#497 - The Serial Killing Nerd - Bridgeport, Pennsylvania
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Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well.

Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com. This week in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, a terrible slaughter in a nice neighborhood causes panic, but it only gets worse when these awful killings are connected to another, making everyone believe there's a serial killer on the loose. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yeah!

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another just wild episode of Small Town Murder. They get crazier every week somehow. You'd imagine as we push toward our 500th episode, which will be next week. It'll be next, if you're listening to this regular, whenever you listen to it, it'll be the next one, the next Friday episode.

in the next week. This is episode 498, so a couple more. 500th episode. We are looking for the best 500th episode case we can find. So submit them to me and I will look over them and we will decide where is going to be the best one because we want to have an extra wild, crazy 500th episode, obviously. A memorable one.

When you do that, don't introduce yourself. Just say the episode. You can. That's fine. I've gotten so many messages, James, saying I took too many characters to introduce myself and I didn't give James the number or the story yet. Okay. Okay.

Send separate messages. It's fine. We get it. No, you can't send another message on Instagram. Yeah, that's right. Make sure you get that then under it. Put as much of your personal information as you can fit. That would be good. Yeah, but get the case in there first. Case in there first. That's important.

So definitely do that. Also, head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Tickets to live shows. Oh, baby, if you listen to this on the early release, you can still get to Durham on Friday, May 31st. Get your tickets. Nashville sold out the next night. Otherwise, if you listen to this regular September 20th, Minneapolis, baby. See you there. Bring it strong because that's going to be our biggest show ever, a few people.

pack it out. So we're very excited. Also, Oklahoma City, Austin, Kansas City, we added more tickets. There are tickets available for that now. Also, New York and Boston. I know they're in December. They're selling fast. If you want to get these seats, get them now. So thank you so much for doing that. Shut up and give me murder.com. You definitely want Patreon. I'll tell you that right now. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And if you're wondering what's on Patreon, it's like a whole other stream of shows.

We do hour long and sometimes a little longer shows. You get, you're going to get hundreds of them right away. Anybody $5 a month or above and then new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. And this week is no different. What you're going to get here is for crime and sports, which you'll have access to. We're going to talk about all of the new England Patriots cheating scandals, which will be very fun. It's going to take a lot to cram that into an hour because that's a,

They are numerous. There's a numerous, a lot of things going on there. And then for small town murder, we're going to dip back into Ed Gein and finish him up because let's talk some more. We couldn't get into his psychology or kind of the, the also the demise of his house and all that kind of

thing there's a lot of interesting stuff where does doorbells go yeah we'll talk we'll talk about all that stuff with ed gein part two that's patreon.com slash crime and sports and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well so we're gonna have uh we got you covered there that said i think it's time for the disclaimer we're comedians so we're gonna make jokes we can't help it we have to and also people are people are gonna die a lot of people in this episode so

Yeah. These things are going to happen. We didn't do it. We didn't kill anybody. And what we do here to try to make it a little bit respectful here is we try to go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why is that, James? Because we're assholes. Yes, but? But we're not scumbags. See how that works? There you go. So there's plenty to make fun of. Sure. There's murderers. If you can't make fun of a murderer, who can you make fun of? There's murderers.

Murder afoot. Murder afoot. We're always roasting small towns as we do, as everybody does. If they're from a small town, they're roasting it all the time. That's how they do it. It's a fun stuff. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever go together, maybe we're not for you. But maybe we are. You never know. Check it out. You might go, oh, this is not what I thought it was going to be. Small town murder. Not what I thought it was going to be. That's our new slogan.

That said, though, for the rest of you that want to have a good time and hear a really wild story, I think it's time to sit back, everybody. Oh, and we can't wait for the live shows, too. We love when people scream it. And let's do this. Let's all arms to the sky. Let's all clear the lungs and let's all shout. Give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Hey, let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's go. Let's do it. We're going to Pennsylvania this week.

OK, we've been hanging around down south a bit and then we went out to Washington state. Yeah. And now we are going to round it out here in Pennsylvania, Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, which is in southeastern Pennsylvania. It's a Philly suburb. So, yeah, it's right outside of Philly. It's about a half hour to city center. So it's not that's without traffic, obviously. It's you look it up in the middle of the night. I'm sure if you want to do it at eight o'clock in the morning, it's probably a little more hectic than that. So, yeah, I bet it's worse going in than coming out. Right.

Philly is city center. At that time, I mean. Yeah, city center might be harder like it. Well, it depends on if you're coming from where you hang out or where the government-y stuff is. Yeah, so who knows? It's about two hours and 45 minutes to Center Hall, Pennsylvania, our last Pennsylvania episode, which was Boobs, Butts, and Cold-Blooded Murder. I remember that. That was a fun one. This is in Montgomery County.

Area code 610. It's a small little town. It's about .71 square miles, so not a big town at all. Very small here. It's east of – it's about six miles east of Valley Forge as we get into a little bit of history here. And Valley Forge, of course. No, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where the Revolutionary War – it's a big – Oh, I was thinking Pigeon Forge. Washington headquarters and all that stuff. Yeah. Oh, Pigeon Forge. Yeah.

Where? Dollywood? Yeah. It's near Dollywood? How the hell did that happen? Wow. I know geography escapes me, but I didn't think it was that bad. I didn't think Philly was near Dollywood. That's different. I didn't know Dollywood was near the ocean. You could commute to Philly from Dollywood? Fucking weird. I'm going to do a Dollywood ocean beach weekend. There you go. Dollywood by the sea. That's a new thing.

So in 1777, during the Revolutionary War, George Washington and the Continental Army passed through Bridgeport on their way to their winter encampment in Valley Forge.

Oh. So, yeah, and that was a famous, that was a terrible winter and, you know, awful, oppressive winter as some Pennsylvania winters tend to be. Yikes. So there was a lot of industry popped up here because it's outside of Philly. Sure. So a lot of industry, flour, you know, like to cook with, flour, paper, cotton, a lot of mills that did that sort of thing, wool mills, steelworks, of course, because it is Pennsylvania, and brickyards even. Yeah.

Oh. So, yeah, they made everything here. The town's largest industrial park was called Continental Business Center, and that was for a good part of the last part of the 20th century was that. That place ended in 2001 when a huge fire leveled the entire property. A 2001 fire? Not 1901. Usually our fires are like 1906. The entire wooden structure of the town burned to ashes, and then they built it out of wood again.

And that would have been a lot more memorable and we'd all be talking about it a lot more had not upstream something bigger happened. No shit. That same year. That same year. So there was 48 businesses there. They were struggling to recover from the flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Wow. And then they had the opposite problem of water when fire came through. And they're like, where's the fucking hurricane when you need it?

And so, yeah, it was the site of a wind aided inferno that burned enveloped Bridgeport's east side with, quote, a perpetual dense cloud of smoke that was as ominous as it seemed.

The reason is because there's a lot of chemical companies housed in there. So now there's burning chemicals spreading. Oh, no. Not good when that shit happens. It's always bad. There's a lot of hazardous chemicals within the complex and reports of explosions led to the nighttime decision to initiate a mandatory evacuation of about 100 homes located closest to the fire.

So, I mean, they evacuated people due to chemical threats of, you know, chemical warfare, basically. Chemical agents in the air. Where's the vaginal mesh? Fuck, man. Camp Lejeune style. Yeah. Class action lawsuit on that shit. What was that one town in Alabama we did where they were like, never drink the water. And it was like, right on the website, it was like, don't let your kids touch it. It was like made of acid.

It was wild. Anniston, Alabama, right? I think it was Anniston, yeah. One of those two. I think it's Anniston. Anniston, I think, yeah. I think it was. So reviews of this town, there's only a few actually because it's not – there's some, but they're kind of all the same, a lot of them, because it's kind of a suburban area and we'll talk about it here. Here's five stars. It's a great town.

My neighbors were all friendly and helpful, and I have always felt safe. Well, that's what you're looking for in a town. It's in an excellent location with easy commutes to King of Prussia and Philadelphia.

King of Prussia is nearby, which King of Prussia is near where Upper Marion is, where we did the horny teacher's lounge episode there. The local government is taking steps to revitalize the community. It really is an up and coming town. That's Bridgeport. So they're trying to make it nice as a lot of these.

Northeastern cities, small cities have undergone a lot of revitalizations. Places like me, where I live, like Beacon is like a cool place. A lot of people have a place there now. It's like an arts community. When I grew up, it was where you bought dust and sneakers.

And I mean PCP. Yeah, you go to Mains, that's where you could get dust in the little Red Devil packets, and they had Beacon Sneaker, which was a good Nike. Beacon Sneaker was like the top shit, hot shit fucking store with all the cool shoes and all the cool gear and shit when I was a kid. So that's that one here. Four stars. I don't know, but looking for a new house in the area. Why'd you rate it then? What? What?

I don't understand why this site makes it so hard searching for information. Well...

Why'd you give the town four stars? I don't understand why your review makes it so difficult to figure out what the fuck you're talking about. That's what I don't like. Why are you here? What are you doing here, man? And then finally, three stars. There isn't much crime in the area. I haven't heard of much. However, someone did siphon our gas tank in the early morning, but that's about all. There's quite a lot of graffiti, but it's not bad.

You've got gasoline theft right out of your car. That's like bottom rung crime, right? That's pretty bad. I put it like...

I put it like gasoline. Does that come before or after you start stealing catalytic converters? I feel like that's for the mechanically challenged. Like, you know how to suck on a hose. You can do that. But to actually cut out a catalytic converter, you got to find it, know what it looks like. Yeah. It's scumbag behavior. Stealing gasoline out of somebody's car. That's huge scumbag. But is that like kids? Yeah, that's crazy. Is that kids shit, though?

I don't know. I don't know. I never learned how to do it. Or is there like a crackhead with the hose connected to his car? Like, come on, come on. Just need a few gallons. That's really cracky, though. That's starting. The starting of the siphon is really awful. You have to spit. You have to get a mouthful of gasoline to do that. So that's what you're willing to do for free gas. Yeah. Get a job. That's bad.

Here's two stars. Bridgeport was once a great little town to live in. However, over the years, some of the community was less than appreciative of the area and has gone downhill. They've been less than appreciative. This is like they're all their kids. You don't appreciate your room and you've left it a mess. You don't appreciate your room.

In fact, you have the ability to pay rent here. God, be appreciative. It appears the town is really trying to boost their standing, but it's taking quite a long time. Really, to turn around 200 years of a town. There was a fucking chemical fire, man. Yeah. What do you want? That doesn't get fixed overnight. Well, it went from being all factories to now having burning chemicals in the air. Like, give the town a minute here. Yeah.

There is a gentleman really working to bring more business and housing. A gentleman, just no name, just one guy, uh, more business and housing to try to make it similar to con so Hawken, Kansa Hawken. Well, you gotta, you gotta be next. We gotta be, gotta be like the next to them, right? The middle and high school are both really great in terms of both athletics and academics. So I don't know. Two stars for unappreciative people, I guess. Yeah.

And tonsil hockey is a better place. That's better. Much better. Yeah. Cox a hockey is fucking cock socket is a much better place. Everybody moved to cock socket, Pennsylvania, everybody. It's perfect.

Apparently, there is no wrong happening there. People in this town, 4,961. So, small. Yeah. To be that close to Philly, that's a small town. Oh, shit. Yeah. It's a lower median age than normal. It's only 34 here, which is normally about 38. This is the weird part. What?

the most out of whack male female ratio. I think we've ever had 50, 54.5% male, which we've never seen that before. It's really strange. Yeah. I don't know why or how, but who knows? Um, a little bit lower married rate than normal. Uh,

A lot of single with children people, too, here. Is that right? Yeah, a lot. 24% are single with children, too, which is normally about 10%. Race of this town, 73.8% white, 2% black, 2% Asian, and 20% Hispanic.

So there you go. Religion, 64.3% are religious here. No shit. Yeah, that is like, those are, that's like Bible belt numbers. That's a big deal. And no surprise, the highest one is going to be, it is,

Motherfucker. 38.5% Catholic. My God. Very Catholic. As we know, the Catholics are the Baptists of the North, and there's a lot of them there. Unemployment rate here is about this national average. It's just fine. Doing okay. The median household income, slightly above average by a couple thousand, $72,977. Okay.

Which isn't bad, and it's a little better, too, when you consider the housing cost here is below the normal cost of living. Yeah, cost of living here is a slightly higher rate. It's usually $100. Here it's $114, so a little higher. But the median home cost, $264,400. That's not bad. Which isn't terrible, especially for the East Coast. For the East Coast, that's pretty good. For drivable to a major city is pretty good because that's kind of what people like to do. They work in a big city, make a decent salary, and then take it halfway.

Half hour away. Where the dollar stretches a little bit. Yeah, and get a yard. You know what I mean? But here, we'll say from the houses, it's kind of city-ish. There's a lot of like, there's row houses. Really? Yeah, so it's a small place. There's some brownstone style houses? There's a couple of them, yeah. We'll talk about them here with the Bridgeport, Pennsylvania Real Estate Report. Real Estate Report

The average two-bedroom rental here is expensive. It's over $200 more than the national average. It's $1,490. So it's cheaper to buy a house than the national average, but more expensive to rent one. Here is a four-bedroom, one-bath, 1,395 square foot. It's a townhouse, but a row house. It's connected to two others, but it looks like one of the nice neighborhoods in the wire.

Four-bedroom, one-bath? Four-bedroom, one-bath. I bet it's one-and-a-half bath. It's probably, I assume, in the living room, there's probably a, you know, or whatever. Outer room, down sale. Main floor, and then, yeah, it's a three-story kind of house, so it's probably... I like that. It's not bad. It's cool. It's kind of dark inside, though. There's only a few windows, and the whole place kind of looks like a long... Yeah, they've got to be on the front or the back, because the sides are other...

Other houses. Other houses, exactly. So some of the rooms don't have complete floors, which is strange. What? It's like not finished. It's just like...

It's half, like, they put wood down, and then there's just half of it that's not wood. And the wood looks new, so it looks like they just didn't finish it. It's very strange, but it is on Rambo Street, which is pretty cool. That's pretty badass. In Philly, too. Like, that's pretty cool. Rambo Street. You get a really cool knife when you buy that. It comes with it. It comes with it. They leave it on the counter for you. It's like when you move into an apartment complex, and they give you, like, sparkling...

Sparkling wine or whatever the fuck there. And a .50 cal you can operate with one hand. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. It comes with a grenade belt. So that's good. You got to have that. $265,000 for that.

Not bad. Not bad. That's about, that's your average house here. So a three bedroom, two bath, 2,082 square feet. It's a standalone house in a city-ish area. It doesn't look like there's any yard and there's houses right on top of you, but not attached to you. It's been redone pretty decently in the night, in the inside. It's been redone pretty decently in the night,

The only thing is there's a lot of walls that they haven't painted yet, you can tell. And they have tons, tons of fucking spackled over holes at exact fist height. They're all at the same height. Somebody was like an angry Phillies fan or like, the fucking Eagles! And like...

This one's from Donovan McNabb in 2006. And this one's from fucking this guy in fucking God damn it. This one's from Michael Vick in the end of his career. Ah, for Christ's sake, I thought he was the one.

So this one, nice little fence backyard here. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the next one. Sorry. This one here, $325,000 for that. Okay. It's not too terrible. Doable, yeah. And here's a three-bedroom, three-bath, T-Ball for each and every B-hole. Hell, yeah. 2,458 square feet, standalone house, three floors. It's like a high, thin house. A lot of carpet in this house, which I don't care for. I don't want to be...

Immediately, I got to pull that out. I just don't want whatever other people have been putting into that carpet for 20 years. I don't want that on me. A bit farty on the inside would be the best way to put it, like a little bit farty, but clean and decent. You could fix it up a little better if you want. Nice little fenced-in backyard. You could play catch back there. Not long toss, but catch. So, I mean, nice, decent, $599,000 for that.

That's a price tag. It's pricey. But, I mean, in Philly, it'd be... It's a good-sized house, too. 24 square feet. I mean, a house like that in the city, forget it. It would cost you a fortune. So, things to do in this town. Here it is, baby. The Bridgeport Carnival. Bring it on. Come on here. Held on the property surrounding Borough Hall, the Bridgeport Carnival is affectionately referred to as Five Days of Affordable Family Fun.

Affordable. Affordable, yeah. Yikes. That's not how – I need my carnival rides to be very expensive. No, affordable. Yeah, if you go to a carnival and when you go in or like a county fair, they charge you money and it's less than you thought it was going to be, turn around and leave. Leave. Yeah.

They got a box full of extra parts, I promise. If you see all the rides and do the quick math in your head and go, this isn't enough money to pay for all these rides to be properly maintained. Fucking leave. I'm telling you, go. There's a reason that those lights don't work. Yeah, exactly. Why they're blinking on that one part.

The Bridgeport Carnival consists of two separate but adjacent components. The Carnival Midway, which is like your regular carnival with rides, games, concessions, you know, fucking fried things that shouldn't be fried.

Yeah, it's a fried roast beef sandwich. Go on, eat it. There. It's weird shit. Why? Is it bad enough? Fried toilet plunger. Just eat it. Just eat it. It's fine. Fried it. It's fine. Fried slippers. It's good. You're going to like them. I'm telling you, they get real crunchy. And then also there is local vendor area and all that kind of thing. And then they have live music on four nights as

As well as, of course, a beer and wine garden, as you have to have here. Now, the carnival dates are June 18th through the 22nd. And here is the band lineup. It's coming up. Yeah, buddy. Band lineup, Tuesday. This starts on a Tuesday, the festival, by the way. Runs through Saturday. The band for the 18th will be AM Radio.

It's just static. It's just the AM radio. It's static. Every once in a while, they're like, the Phillies today lost four to three in Baltimore. And then they cut to like, there's a little bit of static and then there's someone going, repent! Repent! The Lord is the only savior that can take you to the promised land. And then it goes to like,

You know, wrench arrow music. Just AM radio. AM dial. Good AM radio on your AM dial. The next night, June 19th, Emmanuel Omeng III and Perpetual Motion.

Is it religious music? I don't know. It's O-M-E-N-G is O-H-E-M-E-N-G the third. Emanuel O-M-E-N-G the third and perpetual motion. O-M-E-N-G. And then the 20th is Highway Run, which sounds like they just do Bruce Springsteen covers, doesn't it? Sounds like an instruction. Yeah. Run. Run.

Friday, May 21st, or June 21st, the Mighty Manatees will be there. Yeah. Yeah. Just a bunch of fat dads. That's fat guys playing Mighty Mighty Boss Stones covers. That's what that is. Just a bunch of fat dads going, if I didn't have kids, I would have done this. Singing the impression that I get over and over again. That's all it is. Ba-ba-ba-da-ba-ba-ba-da-ba. Three of them have heart attacks from that jumping around dancing shit they used to do. Manatees.

And then finally, the 22nd of June, Whiskey Grin will be there. All right. You know that play country. Which is the grin that someone gets before they're about to fucking put forcible sexual activity upon you.

Before they start rubbing your shoulders. Oh, man. Hey, how you doing there? Pretty? God, I was better a second ago. You sure are pretty. I know you can smell whiskey on my breath. I've been drinking a lot of it. My name's Jimmy. Stop. Come on now. Don't make no know-how to me, buddy. You ain't seen my whiskey grin?

From the back, you're all the same. Jesus. Yeah, it doesn't matter to me. Ride tickets are $1.50 per ticket. So to get on a ride, it costs $1.50. That's too affordable. $25 for 20 tickets. So you can get a package here. Way too affordable. Way too affordable. Pay one price ride wristbands are $22 per wristband per day and are available every day except Friday. So that is too affordable to have on a ride.

Music and rides. I'm sorry. Too much. Crime rate in this town. What we're interested in here. The property crime is just below the national average, but pretty close to it, which gas siphoning, things like that might happen. Yeah.

Then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime, the big ones, not even half the national average. How about that? Below half. So safe. And that's why people are moving here. Yeah. Because they're like, oh, you know, if I'm going to have a family here and all that. Such motherfuckers can afford the gas. Yeah. Don't want my kid wandering around by the punchline. That's bad. Yeah.

That neighborhood is crazy. Yeah, that is a tough neighborhood. That neighborhood's fucking crazy. Like, on the front of those buildings, it's beautiful. It's amazing that then you walk right around the back and you're like, where did I... What is happening? Is that just Time Warp? It's just chain-link fences with, like... Chain-link fences with yards of just broken glass in them. You're like, what is this? They're storing your broken glass in there with a chain-link fence? People living in vans and...

Train tracks, it's crazy. It is wild when you go out the back door. Great place to smoke weed with the security guards because no one cares what you're doing back there. That said, let's talk about some murder here. Let's do this. And oh my goodness, this is a story of, number one, an asshole, as we'll get into. But number two, how a certain type of panic...

Sometimes, you know, like the culture will get a we'll all get like in pop culture, like this is what happened in this case. And then that's the police are going down that route, too. And when it turns out, that's not exactly what happened.

then it kind of you can tell that it ruined their investigation and really could have done a lot better with it if they would have looked at more things than that one thing too hard and it were led astray yeah sometimes a red flag is just a flag and it's not always something to go oh shit there's something bad down there sometimes it's just you know somebody wanted to hear first down marker flappity flappity in the wind you know

So let's go to 1999 here, where this whole mess will start, this saga here. 1999, let's talk about a young lady here. She is 20 years old in 1999, and her name is Jennifer Still, just like she's still, S-T-I-L-L. Yep, still like the water. She's born in England, actually. Is that right? Which not a lot of our small-town murder subjects are from England. No.

Not a lot of people move from England to a small town in America that then gets involved in a murder. It just doesn't happen that often here. So her mom's name is Wendy, and she said that her mom said that they moved from England, just Wendy and her only daughter, in 1981 when she was two years old.

And they'd been living in Bridgeport for about 12 years before they moved there in about 1987. So they've been living there. They like Bridgeport. And problem is Jennifer...

She has a tough childhood, man, through things that are of absolutely no fault of her own. I mean, complete genetic things. It was very hard. Not her fault, but definitely her problem. Her problem. Hard for her to have a normal smile, everybody, her mom said. Her mom said she was born with a cleft lip and palate. Oh, God damn it. So that's very tough for a little girl. A little boy, too. It's just tough for a little kid because the other kids don't know medically what's

oh that person has a an issue they just go oh you're weird it's tough it's fascinating that that genetic thing because they can be super severe or they can be minored you know i mean so the severity can vary and you can either have a super fucked up jagged lip or it could be just a small small scar on your small thing that's the thing a lot of times they'll have surgical you know corrections on it and the other thing is when you look at her like her

You can tell it's just her eyes aren't lined up. One is higher than the other. So it looks like she's not symmetrical at all, which is difficult. And when you're a kid, any little difference, any little difference, people, even if the kids aren't trying to be mean, they go, what's wrong with you? Like, even if they're just curious, that's just how kids are. And then you feel terrible about yourself and you fucking shrink. And that's how it goes.

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Just visit simplisafe.com slash small. That's simplisafe, S-I-M-P-L-I, safe.com slash small. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Now back to the show.

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about one of our favorites, Quince. Oh, quince.com. Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com. That's right. And it's busy seasons. We're all going around. We're going everywhere in the summer. We're traveling. Your wardrobe's getting beat up a little bit. Let's be realistic here. We're not going to do, neither Jimmy or myself, we're not going to do total wardrobe overhauls here. This isn't like some sort of reality show. But you get...

A few things here to replace some stuff, and that's what we're doing. Replacing some worn-out stuff with some high-quality essentials at a very affordable price from Quince. And that's what we've done. And they have all the seasonal must-haves. We got some cool stuff. Jimmy, those linen pants. Oh, they're so comfortable. Oh, boy. They are?

You went for the outer. I got some undershirts, which I like because you need a comfortable undershirt. These are really comfortable and soft. And I got some sunglasses. You can do it too. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash smalltownmurder for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's QC.

Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash smalltownmurder to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash smalltownmurder. Now back to the show. She also had a curvature of the spine, which was a problem also. It's like, come on. Scoliosis? I think having your face all out of whack is probably enough for one little girl. But no, she's got a curvature at the spine. She had numerous operations beginning when she was three months old.

And continuing, that was first for her spine, then for her face. And she had a ton of surgeries on her face until finally the, I mean, this went into her teens. This was going on from the time she was three months old to 17, 18 years old. She was getting facial surgeries to reconstruct her face basically. And yeah, she's very much into animals. Jen likes animals, really likes cats a lot. Yeah.

Her mom said that they had two small stray kittens that she named. And think about the time this is. She was 10 in 1989, so this is not going to be a surprise. She named the cats what? Ariel and Sebastian. If you don't know, that's a little mermaid. That's the main character and the crab. And she had a hamster. She had a hamster that lived to be almost four years old, which is long for a hamster. They live that long? Yeah, they do.

She called it Hammy, which is nice. That's cute. And she was just... She's a nice person and she's very kind also because I think she knows what it's like to be picked on. She knows what it's like to be different. So she's very kind. She's very gentle also. I mean, we know she loved flowers and things like that. She's into...

She like her favorite colors, purple, and she has it all over a room and she's into flowers. She's a young girl. You know what I mean? And also because she socially was kind of a little bit behind when she was younger. Maybe there's some little kid stuff kind of leaking in to her teenage life, too, because, you know, she didn't really get a chance to do that. I'm 43, man. I feel. Oh, I'm a fucking child. Are you kidding me? I'm a fucking complete child at heart here and an action child.

This is our job. We are children. I mean, honestly, our job is to giggle with our friend. That's either one of our, what's your job? I giggle with my friend for a while. Oh, that's not so bad. That seems fun. So I'm having a hard time fitting my video games into my schedule. That's the problem. Sometimes I got a giggle and then I don't have a time for my games. I'm really upset. I got a season going in Madden right now. And it is hard.

I'm very excited for Grand Theft Auto 6 to come out. That's how pathetic I am. You know what I mean? When does that happen? Next year. No shit? Fuck yeah. It's going to be great. Oh, boy.

Oh, those are the most fun games. I never just, you don't have to play the actual. No. Yeah. Just to, it's just fun to dick off. It's fun to dick off. It's fun to drive down the street at 130 miles an hour, just running over pedestrians as they fly off of you. Well, fucking Phil Collins. I don't care anymore is on the fucking radio. It's, it's hilarious. It's like ATV off road fury too. That you just, you just ride, you just go. I love it. I love taking the shit up in the mountains and just jumping cars off of mountains. Just,

You just go. Yeah. Where else do you get a chance to jump a Mercedes off the side of a mountain? Not very often. I'm just having a good time. Having fun, man. So as she grew up, Jen got into music and theater. She liked that kind of thing. She liked musical theater especially. She went to see Phantom of the Opera was her favorite. Went several times.

People who are real into Phantom of the Opera, like that's a specific. They see it all the time. Phantom heads, they're just into it. I don't even know the plot. I was in it. I was in the play in high school. I don't know it. That's hilarious.

I went out with a girl in high school who said like she was a singer and she would sing the entire thing. And I was like, oh, my God, too much. Someone killed this phantom already. I don't want to hear these songs anymore. Les Mis people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First, I was like, oh, this is nice. And then I'm like, enough. Learn another show. I can't deal with this shit.

So she would cry at Phantom of the Opera. She also loved Cats, the musical, because she loved cats. So, you know, she liked all kinds of music, was into that. 1993, they went to England for a vacation with her mom, and that was like a big highlight in their life. She was able to visit her birthplace and kind of see, you know, her heritage. Here, you're English. This is that. Here's some clotted cream or whatever the fuck we eat over here. Heritage.

Yeah. Here's some fucking vetted fish. I don't know. Haggis? Is that there? That's Scottish. Okay. Well, that's part of them, right? Don't tell them that. Don't tell them that. Don't tell the Scottish you're part of that. They'll be very upset. Some bangers, some mash, some fish, some chips, whatever. They don't care for that. They're like, we're different, fucker. So she was able to do that. Sorry.

She liked her favorite foods, chicken nuggets and French fries, of course. Who the fuck doesn't? That's great. What kid does not love chicken nuggets and French fries and chocolate shit? She loved anything chocolate. She wanted – when she got to England, she liked the chocolate there and they took like tons of chocolate home with her because she was super into chocolate. She liked her favorite movies and were White Christmas. It's old as shit.

The Muppet Christmas Carol. Really? And The Little Mermaid. They're all musicals. That's why. Yeah. She's into board games and stuff like that. She's a normal kid. She doesn't do very much. She gets into high school and it's difficult for her in high school. She goes to Upper Marion High School, which is the horny teacher's lounge. Kobe's place. Yeah. She...

She was very shy, and that stemmed from her appearance, and she got taunted and teased. And this is a different time, too. Now people are like, hey, don't bully kids. In the 90s, it was like, you fucking melty-looking, freaky fuck. People didn't give a shit. She went to high school with Kobe Bryant.

Yeah, same time period. Yeah, she was in the same fucking place. She was in the same, yeah, probably he graduated, I think, 96, and I think she graduated 97. So that works perfectly. Her mom said she was not in the in crowd. She did not fit. Well, Kobe Bryant was there. What are you going to do? That's what I mean. She couldn't dunk from the foul line, so it was...

So a classmate of hers said that she was very polite and very quiet. Her mom said her friends weren't nasty people. They were just different.

She got in with the Dungeons and Dragons crowd because they don't judge you like that. Right. Yeah. And that's very cool about it. That's the crowd where they're not going to go, oh, you're ugly because they're nerds. A lot of them. And they're just like, they're happy here. And if you're smart and you're fun and that's that's what they're interested in. So she mom said they listen to heavy metal music a lot.

Oh. And she gets into like, she likes like not only D&D, which she gets and she'll stay into for a few years. And then also she's into like, you know, Wicca and shit like that. Sure. We're talking when she was like 15, like 1994. Yeah.

All the girls in 1994 were like into stuff like that. It was just. They had. Right. They're interviewing Marilyn Manson. That's what I mean. On every fucking talk show. Yeah. Because it was very. It was. I mean, those girls are doing it now, too, in a different way. Oh, absolutely. It's more like spiritual touchy feely type shit. Whereas then it was like, I'll wear all black and like fucking go sit in a field at midnight type of shit. Yeah. Yeah.

It was different. We looked at it as like, oh, this is rebellious. It wasn't rebellious. It was just... Bruise a bulk, shit like that. Yeah, dark. Look at you. Ooh, I'm dark. So, yeah, she's into that kind of thing, but nothing like, you know, crazy or anything. Yeah, she's not sacrificing a pig. No, no, no, no. She's just into that sort of thing. And a lot of times, too...

kind of the nerdier kids will kind of take a more goth approach to it because it makes them look less approachable and less pick onable. You know what I mean? And more interesting. And more interesting. There might be a, I don't know, there might be a blade in that fucking kid's sock. You never know. Because he listens to Korn. As a kid, as he listens to Korn. As a kid, like if you have any sort of persona, it almost acts as a shield. Yeah. It's the kids that don't have the persona that people are like weak and they fucking pick on them. Yeah.

Any kind of bullshit persona, because the other kids are just as full of shit as you, so they don't know whether you're full of shit. They know they're full of shit, so people leave you alone at that point. And the only way you find out if they're full of shit is if you pick on them, and sometimes that's dangerous. That could be dangerous. You never know. Yeah, this guy's got a Marilyn Manson shirt on, so he might be, who knows if he's crazy. He might have a blackjack in his back pocket. He'll probably cut himself and not me. Yeah.

In front of me to scare me. I'm going to be like, what's up, motherfucker? And he's going to be like, what's up? And he's going to slice his arm open. I'm going to go, oh, God, Jesus, and run away. Pull his own tooth out and spit blood on you. Yeah, take that. Jesus Christ. So her mom said that school was a struggle, but she hung in there and graduated. So then she gets jobs, kind of menial jobs. And for her, that's a lot to even venture out into the world because she's really –

starting to come along. She's had a lot of surgeries and she's having a little bit more confidence in herself, but she's still shy based on her, her whole life. Her whole personality has been, I don't want anybody to look at me cause they're going to think I'm weird. So it's, it's hard. She got jobs at a movie theater. She worked at a Wawa store. No, right. Awesome. Love Wawa. She's a hero. You make some good sandwiches back there. Good shit.

She was attending computer classes too at the time. So she didn't know what she wanted to do with herself. She was trying to figure it out. Her mom said she wanted to do what everyone else does, graduate, get a good job, but she was still having trouble doing that. So trying though. As of 1999, she's 20, and she moves out of her mom's house.

and moves into a basement apartment that's near her mom. It's close by, within a mile. So that's not bad. It's called Belmont Village Apartments. I don't know an apartment complex at basement apartments. Wow, that is fascinating. I thought you meant like in the bottom of somebody's house. Yeah, like a three-story house with a basement. They've turned the basement into an apartment. They do that all the time back east. This is a three-story building that they just rent the bottom floor out.

the basements for people. It's weird. Yeah, Belmont Village Apartments, 200 Ross Road. It is a 126-unit complex with two-story brick buildings. So it's just your typical...

Yeah. Two-story apartment building, but they have basements as well, too. She's also met a boy and is in a serious relationship with him, actually. He has asked her to marry him, and she has accepted, and his name is Kevin. And so at this point in time, she's got her own place, and she doesn't live with Kevin right now. She's got her own place. Yeah.

She's got a job and she's working and, you know, got a fiance. Things are going much better for her than they ever have. Her main social thing, she likes to play D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, if you're not familiar, with a big group of people. They have a group of people that have a, you know, that's kind of like one of those. It's like a floating game, D&D. Yeah, yeah. They'll have it at different people's houses, different times, because you have to coordinate the schedules of like eight people.

To all be there at the same time for hours they got to spend, too. It's not like we're going to get together for two hours and watch half a football game or something. It's an all-night thing. And I never played it. I don't know how this shit works, but I imagine everybody's fighting the same thing, or are they fighting each other? I don't know. There's a lot of fighting that we can do.

Yeah. You're on, you're all kind of, it's a lot going on. And yeah, my daughter used to play. I bought a lot of those fucking dice. I'll tell you that much. The 20 sided die. I bought plenty of those in my fucking day.

Fancy ones, different ones for her. That was a lot easier once it became later because if you have Zoom, it's a lot easier. If everybody's online, you can play rather than having to gather. But back then, it was what nerds did to gather. Now I watch a guy use those dice to make a fucking sandwich on TikTok. He's my favorite thing on the planet. Have you ever seen him? Oh, God, it's so great. It's called Roll for Sandwich. It's so good. You've got to watch it. I'm an adult. I don't watch that shit. So much fun.

I have fucking work to do. What are you doing? Yeah, I know. You watch guys tick off with shit on sandwiches on TikTok? No, I don't. Absolutely, I do not. I'm trying to get video game time in. Remember, Jimmy? Because I'm an adult. I'm just kidding. I'm not an adult and I'm not above any of this shit.

I can't get enough of it. So they're playing D&D, like I said, doing all their shit and hanging out. And that's how her life is going. So July 6th, 1999. It is two days after her 20th birthday. Jennifer just turns 20. She's very excited. She's born on the 4th of July, which is weird for an English girl. Strange for an English girl. Oh, we celebrate my birthday by everybody taunting and mocking my home country. Excellent. Yeah.

Terrific. That's great. I mean, they do shoot fireworks for me, but... They blow up things in celebration of repelling my people. Great.

And they say, fuck the queen or some shit like that. Yeah, that's what you say before you light a firework off always. English people, did you know that? That's what we do. On the 4th of July, every one you light, you got to go, fuck the queen. And then it shoots up in the air. Suck a dick, Charles. And then it fires up there and it's going, grow some hair, William. We throw different ones out there. It gets boring after a while. Plus, we're drunk. Genetics are weak. Yeah. You got a weak chin. Yeah. Yeah.

Bad tea. Yeah, take that. So Wendy, the mom here, said that while Jennifer moved out of her house, she would visit all the time and they'd talk on the phone. They'd email each other back and forth because it's 99, man. That's a swinging new thing here for you. Getting after it, yeah. Yeah. Even on the afternoon of July 6th, they email. She said Jennifer told her that something was wrong and that she was, quote, having problems with a couple of people she was hanging around with.

So people she knows and not just some weird guy in the complex or something. It's some people she knows and hangs around with and then wouldn't go into any further detail when her mom pressed her on it, which is odd. Then 7 p.m. that evening, Kevin gets off work. He's been working all day at a car wash. Yeah. He works at the car wash because he's a young guy, her boyfriend, her fiance. He comes over to the apartment at 7 o'clock.

And there is no Jennifer in the living room. Things are quiet in there. He's like, hmm, that's weird. So he walks down into the bedroom and he finds her lifeless body on the bedroom floor. And it's terrible too. She has been stabbed a lot. A lot. Her whole torso is just full of knife wounds and her throat has been slashed horribly. I mean, she is, there's no doubt that she is definitely dead. She's destroyed.

And it's just a horrible scene. They think that she hasn't been dead very long, too. He calls the cops. The cops come. They get there. They said she's still lying on her back in a pool of blood. He didn't try to – it wasn't even like, oh, I'll try to do CPR. Her head was half off. I mean it's obvious. She'd been stabbed a ton in the abdomen and her throat had been slashed extremely viciously. And they say –

It looks like a large hunting type knife did this. This wasn't like a kitchen knife or a pocket knife. This is a big old Rambo knife. So, yeah, two Rambo mentions, by the way, so far. How often do we mention Rambo on this show? Sly's getting a lot of plugs. Sly and some guy on TikTok are getting plenty of plugs today.

So anyway, these detectives are here. They see no signs of forced entry at the apartment. So they're like, OK, it's got to be comfortable with somebody. So comfortable with somebody. And right away, police chief here says that is a weird deal. He said, quote, This was definitely a murder and is being treated as such. Yeah, most people don't cut their own head half off usually.

That's a hell of a suicide attempt. That's a lot, man. My God. That's a whole lot. So the district attorney, Bruce L. Castor Jr. Here, we're going to talk a lot about him. He is Montgomery County's first assistant district attorney. And he said that allegedly Kevin, who had recently moved in with her here at this apartment...

found the body after he returned from work and contacted the police. And they said, he said, all I know is at this point, we know that she died as a result of multiple stab wounds with a principal wound to her neck. And she wasn't dead very long. Uh, the retired Sergeant with the police department said, it's one of the most brutal crime scenes I've ever seen. He said, in my experience and in my opinion, the level of violence here indicated a crime of passion and uncontrollable anger and rage. There's so many stab wounds in the chest. Like,

We've talked about it. It takes a lot of effort to stab people. It really does. So to maintain a fucking attack like that and then go after the throat afterwards, you're angry. You're really angry. You have to have this adrenaline. Still so mad. Yeah. You got to finish that. It's 15 stab wounds with a large hunting knife in a small young woman's chest. It's not like she weighs 300 pounds and there's a lot of room to stab. Right. This is – I mean he cut her up, cut her to pieces. Yeah.

And they called that they said the throat across the slash across her throat was just a savage. It looked horrific. It was, you know, Nicole Simpson type shit. It was bad. So the the fact that there's no forced entry and it's this much anger, they say this has to be someone that she knows.

Because it doesn't look like the place has been robbed or anything like that. So it would make no sense for someone to just break in. She's the reason they're here. Be this angry just to murder somebody and then take off. It can happen. It's happened before, but it's rare. No. So they do all the forensics and blood samples. They find a small trace, a little tiny, tiny little bit. And this is 1999, luckily, so DNA is a thing.

of blood in the bathroom sink. Oh, find a drop of blood. And they're like, okay, we know it's not her. Yeah, because she's dead here. She didn't make it here. And they said a lot of times to a stray drop of blood for a far from the body. A lot of times that's the killer's blood.

Yeah, but it's possible that it's hers. It could be hers dripping off somewhere. Yeah, there's so much. There's so much. It's got to be everywhere. They said, but that's a really, really good place to check, especially if you see it near a sink. Because a lot of times when you stab somebody, the one detective said it's very likely that you cut yourself when you stab somebody. Absolutely. And you go to the sink to wash that out, wash that off, and then there's going to be blood around the sink that you didn't catch before.

Yeah. And you'll probably get all of hers and yours off of you clinked up. And then you you're still bleeding. You're still bleeding her blood. You're still bleeding your blood. You got to get out of there. There it is. That's why they check like all the fucking traps and drains and shit. Now they pull the pipes out to the street. I look for traces of blood and bodies matter if they think there's a reason to now because they can really get, you

Now they can get any trace and figure out what's up with it. So her boyfriend, Kevin, is obviously the biggest suspect here. Absolutely. I mean, he's the fiance. He's the one who found her. What the fuck? You know what I mean? So they look at her. They look at him. His statement was, I was at work. They check him all over. He's got no scrapes, cuts, bruises, or anything like that on him. Hands are in perfect shape.

Not even a band-aid on it. Nothing. Not a little scab. Nothing. Then they say, well, tell you what, DNA test and we'll find out for sure. They do a DNA test and they find out the blood in the sink isn't his. Not his. Isn't his. And he lives there. So if there was some blood in the sink, I mean, he could have popped a zit or something. He could cut himself shaving. Yeah. A million. There's a fucking bloodbath in there. There's blood everywhere in the sink.

If you check your house, if you went over your house with luminol and shit like there's blood in places you go. I forgot about bleeding there on the fucking Memorial Day weekend. I came in. I got myself on the grill. That's what you do. Ginger razor. And see if you don't just fucking. Oh, you're going to open yourself up. It looks like I'm dying. Yeah. So but it turns out this wasn't his blood. Lucky for him, he didn't cut himself in that morning and it wasn't her blood either.

That's great. So that's good for Kevin. Bad for the police trying to solve the crime, but good for Kevin, who doesn't want to be accused of a crime here. So they're looking for clues, and they get to the point now where they, Kevin doesn't know. Mom said she was having some trouble with people she hung around with but wouldn't elaborate. Kevin doesn't know of anybody she's having trouble with, and it wasn't him. No neighbors saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Nobody knows anything. It's just a dead girl that looked like she was dropped from the fucking clouds into her bedroom. Dead. Wow.

So they're like, no, they really don't have any clues. They have blood, but they don't. It doesn't match anybody in their database, this DNA. So they don't have anybody to compare it to. They need a suspect. So they are investigating the murder. They say they removed a piece of a blood spattered wall, a sample of carpet and a computer from her apartment as well.

They cut some drywall out, huh? Yeah. Yeah, just to show that. And also, they don't know if maybe some of the killer's blood is on it, too. Right. If it spattered off when he jerked his hand out. So they said, we're looking to find any hair or fibers, something that narrows who could have committed this crime. Because they really have nothing. They're depending. They're praying that the physical team, the evidence team is going to pull crime scene. People are going to pull some miracle out of, oh, we found hairs or we found something. Right.

So obviously it's a mystery. And when something's a mystery, people often pick up loose strings and just pull them and go, it's got to be that, you know? So detectives, they interview her friends, her neighbors, people who left messages on her answering machine. And at this point they discover that Jennifer and Kevin are into Dungeons and Dragons. And the cops go, well, that has to be it. It's witchcraft.

Because even in 1999, they didn't know what Dungeons & Dragons was, apparently. Yeah, Level 40 Troll did this. Obviously, we need a healer hook. So, I mean, that's the problem. There's no healer present.

So they indicate that police are investigating whether Jennifer was interested in witchcraft and the occult and whether she might have a cult ties that would somebody would come and sacrifice her or some bullshit like that. No other evidence that points that other than people on the machine like, hey, are we playing D&D on Saturday? She's got a nine inch nails poster. Oh, Jesus. Not that. Oh, my God.

It's the first day. She's got a pretty hate machine. She must really be weird. Fuck me. So she just listens to fucking down in it over and over again. It's a deep cut there. So anyway, he is. That's that's the theory at this point. The cops are like, it's got to be these damn witchcraft people. Yeah. Bruce Castor Jr. Here, the D.A. said that they had some reason to suspect that the victim may have been involved in witchcraft.

But they have not yet determined if that's accurate or if that's, you know, she could have been sacrificed by devil people. We're not sure yet, basically, is what he said. He said there's nothing at the crime scene to indicate a cult activity. It wasn't like eight dead kittens and, you know, five candles in the shape of a pentagram around her or any of that shit.

Nothing. And the reports of he said the reports of the killing in the occult have been blown way out of proportion in the media. It is something we're looking at and it is our main lead, but still blown way out of proportion. You're not helping any.

That's that's that's idea number one. But stop it. Yeah, it is the only lead we're pursuing. But I think you guys are taking it a little too far. So it gets to the point where the day after that all comes out, Wendy, Jennifer's mom, has to come out in the paper and say, no, no, you don't know what you're talking about. She said she said they don't see someone who's dead. They see a witch.

She's a 20 year old girl who played a board game with her friends. Like give me a fucking break. Yeah. She said, quote, she did not deserve to have someone kill her like that. And for what reason? No one knows. She said her daughter dabbled in witchcraft. It's been, it was no long, no more than a teenage phase. She said, and it was over. She hasn't even been doing it lately. It was high school shit.

She said her daughter was interested in witchcraft in high school and a lot of people at the high school do it, but she was kind of on the edge of it. She told me in recent times she wasn't doing it anymore. And again, for someone who is different and ostracized and picked on,

That's a shield. Oh, don't mess with her. She's doing witchcraft. She's weird. But all that shit was so prevalent then too with the Blair Witch and so much. God, Jesus. You'd rather be considered weird than prey. You know what I mean? And I think that's also what it is. So her mom, by the way, was, while she's talking to the reporter, wearing a chain around her neck and had a ring on it, which was the ring that her daughter was wearing when she was killed.

So they gave it to her and she wears it on a necklace now. The band was still bloodstained. She's wearing a bloodstained ring on her fucking necklace.

That's wild. That's wild, man. I think I'd probably just save that. They let her have that, huh? Yeah. I mean, it didn't have anything to do with the murder, so they released her property back to her mother. That was that. It was like a week later. So, I mean, they looked at it. They looked for physical evidence, and there was no physical evidence that they needed on it. It's got blood all over it. Jesus. Yeah. She said, I will remember her as a very loving child. She was very easily led, and she was very naive because she wasn't.

into social shit that much to begin with but she was loving and caring and that's the way she was raised she was very trusting and sometimes you trust the wrong people so the cops think those people are her D&D friends that's all they're interested in and they talk to her D&D friends that's it

Really? Yes. And it's hard to describe D&D if you don't know what it is. Really, you should just look it up because I feel like everybody culturally gets an idea of what it is. Wizards, Warriors. It's been around since the 80s, yeah. Before that, before that. Really? Yeah, yeah. It came out well before that. Because in the 70s. 70s is when it started to pop, yeah. And then in the 80s it got kind of big, I think. And then in the 90s it was like...

Very niche. And then it became real popular late 90s, early 2000s. And now it's out of control. It's huge. Now you can do it online. That's why. You don't actually have to have people together. So it got much bigger. And it's a role-playing game. You're on a journey trying to beat things.

things and ogres and shit like there's a quest and common goal i don't know you all have certain skills that you get in the beginning it's like a video game when you have a skill set do i want this character who's got stronger this character is quicker this character does that it's a role-playing game where you don't even know how you get the role-playing character

There's spells and there's all that kind of thing. That I don't know. Are you awarded and appointed by somebody else? I feel like there's a dungeon master. There should be. I know there is. That's what they call the person running the game. Oh, yeah, then. Because it's not a board game that's set up. You have to make up the campaign. So there's a lot of creativity in this, too. Sure. Because my daughter, I remember her doing that, making a campaign. It's a big deal. It's a lot of creativity. You have to come up with obstacles and things that are going to happen and places and characters and stuff.

It's a lot. It's like writing a story. Then you go on this quest.

And then you do it. Yeah. So your friends and you can have this quest and have a good time. And sounds fun if you're into that. That's cool. So they talk to some people here, the cops. One of the people they talk to is a young woman named Heather Graves. G-R-E-A-V-E-S. Heather Graves. That's great. Graves. Yep. And another guy named John Eichinger. Eichinger, I'm going to say. God, the way it says, it's very hard not to say the N word during that. Yep.

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Make Packet the first stop on your back-to-school journey. We get support from Dove. Hey y'all, it's your girl Kiki Palmer, host of the Wondery Podcast. Baby, this is Kiki Palmer. Let me cut to the chase. Did you know that in many states across the U.S., it's still not illegal to discriminate against people based on the way their hair grows out of their head? To deny black folks from jobs and opportunities because they have braids, locks, twists, or bantu knots? That's messed up.

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Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.

We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit filed by Larry King, and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

acts. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. Strange German name there on that one here. So, um, those two have been long time... Like Schwartz. Like, yeah.

Those two have been longtime friends of Jennifer's. John's in his late 20s, but he's into D&D, so they know each other. They're not all the same age. It's all the people locally that do D&D. So he's known as Acme John.

Okay. Because he works at the Acme supermarket. Oh, okay. Yeah. Everybody calls him Acme John. Yep. Everybody's got that nickname where you hate it, but that's what they do. That's what they're calling me, I guess. That's that. So he is John Charles Eichinger, and he's born – dodged a bullet there –

He's born February 18th, 1972. He was originally born in Malvern, Pennsylvania. He has three brothers, went to Upper Marion High School as well, pre-Kobe here in King of Prussia, where he's been a part of playing D&D for a long time. That's been his thing since high school, and now he's 28 or whatever, 27. So still into it, still doing it, and playing with whoever's around to play.

So through D&D, that's how he met Heather Graves. He met Jennifer Still. And he knows Kevin. He knows the whole D&D crew here. He also is big into chess. He plays in chess tournaments as well, like weekends. And when he's not working, he plays in chess tournaments. So impressive to me. He likes chess and D&D, which are both very thinking things. So he thinks he's this smart, but he works at the grocery store.

Well, you know, sometimes those guys can't figure out, can't translate that smart to real world shit. It's true. And that's absolutely what's going on with him. It's, it's, he's, his IQ is probably quite high, but that's not translating to skills at all for him. He can memorize those PLU codes like a mother. Oh, you're going to, he knows potatoes. Yeah. He, he knows the PLU for a box of raisin brand immediately. Got it. Poster poster. Kellogg's is what he says.

They're like, damn. Post, I guess. He knows every produce code ever made. Fuck yeah. Ever. It's arugula, dipshit.

It's actually 8086. I don't even mention it. I don't even do it by their name. I do it by the number. That's what I do, yeah. I remember going to the grocery store so much where I started being like that with vegetables. Like when my kids were little, I was like, bananas, 4061. I think that's still what they are at fucking Kroger, too. I think it is, yeah. 4061, bananas, okay, blah, blah, blah. I was hired to be a checker, and I couldn't remember it. I couldn't pass those, so they wouldn't let me do it. There's a test, James. Okay.

Can you remember what bananas are? You have to know the PLU codes. That makes sense, I guess. And if you can't remember them, then you bagged the motherfuckers. Wow. So that's what it is. I don't think I could remember them if it was my job. I just happen to go there every day and get the same five things. So, you know, after a hundred times, you start to go, it's still 4061, dipshit. Just write it in. Type that shit.

So they ask him, you know, well, where were you? Cause they're asking all the friends. I asked John, where were you? And he says, well, I was in New Jersey on the day that that happened. Um,

So obviously that wasn't me that did it. But he said that I do know of all of her other D&D friends because they're like, who else does she hang out with playing this witchcraft occult game? You know what I mean? And he's like, well, two people she's pretty close to and that might have information you could talk to. So, I mean, at least John's helpful here is Danny and Destiny. This is talk to Danny and Destiny. They they're going to be. No, no. I think they're just.

Friends. Just friends, huh? Yeah. Now, Destiny said she's a witch. Real life. Yes. Yes. Now, the cops go talk to Danny and Destiny. And when they talk to her, she says, yes, I am a witch. And as a matter of fact, I was very much in love with Jennifer still. Oh. Now we're getting somewhere. Hell yeah. So much so that she and Jennifer were actually wed in a Wiccan ceremony.

Oh, we're married. We're married. No, I don't know if that's a romantic thing or if that's just like a spiritual, you know, I'm not sure. Yeah. Cause she's also engaged to someone else in a non like Wiccan way, like just in a, in like a state of Pennsylvania way. Like we're going to get married. Jennifer certainly is.

yeah, well, they're, no, Jennifer is engaged to Kevin. So I mean, in a, in a, like a, we're going to get a marriage license way. Right. And then these two are wed in a Wiccan ceremony. So I don't know if that's like their spirits or their, whatever the fuck their characters got married. I have no idea what that would mean. So destiny, um, said, they said, well, what, what could have happened here with Jennifer? What you were, I mean, you're married to her for Christ's sake. Yeah. You're which married, like, you know what I'm saying? What's up? That's,

That's your witch bitch. That's your witch bitch. And Destiny said, it's my bottom witch bitch, too. She's the number one bottom, bottom witch. She said that, well, the problem was with Jennifer is she was possessed by demons. That's the main issue with her.

So they're like, this is... She told that to the cops. They're like, why couldn't someone have just robbed her? This is getting ridiculous. Like, we're going to feel like she's full of demons now? How do you go tell that to your fucking, you know, to your lieutenant when he's like, brief me on this murder case? Well, our victim was apparently filled with demons, and her witch bride...

Her witch bride says that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a lot to tell the rest of the force in a report there. Witch wife says she was vented to get the demons out. Yeah, that's how it goes. Well, she said that she never did anything. Destiny didn't, but she was going to perform an exorcism to rid her of the evil spirit. But I guess no need now.

So, yeah, I mean, it's gone. They're like, you were going to perform an exorcism on her being her witch bride. Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. This all makes perfect sense now. Full of demons. Yeah. Packed with them. Destiny then said that she'd even had a dream in which she

she, Destiny, violently stabbed Jennifer Still. She goes, I had a dream that I did that, but I didn't do it in real life. Well, we just jotted that one down. Okay. So, by the way, that was the prosecutors in the OJ trial made a very big deal out of him telling one friend that he had a dream he killed Nicole. Ah, okay.

So she they sit her down and they're like, let's talk to her friend. This will be easy. Maybe she knows of some other guy she's seen or something. Oh, no, no. We're witches. She's full of demons. We wed in a Wiccan ceremony. So she's my witch bitch. And at the same time, she's still possessed by demons, which is super annoying. So we're going to do an exorcism. And oh, by the way, I had a dream probably the same night she was killed that I violently stabbed her. Anything else? Any other questions that you might have for me?

If you're a cop, your head's spinning here, especially a small town cop. You're like, what the fuck is happening right now? A small town cop is going, is that enough to arrest her? Is that it? Sounds like a lot, right? Like a confession, right? Right. How do you do an exorcism? Is there a knife involved? Let me ask you that.

So in the end, both Danny and Destiny agreed to be swabbed for their DNA, which that's all they really need here. It doesn't match the drop of blood in the sink. Neither of them. God damn it. So they're like, fuck. They thought they had it. Like, this is it. Anything she wants. They were getting the cuffs all fucking polished up for Destiny here and then figured Danny probably helped her. They probably did it together. And now, nope, neither of them match the blood. Unbelievable.

So they don't know what to do. They're back to square one. They have a violently butchered dead girl who may or may not be packed with demons and wed to another woman in a Wiccan ceremony. We got her down at the fucking morgue. A fiance with a dead solid alibi. Yeah. You know those car wash people. There's like eight people washing a car at the same time. Everybody knew he was there. So he's dead solid alibi for him. Nobody hates her. If it's not Wiccan bride, who the fuck is it? So the case goes cold.

Oh, no. Goes cold. They have no leads. They have no nothing. And years go by. How many? Six.

2005 is where we're going to pick this story up. Okay. They still have no leads, nothing. The case is basically closed. I mean, it's never obviously a murder case is never closed if it's open, but they're not looking for anybody anymore. They've just exhausted. They're not actively working it. If something shows up, we'll open those books. Yeah, somebody pops up with a tip. Hey, well, I'm sure they'll get right on it. But otherwise, they've exhausted all leads and they have nowhere else to go. They're just dead ends. Fuck.

So 2005, let's talk about a couple people here. Let's talk about George Graves. Same spelling, G-R-E-A-V-E-S. He's 65 years old, and with him lives his two daughters. Number one, Heather Graves, who is Jennifer's D&D friend, one of the first people the cops talked to. Remember her? She's 28 years old at this time, and she has two kids.

Also, they both also live in the house here with dad and two kids. She's got a five-year-old and a three-year-old daughter from different fathers. She's been busy the last few years. She's been busy, yeah. She hasn't been playing much D&D the last few years. Her D&D has been fucking dick and depression. Yeah, I got a lot of... I got too much dick and I got some dick. It could be just one dick twice, but either way, some dick caused me to be kind of tied down here a little bit.

That's a different D&D. So different fathers. She also worked at the Acme grocery store for a while. Oh, John. And knew John through that and through D&D. So she knows him from multiple places. Also living there is Heather's sister, Lisa, who is 21 or 23. We don't know. I'm not sure which. One of the two. I can tell you 20 different places where it's 10 here and 10 there. 21, 23. I don't know.

She's going to school as a surgical technician. That's what she wants to do. Okay. I guess I think somebody who like during surgeries would give the doctor like. I'll bet you they set up the room. They set up the room. Yeah. Set up the tools and everything like that. Which is a surgical technician, a fucking surgeon. That'd be a surgeon.

That's a surgeon. So, yeah, that seems important. And like you'd need to go to school for it to know all the little things you need to know. If you're in that room, you're doing it big. Definitely. So Heather has had some problems in the last few years with her youngest daughter's father.

Okay. He's a, he's a dick. The three-year-old. Um, yeah, her, her name is Avery, the three-year-old and her father's an asshole. He wouldn't pay child support every time they were in the same room or same area dropping kids off or whatever. Heather and this guy, he would curse at her and yell at her in front of the kid. Makes everything miserable. Makes it all miserable. One time he brought Avery home with a black eye.

Atta boy. Way to go, Dad. Jesus Christ. They said, quote, he said that her car seat was unlocked and she fell out of it. That was that. No, she didn't. You fucked up, man. Yeah. A friend of Heather's said that the kid's dad was very abusive.

So despite this here, all of her friends said Heather was happy despite the bullshit with the father. She liked raising her kids and she liked being a mom and she liked doing what she was doing. She started working out recently at the Bally's Total Fitness. Yep. The one across from the King of Prussia Mall. You know, that one that we all go to. And started dating a guy recently, too. Started venturing back out there, a guy named Chris.

So that's pretty good. Like I said, she worked at the Acme grocery store for a while with John. John had worked there. And then a couple of years before this, he transferred back to New Jersey where he lives, which is Somers Point, which is near the Jersey Shore. So that's where he lives with his parents out there.

So, yeah, he's doing all of that. Coworkers think he's a little weird, by the way, John. One coworker described him as, quote, suspicious, creepy looking and oddly unemotional. You know, a serial killer. You know, a fucking creep. A sociopath. If suspicious and creepy looking are the two ways that you're described first and foremost. Yeah.

Jesus, try harder. He makes my skin crawl. You know, I don't know, my stomach turns and I just have this urge to hide my children. You ever get that around somebody? Just to put them in like a root cellar and say, don't come out no matter what happens. Like the Nazis are up here looking for them. Is that normal? Tingles. I put them under the floorboards like inglorious bastards. I just...

Like I'm hiding enemies of the state. Yeah, just quiet. And Frank it. Let's go. And then you go into another room. That's what you tell the kids. Let's add Frank it. Move it. And they just they know what to do.

And Frank. And Frank, let's go. Oh, shit. Scramble. Kids are like, fuck, grab my iPad. So, yes. And they also said that he looked older than he was because he's only, you know, he's 28, but he has, or older now, I think he's 33 now, but he has gray hair. His hair is very, a lot of gray in his hair. Straight gray, yeah. A lot of gray in his hair, which is, makes you look older, yeah. He said, Yeah, isn't it sexy for guys that are early? I can look okay. For guys early, it's not good.

But for some guys, it's great. Some guys pull it off wonderfully. Some guys, they get a little salt and pepper thing, and the women are like, I like that. George Clooney went gray fast. The fucking women loved it. They fucking loved it. So, I mean, it depends on the guy. It depends on the guy. It's weird. So one neighbor of his said that he would say hello to me, but then he would see me in the Acme Mart and act like he didn't know me.

So that's very weird. He's just a weird guy, John. He's a very strange guy. Maybe he's embarrassed by you, man. Maybe. He's like, oh, Jesus, don't bring my personal life into this. I don't want people knowing I know you.

It seems like he's just not – he's very socially awkward is what it seems like. That's – which, I mean, he's a D&D player and those are not unrelated. The Venn diagram of socially awkward and D&D players are – they cross over quite a bit in the middle. You know what I mean? It's one circle. Yeah. And if you're a D&D player, you know that. Even if that's not you, look around the rest of the circle. You're going to go, yeah, that's suspicious looking.

Yeah. Oddly unemotional. That's you. Okay. So he had a non-romantic relationship with Heather, although he was into Heather for a while. He would like it to be a relationship. Yeah. Any girl he knows, any woman he knows, he wants to be with. He's looking for a girlfriend and doesn't know how to get one, essentially. And there's a lot of guys in that boat.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It happens. A lot of guys don't know how to go about it, and they always end up doing it wrong. Whatever they say is the wrong thing to say. It's never right. It hurts. It's tough for people. So she had no romantic interest in John, though. They were friends, though, and they spent a lot of time together because they knew each other for years from D&D. I mean, they've known each other for eight years, probably. So they know each other from D&D in June of 2005. Yeah.

He took this is John took Heather, Heather's three year old and another child. Also, that was something that she knew to his parents home for a vacation at the Jersey Shore. Very nice. So she spent her vacation with her kid with this guy. I mean, that's their friends. You know, she trusts them. They're good people. A neighbor here, Kelly, said that Heather had spoken to her about John.

She said that, quote, she said she wanted a relationship and that he wanted a relationship and she just wanted to be friends. Her primary concern was the kids.

Yeah. That's what she says. But then she also went out with Chris. So her primary concern was finding a guy she actually wanted to have sex with. That's yeah. She didn't want to fuck this guy because she's not attracted to him and she doesn't have to be. That's fine. People don't have to be with people just because they like them. That's fucking crazy. So not only he's not like he's obsessed with Heather, he likes Heather and he wants Heather to be his girlfriend, but he's also trying to get girlfriends other places, including on match.com. Okay. It's 2005. Yeah.

Yep. He's going for match. In 2005, like, match was for the people that were like, hey, I'm young. I'm looking to meet a girlfriend or hook up. And then there was the, what's the, with the old guy, fucking, eHarmony. Oh, eHarmony. No, Plenty of Fish was later. Then there was eHarmony, which was like, I'm 40, and if I don't get married in the next six months, I'm going to blow my fucking brains out. That was the...

Those are the two sites there. E-Harmony was like you describe your domestic skills and Match was like you describe your blowjob skills. Yeah, Match was like how much anal can you take? Whereas the other one was like are you more into baking or cooking like meals because we need someone who can bake and someone who can cook. Yeah. E-Harmony was loads of laundry. The other one was different. Much different.

And then it got into the grosser ones even after that that were just like, you know, anal4u.com. And it was like, you know, what the fuck? Just a girl to come over tonight or a guy. Yeah, or a guy. This is pre-app basically too. So you got to think this is going to the actual website. So this is 2005 and on his match.com profile here. He wrote, want to find out what John's looking for in a lady? Let's see here. He said...

Looking for a relationship without all the head games. That's it? Nope, there's more. That's his first sentence. I am a quiet person that can surprise people with a sudden outburst. That's a weird way to put it. That sounds like somebody that they tell you in high school if you're a guidance counselor, they say look for those kids and make sure they don't have guns on them when they get here.

Quiet kids who can surprise people with a sudden outburst. That's dangerous. That sounds like something you're about to tell the news camera when they're standing out front shooting footage of our house. Yeah, that's what the psychiatrist tells the interviewer. Well, these young people sometimes are very quiet with a sudden outburst. Yeah, I mean, that's what...

That's what the guy's going to say anyway. So it goes on to say, quote, prefers cozy evenings at home, but a night on the town can be just as fun.

Just like everybody else. He's trying to be everything to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Is what he's doing here, which is a strange thing. Like, yeah, no, I'm I'm quiet, but I'm also gregarious. Yeah. I like to be at home, but I'll go out just whatever you want. Can I see your vagina, please? Please show it to me. You don't even have to let me touch it. I just want to look at it. I just want to see it. I'll store that for later. Trust me. I have a great memory. I remembered all the PLUs, all of them.

Excellent. What's the, what's the pussy PLU again? Hold on a second. Six, nine, six, nine. That's announced. Announce this over the register for looking for a price check on pussy. The PLU six, nine, six, nine. It is 69 69. Excellent. Okay. He said that, um, would, would like to meet someone who can express their feelings.

He was looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36. 13 year window. Yeah. 13 year window within 25 miles of Somers Point. He described himself as being in several committed relationships, but now single.

You can't really find a lot of evidence of these committed relationships, but that's fine. Maybe he had girlfriends. You can't just say, never touched a woman before, please. Yeah, that's going to get zero inboxes. If I touch a tit, I'll come in my pants. Please, I don't ask for much. It's not a good pitch. Yeah. That's bad. They said that the Match.com profile username was JohnE219.

That's his deal. He described his sense of humor as he said he had a sense of humor and he was friendly. He said, quote, I'll laugh at anything. And whatever you say, I don't give a shit is what I'm saying. Give me a chance. Try me a joke, please. Whatever. Do you have anybody with a vagina? Just please respond to this. Anything dumb. I'll laugh at anything. I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything. I don't care.

So he said his perfect date included a, quote, cappuccino and fat-free latte, the scent of cinnamon and freshly baked scones echoing my warm, fuzzy feeling. That's his ideal date. Morning person, yeah. Where the fuck are you going? Your ideal date is at Starbucks? Where are you going? Coffee shops are a nice place. Yeah, my ideal date is at Tim Hortons. That's where I'm going, where it'll echo my warm, fuzzy feeling.

I don't trust that at all. No. You? No? Okay. Just checking. See if it was just me. He wants to go to a douche bakery that has scones, though. Scones, yeah. It's fancy. Give me a muffin, but make it dry. Thank you.

Can you extract all the moisture? Do you have ones that have been sitting out for a week? I'd like those. Oh, there's scones. Give me a muffin with all the moisture of a biscuit. Yeah, please. Yes, here's a corn muffin. Nope, that's not what I had in mind. Same thing. Same thing. So March 25th, 2005. Okay. Okay.

Heather is home with her sister Lisa and Heather's three-year-old daughter. Her other daughter, the five-year-old, or maybe six by now, is in Florida with her father on vacation. Enjoying herself. Enjoying herself. So spring break down in Florida there, having a good time. Today, on March 25th, is Heather's 28th birthday. No. Happens to be her birthday. Her boyfriend, Chris, planned to bring Heather red roses for her 28th birthday today. Mm-hmm.

So Chris is all ready to do this. He's ready to go. At 8.40 a.m. this morning, George, dad, Heather's dad, Heather and Lisa's dad, leaves for work as he's going to be. He's a furniture salesman, so he's going to sell some furniture for the day. Heather, right about, it's like as soon as her dad left, Heather called John up here. Yeah.

And apparently, as Heather told a neighbor right after this, John was supposed to stop by with flowers for her birthday. So she's got two dudes bringing her flowers for her birthday. That's pretty cool. Not bad. So she called him at about 840 a.m. because he said he wanted to bring her flowers. So she called him to see when he was coming by, basically. Yeah.

Yeah, don't get into Chris while you bring it. Yeah, let's not cross over with Chris here. Two dudes on the front stoop with flowers is going to look bad to the neighbors. It's going to look. One dozen at a time. Yeah, let's not make it look like we're running a brothel over here. So 4.30 p.m., George returns home from work. He gets home from work and immediately has to call 911.

And this is what he says to 911. They pick up 911 and he just says, there's blood all over the place. It's just like a slaughter here. This isn't good. This is not great. He's freaking out, obviously. So he calls the Montgomery County police and says,

As he walks through the house, he finds everybody. He finds Heather in the kitchen. And we'll talk about her wounds and everybody's wounds here. Lisa, the 23 or 21 year old sister is found in the bathroom and the three year old daughter is found outside the bathroom.

No. And she's dead too? It's a fuck. Yeah. It's a, it's a, this is a, a horror movie scene. Harm. And there's blood everywhere. I mean, imagine it's fucking horrific. The women had both. The women had several. And I mean, several, we'll talk about how many, a lot of stab wounds to the chest and their throats were slashed as well. And poor little child here was stabbed in the back.

Oh, so viciously that she was pinned to the floor. Oh, for heaven's sake. Yeah. I still there, obviously. No knife was taken, but they could see that it went through her and there was a knife floor. So it pinned her to the floor. That's how terrible this was. This is a vicious and angry and.

This is a horror movie. I mean, did Jason Voorhees break in and do this? This is fucking insane. This is wild. So Castor, remember Castor, the DA from Montgomery County, from Jennifer Still? He's still there. Still working on the Wiccan. Still working on the Wiccan. He says, quote, it was very gory. There was a lot of blood in the small house. It is very, very sad. These were young women and a very lovely baby. Unfortunately, evil visited their house. It was very gruesome. Yeah.

This is some evil. I hate when they throw around evil and this is that, but this is fucking evil. It's pretty evil. This is plain evil. It's just terrible. Would slaughter people, including a three-year-old, I think is a definition of evil. That's bad shit. Yeah. I mean, anytime, it could be just a three-year-old. It's pretty fucking evil. That's evil. It's a hell of evil. Yeah. That kid can't fight back. That's not even close to fair.

No, Heather and Lisa had both suffered over 20 stab wounds apiece and their necks have been slashed. Lisa's shirt is ripped open.

in the front and she stabbed 35 times. She gets the brunt of this. Lisa has got the most wounds on her. So right away they're looking at possibly Lisa as the main target because her shirt was ripped open and she was stabbed the most. So looks like that's where the anger was and there was maybe some sort of sexual component to it also for this person of ripping the shirt open or trying to embarrass her or whatever. But

Seems like she's the focus of everything. So the cops and Castor, the DA, he works the crime scene like a cop, by the way, this Castor. He shows up when there's a body on the ground. It's the ground. He's there fucking doing it. He said that they had no suspects in custody at the moment. The neighbors said they heard George Greaves tell investigators or graves tell investigators that, quote, he went out the back door.

Oh, like he found blood going out the back door probably here. Yeah. He went out the back door. He wasn't there still. So police search. They go out the back door and search throughout the neighborhood. They do knock on doors. They search everybody's yards. They everybody with a tree house or anything. It's getting looked into. So they wouldn't confirm here. And this isn't King of Prussia, this particular place.

They wouldn't confirm. The cops wouldn't tell the press whether they were trying to track somebody down or whether they were looking for someone specific. Following clues are just looking. They wouldn't say because they didn't want anybody to know. But they definitely transformed the backyard into their evidence space, which is awful. That's for George to have to see this. Spreading out the bags. They got a car seat out there and all that and everything. Anything that could be evidence.

So based on the injuries, the weapon involved appears to be a heavy bladed hunting knife, Castor said. Which, yeah, he said that Bruce Castor said that the knife wounds look eerily similar to the type of knife and the type of attack that happened to Jennifer Still in 1999. Yeah. Yeah. He said this is crazy. And then he found out through this that

Because he remembered once he said, holy fuck, him and a detective had worked on the still case as well. They remembered that the graves, Heather Graves...

was in the circle of friends that included Jennifer still. And they're, she, they remember talking to her about the Jennifer still murder. Right? So they're like, Holy fuck, what is going on here? This is, they know each other. The exact same end, the exact same end. So they realized that they had been people that they talked to in the past. So they're like, Holy shit. The whole thing just got real weird. Same people, same group, same wounds, same attack, real freaky. Um, obviously, um,

So they said, yeah, the neighbors were saying that they were they were loading up their car to leave at about 5 p.m. when they saw George talking to another neighbor. And they said that the neighbor was just saying, oh, my God, over and over and over again. And then George began to sob in his own hands. This is before the cops got there. So they were like, what is going on? Holy shit. So the this family that was leaving down the street said they thought the Graves house might have had a small fire there.

They thought maybe it was a fire that happened. So they rather than the next sentences. So they rushed. And I'm like, so they rushed over there to make sure they didn't need anything or everything was OK. No, they rushed to get in their car so they could get on the road before the fire trucks came in and blocked off the street. Our neighbor looks to be in serious distress. Let's get the fuck out of here now. Let's go. It's going to be a madhouse. You guys, we got to go. I will not deal with traffic. Fuck his house. I won't deal with traffic. I won't.

They try to do that. Fire trucks, police. We got to get out of here. We got to get out of here. So instead, though, as they try to pull out a every cop car in the fucking in a 25 mile radius just descends on the house, obviously, because this is a huge deal. This doesn't happen around here and it's a big deal. So they race down the street. The neighbor said the cops came out and told us that we can't leave. So they were stuck there. Fuck.

Fuck. God damn it. Five weeks this weekend. You had to call your fucking mother, didn't you? You had to call her before we left. We're on the way there, but you had to call her anyway. Now we're stuck here. Thanks. Great. That's, you know, that conversation happened. You know, so another neighbor said that, you know, they were, they used to walk around and the girls used to come would pet his dog and stuff. And, uh, the guy said, I didn't even know their names, but they loved the dog.

So there is a witness. Thank fuck for nosy neighbors for once. What happened? I hate neighbors, but license plates that we've had in the past and now this type of thing. A neighbor, Piera Buffa is her name. She's a neighbor who also knew she's lived there, so she knows Heather's circle of friends. She knows that sort of thing. She said, I saw John Eichinger. Yeah.

leaving the house that day, which they're like, okay, well, she's, he's supposed to come over to deliver flowers. So that's normal. And they went, okay. But she said, no, no, no, no, no. His shirt was covered in blood. So that's a, you know, I thought that was odd. So I figured I'd tell you that. Okay. That's weird. I would say. So they find out where is this John Eichner and they find out that he's at work.

Right now at the Somers Point Acme grocery store. Still there. Coworker said he arrived at work with blood on his hands. Oh, my God. Blood on his hands. And they said, but he was calm and collected and said he had cut himself. So they were like, all right, I guess sometimes you cut yourself. They went on. He didn't seem like freaked out or anything. So law enforcement officers swarmed the store at about 830 p.m.

And they're going to talk to him in the grocery store upstairs in the offices till about 1.30 in the morning. In that weird room upstairs. In the weird room they take you when you're shoplifting. Yeah, that's the shoplifting room. Every delinquent teenager knows the shoplifting room on the second floor. You're like, I didn't even know they had a second floor. Fuck, they're taking me to where? Yeah.

It's behind the bathrooms above the customer service desk. We know the place. And it's got linoleum floor and the weird square-legged chairs. Oh, yeah. Very cold place. It's like a weird principal's office in there, like the waiting area of a principal's office. So they found him. When they found him, he was working, doing normal shit. He had a bandage wrapped around his hand. And they said, well, what happened to your hand there, chief? And he said, oh, I got bitten and scratched by my dog.

Oh, my dog just freaked out on me. He's also prone to sudden outbursts just like me. You know, let's do that. Huh? Interesting. So, uh, he said, no, they said, well, where were you all day? And he said, oh, I was at the ocean city boardwalk at that time when the murders occurred. There's no way I could have done it. You're crazy. I caught my, I told you I caught myself. So they talked to coworkers and they said, you know, he walked in with blood on his hands. Then they talked to his mother, Maria, with who he lived with.

And she said to the police that she noticed a cut on his hand when he arrived home at about noon on that day. And he said that he was cut pushing trash down in a garbage can, like stuffing it down. Yep. Yep. And then he just shook his head and said that he, quote, had a bad day. I would say it was a pretty fucking bad day, you know? Cutting your hand on a can. Wow. That's a bad day. So...

The detective here, Detective Nilsen, accompanied by another detective here, they go to talk to him. He agrees to talk to detectives in the second floor shoplifting quarters where they tell him that he's not under arrest. He's free to leave at any point. Then he made a statement saying he was an ocean on the boardwalk there. They were like, well, we know that's not true, chief. Right.

Then, after he made the statement, Detective Nilsen left the room and stood in the hall for a few moments. Then he returned and told John that he had just received information that the police would find DNA in the Graves driveway that would link him to the murders. He didn't get any information. He just went outside, stood there for 10 seconds, and came back in and said, I've just been told information.

There's DNA. Which, yeah, if you ever watched The Wire or any of that, you don't have to be truthful to a suspect. You can tell them anything you want. Boy, do they lie their fucking balls off. They lie their balls off, and he told him that. So he tells him that. At that point, okay, 10 seconds of going outside the hallway, coming back, John drops his head in his hands, begins crying profusely, and just says, I did it. I did it.

Uh-huh. So Detective Nielsen said, do you mean that you killed Lisa Avery and Heather Graves? And he said, yes. And he continued to sob. Oh, my God. So at that point, they read him as Miranda Rights. Yeah. Why wouldn't you read a guy as Miranda Rights as soon as you went in a room with him when he's got a cut hand like that? He's a suspect. That's the only reason you're talking to him is he's a suspect. He's not a witness. He's got a cut hand. And people saw him as soon as someone said he left the house with a bloody shirt. He's your number one suspect.

So you Mirandize him immediately. He wasn't wearing a Blair Witch Project shirt. So they didn't know. Yeah. They had to ask him some questions. Fucking stupid, man. So the cops take him in to the police station here. And he said he drove to the residence. He said that he intended to kill Heather, but there was a caveat. It could have been avoided. Yeah.

If she, he said, I went there to tell her how I felt about her once and for all. Yeah. You know, she knows I liked her, but I was going to tell her, look, break up with your boyfriend and go out with me. And if she did that, everything would have been fine. If she said, you know what? You're right. We do belong together. I'm going to break up with Chris. You know, I love you. Then it would have been, he would have said, great. Everything's fine. Happy, happy days are here again.

But instead, she didn't say that. That's the problem. So he said he carried a large knife and a pair of rubber gloves in his waistband and concealed them under a sweat jacket on the way over there. Just in case she said the wrong thing. In case she said no. Yeah, this was going to end one of two ways is what it was. Yeah.

So he said he went into the house to speak with Heather. An argument ensued when he said, you should break up with your boyfriend. And she said, Jesus Christ, we've been over this for years. I'm not interested in you like that. We're just friends. He said he just pulled the knife out of his waistband and began stabbing her repeatedly in the stomach. Skipped the gloves. It just fucking fit. But I mean, really stabbing her up good and angry because they've been in an argument.

He said he purposely stabbed her in the stomach because they said, why did you stab her in the stomach? Is there a particular reason? And he said, well, quote, he heard in movies and books that it was easier to puncture organs there than through the chest where it's more difficult because you might hit bone.

Okay. Yeah. He didn't want to fucking have a hard time getting through the old chest plate. You know what I mean? You just stomach. It's all soft. But, but through evolution, the reason for that chest plate is because those are the, yeah, those are the ones that really matter. But if you stab someone 20 times, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore. Yeah. You've just taken apart their abdomen at that point and their organs are going to fall out of the holes. So he admitted that. And, um,

He said that the three-year-old was in the room and watched it. She was in the room for this. When Heather cried out to her daughter to call 911, she's only three, but I guess she's, you know. Taught her already. They're very good. That's when John jumped off of Heather and went and slashed Avery in the neck. She ran down the hallway and then fell down. Yeah.

While chasing her, that's when Lisa popped out of the bathroom. That's the first time he knew Lisa. He didn't even know Lisa was in the fucking house. He didn't have any idea. So he said, quote, I had to stab Lisa, too. I couldn't go to jail.

Here we are. Here we are. Yeah. So he said he repeatedly stabbed her in the stomach. Then he went back to the kitchen where Heather was because he left her in a state of dying. So he looked at her, but then he went back to Avery and that's when he stabbed her in the back and pinned her to the floor with his knife. Good Lord. That's fucking horrific. Yes.

He said, quote, I couldn't even let the three-year-old identify me. I had known her since she was born and she knew my name. She could speak my name. Yeah, she called me Acme John. Well, we'll talk about exactly what she said because she did speak. That was the problem here. So once he did that, he went back to the kitchen where he said he stabbed Heather in the diaphragm and then slit her throat.

Who knows where the diaphragm is, but okay. Fucking this guy. He said he then went to the sink to wash his hands and noticed that he cut himself. He used one of the rubber gloves that he had to prevent his blood from being, he put it all over his bleeding hand. And before leaving, he went over and his last act was to cut Lisa's shirt open to make it look like, that's why he stabbed her more too, to make it look like she was the target. That way it would confuse the cops because he's got no beef with her.

Oh, wow. The other two just look like collateral damage is what he was trying to do. And he told the cops that. I was trying to confuse you by making Lisa look like it. Make you chase another lead. Did it work? Did it work? No. Then they asked him, can we ask you this question? Why did you go to work today? Well, you had blood. Like, why would you just call in? And he said that, quote, he wanted to appear like everything was normal. Yep. Didn't want to look because that would look suspicious when the person doesn't call in for work or doesn't go to work. So...

They said, yeah, he said he had a romantic relationship. And the D.A. said, I think he wanted that kind of relationship and that Heather was rebuffing him. That's exactly right. Turns out, though, Detective Nilsen had worked on the Jennifer Still case earlier in 1999.

And he said the similarity of not only the type of knife, the actual attack, the stabbing in the stomach, the cutting of the throat, it looks so familiar. He said just out of the blue, he just said, let me ask him about that just in case. Maybe he'll have some insight, if nothing else. So he said, you know, this Jennifer Still, remember her from six years ago? This looks very similar. And he said, yeah, that's because I killed her too. Oh.

They were like, we talked to you. He goes, yep. And I turned you to those other people, remember? Yeah. And they went, well, what the fuck? And he said, as a matter of fact, it's the same knife.

Oh, my God. He kept it. It's the same fucking knife that I used on Jennifer. Same one. I saved it. He said, I killed Jennifer because she rejected me and wanted to stay with her fiance. Same thing happened. He went over to her house. He's going to women that are already taken. Already taken and saying, break up with your boyfriend and love me because I have this obsession with you. And if you don't, I'm going to kill you. But they don't know that until it's too late. What a fucking thing.

He's a fucking monster. He gets. Think about it. He's rejected by a girl. How often have you been rejected by a girl? It's countless times. You can't. Yeah. By 28, you can't get over that, especially if you're a fucking dork like this guy. You've been rejected a lot. Figure it out, bro. I'm sorry.

Get your match.com game up and fucking work it because this isn't the answer. Or be patient. There's about to be a blowjob app that's just basically free sex. That's what I mean. It's coming. Ten more years he could have hung in. Not even eight more years. It would have been whatever. I don't know when Fuck Tinder came out, but around then, I guess.

So he said about Jennifer, they said, so you killed Jennifer? He said, oh, yeah. And he just went into it. He just started saying it. Just told him. He said, quote, I had the knife in my hand. I turned away from her for a second and couldn't believe she was doing that to me. Not wanting to be with me. To me. To me.

She got real close to me. I thought, you're ripping my heart out and now you're getting close to me? Because she was like, I'm sorry, it's okay. She was trying to be a friend. She's a sweet girl. It's okay to not be together. Hey, she felt bad. She didn't want to just reject because I'm sure in her life she's probably been rejected from things before. A lot of times people like that, they have empathy. So she probably reached out to him to try to make him feel better. And instead...

He said, quote, I thought you're ripping my heart out and are you getting close to me? She put her hand on my shoulder. Oh, like a good friend would do. What a fucking cunt. Really? On your shoulder? How dare you? Not trying to. That's what cops do when people's, you know, fucking parents are dead in a car accident. They go tell a 10 year old they put their hand on their shoulder. You OK, little guy? Yeah, that's fucking Jesus Christ. I turned around and stabbed her in the stomach.

Because her arm was up. Yeah. After I stabbed her the first time, she stepped back but didn't fall. She was in shock. She didn't know what the fuck happened probably. Yeah, because she still has all of her blood at the moment. Yep. Well, her blood splattered out at me.

Wow. I lunged at her and I just kept stabbing her, she said. Then he said, I slid her throat as she slid down the wall. I let her body weight cut her throat against the knife. Oh, good Lord, man. You fucking asshole. Oh, think he's an asshole? It gets worse. How? How could this get worse, right?

Killed three, four fucking people that are all innocent people that seem like nice people and didn't do anything to him. Well, not only did he save the knife from that, he saved all the clothes from it, too, that he wore. His clothes. As souvenirs. Yeah. As reminders. So they're his trophies. He did that. He stored the knife in a sheath in a cooler down in his parents' basement. Uh-huh.

And he told police, quote, I had it in the cooler with the rubber gloves and the scream mask. Every Halloween, I put the mask, gloves and knife on and handed out candy at the door. What the fuck is that? Motherfucker dressed up for Halloween as himself. A scary, crazy murderer and handed out fucking candy with a murder weapon, murder gloves,

Nobody's done that at Halloween. No.

It's almost 500 episodes. Episode 497. We've never had this before. That's never happened in any case ever, to my knowledge. No. I'm going to save the murder evidence? Use the actual murder weapon as part of their Halloween costume. As part of their festivity plans? With nobody knowing how fucking creepy this is. Every year. And that's what he said he loved about it, is that no one knew.

What the shit? Felt like he was getting away with it. So here you go, kids. No, thank you. That's nice. They didn't know that's a real knife and these are murder gloves. And that's a real murderer. That blood isn't fake. They don't know that. That's a real bad man. That's a bad man. Jesus Christ.

To children. So children have gotten dead people's DNA on their candy. That is crazy. Think about that. That's fucking gross. So... I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like...

I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence and then she left him there.

In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover-up. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion.

And after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. ♪

You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Yep. Yeah, he said he knew all the women and he did it and that was that. He didn't care. Same thick-bladed hunting knife for all four. Yeah.

So Castor, the DA, said, we knew this guy was a part of this circle of friends and the killings were similar. I was one of the first people at the crime scene. And to my eye, the wounds were inflicted with the same type of knife. And he said that to a cop. He goes, this looks like that same kind of knife that that Jessica still Jennifer still happened to her. Same type of big knife. And he said, turns out he did. He did use the same knife. So he wasn't.

Full of shit. He wasn't even suspected in the Jennifer Still murder. Not even a suspect. Nope. They said they were still, they said they were part of him. Greaves still were part of Graves and still were part of a wide circle of friends. And they were way more interested in her Wiccan bride than they were him. Or Danny. That would have been even more. Wow.

So they said that they knew that John and Jennifer were friends since 99, but until these murders, they had no reason to think that he might have been involved in Jennifer stills death. They never even suspected him. Like even the cops weren't like, I knew it. They were all like that fucking guy. We never even looked twice at that guy. Boy, did we fuck up? Holy shit. They said, uh, caster said by my own observation, the wounds were inflicted with a similar, if not the same knife. And it was the same knife. So, uh,

And the same motive and the same everything. And Castor said he was jealous because they had other boyfriends.

They said, you know, we had people who were closer to Jennifer that we thought had more promise as possible suspects. So we were shocked there. But they take a DNA swipe from him. It matches the drop of blood in the sink. Bingo. Yeah. They got it. Right. They never rather than just everybody they talked to that knew her just while we're you know anything about this. Well, she was talking while you're talking. Let me grab a quick swipe rather than doing that. That's what they do now in this situation. Just to clear people. They didn't do that. They only swipe people who are suspects. Yeah.

Which is great, because if they volunteer to do it, fine. But, you know, if the first person who says no, that's a pretty good suspect. Yeah, you keep asking somebody for their DNA, and they keep telling you no, that's a bad guy. There's a reason he doesn't want to do it. Pretty fucked up. So, yeah, the DA then, in the newspaper, comes out and says, yeah, he was an avid fantasy game player, he dabbled in the occult, and he stirs up the Dungeons & Dragons occult thing again. Right.

He said that this guy said he wouldn't say whether the killings appeared ritualistic. They don't. They appear to be vicious, but they just appear to be like mechanical. Like I killed her. Then I had to kill her and kill her to get back to her. Like they're not.

There's no ritual to this whatsoever. It just kept having it needed to happen over and over and over again. He said he wouldn't say whether they appeared ritualistic, but quote, we think that he might have some interest in that area. Oh, come on, man. Give me a fucking break. This is this is this is how bullshit gets started. He's just a bad guy that doesn't know how to have a relationship. Yeah. And you don't have to say he worships the fucking devil or anything else. He fucking pinned a three year old to the ground with a knife. That's enough. We're good.

Skip the devil. He might be it. That's what I mean. He can't worship the devil because he is the fucking devil, possibly. It's a bad person. Jesus. So many of Jennifer's friends, they were saying, were involved in role-playing games that are like Dungeons and Dragons and...

The caster guy said, we're looking into whether that's a part of it. They have many, many stab wounds, and those Dungeons & Dragons fantasy games involve swords, knives, and daggers. Not real ones, you fucking dipshit!

Fucking theoretical. They're not touching anything. No, some of them can shoot fire. Do you think that there's fire shooting from people too? You dumb fuck. Think they've got flamethrowers? What a fucking moron, man. I swear to God.

So they go to a place in Northfield, New Jersey, the press do, called Jester's, which is a place where people go to play games like this. Really? Games and all that kind of shit. And the owner, Richard Gain, Dick Gain, this is G-A-I-N, Dick Gain, he should absolutely sell some sort of supplement product. Want some Dick Gain? Here he is right here.

He said... Four-hour erection, no pain, no gain. No gain. You got to have some gain, dick gain. Take these pills, eight-hour erections, guaranteed. Dick gain said that John's game choices weren't related to the occult, like the things he did. He said, I know him enough and have seen him play enough to know that the murders have nothing to do with the games that he plays. It's nothing to do with it. He plays all sorts of different games and...

And he also plays chess. So you're going to pin it on chess. Yeah, it's a real Kings game. He was pretending to be a rook. Is that what it was? And he was taking the queen out. Like, what the fuck are we talking about? It makes just as much sense to say that. To say those games have swords and knives and daggers in them, that's in a newspaper printed.

chess is the most medieval and that's where most people were putting people on fucking breaking wheels. James Jesus. Fuck. Yeah. We did an episode about it, but it's, it's think about the people who are sitting in their kitchens reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning, eating a breakfast going, Oh man, our kids don't play those games. Do they? Like it's just, that's, you can't have that. It's not cool, man. You playing those role playing games, you little fucking sociopath. Yeah. What's up with that?

One neighbor of John said, I heard about the murder on the news and I thought it was so horrible. Now I find out he lived next door. Oh, yeah. I am just shocked. Absolutely shocked. Wow. You never really know anyone. No, that is that is small town murders. Fucking credo. Thank you. Thank you. Know your neighbors. Not so fast. Oh, there's also the other point of you're not supposed to. Yeah. It's not your roof. Yeah.

They're not under yours. So leave them the fuck alone. You never know. No clue what's going on over there. Yeah. Not a fucking clue what's going on over there. So someone from the area he lives in the Jersey Shore there who shops at the grocery store that dude works at and knows John said that this is unusual for this area. Typical seaside suburbia. You don't expect it. But right in your own backyard, someone is killing people. You never know. You never know.

The Acme manager who, you know, scheduled them for that shift. Yeah, I've been dealing with this guy for years. Had the fucking homicide detectives in his office for fucking six hours. He's like, I have to close out. I can't. Can you please can I have my office back? Jesus. Fuck McNulty. Get out of here. Get out of here. Take Kima with you. Go.

He said, we're just as shocked here. He said, it has definitely hit our store very hard, and there's a lot of concern for the family's tragic loss. That's all he would say. I don't know. A fellow Acme employee, though, a 17-year-old kid named Frank Silva, he's a part-time bagger and cart collector. He couldn't remember PLUs either, this guy, at a hard time.

He said the mood inside the store was complete shock. Coworkers were just completely blown away by this, and he didn't know what to do. He said, quote, I saw his picture in the paper, and I was like, is that John? Yeah, it is. He said, I talked to a couple of people in the store, and they're shocked, too. He said his parents saw the Acme store he worked at on the front page of the newspaper, and they were like, why is this? Whoa, shit. You know this guy? And he was like, is that John? Holy fuck.

This kid said he's worked there for about six months and he spoke with John a few times during his shifts, but he didn't know him very well. He said he didn't seem suspicious. He described him as a quote, nice, cool guy at work. Okay. Fine. Didn't try to stab me or make me dump my girlfriend or anything. It was great. So only a few employees though, did subscribe him as suspicious, creepy looking and oddly unemotional when they went to the others. Frank just didn't carry 17. He's like, I don't fucking know. Normal guy to me. Yeah. Some gray haired old dork guy. I don't fucking know what happened. Yeah.

So they said news of the crimes did not appear to affect store traffic on this day, which they thought was odd. Frank, the kid, said, I thought it would have affected the customers, but I guess not. He said, everything's packed. No, groceries. You got to get groceries. I don't give a fuck who's working here. It's not like he killed her in the store. No. You know, who cares? So neighbors who lived near him, they're

fucking, you know, said that he was a nice kid. They said he did. Nobody really talked to him, but he seemed polite and nice. One neighbor said, you never expect anything like this. His mom is a very nice woman. Oh, well, yeah. Super weird. But he's got a great uncle too. Oh my God. He's got a cousin. Great guy.

Just a terrific guy. Works at a soup kitchen, his cousin. Terrific. What a dumb thing to say. Super dumb thing. No one would expect it. His mom's real nice. His mom's real nice. Strange. So the woman here in this couple of neighbors said that she talked to the mother a few times and had her over for tea once.

They said, we never noticed anything suspicious. Oh. How would having a woman for tea, how would you possibly, how weird would she have to be for you to go, her son's going to kill someone one of these days. How fucking weird would she have to be? Dahmer's dad seemed to be pretty cool too. They seem real low key, right? You wouldn't see him and go, his son's going to eat a bunch of people. Yeah.

Like lots of them, I think. Shower with corpses and shit. You can't tell. Yeah. You can't fucking tell. She said also, went on to say another neighbor said, it's kind of a shocker for this neighborhood. I saw him in Acme once and said hello. Okay.

So I mean, people really latch on to murder. They want to be part of it. That's what's weird. They wanted to put me in here. This neighbor who said that also said she had seen Heather Graves and the daughter come over and enter the home a few months ago. That's when they were there for vacation. And she said everybody seemed happy. They weren't accompanied by John. They came and left as they went. And, uh,

Yeah, they said that's weird. She said she had to ask a neighbor to find out what was going on, why there was cop cars outside of the house.

Now, you think those people are a little, oh man, I saw them at the supermarket. That was kind of weird. Want to meet the unluckiest or the luckiest woman on the internet, however you want to put it? Sure would. Here's a woman he messaged on Match.com the night before. Oh, dear Christ. That's the other thing. He's so obsessed with these women that if they don't leave their boyfriends, he's going to stab them, their kids, and anybody else around. But yet he's still-

The night before, he's still trolling for fucking... for tail here. What the fuck is happening? What a man. Holy shit. He contacted a 24-year-old woman who didn't want to be identified, which I don't blame her. He contacted her through Match.com, through the winking feature. Gave her a little wink-a-do. She said, I got it today, looked at it, and saw the picture and said, this guy looks like the guy from the newspaper. Oh.

Imagine that. That's everybody's worst nightmare if you're online dating. People say, how can you do that? They could be murderers. No, I mean, who knows?

She's like, is that the murderer? Holy fuck, it's the murderer. What the shit? The murderer winked at me. Oh my God. Jesus. So she said that. She said, I just cannot believe that that happened. I've only been on the app or on the site for a week and this already happened. He winked at her. She's been on for a week. This is like the first experience. She's like, I had a couple of relationships and talked to some people. This is her initial impression. A multi-murderer winked at me.

Just got here. Serial killer winks at me. Perfect. What the fuck, man? She said, I figured I'd try something different. Meaning match.com. It's different. Never, never met any murderers before. So that's much different. She said, I myself would not have contacted him. And who would even go out with someone who would even go out with him with that profile?

The profile that we read because it's douchey. It's not a profile. It sounds like somebody who's trying to just, I don't care, be all things to all people. That doesn't sound like a person. You don't read that and see a personality. No. Which is what you're trying to give. Yeah. You want to...

He's trolling for everything. He's just like, please, I'll do anything. Anybody. Go out with me. Yeah. So she said she found the whole situation ironic because the Match.com site initially rejected a photo she posted of herself in a V-neck dress. She was told the photo was too revealing. Really? Like, you motherfuckers have murderers on your site and my dress is too revealing? I'm going to take my asshole out and put it on camera now. Yeah.

Jesus. She said, you can meet weird people anywhere, but you don't know who these people are. Even these online dating pages, they don't do anything to protect you. How could they? Unless they send a chaperone on every date, how could they protect you? They can't do background checks because nobody's giving their fucking social security number. No, and they wouldn't. But they will give a credit card number. That's fine. That you can have. Well, you can cancel that. Cancel my social. Yeah.

Nope. So the right after this, she this came out in the media. So Match.com finally fucking removed him from the site. Yeah, it's about time. And they said, anytime we receive a complaint, big or small, we immediately remove the customer's account and conduct an investigation of our own, which wouldn't have taken very long to figure this one out.

The woman from Match.com noted that since John has not been yet convicted of a crime, it would be difficult for staff to know there was a problem unless someone alerted them. Yes. Meanwhile, his papers, his face is in the paper, but they can't just peruse every murder, every paper in the country looking for murders and then cross-check that with their website. Cross-reference it. And his name's not even the right name on our website. No. He used a different name. What do you want from us? John E. 219 or whatever. She said the Match.com community is typically a self-policing entity.

We don't do shit. We just collect money. Self-policing. You guys take care of it. She said, it's an ongoing challenge, but we rely on our members and law enforcement. Obviously, the vast majority of people on our site are wonderful people looking for love and relationships in the 21st century. But there are people that are less than honorable. Yeah, so if you see a murderer, let us know. We'll take care of it. She just called a guy who killed four women less than honorable, which is hilarious.

Who stuck a three-year-old to the floor. Wow. That's not even sugar-coated. She took cream cheese frosting on carrot cake and covered that shit. That is thick.

Yeah. Holy shit. They went on to say when they searched his home, the police said, quote, John kept trophies and keepsakes from the Jennifer murder. It was something out of a horror movie. Yeah, literally. A guy killing people, saving all the gear, handing out candy, then killing more people with that gear. It's a horror movie. I don't know how someone hasn't come up with yet, honestly. Yeah. Because it sounds like a horror movie. They thought that was wild. Then...

They found everything else. They also said the shorts. He wore the same shorts for both murders and Halloweens. What? Shorts, gloves. He kept the same pair of shorts for six years. Six years to use them again. And to wear them also, he wore them for Halloween. Good Lord.

Yep, they said the saving of souvenirs, all things that he's able to use psychologically to relive that murder is what the DA's office said. But John said they were more than just mementos because he said that he used to use them for Halloween. So they weren't just mementos. He actually used them. The caster said, quote, this man is the personification of evil. That's hard to argue with that. That's a bad, bad person.

So he spends the night in jail in New Jersey the first night because he's arrested. It's 1.30 in the morning. So they're going to try to extradite him because he is in another state, even though it's a half hour away. He's in another state. So he claims on that night he was tormented by the other prisoners. Gee, a fucking nerdy weirdo who killed four fucking people, including a three-year-old.

The prisoners, I'm shocked they weren't nicer to you. Shocked. They bullied you. Is that right? Weird. They love it when you kill children in jail. That's the... Makes you most popular. You can run for president of the cell block if you have a baby's corpse on your sheet. I've never heard a bad thing about prison. I've heard it's always pretty great. Very supportive atmosphere. That's the one thing I always hear. We're all in this together. Super supportive. Yeah. It's like camp. Three musketeers. One for all. It's like Boy Scouts. Yeah. You get one side of the tent. I'll get the other. And then, you know, we'll...

Zipper the door shut so our scoutmaster can't fuck us. Only thing they got in common with the Boy Scouts is the same motto. Be prepared, motherfucker. Be prepared. Real prepared. So, yeah, he waves extradition the next morning. And he says that he had suffered verbal abuse from fellow prisoners that led to sleep deprivation and that he'd been deprived of the benefit of counsel in court. Yeah, somebody tell him don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep, motherfucker. Okay.

They just kept yelling at him, baby killer and shit. He said that his decision to confess again, because then he went back to Pennsylvania and told them all the deal, was not a voluntary decision, but it represented an overbearing of his will. That was the legal term he used. Okay.

He says that because he was overborne, the statements made while in transit to Pennsylvania should not be admitted in trial later. He said no. He said the detectives, they end up saying the detectives warned him of his Miranda rights before they got in the car to go on the trip back to Pennsylvania. He wasn't Mirandized at first in the grocery store. Once he said he did it, they Mirandized him, and then he went on to talk more about it, and then he was Mirandized again in the car and then again at the station too.

So, yes. So he said he was willing to give a statement, gave a voluntary statement. He even wrote it all. He did. He made a statement in writing. So it's always harder when someone wrote writes it. You can go, well, yeah, you might get someone to say something, but to get someone to write four pages, they really got to mean it. Right.

And, yeah, and pen to paper. But it's not always like that. You're putting much more emotion behind that than just words being said or... A lot of time to think about it. Yeah. You're thinking of choosing words carefully. You're smelling this motherfucker. Yeah, and he also said that he didn't have his glasses, so... Okay.

Yeah, he had. Well, the detective said he didn't have his glasses. So he had John read from his extradition papers to ensure that he could, in fact, read the statement he signed. He said, I know he read it because I don't have my glasses. So he read it to himself rather than me reading it to him. So before he committed a statement to writing, he was again advised of his rights and waived them and signed each page of a statement. He said he hadn't been coerced or threatened. He said he quote right on the paper. He said, I didn't feel like hiding it anymore.

At no time, March 25th, 6th, or March 28th, did he ever ask to speak to a lawyer or ask to remain silent either. So there's that. He wants the statement suppressed, though. In court, they file a motion saying that he was just following orders. They literally say he's a good employee. That's why he did this. Literally. The kid's a good worker, and you give him a direction, he follows it. That's what they said. He was told to work 11 to 7, so he just testified from 11 to 7. Yeah.

John says, when you see a gun, give the person what they want. That's what they told me in 15 years with Acme. You see a gun, you give the person what they want. So the cop had a gun on him. Therefore, he was not only going to confess, he was going to open the register for him too. He takes all work training and applies it to every aspect of life. Yep. When you see a gun, you spill your guts. Don't break down union rules and all that shit. None of that shit. Castor in court was like, is this motherfucker serious? Like,

He stood up and said, so you're telling me you confessed to four murders. This is in court in a pretrial. You're telling me you confessed to four murders because you were following company policy? Because it was in the employee handbook. And he said, yes.

The greatest employee in the history of the world. He would never break a rule. Company man. That's exactly what he called himself. He said that. You're saying he's a company man? Yes. Castor, the district attorney, said, quote, he'd heard lots of wacky things in courtrooms, but this testimony ranks up there with the wackiest. I was just...

My shit shouldn't stand because I'm a very good employee. I don't know what to say about that. Ah, that's too good. He says that, John says that Nielsen talked to him at first and then he went out of the room for 10 seconds. And when he said, when he came back in, this is when he said, we have your DNA. When he came back in, John said, quote, he exposed his gun. And he said, I know you were there. Tell me you did it.

So he tapped it with his finger like Doc Holliday, ready to fucking draw with you. You cross? He said, as soon as he brandished that gun, I told him what he wanted. He didn't put it to your head.

Jesus Christ. He's like, what can I get you the register to? This is too much. This is fucking unbelievable. So, and they said his cut on his hand, he had told two different stories about the dog and the trash. Right.

So will the statement stand? They said in determining whether to suppress incriminating statements, the trial court applied New Jersey law, apparently of the view that New Jersey law controlled as that's where he made his statements. So New Jersey law defines custodial interrogation as questioning by law enforcement officer after a suspect has been deprived of his freedom of action in a significant way that implicates the requirement that Miranda warnings be given.

So go into a room, lock the door and says, you're in here with us now and you ain't leaving. You better Mirandize. You better Mirandize the guy. But they told him repeatedly, you're not under arrest and you're free to go at any time. But they are asking him suspect questions. So that is it's borderline. And if you're not an idiot, you should probably do it and just get just tell him who cares.

So they said to evaluate whether or not he's been deprived of freedom of action, a court must consider the nature and degree of pressure applied to detain the suspect, duration of questioning, physical surroundings, and language used by the police. They said the trial court found his first statement was not the product of custodial interrogation as he was not in custody. The questioning occurred in his familiar place of employment, not a police station. His fucking punch-in card was right over there. Right.

He eats lunch up here. You know what I mean? He's fine. Right there. The door to the office remained open and John was told multiple times clearly that he was free to leave at any time. So this doesn't sound – I felt more threatened getting pulled in there and shoplifting things. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You feel more threatened than this.

So the questioning occurred there. They said it was not until he made his initial statement of confession that then they – he was no longer free to leave and that's when they gave him his Miranda rights and placed him in custody. That's when they said, OK, free to leave is sailed now. So they said then they properly read him his rights and he said he understood those rights and voluntarily and intelligently waived them. Motion denied, company man. Fuck off. So –

In court here, he talks about that he confessed. They bring up that he confessed to all four killings. This is at his plea hearing. And he pleads not guilty. And the prosecutor says, well, we plan to seek the death penalty. Yeah. We think you did. We think you did and you did it. You put some extra stank on it. Yeah.

So what he does is he waives a jury trial because this is one of those things that makes sense kind of. It's a three-year-old. I don't want regular-ass citizens to know that. Don't hear murder details on a daily basis. No, you want a judge who might keep emotions out of this. So it's going to be a bench trial. The prosecutor opens court.

Thusly, quote, there are two things that I want you to keep in mind when every witness testifies and when every piece of evidence is presented. Two things, two prisms I want you to view this case through and all the evidence that comes from the stand. Number one.

That defendant is a malicious killer. That's not a piece of evidence. First things first. Piece of shit right there. He said, quote, malice. You heard what the judge said. Wickedness of disposition. Hardness of heart. Cruelty. An extreme indifference to the value of human life. Wickedness. Another word for wickedness is evilness. So, yeah. So bear in mind, number one,

The defendant is a malicious killer. That's number one. The defense did not. They don't even give an opening statement. They don't contest the charges against him and offer no defense. They even stipulate to the evidence offered in the pretrial stipulate means they both agree to it and they don't have to go through a big hearing to enter into evidence. It's just they both agree this is true. So for the purposes of the court, they could both they could stipulate that Martians run Starbucks and

And for the purpose of this trial, Martians run Starbucks. It has to. Yeah, you deserve you. That's what you have to do. So the court quotes this here. The judge says to him, I understand that you have authorized your attorneys to not contest the trial and offer no defenses to the four charges of first degree murder and related offenses.

This means that you will not be confronting the witnesses against you and you are giving up your right to cross-examine those witnesses and to otherwise seek to impeach their testimony. Do you understand that? He said, yes. They said, this means you're going to be exposed to the death penalty, that a penalty phase only jury will be selected, and that that jury will be told by your attorney that you did not contest and offered no defense to the first degree murder charges in the proceedings.

They will then argue these facts as mitigation. Do you understand and agree to that? That's the strategy. Don't cause a trial. Tell the jury for the penalty phase that they didn't go to trial because they didn't want to cause any more hurt for the family, the families of these grieving people, and they use that as a mitigator. That's what they're trying to do. Okay.

So he said he understood everything. They said, you understand that by waiving a jury trial and proceeding in accordance with the advice of your attorneys, that you will be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of four counts of first degree murder and related offenses. Do you understand that? He said he did. He understands it. They said, to be sure you understand and agree to that. And he said, yes, I do. Then they said, do you understand the consequences of your decision? He said, yes, he does. So they said, okay, um,

His strategy, they said, was to help him avoid the death penalty. They said they're not going to avoid the he had the fucking the murder weapon in his house. Yeah. His DNA is attached to the scene. He's got a they got a confession. It all makes sense. There's not a lot we can do here. Right. So they tell the jury, Mr. Eichinger wanted man as a fucking minefield wanted to spare the still family and the Greaves family the grief of having to go through a trial.

So December 2005, the verdict comes in and they find him guilty, obviously, of all the shit. Sentencing is in front of the jury. Like we said, he brings in a shrink. Got a psychiatrist here, a Dr. Weiss. And the Dr. Weiss says that gives a diagnosis of adjustment disorder with disturbance in mood and conduct.

Yeah, I would say it's disturbing conduct. Yeah. Explain that he had become very disturbed lately after his father's diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. When was that? Recently, last few months. Not 1990 fucking nine. Not 1990. Oh, it was in it was in 1999 that this happened. That's it. But then what about 2005? What about that? Six years to get in touch with this.

This persisted approximately five weeks between the time of the hospitalization where his father was hospitalized and the Jennifer Still murder. So they said he was in the throes of that.

They diagnosed him with personality disorder, schizoid, schizotypal and dependent personality disorder. Testified that the same two diagnoses of adjustment disorder and personality disorder occurred at the time of the Graves murders, too. So, you know, it's all there.

They said that this happened after his father was moved to hospice care. Oh, great. So let's just let him out then. So he's fine. Yeah. Now that his dad's. Yeah. Now his dad will die and then he should be fine. We'll just move along. I'm sure nothing will ever come up in his life again. That would be, you know, of any kind of fucking importance.

So they also bring in his mother and his brother here, and they bring him to the stand, and they talk about the father's Alzheimer's diagnosis and all that kind of shit here. They...

Another doctor that they called said that he suffers from brain damage dysfunction in the left left temporal aspect of his brain compared with the right hemisphere, likely caused by a car accident when a tree fell on a tree limb fell on his head or Lyme disease. One of the two. One of the two. Either way, obviously an innocent man.

He said, this is brain damage. These deficits impaired his ability to control his emotions, make judgments, and make appropriate responses to social cues. He diagnosed John as suffering from a personality disorder and an organic personality syndrome, and that at the time of the murders, he was in a state of extreme mental or emotional disturbance that impaired his capacity to conform his conduct to requirements of law.

All is forgiven. He's a little sad. Yeah, I get it. So butcher a family. Yeah. I always butcher a family. It makes me feel better. Now on cross-examination, though, this doctor concedes that John did not score in the impaired range in any of the neuropsychological tests that he administered or that he was even mildly impaired in executive functioning or planning or response inhibition. Funny. All your testing said he was fine, and now you're saying he's not.

So his other expert, John's other expert in neuropsychology and neuroimaging, opined that a PET scan of John's brain showed he suffered damage in the left hemisphere of the brain, including amygdala, the hippocampus, insula hypothalamus,

Corpus callosum, midbrain. That's easy. And basal ganglia.

All sorts of fucking brain damage. All of his brain is fucked. They said that this is consistent with decreased metabolism in the left temporal lobe. These regions cause problems with memory, emotion, regulation, deficits in planning, monitoring, and adjusting behavior to context and integrating behavior with emotional, with emotion and motivation. And he believed it's from Lyme disease. Yeah.

They said that the behavioral imaging methodology on cross-examination is primarily a research tool and not a clinical tool. So I just applied something else to this and said he's innocent of murder. That's what he did.

They said the behavioral image methodology, which was patented in 1986, has not been updated to account for the many tests administered by him. He also conceded that a PET scan would not account for the effect of anxiety on metabolic activity exhibited at the time the scan was performed in 2009. So what the fuck are you talking about is basically what they said.

Dr. Jonathan O'Brien testified for the state, for the Commonwealth, saying he conducted a psychiatric evaluation of Eichinger and said, you know, he's a dick.

But they hired me to find out whether he was suffering from extreme mental or emotional disturbance as a result of a psychiatric or cognitive disorder at the time they occurred, whether he was substantially impaired in his ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. He literally said, I couldn't go to jail. I had to stab a child. Yeah.

That's fucking crazy. So they reviewed everything and he testified that there's little documentation prior to the time of the penalty phase other than John having symptoms and difficulty adjusting to prison prior to trial to make positive determination of prison adaptability. He said that using his analysis, trying to predict his prison adaptability based on his behavior to trial would be very speculative and

He said the only real statistic is that it's been statistically shown to be reliable in terms of predictions done by mental health officials is prior behavior. So that's how you can tell what future behavior will happen. Prior behavior. Nothing else. He said that.

His history of being a reliable worker and a rule follower, as demonstrated in school and employment, indicated that he would positively adjust to prison because he said that he was – he said he doesn't think that's true, though, because he's susceptible to decompensation under stress and prison life is nothing but stress.

So they said he was in the 82nd percentile for intelligence. His cognitive functioning is strong. He has strong processing speed, which strongly indicated against brain damage. He has superior memory functioning. See PLUs at the 87th percentile and tested as high average or superior on tests of executive functioning, decision making shit like that.

He another doctor said that he does not agree that testing showed the presence of a seizure disorder, which, according to John's doctor, they concluded that they said he said this shows that the other guy's tests are flawed because no. So George Graves now. So they basically say his people say he's got stuff wrong with them. He's a little bit sad and his brain's kind of fucked up because a tree limb fell on him.

The prosecution's people said he's fine. All the tests show he's fine. That one test that says he's not is from 1986. So what the fuck are we doing here? So George Graves gets to speak at this sentencing. He says he agonizes about the day when he'll have to explain to Avery's sister what happened to her mom and her sister.

He said, as she gets older, the day yet awaits when I will have to reveal to her the true horrific details of the death of her mother, her aunt, and her sister. He said it will be another day of many tears for both of us. He also said that if you ever escape jail, John...

He said, I will hire mercenaries to hunt you down and deliver justice. Literally, he said that in a court of law. I will hire murderers to come find you, and I don't even give a fuck. We will hunt you. Don't care. Gorillas. He goes on to say, and should they find you before the law, you will experience a justice you never thought possible. Oh, wow.

He's going to hire people to do some torture shit on him. Yeah. I was going to say, they're going to treat him like these fucking Marcellus Wallace in a pawn shop. They're going to American me that bad shit. The worse. So he said, graves, George goes on to say that Heather was an outstanding mother who sacrificed for her children. Lisa was a student with plans to go to nursing school. And, uh, Avery was a goddamn beautiful little child. So, uh,

He said this past Good Friday, their lives were, I didn't realize it was on Good Friday too, Easter weekend. Their lives were suddenly taken in an incomprehensible carnage by the hand of that idiot over there. Three innocent, beautiful lives were destroyed and my life too, as I knew it is also destroyed. He said in my assessment of this horrendous tragedy perpetrated by John Charles Eichinger, there is no justice that can satisfy me short of his termination of

and no restoration that can replace what was lost. He said, however, I do look forward to the justice promised by the Lord Almighty where the wicked and evil emissaries of Satan, such as John Charles Eichinger, will receive payment for their acts with eternal and unrelenting torment in hell. Mike dropped after that. You're going to hell, man. Oh, my God. So Heather and Lisa's friend comes up and says, quote, how could you kill little Avery, John? Because they know John, too.

How could you do it? They said, was it because she could speak your name? You're a baby killer. And by anyone's definition, a baby killer is the lowest of the low in hell. John, there's no mercy from God forever.

Fuck, they got Jennifer's mom, Wendy, on the stand. And she said this all in an English accent, too, which is going to make it worse. She agonized for six years before finding out who murdered her only child. Describing Jennifer as loving, caring, kind and considerate. She said, my daughter was a very bright, independent young woman. We will never know what she could have made of her life. She was just robbed of that opportunity. Her life cut cruelly short.

She said that she prays that she lives long enough to see, quote, when that murdering monster that killed her daughter is sentenced and she finally is here. She testified with two pictures of her daughter on the witness stand and says she just hopes that she lives long enough to see an executioner put a needle in his arm. She said John should never be allowed to live in society again. No amount of prison time could ever make up for the agony and suffering he caused Jennifer.

Then the prosecutor came up to close it out. He said, remember when I cross-examined Dr. Jillian? She said that when the defendant is under stress, he might tend to decompensate. And I said, that means when something bad happens in his life, he might kill people, right? And she said, yes. And I said, you can't tell us what to look out for so that we'll know when he's about to kill someone in the future. And she said, you're right, I can't.

How many more people must die at this man's hands? Is it going to be a nurse in prison, a doctor, an inmate, a guard, a visitor? How many more people must die at this man's hands? Members of the jury, there is no mitigation in this case. There's no mitigation in this case. Why is there no mitigation? Do you know what the defense in this case is? The defense in this case is summed up by the single line in the fill-in-the-blank test. The defense is, I need a miracle.

And that defense members of the jury has tried to manufacture a miracle for the defendant. That should, should offend you to your very core. And all of the psycho babble you heard from the defense psychiatrists, uh,

That ought to scream at your common sense and say, hey, wait a minute. That's nonsense. Can you believe those doctors didn't even read the confession the defendant gave on the day of the murder? Meaning the doctors didn't. That is astounding. You heard Dr. Michaels say, I can't believe they wouldn't do that because the testimony is designed to convince you that on the day of the crime, he suffered some mental breakdown. The day of the crime. Well, the police officers are there with him the day of the crime. They write reports. They take statements. And the defense experts didn't even read those statements. Right.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And that should offend you as they presented that as mitigation. Went on to say he had no history of mental illness, imbalance, none of that shit. So he goes on to say, I have argued to you and I suggest that the evidence supports that there's no mitigating factors in this case, that they are manufacturing or they are manufactured to try to convince you that they're mitigating factors, but they're not.

Judge says, anything from you, John? Yeah. You better say something here because the jury is about to sentence you. I'm a company man? He said, no thanks, I'm good. Oh boy, don't do that. Yep.

So the jury finds two aggravating factors in the death of Heather Graves that he did that he'd been convicted in another state of another offense for which a life sentence of imprisonment is imposable, meaning the Jennifer one and that he had been convicted of another murder, which was committed before or or at the time of the offense.

It's about Jennifer and the other ones about the other ones, the other people who were killed, Lisa and Heather and Avery. The jury found the same two aggravators for the murder of Lisa Graves, plus a third aggravating factor that the victim was a witness to a murder and was killed to prevent her testimony because that's the only reason he killed her. Didn't know she was there. They also found the same three aggravating factors they found for Lisa for the murder of Avery, plus a fourth aggravating factor that she was under the age of 12. There you go.

The jury determined that there was one mitigating factor for each of these three murders, that John was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. Which, who the fuck hasn't been? How many bodies you got on you? You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a fascinating mitigator.

The judge said, you took the lives of four innocent people for no reason. He said, you're evil and you need to be removed from society. You, sir, may fuck off three death sentences just in case. And also, let's tack on a life in prison for Jennifer Still as well. You're fucked, sir. Eat dicks.

Three lies. Oh, boy. Three deaths. You're fucked. Three deaths. So the prosecutor said, we discovered after the case that John is the most prolific serial killer in the county's history. It's the guy. Judge Carpenter certainly told him what we do to criminals like that here. The sentence was just.

And the district, another district attorney, the assistant to Castor, she said that he is so purely evil that there's no doubt he deserves to die and to serve justice in the end to the dead and their families. It's important to show how seriously we take these crimes. They're so heinous and so brutal. So he this fucking idiot while in prison writes a murder journal and sends it to his brother.

This fuck a 90 page personal journal that he published to his brother. Yep. In his journal written in prison, he describes some of this murder. Yep. He said that Heather and I struggled for a couple minutes. Avery watching from behind me. I won control of the knife and stabbed Heather. This guy's such a fucking pussy. He can't even go over there and kill a fucking woman properly. Even that he can't deal with.

Then Avery said three words and I froze. Avery said, John killed mommy. Oh my God. And that was her fucking death warrant. She wrote for herself right there by knowing his name. I stopped. Heather at first said, why? And then I looked at Avery, uh, then looked at Avery and said, Avery call one nine one one. Then looked at me and said, she can do that. You know, no,

I didn't even think about that. Yeah. He said, I turned, I slashed Avery on the right side of the throat. She cried and put her hands to her neck and stood there as I turned back to Heather and stabbed her repeatedly. After a few seconds, Avery ran to the hallway again saying John killed mommy. Heather was not dead, but I could not let Avery get Heather's cell phone. This fucking piece of shit.

So he's going to appeal a whole lot here. He's got the automatic appeal because it's a death penalty case where he cites like 11 errors per

Really motion to suppress the statement he made to the detectives. That's an error. He said the trial court aired in denying his motion to suppress a statement given to Montgomery detectives. So one for New Jersey, one for Montgomery, they aired in denying the, uh, his motion to suppress a statement given to detectives at the police station. They refused to give a presumption of life instruction to the jury. The trial did the trial court aired by permitting the admission of a victim impact statement, which,

which resulted in a sentence of death because of the passion and prejudice inherent in the statement. Well, if you kill people and they have family that love them, they're allowed to talk about it. And then that's what happens.

The trial court erred by permitting the use of multiple confessions during the penalty phase where the probative value of multiple confessions was outweighed by the unfair prejudice of repeatedly reading the defendant's admissions. They erred by permitting autopsy testimony during the penalty phase because the prejudicial impact outweighed the probative value of the evidence when the defendant had already been found guilty of intent to kill in the guilt phase.

He said, you didn't fucking testify. If you testify here, you're going to get there. They get to talk, too. And he said, no, he just wanted to make wanted to testify and have his lawyer ask him questions.

So they erred by permitting the jury to consider as an aggravating circumstance the homicide of Avery Johnson when there was no proof Avery Johnson would have been legally competent to testify as a witness. They actually had the balls to say no.

Yeah, it's not an aggravator that she was a witness because you couldn't she couldn't have testified. She's three. Yeah. OK, well, how about double the one where she's a child under 12? Can we double that up then and make it all one thing? You fucking twat. You stuck her to the floor. I don't. That's the aggravator, right?

It has to be. This is your fucking monster is the aggravator. Can the aggravator be you handed out Halloween candy with that? Can that be an act? Can that be something, please? Because I'm disturbed by that shit. I'm just disturbed by it.

Any behavior afterwards that involves the fucking murder weapon around unsuspecting people. That's an aggravator, right? That's going to be aggravating to me anyway. So that's denied. 2007, he appeals with even more shit. There's like 25, 28 counts of crazy shit here. It's ridiculous, though. They're all stupid. Ineffective assistance of counsel now has come to the forefront for letting him

do a non-jury trial, not amount to defense and just have the bench trial. Also the Miranda deal. He said that, you know, they came to his workplace, pulled him aside and, you know, he did not request to speak to them of his own volition. They took him into the room. Well, they asked him, can we talk to you in here? And you said, sure. If you said no, and they had to drag you, then you get Miranda eyes at that point. Last time I was in here, they gave me employee of the month. Fuck. Yeah. I can sit in here with you. Yeah. Fuck you. Look at my picture on the wall, bitch.

I feel the most comfortable in here. So that's affirmed as well. 2009, his jail cell writing writings are online for sale. And Wendy, Jennifer's mom, found that out. And she was she said, quote, I was disgusted. I felt sick to my stomach. I could not believe that after everything I'd been through with the murder and trial, it was like it was happening all over again. I could not believe something so horrific was going on and I wasn't aware of it.

She said she used an Internet search to research his name earlier in the month. She said it's horrific. I couldn't take it in. I couldn't take in that people are willing to pay money for items personalized by people who have caused so much pain or grief. That's that's a big market out there. There's always someone out there willing to make money for someone else's pain. She said that she would like to raise awareness for murder, Abelia, and that we shouldn't do it, she said.

She said, we were shocked that there are so many sites and that someone was making money off of this. Holy shit. She said, I would like to see these sites shut down. Realistically, I don't know if it's possible, but at least to stop. We can't even shut down sites where they sell children to people. We can't.

shut down a site where they sell letters to people yeah i understand but the internet jonathan davis from corn bought fucking ted bundy's car like that's what i mean people do this shit this is hitler's car is yeah they they tore that it's fucking hitler nobody killed more people in hitler people want this stuff and it's bizarre i don't want anything i don't touch their shit

No, I don't have any word, any need for that shit. She said, we need to get the word out. We need to get people to sign on and support it. It was legislation introduced by a senator in 2007, but never went anywhere because there should be better shit to do in the Senate. I would fucking hope. Are you kidding me? Jesus Christ. Patriot owners getting handies from fucking Russians and boxes. Let's not. I don't want them talking about that in the Senate either. Fucking important shit.

Important shit. So, yeah, they said it's a victim's rights issue is what she says. So 2004, appeal denied. Good.

2015, all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States for all the assistance of ineffective assistance of counsel, everything else. And they say, keep on trucking, fuckwad, back to Pennsylvania with you. Great. Denied. 2019 is appeal. It's a capital habeas civil action, and it is fucking denied. Yeah.

D-Night is shit. Now, 2023, January of 2023, a Department of Corrections acting secretary, George Little, signs a notice of execution setting March 7th, 2023 as the execution date for John here. The law provides that when the governor does not sign a warrant of execution within the specified time period, the Secretary of Corrections has 30 days to

within to issue a notice of execution. So they can do it themselves. But then on March, right before March 6th, I believe, Governor Tom Wolf, who that, the writer, electric Kool-Aid acid test is the fucking, in his white suit and everything. Tom Wolf gives him a reprieve to life in prison without parole. What? Yes, indeedy. So,

He didn't even just like postpone it based on we'll get the pills or drugs later. Flattened it out and said life without. Yep. He pinned a little girl to the floor. He pinned a little girl to the floor. But a guy like him. Yeah. A guy like him is going to have he's going to have the worst time in prison for the rest of his life. He's the exact opposite of a guy who does well in prison.

Like he's going to, that's torture. He's going to be a pincushion, yeah. It's torture for this. It's 50 to 60 years of torture, which I think the parents should like anyway. So these crimes were covered on two separate things here. Both were investigation discovery. One was investigation discovery, Homicide City. Oh, yeah.

Homicide City. Homicide City, Bridgeport, PA. Bridgeport. And then it was an episode titled Deadly Circle of Friends. Again, though, they make it like it was a big deal there. Also, an In Cold Blood and an episode called Dungeons, Dragons, and Death.

They dug deep. They tried to make it like that, too. So there you go, everybody. That is Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a little King of Prussia, too. And what a fucked up story. PA, not Connecticut. PA, not Connecticut. I want to say Bridgeport. I want to say Connecticut because there's one there, too. Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. There it is, everybody. A fucked up case of a fucking bad guy. Wow.

Wow. If you like that story, tell everyone about it here. Tell them you get on whatever app you're on. Give us five stars. If you want to help the show, that's an easy and free, completely free, takes 30 seconds way to do it. And it helps us immensely. So thank you for doing that. Follow us on social media. We are at Small Town Murder on Instagram, Small Town Pod on Facebook, and at Murder Small on Twitter.

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who would never ever murder us and then use their murder outfit as a Halloween costume for the next six years. Hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producers are Jeremy Woodward, Christopher Voorhees, Elena Zernal, Zamel, Whitney Green, A.J. Davison, A.A. Ron Nelson, Gwendolyn Steele. Congrats on the divorce.

Good for you. Nothing better than a good divorce. Get back into happiness and enjoying yourself. Morella and, of course, Jordan Bennett. And happy birthday, Simon. Holy shit. Happy birthday, Simon. A birthday. Such a wonderful man. Hey, we love Simon. That's a guy that rides motorcycles. Not 170 miles an hour, he doesn't. No, no, no, no.

Other producers this week, Catherine Cumberland, Michelle Mixell. Sorry about Poe, Michelle. I hope you're doing all right. Peyton Meadows, Gina Morrow, Janice Hill, Alyssa B., Kelsey Mueller, Sam, maybe it's Muller, Sam Seksinski.

Wow, that's a great name. I'm a sexy Polack. Good for you, Sam. David would know last name. Matthew Root, Kristen Marie, Brensevik Baran, I think, Georgina White. Karen would know last name. Pam Van Shye, Valerie Perrette, Karen Keaton, Mike Dorling, Robert Martin, Joshua Worthy, Jordan Hawk, Tracy Oliver Lewis, Colton Marosky, Liz Gee, Riley Powell, Jake Schellenberg, Donna Jones, Melissa Teppner.

Kevin Anderson. Peter McCarmichael. All right, just Carmichael. All right, Brandi Tietre. Justin Thrash. Chance Ferguson. Cody Theberg.

Karen Lee, Jay Anderson, Luke with no last name, Samantha Garrett, Amber Sky, C. Becky Schesher, David, no, that's Scott. What? Scott Mulder, Dustin Leper, Jeremy Peterson, Cindy Baker, Ashley Culpepper. Hey, Ashley. Hello. Stephanie Martin, Paige DePaula, Ann Joy Ruth, George Robinson, John Kohlmiller, and

And that gobble gobble, Watson, Jessica Adams, Ryan with no last name, Julie Garcia, Job with no last name, Chris with no last name, swipe keyboard is faster than text. I don't know if you know that, James. I've been told. Vishal. Can't do it. Body with no last name. Emily Osborne. Cat with no last name. A haunted Arby's in Florida. Peter C. Aislinn.

Fearon, Fearon, Brooke, Ditmar, Kenny with no last name, Sarah Beth Stone, Sonny Erazo, Jamie Herter,

Pauly Baccetto. Harder, barely know her. Don Beavers. I love the last name of Beavers. It's so good. Then you got Herder and Beavers right next to each other. Bullshit. You guys are messing with us. Amberlei Greenwood. Mother Trucker. Angela N. Eddie Beast. Oversoul Gaming. Bobby...

Artists, Stephen, Stephen Russell, Alan Kay, Jody Leeson, Sean with no last name, Kelly King, Tyler Southam, Kylie with no last name, Thomas Tarazowicz.

What is this? Corey Matzo, Kate Cooper, Rachel Littlefield, Edward S., Jason Livingston, Dustin Matheny, Alina Casey, Susan Nelson, Amy Barton, Jerry Mills, Jessica Cagnolotti, Eric D., Suzaz, Liz Liv, Liv Hudson, Lex with no last name, Stacy Turner, Joshua McCollum, Hannah Barrett, Colt Rudercraus,

Wow, nice. Router Coos. Router Coos. Router Coos is even better. Route that Coos right over here, big guy. Colleen Wilson, Therese Yarborough, Emily McGrath, Chris Puglisi.

Ziggy, Phil and, uh, Gunderson, Nova Judd, Chris Butler, Alex Truska, Joe Copeland. Hey, Joe, uh, Julie, Julie Robertson. Nope. Just Roberts, uh, Sarah Kennedy, Austin C, Rachel Watson, Danny Ledoux, Jackie Emerson, Christina would know last name, Katie Harker, Brandon Wilt, Morgan Ford, Drew Pandle, hand, uh, Pandle, Pandle, Panhandle, Eddie Jr. I think you're going for Panhandle there. Panhandle, Eddie, uh,

Letty. It's an Italian panhandle. It's a panhandle, Letty. Come on. Drew with no last name. Ashley Kurtzinger. Krista Keller. Jade Grand. Angie Nemmer. Jay Pizzle. Alicia.

uh, can't say charcuterie, uh, Nieva, Nieva, Nieva 29. Amy would know last name duck, Rick, uh, Kelly Hunspeth. Nina would know last name. Colin Bayard. Did he, did he, did he axed man? Uh, test subject. You don't want any diddies money. Yikes. I don't want anything to do with that. Oh boy. I heard he ate somebody's asshole. That's crazy. Crazy talk. Uh,

Well, a stranger or someone who... Famous rapper. Oh, like a... Okay, not a lady we went out with. I don't want to repeat it, but it's crazy. Just a lady you went out with. I was like, well, good for him. Get in there. Another guy just being a gentleman to him. I guess that's polite.

I prefer to offer somebody a beer, but I mean to each his own. Good for you, bud. Melissa, Danette, Amanda, Whitcomb, Ted, Michael, Teresa with no last name, Nancy Webster, Luke's, uh, Ming, Mick, Mick, Inglis, uh, Megan Pearson, Elizabeth zinc, Sharon Brighton, by water, by water, Reyes, uh, Ashley, Hod, Jacob, Dumbia, uh, Dumbia. I don't know.

Look, man, I'm doing my best. We're trying. Nicole Stacey, Kayla Thompson, Raina Reyes, Eduardo Mercado. Oh, boy, that's a handsome name. Jenny with no last name. Jacob Lindsay, Sam Baldwin, and all of our patrons. You guys are amazing.

Thank you, everybody, so much. Unbelievable. From the bottom of our heart, we can't thank you enough. Honestly, we appreciate all that you do for us. Keep doing it. Keep it up, please. Do that. Follow us on social media if you want. There's Shut Up and Give Me Murder drop-down menus. Hit us up with your 500th episode. Or hit me up, I should say. 500th episode suggestions because we want it to be

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Was there a crime committed?

As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't. Guilty by Design dives into the wild story of Alexander and Frank, interior designers who in the 80s landed the jackpot of all clients. We went to bed one night and the next morning we woke up as one of the most wanted people in the United States. What are they guilty of? You can listen to Guilty by Design exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.