The Babysitter Murder - Moorhead, Minnesota

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder - “The Babysitter Murder” (Moorhead, Minnesota)

Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
Date: March 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, James and Jimmie travel to Moorhead, Minnesota, to explore a highly complex and disturbing murder case—known as "The Babysitter Murder." Centered around the 1997 killing of 22-year-old Ann Marie Camp, the episode delves into small town quirks, gets up close with the psychology of the major players, and traces a story of manipulation, tragic friendship, and unclear justice—all presented with the hosts’ trademark irreverent humor and sharp commentary.

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Town Profile: Moorhead, Minnesota

[04:50–19:15]

• Positioned on the far western edge of Minnesota, next to Fargo, ND
• Population: ~44,000 (including a sizable influx of college students)
• Strongly influenced by Scandinavian heritage (see: annual Hjemkomst Festival)
• “Your Hometown” is the town motto—classic polite Midwest vibes
• Known for:
  • The destination Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens tragically never reached
  • First Dairy Queen to sell Dilly Bars (and still serves weird off-brand treats)
• Reviews range from glowing about the college town feel and friendly people, to critical for harsh winters and patchy infrastructure
• Hosts riff on Minnesota’s weather and small town quirks:

  “[about the winters] Oh yeah, this is it. Definitely. The people who aren't serious, they're not coming.” (14:39, A)

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Introducing the Players

[25:35–43:51]

Jamie Dennis (Victim’s “Best Friend” & Perpetrator)

• Born 1971, adopted; father dies in a plane crash when she’s 5
• Troubled childhood and possible abuse allegations (unclear veracity)
• Described by family as extremely manipulative and “takes things just to mess with people”
• A talented writer with a self-created alter ego, “Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux”:

  “Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux leaves no stone unturned. You can see her.” (46:42, A)

• Obsessed with serial killers; wrote to Charles Manson, kept detailed criminal files
• Petty crime history—car theft, phone fraud, shoplifting
• Not naturally maternal, often left her children with others to go out partying

Michael Giannakos (Jamie’s Partner)

• Grew up bullied (“Porky” as a nickname), socially awkward, dreamed of priesthood for belonging
• Met Jamie when she was 9 months pregnant; became stepdad to her daughter, had another child together
• Described as passive, conflict-averse, and easily manipulated by Jamie
• Eventually worked the night shift at a Super 8 motel, which Jamie would soon target for robbery

Ann Marie Camp (Victim)

• 22, described as mentally ill (bipolar), socially isolated, but “very sweet”
• Suffered greatly from social ostracism and sexual assault as a teen
• Struggling for custody of her daughter from an abusive ex, Andy; fighting to prove her stability

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The Setup: Friendships and Fraud

[43:51–95:04]

• Jamie and Ann Marie become fast friends in late 1996, through Ann’s mother, who lives in the same apartment complex as Jamie
• Ann is one of the rare people Jamie can control; Ann is grateful for any attention/friendship
• Jamie regularly leaves her children with Ann and family to barhop and chase men

  “Imagine going to a complete stranger … ‘Hi, can you watch my kids so I can go party?’” (92:01, A)

The Super 8 Robbery

[95:04–98:43]

• January 1997: Jamie persuades Michael to stage a fake robbery at his motel job

  • Michael is tied up; Jamie steals ~$1,000 and returns home

• Ann, unwittingly babysitting, later confirms Jamie left the house that night with lots of cash

• When police question Michael, he quickly folds under pressure; Jamie stonewalls and denies

  “He is not good at this. … He gave it up. He said, ‘I wanted to confess, but I was afraid of Jamie.'” (97:01, A)

• Jamie, fearing Michael will incriminate her, hastily marries him on Valentine’s Day 1997 to invoke marital privilege

  “She's gonna take advantage of—can’t rat on your spouse.” (103:43, B)

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The Crime: The Babysitter Murder

[111:08–121:08]

The Disappearance

• May 1, 1997: Jamie and Michael invite Ann (under the guise of looking at a farmhouse) to drive into the countryside
• On the drive, Ann is given a Fuzzy Navel wine cooler (laced with massive amounts of sleeping pills)
• Jamie claims the plan was “to scare Ann into not testifying”—but Ann never returns

Discovery

• Ann is reported missing by her mother (May 4)

• Her body is found by a farmer a week later, badly decomposed:

  • Highest dose of doxylamine (sleeping agent) ever seen by the medical examiner
  • Throat slit
  • Face/head nearly destroyed by a 12-gauge shotgun

  “It was horrible. Shot twice in the head with a 12 gauge… and her throat had been cut.” (119:48, A)

• Suspects initially include Ann’s abusive ex, Andy, but the trail circles back to Jamie and Michael

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Investigation & Legal Maneuvering

[121:41–172:03]

Turning on Each Other

• Incarcerated family, cellmates, and Michael’s own curiosity uncover Jamie’s tell-all diary entries that eerily match the crime
• Jamie is described as “increasing in criminal sophistication” by probation officers; continues stealing and shoplifting
• Defense and prosecution battle over admissibility of spousal testimony (marital privilege)—a key trial theme

Courtroom Drama

• Jamie cuts a deal: 25 years (reduced to 16) for testifying against Michael in state court
• Jamie’s testimony: Gives vivid but disputed details of Michael’s supposed direct involvement (cutting Ann’s throat, firing the gun), but her narrative is increasingly called into question by forensic evidence

  “Jamie accused Michael of planning the murder but the medical examiner said it couldn’t have happened the way she described…” (155:19, A)

• Michael’s defense: He wasn’t there, and was set up by Jamie

Verbal & Legal Highlights

• The jury is suspiciously compromised—a juror is observed mouthing “he’s guilty” mid-trial yet is retained, a detail both hosts skewer
• Federal jurisdiction invoked on a technicality (Ann was taken across state lines from Fargo to Minnesota), allowing Jamie’s testimony under federal marital crime exception

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Verdicts and Aftermath

[154:16–180:29]

• Jamie:

  • Serves 16 years (released 2016); subsequently tries (and fails) to overturn her own conviction
  • Victim’s family is blunt:

    "Hopefully she can do something productive, not just killing people's kids like a loser." (172:40, A)

• Michael:

  • First still convicted of first-degree murder in state court—overturned due to privilege violation
  • Re-tried in federal court—found NOT guilty of causing death by firearm, but GUILTY on kidnapping resulting in death
  • Sentenced to life in federal prison (no parole), despite ongoing appeals
  • Life in prison marked by violence, including being shot by guards and multiple assaults
  • Daughter Myra campaigns for his compassionate release:

    “He’s been beaten up and shot. … He just wants to help us … just wants a family.” (176:53, B)

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Reflections & Hosts’ Take

• The case remains a tragic ambiguously unresolved moral mess, with many compelling indications that Jamie was the manipulative driver and Michael a deeply weak, possibly unwilling participant.
• Hosts point out the gross injustice and doubt cast by Jamie’s storytelling and the lack of solid evidence directly implicating Michael as the killer.
• Ann is mourned as “just a nice woman… all she did was answer a question honestly.” (181:15, A)

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Memorable Quotes

• “If you took all the urine related crimes away, what would the crime rate be for a college town? —Zero.” [23:54, B]
• "Imagine going to a complete stranger… 'Can you watch my kids so I can party?'" [92:01, A]
• "Whether you're into unsolved mysteries, solved mysteries, or creating your own mysteries, Amazon Music…" (hosts mock mid-episode ad fatigue) [00:01, A]
• “The plan was only to scare Ann…” (Jamie’s self-exculpatory claim) [133:32, A]
• “He is not good at this… He gave it up. ‘I wanted to confess, but I was afraid of Jamie.’” [97:01, A]
• “I can't believe you can go to jail for eight months for making some long-distance calls!” [74:28, B]
• “Remember Myra? Their daughter? She tries to help him... She believes her father was manipulated.” [175:30, A]
• "If you put a gun to my head? I'd say Jamie definitely drove this all through—don't know if Michael did the murder part." [177:40, A]

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Notable Moments

• [05:07] – Bizarre, winding town facts (Dairy Queen, Big Lebowski debate)
• [46:15] – Analysis of Jamie’s “alter ego” writings
• [56:09] – Jamie’s inappropriate relationships at juvenile hall
• [67:10] – Michael and Jamie’s first encounter (while she’s 9 months pregnant, at karaoke)
• [103:43] – Valentine’s Day wedding to invoke spousal privilege
• [132:30] – Cellmate ratting out Jamie’s jailhouse confession
• [164:42] – Juror misconduct (“he’s guilty!”) during federal trial
• [172:40] – Victim’s mother’s biting statement after Jamie’s release

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Town Background & Small Talk: 04:50–19:15
• Jamie’s Early Life & Psychology: 25:35–43:51
• The Murder Plan & Execution: 111:08–121:08, 134:20–137:50
• Discovery & Investigation: 119:47–128:09
• State Trial, Privilege Battle, and Overturn: 144:09–160:04
• Federal Trial & Outcomes: 160:04–172:03
• Aftermath & Reflections: 172:03–180:29

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Conclusion

A thoroughly researched—and deeply unsettling—case where small town charm, narcissistic manipulation, and legal technicalities combine for a uniquely frustrating experience. The hosts never minimize the tragedy, but their irreverence for the judicial system, bizarre crime, and oddball personalities makes for a wild and memorable episode.

Tune in if you want:

• True crime with rich, humanizing profiles
• A case where justice might not feel just
• The highs and lows of small town Midwest America

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Next Week Teaser:
A Small Town Murder Patreon special on real-life Stockholm Syndrome!

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Transcript

[A]

Whether you're into unsolved mysteries, solved mysteries, or creating your own mysteries, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad free included with Prime. Look at him eating whatever he wants, never gaining a pound. Well, I'm stuck with the boring special and can't lose an ounce.

[B]

How's your lunch, man?

[A]

Amazing. Yours?

[B]

So good.

[A]

Oh, I'm so happy for you. Cool, buddy. Weight loss isn't fair, but Mochi health is the affordable GLP1 source that can fix your frustration with food.

[B]

So same time next week?

[A]

No, Definitely. And your friends learn [e-mail] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary this week in Moorhead, Minnesota, when a woman is found butchered at an abandoned farmhouse. Detectives search for the killer, initially blaming her ex. But the whole thing turns out to be way darker and more depraved than they initially thought. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[B]

I'm Jimmy Wisman.

[A]

Thank you, folks so much for joining us today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder. It just keeps getting nuttier and nuttier. And we have another wild one ahead of you, ahead of all of us here for this week. Before we get to that, though, for sure, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com get your tickets for live shows. They're going fast. The next live show is gonna be Salt Lake City. That's sold out. Denver on May 2nd. There's tickets available for that Brick Buffalo. Sold out. And then May 30, Royal Oak, Michigan, outside of Detroit there. That's the next round of shows there. And then we kind of take a summer break and then we're back in September. So do that. That is shut up and give me murder dot com. All your merch can be gotten there as well. Everything from skateboards to coffee cups. Whatever you want, we have it there. So do that. Listen to our other two shows, of course, as well. You got crime and sports and you got your stupid opinions and they're hilarious. And if you're not listening to them, you're missing out. I don't know. You should check them out. It's not our fault. We've told you. We've let you know. Then get yourself Patreon. That's what you need.

[B]

That's the big stuff.

[A]

That's the big one. Patreon.com CrimeInSports Just like the name of our other Show There anybody, $5 a month or above, you're going to get everything that we have to offer, Everything. Immediately upon subscription, you get hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before. You get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get them all this week. What we're gonna get into for small town murder is Stockholm syndrome. Now we've all heard of Stockholm syndrome. You start sympathizing with your captors type of thing.

[B]

But people don't fall in love with them sometimes.

[A]

Well, that's the thing. People don't know where the term came from. A lot of people. And the story of where Stockholm syndrome came from, the particular incident, is the craziest story of captivity anyone's ever. Let's turn. So we're gonna hear about it and why it was so crazy that it coined a syndrome. So we'll do that. That will be Patreon do. And in addition to that, you get all the shows we put out. Crime and sports, you, stupid opinions and small town murder all ad free with your Patreon Ad free. Ad free. And you get a shout out at the end of the show where Jimmy will mispronounce your name even though it's, you know, he'd love to get it correct. He'd love to get it correct. He really would. So that said, disclaimer time. This is a comedy show. It is. We're comedians, unfortunately, people are gonna die. I mean, that's kind of in the title. You know, that's gonna happen and you know, we're gonna make jokes, but the thing is, you don't really cross the streams is how it works there. Kind of Ghostbusters style. That's it. I mean, we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[B]

Why, James?

[A]

Because we're assholes. But. But we're not scumbags. That's how it works there, you know, that sounds good to you. You're gonna hear a wild story I'm telling you right now. If you don't think true crime and comedy should ever, ever go together in any aspect, we might not be for you, but we might be give it a chance and realize where it's coming from. You know what I mean? You should know pretty much up front if you would like this sort of thing. So there you go. Either way though, I think it's time everybody to sit back. What do you Say here. Let's all clear the lungs. Let's do this. Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We are going to Minnesota this week.

[B]

It's a nice place, Minnesota.

[A]

It's barely Minnesota, too. Where we're going, it's pretty much North Dakota over there.

[B]

It's way on the west side.

[A]

On the west side, it's Moorhead. MO O R H E A D no E In there. Morehead.

[B]

Is that not where in. Well, never mind. You didn't watch the Big Lebowski. I think that's where Bunny's families ranch was. That was in Moorhead, Minnesota.

[A]

I don't know. Impossible.

[B]

Show her this picture. It'll make her want to go home is what her parents said.

[A]

Okay. Well, there you go. I think that's true. It's fucked up because I love the Coen Brothers. I hate the Big Lebowski. Hate it. Love that. And Burn After Reading are the two that they make me physically angry to watch.

[B]

Yeah, I don't want to watch that one.

[A]

Can't stand them. And I love every other Coen brothers movie. So it's really weird that I either love them or literally want to, like, burn After Reading. I got the DVD and burned it back in the day, and when I was done with it, I took it out in the yard and frisbeed it out there because I was so angry at them for making it because it sucked so bad. This is Moorhead in western Minnesota, and everybody loves Lebowski, so I know you love it. I'm not good for you. Great.

[B]

The parts that I hate are the flash aways to the absurd, when the dude's floating in the air when he's in the bowling ball. All that shit drives me crazy.

[A]

Fargo or raising Arizona any day or

[B]

Blood simple and the nihilists running with the scissors. I hate all of that.

[A]

That's the stuff that I was like, okay, I'm done with this. So this is far western Minnesota. About three and a half hours to Minneapolis. So way away from there. Ten minutes to Fargo though, North Dakota.

[B]

Is that right?

[A]

Speaking of Fargo. See wraps right around here. You think we were going off on some weird Coen brothers thing? No, no, no. Tied it right back.

[B]

It's right there.

[A]

3 hours and 40 minutes to Shakopee, Minnesota, which was our last Minnesota episode. It's Been a while. Episode 608. This is so It's Been a While. That was the bloody headless mess where the guy pulled into an intersection and pulled a corpse out of the car and started working it over. That was crazy.

[B]

Are the Coen brothers from this area?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

That's a lot of. That's a lot of references to that particular area.

[A]

If that's true, wouldn't surprise me. Or either that or they find this area fascinating, one or the other.

[B]

But Tarantino mentions Tennessee all the time. Because that's where he's from.

[A]

Yeah, that would definitely not surprise me. This is in Clay county. Area code 218. The motto here is your hometown.

[B]

You betcha.

[A]

Yours, not mine if you want it. It's your hometown. History here. Platted in 1871. Named after William Galloway Moorhead. That sounds like a very regal name. You know what he did for a living?

[B]

Was he a logger?

[A]

Northern Pacific Railway official, as that always is.

[B]

A brake man, some shit like that.

[A]

And the brother in law of a financier. So he's the ultimate like brother in law hire just. Yeah, I don't know. My brother in law needed a job

[B]

right out the middle.

[A]

It's wild. So the former Moorhead Armory on fifth street south was the site of the intended concert destination in 1959 of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. This is where they were headed.

[B]

This is where we're going.

[A]

Yes, that's exactly where.

[B]

And Waylon Jennings.

[A]

There you go. This is where it happened. Didn't happen here, but they were on their way here.

[B]

It would have been.

[A]

It would have been here. Yeah, that building was demolished later on. And now it's a senior living property, which is appropriate. Cause those guys would be very elderly if they were alive right now.

[B]

They'd certainly need it.

[A]

Super, super. If they weren't already dead, they'd really need it.

[B]

They'd probably be dead by now. Right?

[A]

They'd be about 96 years old if they weren't dead. Cause Richie Valens, maybe he would be in maybe 91 or something. Cause he was the young guy in the group. Moorhead is home to the first Dairy Queen to sell Dilly Bars. Good for you, Moorhead.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Shit, yeah. Dilly Bars are delicious, by the way.

[B]

Is that soft serve with coating on it on a stick? Is that what it is?

[A]

Yeah, it's there with the chocolate on it. Or strawberry or whatever.

[B]

Right. It came in the sleeve. That's right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're so good.

[A]

Yeah. Moorhead Dairy Queen is one of only a few Dairy Queens operating on a contract signed in 1949 that allows it to feature products that are not approved by corporate headquarters.

[B]

They can go off script.

[A]

They can sell veal parmesan here if they want to. They can do whatever they want. I don't know how that would fit in with their menu, but jelly bar

[B]

sandwiches or some shit.

[A]

You could totally do it. One example is the chipper sandwich, which is vanilla ice cream between chocolate chip cookies and dipped in chocolate. Who wouldn't want that?

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Now, Moorhead itself is a college town. It is home to two universities. Minnesota State University and University. Moorhead and Concordia College.

[B]

I think I've heard of that.

[A]

All I know about Moorhead is I believe that's where Phil Sims went to college. The ex Giants quarterback.

[B]

That might be why I've heard.

[A]

And I don't think they have a football team anymore. I think that's part of it. Reviews of this town. It's only has 3.7 on niche by the way, which is low. It seems like people would like this kind of town. Five stars. Moorhead has a small town feeling, but with the perks of a bigger city. Since Fargo is considered to be basically the same town. The people here are really friendly. And the two colleges, universities are outstanding and well known.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So don't fuck around with that.

[B]

And the fucking DQ serves crazy shit.

[A]

They'll serve anything. They could just come up there.

[B]

They're off script. Goddammit.

[A]

It's amazing. You could just have a turkey sandwich dipped in strawberry and it's put on a stick and it's frozen.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

That's what you got now. Three stars. Moorhead is a nice quiet little city. However, there are some areas of town that could use a bit of sprucing

[B]

up, if you know what I mean.

[A]

How nice is that? That's so Minnesota. Like. Listen, I don't want to say anything bad. I'll just. It's a nice place. A couple parts. Let's use a bit of sprucing up. That's all I'm saying. It's very good.

[B]

Use a coat of Pine Sol, you

[A]

know what I mean? Just a quick one. Three stars. It's okay in terms of people. Okay. The roads are in really bad condition though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the people are fine.

[B]

It is fucking ice there for eight months.

[A]

Freezes and unfreezes. Yeah. You can't. You gotta constantly fix those roads.

[B]

I would think they'd have to repave those every year.

[A]

So hard. Constantly work patching. A lot of patching is here. It's the Same thing. A lot of patching. Two stars. It gets very cold in the winter in northwestern Minnesota.

[B]

Is that right?

[A]

No shit. No.

[B]

Damn near. Canada. Is that right?

[A]

Cold in the winter. Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I would have thought maybe in the spring. Winter's cold here. You say sometimes the streets aren't cleaned and cars get stuck because it snows.

[B]

Feet there, you have to, you know, because it's Minnesota.

[A]

You're in Minnesota. Don't complain about the snow. That's like being in Miami and you're like, hot, hot, hot.

[B]

Fuck is there so much sun?

[A]

That's it. Phoenix. You know what I did? I moved. That's it. And stopped complaining about the heat. It was to be expected. One star. I've already elaborated on this several times now. Okay, we're not in your. To who?

[B]

That's it.

[A]

I yelled at my husband. There is really not much more to say. That's the whole review. I've said what I had to say.

[B]

I've been through this for my entire life, telling everybody, if you weren't there, you missed it.

[A]

You missed it. Sorry. People in this town. 44,129. So pretty big. It's a pretty big little town. And everybody describes it as like a small town, but. Well, I think the colleges, too, are a lot of those kids. So they. They're probably crammed into those areas.

[B]

That population is likely temporary too, right?

[A]

A lot of it, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Spring break, they leave.

[A]

Not there. In the summer, they leave, Yeah. I don't know if we've had this, by the way, in 682 other episodes, but men and women, exactly. 50. 50 in this town.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

They nailed the ratio. It's perfect. Everybody's there. We have median age here of 31 because of the colleges. Obviously, drives that down a little bit. 44.6% married. A little below the national average. Again, college kids tend to be less married in general, unless it's Utah.

[B]

So they're beginning their life.

[A]

They're starting. Yeah. They haven't given up quite yet. So race in this town. 86.9 are percent white, 3.4% black, 1.4% Asian, 1.1% Native American, 4.9% Hispanic. So Minnesota is what you're describing there. 63% of the people here are religious. That's usually 50, 50. This is like, you know, Alabama numbers as far as religion goes. But the highest one by far, it is Lutheran, baby.

[B]

You bet.

[A]

If you've ever seen drop dead gorgeous plants. That's all it is. The women's Lutheran. Gun Club and all that. Lutheran, Lutheran, Lutheran. So a lot of Lutherans, 0.0% Jew, 2% Presbyterian, you know, 0.7% Methodist. A lot of stuff mixed in here. Unemployment is beneath the national average. Pretty low. Median household income here is also a little bit low. So we'll find out if the cost of living warrants that. Median household income here, $62,940 a year, about 7,000 under the national average. Cost of living, 100 is regular. Average here it's 87. And the median home cost is about 100,000. Under the national average, $238,100.

[B]

So that winter will scare you the fuck off, won't it?

[A]

Oh yeah, yeah, this is it. Definitely. The people who aren't serious, they're not coming.

[B]

You're not lasting here.

[A]

They're not going to last. Yeah, this isn't. Maybe I'll move down to South Carolina. No, this is. You have to get a whole other wardrobe to move here.

[B]

You gotta get a different car, you

[A]

gotta get chains, you gotta get an engine block heater thing. You gotta get all season.

[B]

Tires are not a thing here. You are getting snow tires, you're getting them.

[A]

So if we've convinced you out there in the world that there's no other place on earth you could possibly, possibly lay your head forever but. Moorhead, Minnesota. We have for you the Moorhead, Minnesota real estate report. The average two bedroom rental here goes for 920 bucks a month, which is pretty low. I think you got to have a lot of cheap rentals for college kids. That's.

[B]

It's not near as low as you'd expect though for a place that's fucking frozen.

[A]

Yeah, I mean it's 300 below the national average. Usually the college towns, the rents are high. There's a lot of demand. So that's why I was thinking that. But yeah, usually for out here it should be cheaper if it was without the colleges. House number one that I found here is a tiny little box. Two bed. Oh, it's not actually, it looks like a little box but it's. It goes back further. 2 bedroom, 2 bath, T bowl for all your B holes there. Technically 1624 square feet. Not a big lot. It's got. It needs some help on the inside. It's got a nice big fireplace. These wood floors look like they're from the, you know, from the 40s when it was built in 1947. There's some rooms that the walls are kind of messed up. It's not. It needs some help Here, but it's only $60,000, so.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And a $15,000 price cut just happened on the.

[B]

You can be a homeowner for 60 grand.

[A]

I mean, I don't know for sure, but it looks livable at least while you live in it, while you fix it up. So that's not bad for 60 grand. Next up, four bedroom, two bath, 2184 square foot. Very middle America.

[B]

Boy howdy.

[A]

Suburban house looking place here. Not a big lot or anything like that. Built in 1951. Nice on the inside, could use a little updating, but nothing. Nothing bad or nothing that you couldn't live with. It's a good house. Yeah. 2100 square feet. Good. You can throw a few kids in there. 20 or 229,900 bucks for that. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, that's not bad.

[A]

That's not bad. It's pretty well, well below the average. That's not bad at all. Then we have a six bedroom, six bath, t bowl for each and every B hole. 7,500 five foot house.

[B]

I don't know what I do in that.

[A]

It's enormous. This is a ridiculous. Awesome. It's cool as shit. It's a big. And it looks like a big, like suburban house. It doesn't look like. It's not like gaudy or, you know, no pillars or big mansion type shit or anything like that. It's on 0.58 acres, so not a huge lot. Sounds like the house would take up most of the lot.

[B]

7,000. Yeah. Unless it's got a giant ass basement.

[A]

It's got two huge garages there, like attached. Looks like at least a four car garage. This house though, 1,500,000 bucks for that. So you're gonna pay for it. But it's a giant. I mean, it's gigantic.

[B]

It's all house. I mean, it's not a lot of land, but. Yeah.

[A]

Now, things to do in this town. All right, we have the Scandinavian Hedgemkomst festival.

[B]

Say again?

[A]

H J E M K O. You know, in English, you don't hear a lot of hjs following each other like that. Maybe jh, but definitely not hj.

[B]

That's usually like a model of something.

[A]

Yeah, Hija is not a normal sound.

[B]

Hjg.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. H J E M K O M S T Festival. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Authentic Scandinavian event featuring dancing, entertainment, food, Viking age crafts demonstrations, seminars and other activities at the historical and cultural society of Clay County.

[B]

It's the Viking fest. It's like renfest for Vikings.

[A]

Kind of. Yeah. There's a lot of like, there's like a Viking like exhibition. Are they like, I don't know if they swore off like their version of like a Civil War reenactment or some shit. I'm not sure.

[B]

A bunch of them?

[A]

Yeah, there was in the picture. There was a bunch. I don't know what they do, if they just stand around or what. But I also found all their musical acts and as you can imagine, they're interesting.

[B]

If Techno Viking isn't here, I don't want to see it.

[A]

Well, maybe. You never know. Let's find out. We have the overpopulated one man band as one, nicknamed the Finnish Bard of the Iron Range.

[B]

I don't know what an iron range is.

[A]

I don't know what that is. Musician, comedian and daredevil Steve Solkella brings a unique twist to everything he does. He appeals to audiences of all ages and has been known to play 11 instruments in one song. Okay, all right, Prince, calm down. I don't know what you're doing there. The Wandering Hardinger Fiddle players. Well, welcome back Bud Larson and Aaron Renner, the Amazing Hardinger fiddle players. They'll be wandering the festival with their fiddles, continuing a beloved festival tradition.

[B]

Yeah, they'll play it against your will, huh?

[A]

You bet your ass. It's coming for you whether you want it or not.

[B]

Mariachi band at a Mexican restaurant.

[A]

Northern Suns, comprised of Torture Kajartanson and Jayden Alverson, who are also members of Walking Phoenix. All right, this duel will be focusing on Icelandic music. Jaden does vocals and rhythm guitar and Tor plays over a dozen instruments. And the picture of them, they're like the one guy sitting lower and the other guy sitting up on a stump with his elbow on his head. And neither of them have shoes on, which is disturbing for me. I don't know.

[B]

Nor an instrument.

[A]

Nor an instrument. The Nordic Folkidssons Club.

[B]

This is really wild.

[A]

It is. F O L K E D A N S K L U B B yeah, yeah. It's a social club that learns and practices Nordic couple folk dances. They'll be performing daily. You're going to want to.

[B]

I could not be more detached.

[A]

I don't know anything that makes no sense. Nichol harpist Renee Vaughan will be there who plays the traditional Scandinavian music on a Nikolharpa. I don't know what the fuck this is. It's like got a guitar neck, but it's like super wide and there's a bunch of shit stuck in it. I don't know what the hell this instrument is. But it's been around for 700 years, this instrument. And of course there's the Sons of Norway Accordion Band. Gotta have them. It says they're exactly what they sound like.

[B]

A hoot.

[A]

They're a hoot.

[B]

They're not selling this very well at all with all the fucking weird words.

[A]

And you have to be into Scandinavian shit, hardcore to be into this.

[B]

You gotta give a shit.

[A]

Enjoy these talented musicians as they lead you through a delightful afternoon of song. And then finally, I saved this for last, of course, Olie and Lars's comedy and music duo. They're both roughly, to be fair, 79 years old, probably each. They wear red flannel shirts and like, you know, like hunting hats.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And it says Bruce and Bryce, known on the stage as Oli and Lars, have performed all over the Midwest with their self deprecating humor and musical talent.

[B]

All over the Midwest?

[A]

All over the Midwest. All the way from Duluth. All the way from Duluth on up to International Falls. They went over to. I'll tell you what they were.

[B]

They're over there in Red Wing last week.

[A]

Oh, geez. They're in Red Wing. Oh my goodness. I heard they were going to Madison. Really? Oh boy. It's a big town. Fan favorites at Host Fest. This is their first time joining us at the Scandinavian Festival. Buckle up, everybody. Here it comes.

[B]

Wow. All right.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Crime rate, what we're interested in here, prime rate, property crime. That's property and crime rate mixed together. Prime rate property crime, just under the national average, so closer to it than you'd imagine. But college towns oftentimes, yeah, they lean to that. Like pissing in the street or, you know, doing dumb shit that college kids do is consider pissing on a car.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, breaking a window because you're drunk and you fell into it.

[B]

Pissing in somebody's yard, mostly pissing.

[A]

A lot of urine related crimes going on here. I wonder if you took all of the urine related crimes away, what the crime rate would be for a college town?

[B]

0.

[A]

0. And then violent crime. Well, there is rape, Jimmy.

[B]

I mean, apart from that.

[A]

Yeah, that's definitely gonna.

[B]

There's more than piss there.

[A]

More than piss. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. About half the national average. So that seems about more right for a tiny town in western Minnesota bordering on the North Dakota, you know, bordering on Fargo, for Christ's sake. That said, let's talk about some murder.

[B]

Here we go.

[A]

Okay, let's go back in time to fall of 1996.

[B]

Nice time.

[A]

Fall of 1996. Nice time. You had an election coming up that year. It was an election year. People were just overwhelmed with. There was too much to think about between an election and all the steps to the Macarena. It was just very hard to navigate your way through 1996. Figuring out what meatloaf won't do.

[B]

Are you kidding me? I'm still trying to figure out the words to Informer four years later.

[A]

Wow, that's funny. I don't even. I think. What was his name? Snow.

[B]

Snow.

[A]

I think Snow forgot the words to inform her. By then, no one had asked him to do it for quite a while. So he was probably like, if you find out, can you tell me? Cause I forgot to remind me.

[B]

Cause I'm playing a state fair.

[A]

I got a state fair. I don't know. Ludacris needs an opener, I guess. I said, fine. So the fall of 96. People are real busy. Let's introduce ourselves to a young lady here who's 25 years old at this time. Jamie Dennis is her name. So young Jamie Dennis here. 25. She's had an interesting history here.

[B]

Has she grown up here?

[A]

Yes. Well, yeah, because she was raised in northern Minnesota and northwestern Minnesota. She was raised in Callaway, northern Minnesota. Over there. She was adopted by a family.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

So she's adopted right away. Her adoptive father dies in a plane crash.

[B]

A guy adopted a daughter and then died.

[A]

And then died. So you're two dads deep now. Like you're. You know what I mean? You've already.

[B]

You're going into the third one. How old is she, too?

[A]

That's. I don't know. Sometime in her childhood here. But her mother was a single mother. She was born in Duluth in 71. Her mother was single and gave her up for adoption, which is fine. And obviously that's nice.

[B]

There's a lot of.

[A]

A lot of people out there who have the means and the want to do it and don't have the baby.

[B]

Good for you for recognizing you can't do it.

[A]

Exactly. No.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

You should get a medal for that. Shit. I can't raise this thing. I'll do a bad job. Let me give it to someone who can do a better job. Is a great thing to do.

[B]

I will leave the world.

[A]

Worse. Yeah. I will fuck this kid all up. That's good to know. So after a few months with foster parents, she was adopted by Jodi, Dennis and Jeffrey. Dennis and Jeffrey was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.

[B]

Oh. So he could Fly.

[A]

He died in a plane crash when Jamie was 5. Now, I don't know if this was a commercial plane or which is just a coincidence that he also is in the Air Force or if it was in some sort of Air Force training thing or I have no idea.

[B]

Or if it was just private plane afterwards.

[A]

We don't have any idea. Yeah. Who knows? He could have been on a southwest flight, flight from, you know, Houston to Tucson or something and just happened to

[B]

sure damn see it go down.

[A]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a better way to feed your dog with Ollie.

[B]

O L l I e.com Absolutely.

[A]

We love our dogs. I have three dogs. You just got a puppy. They rule the house. They're. They're like your family. As a matter of fact, there's a thing out that says 91% of dog parents say their pup is an important member of their family, which I don't know what the other 9% are doing. What are you doing out there?

[B]

But for the people with cats, for

[A]

the 91% of dog parents. So that's out of. Yeah. So if you. If for the rest of you, the 91% that care about your dog and think of them as important, you need to get them some Ollie. It's so good. It's the best. They're relentless about delivering the best food and experience for you and your dog. And they'll give you a way to check on their health over and over again. This is the way you can have a healthy, happy dog, is with Ollie. It's the best stuff here. Their food is great. It's fresh recipes developed from real chefs and backed by vet nutritionists. And they're so good. Honestly, you will want to sit down and eat this food. It looks good. You're jealous of it. You're really jealous. It really is. From the moment you start your subscription, everything is tailored to your pup. The meals are perfectly portioned, and you get a puppy and a scoop for sorting and for storing it and serving and everything like that. And with Ollie, you don't just get the food through their app. You can actually check in on your dog's health with real vets just by uploading a picture. And their team can check on your dog's weight, digestion, teeth, and coat because they're obsessed with making sure your pup is as healthy as could be. Love Ollie. My dogs love Ollie. They eat it right up. And I have one stuff I have one with that's like, got allergies and all that. Kind of thing. You can pick it out and get the best stuff and it's so good. The Ollie. Like I said, you'll want to eat it yourself. That' of an endorsement as I could possibly give it. So get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com STM tell them about your dog and use the code STM to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus they offer an obsession guarantee. If you're not completely obsessed, you'll get your money back. That's O l l I e.com STM Enter code STM to get 60% off your first box.

[B]

Now back to the show.

[A]

Hey everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you where to get your plants and trees at fast growing trees.

[B]

Fast growingtrees.com Ah, they're the best over there.

[A]

Did you know that Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers, including us? We are part of that. They have all the plants your yard and home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants. All grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. And they do. They're awesome. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere. You live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else. Whatever you're looking for, Fast Growing Trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space and lifestyle. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy for you to get your dream yard. All you do is click, order, grow and get healthy, thriving plants delivered to your door. Their alive and thrive guarantee promises that your plants will arrive happy and healthy. No green thumb required. Just quality plants that you can count on. Plus they get ongoing support. You get it from plant experts. We need plant experts. They got support for you who can help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants and learn how to care for them every step of the way. I love fast growing trees. I have a big yard, all sorts of cool stuff there. We've gotten plants from there. They all arrive really nice. I've gotten peach trees and apple trees. The deer ate one of my apple trees. They totally ate it. But that's okay. It's not Fast Growing trees fault. They ate it because it was so good. It was such a good tree. That's the problem.

[B]

That's what it is. They're delicious.

[A]

They can't help it. They're delicious. Yeah, that's how it goes. And really quality stuff. They have everything, all sorts of varieties, fruit Trees, evergreen shrubs, flowering trees, shade trees, houseplants. They have it all. And right now, they have great deals on spring planting essentials. Up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code Smalltown murder at checkout. That's an additional 20% off. Better plants and better growing at fastgrowingtrees.com using the code small town murder at checkout fastgrowingtrees.com code small town murder. Now's the perfect time to plant let's grow together. Use small town murder to save today. Offers valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply.

[B]

Now back to the show.

[A]

So, yeah, thing is, when you're on a Southwest flight, you don't know how you'd react to that. You might go, eh, you know what? Fine. I'm crappy.

[B]

I've never been on a Southwest flight and been like, we're 100% making it to where we paid to get to.

[A]

Absolutely not. I've gone. Well, I paid very little for this, so fingers crossed. Let's hope this works out. Now, after her dad died, that's when the trouble starts. Or when her adopted dad died, her mom's boyfriend. According to a psychiatric report, Jamie claims she was sexually abused by her mom's boyfriend, which that's obviously. You never know who you're bringing into the house. Obviously, that's horrible. And we don't know if that's true either, because her aunt Diane said, I never believed that. Which I don't know what she bases that on. You know what I mean? It's kind of. A lot of people don't believe sexual abuse. That happens just because. Well, he seemed like a fine guy to me.

[B]

Well, yeah, I was sexually abused, and I still can't believe it.

[A]

Still surprised about that one.

[B]

Really? Is that right?

[A]

I mean, if you want to be surprised, look, go. Everybody take your phone right now and Google Pastor sexual abuse and pick a state. You will get 6000 stories.

[B]

Wait till you get to the bottom. It says, next page.

[A]

Next page. Even more a lot of times. So sexual abuse oftentimes is surprising because if you went around with a T shirt on that said, I like little girls drooling from the mouth, looking for them to diddle. You wouldn't last long out there in public. You know, you have to look upstanding if you're gonna be a molester.

[B]

Yeah. The thing about them is that they are blanketly hated.

[A]

Yeah. That's what I mean. They have very little support. Misconception. They Know to hide that. That's the thing. They know it. 45. They don't have a big lobbying group, do they? No, there isn't a big lobbying lobby group.

[B]

Their PR is bad.

[A]

Yeah, pro pedo lobby. So now that Aunt Diane, her brother married Jamie's mother after she left the alleged abuser. Okay, okay. So that's Sylvester Red Zurn. Z U R N. So now her new stepdad is Red Zern.

[B]

Sick.

[A]

Okay. Come on, Red. That's a great name for stepdad. According to Aunt Diane there, Jamie's mom threatened to accuse Red of abusing Jamie several times. That's why Diane says she doesn't believe the first accusations of abuse. Diane says it's a weapon she uses when questions are raised about her gambling and other habits. I bet that's how it became part of Jamie's story. Oh, so we don't know if that's true or if this woman is attracted to abusers, which is also something that happens especially to people who've suffered a lot of abuse. So she might be attracted to abusers and keeps bringing abusers into the fold here.

[B]

Or she's very well aware of the reputation of an abuser, knows that that garners a lot of sympathy when you accuse it.

[A]

Or she's full of shit because she's trying to cover up her gambling and other habits. We don't know. We don't know the origins here at all. We do know that Jamie, whatever it is, whatever's going on, her mom's got some problems, obviously, just through the whole thing, whether it's gambling or that, or it's either she's a gambler or she's bringing in molesters. Whatever. It is not a perfect environment for young Jamie to come up in here.

[B]

And it could be a little of both.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I mean. We don't even. We have no idea. So we're not even going to speculate either way. Jamie graduated from Detroit Lakes high school in 1989. Her plan was to join the Army. That was the plan.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

She went, she signed up, she had all her paperwork done. She was headed to Fort Dix, New Jersey.

[B]

No shit.

[A]

Headed there and got in a car accident three days before boot camp.

[B]

She was driving. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. She was going there and got in a car accident and fucked herself up and couldn't join the army after that due to an injury.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

So she tried college after that because she didn't know what. She had her plan that she was gonna do, and that's thwarted. So she tries college and studies psychology and criminal justice. Jamie does. She's pretty damn smart, by the way. Jamie, as we'll find out from some writings she does. She's not a moron whatsoever. Lately we've had run of morons on this show.

[B]

It is interesting, right?

[A]

A bunch of real idiots where she's pretty smart. We've had some idiots on this show, either dummies, some super dummies, or people that were pretending to be super dummies, however you put it. There was a lot of stupidity mixed in. She's not that dumb. Her actions don't really say that, but she isn't. So she tried to study psychology and criminal justice. I don't think she got any kind of degree or anything, but that's what she did for a while. So she apparently was what's described later. And our listeners, and us too, might take offense to this characterization, but some psychologists said she had, quote, a bizarre fascination with serial killers. Who doesn't? Don't we all? I mean, come on, what are we talking about? Everyone in our audience. Yeah, and

[B]

talk to Netflix, talk to any provider that, that. That's all.

[A]

Documentaries exist, Right? That's my point.

[B]

They wouldn't exist if they weren't fucking watched.

[A]

That's the thing. And we, we. And we collect this weird information on these serial killers to like. It's the strangest thing. Like, if someone brings up anything, like, you're like, oh, my God, and you can't wait to talk about it. It's. It's like, I know. Can you believe how much jizz that BTK left at the site of the Otero? Like, it's fucking crazy. And you're like, oh, my God, gross.

[B]

Never raped anybody. Just fucking jerked off on people. That's crazy.

[A]

Real weird. So she's into serial killers. She kept a list of their addresses of what prisons they were at so she could write.

[B]

Oh. So that she could correspond.

[A]

Now we don't know if she's into psychology and criminal justice. Maybe that's part of a. That's why you'd be into that. Maybe she's asking them interesting psychological questions. Or she's just writing like, you know, Tiger Beat, fan letter, magazines, fan magazine letters. I'm not sure she wrote letters to Charles Manson, though. We know that she did. Yeah, she wrote him some letters. Not sure of the contents of these letters. We don't know.

[B]

No, we didn't get any correspondence back.

[A]

No, unfortunately. I don't know. Maybe. We don't know if. Maybe she was just a teenager and she's like, you know, dear Charles, she's writing on her Trapper Keeper with horses on it. Lean into. We don't know. So her favorite movie was a 1992 Lifetime movie, which she has terrible taste, obviously. What one 92 killer among friends. It's called Starring Patty Duke.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Like what? That's your favorite movie in 92?

[B]

Patty Duke.

[A]

A 92 Patty Duke lifetime movie is your favorite movie? In this movie, a woman lures her best friend to a remote location under the pretense of visiting a property to look at property.

[B]

Yeah, I've seen pornos that start this way.

[A]

That's seen a lot of. Yeah, that's. What is that? Detroit Rock City.

[B]

What is that?

[A]

I've seen. It's the movie where that line came from.

[B]

Oh, is that where it came from?

[A]

Yeah, I've seen horror movies that start out like that. And I've seen a lot of pornos that start out like that. Since there's.

[B]

They do both, I think there's like

[A]

two girls walking down the street and they want to pick him up. And they're like, no, pick him up. Pick him up. He's like, don't pick them up. I've seen horror movies start like that. He goes, I've seen porno movies start like that.

[B]

Yeah, that's true.

[A]

They pick up Natasha.

[B]

Both are true. That's a great comparison.

[A]

That's great. Isn't that so funny? Christ, I don't haven't seen that movie in 25 years. But that's.

[B]

I've never seen it really.

[A]

It's got Natasha Lyonne and. Oh, it's one of those late night. You must have. It's one of those movies. If I showed you the COVID you'd go, oh, that. Yeah, I remember that. It was around a lot in the late 90s. But then it just died off quick after that. Now that's her favorite movie in the film, by the way, a tuft of hair is cut from the victim's head and the killer befriends the victim's family so she can keep an eye on the investigation. Yeah, that's how this works. So that's her favorite. So there's a lot of psychology going on in that. So she's interested in shit like that. She definitely doesn't graduate from college. She got in some trouble legally for some kind of, I guess, semi petty shit. She stole a car, which is not petty, but it's also not like, didn't hurt anybody.

[B]

And the way that someone steals A car defines a lot about them, too.

[A]

Very important.

[B]

Did you break in, destroy the steering column and steal the car? Were you under the dash, hot wiring? Or did you steal your friend's keys and take off?

[A]

Either way, that's better than did you put a gun in someone's face and say, get out?

[B]

That's a car jet. Yeah, that's different. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So any of those are preferable to one of those? So she stole a car, also stole phone services. I don't know how. You didn't pay her phone bill, I guess.

[B]

Is that a crime in 96 you don't have? Yeah, I guess that's what you would have to do, right? Landline fees.

[A]

Or maybe she was stealing it, like from someone else's house.

[B]

Scramble the wires and put the tool

[A]

belt on and went right up the pole. I think she got a portable phone

[B]

and she's plugging it in.

[A]

She had those clippers that just get the outside of the wires, you know, stripping them down,

[B]

crimping it together.

[A]

Crimping them up. She's good like that.

[B]

Just keep my phone off the hook and wait for a dial time.

[A]

Give me a minute. Yeah. And so she ended up going to jail for that.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

When all of she went to jail for that, she'll get in trouble for, like, shoplifting and shit like that. But she's not, you know, none of that stuff is like, nefarious. Like. Oh, man. Dangerous person. It seems like just someone who's kind of a fuck up at the time.

[B]

A lot of victimless crimes. Except for the person that owns the car.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully they're insured for it. I would. I would hope, but she was also. People said she was very, very charming. She's very smart. She's fun, charming, smart. She can make people like her, essentially.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

She's very good at. She can show up at a new job and everyone will like her in two days. She's not shy.

[B]

Nice personality.

[A]

Good personality. She's described as confident and manipulative also. And very good at making people do things she wanted them to do.

[B]

I'm hearing the word making a lot.

[A]

There's a lot of makeup.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's a lot of manipulation. She likes to be kind of. She likes to hold the strings and pull them and make you dance. That's kind of her thing that she does here. Seems like also that we'll talk about. She is attracted to people who she's smarter than.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Seems like she wants. She wants to be the smart one.

[B]

Wouldn't that Be nice.

[A]

That would be. That's good. Yeah, yeah, that's. That's good stuff. So that's what she's interested in. Which again is kind of a form of manipulation of.

[B]

Yeah, it's a trait of a narcissist.

[A]

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. To only go for people. I mean, some people are dumb and you like them and some people are smart and you like them, you know, that's it. But if that's. I don't know if that's all she associates with, but the people close to her at one point in the story are all a little questionable on the, you know, as far as their intelligence goes and shit like that. So she is not very maternal, even though she'll have a couple of kids that we'll talk about here. Yeah. She said, people said that her one family member said her heart was never into mothering. Just never got into it. Wasn't fun.

[B]

Yeah, I'm 18 years into it and as a father, I'm kind of not.

[A]

Heart's not in it right now. You know, even when they're babies, their heart weren't in it. Her heart wasn't in it. She's more into doing. Going out and doing shit. That's what she likes to do. Going out, going to bars and stuff. Aunt Diane says one of the problems we had as a family was Jamie, if she came to visit, you always had fewer possessions after she left. Oh, that's not good. Yeah, she's lifting.

[B]

She's lifting shit from family.

[A]

Yeah. That's disgusting. And the things she took were just senseless. My sister's prescription glasses, for example. Yeah, she can't use it.

[B]

Yeah. Use those to you? Yeah.

[A]

Once she spent a day with my son who was working for his master's degree at North Dakota State. He took her to his lab and later discovered she'd stolen his lab partner's research notebook. Why? What the fuck?

[B]

That's a fun crime.

[A]

She stole my sister in law's embroidered Care Bears. She stole embroidered Care Bears? What the fuck? She said she stole stuff that meant something to other people, but nothing to her. Think about that. Think about the psychology behind it.

[B]

Psychological warfare.

[A]

Yes. These are all things.

[B]

I need a person to lose their fucking mind.

[A]

Yeah. An embroidered Care Bear is. You can't even sell that. It's not like it's a collector's item anymore. You can't. Prescription glasses for some old lady. What do you do?

[B]

Somebody's research notebook. That doesn't matter at all. Useless.

[A]

Useless to everybody. But that person who Wrote the notebook. That's. I mean, these are all. That's the type of. This is what I'm saying. It's a very strange psychology that she has in this that's very manipulative and very much kind of wants to be in charge of things. Then Diane said she suggested that Jamie get counseling, but her mother refused. And Aunt Diane said, I think Jody and Jamie are two of a kind. They are people with no conscience, no sense of consequences. Not great here. Now she has a notebook that she keeps. Not sure if it's the guy's research notebook from North Dakota State or not.

[B]

New again.

[A]

Start in the middle and keep going. But in her notebooks she has an alter ego that she writes kind of sort of first person with.

[B]

I am Jack's diseased pancreas.

[A]

Exactly. And it's Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux.

[B]

That's the name she chose her pen name.

[A]

It's better than Jamie. Jamie Dennis. Jamie Dennis doesn't sound Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux. I mean, Blanche Devereaux was the horny one in the Golden Girls, you know what I mean? And that sounds like French and wealthy.

[B]

Refined.

[A]

Yeah, refined European.

[B]

She has a taste for champagne that she mixes with her orange juice.

[A]

Yeah. Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux. Not just brute Jamie Dennis. Sounds like people go, is that a guy? Yeah. They don't even know if you're a woman from Jamie Dennis. Whereas Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux leaves no stone unturned. You can see her. This is from a book that we'll mention later on. A short book here. Jamie is a writer, a compulsive scrawler in notebooks, journals, diaries, and sometimes on. And we'll find out. This guy Michael that she'll meet on Michael's bare chest. When he was passed out drunk in

[B]

bed, she scribbled on his chest.

[A]

She writes the story of her life, the real one. Fantasy versions and combinations of the two. They are tales of loneliness, infatuation, unrequited love, love triumphant, imagined weddings, imagined friendships, slights, wrongs and retributions. Oh, so it sounds like a diary that she writes narratives in and writes stories in. All stuff.

[B]

Short stories. Yeah.

[A]

And some of them are self referential and self true stories and some aren't weird. They say much of Jamie's writings concern the experiences of her alter ego, Elizabeth Veronica Devereaux. Okay. They say Liz's Elizabeth. That would be the alter ego. And Jamie's autobiographies are identical until adolescence. So think about this too. And then Liz blossomed into a world class beauty and Jamie Became a love hungry outsider. So she's happy. Childhood, childhood. She gets to that point and then the way she didn't want to go, she just makes her character go fascinating. She turned into a big beautiful woman that everybody wanted and all this. And Jaime just turned into a big. To Jamie, you know, a love hungry.

[B]

So she's searching for love. She can't get it though.

[A]

Yeah, she wants something and I mean an adopted kid whose father died when they're five, two is going to have.

[B]

You're going to have some long heart.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. There's going to be some wanting for shit too. And that's what she always wants. The book goes on to say Jamie devised elaborate invitations for her wedding to Jonathan Knight. Now they fuck up.

[B]

Jonathan Knight.

[A]

They fuck up. Here in this book they say a member of the rock band the Backstreet Boys. Now let's start with one. Not in the back. Not in the Backstreet Boys, first of all.

[B]

Not at all.

[A]

Also New Kids on the Rock. And neither the New Kids on the Block or Backstreet Boys are rock bands. So even if you got the band right, you fucked up the genre real good. I've never seen any of those people with an instrument in their hand.

[B]

Not fucking one.

[A]

No. Well, it's.

[B]

One of them plays the tromboner, but that's it.

[A]

Maybe a couple of them. I was gonna say they'd need two at least to do that. Right. Otherwise it wouldn't work out.

[B]

You wouldn't. As a 45 year old man. You said Jordan Knight and I was like, hey, I know that guy.

[A]

Jonathan Knight.

[B]

Jonathan. Yeah, there was a Jordan too, right?

[A]

Yeah, he was a. I don't remember his last name, but he was a. I don't know why Jonathan Knight stands out though. As in my.

[B]

Yeah, that's the one that.

[A]

Like that one.

[B]

And then the Wahlberg and then the Wahlberg and then the other one, the. The little guy. Was his name Jordan? No.

[A]

Oh, yeah. The one that looked like he was like nine. That they like one somebody's mom made him take. Take your brother. Like, I don't want to take my brother. We're going to perform. Let him sing too. Just take him. Okay, come on, let's go.

[B]

As soon as you said Jonathan Knight, I was like, I know who that is.

[A]

That is so weird that both of us knew that. Neither of us liked that music as kids, but it was so omnipresent you couldn't avoid it.

[B]

It was just fucked. Shit shoved right up your ass.

[A]

Fuck. Shit shoved right up your Ass.

[B]

They fuck. Shit. Shoved it.

[A]

They shoved it. Crammed it right on up there.

[B]

Boy, you could not get away from

[A]

it over at the old mtv.

[B]

Whether you like.

[A]

Yeah, whether you liked it or not,

[B]

you were gonna watch it. You were gonna know.

[A]

Well, if you were. That if you were like 11, you just keep MTV on. And they'd interview these idiots once in a while, and they'd interview this one, and you'd end up seeing them. So either way, that's who. Apparently she had a. She designed invitations to their wedding.

[B]

I think he might be the gay one too. I think he is.

[A]

No idea about that. Pretty sure that don't know any of their sexualities. And honestly, it doesn't matter. But yeah, either way, she is barking up the wrong tree is what I'm saying. Yeah, for her.

[B]

And the guy tried to shoot Reagan.

[A]

Both of them. A multitude of reasons. Yeah. Yeah, he was definitely. You think he went, oh, damn.

[B]

Oh, fuck.

[A]

Swinging a miss on that one. Jesus Christ.

[B]

And I'm in here forever.

[A]

Shit, what was I doing? Yeah, she was never gonna like me,

[B]

not for a second.

[A]

So that's kind of how she lives in a fantasy world. And I think a lot of little girls do shit like this, though. Yeah, they do. They just do. But boys don't do that. They just jerk off to them and get it over with and then move on to the next thing.

[B]

Guys certainly do it. But young men, like young boys, 13, 14.

[A]

We're not fantasizing about someone for marriage.

[B]

Not a specific one. Our heads are on a swivel going, that one. No, no, that one. No, no, that one. Wait, hold on.

[A]

And we don't want to marry any of them. That's the thing. That's the difference between, like, teenage girls and teenage boys. A lot of times teenage girls have fantasies of forever and teenage boys that don't name and shit, think about forever. Oh, yeah, they write on their goddamn notebook, for fuck's sake. So this, the wedding invitation said on this 119th day of the year, whatever the fuck it was. Because she put xxxx. Because we don't know the year, but she has the day picked out. April something, I guess. The realization that this is the real beginning and now is forever. Okay, okay, but the. They go on to say in this book. But the ravishing Liz had to break Jonathan's heart. Liz explains her decision in a letter. She writes to a friend. One quote, rainy and just plain yucky day when she's stuck at an airport. She writes, quote, I miss him already, but I know I am doing the right thing by leaving him now, before. I can't. I've begun to enjoy parts of his lifestyle, but not all of it. I hate the bodyguards and the fans. Well, don't worry, they'll be gone very soon. You don't have a lot longer to deal with that, that's for sure.

[B]

Now you'd be like the bodyguards.

[A]

Now you'd be like, I hate the way his shirt smells when he comes home from work at Arby's, I think would be there when he comes home

[B]

from a night out with his best friend Carl.

[A]

Yeah. Or when he comes home from doing the county fair. He smells like funnel cake. I can't take it. She says, Liz. This is Liz talking. The total lack of privacy, the fact that we cannot go anywhere. Okay, so I didn't like some of his family members, but he never knew that. All right, so she had to. The lifestyle was just too much for Liz. That tale was written when Jamie was a 21 year old intern at a juvenile lockup in Bemidji, Minnesota.

[B]

Bemidji.

[A]

B E M I D J I.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

That's the one you were talking about to me earlier? Yeah, a position she lost, by the way. She was writing that like 12 year old girl fantasies when she was 21.

[B]

21 in a forced lockup in a four.

[A]

Yeah, well, she. She. No, she worked there. Oh, yeah, she was working. She was a. An intern at the juvenile.

[B]

Oh, gosh.

[A]

Yeah, she's 21, too old for the juvenile lockup.

[B]

Oh, good point. Yeah.

[A]

But she lost that internship when she was caught having sex with inmates.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Excellent work there. Terrific. Interesting. Plural? Plural. Yeah, A couple. A couple? A few. I think A guy named Troy Hackett met Jamie at a party in Minnesota. In Baudette, Minnesota. He said, I had some friends in juvenile hall in Bemidji who knew her. She was going to Bemidji State and interning there. According to him, Jamie's promiscuity was legendary at the hall. Now obviously, that could be a bunch of young men. They tell stories. And if she's there. Yeah, but the problem is

[B]

to support.

[A]

But before she got shitcanned, she allegedly had sex with four of the residents and fell in love with a 16 year old and wrote a letter to the 16 year old's father in which she discussed her emotional involvement with his son. You're getting fired. And possibly brought up on charges, I would think. I knew it was a rule. I didn't know it was a law.

[B]

That's There's a couple of laws.

[A]

There's a few say, let's get the book out and go through the different laws that you've possibly broken and fucked up here. So she said in this letter she understood the problems that their age difference created, but was willing to wait until the boy reached 18, until they got married. That's nice of her. Look, I'm willing to hold off.

[B]

Molest a child.

[A]

No, no, no. She didn't say she wouldn't fuck him before they got married.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah. I'll fuck him first. I gotta get him locked in.

[B]

What is she waiting till marriage for?

[A]

Till he's 18 to get married.

[B]

That's all she's waiting for.

[A]

Yeah. I'm not gonna marry him when he's 18. I'm not an adult.

[B]

Because you can't.

[A]

His father had tried to have her arrested, as a decent father does in that situation. So they said, quote, the disappointment that relationship engendered may have led to one of her several attempts at suicide.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

She crushed up a bottle of Nytol pills. N Y T O L Nytol pills. And swallowed them with an alcoholic beverage. But they didn't kill her. They just made her very, very sleepy. Sleeping pills? Yeah. Not enough, apparently. It's very interesting. She ended up having a relationship with that Troy Hackett guy who was telling us about her. They had a little affair. He said, quote, it was strange. Which is a weird way to describe banging somebody. For a while it was strange. We never went on a date, never talked on the phone. She'd just show up and we'd screw.

[B]

You were strange. She was getting strange.

[A]

I was gonna say, for a guy, it's like, all right.

[B]

I mean, that's the best relationship.

[A]

Don't threaten me with a good time, you know? Did she bring a pizza over too? Oh, God, no. Jesus. Hide, Hide. Turn the lights off and hide.

[B]

She made me watch this fucking Lifetime

[A]

movie over and over again. And also said, any thoughts for Charles while she was writing something? I was like, I don't know what she's talking about. Charles, who? He said, she told me she'd been in trouble for stealing a car and that her dad died in a plane crash and that she'd be rich when the insurance came through. That's all I knew about her.

[B]

What, do they gotta raise the money?

[A]

Yeah. I don't know.

[B]

She's been dead for fucking 20 years.

[A]

16 years. She's 21 too. So any money that she would have had, she would have gotten by now.

[B]

Three years ago.

[A]

Makes Any sense? So she ends up getting pregnant anyway. Jamie does. She gets knocked up by this Troy Hackett guy.

[B]

Really? Yeah.

[A]

They said there was some question. This is from the book again. There was some question about paternity when Jamie got pregnant, but Hackett ultimately accepted. He finally got cajoled into it. I guess it's mine. Shit. He said, quote, in her eighth month, she said she was going away to Colorado to put the kid up for adoption.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I didn't hear from her for a long time, and then I was living with another gal in Detroit Lakes, and there she was again. She'd, like, follow me around. Then she cornered my girlfriend and said, I know you've got. I know you. I've got Troy's kid. So, yeah, she followed this guy's girlfriend and was like, I got your boyfriend's kid. Look at it. Here it is right here.

[B]

She's showing the baby.

[A]

Yeah. And he said, that was the first time I knew that it hadn't been adopted.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

He thought the baby was being put up for adoption. He said. A few weeks later, I was in class at Tech college and Jamie walked in. She stood up in front of the class and told everybody she had my kid. It was creepy. That's fucking

[B]

everybody. Have an announcement to me.

[A]

There's people with a T square sitting there like, huh? What's going on now? Holy shit.

[B]

Good for you.

[A]

Hey, congratulations. Oh, it's. Who's Troy again? Oh, that guy. All right.

[B]

How old? It's old now.

[A]

Weird. It wasn't until several years later, during a custody fight, that Troy Hackett found out about her criminal record that included felony theft of services, receipt of stolen property, and car theft. So, yeah, he says at this point that Jamie was about to give birth to her second child. That's kind of later in the timeline, but this is Troy's whole recollection. He said, the one with the mystery father. I think it was a guy I went to school with. And that's when she met Michael here. This guy Michael that we'll talk about. Michael. Sean Giannakos, I believe, or Giannakis, I'm not sure how you say it. G I, A N A K O, S. Something Greek.

[B]

Yanakos.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know how. It's Minnesota, so I don't know how. You know what I'm saying?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It seems like they might have definitely made it Minnesotaized.

[B]

Or Gianocos.

[A]

Exactly. That's what I was thinking. I'm having a hard time with that. So now a little about Michael. He wasn't like in high school, he wasn't really like a ladies man or anything like that. No, no. He graduated high school in 1990. Had never really been in a serious relationship. He says this quote, I planned on being a priest, mostly because I had no luck at all with women and I wanted to belong somewhere. Dude, join a softball league. What are you doing?

[B]

That is fascinating. Talk about just giving up. I mean, I gotta have purpose somewhere.

[A]

Yeah, that's like saying, I don't like the taste of this particular hamburger. I'm a vegan now. Like, it's really just. Wow, you're taking that really far. Maybe just trying.

[B]

It's worse though, because it's like these cheeseburgers won't just. These cheeseburgers won't just show up at my house. So now I'm vegan.

[A]

Now I'm vegan. I guess there's no cows in my front yard, so I'm vegan now. So weird. I had no luck at all. But he wanted to belong somewhere. Yeah, join a goddamn softball team, man. What are you doing? He said, but I love kids. Oh, perfect.

[B]

What the fuck?

[A]

I wanted to be a priest, and I love kids. In successive sentences.

[B]

Perfect.

[A]

Excellent.

[B]

I wanted to be a priest because I'm sexually repressed, so I can't like priest. And I love kids.

[A]

Women don't like me, but I love kids. So give me the collar. Where is it? He said, I wanted to have kids, so I didn't know what to do. He said if he's a priest, he can't have kids. Basically, this show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp.com Absolutely. March includes international Women's Day. Everybody, a moment to celebrate women's strength and progress, while all also recognizing how much they carry every day. And you know that if you ever, if you've ever, you know, been around a woman or seen your mother or your. Anybody like that, there's a lot to do and a lot to carry. And it's true. And a lot of these things, between caring for others and managing responsibilities and unseen things, their emotional well being can easily be overlooked. And we want to remind women how much they matter. And that therapy offers a space for them to take care of themselves in the way they deserve. You should do that. Get in there. Therapy is great. I'm telling you. You can see things just in a whole new perspective, in a whole new light and get just tools that are amazing to help you deal with life. It's. It's incredible. I don't know anybody where I would Say they don't need any therapy. Everybody could use something. You know what I mean? It's just a lot. It really is better help the history

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Absolutely. And BetterHelp is this is the place to do it everybody. This is the place to start. They have quality therapists. Better help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US. They have a match commitment as well. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you. You can focus on your therapy goals rather than trying to figure out what therapist is best for you. They do a short questionnaire that helps identify your needs and preferences. Then they use their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate. They mean they typically get it right the first time. But if you're not happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. It's really phenomenal.

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It can really help you here. Your emotional well being matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] smalltown murder. That's better. H E L P.com/small town murder.

[B]

Now back to the show.

[A]

Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the safest sponsor we could possibly have. SimpliSafe.

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Now back to the show.

[A]

Whether you're into unsolved mysteries, solved mysteries, or creating your own mysteries, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad free included with prime. One night in 1996, I went to a bar in Detroit Lakes for karaoke night and Jamie was singing. It was cool to see her standing there nine months pregnant. Holy. He met her the day before her C section. So when he says nine months pregnant, tomorrow's delivery day.

[B]

I'm going out to the bar tonight.

[A]

I'm going out to bust out some karaoke.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

Yeah, so he was super attracted to her, which I find it. Listen, if you knock somebody up, okay, let's say you knock somebody up and they get bigger and bigger and bigger, you should find them attractive. And you should, because you did that also. And if it's the person you love, you should find them attractive no matter what. Especially if you did It. You can't be like, ew. It's like, well, you shouldn't have nutted at me then, dipshit, because this is what it causes. Okay? But when you walk up to a stranger who's nine months pregnant and you're like, you're fucking weird.

[B]

God, I want to fuck you.

[A]

You are so fucking weird. If I see a woman that's very pregnant, I look at them as. Like, I don't even know they're not.

[B]

That's not a person right now.

[A]

I don't look at like, yeah, I'm gonna find a place for my dick in this scenario at all. Like, that's the last thing that I'm.

[B]

That's not a people. As far as I'm concerned right now. That person's.

[A]

Yeah, they're doing something.

[B]

Yeah, their body is very busy right now.

[A]

Doesn't need my bullshit involved in this at all.

[B]

Again, it's a whole genre of porn. There's a whole host of people that. That's all they want to see.

[A]

That is horrifying to me. It's horrifying.

[B]

It's got to lend us some psychosis of no matter what, whether she's able to have children or I'm able, neither of us are gonna get gonna. I'm not gonna get her pregnant right now. It's gotta be part of it, right?

[A]

I think it's the opposite of that. Like, she's already so pregnant. And I love. I think it's a weird mother thing. But I'm not a psychiatrist. Obviously. Neither of us are. Hey, everybody. In case you don't know, neither of us are doctors, but if you just laymen, you know, hearing a lot. We've heard a lot of psychology. Just. I think it's something to do with some weird mother thing. You got some strange mother fascination and

[B]

you want to fuck your own mom.

[A]

Probably. I mean, some Oedipalian.

[B]

I mean, that's on that page too.

[A]

It's right there.

[B]

It's the next video usually.

[A]

Yeah, well, the stepmom, they'll say anyway.

[B]

Sometimes it's just the mom. It's so fucked up, dude.

[A]

I thought they'd had like a thing. Didn't they have a thing where they didn't do that? I thought I read something about that.

[B]

Oh, I assure. I mean, they don't allow like a. Do you really fuck your mom?

[A]

I would hope not. I would really hope that's a genre of porn. Pretend it fuck your real mom. Yeah, they pretend it's their real mom.

[B]

Those. Fuck. Yes. There are dads, moms, brothers, stepbrothers, stepmom, stepdad. The whole.

[A]

I thought it was only. I thought. I thought we all put that in there just so we go, okay, we're not all.

[B]

You'd think so, but somewhere really, there's a shitload of people that want to beat off to that. Oh, it's so. It's so fucked up. Okay.

[A]

That is.

[B]

We're not okay.

[A]

We are not okay. Said it a lot of times, and I think I mean it again. We're not okay, Jimmy.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

Yeah. No. So, okay, that's what's going on. The baby was born the next day, so she's gonna get pregnant again by Michael. Pretty soon they're gonna move into Michael's parents house.

[B]

Oh, fuck the priesthood, huh?

[A]

Fuck the priesthood. Oh, yeah. No, now he got somebody who's willing to take it. So he's like, hey, look, she'll let me in there, so why not? His sister Tracy said, this is Michael's sister. Said, I guess that's a little strange, but my parents felt sorry for the baby also. This was Michael's first girlfriend and they just knew how much he wanted kids. They wanted it to work out. They liked Jamie at first. At first is a big fucking deal here for sure. He also said when he met her, when she was pregnant, I wanted to be a father. I wanted to be the best. And I wanted the best for that baby she was carrying. It didn't matter if it wasn't mine. I wanted to save that child. Then I got her pregnant and then my life changed. All I could do was live for my girls. That's what Michael said here.

[B]

What's his story?

[A]

What the fuck happened? We're gonna get a little bit into his background in a minute here. So apparently the parents liked her at first, but then not so much as we'll find out. They said that Jamie spent. This is from the book. Jamie spent most of her time in the bedroom writing and chain smoking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is great for someone who's got multiple kids running around. Multiple small babies. She routinely blew her AFDC checks on pens, hundreds of them. She stole pens too, says Michael. From the doctor from the store. She must have had a thousand pens or more.

[B]

She's just blasting through pens, writing constantly.

[A]

That's her thing. I like to get different because I write a lot, so I like to get different pens and shit like that. But I don't steal them. And I don't have a thousand of them, just a couple that I like. And that's good. And I mean, you know, Doctor's office. Those pens are free. You know, you can steal those pens.

[B]

And the bank. Those are free, too. Those come with the checking account.

[A]

Those come with it? Yeah. The doctor. It's like, listen, asshole, I'm taking your fucking pen. You know, what you just charged me is crazy. And what you just charged the insurance, and then what? I pay insurance. It's all crazy. You know what? I'm getting a pen. And they know that those pens are there. It's just like a. If somebody breaks into a house, there's a bunch of dogs and they bring chunks of raw meat. That's what those pens are. It's just raw meat to keep the dogs away. You keep those pens and shut the fuck up. Those are for you.

[B]

You keep those. Dr. Eugene Fredericks. Get the fuck out of here.

[A]

With a half a broken chain on it. You keep that. That's fine.

[B]

Fucking ball chain. Whatever that chain is popped through the ball thing.

[A]

Oh, Christ. So Jamie's. This is the book. Jamie's odd habits were nothing compared to her legal hassles. She had run up a $600 phone bill under a false name before she met Michael. That's how you get theft of phone services long distance.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Under a false name, too. So that's the crime. The calls were traced to her, and she was arrested at Michael's family's house.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

She was sentenced to eight months in jail, but let out pretty much right away due to her pregnancy. They didn't want to. A small town county jail doesn't want to have to pay for a pregnant woman's care. And they have to.

[B]

I can't believe you can go to jail for eight months for making some long distance.

[A]

It's not that. It's the. Under a false name that's its fraud at that point. Yeah.

[B]

It's the extra step. You're a pretty bad guy.

[A]

That's it. Yeah. So she did that. Now, it was her first trip to jail, and she didn't really like jail that much. They said shortly after the couple's child, Myra was born and we'll talk about her later on, they moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota. Michael said, I'd been working at the wholesome bakery in Moorhead, and they transferred me. We got an apartment in return for caretaking. We had two wonderful kids. Things were going well. Okay, this is wild. Now, a little bit about Michael. He's got a mother named Alice, a sister named Tracy. Everybody said Michael. Every person interviewed about him said, he's a Good boy who couldn't take pressure at all. Not good under pressure. He was nervous. They said he couldn't handle conflict. He would just melt down. Couldn't do it. And Jamie is all conflict. So this is an interesting combination that we've got here. He was bullied a lot in school, which even his family called him, quote, Porky growing up. That was his nickname, Porky.

[B]

He's a chubby kid.

[A]

At least was then. Yeah. So. And I guess he's pretty chubby later on, too. I mean, not. You wouldn't go, hey, look at that fat fucking. So, you know, none of that, but, you know, normal Midwestern guy. Sure, I guess. Yeah.

[B]

I don't know how anybody in the Midwest is not 50 pounds overweight. Every single one of them. Well, the amount of.

[A]

Lucky you. There are many people who aren't. I'm just kidding, obviously. But no, I. You'd want to put them of pounds on.

[B]

Yeah, it's the culture.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I mean, if winter involves eight months of not going outside and you're drinking beer, there's a ton of exercise.

[B]

It's all outside. You just go somewhere where you get a Bloody Mary and they give you another drink with it, they give you

[A]

more beer, and then cheese curds or whatever the hell they're going to give you.

[B]

It's just fat, empty calories all day.

[A]

It's tough. And also, I think you don't mind having a few extra pounds in January in Minnesota because it's probably a little warmer. So they said that from this book, Michael wanted to play high school football. And at age 15, he was a real stocky guy, you know, Porky and all. And they thought maybe he would. He said maybe I could play like a lineman or something, you know, but didn't quite work out, as he explains. Quote, I got hit by a car when I was a freshman. Yeah, it wrecked my knee, so I was unable to play sports. I suppose that's one reason I was a loner, but I was an outsider anyway. I'd gone to Catholic elementary schools, so I was used to small classes where I knew everybody. Then suddenly I was in this huge public school in Moorhead where I didn't know anybody. Yeah, that's a tough transition. Private school to public school is way different.

[B]

And I'm chubby and I can't play sports, which is how people fucking make friends in high school.

[A]

At least that's a friend group that you have if you're not comfortable making friends, too. Sports are a way that you don't really, you don't have to. You're just on the same team. So you're friends. That's it.

[B]

You do something, you have an interest in common. And therefore, that's all making friends in high school is. It's having an interest in common. Now all of a sudden, we do that together.

[A]

It can be a band. It can be anything.

[B]

It could be anything.

[A]

You wore that T shirt, and I like that band now. So now we're friends. It's so minuscule. As adults, you need so many bands. Dude, adults are like a bank safe lock. Everything has to click in just perfect for you to even. It's like, I got enough friends. Fuck you. But as a kid, it's like, hey, you like that band? I heard that tape once. What are you doing later? Let's hang out. Anybody can hang out. It's weird.

[B]

The lunch options are pizza or burrito. You got the burrito, too. Let's be besties.

[A]

We both like burritos.

[B]

Literally, 50% chance we're gonna be paddles.

[A]

That's what it is. Or they live close to me. That's the other thing. Most of your relationships are built on proximity, which.

[B]

Their house is right there.

[A]

It's right there. Why wouldn't we be friends? It's funny, too, because this is like the plot of the In Betweeners, the English TV show. Yeah. Will went to private school and then he sent to public school. And everybody constantly makes fun of him and takes pictures of him. Yeah, A briefcase wanker. So anyway, that's how this all goes. So that's kind of his. The way he operates Michael, he's a. He doesn't seem to have a lot of agency in anything. He just kind of floats. He's like a dandelion spore on the breeze or some shit. Apparently, before meeting Jamie, he had a nice car, a nice apartment, good furniture, all that kind of shit. That's what his sister Tracy said. He said after meeting her, he was losing his car, his job, his furniture.

[B]

All of it went away because of her.

[A]

Yeah. She's like a black hole, apparently, Jamie, when it comes to shit like that. Michael's mother, Alice, said she warned her son explicitly. She said, quote, I was scrubbing the floor, and I looked up at him and I said, mike, I would either see you dead or in prison for the rest of your life if you continue this relationship with him. Something bad's gonna happen. So he wanted a stable family, though, and that's that. Later on, an investigator would say, michael had no criminal history or for that matter any history that would indicate untruthful and indecent moral standing. Jamie supplied him with her affections and he soon thought he was in love with her. Yeah, they said that back to the writing on him earlier we talked about from the book. It says often after Jamie had used a pen to scratch graffiti such as butt head or asshole on Michael's chest and he was still dead to the world, she amused herself by putting lipstick and eyeliner on his face. She does like frat party jokes on him and tricks and shit. Asshole on his chest draws a dick on his face and going toward his mouth. Yeah, asshole, wow. Once he woke up and answered the door hungover and fully made up. He said, I had a tough time explaining that. He claims to be put out about it, but you can tell by the expression on his face that it's one of the few fond memories he has of this marriage. Later on, this office he likes. It seemed to have at least it was playful compared to other shit. Now his job at this point as they go on is working the night desk at the Super 8 Motel in Fargo. Yikes, that sounds depressing. He's the guy too doing the, he's providing, he's doing, you know, coming home with the paycheck. That's how brand things. That's the breadwinner. He adopted Jamie's older daughter as well.

[B]

So now the one with the mystery dad.

[A]

Exactly. Adopted there. So they end up their daughter Jamie and Michael is born in summer of 96 and that's Myra there. Now at this point they move into this apartment complex. They move out of the parents house and move into this apartment complex. Now they look at Jamie around there is kind of a single mother basically when she moved in, this is before she has the baby, they said they moved into the complex here. Now there's a woman named Kathleen Fornas that works here that lives here as well in this complex. Kathleen has a daughter who doesn't live here but lives in Fargo. Now Kathleen's daughter's name is Ann Marie Camp and she is 22 years old when they meet in the fall of 96. Where we start here, Ann is from Moorhead. She is described, this is from the book here as quote, mentally ill, overweight and friendless.

[B]

Oh no.

[A]

And it's a sad thing. Yeah, she's not like a stark raving lunatic or anything like that. She's bipolar and she has problems with her weight and a lot of that's based on started around the time she started taking the medication for the bipolar. So that's not helping at all. And. And it's just hard for her to make friends in that situation.

[B]

So.

[A]

From everybody's what they say she's a very sweet person and things like that. She just has some problems that we all do. Shit. Her mom, Kathy, said they made me take her out of Head Start because she was so out of control.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

She was a kid.

[B]

She was a bit. Yeah.

[A]

Too out of control for the other four year olds, which is. They said she was so big and she'd run around like a truck when she got mad. She had a bad temper. She's stocky. She's a big girl. She's always big and it just kind of gets a little bigger as she gets older. Her sister Lisa, who's two years younger, said nobody liked her. So me and her were best friends. When mom and dad would fight, I'd get so scared she'd lie down by me and rub my back. She was sweet. So by age 12, Ann is diagnosed as bipolar. Ooh, that's tough. Yeah, they knew something was up, but at least that's good. They know what's going on at this point. Rather than making her hold out till she's 16 and having a whole bunch of trouble in school and all that kind of thing. Her peers were. This is from the book. Her peers were repelled by her withdrawn demeanor when she was down and when she was in the manic stages that she was really hard to handle because she was really manic and really up. You know what I mean? Then there's. She was raped as a teenager, which didn't help at all because she was an easy target because she was looking for someone to like her. So if you acted like you liked her for five minutes, she would go anywhere with you and you could have at her. It was just horrible. It's fucking horrifying.

[B]

She's mentally ill, so she needs. She wants affection. So.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And she's friendless, so she's looking for people.

[A]

That's the thing. And especially if a boy liked her, she took that as, oh, my God, I can't let this guy. Can't not like him back because no boys will like me. Which is sad. That's really fucking sad. They said that she was taken advantage of a lot by boys in that way, basically doing what they want. By 21, she had a baby daughter and was in a custody battle with the father, who she said was a drug dealer named Andy Nice from. From Fargo. She also said that he beat her. So a drug dealing girlfriend Beat her. Yeah. Now, Andy told his girlfriend at the time that he would shoot Ann before he would let her get custody of their daughter.

[B]

Holy.

[A]

So this is the thing that's going on here. They're out of a big custody battle, and he's saying, it ain't happening no matter what. I'm getting custody. So when Ann got into adulthood, I mean, number one, it's harder to make friends as an adult because you're around less people. But also, adults are more understanding and less cliquey, too. So in high school, it might be better than to be in high school. But she was on medications that seemed to keep her on track by the time she was an adult, which is really helpful. She gets SSI checks, and she does that. She has her own apartment in downtown Fargo, and she's in a custody fight, but she's, you know, she's hanging in there, basically.

[B]

Ann and Andy.

[A]

Yes, Ann and Andy, exactly. Like, they're raggedy. She went to Fargo High School. She graduated Fargo South High School. There. She's on prescription medication. They said she's got very much the up and down personality. Sure. Of the bipolar. You know, that. Obviously, that does. Her sister described. Her sister Lisa said she would jump around and listen to her favorite bands. That's what she liked to do a lot. She liked to go hang out with her friends, the few that she had. She said she liked going out and singing karaoke, too.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Her favorite song of all time is Sweet Child of Mine by Guns N Roses.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. Said she sang it at karaoke, awkwardly one time, her mother said, but it was nice to see her have fun, which is good.

[B]

It's also, like a staple of karaoke today. That song is sung every night that karaoke plays, somebody sings.

[A]

I'm sure it is. It's also, I would think, a hard song to sing. Well, it is, because Axl's got a fucking range this big, and you got to get the growl in there. You gotta get close.

[B]

Or you do it on your own and at your pace rather than trying to impersonate. You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah, but I mean, so you do it poorly, is what I'm saying.

[B]

You treat it like a cover. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. You're not. Not you. I'm saying if you're in karaoke. Karaoke's not a cover, though. Karaoke is.

[B]

The idea is to try to match it best you can.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. You're not doing it with Axl.

[B]

You can't.

[A]

No. You might as well put Fucking Mariah Carey on and try to hit those notes.

[B]

Why aren't you singing Whitney Houston, you fuck?

[A]

It's a dumb thing to do. Yeah. If you're making a cover, then you make it yours. Karaoke, you're supposed to go, wow, they sound exactly like that person. You're not gonna go, I like their rendition of it better. I've never said that in karaoke.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

That's a better way. You know, this one's better. It's a much better way. A Muzak. Muzak background sung way different. I always wanted it like that. That's why it was so much better.

[B]

Muzak's just a Muzak system style song sung by Debbie in accounting is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I didn't know it was.

[A]

Was looking for. Yeah. Fuck.

[B]

Buble.

[A]

Yeah. So she liked to go out. She liked to have a couple of drinks and have some fun and go out here. So 1995 is when she had her daughter, and that is with andy. And by 96, that relationship went bad. As we talked about, Andy said, I'll shoot her before I'll let her get custody. Andy had taken the daughter, citing Ann's health struggles, and she was fighting back, trying to get the baby back, basically. So by late 1996, she was doing well. She had switched medications, she was stabilizing. She was trying to prove to the court she was a fit mother. Yeah, that's what her whole goal was. So she was on track and doing it. She has a custody hearing scheduled, and this is like the big one for May 5, 1997. It's all ready to go. This is in late 96 now. Jamie, who moved in near Anne's mom, Kathleen, here. Anne ends up meeting Jamie, and Anne loves Jamie. They get along spectacularly and so does mom. Kathleen, Anne's mom, also loves Jamie. Jamie thinks she's great. And that's kind of how Jamie is with everybody when they meet. Everybody likes her right now.

[B]

That first meeting's a son of a bitch with Jamie. She really gets over.

[A]

She can get you in there. Yeah. And apparently she's good at. It's like a karaoke song. She's good at it. She's good at karaoke, too. Anne and Jamie, you know, Anne's quiet and struggles and all that kind of thing, and Jamie's loud and social and. But that's. She looks for people that she can dominate a little bit. Jamie and Anne's just looking for someone that seems that she can hang out with. Yeah. So they would drive around together, hang out, go to karaoke. Bars, go out and have drinks. Lisa Ann's sister said Jamie had a really good voice. Her and Anne used to like to go and do karaoke. Ann's singing was less polished, but she got up there anyway.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Jesus. Her family's brutal. That's what her mom was like. I mean, she sung it awkwardly. And her sister's like, she kind of sucked when she got up there. At least they're honest. That's pretty funny.

[B]

Less polished. You know what I mean?

[A]

You know, less polished is worse, is a better way to put it, but, you know. So Michael and Jamie. Michael proposes marriage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He says, marry me, and Jamie laughed at him. Ah. She's like, I'm not getting married. Stupid. No. What are you, Jonathan Knight? I didn't think so.

[B]

Ah.

[A]

She also said, I'm not cutting back on my nightlife at all. Not doing it. So Michael said if I complained or suggested that she stay home with us once in a while, she'd threatened to hurt the kids or me or leave.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And Michael goes, okay, that's fine.

[B]

I'll stay here.

[A]

I'll stay here. Then whose fault is this now? You're stupid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You've gone from it being from her fault to your fault now, Donnie. You should be gone. So he said their life settled into a routine where Michael would take care of the kids. He'd come home from work, take care of the kids and drink. That's what he did. And Jamie would bar hop at night and write all day long. And so that was her life. After a few months, that's when Michael finds the work at Super 8 on the night shift, which now what's Jamie gonna do? He's gone during the evening, so she can't go out at night because Michael was the one keeping an eye on the kids. So now she's like, shit, this isn't good.

[B]

This is ruining her life.

[A]

Yeah. She's like, I gotta find a babysitter if I want to go out and party. So Kathy, this is Ann's mom, said Jamie and Michael were living across the hall from me. I met Jamie when she knocked on my door and asked if I'd watch her kids.

[B]

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

[A]

That's how she met her. Knock, knock. Hello, stranger. May I leave several small children with you?

[B]

I have got a hankering.

[A]

I gotta sing some karaoke. You don't understand. I need it.

[B]

It. Janie's got a gun is inside me. I gotta belt it out.

[A]

There's like seven Hootie hits out right now that I Need to get into. Or else everyone else is gonna sing them first. You don't understand.

[B]

I gotta get in there and sing time before somebody else does.

[A]

Jesus Christ. So imagine going to a complete stranger. And I get if like. Like there was some kind of emergency. Like Michael was at work and he got his leg caught in a thresher. And she had to run to the emergency room real quick. And she knocked and said, please, can you watch my kids for a couple hours? My husband's in the emergency room. That would be different. This is. Hi, stranger person. Can you watch my kids so I can go out and get shit faced? Thanks.

[B]

I want to go sing. Hold my hand.

[A]

That is crazy. I have to right now. They're waiting for me.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

They have to know that I'm gonna love them the best that I can. God damn it. They have to know. If they don't, it's all over with. I want to know why Fucking the dolphins make him cry. And they're. I'm gonna find out from me. I'm running out of here Lyrics here. I was not.

[B]

I don't know if that's even. Yeah, I'm just trying to remember the names of songs I gave it to. Lyrics.

[A]

I just remember that. Cause Dan Marino was throwing him a pass in the video.

[B]

Dan Marino was in the video.

[A]

Dan Marino was in the video. Cause he mentioned something about the dolphins make him cry. Because he likes the dolphins. And they.

[B]

And that's the dolphins that he's talking about.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They have the dolphins. Not dolphins in the sea.

[B]

All right, well that's from Charleston. I figured it was the dolphins.

[A]

The dolphins. And you see Dan Marino throwing him passes. So where he's dropping them and shit. That's all I remember about Hootie at all. I think all I saw of them. So she said that she met my daughters, Ann and Lisa through me. So by late 1996, that's how that would go. Either Kathy, Lisa or Ann would be caring for Jamie's kids most of the time while she went around to bars, basically. Lisa, the one sister, said, we went out to this place called the Bowler a lot. She was after this guy Craig, who was the bartender, meaning Jamie.

[B]

Well, she's got a dude at home.

[A]

Yeah. And by the way, not even at home at the Super 8 working night shift to pay for these drinks, which kind of sucks. And they said that the money problems were bad with them too. They didn't have a lot of money and they have two kids and she's going out drinking and he said he looked at his job and he goes, christ, I got this dead end job. This sucks. You know what I mean? But then, out of nowhere, Jamie saw it as something they could use for themselves.

[B]

What do you mean?

[A]

Michael later said, well, we'll just put it this way. Quote, we never exactly planned it. Jamie just started talking about it, and a week later, we did it. Yes, I was a willing participant.

[B]

In what?

[A]

Let's find out what's going on here.

[B]

What'd you do, Mike?

[A]

January 1997. They're broke. He works at a motel. She's going out drinking all night and all that. So Jamie said, all right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna rob the motel you work at.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Here's how this works. You're gonna be on your shift. I'm gonna come in, tape you up, put a pillowcase over your head, and take all the cash from the register. Cause he said sometimes there's like 1,000 bucks in there. And there's a bunch of stamps too, so you can take those too.

[B]

That goes so fast.

[A]

It goes fast, but in the 90s, in the middle of nowhere. Might have lasted a little longer, but still, this is not life changing money. This is a week, a month changing money. That's it for sure.

[B]

Yeah, you're gonna get ahead this month, but February comes fast.

[A]

You're fucked. So 1-27-97, Jamie asked Ann to babysit. Ann showed up at the apartment and sat with the children and had no idea what was going on. Apparently, Jamie walked to the Super 8, taped Michael's hands, put a pillowcase over his head, and took over $500 and a bunch of stamps from the register. Basically about $1,000, $1,200 worth of shit. There's a discrepancy over whether the cash was 500 or $1,200. Not sure either way. She then walked home with the money.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Okay. Now, a short time later, a motel employee found Michael all tied up with a pillowcase on his head and called the police. So the cops immediately sweat Michael. They don't believe any of this shit. Yeah, they don't believe it. So now, Michael, remember when we said he will fold under questioning and is very bad under pressure and doesn't like to hate.

[B]

Conflict and confrontation.

[A]

Yeah, and pressure when you're being interrogated. That's all it is, is conflict, confrontation and pressure.

[B]

100%.

[A]

He is not good at this. He claims that two men, someone came in and robbed him. Never saw the guys before. They had masks on. I don't know who they were. The investigators said, that sounds a little fishy. I don't believe two people did this. They said, I'm just not buying. Took them a few. They interviewed him a couple of times over two days, and then finally he just broke down and said, what happened? He gave it up. He gave it up. He said, I wanted to confess, but I was afraid of Jamie. That's what he said. So he was really conflicted for a

[B]

couple days, but I gotta go home at some point. And she's fucking scary, man.

[A]

You guys are scary here, scary all day. She's scary there. Remember Bronx Tale, when he goes into the confessional and he goes, father, your guy might be big up there, but my guy's bigger down here. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, that's what he's like, you know, Listen, I know what you guys are saying about the law, but, you know, I gotta sleep with this broad. So he did this, and he admitted to staging the robbery, implicated Jamie and the whole thing. Not good. So the police call Jamie in. She's a completely different case. She says, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That's crazy. And they go, but your boyfriend told us what you did. And she goes, I don't know what the fuck he's talking about either. He's crazy. Fuck all of you.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

That's her attitude. That's it. So she said she refused, then she refused to talk without a lawyer. They appointed her a public defender, and she simply said she was home with her children and didn't know a fucking thing about any robbery. So I don't know what she's talking about. Prove it. She denied everything, and she's super mad at Michael for spilling it.

[B]

Yeah. And now he, as a dipshit, he thought that just saying it was gonna end this. But that would make sense, he said. She said, doesn't make it go away.

[A]

No, it doesn'. Real good point. He said, she was furious with me for telling on her. She talked about killing herself, killing the kids, killing me. Yeah. Yeah, I think that goes without saying. Yeah, I'll kill you, then the kids, then myself if I'm gonna kill me.

[B]

You think you're getting out alive?

[A]

No. You are the first to go. So then the police start checking her alibi by interviewing friends and neighbors and things like that. So Ann, who was still at the apartment at that point, she said, I was babysitting the kids that night.

[B]

Uh.

[A]

Oh, I know that night. Yeah, no, Jamie wasn't home. I babysitted the kids. And they went, oh, okay, that's interesting. Because she doesn't know what the fuck. She didn't know to clam up about it. So they interviewed her, and she said that she babysat the kids that night while Jamie went out. She said Jamie came home earlier than usual that night, and she had a whole bunch of cash on her. She said, we used some of the money to buy pizza.

[B]

Ann, you are fucking this up.

[A]

You're fucking this all up. Well, honestly, now it's. Michael and Ann are saying this, and then you got Jamie. So Jamie is as far as building a crime squad. She has not done a good job as far as accomplices. Neither of these people are criminals. And it's pretty obvious. You know what I mean?

[B]

She's got, well, a lot of talkative friends in her network.

[A]

Yeah, they're just real honest. They're just like, yeah, I was here, of course. Yeah, she had a bunch of cash. Don't know where she got it. Must have been good luck. She got pizza. We got good pizza with it. Well, we got Western Minnesota Fargo Pizza, so we got pizza.

[B]

I'd like to see what it is.

[A]

Think you have. You know what it is? It's Papa John's. I doubt there's a lot of, like.

[B]

It was probably Little Caesars back then.

[A]

That's all Finny's Authentic New York Pizza up there or anything. I don't think this entire country was

[B]

just fucking Little Caesars and the Bigfoot pizza. Remember that Big stupid pizza?

[A]

Oh, yeah, the Bigfoot from Pizza Hut. That giant hunk of shit.

[B]

Was it Pizza Hut?

[A]

I thought it was a Little Caesar. Maybe Little Caesars. They both had a big. I think Pizza Hut had the Bigfoot and Little Caesar's had the Big Caesar's.

[B]

Is that the Big Caesar's.

[A]

Is that the Big Foot? Cause then they'd have the Big Caesar's foot. Then what did Pizza Hut had? Cause they had a big pizza, too.

[B]

A giant fucking pizza. All I know is that it was big in a wax paper. It wasn't even in a box.

[A]

No, they'd send it to you and had a cardboard thing under it. And it was in wax paper, like you were getting a slice on the street or something. It was the weirdest fucking thing.

[B]

And that was square and awful.

[A]

It was bad. The worst Caesars.

[B]

And they made it sound like it was so good in the commercial. I mean, they're selling pizza. Yeah, they're gonna. But, boy, was it Bad.

[A]

I gotta know what Pizza Hut's Big Pizza was called now. Damn it.

[B]

I mean, yeah. I don't know. We can Google it later.

[A]

Yeah, we'll do it it after the show. So Jamie hears about this. She's like, oh, shit. I've been told on twice now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So first thing she needed to do, she needs to square all the edges here, square all the circles off here. She first makes Michael change his story. You will change your goddamn story.

[B]

Really?

[A]

You fucked up. You didn't know what was going on. You only said that because they pressured you. You're changing your story. So he told the investigators, I lied. He said it was just me alone that did it. I taped myself up to make it look like I was robbed.

[B]

Why did he say that?

[A]

He just said, I just did it myself. Rather than going back to some stranger. He said, I did it myself because they'll believe that if he says it wasn't my girlfriend and me having a big plot, it was strangers. They're gonna go, all right, we're charging both of you. But if he says this only he'll get charged and maybe Jamie won't, and he won't get stabbed in his sleep with a pen that she's writing asshole on his nipple.

[B]

I mean, he doesn't like confrontation. He might, in jail, get fucking stabbed just for some situation extra.

[A]

That is very prescient, Jimmy. Very prescient.

[B]

He's a target.

[A]

Yeah, he's a moron, too, it seems like. So. Although, basically, she didn't know if he would be able to hold this under pressure. But she still. She's like, how the fuck do I get it? So he can't tell on me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Whether you're into unsolved mysteries, solved mysteries, or creating your own mysteries, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon music app and start listening to your favorite podcast episode ad free included with Prime. Well, she figures it out. February 14th, 1997. It's Valentine's Day. Wedding, baby.

[B]

Oh, my God. She's gonna take advantage of you. Can't rat on your spouse.

[A]

That's what she's doing. John Murak, who's Michael's only friend here, said, well, I wasn't surprised to be the best man because he doesn't have any friends. So that's it. I'm the only one. Jamie had no old friends, so she chose Anne for her maid of honor, who she's known for three months now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Barely knows her. After the ceremony, the four of them drove to a Bar. The same bar where Michael and Jamie had met. He's like, it was just yesterday when I saw you up there leaking amniotic fluid all over the stage and just. Oh, boy. I'll tell you what.

[B]

Dripping, waiting on that water to just bust.

[A]

I swear to God. Looked like you hit her with a pin. She'd have went and flew around the room. Boy, she was tight. So it was karaoke night again when they went, Kara Gnocchi, Karrie Gnocchi. This is a nice lady I used to know, Carrie Gnocchi. She tragically died when we were 19 in a house fire. But she was wonderful. They drank and sang until closing time. The best man recalls riding home with Ann after the celebration. And he said, she seemed like a really nice person to me. A little slow, maybe, but that might have been her medications, which a lot of times that'll kind of just dull certain things.

[B]

And if she's been drinking all night

[A]

too, she's mixed with medications.

[B]

Personality is fucking zero at the moment. We're running on a zero.

[A]

I'm pretty sure bipolar medication shouldn't be taken with alcohol. Also.

[B]

I'm about certain of it. Yeah.

[A]

Pretty positive that those two things kind

[B]

of, they might counteract each other or

[A]

at least make you a little slow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

By two in the morning especially. So this guy said he couldn't stand Jamie from the moment he met her. Hated her. Second, he met her, hated her. He said there was something scary about her, didn't like her. That's that. So anyway, Ann was very excited to be the maid of honor. She thought it was great. She said, this is my best friend, Jamie. That's what she was telling everybody. So that's exactly what it was, though they were hiding behind Minnesota's marital privilege Statute, Minnesota Statute 595.02, which will generally prevent a spouse from being compelled to testify against each other in criminal proceedings. So that's why they did it. So two weeks after the wedding, both Michael and Jamie are charged with the robbery.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

So she's pretty smart there. Michael basically said that, you know, I'm going to jail here. I'm fucked. At best, they're gonna believe it's just me and I'm going to jail.

[B]

And even if they don't believe, it doesn't matter. They can try me and the jury hear my story and go, oh, well, I guess it's him.

[A]

That sounds like bullshit. He had three different stories. So he said, I'm probably going to jail. And that's kind of how Michael Is he's like, well, I'm fucked and not really going to try to fix it. Jamie said, I got to get out of this. What do I do? So she, Michael said she complained that Ann might sink her. And he claims that he just shrugged and said, what are you gonna do? It's the truth. She's told the truth. She didn't know to lie. He didn't tell her to lie. Cops came over, she told the truth. What do you want from her? You know what I mean? Maybe we gotta take our medicine here. Shit happens. Jamie knew that Anne was easy to manipulate, but also easy to confuse as well. So he's like, shit. He said, no matter what Jamie was saying, I can get Anne to take her story back or whatever, but they're gonna to subpoena her. And when she's on the stand, what's she gonna say?

[B]

Who knows?

[A]

We don't know what she's gonna say. They might pressure her into saying this. So they were like, how do we get Ann to not talk? And what the fuck? So Jamie ends up just goes on with everything. While the court proceedings are going on, she hyphenates her name. She throws a hyphen. After that, Dennis and a bartender named Craig McSherley. That's the Craig that she likes from the bar. That's the one she really likes. Craig would later tell the Clay County Sheriff's deputy, Brian Greene that Jamie came into the bar and flirted with him so constantly. That spring, after he broke off what he colorized as are characterized as their quote, so called relationship. He said, we weren't in anything, but she was up my ass.

[B]

We were just banging.

[A]

He said that she continued to show up at the bar and make overtly sexual comments.

[B]

That's what she said.

[A]

I know, right? How gross was she? That's what I need to know. I need to know, was she telling him how good it was and what he was missing or was she just

[B]

like, I will have a dirty martini and fuck me right now.

[A]

Yeah. And some dick in the bathroom in about three minutes. I'll meet you in there.

[B]

Perhaps do something very gross with your tongue.

[A]

That's what I mean. That's a lot. I mean, that's fine. But she began driving home.

[B]

Overtly implies that it's very forward, right?

[A]

And it has a such a wide range. It could be overtly. You know what I mean? That could be like, I really think you're handsome. Or I really, you know, think you're sexy to. You should see my asshole under a microscope. It's excellent. It's amazing.

[B]

All three are. Open it.

[A]

Yeah. Pick one. Just pick one. So she began driving by his house in Fargo and harassing him on the phone as well. So it got beyond just when he's on his shift. He later said that he felt threatened because Jamie told him that she had friends who could take care of anybody she wanted them to.

[B]

I got friends. Wow.

[A]

I guess. Places she just makes. She's just. This is her fantasy life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So March and April 1997, Jamie meets with her attorney. In the weeks after these robbery charges, she told police that, you know, she was told that the police had a witness whose statement contradicted her alibi. That's all they knew. And she knows it's Ann. She's real pissed. And she's like, God damn it, what do I do here? So. And Anne apologized. She said, I didn't know I was causing you trouble. They came to me and said.

[B]

They asked me questions, and I answered them.

[A]

And I answered them. Yeah, you could have told me ahead of time.

[B]

Yeah. I didn't know that you robbed.

[A]

Yeah. So Jamie, in the end was like, I can't be. I'm not gonna be mad at you for that. I probably should have let you in on what I was doing if I wanted you to cover for me. So they continue to be friends and continue to go out together and do all that kind of shit here. Now, April 18th, 19th, that is when one of the days. Each of those days, one day, Michael. And one day Jamie receives notice of pretrial hearings set for May 8, which is a few days after the custody hearing that Ann has set up as well. May 1, 1997. So Ann's a week away from her custody hearing. She's probably very excited. They have their pre trial shit set for a week. From there, Michael goes to the pawn shop across the street from the Coachman condos and purchases a 12 gauge shotgun. Oh, okay. Now, he knew the owner of the pawn shop there was. He was a frequent visitor. He normally was selling shit, but today he was actually buying shit instead of pawning it, which is different for Michael. He purchased the 12 gauge. According to Michael, Jamie asked him to buy it so that she could protect the family because he's going to jail.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So she said, you better at least leave me with some protection for the house. Now, Jamie says the gun was Michael's idea to buy, but he says she asked for a gun to protect the house. They also stop at a liquor store, and this is a pretty impressive liquor store. They buy gin, Fuzzy Navel, wine coolers, which is very 90s, and shotgun shells. That's a hell of a liquor. That's a hell of a liquor store.

[B]

Gin, Fuzzy Navels and shotgun shells.

[A]

Yeah, get me some wine coolers and shotgun shells if you could. All right.

[B]

The Fuzzy Navel is like an orange, peachy drink, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Isn't that the idea? Fuzzy being the peach and Navel being the orange?

[A]

I think so. I'm not sure about that.

[B]

I know, it's gross.

[A]

It sounds gross. It sounds gross. I guess you could buy shotgun shells and wine coolers at Walmart. So why not this liquor store?

[B]

I don't know that Walmart sells ammunition anymore.

[A]

Oh, anymore. Oh, well, yeah, until they did at one point, as we know. And bad things happen, so. Yeah, yeah, bad thing happened in a Walmart in 1997. You could buy shotgun shells and Fuzzy Navels at Walmart. Let's say that when this is happening up until now.

[B]

And gin.

[A]

1999, I think. And gin, depending on the state.

[B]

And the shells, they just stopped like three years ago.

[A]

Okay, so. Well, that took. Oh, my goodness.

[B]

Until the shooting at a Walmart, James.

[A]

Oh, okay, so the Columbine wasn't enough for that?

[B]

No.

[A]

Even though there was all those kids

[B]

or the subsequent ones. Over $30, obviously.

[A]

But that was like a direct.

[B]

Yeah. Wait until a man marches up and down the aisles pumping round after round into your shoppers. Then we don't want to hear.

[A]

Then you don't want to. Well, we don't want him to be able to reload in the store. You know what I mean? We want him to have to bring his own, probably. If he's gonna bring him.

[B]

Make him carry a backpack.

[A]

Make him at least come prepared. Jesus Christ. So at some point that day, they also purchased approximately 105 sleeping pills.

[B]

Wow. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, it's a lot of sleeping pills.

[B]

105. The bulk buy.

[A]

That's your Costco.

[B]

Was that not at the liquor store?

[A]

I don't think they. 105. It'd be very expensive if you bought them all up by the counter with the trucker speed. You know what I mean?

[B]

Two at a time.

[A]

Yeah. So 5:30pm that night, Michael and Jamie, with their older daughter and the younger daughter Myra, drive to Ann's apartment in Fargo. So the whole family pulls up. That's sweet. They invite her to come look at a farmhouse they're considering buying near Sabin, Minnesota. We're taking the kids out. We thought you'd may want to come too. And I'm sure Ann's like, hey, you want me to watch the kids while you guys look at the house? But whatever. She loves getting out of the house. So, fine. She's up for anything. So she gets in the car, they take Interstate 94 heading west, and they go south. During the drive, Jamie gives Ann Marie a Fuzzy Navel wine cooler because she said those are her favorites.

[B]

Open container in the car.

[A]

Here we go. No problem. This is rural Minnesota. They don't give a shit about that. Here. This is. Come on.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Don't care. She drinks it, and she says it tastes a little bit bitter and weird, but, you know, maybe it's been on the shelf a little too long. We don't know. So she drinks it, and boom, takes it down. Now that's May 1st. May 4th comes around and hasn't been seen by anybody. Her mom hasn't talked to her, and she doesn't show up for church that Sunday.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The last we know of her, she's in a car with the whole family having a Fuzzy Navel.

[B]

Drinking a Bitter Navel.

[A]

Yep. Drinking a bitter Fuzzy Navel. So Ann doesn't show up for Church on May 4, and Kathleen, her mom, reports her missing to the police because she never doesn't show up for church. So it's weird. They begin searching for her. She's not home. She's not where the places she normally is. She doesn't have a ton of friends to ask where she is. So you kind of look around. If she's not home, where is she?

[B]

Yeah, she's got one friend. It's Jamie.

[A]

That's it. So, yeah, they talked to her. She says, I don't know. Everybody focuses on Andy, her ex, who they have a custody hearing in less than a week, and they're like, oh, that's raggedy ass. Yep. And he had threatened to shoot her rather than win or let her win soul custody. Allegedly, also. So that's not great. Cops are definitely asking him if he's seen Ann at all. And he says, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. This is Andy Betrosian. And he said, I don't know. I don't know shit. Nothing. So they keep searching for Anne, and Jamie joins the family in the search. And she's like, oh, my God. That's my maid of honor. I love Ann. She's great. Plus, I really want to go out tonight. And there's nobody to watch the kids. So she comes to Kathleen's front door with a single black rose Cries on her shoulder and they cry on each other's shoulder. Black rose, morbid. Which is a real weird thing to give the mother of somebody who is missing.

[B]

Yeah. Being honest, I've never seen one. To get one, to find one and then give it to somebody.

[A]

That's Especially in western Minnesota.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

She's missing. Isn't it like yellow shit for missing friendship?

[B]

Right. Or peach red, motherfucker, just run with red.

[A]

But like, when there's fucking, don't you tie a yellow rope or yellow thing

[B]

around the old oak tree?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think yellow is the. Whenever there's like, you know, missing soldiers or whatever, it's yellow. Yeah. Missing is yellow. I thought so. I don't know. Black rose morbid.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

She says she's so sorry to Kathleen and Kathleen's like, it's been two days. We're hoping she just. Just took off with somebody.

[B]

No, she's just missing.

[A]

We don't think she's dead here. Then May 7, 1997 comes around. There's a farmer named Don Anderson.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Now Don Anderson's driving his four wheel tractor, tractor, field cultivator onto his property in Holy Cross Township to work up some ground for his son.

[B]

He's going to tell him, yeah, till

[A]

it up for the boy there. Turn the slow over. It's May. So the ground's almost defrosted. I'm sure it's still frozen partially. Probably. Almost there.

[B]

Rip up the slush in the earth.

[A]

Yeah, almost there. He sees something on the north side of the house and he stops. And here's his quote. My first thought was it was a joke and it was a mannequin or something thrown out. When is it ever a mannequin? How often?

[B]

Never a mannequin.

[A]

Never. Never. Except for that one time with the Hillside Stranglers where they thought they had a body and it was actually a mannequin. That was.

[B]

It's never a mannequin unless it's Dahmer's grandma's house. Yeah, and don't touch that either.

[A]

Oh, God, no.

[B]

That thing's.

[A]

You pick that up, it's gonna drip all over the place.

[B]

That will drain.

[A]

Oh, man. So he said, I thought it was a mannequin or something thrown out. Because there have been a lot of things dumped and stolen. I almost got in the pickup and went, but I thought, no, I better take a look. Which is again, no, no and no. And I walked over within six or eight feet and I said, this is a body. Yeah, no shit.

[B]

Didn't even have to see it, is it Ann?

[A]

Let's find out. Now Anderson, the way he put it, he said the head of this body was quote, pretty well destroyed.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

Is the way he put it. So he called Clay County Sheriff's office, they sent out a lieutenant, they brought the FBI in. This isn't normal. So Fargo police detective Tammy Link, who had met Ann before, traveled to the scene to see if it was her because they knew that she was missing. She visited her apartment at first too and learned what Anne Marie's coat looked like and what her brand of cigarettes were as well as. So she could see if the coat and the cigarettes matched. That would all mean it was probably her. She went out there and she said it all matched and she said it was my opinion that it was Ms. Camp, that was this detective. So it is Anne Marie out there and it's so bad, man. This is like this poor woman, she was shot twice in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun.

[B]

Dang.

[A]

You don't need that.

[B]

One'll do it.

[A]

One'll do you. A little dab will do you. And her throat had been cut.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Anything else? I mean, give her an overdose of pills too. What else can you give her here? You know, fucking give her whatever. She had been lying in the elements, rain soaked and flood saturated for nearly a week. Ooh, this is horrible. So according to the medical examiner, Ann had a huge dose of doxylamine in her system. Oh, maybe a third overkill. This is the highest amount he said he'd ever seen in someone's system.

[B]

Highest amount ever.

[A]

Ever. And he said that Ann may well have been dead from poisoning before she was even shot.

[B]

And which was first, the shot or the slash?

[A]

That's what they're. Well that's what we're going to talk about here. He said her arms were stretched above her head and there were abrasions on her and chest. He said she most likely had been shot after she was placed where she was found. And he said he could find no evidence that she had been shot twice though that was just something that'll come up later on in anecdotal testimony. He said her throat was probably cut before the shooting. And if the poison hadn't killed her, the knife wound did. So the shotgun wound was completely superfluous. Did not matter. She was dead twice, literally twice over before that.

[B]

Perhaps the shotgun is to destroy dental records.

[A]

We'll find out what happened here. So May 9th, Michael pleads guilty to the motel robbery. This is two days after Ann is found. So it's been a busy week. He is sentenced to. You, sir, may fuck off. 60 days in jail.

[B]

Really?

[A]

That's nothing. And it's his first offense, luckily for him. And a thousand dollar fine.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And restitution of $1,211, which is what

[B]

they stole, robbed himself. So it's not like kind of a

[A]

victim didn't hurt anybody. Yeah, he didn't like going and rough a person up. It's like, I'm the only person I traumatized by being.

[B]

I stole from Super 8.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, come on. Jamie continues to plead not guilty on the robbery charge. She's again saying, I didn't do it. I wasn't involved in it. So the investigation into ann's murder focuses 100% on Andy Petrosian. Obviously there's one person who's threatened to kill her that anyone. Allegedly. That anyone has heard, and that's the person. So that's what the cops have heard. The investigators suspected possibly there because they heard he had threatened. And for a while, people said an arrest seemed like it was imminent. Like Andy was looking over his shoulder thinking they were going to arrest him.

[B]

Him.

[A]

Because they were up his ass.

[B]

And they never did.

[A]

No, they just. He was just waiting for it. And other people were saying, when are you going to arrest him? And it never happened. So Jamie was questioned twice, but only about the men that Ann was involved in, who was she seeing and all that. Because Jamie's her only friend, really. So, you know, by 1998, by the time that comes around, the whole thing, the investigation's kind of bogged down by now it's been months and they really have nothing. Andy's alibi is holding and they don't really think he's the one who did it. So they don't know what to do here. January 1998. Jamie is going to stand trial on the robbery charges. She's trying to go down with the shit. Michael testifies and perjures himself on her behalf. Right away. She's still convicted anyway.

[B]

Really?

[A]

She's convicted on the notes of Ann's statement. Because Anne is now dead. They can bring her statement in.

[B]

Just her statement based. Yeah, based on what she said before.

[A]

Yeah. So she is sentenced to nine months in jail. You, ma'. Am.

[B]

She got worse.

[A]

She got worse than him because she went through trial.

[B]

He played and said she didn't do it.

[A]

Yeah. She wasted everybody's time and money here for no reason. She appealed and remains free on bond during appeal. Now, September 1998 comes around. So it's been a minute. It's been a year and a half almost. Michael's now free while Jamie ends up serving her time at Shakopee for the robbery conviction. He goes through her personal belongings while she's in jail, suspecting infidelity. And he finds a diary entry that he says that he found, that he finds disturbing.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

And he called his parents.

[B]

Mom, she writes so much.

[A]

She writes so much. Well, he told his mother. He called his mother up and said, mom, I think I'm living with a killer. His mom said, what are you talking about? And then he described to his mother a story he claimed to have read in one of Jamie's notebooks. He said the story told about Ann's murder in the first person voice of a wife who had committed the crime with the intention of framing her husband.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

Okay. According to Michael, the writer said that she had worn latex gloves so she'd leave no prints. By the way, there's a latex glove found at the scene of the crime where Ann was. She had used sleeping pills in a wine cooler to drug Ann. To drug. You know, in the story to drug Ann, hoping this would kill her, but she had come prepared to shoot her if necessary.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

He said, quote, there was a lot of gory detail. The victim was drugged, the wife blew her head off, and then used a knife to slit her throat. It was a kitchen knife the wife selected because it had the husband's prints on it. And then it was buried nearby so he could be implicated if he ever ratted on her. It seemed too real. It scared me. So I called my parents and I asked them what I should do.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

You need your parents to fucking. You don't need your parents. You're a grown man. You need to figure out what to do. This guy is way too mushy. Grow some balls and do something. Tell her to shut the fuck up when she's doing shit. Tell her to stop going out when the goddamn spending the money when the kids need you and all this type of fuck.

[B]

Stop trying to stop Craig.

[A]

Stop trying to fuck Craig. Stop killing people and writing about it, or just writing about it. Most of all, stop trying to fuck

[B]

Craig and also stop trying to frame me.

[A]

Well, that's what he's saying anyway, so he said, I came across the story of a crime that was heinous and gruesome and it gave gory detail in there. When I finished reading it, a lot of things just clicked. And I thought, well, I'm Living with a murderer. So his parents told him, call the police, you fucking idiot. Did he?

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Instead, he went to Jamie and asked her about the story. What he wants to be told. It's fine. He wants it to be fine. So he said, she simply replied, quote, have you been snooping in my notebooks, Michael?

[B]

Yes, I have.

[A]

Yeah, I knew the whole goddamn story.

[B]

And I found this. Explain it.

[A]

Explain. So his father, though, does go to the police. He's not as mushy as his son here. He goes to a detective and meets him at the Hampton Inn. And George, who's Michael's father, said his son read this diary entry describing Ann's murder. And Michael's alleged quote to his father was, I think she's trying to blame me for this murder.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So from that day forward, Andy's finally off the hook. It's literally been a year and a half that he's been the number one suspect here. And finally they're like, okay, let's leave Andy alone for this. Poor bastard. So poor Andy. Jesus Christ.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they. I mean, poor Ann the most. But it's also horrible if someone is falsely accused of a murder. It's not as bad as being murdered. But fuck is it up there? It's not good.

[B]

It's pretty close by. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So Michael's parents and sister told investigators about the story. And on September 10th, Michael and Jamie's apartment was searched. The account of Anne's murder was nowhere to be found. But from then on, they're the main suspects here. Now, Jamie claims she never wrote that thing at all.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And when questioned by the police when they were searching, Michael denied ever seeing it, even though he told his old family about it.

[B]

Why?

[A]

He said. My lawyer told me to. He said to deny everything unless I was guaranteed immunity from all charges. That's why he said he was saying, I never saw it before. So don't put yourself in anything unless they give you immunity.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[A]

Which makes him look bad at this point. So, March 1999, with Jamie out of jail and everything, she's arrested for shoplifting at a bookstore.

[B]

What?

[A]

Perfect. This violates her probation from the earlier theft that she had. So the violation report noted, the subject has developed a reputation for being dishonest, manipulative, and untrustworthy. She's been increasing her sophistication for criminal activity rather than leaving it behind. In June 99, her probation is revoked. She is committed to the Shakopee Prison for up to one year. Yeah, that's Much worse. So now they said that the investigators looked at this as a big advantage. Now that she's put away, it's easier to put pressure on people. Now they pressure Jamie to blame Michael and used Michael's family to pressure him to blame his wife. Yeah. So you two blame each other. Great. They told Michael that Jamie was about to break, and they told Jamie that Michael's about to crack, so you better come clean. They're trying everything.

[B]

Play them off each other. Fuck it.

[A]

That's it. That's what they're trying to do. Just like they would if they had them in two separate interrogation rooms and they had one guy walk by with McDonald's, you know, licking the wire. So the investigation continues. The investigators told Michael's sister to call Michael and try to convince him to tell them everything he knew. It never occurred to her that all her conversations with her brother would be recorded by the jail and later on, obviously, used to get.

[B]

She had no idea.

[A]

One of his statements was bad. This is the sister. She said, he kind of lost his temper with me. He said he was tired of being harassed by everybody. The police, his own own family. I was trying to reason with him. I said, michael, that poor girl is dead, and the truth has to come out. He replied, that sort of thing happens all the time.

[B]

Wow. What sort of thing?

[A]

People get murdered all the time.

[B]

People are dying everywhere, Kim.

[A]

Not my problem. Yeah. Meaning the murder. I didn't do it. He added, but he sounded very calloused about Ann's death, and that didn't go over so well. So, yeah, this denial. He had this tone of denial. Well, I don't care. It's not my fault. So what do I care? Jamie's phone calls in and out were also recorded. Yeah, they were also recorded. They have that. September 15, 1999, the police put a wiretap on Michael's phone. Okay. Okay. Now he gets a call. Over the next 60 years days, they record 1328 calls.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay. Which is wild. In a month. In a month, yeah. Or 60 days, I guess. Yeah, 60 days. So among the wiretap recordings are a call from Michael to his cousin Larry in which Michael discusses the murder. It says, this is Michael, quote. I mean, sure, I feel bad that it happened, you know, that somebody did it to her. I feel bad about it, but I'm not gonna let it ruin my life. You know what I mean? I didn't know her that well. I hate to be so cold and heartless, but who gives a shit? It happens every day. Lay that For a jury later. Not good. So October 21, 1999, an inmate named Linda Bay at the Shakopee state prison calls the Clay county sheriff's office and says that Jamie told her everything about the murder of Ann. This lady said Jamie described the entire operation. Wine coolers with sleeping pills, pawn shop, shotgun farmstead. Said Michael shot Ann in the back of the head. Both of them dragged the body away, and then Michael shot her in the face and cut her throat.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Yeah, Jamie. She said that Jamie said, quote, I couldn't keep it in any longer. I couldn't deal with it all by myself any longer. Younger, which doesn't sound like Jamie, by the way, at all. It sounds like this lady. She was bragging, and then she tried to make it sound better than it was. October 27, 1999. Clay County grand jury indicts Michael and Jamie on counts of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and aiding first degree murder. So now Michael's in jail. That's not good. So are they gonna give Jamie a deal here? That's the thing. Either of them, they're talking. Well, yeah, they. For some reason, they think it's Michael Moore. So they're more apt to give Jamie a deal here for some reason. So she says, well, let me tell you what, I'll tell you what happened here. And then if they say, well, if you do, we'll give you second degree murder.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And she says, all right, let me tell you the story.

[B]

Here we go.

[A]

She said, here we were that night, May 1st. She said that it was a surprise. Basically, the whole thing is a surprise. And she doesn't get it. She said that this plan that we had was only to scare Ann to take her out there and tell her not to talk. So she says. May 1, 1997. Michael takes back roads to the abandoned farmhouse off County Road 60 and Highway 75 in Holy Cross Township in Clay County, 11 miles south of Moorhead. He's deliberately driving slow and taking the long way, giving the sleeping pills time to work that they crushed up and put in her wine cooler. A sign near the turnoff reads, this couldn't be any better. Haunted farm.

[B]

And that's where we were going.

[A]

That's where we're going. We're gonna turn in there after dark. They arrive as the sun is setting. They got out of the car. She said they used lighters to see inside the darkening farmhouse, which that doesn't cast lighters don't give a lot of light if you're doing that at all.

[B]

If it's really dark, it might give you some.

[A]

Some, but not enough to get around, just enough to see your friend, you know. They said Jamie and Anne, who is now noticeably sluggish from the drugs and the children walk inside to look around. She said Ann stops moving at the doorway. The drugs are kicking in. Jamie says, this is what she says. I looked up and Michael had come from the back area of the house with a gun and shot Ann. That's her claim. Okay. One shot with a 12 gauge in the back of the head. This is while the kids are present, by the way. She said that Ann dropped in the doorway of the farmhouse and both of Jamie's daughters are there running around. She said they attempted to move the body toward a wooded area but couldn't manage it because she weighed about 225 and so she was hard to move. So they dragged her. They tried to carry her, but they couldn't. So they dragged her face down to the north side of the farmhouse. Brutal. Brutal. Michael, according to Jamie, then asked her to retrieve the knife from the car. He said, I want to cut her throat, all right. Gotta. Gotta cut her throat. Jamie said she refused. Then that's when Michael shot Ann in the face a second time to ensure she couldn't be identified.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then he went and got the knife himself and cut her throat after that, even though she was barely at a head left.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When Michael. That's her story. That's her story. When Michael returned to the car, Jamie noticed blood all over his clothes. Later that evening, when she reached down, she said she found a fragment of Anne Marie's tooth lodged inside Michael's shoe.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

This is horrifying. All this fucking woman did was babysit your goddamn kids and then answer a question no one told her not to answer.

[B]

Right?

[A]

That's crazy. That's just fucking crazy. Later that night, Jamie claims that Michael returned to his parents house. Later he calls Jamie from there and tells her he went back to the the farmstead and retrieved anything that could be traced to them, including the shell casings. But later on, we find out he missed a latex glove, obviously. So Jamie said she took Ann Marie's house keys and car keys from her pocket because Michael told her to. Of course, she wouldn't have done that on her own. And entered Ann's apartment to take her purse to make it appear like she left voluntarily.

[B]

Go get the purse.

[A]

She said, well, I mean, I helped cover it up, but Michael did all of that. Then at some point after the murder, Jamie Drove back to the farmstead alone. She said the next day, basically, she said she was terrified. But she pulled up. She pulls up in headlights and finds the body on the north side of the farmhouse with blood spatter on the wall and much of Ann's head destroyed. Because she said the second shotgun blast ends the night, the throat cutting. She was already back in the car with the kids.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So she hadn't seen the destruction that was wrought on Ann here.

[B]

And the kids didn't see it either.

[A]

According to her, they saw the first shotgun blast as they were all standing. They probably had brain on them a little bit. So she said that Ann's jaw was laying at a weird angle, quote, unquote. And she said that's when she returned to the car. This is the next day when she went to look, returned to the car, clasped her hands together and prayed. And then she drove back to Moorhead. She said. I guess part of me wanted to reassure myself that she was dead. And the other part wanted to make sure that she wasn't out there suffering, just out there, just still alive, tied

[B]

to a tree with honey all over. And army ants are going nuts.

[A]

Yeah. Now, she took a lie detector test. Now, we don't know if this lie detector test was taken via her attorney or via the police. I'm not sure. I would assume the police would want to polygraph her if they're giving her a deal. You know what I mean?

[B]

Generally, yeah.

[A]

But her defense attorney claims that her polygraph made administered before the plea agreement supported her versions of a vet. Her version of a vet, we don't know. So Michael's attorney, on the other hand, they have a much different story. Michael and his attorney, Michael's attorney, whose name, by the way, is Richard Henderson. Ricky Henderson is his name, is that right? His name is Ricky Henderson.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

For the rest of the time, anytime he talks, I'm going to say Ricky say. Just like Ricky Henderson would. That's how he would say. So, Ricky say. We were able to punch holes in her story. We got some funding to do forensics, and that helped. For example, Jamie stuck with her story that Ann had been shot twice. The first time, when Michael snuck up behind her and shot her in the back of the head. We hired a lab to test Ann's clothes, and there was no gunshot residue on the back of her clothing, which, so she said that pretty well discredited her account of the murder. Cause it was supposed to be right away up next to her head.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Michael's story, he's got a Totally different story. We'll find out. Michael said that he and this is his story from the second he started telling a story until today. Today he's got the same story. He says Jamie left home early in the evening with the shotgun and the two children. Which is. I'm taking the kids in the gun. Why? Okay. Brand new, shoddy. She told me she was going to her mother's place in Callaway to learn how to shoot it because I'd be going to jail for the motel theft. So that's her story. So she went to shoot. He swears he spent most of the evening at his parents house and they said that's where he was. They back up his alibi. They say when he returned home after midnight, Jamie and the girls were still gone. He came back from his parents house. They soon returned, but without the gun. Oh, I asked her where it was and she told me she left it at Red's. Who's her stepfather.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's why we said that. The gun by the way has never been found. Nor was the knife used to cut her throat.

[B]

That'll probably even today.

[A]

Today we have no idea where that shit is. None. Now he says that he saw those writings and the description of the writings he gave to his parents the night was accurate. They say why did you change your story so often? From the beginning, when he said he didn't know anything to now. And he said that he lived in fear of her constant threats to leave him or harm him or harm the children. He said when he summoned the courage to stand up for himself, she would intimidate him with her rage until he backed down. And he said, quote, that was the story of our life. And that's kind of what everybody who was around him said.

[B]

Abusive. Yeah.

[A]

Michael denies he was there at all. He said Jamie gathered up the kids at 5:30, knocked on Ann's door, asked Ann if she wanted to take a ride for the country. Jamie says Michael was driving the car. He says I wasn't even fucking there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I didn't drive anything. I wasn't there. He says I took advantage of the fact that Jamie had taken the kids for a change. So I went and spent the evening at my parents house to relax. I didn't have the kids for once. He says he had no idea what Jamie was doing. And he said not sure. He said the moment that Ann got in the car. Jamie admits to handing the bottle with the wine cooler laced with 20 or more crushed nital pills. By the time Ann had consumed half of it, she Was on the woozy side. Jamie had told the investigator and all that kind of shit. So obviously they had went, oh, by the way, we'll talk about that drug because it's a different type of thing. Yeah. What's in it? The doxylamine or whatever it is. So they don't know. Like, they don't know. Like they're trying to figure out whether when she got out of the car, was she killed then? Was she. Did she stagger over the house and stumble over some shit, you know, was she. We don't know. The shotgun fired at point blank range, tore off most of the face, most of her face and the top of her skull. Her throat was cut, but it was never ascertained when it happened. Whether she was dead or alive makes a difference, obviously. But they said that the basic stories are, Jamie said they went, Michael did all the dirty work. She helped give her the wine cooler. Michael's thing is, I wasn't even fucking there. Not only do I not know what happened, I wasn't even there. Much different stories. So second degree murder for Jamie, by the way, she is going to be sentenced to. You, ma', am, may fuck off. 25 years in Minnesota State Prison in exchange for testimony. The prosecutor said that told the court that during the robbery trial trial, that Jamie had an increasing propensity to resort to criminal behavior to get what she wants. And that's if it's at the expense of somebody else. And that's what she's gonna do if she thinks she can get away with it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's the prosecutor who prosecuted her on the robbery charge who's now gonna put her on the stand and say, listen to this nice, honest woman who would never say anything to get herself out of trouble.

[B]

It's gotta be one of the best attorneys in the area then, huh?

[A]

Well, he's the prosecutor, so he's prosecuted. That's not her attorney.

[B]

Oh, got you. Got it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the stand against Michael. Yeah, yeah. So now will Michael get bail? The U.S. attorney here, the assistant U.S. attorney said that this is a premeditated murder. They drugged her, they cut her throat, and they shot her with a shotgun. And they did so because she's a witness. It's way worse.

[B]

Way worse.

[A]

Yeah. They denied the pretrial release, and they said, I'm primarily concerned about the danger to the community issue. The whole nature of the charge against him involves an alleged attempt to obstruct justice, even in the light of a presumption of evidence. The court Must consider the weight of the evidence against him. So, yeah, yeah, it's not really about evidence. It's just a huge accusation that we have to settle here. Michael's investigator is Dick Schmidt. Yeah, old Dickie Schmidt. And he conducted hundreds of interviews for Michael's defense. He concluded the motive of the motel robbery alone was insufficient to drive Michael to murder. And he believed Jamie acted independently or framed Michael. This is the thing. Michael had already gone, you know what I mean? For the robbery. He pled the. And thing was to keep her from testifying against Jamie. That's what this was about. Meanwhile, I had her statement anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

[B]

So why would he participate in murdering her if she can't hurt him at all?

[A]

Unless. And that's basically what the defense is, is either he didn't, or he only was there because Jamie was fucking forcing him to be there. One of the two. That's his defense anyway. So May of 2000 is Michael's trial.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The main thing is marital privilege. Remember that? That's the whole reason they got married. Well, Michael's attorney fought the prosecutor's plan to use her as a witness, citing case law that prevents spouses from testifying against each other. The judge, however, rules that her testimony will be admissible. They said the trial took place in state court, but the defense cited federal law that grants an exemption to marital privilege when the marriage is not entered into in good faith. And they said the state law in Minnesota, they said, has exemptions when the couple is engaged in crimes together. So does the federal law. That's the difference is if you're in a crime together, then they can force you to do it. So the prosecutor here. The trial's gonna last eight days. The prosecutor described Michael as a full partner in a husband and wife murder team. Wow, that's a lot. Now, there is some controversy here about. They never find Jamie's diary.

[B]

The one that he said he saw.

[A]

Yes. We don't know if he then threw it out. Cause he was afraid or we don't know what happened here. Or if he made the whole thing up. We're not sure. But basically, this is what he told his parents here. He told his parents that this is the general gist of. He was reading it to them and they were remembering it and all that. This is July 26th 7th, 1997. He's saying this is her diary entry, which he also saw. I've been thinking a lot about Ann lately. She never really leaves my mind. I feel so bad, so horrible, so shocked. I wanted to write down what it is that I've been thinking and feeling, but I'm afraid to do so. I sometimes feel like Ann is haunting me. It frightens me. Makes me think I'm going crazy. Anne then said, in the book I'm reading, it tells of a woman's head being blackened by the sun. I wonder if Ann's was. Or did no son reach the spot where she was found. I almost wish I could see a picture of her, the way she looked when they found her. Almost. But I am not positive. I don't know if I could handle it. But would seeing it erase the images, her other images, from my mind? So that's what they say was in the diary. And then they say that she had, and we don't know if that's true. And then he said that she wrote this story about a woman killing her friend in this exact way and framing her husband for murder. Murder. So Jamie gets up and she's a witness. She broke down and cried several times. She's a good witness. They said she provided some details. She told the jury that Michael drove the car aimlessly before they reached the abandoned farm because he didn't want to arrive before dark. She said she and Anne went into the farmhouse for a few minutes and then both of them used lighters to see their way around. Michael then after a few minutes, called them to come out. She said, I saw Michael come up from behind the house with a gun. I saw Michael walk up behind Ann. I heard the gun go off and Ann fell. I was just stunned. I didn't do anything. The gun fired, she fell. She said she was so badly shaken she could hardly function. Nevertheless, she followed Michael's orders to put on a pair of gloves and help move the body. So they started to drag Ann's body toward the woods. But her legs got caught on a pipe that was protruding from the ground. Jamie said, I freaked out. I thought she was alive. I thought she was fighting us. Michael said, there's no way she could be alive because he had blown the back of her head off. And a person couldn't live without the back of their head, generally. So according to Jamie, they soon realized that Ann was too heavy to move. So they rolled her closer to the house where she could be. Wouldn't be readily seen. She said, Michael said he had a knife in the car and he wanted me to cut her throat with it. But I said no, I couldn't do that. That he never said why he wanted me to. She claims she watched while Michael stood over Anne's body and shot her a second time. According to Jamie, the children witnessed everything and were crying and screaming as they left. She testifies also that when they got home, she saw Michael's clothes were bloody and a piece of the. Ann's tooth was lodged in his shoe. She said they burned the incriminating clothing.

[B]

All right.

[A]

That's what she said. Uh, according to Jamie, then, Michael returned to the scene alone later that night and dragged Anne's body to where it was discovered. After he returned home again at 2am Jamie tells the jurors that she took the car and went back to the scene for another look at Ann. I'm gonna go take a peek myself. I'm gonna go cop a gander here. You hope you. Wait a minute, she said. I walked toward her, and I could see her mouth hanging open. And I started to get sick to my stomach. I went back to the car and prayed. I don't know why. I just felt I had to. Yeah, that's Jamie's story, all right. Problem is, the medical examiner doesn't back that up. No, that's the issue. The medical examiner said it's not at all what I see. According to him, Anne had the huge dose of the doxylamine in her system, the highest he'd ever seen. Like we said, her arms stretched over, had abrasions on her face and chest that could be from dragging. He indicated that she'd been dragged face down where she was found. He said that most likely had been shot. Shot after she was placed there. Not only not shot in the doorway of the house, shot after she was dragged off. He said that also that he could find no evidence that she was shot twice like Jamie describes, and her throat was cut before the shooting, not way after she was shot twice. And he said that if the poison didn't kill her, the knife would. Like we said, his testimony raised questions that were way more than just cause of death. Shot. How could Ann have left the car under her own power as Jamie described, lit a cigarette lighter and maneuvered around a cluttered, abandoned house with more of this drug in her system than anybody's ever seen before?

[B]

That's a good point, too. Yeah, she's navigating in there with a bic.

[A]

She has enough dexterity to light a lighter and walk around and not trip over shit and fall. Come on. In her statements to the police and again at the trial, Jamie was adamant that she had seen Michael crush up a bottle of NYT pills to drug Ann. Problem is, unbeknownst to Jamie, Remember when she tried to commit suicide by taking a bunch of nital? The manufacturer of nital had changed the formula.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Since the suicide attempts and was using a different active ingredient. So that drug doesn't even have that ingredient anymore.

[B]

What does it have? Okay.

[A]

It's different. Something different. So they positively identified doxylamine in the system. So the pills that were crushed had to be another name brand or generic.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's an automatic. It's not the brand she said it was. And that's funny because that's the one she took. And since then, they had changed the formula. Michael has to testify. He has to. He has to make it. My word against yours.

[B]

Here we go.

[A]

So Michael denies any involvement with the killing. Tells the jury he was at his parents house all night. They testify, say that he was there all night. Solid alibi. His father recited from memory the story of the murder that Jamie had written and that Michael had read to him over the phone. The pills didn't kill her. I can't shoot her. She's too woozy. This bitch won't stand still. I've got the butcher knife and I put it in a plastic bag with Michael's prints on it. That was one of the things she remembered. Now the jury though, we don't know how they're gonna take Michael. Michael, who knows? You know what I mean? It's just whether they believe her or whether they believe that him and his whole family are telling the truth or lying or whatever. So we don't know. And also, Michael claimed that he had read those details in his wife's journal. The prosecution countered, saying that he was a liar. And you lied to us the first time about the robbery because they kept bringing up that robbery that you lied about. That means you're a liar and you're not telling the truth here either. Meanwhile, that was lying to cover her up, not to put her in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So the defense, in their closing argument here, Michael's attorney points out that Jamie accused Michael of planning the murder carefully. Yet he had purchased the murder weapon on the day of the crime from a pawn shop where the owner knew him very well.

[B]

That looks so bad.

[A]

Yeah, they said why would he do so if he planned to use it as a murder weapon that night? That doesn't make sense. You'd go find buy it from some guy who doesn't know him.

[B]

Probably, but it's because I don't have one.

[A]

That may be, but he had money to buy one, so that's what they're Saying. And they also said that Michael's only knowledge of the murder came from reading Jamie's account of it. And Jamie denied ever reading or writing that. Ricky Henderson says, I know it sounds odd that she'd write about a crime she committed, but she was a compulsive writer. She wrote about everything her own mother told investigators. The story sounded like Jamie's narrative. Narrative style as well. Verdict comes in here for Michael. What do you think here? What's going to happen? Boy, are they going to first? Second, not guilty. He's found guilty of first degree murder.

[B]

Holy shit.

[A]

Hook, line and sinker bought all of Jamie's story.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Despite. Despite the fact that the medical examiner said that story's physically impossible.

[B]

Impossible. Yeah.

[A]

They went. Went. She cried though. That looks pretty good.

[B]

But there were tears.

[A]

But I saw tears. That's powerful. Whoever's believe more believable. That's who they believe.

[B]

Guy didn't cry a single tear.

[A]

I didn't see him shed shit. This he said, not my pro. Shit happens all the time. They played those.

[B]

I don't give a shit.

[A]

He said, happens all the time. I don't give a shit. That's how they see Michael. They see Jamie. Oh my God, it was my friend. So they go, it's gotta be him. Even though she in for second degree, sentencing comes around, you, sir, may fuck off. Life with the possibility of parole after 30 years. So in your 50s, homie?

[B]

Yeah. Freeze to death up here.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, Jesus. A cold. Oh, they gotta have good heat up there. Also. Everybody would be dead in those prisons. So Michael's family believes that he's been fucked over good.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. They pointed to the discrepancies in Jamie's story. And his sister points out the contrast in the two people, Jamie and Michael. She says Jamie's a sociopath. Everybody who's come in contact with her says so. She's a stalker, a thief, and a bright, devious person with a long criminal record. Michael was never in trouble until he met Jamie. Yet the state claims he planned a cold blooded murder, then duped her into going along with it. Common sense tells you that isn't so. She's the one without the conscience.

[B]

It's a fascinating story.

[A]

See, to me it's either she. Yeah. Either they did it together or. And if they did, she probably drove the whole thing. Yeah. Or she did it herself. I don't see Michael being like, grab Anne, we're gonna kill this bitch. Get her in the car. I'll buy a shotgun.

[B]

Michael's got no Interest in her dying.

[A]

Michael doing that. That's the thing. Neither does. It's such a small charge.

[B]

She's the only one that doesn't want to go to jail. And she's getting nine months where he's getting 60 days.

[A]

He already got it passed him.

[B]

It's already done.

[A]

So Michael appeals this. Obviously, the main thing is that he says Jamie shouldn't have been able to testify. Statute 595.02, subdivision 1A, prohibits a spouse from testifying against another in a criminal proceeding. The marriage was valid under Minnesota law. The statute included no exception for sham marriages or joint criminal conduct like the federal statute has. The court held that Minnesota had not adopted a joint criminal enterprise exemption to the. Or exception to the marital privilege. Michael. They then say they reversed the conviction based on this. Jamie should not have been allowed to testify. Michael has returned to Clay county jail and his bond is set at $1 million. They said that Minnesota chose not to adopt an exception to the marital Minnesota privilege for either shad marriages or marriages where the spouses are joint participants. Another judge says it's simply too great a departure from over 100 years of this court's jurisprudence to adopt an exception to the marital privilege of this nature. The lawyer for Michael says the law seemed clear to me. The Supreme Court just observed the law and applied it correctly when the trial court did. Not easy. So it's overturned. Wow. Ann's sister said that this doesn't change our resolve to continue to seek justice for Ann. Well, they should. Shouldn't, obviously. Yeah. Good call. One of the justices dissented and said the preservation of marital harmony is not an absolute goal to be pursued blindly. Okay. Overturned at this point, Clay county then hands it over to the feds. Because the federal law has an exemption for couples that did the crime together. They are allowed to testify against each other. So they don't like the Minnesota law, so they just give it to the feds, who have a different law for that, which is kind of shady. I mean, whatever. But I'm just saying, legally, that's a little bit of a move. So Clay county prosecutors hand it over. Now they're gonna end up dropping lesser charges. Also. His attorney, Ricky Henderson, said. He said that his client shouldn't face the two lesser felonies, a conspiracy charge and a weapons charge, because of their five year statute of limitations has expired.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

So the federal charges were. Were filed without those. And they said, we still have two more serious charges pending and the presentation of the case is not affected anyway. 2002 federal indictment against him. Conspiracy to commit kidnapping with death resulting. Kidnapping resulting in death, using or carrying a firearm during a crime of violence and carrying or causing death by use of a firearm. Counts one and three were dismissed for a superseding indictment, leaving kidnapping resulting in death and causing death by use of a firearm. There. Now, how do they put it in federal court? You can't just put it there because you like their laws better. Right. The thing is, where was Ann picked up?

[B]

Where?

[A]

At her apartment. Which is where? Fargo. Which is where? Not Minnesota. That's another state. So they crossed state lines with her, making it a federal crime. Oh, shit. So that's why they were able to do that, even though it's 10 minutes away.

[B]

Yeah. You cross the state line, that's intertravel with the corpse. Or with.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

To murder.

[A]

Yeah, to murder.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they went. Yep. Across the Red River. That's that. Wow. Doesn't apply under federal rules. The prosecutor that had prosecuted him also had taken a job with the U.S. attorney's office in Fargo. So it's the same guy.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

So he's already got it in for Michael. Obviously he already knows. He said. I assume Myers was the one who pushed Michael to have Michael tried in federal court. This is the defense lawyer saying that. I assume it's the prosecutor who prosecuted us doing it. He says Ann had crossed the state line from Fargo over to Minnesota before she was murdered. So they were able to bring charges and Jamie's testimony would be admissible. So what does this mean for Jamie?

[B]

What?

[A]

Well, she already lived up to her end of the plea bargain, which was testify in state court against him. So she doesn't have to testify in federal court. Unless they want to give her something. Oh, she's in a real good position now. She can justify. No, I don't feel like it's a deal. It's her dream.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is all she's ever wanted. Her testimony would be required. But now she's going to make a new deal where her sentence is reduced to 16 years before she's agrees to take the stand. 16 years until she's eligible for parole. So the trials move to Bismarck because of pretrial publicity. In this. Forehead. Fargo Moorhead is forehead now in that one. April 2003 is the federal goddamn trial. Here we go. The prosecution evidence included wiretap recordings, the cellmate's testimony about Jamie's jailhouse confession, Jamie's testimony, the fact that Michael had been to the farmstead before the murder, before he knew where it Was the purchase of the shotgun the day of the murder. His presence when Jamie purchased wine coolers and shotgun shells. Multiple inconsistencies in his alibi statements. That's what the prosecutor says. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same trial. Now, during this, the Clay County Sheriff's Office, Detective Brian Lynn Green. Wasn't he on 90210? Yes, yes, I believe so. There was definitely a Brian and a Green in that somewhere.

[B]

Brian Greene Dawson.

[A]

I don't know. Brian Austin Green.

[B]

Brian Austin. There it is.

[A]

We are really showing off our knowledge of early 90s, late 80s, heartthrobs here on this show.

[B]

I've been waiting so long to tell you. I think Jordan and Jonathan are brothers.

[A]

I think they are.

[B]

I think they are.

[A]

I think they are. That sounds right. That sounds right to me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So anyway, they do all of that. They, they're. They're calling out all that now. Brian Lynn Green, he's the guy who ran the wiretap operation in 1999. He testifies in the 2003 federal trial. While he's in court, he sees jurors. Do something. I'll give this guy credit. Clay County Sheriff's Office. Detective Brian Lynn Green is an honest man. While on the stand, testifying, obviously for the prosecution or while he's in the court, whatever would happen. He saw a juror look at another juror and mouth the words, he's guilty. On the fourth day of the trial.

[B]

Oh, fuck.

[A]

He reported it to the court.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Now, that's if he wants him convicted. That's like, awesome. We're winning. He said, no, no, no, no, no. That's not a last trial. He's an actual honest man and went to the judge and said, I don't like it, but this is what I saw. Hats off to you, sir. That's incredible.

[B]

Well done.

[A]

If all cops did that, people wouldn't have a problem. You know, we'd all be able to just go, oh, well. I mean, they're honest. That's fine. But unfortunately, this is a rarity here, so. Not that all cops are dishonest, but they're as dishonest as the general population.

[B]

There's a shitload of them.

[A]

There's as dishonest as the general population. That's all I have to say.

[B]

And my point is there's a shitload of cops, so.

[A]

Oh, yeah, and a shitload of liars, too. So everybody's in every profession. It's about half shitty people and half decent people, probably. So the good people can't cover for the shitty people. That's when it's bad. That's the problem. That's the problem. So Green reports this. The defense attorney moves for an investigation, then for dismissal of the juror in the alternative, for a mistrial. Either a mistrial or get rid of this person.

[B]

Bring in an alternate. Huh?

[A]

The judge said, I don't consider this a matter of great significance. I have a feeling that every jury that's ever been empaneled reaches some conclusions at some point during the case. Huh? But that goes against all of your instructions. So why would you keep a person.

[B]

And you can't sit in court and telegraph messages to some.

[A]

Yeah, well, no investigation was conducted. The juror was not dismissed. The alternate juror that they had for exactly this situation aren't used. The judge's admonition to the jury was because rather than correcting the problem, he told the jurors it was acceptable to have reached conclusions before hearing all the evidence. Every judge says, don't come to any conclusions till you hear all the evidence and deliberate it with your fellow jurors. That's what they say. This guy said, I get it. You're judging on day one. You look at that guy and he

[B]

looks like a murderer. Sometimes that happens. You've heard enough information to know that's wild.

[A]

He said, as long as they don't share those conclusions until deliberation, which they did. He looked over and said he's guilty. So he did all. It's wild either way, they let that juror stay. Jamie took the stand again. Says the same thing she said in the state trial. Michael takes a stand again. He testifies in his own defense. His testimony from the first trial was also admitted as well. So his alibi was. He was at his parents house. His family says the same thing. They say, this has been hard on all of us. His sister, his dad said it will come out in the end that he's innocent. So I'm not gonna worry about it. All right, the verdict. The jury deliberates for 16 hours.

[B]

Two days.

[A]

Two days. Ten men or ten women? Two men. And the charge of causing death by use of a firearm? Not guilty. Oh, not guilty. Which. All you'd have to do is listen to the medical examiner say she was dead when she got shot in the head. So? So that doesn't mean much. The charge of convict. The charge of kidnapping resulting in death. Guilty. All right, that's guilty. Okay. Sentencing here. You, sir, may fuck off. Life in prison. Fed life. Federal life. Yeah, federal life. Not eligible. Okay, so he's in a lot of shit here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So quickly here he appeals to the 8th Circuit Court to try to get something. The majority affirms the convictions on all grounds raised. The admission of his prior state court testimony, the jury instruction on aiding and abetting, the handling of the juror misconduct, evidentiary rulings, and the sufficiency of the evidence. Those were all of his appeal points. Now, a judge named Myron Bright of Fargo dissented on the juror misconduct issue, which I would be. That's crazy. Why not just kick that juror off? You have alternates that have been watching. There's no reason to go just to avoid any impropriety. I mean, of course the prosecutor's gonna say, no, let's not do that, because they know they got a guilty vote there, so they're gonna do it.

[B]

But one. We only got 11 to go.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Just to keep it out of this. You would totally do that. So this judge said, faced with a serious and credible allegation that a juror had in open court mid trial, expressed to another juror her conclusion that he was guilty, the trial judge denied the request to investigate that juror's misconduct. The trial judge erred at all three stages. He also said that Michael has been sentenced to life in prison on the basis of a tainted jury verdict. In our system of law, such a verdict should not stand. But the conviction stood. But that's it. The U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case said Michael planned and carried out one of the most cold blooded, cowardly murders in this region's history.

[B]

Michael did it.

[A]

That's what he's saying. Now. Jamie's transferred to another prison here because of disciplinary problems. She's such a fucking problem. If she serves her entire sentence, she'll be out in her 40s here. Michael is ineligible for parole. So he went to. You'll get out when you're 55. Which would be, oh, I don't know, right now. To never, ever, ever, never, never. Yeah, he'd do better if he just didn't appeal at all the first time. 2012, A&E filmed a special in Moorhead about this case. 2015, there's a lifetime movie. Sort of. It's titled I Killed My BFF the Babysitter.

[B]

She got a Lifetime movie? Yes, she loves Lifetime makeup.

[A]

That's what I mean. It's Patty. She's fucking Patty Duke.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I was gonna say, and I killed my BFF the Babysitter. It sounds like exactly like what she was watching. It's amazing. And a separate Lifetime production Titled Frenemies.

[B]

She got two of them now.

[A]

In this though it's not. It's. We'll read the description. Shane Riley and Heather Thomas become fast friends when they meet in a shared hospital room. After giving two years later, one of them will be found brutally murdered. The two young mothers become inseparable as Shane strives to make her mark in the world and Heather grapples with severe bipolar disorder through they support each other. At first, their friendship is headed for troubled waters. When an investigation goes south, Shane takes matters into her own hands to secure some fast cash. Meanwhile, Heather fights a bitter battle for custody of her daughter. She can't help but submit to a dangerous attraction to Shane's gorgeous boyfriend. So they added that twist that like Anne was fucking Michael, which we know wasn't true. Both women will have to make a terrible choice. Save your family or sacrifice your best friend. Inspired by true events, sort of ish, this wild, gritty and emotional ride becomes a race against the clock as the audience keeps guessing which which friend will be gruesomely killed and which friend will become a killer herself.

[B]

Jesus christ. Wow.

[A]

Okay. June 21st, 2016. Jamie is released.

[B]

She is out.

[A]

Out after serving 16 years of her 25 year sentence. Just like that deal told her. 16? Yep. That is the standard two thirds under Minnesota's supervised release policy. She's placed under supervised release. They notify Ann's mother Kathleen, who says it's always hard, but I hope she can live a productive life instead of going around murdering other people's kids. Which is an awesome. I just love that statement. That's a great statement. Hopefully she can do something productive, not just fucking killing people's kids like a loser like she is now. That's awesome.

[B]

Nice work.

[A]

That is so right to the point. I love it.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

Her father, Ann's father Doug, who by the way dies in 2024, he said, it bothers me that this lady gets to get out. I don't want her around any part of my family. Fair enough. 2024. It's not enough that Jamie's out. She wants her conviction overturned.

[B]

Stop it. She wants.

[A]

Listen lady.

[B]

She wants to act like all that was for not overturned. Why? So she can sue and have some money for.

[A]

Well, when I go for a job, they ask a lot of questions. It'd be better if I just.

[B]

It's really given me some hardship.

[A]

It's really difficult on me.

[B]

It's crazy how society deems murderers bad people.

[A]

It's like forever. It's like you have A mark on your head like it's just like an A scarlet letter. A big M on my chest. It's wrong. So she sought to have the conviction overturned through Minnesota's Felony Reform Act. But the judge's ruling says she failed to provide evidence that she didn't cause the death. Death and that she was not a major participant in the murder. This is just your story? Yeah. Yeah. A Minnesota judge denies the motion to overturn the conviction. They say the Clay County Attorney's office is pleased with the result. The fact that rule of law stands and she who was very involved in the grisly and horrific murder of Ann Camp was not able to have her murder conviction vacated. 2025. The Forum News service Inform is what they are published a three part investigation by reporter C.S. hagan. So that was a. Got more information on this? Michael maintains his innocence to this day.

[B]

Really?

[A]

He's in his mid-50s. He's housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in McKeon, Pennsylvania. He wakes up at 6am Work detail until 2pm lockdown and headcount. Approximately one hour of free time outside the cell, then back to the cell. That's his day.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

In over 25 years he's received two disciplinary write ups, which doesn't seem bad for 25 years. I'd get in way more trouble than that, I think. He's taken rehab, college and vocational training courses and he helps other inmates obtain their GEDs.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

He's also been beaten senselessly.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Multiple times. That's what I was saying. Wait. A year later, during a California prison riot, when he was shipped to California, he was. He was shot by a correctional officer.

[B]

Like in Pelican Bay or some shit?

[A]

Yes. This was after he was severely beaten in the riot. An officer shot him too.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

Hit him in the leg.

[B]

Poor fucking guy.

[A]

He has been hit over the head with a pipe and he's been stabbed multiple times over the years.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

Doesn't do well. Remember Myra, their daughter?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Myra tries to help him.

[B]

Really?

[A]

She says she doesn't remember anything from that night. But she studies the trial transcripts and she's trying to get to know her father through prison the whole time. She believes her father was manipulated. That's what she thinks. She's taken the stance. I think that they were both there. But Jamie was driving the car, like, you know, whatever. Not. Not really.

[B]

But was he there or not?

[A]

We don't know. She said. I grew up visiting him. Him. I know him and I know his character. Based on what he's shown me. I form my own opinion on how things have gone down, and I believe he's innocent. So she's blamed putting it all on Jamie. That's her mom. She said she's trying to obtain a compassionate release for her father and turn to a former inmate who served 25 years of three life sentences named Tommy Walker, who runs the Second Chance for Real R E A L acronym LLC, a paralegal service to help inmates find relief from sentencing. She said he's been beaten up and shot. In California during a riot. He got shot by a cop and he got hit in the leg. He got hit over the head with a pipe. He's been stabbed umpteen times.

[B]

Umpteen.

[A]

Umpteen. That's way too much stabbing. He has done nothing wrong. In 2025, he lost track.

[B]

James Umpteen doesn't exist.

[A]

No. We don't even know. You could count the Scottish. But 2025, he wrote this quote. I am just a tired old man now. I've lived my life in prison the same way I lived on the streets. I'm not a convict, but an inmate. I do not follow the ways of the convict, which makes me an outcast in prison. I pray one day to come home and just live the rest of my life in peace. I'm no threat to anyone. I never have been. I'm sorry for the camp's loss. And I'm sorry I did not help to get the truth out there. So many lives ruined. So do they give him compassionate release?

[B]

No.

[A]

No, they don't. He's been denied four times for that, as a matter of fact.

[B]

The bummer is that he may not have been there.

[A]

No, no, he may not have been there. And even if he. The way I think he was, I don't know. If you had to. If you put a gun to my

[B]

shotgun, he knew what was going to

[A]

happen if you put a gun to my head. I'd say that this is not his idea and that Jamie definitely drove this all through and that I don't think he did the murder party. He bought a shot, which his story is. She said, I want a shotgun while you go to jail. Which is not a terrible story. Not a bad story. You know what I mean? I don't know. But we don't know what happened.

[B]

He's going to jail for 60 days.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I mean. He's not gonna find.

[B]

I don't believe that.

[A]

That. See, I would believe that over. That he would murder somebody.

[B]

No, I don't Think he was going to do it? I think she influenced him to go

[A]

buy a gun, regardless of how. No way.

[B]

Yeah. She's willing to kill over it. I don't know that. I don't know that. She said, while you're gone, 60 days isn't long enough to say I need a gun in the house.

[A]

It doesn't sound like it, no. But I guess some people would be. A weekend would be long enough. But I don't know what to believe here. All I know is Ann didn't deserve it and somebody killed her and it sucks.

[B]

And the person sucking my dick doesn't. Doesn't tell me. Isn't telling me what to do at the moment.

[A]

Not at all. So he's number 0818-6059. He's at Mendota there in Wisconsin.

[B]

Huh?

[A]

In Wisconsin. Anne Marie is buried at the Richland Lutheran Church cemetery near Christine, North Dakota. Her headstone has a photograph of her as a 22 year old and a phrase that her father said to her all the time. Hair of gold, eyes of blue, you will always be our punky poo. Very poetic there.

[B]

Mendota is a mental hospital. Is there something wrong with him?

[A]

I think the hospital, it has a hospital with the prison within the prison. I thought that I could be totally wrong on that.

[B]

I mean, I've been on the ground. So it's not a prison. There may be a prison there too

[A]

nearby, I don't know. Or maybe if he's older, I'm not sure. I don't know what the deal is. Her mom said she would have been 50 years old this year. Anniversaries like this are hard. That was in 2025. And Lisa, her sister, said she trusted them. I hate this is the way we have to visit her now. Yeah, that's complete bullshit. Anne Marie's daughter is now in her late 20s, was raised by her father, Andy, the one who they thought killed her at first, but obviously didn't. Yeah. Michael's family continues to advocate for his innocence. Myra, the daughter, engaged a paralegal like we talked about. And she said, he just wants to work. He just wants to help us. He just wants a family. He doesn't want any big splashy things. He'll sleep on the couch, go do work and come back. That's what he said. I don't even need a bed.

[B]

I'll sleep on a couch. I don't care.

[A]

Sleep on a couch. There was a book that we talked about, took little pieces from that was Greed, rage and love. Gone murder in Minnesota. And it's by Bruce Rubenstein. And it's not just this case. It has a bunch of different stories of Minnesota murder. So if you're into that, check that out. And I'll leave Kathleen Ann's mom with the final words here. She said, quote, they told us right away that whoever came forward first would get the best deal. I think Jamie told the truth as best she could. Michael definitely was lying, but no one could have done it without the other. I think any form of that's probably true and probably consistent. So there you go. Everybody there is Moorhead, Minnesota and quite a twisted little fucking tale that we'll never know the outcome.

[B]

I hate it so much.

[A]

Hate that shit. And I hate that Anne got killed because she didn't seem like she. I mean nobody deserves it, but she really didn't deserve it. She's just a nice.

[B]

She's told the. She's talked to the cops.

[A]

Yeah, she's just a nice lady trying to have friends and they asked her a question, she answered it. That's ridiculous. So either way, if you like that story, get on whatever app you are listening on, doesn't matter what it is, and give us five stars. It helps a ton. Helps drive the show up the charts. So please do that and keep coming back and hanging out with us for sure. Follow us on social media, Rimeinsports on Instagram, Malltown Pod on Facebook. You can do that. You can definitely head over to shut upandgivememurder.com Dammit. Get your tickets for live shows. The next live show available. Let's see. May 1, Salt Lake City, sold out. May 2, Denver, still some tickets left there. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Thank you for doing that. And May 30, Royal Oak, Michigan up by Detroit there. Then we have Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Tarrytown, Boston. Get your Texas tickets today. Come out and see us. That's going to be a lot of fun. We can't wait for that. So do that. Shut up and give me murder.com patreon is what you need, baby.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

Patreon. Oh baby. Patreon.com crimeinsports Just like the name of the other show that we do that you should be listening to, Crime in Sports. You don't have to like sports, we promise. You just have to like us making fun of someone who didn't have to fuck up like they did. And of course your stupid opinions you should listen to also. But patreon.com crimeinsports is where you get all the bonus material, anybody. $5 a month or above. You get everything. We put out everything as soon as you subscribe. Hundreds of backup bonus episodes, immediately yours. New ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murderer. And you get them all, damn it. This week for small town murder, what you're going to get is we're going to talk about Stockholm syndrome, which is obviously when you. You're kidnapped or you have captors and you side with them for whatever reason. We're going to find out where it came from, the incident that caused it, which is one of the craziest cases of it in the history of the world. The reason why it's a thing. And then maybe a couple of times that happened in real life and how it happens sounds a lot. Because I am fascinated by that shit. So that is patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out, which is coming up first of all. Also, you get everything we put out ad free with that. Everything.

[B]

Ad free.

[A]

All three shows, ad free. And you get a shout out, which is right goddamn now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people in the world who would never ever kill us and then fight over making up stories, blaming each other. Please hit me with them right goddamn now.

[B]

This week's executive producer, Liz Vasquez. Gary Howard in Charleston, Missouri, Larry Butterfax. Larry's gonna be in our Phoenix show. It's gonna be great. I can't wait. We're buying drinks for you. Lare Danielle Tisch. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, tj. Beaner Schnitzel. Oh, I don't know if I like that. Happy birthday. He picked it. I didn't give it. And then Bama.

[A]

What's up? Beaner Schnitzel.

[B]

Tj. That's not a good name. Beaner Schnitzel. That's a name.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Other producers this week. Peyton Meadow, Sean and Kristin [e-mail] James. They sell piss so you don't have to do it.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

I don't know how they bottle it. They didn't say.

[A]

Oh, carefully, Very careful.

[B]

Happy hour in Salt Lake City.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[B]

See you up there soon.

[A]

Shout with your fucking 2.1 beer.

[B]

Hope you have a night off there when we're there. Janice Hill. Ryan Bender. James Armstrong. Tamara Wells. Aaron Crisp Gannon. The Irish cannon. Amy with no last name. Greg would know last name. Fig would know last name. Earth. Toots or Toots.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Oh, is the. That's the other initial. Earth Toots. Earth Toots.

[A]

Farting. Right here.

[B]

There it is. Tammy Miller. Kelsey Mountain. Sarah with no last name. Mary Hunt. Magnolia Rose Elizabeth with no last name. Laura with no last name. Faith Poston. Poston. Perhaps Tavia Woodcock. Cook. That is Cook, not Woodcock. Wood Hook. James Lane. Claire Hunter. Strong. Corey. You know what I'm going to watch, Mr. Woodcock? I've forgotten about how great that I'm watching it.

[A]

I haven't seen that in years.

[B]

Claire Hunter. Strong. Corey. Not weak. Corey. James Lane. Angela Johnson. Probably not that one. Tracy Abbott. Yeah, she's a big fan. Frankie, Matthew. Sam and Cam Grim. Karen David Turway. Allie with no last name. Or ally. Molly McCarthy.

[A]

Molly McCarthy.

[B]

Carlos Acosta. Michaela. Big Sam. Cynthia Franklin. Carey would know last name. Carrie Merrill. Also, they're back to back. I don't know if Carrie Merrill got two or if there are indeed two people named Carrie. Lauren with no last name. Beth Dingus. Rihau Chen. Rihu Rehue. R U, I and then H, A U. So that's. It's certainly an Asian name that I can't pronounce. Aiden with no last name. Kyra. Kira Egan. Egan Eigenberger. Jaden Weston. Brent Clark. Mel Bell. Strife. Marilyn Ludwig. Andrea Kobe. Kayoto. Kyoto. K A O T O. No last name. Heather Feek. Scotty Dufur. What is DU5? Marlena Tolland. Yolanda Wood. Heather Chapman. Kathleen Irving. Ray the Mellow Dumbo. Michael. Clem Hayden. Jade. Mike with no last name. Lindsey. Esham. Isham. Stephen Jerome. Abby Finney. Ingrid Herrera. Yee. Courtney Sargent. Kyle with no last name. Brett Caldwell. Mackenzie Myers. Tom Robinson. Good for you, Tom.

[A]

Get in there, Tom.

[B]

Finder seeker.

[A]

Show them what you're about.

[B]

How about that? Tom Rimmer. And then finder seeker. Tom's finding and seeking also. Shayla Newton.

[A]

She's looking in every crevice and crack.

[B]

Jeff Santeri. Santeer. Dane Burrell. Michael Wegner. Melissa Theodore. Nicole Callender. Ron Cochin. Samuel Cole. Molly with no last name. Megan Reed. Kathleen Bruinsma. Rick Louise Lewis. Rick Louise Bruinsma. Okay, this is two people named Bruinsma. They are clearly husband and wife. Or father and son. Or father and daughter.

[A]

Turns out they never met.

[B]

They've never seen each other in their entire lives. But they have been in a car where there was a hook found on the handle. So scary. What a horrible story. Jesus. Candace Panett. There was a fucking lunatic on the loose. Hook for hand. Our touchtone. Gina Calderon. Christy o'. Keefe. Leisha the mail lady. She's a wonderful person. Lisha.

[A]

Thanks for dropping Shit off.

[B]

Nancy with no last name. Nathan. Hitch. Leland. Leland. Leland Crawford. Deborah Jett. April Shriner. That's. Wow. That's my family's last name. Carly Bale, Jo. Jean. Jean. Mascot. Never met anybody with the last name of Shriner. It's a very popular name.

[A]

I'm sure it's gotta be common sausage place.

[B]

It's hugely popular.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, that's a great point. I've never met anybody that has it. Yeah, we don't know if the people that own it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we do. They're trying.

[B]

Spud and Winston. A L, K, N, Alkaline. I don't know. And the letter S, obviously the letter S brought to you this show and thank you to all of our patrons also. You're amazing.

[A]

Thank you so much, everybody. You, you wonderful, beautiful sons of bitches. We love you more than we could ever tell you and we're more thankful to you than we could possibly let you know. So thank you for all that you do for us. Thank you for coming out to these live shows. Thank you for telling your friends. Thank you for posting on social media. Thanks for being there for us. We just appreciate it.

[B]

Thanks for being a friend.

[A]

Thank you for being a friend. And we had a Blanche Devereux reference yesterday.

[B]

Yeah, we did.

[A]

So kind of perfect. So there you go. Thank you. You want to follow us on social media? Very easy to do. Shut up and give me murder.com drop down menus will take you wherever you need to go. Keep coming back week after week and seeing us. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, everybody. Listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

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

[B]

See you on the road. Has the news been getting you down?

[A]

I'm Megan McCardell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic

[B]

and it's an antidote to the pessimism

[A]

that's riddling America America right now.

[B]

Every Wednesday I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward. It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they

[A]

know I am a believer in America

[B]

and that's worth fighting for.

[A]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.