The Murder And The Miracle - Mont Vernon, New Hampshire

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Small Town Murder
Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
Episode: “The Murder And The Miracle – Mont Vernon, New Hampshire”
Date: October 2, 2025

In this haunting episode, James and Jimmie delve into a brutal crime that shattered the peaceful small town of Mont Vernon, New Hampshire in 2009. Combining their signature mix of in-depth research, shock, and dark humor, the hosts recount the horrifying home invasion and murder of Kimberly Cates, as well as the remarkable survival of her 11-year-old daughter, Jamie. The episode navigates both the horrifying details and the “miracle” of Jamie’s endurance, while exploring the town, the perpetrators, and the community’s shock.

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Setting the Scene: Mont Vernon, New Hampshire

[04:46–19:56]

• The town is pronounced "Mont" Vernon (not "Mount"), a quirky spelling choice with local lore.
• Small, rural, and affluent: population ~2,580, median income over $130,000.
• James: "You put a ring around Boston, and anything drivable is double the price... these people, I think they work in high-paying Boston jobs and live out here." (12:24)
• It’s safe, remote, and generally crime-free; infamous for having virtually no crime or business, and stunning autumns.
• Last murder before the incident in question was in 1840.
• Not much to do locally: farms, small waterfalls, wood carving, a drive-in—"festivals" are, in James’s words, "just going to gather."

Memorable Moments:

• [08:40] Jimmy jokes: “Well, it's that purge day.”
• [17:14] James, on a local tourist “feel good farm”: “I gave my wife a day of old timey work... Show her back on the range in New Hampshire for her birthday. Happy birthday, honey.”

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Meet the Victims: The Cates Family

[21:12–27:02]

• David Cates: Engineer for BAE Systems, often traveling.
• Kimberly Cates: 42, vivacious, beloved nurse. “She’s a duck on the water... above she looks like everything’s fine.” (22:29)
• Jamie Cates: Age 11, mature, straight-A karate kid, “a little kid who might kick your ass, which is pretty cool.” (23:54)
• The Cateses had only lived in Mont Vernon for six years, picking it for its safety.
• Their house: large, isolated, on a dirt road named Trow Road.

Notable Quote:
James: “They immediately had an alarm system installed... whatever it is, this show has sold more security systems than any door to door salesman could ever do.” ([26:21])

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The Crime: The Night of October 4, 2009

[27:02–41:09]

The Attack

• Early morning, around 4 AM, Kimberly and Jamie are attacked in their beds by multiple intruders wielding a machete and a knife.
• Jamie, after being stabbed 18 times and suffering massive wounds, drags herself to the kitchen and calls 911.
• Her whispered call:
  Jamie (11): “They killed my mommy.” ([32:54])
  — She collapses mid-call.

Police Response

• Sgt. Kevin Furlong arrives, smashes through the door; finds Jamie, gravely injured but alive, in a pool of blood.
• “Part of her foot was missing... she was attempting to scream but nothing was coming out.” ([33:58])
• Kimberly is found in the bedroom, dead—brutally butchered.

Jamie’s Survival and Bravery

• Jamie, lucid, directs paramedics to her mother.
• She’d pretended to be dead as attackers looted the house afterward.
• Jamie survives, despite injuries described as “no part of her body was untouched” and “her jaw shattered, foot partially amputated... close to stabbing her in the heart.” ([40:22])

James: “This kid is a badass... to not even go into shock.” ([34:07])
Jimmy: (of the attackers) “An 11-year-old. That gives you that story. Whoever did this is dangerous.” ([40:22])

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The Investigation: Small Town & Big Suspicions

[41:09–43:04]

• Jamie can only describe the attackers: white men, more than one.
• The town is paralyzed with fear; “Kids don’t go to the bus stop anymore…”
• Pressure mounts to solve the case immediately.
• Cops look initially at the husband, but an immediate break comes from a local mom, who overhears her son’s friends basically boasting about the crime.

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The Perpetrators: Cult of Chaos

[43:04–65:17]

Steven Spader

• Age 17 (born 1990), adopted at birth. Upbringing: loving, stable, “idyllic childhood.”
• Severe behavioral issues emerge in middle school: manipulative, belligerent, ultimately diagnosed bipolar, indulges in self-harm and violence fantasies.
• Drops out of school, drug abuse, obsesses over violence and serial killers; claims to have killed “28 people,” prospective Crip, all invented bravado. ([51:06])
• Founds his own “gang”—Disciples of Destruction (“DOD”)—inspired by pro wrestling factions:
  • "He called the group the Disciples of Destruction, the DOD. Really? Which absolutely sounds like a wrestling faction.” ([55:15])
• The “initiation”: a plan to break into a home, rob, torture, and kill strangers (“so no pussies in the group” ([58:20])).
• Other gang “members” were assigned titles, a logo, mission statement, and bylaws—"If he put that effort into a business... he could make money. There’s no stores in Mont Vernon—go open one.” ([56:29])

Christopher Gribble

• Age 20, the oldest “member.” Raised in a strictly religious Mormon family.
• Not much biographical detail provided yet; introduced as Spader’s right-hand man.

The Attack Itself

• Spader and Gribble lead the group.
• Entire scheme is the result of thrill-kill fantasy and warped loyalty testing for the DOD—random, brutal, and devoid of reason.

Memorable Quotes:

• James (on Spader’s wild claims): “He said he had killed 28 people... That’s more than Dahmer, you know what I mean?” ([52:27])
• Jimmy: “The Mount Vernon chapter of the Crips…” ([51:22])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–04:45: Episode setup, standard show intro.
• 04:46–11:55: Mont Vernon background, demographics, real estate.
• 21:12–27:02: The Cates family profile.
• 27:02–37:57: The attack, Jamie’s 911 call, the crime scene.
• 37:57–41:09: Kimberly’s autopsy, Jamie’s injuries.
• 41:09–43:04: Investigation, community reaction, crucial tip-off.
• 43:04–55:37: Steven Spader’s background and the formation of the “Disciples of Destruction.”
• 58:28–65:17: Other group members, the “gang” fantasy world, and target selection.

---

Notable Quote Summary

• James (on Jamie’s bravery):
  “This kid is a badass. This girl’s a bastard badass. … To not even go into shock… she is a—her mind is strong. And her body.” ([34:07])
• Jamie (911 call):
  “They killed my mommy.” ([32:54])
• James (on town’s safety):
  “The murder that we're gonna talk about right now was the first murder in this town since 1840. And that was like a tavern brawl.” ([19:56])
• Jimmy (on the perpetrators' idiocy):
  “Imagine being so fucking terrible at this... literally, your job is to kill some—Oh my God, you’re so bad at this.” ([38:54])
• James (on Spader’s violence fixation):
  “He had an obsession with murder, serial killers, loved the Zodiac killer—a lot… and openly talked about with lots of his friends wanting to, quote: ‘kill people for fun.’” ([50:47])
• Jimmy (of the DOD ‘gang’):
  “They’re going with the Brotherhood. …It’s working great.” ([55:17])

---

Tone and Takeaway

Hosts maintain their trademark combination of genuine shock, morbid comedy, and exasperation at the senselessness of the attack. Their empathy for the victims, especially Jamie, is clear. The episode is as much a lament for the Cates family as it is a roast of the delusional, self-styled ‘villains’ who perpetrated the crime.

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For listeners seeking a story of both horror and human survival, surrounded by the banter and disbelief of two seasoned true crime comics, this episode delivers it all—details, heart, and the occasional necessary laugh in the dark.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

This week in Mount Vernon, New Hampshire, a comfy country home is the setting for a terrible massacre, causing detectives to be suspicious of the spouse, only to find out that it's actually a much darker plot leading to horror and a story of unlikely survival. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yay.

[James Petregallo]

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

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on an absolutely wild, crazy edition of Small Town Murder. It always is and I'm shocked by it every week. I'm like, it can't be. Keep getting crazier and crazier and it always does. So let's stay on this murder train and we'll keep on going. But definitely before we get into the story, head over to shut upandgivemerder.com get your merchandise, get your tickets for live shows. Number one, we will be, I think it's October 18th, the Saturday night there in mid October in Seattle at the Moore Theater. It's beautiful. Let's fill that bad boy up. It's almost full now, but let's continue and let's sell that bad boy out. So that's going to be great. And then get your tickets for on top of that, the virtual live show that we have coming up. It's the Thursday before Halloween and it is going to be our Halloween virtual live spectacular. Just like a regular live show. All the pictures and the jokes and everything like that. We're also going to wear costumes and look like idiots. It'll be a very, very fun time. We cannot wait. And we got a real weird story picked out. It's going to be awesome. So get those tickets, shut up and give me murder.com. also listen to our other shows, crime in sports and you'd stupid opinions to find out all of the best reviews on the Internet. That's so much fun. And then get yourself patreon as well. Patreon.com crimeinsports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're gonna get it all. You're gonna get hundreds of back episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard before immediately upon subscription to binge on. Then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town. And you get it all this week, which you're gonna get for crime and sports. We are gonna talk. We're gonna take it light. We're gonna do light. We've done a lot of heavy stuff. So sure. We're gonna talk about the old rock and jock specials that used to be on mtv. The basketball games, the softball games.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So embarrassing.

[James Petregallo]

Celebrities that are 5 foot 3 trying to play basketball. It's the funniest thing you ever want to see. And we're gonna talk all about Gary's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Showing how fucking tiny he is.

[James Petregallo]

I can't wait to talk about that. Then for small town murder again, we're gonna lighten it up a little bit because we've had a lot of heavy stuff lately. It' here we go. We're gonna talk about everything on the Internet except politics. We'll keep out of that stuff. And we're gonna talk about all the stuff that's going on, especially that Saudi comedy festival too. We wanna get into that since that's kind of in our wheelhouse there. We'll talk about all that stuff, whatever you've been interested in around the Internet. And if you have anything you want us to talk about, let us know. So do that. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you also get all of the content that we make crime and sports. Your stupid opinions. Both episodes of small town Murder all ad free with your Patreon ad free. And you get a shout out at the end of the show. Jimmy will mess your name all up for you. It's all we can give. Our veins are open. It's all over the place. It's all we got. So please, please sign up for that patreon.com crimeinsports that said, Disclaimer time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

This is a comedy show. We're comedians. There's also murder, okay? That's how it works. And that's. You go, how is that funny? Plenty to laugh about with that. We can make fun of the murderers or murderer. That's always fun to do there. You can make fun of a small town because we all come from somewhere that's easily made fun of. Who cares about that? That's what we can do. But what we don't do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victim's family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why is that, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But.

[James Petregallo]

But we're not scumbags. See how that works? It's perfect if you just keep it to that. But for some people, they don't think that comedy and true crime should ever, ever go together. I don't know for those people, we might not be for you, but I think you should give it a shot. I think you might be Looking at it the wrong way. Either way, no complaining later. I think it's time to sit back, everybody. What do you say? Let's clear the lungs and let's all shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay, let's go on a trip, shall we?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

We are going to Mont Vernon, New Hampshire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Mont Vernon?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. M A. I'm sorry, M, O, N, T. Vernon, New Hampshire. Now, there's a story behind that. When I said it in the beginning, people went. I think he means Mount Vernon, I'm sure. No, I definitely mean Mount Vernon. And they have kept that U out of that word on purpose for a long time. It's Mount Vernon, New Hampshire, down in southern New Hampshire. Down there in, you know, kind of commuter range to Boston. About an hour and 15 minutes to Boston, so you can definitely get there about an hour and 10 minutes to Dover, New Hampshire. Our last New Hampshire episode, which was 85 episodes ago. We have completely slept on New Hampshire. I apologize. We have not been there. That was the kinky killer couple, the last New Hampshire episode. That was a weird one. This is in Hillsborough county. Area code 603. Town motto, how people spell things. We're going with Mont. Who cares?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's good enough for us.

[James Petregallo]

A little bit of history of this town. We'll find out where the U went. Where's your U, everybody? For years, from what I found, it's. It's not clear why they spelled it different, differently than all the other towns that named their towns Mount Vernon. Like Mount Vernon, New York, and a ton of other ones.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They named it after Virginia.

[James Petregallo]

After George Washington. Yeah, that was the deal. It was spelled here. It was spelled without a U from the start and written in that way even in the town charter in 1803. So it's odd. Then a local hotel owner named George Kitteridge convinced the US Post office to put the U in in the late 1800s.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

In hopes of boosting business. He thought if it was Mount Vernon and not Mount Vernon, people come flooding here for some reason, didn't seem to make a difference, but so they did that. But then after he died, he must have been, like, a powerful guy nobody wanted to mess with. Because then after he died, they took the ew back out again. They, like, placated this guy and then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Spited him after he left, and then.

[James Petregallo]

Was like, okay, he's dead. No one will complain anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You won't know anymore.

[James Petregallo]

Really weird. The town was originally settled for agriculture. They had tons of farms here, but the farms were hit hard after the Civil War because railroads opened up and there was more better farming land in the Midwest. And they were kind of dominating the business, basically. The town's population peaked in 1870 and has been declining ever since then. And lately in the last 30 years or so, it's kind of shot up a little bit near those levels here. It became a tourist town after all the farms dried up and people come from Boston and, you know, go out in the country, basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Probably leaf peak. Yeah. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now it's a suburban community and, you know, that sort of thing. So that's what it is. It's commuters and things like that. Reviews of this town, because we've never been there. We have no idea. Here's three stars. Very small, quiet town. This is a very small town, too. There's barely like a town itself. It's mainly just houses out in the. And on their own. No businesses, but community gathers often. Good. Ella.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You call it a village.

[James Petregallo]

I guess they're calling it a town. It depends on the states. They have different classifications as you go state to state of what they have because, like, they'll have, like hamlets in some places. They don't have that in other states. Townships. Good elementary school. You'll have to go to the next town over for stores and a high school for those stores. You know, it says no businesses. It doesn't have like a quaint main street with all the businesses or any of that stuff. It's just.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're just surviving on property taxes, I guess.

[James Petregallo]

So four stars. Besides, every once a year maybe there's very little crime here. What's the year. What's the day of the year the crime comes?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, it's that purge day.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, that's what I mean. Do they have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's real bad that day.

[James Petregallo]

It's that day. It's a lot of murder, let me tell you. Stay in your house that day. But other than that, quiet as shit. We clean up the mess the next day and then we just go back to normal after that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everything's fine.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Also too. New Hampshire doesn't have sales tax, so the businesses wouldn't matter anyway.

[James Petregallo]

I guess not. But you think that people would still want to buy things.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

In their own town. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Convenience, but I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

So at least a little store. A little, you know, convenience. Something. I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You think he'd kill it if you just had a little fucking general store?

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. In general. A very safe place to live. Here's Three stars. I don't mind where I live. And overall it's wonderful. But it can be a little too small at times. But it's okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But it's okay.

[James Petregallo]

This person will not give you an opinion. I don't mind. Overall, it's wonderful. Could be a little too small, but no, it's okay. But just say what you mean. I'd love to know what that person really thinks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, real flip flop for that guy.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, man. And then three stars. There are a few abandoned or foreclosed properties in town, but in the past few years it's really cleared up, including new apartment buildings being put up. The only really poor part of town is the trailer park near the dump. Yeah, yeah, he said the town's nice. There is a trailer park near the dump. You'd go, that's probably not that nice. I would assume.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Probably not. Overflowing with positive shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's why they put it near the dump. Probably. That's not good. People of this town. 2580, so very small little joint. And it's spread out pretty good too. All These properties are 5 acres, 4 acres, 8 acres. They're all big properties. More, more men than women. Here it's 51.7% men, which is not, you know, it's aberrant. It's not the normal average there. Median age is about six years over the national average at 44 and a half. Family here it's all married people with kids. That's all it is. Here it's 61% married and only 8% are single with children. There's no like single parents. This is like really, you get married, you move out here. Yeah, I think because it's kind of, it's kind of out there. Like to sit here by yourself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

With a kid would be quiet. Really quiet and weird. You need a. You need a partner here just to fill in the space.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It is fascinating with Boston. You get an hour outside of Boston. You are nowhere near Boston.

[James Petregallo]

There's nothing there. You're in the forest, man. Yeah, I like that. Race in this town. 97.4% white, 0.0% black, 0.3% Asian, 0.2% Hispanic. Religion in this town, 50, 50 is average in the country. Here it is 43 and a half percent of the people are religious. And by far and away the leader coming out of the clubhouse here is Catholic, obviously 32%. As we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the North. If you're a new listener, that just means there's a lot of Baptists in the south and a lot of Catholics in the North. That's all you can flip flop based on what state, whether it's Alabama or Maine, you're going to get the opposite.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, for sure.

[James Petregallo]

So very low unemployment here. Less than half the national average really, because Boston's right there. So there's places to work, I guess. Median household income here is extremely high. The US average is 69,000. Here it is $134,432 a year. Yeah, it's double, double the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The people in New Hampshire are doing quietly fucking fantastic.

[James Petregallo]

These people, I think they work in high paying Boston jobs and then live out here. And I think is how this works for the most part, because I don't think there's an employer around here that's going to pay you 130 grand a year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean you got Concord, Manchester right there.

[James Petregallo]

That's true either way too. It's not in this town. You're going to. Sure. You're going to have to somewhere.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Cost of living 100 is average. Here it's 110.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So that's a little bit high. The housing is the real high one. Median home cost here, 535,700 bucks. Right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's so much money up there.

[James Petregallo]

And you can put a ring around in the east coast, you can put a ring around Boston, a ring around New York, in a ring around Philly. And anything that is drivable, that ring is the drivable ring. What you're willing to commute for anything that's drivable. I'm telling you, if you go a half hour north of me, the houses are half the price because it's too far to commute. But here it's okay to commute to New York. It's weird as shit. So if we've convinced you, damn it, Mont Vernon, you're going to go there and you're going to put the U back in this joint. We have for you the Mount Vernon New Hampshire real estate report. Okay, here we go. The first house we have for you. Here it is a four bedroom, two bath, 1848 square foot house on five acres. And it's real rustic looking like it looks like. It looks like pioneers built it last weekend. It's all logs and then the inside.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A frame that's very cool.

[James Petregallo]

Inside is all big wood beams and the big brick fireplace that goes up to the second floor and the a.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Frame stretch that's I guess added on. That looks new.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's pretty cool looking. This house is 525,000 bucks. Whoa. So a little pricey for 1848. Five acres. Yeah. Next up is kind of your typical suburban looking home. Vinyl siding, all that kind of thing. Here. Four bedroom, three bath. You know the nice inside, the white wood floors, put some brick. Yep. 3,281 square feet. 6.54 acre lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Damn.

[James Petregallo]

So good size house on a big old lot. 759,000 bucks for that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which isn't worth it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Six and a half. And then the next house here, here's a picture of this. It's long. It's a real long house. Look how long that is. It's got the big like four car barn. Garage.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. When you come in the garage you can't shout. Honey, I'm home. And have her hear you on the other end of the house.

[James Petregallo]

Shit. No, you better call her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

This or him. This here. They have the same sink. I do that. Bronze.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that copper.

[James Petregallo]

Copper thing. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hammered copper.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that shit. That's pretty cool. So it's a cool looking place. Four bedroom, three bath. 4159 square feet. 5.69 acres. 925,000 bucks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's not terrible for what it is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Things to do. That's not bad things to do in this town now. Okay, I looked, there's not. The festivals they have here are like, not like a festival that has anything. It's like, oh, we're just going to gather type of character.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So I just looked up what are the things to do in this town and I found a list of the top 10 things to do. And you'll see there's not much going on here. Okay, number one is Paradise Farm. That's the number one and the quote under it is the most beautiful farm in New Hampshire. Massachusetts. Upon arrival, you'll be greeted by the most lovely farm animals. Calves, goats, pigs, chickens, and so much more. Is it like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is it a refuge for abused animals or something? Why is it paradise?

[James Petregallo]

It's just a paradise farm.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck makes it paradise.

[James Petregallo]

Garwyn Falls. It says cool waterfall. With path to check out. This is the number two thing to do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Number two thing to do is hike to a waterfall.

[James Petregallo]

And it's not like a giant. It's not Niagara Falls. It's a small little waterfall. It's just a little tiny thing. They have them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It drops six feet.

[James Petregallo]

So there's three of them by the creek.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got a bigger one right there in Wappinger's Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that's way bigger. Yeah, the falls are huge. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So it says not any crazy cool spot to hop and swim super safely. I would recommend stopping by at some point. Next up, number three, the feel good farm.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, what do you do there?

[James Petregallo]

Well, let's find out. Someone has a review and they said, I gave my wife a day of driving horses. I gave my wife a day of old timey work. I gave her a get a day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Of horseback and make these other horses move.

[James Petregallo]

Gave her a day of 19th century hard labor. I thought she'd like that. Thought she might enjoy it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Show her back on the range in.

[James Petregallo]

New Hampshire for her birthday. Happy birthday, honey.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Happy birthday. Feel like you're in Oklahoma and New Hampshire.

[James Petregallo]

The ear to ear grin on her face was a good indicator of how much fun we had. Next up, the purgatory brook and falls. Don't call it Purgatory number one. It doesn't make it sound good. This is another tiny little falls with a walking trail. That's it. The oak leaves wood carving studio. I think that's pretty. That's pretty self explanatory. The Milford drive in theater. It's not even in this town. It's in Milford.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right over in Milford you can get out of town.

[James Petregallo]

It looks pretty sad too. The picture of it. It doesn't look like a great drive through. And drive throughs are fun. I like a drive through. Drive in, drive in, drive in. Not drive through. Keep saying drive through.

[Jimmy Wissman]

James loves a good drive through.

[James Petregallo]

I love a drive through, man. You hand me a bag of cold food out a window. I'm excited, I'm happy, I'm jacked.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Show me a picture show at the same time.

[James Petregallo]

Forget it. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. The Wilton Town hall theater.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They say literally the best original movie theater in New Hampshire opened in 1912 and is still going.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I kind of like that.

[James Petregallo]

That's cool as well. I'd totally go there. The copper kettle to go. Which is a nearby Wilton signature. Cocktails and mocktails and burgers. Do you see where we are at the Copper Kettle to go. And then there is the dark woods.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Petregallo]

That is their haunted trail. Halloween season. Whatever. What a great opening night despite the rain. Thank you for starting our spooky season off. Right. So there you go. Not a lot to do is what I'm getting at. No, you got to make your own entertainment.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, these people do love. Yeah, right. This area of the country is in love. Like has a Love, if they could fall, they would.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my God. The. The amount of fall up here, you cannot get enough.

[James Petregallo]

We just came in the studio. It's. What is it, 65 degrees and crispy out right now? Yeah, lovely. Some leaves are falling out of the sky. Yeah, we love fall up in the northeast, man. It's the season crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime, very low. It's about one third of the national average, so super low. Two thirds under it. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is less than half the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Very safe.

[James Petregallo]

It is a safe, safe, safe town. The murder that we're gonna talk about right now was the first murder in this town since 1840. And that was like, literally like a, like a bar fight that went wrong. Yeah, it was a drunk. No, it was, it was a drunken, like a tavern brawl that happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They were fighting over pumpkin spice.

[James Petregallo]

Probably fuck yeah. 200 years ago too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whether or not it's okay.

[James Petregallo]

Don't put that shit in my beer. Keep it real mad. Keep it away. So let's talk about a murder, shall we here? Or some murder, I should say. Let's do this. Okay, let's start out. We're going to talk about a family and where they are in 2009. All right. Yeah, 2009. Not much different from today in terms of our day to day lives. Social media starting to really burgeon. Facebook is becoming popular. Instagram doesn't exist yet, but that's where we're at at this point. I think 2011 was Instagram.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think that's when Meta bought it. I don't know either way, later, it doesn't matter.

[James Petregallo]

Doesn't matter. So it's similar.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Are we going to parse that today?

[James Petregallo]

Who cares? Yeah, it's not important. The least important part of our story is when Instagram was bought by Meta. Either way, iPhone or Android in your hand doing the same shit. Doesn't matter.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's got the same thing.

[James Petregallo]

Same shit. So let's talk about a guy who has all these things. David Cates, C A T E S. David Cates. He works as an engineer with BAE Systems, a global defense and security company.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, contractor.

[James Petregallo]

Makes good money. Yeah, makes damn fine money. Lives out here. They live in a big giant house on some acreage and it's a real idyllic little life they have out here. He's a real hard worker, David. He's often out of town for work. He's often has to travel places known as being very devoted to his family and just trying to make a good living for the family and so they can go do things and that kind of thing here. Now he's got a wife named Kimberly, Kimberly Cates, who's 42 in 2009. Kimberly's a big extrovert, everybody. She's real friendly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Life at the party.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, a big runner. She runs a lot. Oh, get her energy out running. She likes to run outdoors. She loves the outdoors. She lives in the perfect place for that. To love the outdoors and to love to run. She's a pediatric nurse in two different local hospitals in their labor and delivery and emergency departments. So she does a. That's a tough job, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

She runs and then she runs more.

[James Petregallo]

And she runs from hospital to hospital. She pulls babies out of women and then she, you know, helps and then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Runs over to do it again.

[James Petregallo]

It's crazy. Everybody at work likes her. She's real outgoing, that kind of thing. They said she's very good. And quick thinking makes her real valuable in the ER and also when something's going wrong during a delivery because where they work, it's fast paced, a lot of chaos. And she apparently is very, very good. She's a duck on the water. Her feet might be kicking, but above she looks like everything's fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's just coasting.

[James Petregallo]

Just coasting. Doing fine here. Now they have one child, this couple. So this is a, you know, a single, you know, only child situation. They live in this big giant house in the country.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, mom's maximizing. Yeah, Mom's maximizing the day with double shifts at hospitals. Dad's out government contracting. They are doing great with only one kid. Amazing.

[James Petregallo]

One kid. They have an 11 year old in 2009 named Jamie. And she is cool as shit too. She's a real mature kid, considered to be like, just wise for her age type of deal. Smart, not crazy like the other kids. She also gets her energy out. She's a soccer player, straight A student and super into taking karate for years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I've heard different and different tellings of this. I've heard that she was a black belt. I don't know if she got to her black belt at that point or not, but she's good at karate. She's a little kid who might kick your ass, which is pretty cool. I like that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In 2009, that's a time late, you know what I mean?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, karate's like a 70s thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, karate didn't really. I Mean, I guess it hit its peak with the Karate Kid and kind of started to take a dive after that.

[James Petregallo]

Well, it got huge with Bruce lee in the 70s. That's what made it huge. And then the Karate Kid kind of gave it a resurgence with kids our age where we were like, yeah, fucking karate man. And then. And then it went away and other forms came in and Cobra Kai came.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And brought it a little bit back now, but not really. Not really.

[James Petregallo]

Those kids still do Jiu Jitsu now, you know what I mean? Yeah, they don't care about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't think they give a fuck about karate anymore.

[James Petregallo]

No, I don't think so either. Now, the family dynamic, since David's at work a lot and he works a good amount and he goes out of town a good amount of time, the mother and daughter are very, very close to each other and they'd have to be. They live down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You spend a lot of time at the house together. They're.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're in Mount Vernon.

[James Petregallo]

They're in Mount Vernon. Yeah. Yeah, Here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

So everybody says they're inseparable. They're, you know, always together and always talking. They like to go to. To lakes, to kayak together and shit like that. They go to rivers, too. They love kayaking, these two.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's so many lakes in this area, too.

[James Petregallo]

Lakes, streams, rivers, water, all sorts of fun nature shit. Now the family moved here. They've only lived here about six years.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

They're not from the area. They moved here from Ohio, I guess. Yeah, Kimberly was born in Ohio and that's where they moved from in about 2003, 2004, mainly because they realize what. It's beautiful, number one. But also they said that it's very safe here and they wanted to raise their daughter in a real safe, you know, real safe, nurturing environment. So, yeah, they relocate in. This town is fucking. It's beautiful. It really is. When you see it, I believe it's gorgeous. It's a. It's a. It's a pretty little town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The white, white high peaks of buildings and.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's gorgeous. Those old churches from like the 1700s that are certain style in the east coast, they're cool looking. So they soon as they moved into. And this is a very safe area and a very safe place that they're living, they immediately had an alarm system installed in their house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

So they were. I don't know if something happened in Ohio that made them leery or scared or if Somebody broke into their house or something like that. But they are something. Whatever. They listen to the show. I'm not sure whatever it is, this show has sold more security systems than any door to door salesman could ever do. Yeah. And that's without even doing the simply say pets. That's just people going out to look for them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's just people having common sense.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Yeah. We just, we just kind of, kind of lead you toward a good one. That's all. But you're going to need one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We just horse the water, babe.

[James Petregallo]

That's all you could do. You want to drink? There you go. Lap it up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they lived on trow Road, T r O W, which is a dirt road that runs through a wooded, isolated section of the area. It's out there and they have a few acres and everything else. Now, October 4th, this is the weekend of October 3rd. October 4th. Okay. On October 4th. This weekend in general, David's out of town on business, so he's gone. So the ladies are doing their thing on their own here this weekend at about a little after 4am on October 4, 2009. Okay. Very early, early early morning.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is like exactly 25 years.

[James Petregallo]

2015, pretty much exactly 15 years ago. 16 years ago.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is crazy.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about pure deliciousness with Omaha Steaks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

OmahaSteaks.com oh, man.

[James Petregallo]

You're planning. You got a holiday coming up. You have a party, a dinner party, something coming up. You want to serve good food. You want to get these people. You want them to be impressed with what you're putting out there. You want them to also walk away saying, that was delicious. The way to do it is Omaha Steaks, everybody. Oh, they're perfect. From everyday dinners and effortless entertaining to unforgettable gifts, Omaha Steaks delivers the world's best steak experience. Enjoy USDA certified tender steaks, juicy burgers, cozy and convenient comfort meals, and so much more. And now during their early Black Friday sale, get 50% off site wide and save an extra 20% off select favorites@omaha steaks.com that is amazing. You should really do that. Plus, our listeners get an extra $35 off with promo code small town at checkout terms. Apply C site for details. I love these Omaha Steaks. To have them in your house and to go, what are we doing tonight? We're doing, you know what we're doing? We're cracking the Omaha Steaks box and it's done and it's going to be great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're quality right to your place and it's perfect.

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

This show, Small Town Murder is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp.com absolutely. October 10th is World Mental Health Day and this year we're saying thank you to the therapists here. They make a big difference and better help therapists have helped over 5 million people worldwide on their mental health journeys. That's millions of stories, millions of journeys and behind everyone is a therapist who showed up, listen and help someone take a step forward. It's therapy is a big deal and it's a really excellent thing for anybody. A lot of things, moments in therapy like the right question, a safe place to cry, even a little small win can really change your life. This World mental health day, BetterHelp is honoring those connections and the therapists who make them possible while showing how easy it is to get guidance from a licensed therapist. With BetterHelp we are huge proponents of therapy and general mental health, things like that. And BetterHelp has been doing this for over 12 years helping match the right people with the right therapist and they do a wonderful job. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. They do a short questionnaire helps you identify your needs and preferences and their 12 years plus of experience. An industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. But if you're not happy with with your therapist, you can make a switch anytime you want, no extra cost at all. Over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based over 1.7 million client reviews. This world Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you who BetterHelp can help start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] Smalltown Murder that's BetterHelp H E L P.com Smalltown Murder now back to the show. So they get a 911 call, comes in from their house, okay. And It's Jamie, who's 11 years old on a 911 call, saying that they need help. Tells the dispatcher. And she can barely speak. Yeah, she's speaking in a whisper. In a whisper. Weak and scared, she says, quote, they killed my mommy. And then the dispatcher hears a crash and silence. She collapses after that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

Little Jamie, they kill my mommy. She collapses on the floor, okay? So they hear that and they go, holy shit. Get some cops and people there immediately. So police arrive right away at the scene. It takes very little time even though it's kind of far away. They're jetting out there. The Milford police sergeant, Kevin Furlong got there first. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere. So whoever's closest, get there. He looked through the front window and saw 11 year old Jamie lying on the floor covered in blood.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

So you hear a little girl called and didn't finish her call and there's a phone next to her and she's lying in a puddle of blood. You do what this guy did, which is using his shoulder to smash through the door. They didn't even fucking. No knocking, no trying, didn't even try the knob. Just get that girl blast through this fucking door. He then said, quote, this is about what he found when he got in there and saw young Jamie. Part of her foot was missing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, what?

[James Petregallo]

Other parts were barely still attached. She was attempting to scream and yell. However, nothing was coming out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like she was hacked apart.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, Part of her left foot was missing and she'd suffered numerous injuries including a fractured jaw, deep lacerations across her throat. But she is conscious and lucid and knows what's going on and is trying to tell the cops what's going on. This kid is a badass. This girl's a bastard badass. She's wow. I mean, just wow. To not even go into shock through all that. Like, she is a. Her mind is strong and her body. So they said, holy shit, this is crazy. What the hell? So she's telling them, go in the bedroom. My mom's in the bedroom. That's what she.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't worry about.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get to the hospital.

[James Petregallo]

She's saying, look in the bedroom. Look in the bedroom. She's like, don't worry about me, basically. Which is crazy. So in the bedroom, the paramedics come across Kimberly, and she is not alive or lucid or conscious. She is horribly butchered in there. Absolutely horrible. I mean, we'll talk about what. We'll get into it, but holy shit. So they call the coroner to come get her. They rush Jamie to the hospital to hopefully she'll survive. She's lost so much blood. They're really worried she's not gonna survive at this point. It's crazy. So apparently, according to Jamie, giving, you know, her recollection on the way to the hospital, that's how lucid she is. Around 3am a light was shined in Kimberly's face while she was sleeping. Okay. She sat up and said, jamie, is that you? Thinking it was her daughter? Because her daughter was sleeping with her in the bed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So she said, you know, is that you? And she was, at that point, was savaged by a machete.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good Lord.

[James Petregallo]

Somebody attacking her with a machete. She is hit. She's 36 times with the machete, Cacked and stabbed. She's also stabbed numerous times in the neck and torso by another knife, a different knife. So she's been attacked with a machete and a knife. Now, Jamie, who'd been asleep in the same bed, jumped up, and we don't know. We know she jumped up and ended up going toward the attacker. Now, we don't know if she was trying to fight them off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Because she's 11 and knows karate and she's just a ballsy kid. Or if she's trying to run away to get to the phone, getting strays. Either way, she gets up and tries to run.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And the problem is, whichever intruder has the knife starts stabbing her instead. She stabbed 18 times.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good Lord.

[James Petregallo]

The little girl. The little girl in the chest, arms, legs, and back. At one point, she fell into one of the attacker's arms, just in terms. Just was overwhelmed by wounds, and he threw her across the room. Into a glass door. Wow, that's. That is heartless.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Some shit behavior. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That is insane. So the killers then, looking around, multiple people, they decide that, well, they must be dead, both of them. So let's go looking for shit. So they rummaged through the house looking for valuables. They steal several items of jewelry and take off. Now Jamie had to lie there pretending to be dead. Really, she played dead while these people looked through her whole fucking house. She had to wait and wait and wait to hear them leave before she got up and dragged herself to the kitchen to call 911. This is. It's incredible what this girl went through.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Can't believe it.

[James Petregallo]

She laid perfectly still. That's insane. So Jamie's gonna be taken to the hospital and we'll talk about her fate here in a moment. Mom. Kimberly. The autopsy shows 36 blows sustained. Basically, she was eviscerated. I mean, her skull had been split nearly completely in half by machete blows. This is no restraint in the attack. I mean, this is someone with all of their strength just hacking someone with a machete. Wow. They said that all of the injuries she had, although they were all horrible and irreparable, none of them had been lethal. She bled to death. After all that. After all that, this poor woman couldn't even be put out of her misery. She had to bleed out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Damn.

[James Petregallo]

They said that they figured that she'd likely been awake and aware of what was happening to her through most of the attack.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine being so fucking terrible at this that you. Your job to kill some. Literally, you. Oh, my God, you're so bad at this.

[James Petregallo]

So fucking awful at this. And it's torture at that point. Just hacking and hacking and hacking. This poor woman.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck.

[James Petregallo]

Getting no relief. Now, Jamie at the hospital, she survives. Incredibly, she survives. This kid is tough, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Did they find the piece of her.

[James Petregallo]

Foot to put back as fuck? We'll get into all that stuff here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

A surgeon said that the. Basically part of her foot was amputated, her jaw was fractured, and some of the stab wounds came very close to stabbing her in the heart and killing her. So she is the luckiest kid in the world. I mean, not lucky that this happened, but lucky to be alive. She sustained other massive injuries, was struck at least 18 times with a knife. They said basically no part of her body was untouched. She was stabbed all over the place. Her skull was split open and, like I said, jaw shattered and everything like that. They said that her wounds were caused mainly by a large, sharp object, possibly a machete so the cops want to find who did this. You walk in, you see an 11 year old in a pile of blood and a woman who's hacked the shit in her own bed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

An 11 year old. That gives you that story. Whoever did this is dangerous.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. Either they're dangerous or this kid is the best at staging a murder of all time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, 100%.

[James Petregallo]

I'll stab myself. I'll just miss my heart. I'll cut my foot like it's impossible.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So real good at this.

[James Petregallo]

The cops investigating, all they get from Jamie is because this happened quickly in the middle of the night under a dim cell phone light. This all happened by. So all she says is, I saw a white man. I know at least one of them was a white man. And there was more than one. That's all she knows. That's it. So basically the local police, state agencies, everybody launch a massive. They don't even know what they're looking for. They're looking for a white guy in New Hampshire, which, I mean, throw a rock, you're gonna have one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's so luck. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So. And it's. As soon as this gets out into the public, which is the next morning. There is so much pressure to solve this yesterday. These people are terrified. I mean, we're talking kids don't go to the bus stop by themselves anymore. I mean, this town completely flips and gets all about security. So it's wild. The investigators are hoping these little things like it's a white guy and there's a machete, that they can piece something together. Something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And you'd think that a guy that. Or guys that do this, fingers crossed. Hopefully they open their mouth and say something stupid indicating that they've been a part of this.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Now I would think their first thought as investigators would be, where's the husband again?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Out of town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Big house. Let's look into him and see if he's having any affairs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

And that's what any investigation would do. You start with the people closest. And if you got a guy who's not there, you know, let's start with him. So they, they, they. Before they can even literally by the end of the next day, before they can even look all the way, they barely have notified David, nevermind, interviewed him or you know, got a feel, put him on a lie detector, any of that shit. They get a call from a woman who says she has a son, a teenage son, and she said this son had some friends over and she overheard them Talking and listened the whole time. And she heard some of her son's friends talking about the murder, saying they did it. Oh, yeah. So she called the cops immediately. So they're like, okay, hold off on the husband for one second here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Being a nosy mom paid off right quick.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And also he obviously, if it was the husband, he would have had to hire somebody since he's out of town and there's more than one person. So maybe this is who he hired. So they're looking into this and they want to know who these people are, who these kids are and what they're all about. So she gives them all the names and they're going to look into these guys. Here are the kids that she's talking about. First is Steven Spader Jr. And he's actually of the third because his dad's a junior, but he still goes by Junior. He's born in 1990. He's about just under 19 at this point. He was born to a mother who was addicted to drugs. So he was adopted in Arizona when he was five days old.

[Jimmy Wissman]

One of those. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He tested positive for marijuana and cocaine at birth. So they took the kid away and he was adopted when he was 5, 8 days old by a family that had no kids. So it wasn't like one of these families that adopts a ton of people. They wanted one child and they adopted this child. That's it. They wanted to have a child so bad. So apparently his parents are loving. They dote on him and give him whatever they have basically is his. That's the way he is. He's very ordinary family. He lives in Brookline, New Hampshire, and his upbringing is kind of idyllic. I mean, whatever you could want for a kid, you know, the parents are paying attention to him, help him with his homework, all that kind of thing. He has everything he would like to have. Nothing, doesn't want for anything. His parents, Christine and Steven, had a middle class lifestyle. Everything looked average. They had, like I said, idyllic childhood. Birthdays were a real big deal for Steven. I mean, it was all calling out, all the stops. They had family vacations together. Everything you could want as a kid that, like we didn't have. This kid has It's All Right There laid out for him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's gifted to him by very loving, great adults.

[James Petregallo]

He's just lucky. Yeah, lucky to get adopted. So they also said education was a huge priority for them as well. They wanted him to get a good education and all that kind of thing. The problem is Stephen exhibits Problematic behaviors from Jump. He's got problems. And like I said, we don't know what the genetic makeup is here of if that was the mother. Who knows what the father was like. And you mix those people together and you might have some mental illness. You might have some. A lot of things going on here. So he basically was a real manipulative kid. Everybody said.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

They said. His adoptive mother said that wasn't always how he was though. He was a model child. Was perfect until he reached middle school when she said, overnight he turned into a monster that she could no longer even recognize as herself. Really, overnight in middle school, just Capri Suns and Cheez.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Its to go fuck yourself to fucking.

[James Petregallo]

Foster's Lager and Marlboro Reds. That's what he went through. That's it. So he became defiant, belligerent, and just a complete fucking nightmare. I've never adopted a child or anything like that, but if this happens to you after you adopted a kid, you have to be thinking to yourself, you know what I mean? Like, fuck this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now I'm waiting.

[James Petregallo]

We didn't do this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah. Not my fault.

[James Petregallo]

Like, this didn't come out of me, this person. And he's acting like this shit. Should we have picked the blonde one or whatever? You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is there a way?

[James Petregallo]

Should we have picked the other one?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

But I know that that's. Yeah. And I get. I probably wouldn't. You wouldn't feel that way after 12 years of having a child. I would hope. But you know, for comedic purposes. It's an interesting point to bring up. So, yeah, he. His parents pull him out of public school and this is fucking crazy. They got him counselors medication. They took out an equity loan on their home.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

A HELOC to send him to an exclusive behavioral control program in 2008. He's diagnosed with bipolar disease at that point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Which is genetic too. So, yeah, they enrolled him in a private school at one point. I mean, literally every dime they have goes into the skin and every drop of water.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Every dime they don't have. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Every dime they can borrow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, Steven, he started smoking weed and snorting coke and using pills in high school. All of it. Yeah. He's really, really into drugs. And he drops out of school as well. And his parents, they sent him to a therapist, did nothing. Didn't do anything. Just. Things got weirder as he got older. More outbursts. He was just known as a just. He'd be cruel. He's just an asshole. Mean and manipulative. And nasty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Therapy and rehab are very similar to each other because you gotta want it.

[James Petregallo]

Well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, you gotta be involved.

[James Petregallo]

If you're being forced into it and you have no interest in fixing yourself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It'S not gonna second.

[James Petregallo]

Well, it's all self reporting. So you can, you can get around that. And if you're manipulative and you've been doing this your whole life, you'd also know how to manipulate. So that doesn't help his school. Whenever he was in school, he was a mess. When he was a sophomore in high school here, a friend of him, a friend of his said that he got real weird. Like real dark and weird and just out of nowhere, in and out of treatment programs. The one his parents sent him to was in Utah. So, you know that cost a couple of bucks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it takes a plane ticket too.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's what I mean, it's just to get him there is going to cost money. He shaved his head for no reason, just to be weird. He had hair, though. He just did it to be weird. He really got into weed and speed a lot, which then, you know, the weed goes to the side when the speed comes in. And he would cut himself and burn his own skin as often as well. And he would talk of suicide all the time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

So this is, this is an organic issue with the bipolar because he wasn't raised, he wasn't abused. There's no. This isn't. This is organic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whatever's going on, this is nature versus nurture. This is certainly the nature part.

[James Petregallo]

It's really hard to overcome nature with nurture. That's the thing. It's possible, but it's not. If someone has enough of an imbalance, you're nothing you can do about it. You being nice to them isn't going to help.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. It takes the. It takes the other side wanting to be better because.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Otherwise it's just. If you're just nice to a monster, the monster is going to take advantage of you.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. All the bluey themed birthday parties in the world aren't going to fix that shit. It's not going to fix it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's just not so Wubsy ain't fixing this.

[James Petregallo]

No, he's not. Roly Polioli has no, no say in this shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sorry, DJ Lance, we're a mess.

[James Petregallo]

He couldn't maintain friendships as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And because that was mainly because he would be manipulative and try to control everybody around him rather than be friends with them, which is a much different way of friendship. If you're just trying to control everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And manipulate them to gain something out of the friendship, that's fucking weird.

[James Petregallo]

This would lead to alienation and isolation and him being further pissed off and cutting and burning himself more. And it's a cycle.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nobody wants to be around me.

[James Petregallo]

It's a Mess. So by 2008, he'd already dropped out of high school. He described himself as a sociopath, which is nice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, you got to be clinically. All right.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He's not exactly a psychologist.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't think he has a degree.

[James Petregallo]

But I think he wants to be a sociopath. He had an obsession with murder, serial killers. Loved the Zodiac killer a lot. That was one of his main jams there. And openly talked about with lots of his friends wanting to, quote, kill people for fun. Just for funsies. Just to have a good time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

2008.

[James Petregallo]

2008. Just openly telling anybody he knows super into serial killers and shit like that. So he claimed to friends that he was a prospective member of the Crips. This is a white kid from New Hampshire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The Mount Vernon chapter of the Crips.

[James Petregallo]

Of the Crips. Yeah. You know. Well, they have a Milford. You know, it's in Milford. But you can. You can take a quick ride over there. It's fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We got a meeting every Wednesday in.

[James Petregallo]

Brookline, fucking New Hampshire.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

So this is what he. See, this is the type of guy he is. He can't get people to like him just for what he is, so he makes up stories to make them at least afraid of him and feel like a big, big shot. That there it is. He can manipulate through bravado. If you're a. I don't know if. I don't know if. Because guys don't act like that toward girls in high school. No, no, no, no, no. They'll do all that shit. Then they'll act all sweet to the girls, even though they're a psychopath to the guys. But I would like to know everybody, every guy has gone to high school with a few people like this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, for sure.

[James Petregallo]

A bunch of them that are to try to make people think they're a badass. So they'll get left alone and stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just fucking phonies.

[James Petregallo]

Well, he told them that I'm a prospect, you know, I'm patching into the Crips here, basically, is what I'm doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

A prospect, you know? Yeah. He said he had killed 28 people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God.

[James Petregallo]

Which is a lot. Obviously, they noticed that. Yeah, that's 28.

[Jimmy Wissman]

28 Social Security numbers not being used. Sends up some red flags.

[James Petregallo]

It's more than Dahmer, you know what I mean? Like, what are we talking about here?

[Jimmy Wissman]

People get caught that way.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. And that he had participated in drive by shootings in Massachusetts as well. You know how they do. And had disposed of bodies because they were like, how do you kill 28 people and get away with it? He goes, quarries. All these quarries that are around here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Construction crews will take care of it for you.

[James Petregallo]

Throw them down. Well, no, no, these quarries are actually a place where the mob would dispose of a lot of bodies.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they're deep, deep, deep holes and abandoned shafts that are never going to be looked in ever. Never, never, never, ever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The guys that come in, oh, it's like an old abandoned rock quarry.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Not a fresh one. Jesus. I think they come into work in the morning and be like, holy. No, there's no more quarries.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Clock in and go, ah, somebody's been here again.

[James Petregallo]

No, no, no.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We gotta dispose here.

[James Petregallo]

Especially like Pennsylvania, there's millions of these holes and if you looked at them, there's a lot of bodies. Like the Iceman Kuklinski talked about, he disposed tons of people down the mine shafts. Just threw them down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

New Hampshire's where a lot of granite comes from. That's the granite. Shitloads of rock wires. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Right in this area, it's not so much anymore. So you'd find an old shaft and dump somebody down there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that's what he. He knows where all those are.

[James Petregallo]

Evidently he knows. He knows all the hiding bodies dropouts.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, very good with hiding bodies. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And he's killed more people than BTK, so he's good. So by the summer of 2009, he has knocked up his girlfriend. Okay, excellent. We need more of him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Convinced a gal that he's worthy of. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

You know, it would be great about him if we had another one. That would be perfect.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Carbon copy, please.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, carbon fucking copy. So his parents were very supportive of him though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

He, yeah, they told him about, you know, we're adopted and things like, you're adopted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He actually too, Stephen found out he had brothers at this point that he didn't know about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

Sure, they're doing wonderfully as well. He cried with his aunt during this time about being given away by his natural parents and saying he wants to be a dad and all that shit and they gotta raise their kid right. Cause he got given away Take it easy. During this summer, he also decides, you know what? The Crips, I tried, but they're just not. They're not letting me in soon enough, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Time to retire.

[James Petregallo]

I'm gonna start my own gang.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Or as he called it, Brotherhood. Not a gang. He kind of has. It sounds more like a biker gang, but none of these people have motorcycles. And I think only one of them has even a car, but one's got a shaved head.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they're going with the Brotherhood, so.

[James Petregallo]

They'Re going with the Brotherhood. It's working great, he calls it. And this kid just watched too much fucking wwe. Too much Raw. Too much Monday Night Raw for this guy. He called the group the Disciples of destruction, the DoD Really? Which absolutely sounds like a wrestling faction. I think they had one probably at some point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think that doesn't it.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean, it's so. Isn't it already existing, the Disciples of Destruction? I said, this guy's making like a. It's a wrestling faction. He's gonna. That's all it is. And it was a brotherhood. He said that's. It's serious shit. You don't fuck around with the Disciples of Destruction.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right? We destruct.

[James Petregallo]

We destruct. He named himself president. Well, I mean, if you're gonna make it up, might as well. He assigns friends to other officer positions. They develop codes and bylaws and they write.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're doing the whole thing.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, he's got a whole computer document where he writes out all the rules and bylaws and the goals and mission statement of the group and things like that. If he put that effort into a business or something, he could make money. What does he do, high school or high school?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He could have graduated.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, he could have opened a business. There's no stores in Mount Vernon. Go there and fucking open one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He got a fucking EID for this and everything.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Now, the DOD consists of about five people, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

That's his hardcore gang. But he said, no, no, no. We're gonna grow this. Once you get your reputation, then other people want to join. It grows, and eventually we're gonna be in the fucking money like all the gangs are. Oh, so somehow from this we will earn money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

From here, we're gonna figure out what those guys did.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. How do they get all that money that they're always. How do they get all that money they're always rapping about? How does that happen?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why isn't there money happening where there's People here.

[James Petregallo]

I made a. I gave it a name. I made a logo. Yeah, actually, they do have a logo. They do. One kid. We'll talk about it. But after. About a month after forming the dod, he had plans for their initiation. Now they're all in the gang. But this is like to. This is like a. Like a company outing. Like when they. Like those retreats they go to, you know, it's like one of those things. A company retreat. He and prospective members would carry out a home invasion where they would rob the house, chloroform the occupants, torture and murder them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

You know, that's. That's just step one into this gang.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The Disciples of Destruction.

[James Petregallo]

That's the. Yes. Stephen wanted to make sure everyone would prove themselves by participating in every aspect of it. We're all going to go in together. We're going to do it together. If I'm going to put chloroform on somebody, you're going to put chloroform on somebody else. This is how it's going to work. He said that he wanted to make sure that nobody in his gang would be, quote, pussies or people who could just talk the talk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pussies.

[James Petregallo]

I need stone killers in this group. So here's no pussies. Here is the crew he's assembled.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fantastic.

[James Petregallo]

The crack crew of. It's basically the Gambino family. Obviously they're gonna just dominate the crime and everything else. They should be making as much as US Steel in any day now. So first up is Christopher Gribble. G R I B B L E Gribble.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Guy named Gribble, Chris Gribble.

[James Petregallo]

He's fucking 20 years old at this point. So shouldn't even be hanging out with 17, 18 year olds. No, shouldn't. He should have other shit going on. He is brought up. His parents are very deeply religious family. Mormons. New Hampshire Mormons, which is rare.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You don't find a lot of them up there. So their whole family life is centered around Mormonism and church and all that kind of things. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you how to get your finances in better shape with Rocket Money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Rocketmoney.com you know it.

[James Petregallo]

A lot of people are not aware of how much money they spend each month. They just don't know. Do you know how many subscriptions you pay for off the top of your head? Who knows? I don't know. There's tons of stuff. What about how much you spend on takeout or delivery? It's probably more than you think, but there's an app designed to help you manage your money better, and that is Rocket Money. My goodness, are they great. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. Rocket Money shows you all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions you forgot about. If you see a subscription you no longer want, Rocket Money will help you cancel it. And that's what they did for me. I literally was paying for something for four years. I did. I didn't even know I was paying for. Thank you, Rocket Money. That was amazing. Their dashboard lays out your total financial picture, including bill due dates and pay dates in a way that's easy to digest. You can even automatically create custom budgets based on your past spending. If you got, like, a goal that you're saving for, Rocket Money can analyze your accounts to find the best time each month to put money aside, get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts. If you're going to getting close to going over budget, even when you're doing a good job, they're gonna tell you that, too. Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in cancelled subscriptions, with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com SmallTownMurterToday that's RocketMoney.com SmallTown Murder RocketMoney.com SmallTown Murder now back to the show. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to give you a better way to dress with quince.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Quince.comqU I N C E.com oh, yeah, we love Quince.

[James Petregallo]

And as the weather's starting to cool off, you gotta start swapping out your clothes here. Oh, yeah, you do more summer stuff. Put the shorts away, get yourself some fall gear. You need warm, durable, built to last things. And Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that'll carry you through the season. Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll actually want to wear over and over again. Like 100% Mongolian cashmere from just $60. That's a great deal. Classic fit, denim, and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. I'm telling you, I got this leather jacket that I got in the spring, and I'm dying to wear it from Quints and I haven't been able to wear it because it's been warm. So I'm looking forward, I think Seattle Live show. I'll break it out there for that. Good stuff, man. I'm telling you. I got my eye on their suede trucker jacket. That's pretty cool too. It's perfect for layering and just looks really casual. But put together, it's cool stuff. By partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver premium quality at half the cost of of similar brands, including Jimmy's linen outfit that he has there. It's awesome stuff. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quince.comsmalltown murder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com Smalltown Murder Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com Small Town Murder now back to the show. Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you how to be much safer with SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

SimpliSafe.com S I M P L I.

[James Petregallo]

Safe.com oh, you know what I'm telling you, we hear horrible. This is small town murder. The stories we hear are horrendous. So many awful things that could completely happen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they happen.

[James Petregallo]

They happen all the time. Listen, we have 600, hundred something episodes of it and a lot of these could have been very easily prevented by Simplisafe. That's the thing. I'm telling you right now. Yeah. There's so much craziness out there. Can a home security system really call itself security if it's only responding once someone's inside? That's not really security. What good is that? You're being murdered. Who cares at that point? Yeah, come and mop up later. Doesn't matter. You need them to be there beforehand. And then. And that is where simply self Simplisafe. I'm sorry. I love Simplisafe. That is where Simplisafe comes in. There's now a way you can actually stop someone from entering your house. It is SimpleLife. And they're AI powered cameras. They detect threats while they're still outside your home and alert real security agents. They can even talk to them and yell at them. It's amazing. This is a game changer. The agents take action while the intruder is still outside. They confront the intruder, letting them know they're being watched on camera and that police are on their way way. And they even sound a loud siren. You can trigger a spotlight if needed. This is how you stop a crime before it starts. That's real security. Other systems have cameras that let you talk to intruders, but they require you to see the alert yourself. And then you have to do it. Simplisafe takes care of all that for you. Their monitoring agents have your back and talk to intruders even if they aren't there. There's no long term contracts or hidden fees. You can cancel any time. Named best home security system by U.S. news & World Report for five years running. 60 day money back guarantee. So you can try it and see the difference for yourself. I'm telling you, we use Simplisafe. Yes. It on my house, have it on my office, the studio. Everything we have. Is Simplisafe protected. Because there's just no better, better way to do it than the way they do it. I'm sorry. It's is great stuff. And right now, our listeners, you guys can save 50% on a Simply Safe home security system at SimpliSafe.com small that's simply safe.com small there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show. Isn't that the dale, the neighbor? And King of the Hill.

[James Petregallo]

Isn't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Isn't he Gribble? Isn't that.

[James Petregallo]

No fucking idea. I never watched King of the Hill. I saw one episode of it once and was like, well, not for me. Kept clicking. I don't get. Don't get it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right, well that's fine.

[James Petregallo]

Don't sell propane. Not from Texas. Don't understand it. This is not my thing. It's fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Last name is Greville. That's all.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. It's fine. I just. I never got it and this wasn't my thing. I was like, you couldn't. You couldn't follow the Simpsons with that. It was like, that's nowhere near as good as that. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Different.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's different. Meaning not as good or smart or just anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know. It felt smart because it was like.

[James Petregallo]

Because it was smart.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Judges. Fantastic.

[James Petregallo]

It was smart, dumb, like Family Guy. I thought.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes.

[James Petregallo]

It wasn't dumb.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what it is. Yeah, it's dumbing. And it's like, I don't know, it took culture references.