Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about one of our favorite things ever, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. The app is great, and I'm on the app constantly. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar.
No.
There's more to imagine when you listen. And I'll tell you something that has set both Jimmy and I's imagination soaring. And that is the Lewis and Clark journals. We're both really into these right now. And as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers, the newest releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text
smalltownmurder to 500-500. That's audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. Now back to the show. Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you about a very cool sponsor, Rocket Money. And I've used this and I've said it before on previous ads, but they found something that I had been paying for for 11 years. I've been paying for something for 11 years now.
Boy, did they get you. For no reason. And it was in there. I was like, oh my God. And they canceled it because that's the other thing too. I'm like, now how do I cancel this? What do I do? And they said, don't worry about it. We got it. And they canceled it for me. It was the coolest thing in the world. I'm telling you right now, don't waste your money on things you're not even using. Rocket Money is a personal finance app.
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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. Hello, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yeah, Angie!
And choo-choo! Ho-ho, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another insane edition of Small Town Murder Express. Ten pounds of murder in a two-pound bag, as we always say. And this week we're going somewhere far, far away. We haven't been in a while. It's going to be a lot of fun. Quickly, before we get to that, shutupandgivememurder.com. What's there, you may ask?
Everything. Tell me. Merch, tickets to live shows, September 20th. Get in there. Minneapolis at the State Theater. It's going to be great. It's a big, beautiful place. It'll be our biggest show ever if you guys sell it out. So go ahead and beat Chicago as our biggest show ever. Sell that out. Next night at the Pabst. I don't know if there's any tickets left for that. Check it out in Milwaukee. If they're there, get them and come see us. It's going to be a lot of fun. And then get the rest of the year, too. Shut up and give me murder.com.
Also, listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports and Your Stupid Opinions. Hell yeah. Because they're hilarious, so we'd love for you to listen to them, obviously. And if you can't get enough, if you listen to all of that and you still need more, we have more for you. That is Patreon. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports is where you get all of that stuff, all the bonus material. All you have to be is $5 a month or above. A mere cup of coffee will get you hundreds of back-to-back.
episodes and then new episodes every other week that are brand new that you've never heard. New bonus material this week, which you're going to hear. You get one crime in sports, one small town murder. You get it all for crime and sports. We're going to talk about this will be fun. We love watching footage and going, holy shit, this is going to be the two most penalized hockey games in NHL history.
It's constant fighting. So we're just going to watch toothless Canadians beat the shit out of each other for an hour. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait. We're going to do super cuts of all the fights. Then for small town murder, something we've wanted to do for a while, internet salad, we're going to call it.
It's our pre-show that you don't get access to when we're just hanging out as friends talking and bullshitting and basically going on the internet as we're setting up the show and everything. Go on the internet and, did you see this? Holy shit. And then we'll make fun of everybody. And it's always a lot of fun. And we go, God, I wish people could hear this. And we say, why don't we record this? And then we'll make it a bonus episode. And it's hilarious. So check that out. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of that stuff.
And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show as well. That said, I think it's time, everybody. Here we go. I think it's time. Take a deep breath here. Let's summon this from deep and deep below the earth here. Let's all shout. Shut up and give me.
Let's do this, everybody. Here we go. Let's go on a trip. We're going. Let's go on a long trip here. A very long trip. We're going to Australia, baby. Oh, my. Oh, yeah. We've only done two Australian small town murders. Is that right? Isn't that amazing? In seven years, we've done two. That's fascinating.
It feels like we've done a lot more because we've done a bunch of crime and sports of Australians. But not a small-town murder. They're always nuts over there, though, the murders. So we'll talk about it. It's what it is. We always say it's like, and we said it in the last episode, too. It's a perfect mixture for United States people of Florida and Arizona. If you mix them together, you get Australia, and it's wild. Give them all a beat. Let's do it. This is in... Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
How the hell do you even say this? Uh-oh. Okay. That's not a good start. G-O-O-M-B-O-O-R-A-N.
But yeah, Gumbory, Gumborian, Gumborian, I guess. I don't know if it's Ian. We're going Gumborian. There we go. Gumborian, Australia. It is. Goomboran. Goomboran. I see Goomba in there and it's making me, it's distracting me. Yeah. And then I see Goomba. So I think of either an Italian guy or I think of like Super Mario Brothers, either one. So that's, that's not good. It's in far Eastern Australia, like the central part of the coast of,
Okay. North of Sydney and all of that. That's down in the Southeast. This is, it's basically this town and then there's some forest behind it. There's like a state forest and then the ocean is there. Fantastic. So it's, it's, yeah, it's kind of on the edge of everything. It's in the gimpy region.
I looked up and I could not find on the Internet how to say Goombari Goomburian or whatever Goomburian. But Gimpy comes up. It's G. G. Y. M. P. I. E. Jim Pie is what it looks like. I'm having a good nice Jim Pie. And instead it's Gimpy. OK. Sure.
Why not? It's two hours to Brisbane from here. That's the nearest big city. And then it is. Yeah. To our last Australian episode, it's 13 hours away by car.
That was in Nowra, New South Wales. So that's not even on the other side of Australia. That's just down south there. That was episode 392, so more than 100-something episodes ago, The Face of Evil. And it was actually a crazy-ass episode, as they always are. Does that make this in Queensland, or what is this? This is in, yes, Queensland. Yeah, this is Queensland here. Population as of 2021 is 566 people here in this town. Wow.
There's nobody here. It's really rural. It's out there. It's like a penal colony? Yes. That's what it looks like. It looks like a work camp almost. There's a big forest and then the ocean. You'll never get out of here. Even if you get through the forest, the sharks will eat you in the ocean. That's what it looks like. The forest is booby-trapped. It's all booby-trapped. Median household income here is $60,768. You know,
koala skins, whatever they make. It's Australian dollars. Wallaby tails. Yeah, we said last time, wallaby pelts, I think we said. Or wombat pelts or something. So that's about $40,000 U.S. dollars is the median household income, which is much lower than the U.S. regular income here. The Gympie region...
was originally settled for grazing purposes because it's in the middle of fucking nowhere. Yeah. The discovery of gold in the area, though, in 1867 led to a gold rush and a development of the Mary River Valley for all
all of this stuff for agriculture and for that. 1902, the Gumburian Provincial School opened. So that's when they started. That's their first school in this actual little town. That was 1902, and it closed in 1967. They were like, well, we've done enough damage here. We're not doing well. No.
No one could even pronounce our town. We blew it. Forget it. So things to do in this town. There's like no reviews of this town whatsoever. Wow. I don't know if the internet is here, to be honest with you. Maybe those 500 people are just like, don't tell anybody. This place is amazing.
Yeah. We got a forest and a beach right next to each other. Shut up. It's far. Yeah, I don't know, man. I feel like more people might have come here if it was that great. I think it's just rural. I mean, it's... Maybe. Brisbane is the nearest place, and that's hours away. So I think it's just out there. Things to do, though. They have the gourmet...
Goomery, G-O-O-M-E-R-I, Goomery Pumpkin Festival and Great Australian Pumpkin Roll. Here we go. We're rolling pumpkins, baby. Get ready for the festival's most anticipated event, the Great Australian Pumpkin Roll. And it has a trademark next to it. Oh, shit. Don't you fucking dare try to co-op that shit. Don't sell any of our merch online. I don't want to hear it.
Not a goddamn bit. We'll sue you. Join hundreds of pumpkin rollers as you send your pumpkins racing, splattering, and hurling down Policeman's Hill. Okay. Sounds like you're chasing cops with pumpkins on a roll.
So I guess the plan would be to have the best round pumpkin, right? You don't want an oblong or fucked up one. The more oblong it is, the bigger jumps it's going to take, the harder it'll hit the ground. And it'll splash. More chance of splatter, I would imagine. Register now to compete for the highly coveted position of pumpkin roll champion. Yeah. Yes. Get a belt and everything with a pumpkin on it. And have your name listed on the Goomery Pumpkin Festival honor roll. Well, that's...
Basically, they give you the same honors as if you eat the big burger at that weird burger place in your town where they put your picture on the wall if you eat it. Yeah, or you don't miss a day of school. Yeah, it's four patties and ham and shit, and you're like, what the hell's going on here? So you get first place $500. This is the adult division, by the way. There's a junior division 12 and under, and then there's 13 and up as adult.
So if you're 13, you're in deep waters, man. And all you get is a Tim Tam. That's it. You get a trophy and a perpetual plaque. Second place, $100.
That's it. And for the junior division, first place is only 250. You're only beating kids. Not bad, though. Now, here we go, though. There's a lucky spot. $1,000 will be rewarded to any whole pumpkin which lands on the lucky spot at the end of the roll. So now it's like skee-ball. You're going for that 100 at the time. Bocce ball. Yeah. If more than one pumpkin's on the lucky spot at the end of the roll, prize money will be split.
Oh, that's right. Pumpkins may be pushed, rolled or bowled using an underarm technique. No throwing or overarm bowling is allowed. Well, that's just going to break you. I mean, that's not going to. That's bad for man. It's going to be terrible. That's not going to help. You don't throw a bowling ball like that either. Do you ever see anyone overhand it? Yeah. Have it roll curvy. Maybe I got to. Can you put some spin on it? A little English on it.
A competitor will be disqualified if their pumpkin leaves the marked track. So it goes off to the side. The competitor crosses the start line or part thereof. No fouls. Foul and bowling. After the start, if the pumpkin is touched by anyone. Can't touch your pumpkin. That's it. Can't guide it. You release it and it's done. And you must enter at the designated pumpkin track.
And that's how it goes. Can you go in front of it with a broom? Like fucking, that's not like curling. No, you can't sweep. Can't sweep away. Pumpkins must be at least 12 centimeters in diameter. So you can have a little tiny pumpkin that won't break because that'll be more solid. Um, and also you can either purchase the pumpkin there or bring your own pumpkin. That's right. Fuck. Yeah. If the pumpkin is deemed too big for the safety of the role, it will not be registered. So that could just pop out of nowhere. You never know. Yeah.
12 minutes in, it's all about pumpkins. Yeah, that's it. I want to hear a group of Australians cheer on rolling pumpkins. Oh, I can't roll! Streaming.
I want to hear that so bad. Okay, that said, let's talk about some murder, baby. Here we go. This is some wild... Every goddamn episode we do in Australia. And it makes sense because we don't do a lot of them, so the ones we do are crazy. By the way, we know about the Snowden murders we've been sent. And we'd love to do it because it's an interesting story. The reason why we're not is because literally...
Even if a podcast isn't about murder, they've covered it. It's like there's fucking podcasts that are about basketball that have covered this. Everybody covers this shit. That's the only reason why we have it.
We think you might be sick of hearing about it by now. That's all. You may know the ins and outs. A little bit. Probably better than us. So that said, let's talk about this instead. Let's talk about this is insanity here, by the way, just as crazy stuff. Let's talk about Bruce Saunders. First off, S-A-U-N-D-E-R-S, Saunders. He's born about 1963, Bruce says. He's a butcher.
And I don't mean just a bad guy who just indiscriminately chops up people. He actually, you know... He'll take apart a bull. A cow or whatever and make dinner out of it. So he does that. Everybody says very generous man and his actions speak to this. Very generous, give you the shirt off his back type of guy. Very caring man. Everybody likes him because he's a very nice man and he's very...
Wears his emotions on his sleeve type of guy. Really, really always wants a marriage that he likes and he wants a partner and that's what he's all about. And he has just bad luck with this as we talk about here. He does get married to a woman that he's very happy with. They have a son named Blake here and who has maybe the worst hair I've ever seen on a human being.
As an adult. No, no offense to Blake. Nice guy. But I, wow. Is his hair a disaster? He's a, if you, he's the guy you look at and go, just shave that. Come on. What is happening here? There's shit flying around. Blake, you just gotta follow me, bud. Just do it. Um, after problem is though, his wife ends up getting sick with breast cancer and die at a young age.
like when the kid's still young and all that kind of thing. So that's really hard on Bruce, obviously, and Blake. Bruce and Blake, the father-son team, they rebound. Bruce does. He gets married a second time, and that falls apart.
She lives, but they don't, then it doesn't work out. So the relationship doesn't, doesn't work out. So now he's got, he's a widow. He's divorced. He's going for it all. He's got a widow, a divorce. Yeah. He's going to go for an annulment next, just to get all the different ways to dissolve a marriage. This poor guy. Yeah.
So he's trying to do that. He really, really – and his son grows up now and he's kind of – he's out of the house and all that. So he's lonely and he's desperate for love. He really wants love as people get. You know what I mean? He's 50s in his early 50s and he's like, I'm not an old man yet. No. Still a young man in terms of the world. Still got something to offer. Yeah. I have another good amount of time to spend with someone and have a good time. So he wants to. So.
So he starts going on different dating sites, online dating sites in March 2017. Oh, what year is this?
It's going on different apps. One in particular is a site called Brisbane Singles, which is singles in the Brisbane area. Singles in Brisbane? Pretty easy to figure out there. Married people in Des Moines? Yeah, not married people in Des Moines. Married Des Moines would be a totally different app. I don't think it would be very popular. No, it's not.
I want to bang some married people from Iowa. So he meets a woman on there who he thinks is, he's found it, basically. He's like, I found it. He meets Sharon Graham. And he goes, boom, that's my girl here. Sharon Graham, she's a few years older than him. And she's totally different than him, though. She's kind of a...
More of a free spirit, let's say. He's not a stiff or a prude or anything, but she's really a free spirit. Even free in terms of doesn't even have a job. Oh, that's as free as it gets, man. She's free and clear, man. She's on the dole and basically is known to kind of get money from guys she goes out with.
Okay. Which is a shitload, by the way. Really? Yeah. He's not the first person she met on the dating site. She's not the first person. You know what I'm talking about. She's the first he's met, but he's not hers. Exactly. So she doesn't have a job. And they end up starting to go out, and he showers her with gifts. And, I mean, he thinks he's found –
his new wife. Yeah, they're such suckers. But then it kind of goes on and off, their relationship. She'll break up with them, and then she'll call them the next week and, you know, want to go out? Yeah, sure. So then they're kind of back together, but then they're not like...
You know what I mean? Like, he never knows where it's shifting sands under his feet. A little unpredictable. No, he never knows exactly what's happening here, though. Now, as far as she goes, a little background on her that we can glean from her Facebook profile. Sure. That's fun. A lot of pictures. Tons of pictures. She posts pictures of herself constantly. God.
In different whatever, hanging out, drinking, talking to her friends and all that kind of thing. Her profile, it says, I'm a caring, loving, happy person. Love life. That's what she says. Yep. Which says nothing about you whatsoever. Nope.
It says these are some things I've heard. It says I like to breathe and eat food is what that says. It's not how many times did she post? Life is good as an update. Yeah. Life is great with her sitting there with water behind her drink in her hand. And then also the introductions and the profiles. Then she has under that. It says those who hesitate have lost.
Oh, she's introspective. Yeah, she's real deep, this broad. Yeah, she's a deep one. So they meet, like we said, like late 2016, and this continues into 2017. And I guess he ends up moving two different times during this period because he's renting places and then he buys a house. Okay, that's great. So he's trying to find a place to buy. So she followed him to Motherfucker. She follows him to Toowoomba. Toowoomba?
T-O-O-W-O-O-M-B-A. Toowoomba. Toowoomba, yeah. But I'm sure it's Toowoomba or something. Yeah, Toowoomba. Because it's always, usually the O-O is a uh sound there when these names. Toowoomba. Oh, boy, Toowoomba. Toowoomba or Toowoomba. Then to Bly Bly or Blee Blee, B-L-I-B-L-I.
Your guess is as good as mine, non-Australians. I'm sorry, because I don't fucking know. Neither does Jimmy. We're clueless. Bleebly. That's on the Sunshine Coast, which is near. Oh, yeah. That's south of here, of where we're talking about, of Gympie. And finally, Nambor, which is another area in Gympie, and where Goomba or whatever the hell it is. Goombaramba. Where Goombaramia is, we're going to call it.
They settled into a home. He buys a home. So she follows him to each place, even though they're on and off and all this type of shit. She follows him. And lives with him? Yes, just like moves with him, but then like breaks up with him and kind of half lives with him and half doesn't and then comes back. Oh.
And so she moves into the home he bought with him. So there we go. She's a little weird, by the way, Sharon. A little touch. While this is going on, she has a daughter named Rebecca. She's got a kid?
Yeah, she's got kids. What do you think? No one's going to slip one past the goalie here? Come on. No. No, we never say it's insane. People never go. I'm a little fucked up. Maybe I shouldn't have kids. It never happens. Never breathe. They always go. I'll have a kid. That'll fix it. That's the difference. That's what crazy people say. That'll fix me. Yeah, this is going to set my path right. This will steady these sales. No. Yeah, this will force me to get my life on track. That's what it is.
So Sharon asks the daughter's boyfriend, takes him aside. Okay. And this is when she's with Bruce and things are going well. And the relationship is on at that point. The boyfriend said, quote, Sharon asked me if I could get Rebecca. That's the daughter pregnant. So we would have a child together and, and give it to Sharon and Bruce and they'll have a baby now, which is like, what?
Will you knock my daughter up and then just give me the baby, please? Can you give me a grandchild I raise as my own? Yeah, I'd like a grandbaby daughter, please. That's what I'd like right now. And then he said that if we did that for her, she could offer us a house. So she has no money, by the way. She doesn't have a house herself. But she offers to buy them a house if they'll give her a baby. So she's looking for a house for a baby trade, which is a weird trade. Yeah.
That's a weird – that doesn't sound legal, right? I don't think the marketplace is accepting those trades. No, no. How do you put that on the paperwork? One Caucasian baby. Is that the going rate of a baby? A house? A house? That's an expensive baby.
So they're, like we said, very on and off this relationship. At one point, he's at work, Bruce. He's cutting meat at the butcher shop. This is about September-ish 2017 in the supermarket where he works. And I guess he burst into tears talking to coworkers about how it all. And this is like a 50-something-year-old butcher, an Aussie butcher. You know what I mean? It's a tough guy.
He cleans up viscera all day. He's seen really horrible things. Deadly animals approaching him. He doesn't break conversation. He just throws a fucking boomerang at it, hits it in the head, kills it, and then catches it while he's still looking at you and puts it back in his holster. And looks for the tenderloin on that animal. I was going to say, then he goes and cuts it out and he's like, oh, are you on a pace? This is the best cut. I've got a leg for you. Let me get some garlic. Yeah.
He's giving you a spice rub to put on it.
This is best for really for the Ruth eye that you're going to be eating tonight. Man, that's what shit. I've seen so many guys do this too. Like they're strong men and then like all of a sudden they're just a puddle of shit. A puddle of shit at work too, which is just the way. Oh, no, this is. There's so much to be done and you're just crying. This is terrible. Yeah, you can't do that. You have to get the other end of this and pick it up because this is heavy. Stop crying. I recommend that men do that though because it really.
Not at work. No, no, no. But breakdown. Anywhere else. Yeah, go ahead. Fuck, man. Be yourself. I respect the shit out of that guy. No, no, no. Be yourself and absolutely have a mental breakdown. But don't get your tears in the meat is what I'm saying. That's all. Take a 15.
A little salt might help. Take a 15. That's all I mean. You know what I mean? Do it there. He said that by the next week, though, he said that he was telling everyone it was a bit of a mess at home and everything was bad. Then by the next week, he's saying everything's changed. Fixed it. And we're no longer. Yeah, they weren't even sleeping in the same bedroom anymore. And now everything's changed. They're back in the same bedroom. And now they're planning on getting married.
Oh, they fucked. They're fucking hard. She threw a good one at him. They fucked nice. He buys her a ring during this time. He's very stable financially. Right. Like everybody says he doesn't have a ton of money, but he's got good assets. He's got. We'll eat. He's got a retirement. He's got a home that he owns. He's got.
He's got things. Yeah, he does. He's doing pretty well. I mean, very stable compared to her, especially compared to Sharon. He also spoke to his friends about putting a life insurance policy on himself, you know, because he wouldn't want poor Sharon to be left out in the lurch if he, you know, if he accidentally sawed his head off at work or something when he was trying to...
Trying to cut through a wombat fucking wing or something. There was a side of beef in there. All of a sudden I got no shoulder. There it is. Bandsaw. That's what happens. Another friend of his, a colleague called Karen Armstrong is her name, said that his greatest fear, Bruce's greatest fear was that Sharon would leave him.
So he hadn't admitted to her that he's actually kind of been lying to her, even though he does want to marry her. He is still technically married to his second wife, Bernadette, even though they haven't been together in years. They're not actually divorced yet.
You can't be technically married. You are married. You're fucking married. Yeah. In the process of a divorce is the correct way to say that, I believe. Yeah. Looking forward to this being finalized. Oh, you're still married? No, paperwork. Process of divorce. It's all... Wheels are in motion.
Yeah. Anything other than that is kind of shady. You know what I mean? He hasn't done anything. He's not taking any steps to liquidate. Liquidate? Make this whole thing go away. He wants to, but now he's worried that she'll find out it's going on and she'll find out he's already married. So...
His friend at work said he was always just scared if he did tell her that she would leave him, he was terrified about that. She would often threaten to leave him. That was his biggest push button, I guess you would call it. And she also said he was asset rich but cash poor. And she said, quite simply, he was worth more dead than alive. Oh.
Ouch. Which is a tough way to be, which is how both of us are at this moment. Generally, yeah. Yeah. So he recently upped his life insurance policy to a $750,000 policy. Nice. And listed Sharon as the sole beneficiary, even though he has a son as well.
He also recently purchased a house and had $80,000 death benefit in his superannuation as well. So she would get $750,000, a house, and $80,000. Yeah, and that super is the government 401k that they have there? I believe so, yeah. That's what it's called, yeah. That's their deal. Is that like your Social Security kind of a deal? Yeah, basically, yeah. But it's like the government-operated, so it's...
It's like a 401k that the government operates. It's bizarre. Isn't that Social Security kind of? Yeah, but it's better than. But not based on stocks. Right, right. Not based on the market. Well, when the market crashed. Yeah, that could go either way. So anyway. That's scary. That's a whole. Neither of us know shit about finances. So we're not the people to talk about this. It's a retirement for Australians. There you go. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's his greatest fear, though. And it's a it's a well-founded fear because she, like I said, is very flighty and the relationship is very on and off. And part of that is, is because she is fucking multiple other people at the same time.
Yeah, she's got a lot going on here. Number one is Peter Koenig here, K-O-E-N-I-G, Peter. He is a truck driver who is also plowing Sharon at this current time. They met before, well before she ever met Bruce.
Back when he was driving a truck and she was the girlfriend of his boss, of Peter's boss. So that's how she met Peter as she was going out with his boss and then said, I'm going to fuck your employee as well. So this truck driver guy. That guy's hot. Now, Peter ended up moving following Sharon when she moved here to the Gipy area. He's mobile as fuck. He doesn't care. He's got a truck to go on.
And his boss is pissed at him, so he doesn't want to stay there. He doesn't want to be around. So she's living with someone else and everything and moving with him to these places. And every one of these places, Peter just follows and moves there also. What is going on?
Everyone who knows him just said that he followed Sharon around. That was the quote everybody said. He moved with her to multiple locations in Queensland. And when they weren't living, because they would live together for a while, too. When she moves out of the house of Bruce's house, she's living with him. That's how it goes. On and off. She would stay with him for a week or maybe two weeks and then go home. And...
It's described as one person described it that knew them both said it was a tortured friendship that he had with her, which was sometimes friendly, sometimes really like incendiary. Sometimes they're fighting all the time. And then a lot of times sexual. He Peter says that she really enjoyed it when he would take naked pictures of her and photograph her performing sexual acts on him as well. She dug that.
That's nice that we know that. That's good that we know that. Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of the safest sponsors you could ever see. Simply Safe. SimplySafe.com. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E.com. Totally. And if you're anything like us, you think a lot about the security of yourself, your things, your family, the people you love. It's a big deal. And I'm not going to lie.
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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. Now, during one of these 2017 breakups with Bruce, Sharon started a relationship with another guy. Okay. Okay, this is Gary Roser, R-O-S-E-R. Some other guy. Guess what he does? He's a truck driver. He works for the same guy that she used to go out with.
So another employee. Just anybody in that motor pool just open for business here. CDLs really turn her on. I'm telling you. She's like, yeah, I want to see you work that extra clutch. Come on, do it. Can you operate a big rig? Because I am so. Double clutching makes me wet. So I guess when she returned after one of the breakups, that's when she was staying in a separate bedroom. And Gary Roser lived in a caravan park.
which is like a trailer park or like an RV type of joint. Yeah. Out of perfectly well-named Deception Bay. That's where it was. Oh, my God. Which is amazing. That should be the town of every case we do. So she's going out there to fuck him in Deception Bay. Fantastic. Completely. Gary Rosers described as, quote, aggressive, doesn't have a lot of money, and wasn't stable. So that's the guy you want to go out with. Desperate. Desperate.
A desperate character, is what I'd call him. Like an old West drifter, he's going to come in here. A frightening human being. An aggressive, poor, unstable truck driver. With nothing to lose. Excellent. Sounds good. Who's living in a fucking caravan park at this point. God damn it. So they start this relationship in mid-2017 during one of these breakups. And, wow. Bruce...
told his friends too he's not dumb Bruce he didn't think that she was going off to stay with her girlfriends and weep over him one of his friends said that he knew there was another man on the scene he knew it he didn't know there was two and also there's a third one that she's kind of seeing as well doesn't really know that but she knows there's somebody um Roser here Gary Roser was introduced to Bruce by Sharon but introduced him as Roger
OK, because Bruce has heard through the grapevine that Sharon was possibly cheating on him with a guy named Greg and his name is Greg. This is Roger. Another guy with the same letter. Yeah. Rosa, Roger. So she introduces him as Roger. So he does. You know, Bruce isn't hip to the fact that this is the guy who's banging his girlfriend. All right.
September of 2017. This is Peter Koenig and Gary Roser. They now, by the way, know each other and hang out together. She has grouped her boyfriends up into like a stable. She's got Greg and Peter hanging out together. Hanging out together, doing shit for her together. And like, yeah, they're like her, you know, lackeys at the same time together. I sure hope one of us gets to fuck her tonight. Like, what kind of goofballs are these two?
Jesus Christ. Their names are Greg and Peter, really? Greg and Peter, yes. Two of the Brady Bunch. Two of the Brady Bunch, yeah. There will be a Bobby on the scene, but we have Bruce. So one time, one night, this is about late September, Peter and Gary Roser were asked to meet Sharon. Was it Gary or Greg?
Or Greg. I'm sorry, Greg. Why did I say Gary? I have no idea. I don't know. Peter and Greg Roser were asked, I almost said it again because of my head, to meet Graham, Sharon, at a hotel room in Gympie. Meet me in Gympie. It's going to be hot.
Two of you in my hotel room. That's right. Two of you in some other places I got to. Let's go. But instead, apparently at this point, she talked to them. She wanted to meet them there. I don't know if it was for sex, but at some point she told them, I really want Bruce to be dead. Any way we could accomplish that. I want to kill him. He's got life insurance and I get all of it and a house. So.
You guys should help me do this, and that way you can just stay at my house and bang me and take pictures of it, and I'll have money to spend, and it'll be a great time. It's really going to be wonderful. That's their plan. And the plan has several incarnations, as we'll tell, as we'll be able to find out later on when we get all the details. But-
Yeah, it starts out where they were going to shoot him, and then they were like, no, no, that's too loud. Never mind. But they got a gun, and then never mind. And then, yeah, there were several attempts. Then on November 12, 2017, finally things kind of come together for them. That morning, Bruce, Greg, and Peter all arrive at this property in Gimborian. And this is not his property. This is the property of a friend of Sharon's.
This one lady, Sharon Byton, she owns it. Another Sharon. Another Sharon. And it's just property or is it a house? It's land with a house there, but they have a lot of land there. All of the properties here, by the way, have shitloads of land. It's sprawling. Because it's all like it used to be farms and ranches and shit. So it's a different deal in agriculture. So apparently this lady, Sharon Byton, her husband had just died. Right.
And so Graham, Sharon, this, the other Sharon had organized for the three guys she's having sex with to help her with yard work. So not only do they hang out together and do everything, they also do yard work. She can get them to do yard work together. Come on out and pull some weeds with me. Imagine doing yard work with two guys who are plowing your girlfriend.
All this together. Wow. What a weird thing. So that's how this goes. And they wanted to clear some trees on the property and clear some vegetation so it would have better curb appeal to increase its value because they're selling the property. Okay. So they had gone the last two weekends they'd been here doing this. They spent two. This man is butchering all week and then spending his weekends clearing brush with the dudes who are banging his girlfriend. Oh.
Managing the bush with guys that manage his girlfriend's bush. Everybody manages the one bush very well. So they had gotten a truck, chainsaws, tools. They rented all this shit. And an industrial-sized wood chipper because they're putting fucking trees in the goddamn thing. And Bruce pays for all this shit, by the way. Even though this is for her friend who's trying to increase her land value. He doesn't say, like, well, you got to rent us equipment if you want us to do that. He pays for it. Okay. Okay.
Free labor and tools. Wow. So sometime after 7 p.m., they work all day, and it gets to be about 7 p.m., it gets to start to get dark, and so they have all day of working their asses off. They turn off the wood chipper, because that's what they're done with it, and start to walk up the driveway toward the house. And Sharon Byton, the friend who owns the home, she's asleep inside.
It's 7 o'clock at night, which is weird. Anyway. Luxuries. Hopefully it's a nap. Yeah. Otherwise, she's going to bed super early. So Peter, I guess, is leading the group.
There's the three of them walking. And I guess it's, it seems to be Peter in the front here, Bruce in the middle and then Greg in the back. Okay. So I guess Peter or Bruce falls forward and Peter feels Bruce brush his arm like against his arm. And Peter later said, I looked around and he was laying on the ground. Yeah.
Oh, boy. Roser, meaning Greg, was standing over him with the steel bar. Oh, boy. With a pry bar? Oh, my God. The bar had been used earlier in the day to push debris further into the wood chipper. Yep. It's a big fucking long steel bar. He said he was holding the bar over his shoulder and he clubbed him on the head again and again. He kept beating him on the head with a steel bar. Oh, my God. He said, I said, what the fuck have you done? He said, I've killed him. He's dead.
Okay, so now they beat him to death with a steel bar. Yep. So then Peter said, quote, I found a stick. And then they drag Bruce back down to where they were working and turn on the wood chipper. Oh, my word. Yep. And they place him on the machine's feeder tray. Oh, Jesus. And Peter said, I found a stick.
I placed Bruce on the chipper and I used the stick to push his arm to the rollers to take him in. When his arm went in, the machine just started taking him in there. I hit the stop button on the side of the machine. He didn't hit the stop button until all that was left was legs sticking out.
Oh, Jesus. They chipped his whole torso. Everything. And left him like from the waist down is sticking out of the fuck. His legs are sticking out of the wood chip. Like a cartoon. Like a fucking cartoon. Like a Halloween joke. You'd put that in your yard. Like a decoration on your lawn. Yeah. Exactly. Like a ridiculous thing like that.
So that's insane. But it's real. But it's a human fucking being. It's, you know, horrifying. So after right after that, Greg called Sharon. Yeah. Not Sharon who owns the home. Sharon Graham, the guy. But yeah, Graham. And he told her, quote, Bruce had gone through the chipper. That's what he said.
And then walked up the driveway to find Sharon Bighton, the owner of the house. She's asleep but woken up when Peter and Greg come in to her front of the house there. And this is a far distance from the wood chipper, by the way. It's down there. And Peter said to her, quote, there's been an accident. This is actually clever but so dumb. But, yeah, when you hear some of the details, I didn't think it all through here.
And then Greg said to Sharon Bighton, I tried to save him. I tried to pull him out.
Oh, boy. And so, yeah, she said so she called triple zero, which is 911 there. So weird. And she said that they had, which is much easier to remember, zero, zero, zero, fucking 911. Why didn't we come up with that? One, one, one, two, two, two. Why are we switching numbers? What the fuck are we doing as a country? We could have picked any three numbers we wanted to and said, those are the ones.
And zero zero zero makes all the sense in the world. It's like calling the hotel front desk. You just dialed the zero. Yeah. I need an operator. I need help. I need whatever. That's zero is how you get to, you know, to speak to the fucking representative zero nine one one. God damn it. So she said, I said to the operator, this is Sharon Bighton. My friend's gone through the chipper or something like that.
Which is the most casual Australian phrase you could say. Something like that. My friend's gone through the chipper or something like that. Like, that sounds, you can totally hear it in that clipped Australian accent. Like, I can 100% hear it. Yeah.
He said that then Greg started telling Sharon Bighton, the homeowner here, that Bruce was, quote, being dangerous while he worked all the time. He kept going way too close to the chipper. And he called him an absolute idiot. He said he's being an absolute idiot out there.
He said he was standing on the chipper, leaning back into it. That's what he told me, Sharon said. Why would you do that? That's what I mean. He's the guy that dangles off the balcony and he's like, look at me. Wearing a dangly sleeve, dangling that over the... Wearing a necklace. Long ponytail, just fucking putting his head back in it. It will never touch my hair.
So that's at 8 p.m. Emergency services receive a call just before 8 p.m. Reports of a terrible accident. A man fell into a wood chipper on Tanana Road. That is a terrible accident. Yeah. It took emergency crews 30 minutes to get there. What?
Don't fall in a wood chipper. That's what I mean. Well, you know it's rural when I would assume that's not a slow ride. Holy shit, a guy fell in a wood chipper. This is a problem. They're going to probably rush there. When they get out of the car, it's a bloodbath. I mean, as you can imagine. Imagine wood chipping half a human being. Yeah, absolutely.
Bruce is just dripping down trees. This is so much. Yeah. They said that human remains and blood and chunks and viscera were scattered for 15 meters around the shoot of the wood chipper. 45 feet. 45 feet of just scattered. 50 foot blast zone. Of Bruce. 50 foot Bruce zone all around. Yeah.
And the legs, there's a pair of legs protruding from sticking out of the wood chipper in the back there. They also found a pool of blood approximately two and a half meters from the machine. A pool of blood.
Okay. Which is suspicious, and they don't like that at all. When they first get there, they find Peter and Greg, and they're very distressed. And they said, oh, no, our good buddy Bruce here accidentally fell into the wood chipper. He's been so careless and casual around it all day. All day, yeah. They said, all day we've been talking about it and saying, Bruce, you've got to stop fucking around, and it just makes him do it more. Says in the manual not to do that. Yep. So they find a pool of blood on the feeder tray of the wood chipper. Yeah.
Yeah. Also, which is like, hmm, if he was alive and then fell in, the blood shot that way and there wouldn't be a pool of blood beforehand. Yeah, they find that. They're like, that's interesting. Also, another thing that's even more interesting, drag marks in the dirt.
From halfway up the driveway down to the wood chipper. What the fuck? Yeah, they're like, oh, that's a tree with no leaves or anything. Yeah, you know how it is. It's one of those blood trees. One of those blood trees. Oh, shit, it lost a shoe? Uh-oh, well, that's a problem.
So, yeah, this is a fucking mess, obviously. I mean, this is horrifying. Scientists proved that the blood pool was from Bruce, by the way, and it was not consistent, a pool of blood there with someone being suddenly dragged through a fucking wood chipper. They said, they asked the two guys, Peter and Greg, they said, why would there be blood here? And they tried to...
come up with something but they after a while one of them said a tree branch fell on bruce while he was working and he was bleeding all day all over that's a lot of blood pouring blood every time he'd go put some more wood in the chipper just it would pour out of his head and pull up there you know how it is i don't know maybe he had hemorrhoids we wouldn't ask him situation he had heteroids we have no idea he's pouring out of his head just dripping
So here's some text messages that from Sharon to a friend of hers. She's Sharon Graham, not Sharon, the homeowner. Sharon Graham sent to a friend shortly after he died saying he was D.V.O. I don't know what that means. That's an Australian word for gone, I guess. Yeah. And he's and so sick.
And then he said that she said that or she was Devo and so sick over the killing. Oh, devastated. Devastated. Yeah. Which is not spelled like that. She that's maybe why we didn't know. Then he she said he was texting me when his phone must have dropped into the wood mulcher and he must have went to grab it. And he went from that.
So important to text me back. Text me. Not the phone, shit. I dropped my phone in there. Let me reach in the wood chipper and get it back without turning it off, of course. Of course. Which would be super easy to do with this big button on the side that just says red. It's a rental chipper, so it's probably got a big red stop button on the fucking side. She then went on to say, oh, I'm sorry. The friend texted back, don't know what to think or say. Poor everyone involved. You know, poor everybody. This is horrible. Shocking.
And then Sharon said, police have said it's a tragic accident. Okay. Yeah. You just said that too. Yeah. I mean, do you need the cops to tell you that? Then she said also that Greg tried to stop the machine, but it was too late. He was already all chipped up. And meanwhile, Peter was the one that stopped it. Now, during the funeral, she sits front row.
They're just going to bury the legs? Wow. They cremate him. They cremate his legs. Otherwise, you'd have the coffin, but you'd have the bottom half closed and nothing on top. And they'd be like, he's not in here. They're like, open the bottom. Oh, never mind. There he is. I promise he's in there. That would be amazing. The top half is closed, and all you see is his shoes at the bottom. Which, you know, I get he's the victim here. We're not trying to bash. Just dropping flowers at his feet. That's just kind of funny.
That's like a cartoon funeral. That's terrible. That's a fucked up funeral. That's fucked up. That's why they cremated him probably. So she sat right in the front row next to his son and cried. And his son was comforting her. Bruce's son, Blake, was comforting her. That is fucking amazing. Then she, this is the ballsiest thing of all. She turns to Blake afterwards and goes, do you think I could have half of his ashes?
Can I have a leg? Hey, let me get a... What the... Can I have... You're his girlfriend for less than a year. No, you can't have anything. And you're plowing those guys. No, you can't have them. And also... I'll buy you a wood chipper. That's it. And that's not even the fucking weirdest part. Then, because Christmas is right after that, I guess after his service was 10 days before Christmas, and there was a family gathering, and at that family gathering, this is Sharon Graham's family,
He she was was giving out his clothes, Bruce's clothes to people and encouraging them to wear the T-shirts right now. Put his clothes on. Put it on. Wear it now. See how it fits. Wear a dead man's clothes. What? Did she wrap them? No, just said handing them out to people here. Throw the shirt on. You're a fan of that team now. There you go.
Put on this Rabideau shirt. Right? So Sharon's, here, put on this Ben Cousins jersey. I don't know. Sharon's daughter's boyfriend, the one who she approached and said, will you knock my daughter up for me so I can have a kid? This poor bastard.
He's also Hans Hurlmeyer. His name is. Yeah. And he said, I thought that was really odd. Her trying to force people to wear. Well done. Yeah. That is so fucking weird. That and according to that and also trying to get you to get her pregnant. Yeah. Then we have more texts from friends here. This is 10 days after the funeral. Sharon messages the same friend that she discussed, you know, told her about the crime and said she was all Devo and everything. Yeah.
This is just to talk about what are we doing New Year's Eve? What's everybody doing New Year's Eve? She's not in mourning anymore. Everything's fine. Sharon said, we're going to Yedina Hotel. The band is the Whiskey Mountain Boys. Oh, great. Thank fuck for that. Terrific. They got Whiskey Mountains there? Whiskey Mountain Boys. They don't have either of those things, probably. And then she said, what do you think, woo-hoo?
I think this is weird. Are you wearing your dead boyfriend's clothes there? Because this is strange. This is very weird. Now, one of her other friends said that Sharon called...
right after that Bruce had been killed and described her as being hysterical and crying and saying she's and said she said that one of the guys had fallen into the wood chipper and oh my god blah blah blah this is terrible then about a week or two later she wanted the same friend to add to write a letter to her lawyer quote because of insurance I need you to write a letter for me
What's the letter? And she said, well, you have to say that me and Bruce were in a committed relationship at the time of his death. So I can get, so it doesn't look. Yeah. And this lady said she wouldn't do it because quote, it wasn't true.
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That's dove.com slash crown. So after all of these suspicious things and the blood not being in the right place, the cops do a search of Greg Roser's property here, which is his RV or his trailer or whatever the fuck's going on. And they find two different notes, both in Greg's handwriting.
First note says 3.30 to 4 a.m. Has to be there before he wakes. Alarm goes off around 4.30 a.m. Bedroom is directly through the roller door straight down the hallway, bottom of the hallway. Nightlight in the kitchen. Dates to be done July 14th through the 23rd in Adelaide.
Why are you writing that, doggy? That's interesting. Now, she wrote that, by the way. He wrote that down. And Sharon had plane tickets to be in Adelaide from July 14th to July 23rd.
So she's saying, do this while I'm in Adelaide. While I'm out of town. Yeah. And that's what he's saying. Do these dates. She's in Adelaide. Then there's a second note detailing Bruce's work schedule, a description of his car, his plate number, where he worked, and the times that he usually comes and goes. You know, you would give a mob hitman to take somebody out. All written down. All the information of where he's going to be. At all times. Wow. In Greg's own handwriting. Mm-hmm.
Now, then we come up with Sharon's ex-boyfriend. This is Barry Collins. That's the guy who owned the trucking company who employed Peter and Greg. Barry. Barry. Almost Bobby. Almost Bobby Collins. That's close. It's so close, isn't it?
So three months before the demented Brady Bunch we have here. This is fucking insane. These boys are diabolical. Yeah, the diabolical demented Brady Bunch. They threw pops through the wood chipper. Oh, my God. So about three months before Bruce was killed, Sharon was out on a fishing boat in Tin Can Bay with Barry Collins, her ex-boyfriend. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's, I mean, she, she'll go hang out with anybody. This is while she was supposed to be with one of those three other guys. Who knows? So she, at that point said it'd be super easy to take someone fishing and have that person not come back. Yeah. Yeah. It's worked for the Sopranos. Yeah. She might've just saw that. That's what she's like. I just was doing a rewatch of the Sopranos and the whole big pussy situation gives me an idea.
This guy went on to say Barry Collins said she saw the bay in the expanse of it and said you could take somebody out fishing and they may not come back. They could just fall off a boat and not be found.
And they said, what did you say to her? And he said, I said, don't be fucking stupid. I don't want people coming after me. Don't take my boat and kill anyone on it, please. I like my boat. Leave it alone. Yeah. But this same guy who said that also said this. He also said in an affidavit that he does not believe that she could have done it.
Really? Yeah. He tells the affidavit and tells the police about a gun that he was given by a friend after a break-in at a property where they lived. They lived in a secluded property, this couple, before they moved to Queensland. And he said that they were driving out of the property for the last time when he remembered putting the gun under a big rock.
And leaving it there. Not taking it with him. Real responsible gun owner. Super responsible. This is why you're not allowed to have guns in Australia, you son of a bitch. Because next thing you know, a kangaroo is going to be shooting everyone in a McDonald's and it's a fucking disaster. Just leave a loaded weapon. Jesus Christ, man. Well, he said he was going to throw it in a river. That was his plan at some point.
To throw it in a river. Okay. Not to dismantle it. Does it not have a fucking serial number on a cell? Jesus Christ, man. No, throw it in the river. I don't want to put it somewhere. When Peter Koenig, who's his employee and Sharon's boyfriend, asked if he could have it because he heard about it. He goes, well, don't throw it away. I'd like to have it.
So, yeah, Colin said that he found her to be honest. By the way, they were together for almost 10 years before she started fucking all of his employees and anyone she found online. Very honest. Yeah, and he called her honest, a timid person. Two things she's not is honest or timid. That's one thing I'll say. Who was afraid of violence.
And yeah, also said that if a crime had been committed in relation to Bruce's death, it was definitely not Sharon's doing at all. He said there was no way Sharon could have put this together as she is a sheep.
So he also called her a dummy on top of it, a follower. A big follower. By the way, Bruce has been arrested twice for drug trafficking, once in 2009, and then again he'll get arrested here coming up pretty soon for trafficking, which he owns a trucking company. Not Bruce. I'm sorry. Barry. Barry. Yeah. Jesus Christ. I was like, Jesus, he's stuffing it in the fucking sides of B? Everyone's got a B name. They're all named Sharon. This is confusing. Yeah.
Right. Barry, the ex-boyfriend. So they also he said one more thing, though. I don't think she did it. She's a sheep. But she is also pretty prescient because about two weeks before the murder, before I heard about the murder on the news, she said, I have a premonition that there's going to be a terrible accident and that someone's going to get hurt.
She's a dummy. That's true. She said this exact quote. They're going to be clearing a block, clearing some land, and there's going to be an accident and someone will get hurt. Wow. She should start a fucking psychic line. Super weird. Psychic line. Her daughter, by the way, Rebecca, said that her mom was hysterical on the phone when Bruce died. She was incomprehensible and not making much sense, talking about an accident. But then the next morning at the house that...
Sharon's back at the house. Yeah, she's at Bruce's house. She brought his will out, and they had some coffee and talked about his will very calmly. No longer hysterical, very calm. She says that Sharon had moved out of the main bedroom before Bruce was killed, but then that night that he was killed, she slept in the bed with Greg Roser. Oh, boy. Yeah, pussies for closers, and if you kill the guy...
Yeah. She grieves real fast. She gets over things. She should start a psychic place and also a therapy joint because, man, is she good at grieving. She could teach us all a thing or two. All of us, really. We all have something inside we'd like to get off our chest and get out. And by the way, both guys, Peter and Greg, were saying to the daughter all day about how reckless he was around that wood chipper all day.
So the police then set up surveillance. They tap everybody's phone and they put listening devices and fucking cameras in various parts of the home. Wow. Because she doesn't own the fucking home. Right. So they can just do that. They can just do it. They don't even need a warrant for this shit. Maybe they do. I don't know the Australian laws. But I don't know if they got...
Plenty of reason. They're very suspicious, all three of these. The recordings vary from loud conversations where Sharon expresses that she had asked Bruce to lower his life insurance policy. I asked him to lower it. I didn't want all this money to then they would huddle up and whisper.
In the kitchen. They knew. Yeah, it's fucking weird. Here are some of the tapes here. Sharon said, oh, babe, I hope you haven't gone against him. This is her talking to Greg about Peter.
And Greg said, I have not. I fucking stuck up for him the whole fucking week, meaning talking to the cops. So she said now, oh, my God, that's why we didn't want your story and his story not telling the same. You guys have to be on the same page here. So Greg told that that told police that Bruce's death was an accident. He tried to save him and he's been reckless all day. And Greg told Sharon, I told him that story. I didn't panic.
I didn't panic. She said he then said, I felt like I was being incriminated. It's guilty until proven innocent. That's how I felt. I haven't done anything wrong. This is, by the way, when they were on the phone, they go, do you think the phones are tapped? And one of them said, do I look like a mind reader to you? How the fuck do I know? Literally, that's what they said. Yeah, we know she is. She's very prescient. So he then said, this is amazing. How dare they insinuate that I killed the guy? That's terrible. It made me feel really bad.
Oh, I'm sorry. He said, the longer I was kept there, I knew the truth prevailed. I was getting stronger because I told the truth. But it's terrible how they treat you. And then Sharon told him that obviously it's terrible that you have got to go through all this and you wouldn't wish it on anybody, she said to him. What a shame.
And he said, that's why that's what the police do. And it's really wrong. The law is wrong. It's not fair that they do that because it's an accident. It's bad enough that we have lost a mate. What a victim. I lost my friend here. So then Sharon tells him that the police don't have any evidence. She says, you were left holding the bag because you were working with the person. But that does not mean to say anything happened other than that it was an accident.
I don't know you well, but in the time I've known you, you are not a bloke to harm people or shit on people. They don't have any evidence. They're just assuming. Okay.
Then out of nowhere, she says, I think we are going back to off and back back off on the text messages as in loving and warm shit. Just back it off a bit. In other words, it looks bad when you don't tell him that you love me because that looks horrible. And then but then he tells her, I love you for who you are. You have a beautiful heart. I just want you in my life. That's it.
Then there's another recording where she Sharon says to Greg, I'm not accusing you. I'm reading out loud what's been said to me by Peter. And then she said, that means they've told Peter you've said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Peter's gone and Peter's gone. And that ain't fucking true. So something's going to happen.
And they're saying that the cops are trying to turn you and Peter against each other. Chill the fuck out. Then she says to him, Sharon to Greg, you have actually incriminated yourself to be put on charges, which is totally not right. So what's happening now? You need to tell a lawyer I fucked up with my statements because the day of it happening, I have a total block. Something has blocked my head. I wonder why. I wonder. It's a wonder I was even able to give a statement. Just to dummy up is what she told him. Yeah. Forget it.
Yeah. So he said there was inconsistencies about where he said he was when he first saw Bruce and the chipper. That's the thing. Inconsistencies from when the cops first got there to when he was interviewed.
So then Sharon reminds him that police could not find footprints where he claimed he stood and in your in his bid to save him from the chipper. And she then says, that's definitely caught you like that's a thing. And Greg replies, I fucked up there. I fucked up there. Then he said, I'm about 90 percent. I am about 90 percent. I did not put one foot on the tailgate at all. I tried to pull him out while I was standing on the ground.
Then Sharon whispers, if you put your foot up, you are bracing yourself to pull stronger. That's why you would have put your foot there. And then she said, in shock, you would say a lot of things that were not right.
Yeah. And then he blames the cops. He said, well, because, you know, what they do is they interrupt you all the time. And if it fucks you all up, that's what it is. Yeah, that's the idea. He said, I had in my mind something. And then the police started talking and that's what he kept doing to me. Yes, he's a homicide detective. That's their job. He investigated and it's not fair. It's super weird. Like I would lie and then he'd go, that's not true. And then I'd have to figure another lie out. It was really complicated. It's too much.
Then they started looking up the side effects for his pain medication. Greg tells Sharon that one causes dizziness and lightheadedness, one of his medications. And he said, you can't judge things. You can't judge distances. It throws you out. Then Sharon tells Greg to approach his doctor and say the medication's serious side effects had led to confusing police statements. Okay. Then she discovers that they're reading the medication's withdrawal symptoms, not their...
It's only if you don't take it. Now they're pharmacists. So she says, okay, what's the next drug you want to look up? And he says, okay, here we go. This one. I've got one that I've got one that it says disorientation is one of the things. So she asks, and this is how dumb she is. What's disorientation mean? You're disoriented, babe. You're a fucking dummy. It means exactly what's going on in your brain right now. Right now, you know, that feeling you're feeling that. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah.
He says it means you can't make decisions. You get really confused about things. You don't know where you are and you can't judge things. And she says the doctor has to put all of that in writing for you. Then she tells him another time that I don't want to be in my house anymore. I can't stay here. Meaning Bruce's house. Right. You have no idea what happened this week. I can't talk to you on the phone. Scary shit.
And then she talks to him about it on the phone. I got it, though. She said, I've got people putting paperwork in my letterbox like the Ten Commandments.
And Greg says the Ten Commandments. And she says, yeah, thou shalt not kill. I'll show it to you. Somebody put a note in her mailbox that said thou shalt not kill. Well, maybe she's got maybe she's got Jehovah's around. It's a guilty conscience or something. Yeah. And he says, what the fuck? And then there's another one where they talk about the possibility that the police are on to them. Greg asks, are the aren't the phones going to be tapped? And she says, I don't know. I'm not a mind reader.
Then they also recorded Graham, Rosa and Koenig having secret meetings inside a parked car inside the Sanders garage. Hilarious. So they thought the house was bugged, too. So they went and sat in a car like they're in the mafia. That's what that is. Turn the radio up real loud. Jesus. So the listening device from inside the house picked up Sharon directing the two of them to meet her in the car. She said, you'll have to come meet. You'll have to come to the car because they'll know something.
Oh, oh. And Roser had also talked to his neighbor, Joan Balfour, at the caravan park and he told her trash about this. He said that this is before this all the murder happened. He told her that he'd gotten a small handgun from his girlfriend's friend, meaning Peter. Yeah.
And this woman, Joan Balfour, said she'd never met the girlfriend or knew her name, but had seen a blonde woman, Sharon's blonde, visiting Roser. She said that Roser revealed the gun was in the boot of his car, the trunk, for you non-Australian or English, when they met for lunch the next day. Roser told her that his girlfriend had provided an address and times to lay in wait and shoot her partner. Holy...
This woman said, I just said, don't do it. It's stupid. And before we finished the conversation, he agreed with me and he wasn't going to do it. And OK, all that that property owner's granddaughter, Kira Lee Baton. Also, she says that she was involved in a conversation at the home where.
I guess this woman said that she recalls Sharon laughing while she was texting with Bruce while he was still alive, saying that he's trying to win her back and calling him pathetic. And also saying, but then she'd go, he's pathetic, but he's more stable than Greg. Because remember, Greg's a whack job. But then the woman said that Sharon said that she didn't want to be with him, but he had money, meaning Bruce.
And she also, Sharon, said to this lady, it's not my fault that Bruce loves me and wants to give me everything. And because he's older, I thought she was a couple years older. Apparently he's the two years older. He would probably die first and she'd get everything. Good God. Okay. So that's very interesting. 2018, the trio is arrested, all three of them, after all the recordings and everything like that. Their lawyers say they should get bail.
Really? They say this is a largely circumstantial case. They should all get bail. There's very little evidence in submission that makes any case against anybody here, really. So, you know, their conduct, prosecutor says their conduct reveals a preparedness to collaborate and concoct evidence to assist them in escaping detection of the authorities. Nice.
Yeah, they've been doing that. The stories given to authorities are a falsehood and the inference that could be drawn is that they were all complicit. Why would they all lie unless they were all in on it?
prosecution wants separate trials for all of them. Really? Yes. Said that this, that would be, they said that the give them to, that would be where it is just so much evidence that you need to put out in front of your minds, especially when some of the evidence is prejudicial, that to ask you to give the case a separate consideration would be asking you to perform impossible mental gymnastics. If they were all tried to keep them all together, then, and it's also too easy for you for each one to blame the other.
That's it. That's all it is. So four years go by.
Finally, Peter flips. Really? Peter says, fuck it. Yep. He says that, yep, he tells him everything that happened. He said that originally he had said that the droplets of blood came from a wound he suffered from a tree branch. The cop said the blood doesn't magically appear there and all that kind of thing. So he ends up spilling the whole thing, all the quotes of I was walking, I hit the stop button. Those were all Peter's quotes. He also talks about that gun.
It's a loud gun. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. There was another person that she wanted to kill, possibly, that they were talking about. Yes. A possible boyfriend that was also in the mix. He said that she was. Peter said, I just agreed with it to keep her happy.
Yep. That was another boyfriend from before. And Peter said, I said I would do it, but then I never did. He said, I didn't never do it. He's still alive today. That's good news. So Greg's trial comes up and he seems the most fucked out of everybody because Peter's testifying. He did this. He said, I've killed him. You know, all of those quotes and all of that shit. Greg testifies on his own behalf.
And he basically says, they ask him, did they say why Bruce Sanders needed to be killed? And Greg said, he was annoying Sharon, plus he had heaps of money. I told them I wasn't going to be in on it. They said, what does she want you to do? They wanted me to shoot Bruce. What did you say? I'm not going to do it is what I said. So they found all of that. They talk about the notes and they said, look, the notes tie you to Sharon and tie you to Bruce. You're fucked.
You're fucked, my friend. He said she said that Greg said that Sharon would ask him to murder Bruce. He'd say no. She'd stop talking to him. And a week later, she'd be all nice again. Fuck him. And then say, so you want to kill Bruce? And then we'd start the cycle over. Yeah.
It's crazy. So the verdict comes in guilty. Yeah. And sentencing you, sir, may fuck off life in prison for Greg. Yeah, that's not good. Sharon's trial.
You bet. Yeah.
And the defense is those guys are liars. That's not true. That's it. Guys are super big liars. But also, her friend, the property owner...
Talks. She testifies against her. Her granddaughter testifies against her. Everybody does. They show horrible pictures of fucking scattered human remains with legs sticking out. Uh, they put the notes in there and in the notes they say it was all in his handwriting, but how would he know any of that? Unless Sharon told us she doesn't know fucking Bruce. So it shows that they had worked together and, her ex testifies against her. Um,
Verdict comes in here. Here we go. She is found guilty as well. Yeah. Yep. And sentencing Blake, the son said, you, Sharon Graham, are an evil person. Yeah. You sat next to me and let me rub your leg. Yeah. Well, that's what he says. He says, my dad was a forgiving man. I'm also forgiving, but I'll never forgive you. He said at the funeral, I offered my arm to you in an act of support. Little did I know you planned orchestrated and covered up my father's murder.
Wow. Then you requested my dad's ashes be split in half so you could keep half of them. You are a despicable human being. I lost my mom to breast cancer. You took the last most important part of my life from me. If there's one thing that brings me comfort, it's that my dad's now with my mom. Attaboy, Blake. Wow. Yeah, that's a good one. The judge says, quote, here we go. This is a good you, sir, here. You, ma'am. No words. There are no words for the likes of you. Yeah.
That's a bad way to start from a judge. So scummy. Even if there were, I do not wish to detract in any way from the statements which have eloquently described the real horror of what you did and the profound impact it has had and will continue to have. You decided to murder Bruce Sanders and devise a plan with Roser to enter into your home where you were living in the wee hours of the morning and shoot him in his bedroom. That plan was to be carried out when you were interstate, meaning in Adelaide. Right, yep.
You thought better of that plan, and you and Roser, no doubt dominated by you, cooked up another plan to shoot him in the car park behind his place of work. When that opportunity arose to carry out the murder in a different way, at a remote place, you pursued that with gusto, and you pressured Roser, and to some extent, Koenig, to do so. By my observation, you have displayed all the hallmarks of a deep-seated psychopath."
And if at any point the authorities seriously consider your release, I ask that they keep that observation and rely upon it. You, ma'am, may fuck off. Life in prison for you. That's it. As she's being let out of court, someone from the gallery yelled, you filthy animal, which is great. Fucking homo-owned her right there. Awesome. Keep the change. You can keep the change.
So there you go. Her property owner friend there, by the way, called said, quote, she is a pure evil woman. It's as simple as that to take someone's life like that and plan it and execute it. Peter, by the way, ends up getting you, sir, may not fuck off suspended sentence. You're fine. Go home. Nothing. He got nothing. He got let out on bail as soon as he said that he would testify. And they gave him who gots.
No prison time. Thanks for testifying. Enjoy that crazy pussy you got for a little bit. Wow. Enjoy your life. Wow. There you go. There's Gumamara Babuna or whatever the fuck it's called. Enjoy, everybody. That's fucking hilarious. Wow. It's insane. He absolutely participated. Oh, fuck yeah. He helped stuff him in there. Holy shit. So there you go. I hope you like that. We did.
You might be drinking beer next to Peter, God damn it. Be careful. Anytime. If you go to Australia, watch out. If you see a truck whizzing by, make sure to get back from the road. See you at the Broncos game there, Peter. That's it. See you at the game, buddy.
So there you go. If you like that show, please get on whatever app you're on and give us five stars and say something nice. It really helps out a lot. Shut up and give me murder.com is the site. Tickets for live shows there. September 20th, Minneapolis State Theater. Get your tickets there. Shut up and give me murder.com. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. All the bonus stuff you could possibly want for $5 a month. Well, it's tons of it.
there this week we have for crime and sports two most penalized games of hockey in history we're gonna watch a bunch of fights and go holy shit that guy's already toothless why is he doing this then for small-time murder internet salad you can hear us just talk about current events and kind of talk off the cuff
like we do when you're not around. So that'll be a lot of fun. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Social media, we are at Small Town Murder on Instagram, at Murder Small on Twitter, at Small Town Pod on Facebook. Follow us, keep hanging out with us, and keep coming back. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye.
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.