom. So he then added another detail. He said when he went back to work and when he returned to his sister's apartment around 3:45am Pellegrino was back with a man named Darryl. He had sex with her again in his sister's basement. He said, so there you go. He then claimed that she left with Darryl. Now, police never found anyone named Darryl. Right. They found in one of his janitorial jobs, there was a guy that worked there named Darryl, but they didn't know each other really. And he, they never spent time together. So he was like a 66 year old Jewish man or something. He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't hang out with that guy. So they showed Anderson photo arrays. He could never pick out Darryl. Never find poor Darryl in that station wagon. But based on the timeline of Pellegrino's activity and the condition of her body, they estimated she was dumped between 4 and 6am here. So that's how it goes. Now, he does deny he killed her, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. So here's the timeline that they have set. Five to nine, he's working for the first shift at the mailroom. After nine, he has a beer with a co worker. Late evening, he claims to see Pellegrino on Washington arguing with a man in a blue station wagon, admits to having sex with her, giving her $20, then works the 12 to 3am shift. He had quite the intermission there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Shit.

[James Pietragallo]

3:45, returns to his sister's apartment on Fern Street. Claims Pellegrino arrived with a man named Daryl. Admits to having sex with Renee again in the basement. 4 to 6am based on body conditions and timelines, that's when they believe her body was dumped on Parkway south in Waterford during the rainstorm that 5am to 5:30am that's when that officer took her lunch break and noted the thunderstorm during that period. Now, the Renee connection, or, I'm sorry, the Michelle Camo connection, they said, do you know her? And he said, never heard of her. Don't know shit about her. But witnesses tell a much different tale. Multiple people said they'd seen Dickie with Michelle at Dickie's father's apartment on Boswell Avenue in Norwich because she was staying there. Yeah. And they said that was a. This witness or multiple witnesses described the residence as being frequented by prostitutes and drug users. In a March 2008 interview here. I'm sorry. 2009, he finally changed his story and said, that was my friend Michelle. That's what it was. She was just my friend. He admitted meeting Michelle at his father's apartment. He admitted that on the day of her death, he had, quote, exposed his penis to her in the bathroom.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice work.

[James Pietragallo]

Very classy. At his father's house. But he denied ever having sex with her and he denied killing her. He described himself to police in a way that they're gonna bring up in court a lot later. He called himself, quote, a trick artist.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Pietragallo]

Someone who, according to him, someone who traded crack cocaine for sex with prostitutes. A trick artist rather than cash. Yeah. Yeah. So they call his girlfriend. They talk to his girlfriend. Tony Wilson, longtime girlfriend, mother of his two children and strangulation victim, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, she said that around the time of Pellegrino. After Pellegrino's death. But around the time of Michelle's death, Dickie had come to her in a very emotional state and confessed to killing a woman.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

According to her, Dickie said he'd, quote, hooked up with a woman after they'd had sex. She demanded payment. He didn't want to pay. They fought. He killed her. Oh. So, yeah, by the way, she ends this relationship with Dickie here. Dickie sister Tanya Anderson here also implicates him. She said that after Michelle's murder, Dickie came to her and told her that a girl he was intimate with that, quote, he had. He had met at his father's apartment, had been found on the road Dead. So she also said that he couldn't. She couldn't recall exactly when his car accident happened, which affected whether he would have had access to a vehicle to transport Rene's body. So that's the thing. Now, 2009, investigators needed something to crack, so they place an inmate named Arthur Moore in his cell at the correctional facility.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Pietragallo]

He's 45 years old. He spent pretty much his whole life in prison. His rap sheet has 11 felony convictions. Drugs, weapons.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Super piece of shit.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, super bae's. The jail is where he's most comfortable. He said, we got comfortable because I knew somebody in his family. Talking about Dickie, he said. Then Dickey started talking. He said that he had caught a body. He said that something happened where he killed a female. Said he was tricking with her for $5, but she wanted more money. According to Moore, Anderson told him he put his hands around her neck and she shook her to try to get her to shut up. The woman was sleeping, Anderson said, so he called a friend who helped him take the woman to Waterford, where she was from, and pushed her out of the car. All right, so that would be. Wow. That would be Renee. He also said that Anderson made a statement that would. That quote, he would never have done it if he had known she was pregnant. Oh, so we know it's renewed. Regarding Michelle. Anderson told Moore that she had overdosed on drugs while they were having sex and that he just dropped her off over there by Franklin. And then she strangled herself to death, too, obviously, and tied herself up, too. That's the other thing that they do. When you od, you tend to just tie your hands and ankles together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You get real hot. You gotta strip down.

[James Pietragallo]

So investigators recall, planted a recording device in the cell. It recorded 12 and a half hours of conversation between them. No explicit confessions, but all those little things. So finally they go, I think we have enough here with the DNA and with people seeing them together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

DNA is a big deal.

[James Pietragallo]

That's a big deal. So finally, two years after they get a DNA hit, June 1, 2010, they arrest him for the murder of Renee Pellegrino. Bond set at 2.5 million. He's arraigned, and he says nothing. This is according to the newspaper, but turns and stares coldly at the media cameras as he was led away in shack. I don't know if it's Coley. He makes goofy faces in court.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. I'll post it on social media. Goofy shit. September 1, 2010, is when he's arrested for the murder of Michelle his bond has increased to $3.5 million now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Couldn't make two. He's not making three and a half.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Pietragallo]

For sure. 2010 and this is crazy. Monica Linskins saw Michelle, saw a picture of Michelle in September 2010. Monica is Michelle's biological daughter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh. And she's. She doesn't know her. She never met her before she was taken away immediately. So she doesn't know her. She said it was far from a flattering photo and she remembers the shock she experienced when she saw it. And read the accompanying newspaper article. About a decade old case of a drug addicted prostitute whose naked body was found dumped on a road sign. She said, for some reason I had always pictured a beautiful skinny blonde. I realized she was not the Cinderella I imagined. Okay. If your parents gave you up, you imagine there are these amazing people that are doing all this crazy stuff because they don't have time for you. So they must be like traveling the world and going to balls and things. Yeah. She already knew her biological mother was dead. She said she was 9 when her foster father sat her down and told her that she was adopted. And her mother's dead. God damn it. Two things. Good news, bad news. Bad news A. You're dying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Ready? Yeah. So the news had excited her until she was told that her mother was dead. So her foster father promised to bring her news clippings. So she said she needed answers. So it led to the first meeting with one of her two biological brothers to try to fill in some blanks. So this Michelle had a bunch of kids and she said that my foster parents told me what they could. Other people who had something to say about Michelle didn't have good things to say. So she said about her mom. She said mom obviously had problems. Michelle had the same problems. Meaning I guess the mom she was with, she was taken away like, oh, her mom, Michelle's mom had problems. She said she was taken away like I was. Sounds like she was always reaching out for somebody to help. I don't think she ever got that help. She said the good thing, only good thing about this is she got to meet her brother Pedro and that was it. So they've been posting things on the Internet looking for their younger brothers because they have more her brother that she found. That guy's girlfriend messaged her on Facebook and they met and they cried as they hung out at the mall in Waterford. She said she's still seeking her older brother out as well. She said that her older brother had remained a ward of the state. Till he was 18. He was never adopted, but took the name of his foster father, who he's living with now. She said now the brother, Asen is his name 20. He's 20 years old. He said he met his mother on several occasions as a child and has met Dickie Anderson Jr. Really knows him. Yeah, he said, I met that fucking guy that they arrested. He said that he feels his mom, quote, never got a fair shot. So that's what they said. The daughter said the whole case. I guess I look at it from the outside. She's my biological mother, but she was really never my mom. But Maddie took away my only chance to ever meet her. If she was completely drugged, that chance was taken away from me. For me, the hardest thing is knowing I will never get a chance to talk to her or to hear her voice. So they're going for a trial, delay the defense, really. They're saying, yeah, first of all, they try to get. The defense wants the cases severed, and the prosecution says, no, together. And they end up. They're gonna be tried together. What they want to delay, they're asking the judge to delay the start of the trial because of a witness statement they claim points to a different suspect. Oh, they say that there's a redacted police report that speaks for itself. It said it indicates that police spoke with a witness on February 23, 2000. Or as information that an individual other than the defendant is responsible for the murder of Renee Pellegrino. The interviewees never id'd in all of the paperwork, so they don't know. They said the witness, according to the report, recalled that his father told him other prostitutes that worked in New London area had stated that redacted killed Renee because she was pregnant with his baby. Okay, so that's the deal now. Doesn't get delayed that much. March 2012 is the trial in the gallery. And this is fucking crazy. These people are mature and good people, I would say. They had Rene Pellegrino's mother, Jean, and her sister Diane were all there. And they had Dickie's mom, Eileen, and his sister Tanya. And they, like, talk to each other all the time. They like. They spent time together, which is really interesting. They were right close to each other in the courtroom, and they would hold doors open for each other, have brief conversations. Hope you're doing okay. Hope you're doing okay. Prosecution's case is pretty simple. DNA pattern of inconsistent statements saying he first knew the victims, then he didn't, then admitting sexual contact. The jailhouse confession, his girlfriend's testimony about his confession to her. Two signature similarities between the murders with the ligature and manual strangulation marks and his documented history of violence against women, including two prior strangulation convictions. Yeah, the medical examiner. Yeah, the medical examiner said 6,000 cases. Only three were these, and Michelle and Renee were two of them. Okay, so I'm looking at him for third, basically, is what he's saying. Now, while the jury is out of the courtroom, the lawyers argue about entering photos of a vehicle that was investigated early on from a possible suspect. Suspect enough that they actually got a search warrant. The jury doesn't hear it, but they said that there was a rope that was the same size that was used as a ligature was found in that truck that they searched. Searched. That's not good. They did not say who the vehicle belonged to, though. In court now, the defense argued that Anderson's DNA only proved he had sex with Renee, not killed her. They pointed out that there was another unidentified DNA profile found on her body as well. Oh. Then they challenged the jailhouse informant's credibility. They also tried to point to the possible suspect, Clifford Gilliland, who had been convicted of killing Hope Baker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Pietragallo]

The other prostitutes are like, well, why not her? Or Becker? I'm sorry. So the jailhouse informant testifies, and this is a funny. I would have loved to have seen this back and forth. Stephen Carney, the prosecutor, had to keep interrupting him to translate jailhouse slang and street slang that he doesn't know. Moore said. He said he caught a body. And the prosecutor said, what does that mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah, and he said he was tricking her for five, but she wanted more money. And the. The prosecutor was just clueless about all this shit. So as he told the story to the jury, the prosecutor interrupted him frequently, like we said. And, you know, he said that he admitted to having sex with. He gave the story I already told you about the sleeping, strangled her cul de sac, all that stuff. So they said that Michelle's body. They talked about him and they have, you know, all this recorded conversation. Yep, Pretty much. Admitting but not admitting it. Under cross examination, though, Moore admits that he testified at a previous murder trial and that he had later recanted a statement. That's not good. Now he's a professional snitch. That's all he's doing. He said, I recanted my statement because my son was kidnapped. My son was kidnapped by a rival gang member that I saw kill somebody. That's too much drama. Now it goes to the jury here. Renee's mom, Jean, said she has mixed feelings about this because she's come to know and like Anderson's mother, Eileen, while they watched the trial, she said, me and Eileen are mothers, and we certainly didn't want this to happen to our children. But life happens, and you have to deal with the fallout. Wow. She said Renee is lost no matter what happens, because he lied so much and tried to get out of it. Get out of it so much and confessed to his longtime girlfriend that he killed somebody. He said, I believe that he probably did it, is what she said. Seven days of deliberations. Here we go. Seven days. 12 jury, 12 panel jury. Obviously, they find him first of all, because it's two separate cases. They find him guilty of murdering Rene Pellegrino, and then it comes in for Michelle Comeau, and they find him nothing. Hung jury, mistrial on that one. They have hung jury.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If he killed one and the other, then they guess. I don't know if they bring in prior bad acts. Well, it's the same trial, so that.

[James Pietragallo]

It'S concurrent bad acts. It's parallel bad acts. And on top of that, she fucking was at his dad's house all the time. Like, if he killed one and did it in that way, he definitely killed the other one. If he had no connection to her, I could say. See, if they were only saying, we think he killed her because of the MO is the same, I'd go, okay, maybe somebody else got.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But if he's convicted of the mo's the same, it's gotta be him. Right?

[James Pietragallo]

And he knows her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. And is familiar with her.

[James Pietragallo]

And she's living at his dad's house, for Christ's sake. So they find that mistrial. There is one lone holdout.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Pietragallo]

During sentencing, Dickie's wearing a tan prison jumpsuit. His mother, Eileen, and his sister Tanya are there. His two sons are there. Before the proceedings began, Dickey turned to his children and said, whatever you do, behave yourselves. So that's that. Renee's sister gave her victim impact statement. As a Christian, I'm called to show kindness to those who would do harm to me. When you come to mind, I pray that God softens your hardened heart. In your darkest hours. I pray you are haunted by the things you have done and turn to Jesus. She called Renee a complex soul. And you know, all that kind of thing. Mom Jean said, we miss her terribly. I miss the way our life was before this happened. Not only is my family going through life with this sorrow, but Renee was carrying a baby that would have Been my grandson, who I wanted to get to know and love. It's just been a lifetime of sadness.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, for sure.

[James Pietragallo]

That is a good way to describe this whole affair. Dickie speaks for himself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

He said, I maintained my innocence. I want to continue on and thank the Pellegrino family for their words, meaning caring about his family. The judge has a different way of putting things to him. The judge said, the victim here suffered beyond my ability to comprehend. Before her passing, she was virtually tortured, as evidenced by her strangulation both manually and with a ligature. My job today is to see to it that you are separated from society for as long as possible. You've had an unbroken string of criminal conduct. You, sir, may fuck off. 60 years in prison, which is the maximum. Dang. That's the max.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unfree for 60 years.

[James Pietragallo]

Unfree. Dickey's mom said, justice is not blind. It's blindfolded. He's not the perfect person, but I know he didn't kill these people. We know he's not guilty, really. But then Jean came out and she said, we'll keep you in your prayer. We'll keep you in our prayers. So they're getting along still. The prosecutor said, I'm just glad it's over. I think justice has been served. I don't want to talk about it anymore. So in the jury room, there's a woman named Juanita Zamora who's one of the jurors, not the one that held out. And. And she was saying that she's disappointed with the outcome, but felt the jury members were thorough in their analysis. She said, I was very impressed how everybody worked together. She said they were all emotionally drained from the trial, from viewing crime scene and autopsy photos of naked pictures of these women. It was rough. She said that behind the scenes in the deliberations, most of the jurors saw the similarities between the murders. She said early on in deliberation, the jurors set up an easel and a poster board, charting the case and filling the room with post it notes of information. She said there were sticky notes everywhere we turned. Everybody expressed how they felt. At first, a lot of people were uncertain. We started looking at each other. We started looking at each report, asking where everything fell into place. We started putting them together like a puzzle. We took so long because we wanted to make sure we were on the the same page. We broke the case up again and again with the Pellegrino case. We voted four or five times. Everybody was unanimous. They didn't need to be killed. And displayed in such a humiliating manner. Both were caught and trapped in one of life's deceiving webs, as many others are. She said that one of the key things why she convicted on one and not the other was because they were seen together on the night of Pellegrino's murder. Right. They were seen together, she said everything fell into place. Whereas Michelle's murder was different. She said, we had limited evidence, but we went over it again and again. The positions of the body were not exactly identical and the markings were not exactly identical, but they were basically in the same place. In the end, most of the jurors agreed he was guilty. She said everyone was tired. Then we tried to convince her, the holdout, have the person see what we were seeing, but she wouldn't budge. December 12, 2012. Another trial. Are they going to try him again? The senior state's attorney, Paul Narducci, requests a null. Basically a non prosecutor. Yeah. Saying the state will not retry that case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We'll figure it out later. If he gets out on the other one.

[James Pietragallo]

Yeah. 2015. He appeals the judgment of conviction, claiming that the trial court abused its discretion in consolidating the cases for trial because the state had failed to meet its burden of establishing either that the evidence was cross admissible or that the defendant would not be substantially prejudiced by the joinder. Which I think the fact that he was not convicted of one of them means that he wasn't substantially prejudiced. Right there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Pietragallo]

Because they're saying they're obviously convicted of both. Unless if he gets convicted of one, and the facts are he didn't get caught convicted of both. So your argument holds no water at all. You're holding your arms in a big O, going, that'll hold water as it just flows right down to the ground. Doesn't make any sense. And it's denied, obviously.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

2016, last little bit here. A hearing was held before a judge to determine who, if anyone, should receive the $50,000 reward money. Who? Oh, anyone, if anyone. Two people applied. Tony Wilson, Anderson's longtime girlfriend and strangle victim, and Arthur Moore, the jailhouse informant. They both applied for it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, you recanted, sir. Go the fuck.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no, he recanted at a different trial. Yeah. He's just a professional witness Now. Wilson said she hadn't known about the reward when she first spoke to investigators. Her attorney said her level of cooperation would not have changed, regardless of the reward. But Wilson also shared this, that her oldest son now blames her for his father's Incarceration, Really? Yeah, because that was. Part of it was that he'd got in trouble for strangling her. Gee, sorry. I don't let him just. People strangle me left and right. Kick that kid's ass. So Moore's application ran into trouble immediately. Under questioning, he admitted he would not have testified at Anderson's trial had he not been offered a reward. That's called quid pro quo. That's not how you testify. He also admitted that he'd testified at previous murder trials and later recanted a statement claiming his son had been kidnapped by the gang member. The state's attorney general also says he owes $48,000 in unpaid child support and asked that if he does get the reward, that the reward be used to pay his debt. Tony Wilson would later apply for the portion of it. And apparently, from what I understand, Tony Wilson got some of the $50,000, and she's the only one who got anything out of it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right, good.

[James Pietragallo]

Now he remains in jail and will remain there for a long fucking time. Yeah, I think. What is it? Maybe I want to say 20 is eligible for parole at some point, but it's in the future. 50 years down now. Yeah, it's down the fucking road. So there you go, everybody. There's Waterford, Connecticut, and I. Goddamn. Just a weird case. Tragic. I feel terrible for these two. Couldn't have been more different. Kind of women ended up in the same spot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's just horrible. Did worse, right?

[James Pietragallo]

He probably did way more of these. Who the fuck strangles and kills two prostitutes and then stops and then quits? Yeah, and then quits. If you do it once, you might stop and go, that was horrible. If you do it twice, you liked it once. And that's the way you get over on them. And he tells people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You don't tell people after your first murder.

[James Pietragallo]

No, no. That's what I mean. I'm sorry. This guy. There's more, is what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And that area of the country is riddled with drug issues and people and.

[James Pietragallo]

Caves and everything else. There's a lot of places these people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Could be and people that can disappear real easy.

[James Pietragallo]

Absolutely. Yeah. People have left their families or wherever and came to New York and ended up on the street somewhere. So it happens. So anyway, there you go, everybody. If you like this story or like the way we tell it, I should say it's a terrible story, but you should get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars, because it helps tremendously. We don't know why, but it helps drive you up the charts us anyway, so do that. Definitely. Also follow on social media at Smalltown, Murder on Instagram, at Smalltown, Pod on Facebook. Get yourself also. I'm sorry, go to shutupandgimurder.com get your tickets for live shows. We are starting out. All of 2026 is available. Some of the shows are selling like almost out already. So get your tickets if you want them. February 21st in Nashville. Get those right away.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's where we kick it off.

[James Pietragallo]

Then we're going to go Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Salt Lake City. Sold out, don't worry about that. Denver, Buffalo is almost sold out, so get in there. Royal Oak, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Terrytown and Boston. So get in there. Northern California people, I got to tell you, for some reason they don't attend. We're told that shows aren't well, you always come to our shows but we're told that they're not well attended up there and all that. Buy some tickets and get your reps up, guys. Get your reps up. Your reputations are not just us buy everything. Yeah, well, people are telling. That's what I mean. Anywhere. Because people are literally like, oh, you don't want to go up there. And we're like, no, we do. We do though. We'll find. We'll go there. We don't give a shit. Now we'll be sitting there, probably a half full theater now it'll be empty. So buy your goddamn tickets because we're trying to stick up for you people. Then you get yourself patreon. Patreon.com crimeinsports anybody $5 a month or above, you get everything. We put out hundreds of back bonus episodes immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. You get it all this week. Crime and sports, worst NFL weather, games balls floating away, people fucking getting lost in snow. It's crazy shit. Then for small town murder, an old mall that turned into a flea market that fucking collapsed on a lot of people. It's crazy shit. Or old timey crimes, which is very popular in our Patreon. The poll is up at Patreon right now. So you can go there and get your vote cast and tell us what you want there and sign up so you can vote. Do that and keep coming and seeing us also. You get everything we put out with that. Not only do you get the episodes, you also get everything we do. Crime and sports. You stupid opinion, small time murder, all advertising free with that as well. And you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never, ever strangle us unmercifully and leave us for dead in the road. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This week's executive producer, Gary Howard in West Memphis.

[James Pietragallo]

Oh, watch out, Gary.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Pietragallo]

Don't get. Don't. Don't end up in the woods.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stay in the truck. Alana Zammel. Alana Zamel, Elena Zammel, Destiny Sassman and Larry Butterfest. Happy birthday, Larry.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you so much.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're the best. Other producers this week are Happy Hour checking in Conroe on behalf of first responders and truck drivers and anyone that didn't go home for Christmas. That's brutal.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Scarlet Horbeast iii. Thomas Smith. Bailey Kunst. Chris Dralope. Draloop. Draloo.

[James Pietragallo]

Up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Mark. Mark. No, that's Jim Marcus. Molly Redmond. Kristen with no last name. Corey Frankenhauser. No one with no last name nor first name. Alan Eggert. Joe Logano. Mark with no last name. Ashley Howd. Rachel Lysack. Cynthia Olson. Macy Mackenzie. Reagan. Reagan. Reagan. Reagan. Peel. Regan Peel. That might be one of them. I might be one that up. I don't know if I typed that right.

[James Pietragallo]

One of the. One of the two.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Patrice S. Jacob Bickmore. Ashley Peck. Dennis Perkins. Curtis with no last name. Susan Summa. Joanne Robinson. Chris with no last name. Barbie Bayer. Sean Thompson. Richard with no last name. Danielle Turner. Anna. That's Ann Elmquest. Kate with no last name. Jody Kimball. Nick with no last name. Melissa. Sir. Got. Sir.

[James Pietragallo]

Go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Perhaps. Anne Marie Reynolds. Law dog 86. Brooke. Gabriel. Gabriel. Gabriel. Samantha Savory. What is it? Sophie Millard. Crystal Parker And Laura Kumani. L. Pitner. L. Pitner. Jackie Sewell. Diane Knight. Joe Jose. Jose Ochoa. Jackie o. Carmen Wimpy. ZRT509. Jackie. Oh, that's a person. Michael Rapaport. Probably not, right?

[James Pietragallo]

Who knows?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I couldn't see that.

[James Pietragallo]

I don't know why he's giving us money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He better hang on to that. Sir. Alex. Name. Kat with no last name. Christina Leonard. Aaron Maloney. Abby Grimes. Josh Davis. Tamara. Tamara Muring. Zeus Zous Zeter. Amanda Schwartz. Nope, it's just Schwartz. Samantha F. Angie Bamboo Mike with no last name. Angela Sensica. Sunik. Open with no last name. Anika. Annika Hankel. Chris Clinton. Rachel Norland. Brian Maddox. Belinda Hein. Liz McCoy. Chris LaBerge. Matt with no last name. Susan Mazer. Renee with no last name. Paige Schnepple. Darius Thompson, Taylor with no last name. Peyton Riddle. Aaron Langenkamp. Chris with no last name. Kelly Truesdale. Truesdale. Mark. Chapadillane. Chapdelaine. Avery. Ann, Jess. Megan Harper, Jeffrey Hahn, Robert Green, Charmaine Pentagrass. Paragraph. Sherry Lynn, Will Randolph.

[James Pietragallo]

Give up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ashley Demarco. Jeff Baber. Babar Baber. Right. Gene or Gene. Gene Hummel. Ian with no last name. Jody with no last name. Kc T. Jennifer Nye, April West. Benjamin Paul, Lori Brecken, Scott Durand. Dublin. D, E, M. The letters E and M. Stacy Miller, Emily Bueller, Bray. Yeah. Bracey Ellington. Bracey Uno with no last name. Janice, Gene, Ice Nailey and Mike Enright. Snoop Dogg. Probably Snoot Dog. Very funny.

[James Pietragallo]

A little different.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Rick barton, Sean Berry, McKenna Bowler, Kyle Ganekin, Janekin. Jenny Can, Allison Cheshire Cameron with no last name. Linda Dunham. Is that right? Quinn with no last name. Ryan Taylor, Renee. Rihanna. Ray Anna Williams, Tyler Hoff or Ho.

[James Pietragallo]

Is that Rihanna? Good. We can ask her about Matt Barnes. That whole mess. Listen to crime and sports. If you're listening to this move with no last name.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Tasha with no last name. Rebecca. I Y. John Schueller.

[James Pietragallo]

Yep.

[Jimmy Wissman]

J. Smith. Beth Donahue. N.B. sedwin. Heywood. Jablomi. No a Kitts. Sarah Van Houten. Oh, is that right? Van Houten.

[James Pietragallo]

Is that like Milhouse's mom or the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Lady that helped murder?

[James Pietragallo]

Or one of the two?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Amanda Compton. Creepy Carters. Jameson Wagner, Sean Thorne. Rough hands daily. Matthew Stanley, kc, Sean Starner, Morgan Rizzo, Ruzzo. Stella with no last name. Shara Curley, Andy Keebs, Curbs. Exeter, Exeter Stevens, Lori Roach, Kara Gabriel, Michelle, Cristiano Stokes with no last name. Christy Richardson and Spud Schreiber. Ginger Noble, Sean Stevens, Rebecca Saunders and every person that patrons the show. Thank you.

[James Pietragallo]

Thank you so much, everybody. You're fantastic. We can't thank you enough for all that you do for us. Keep coming. Keep hanging out with us. Go to the shutupandgivemerder.com if you want to follow us on social media. It's all there to find, so keep coming back and seeing us. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye.

[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Pietragallo]

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