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The following episode contains disturbing descriptions of child abuse and sexual violence and may not be suitable for everyone. It also contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. There are monsters who walk among us. People who prey on the young and the vulnerable. And they've always been out there and in all walks of life. John Wayne Gacy hired himself out as a clown for parties.
It was later discovered that he raped, tortured and murdered at least 33 boys and young men. 26 bodies were discovered in the crawlspace under his home near Chicago. Lavrentiy Beria was a high-ranking politician in the Soviet Union. His thing was raping female prisoners. If they resisted, they were executed. His victims numbered in the hundreds before he was executed for treason in 1953.
Robert Anderson was the sports physician at the University of Michigan. He was accused of raping over a thousand men and women during routine medical exams. And the case of Karl Pasram is particularly horrific. Between 1907 and 1928, he may have had violent and murderous encounters with more than a thousand boys and men throughout the U.S., Mexico, and what is now Angola. We're talking murder, rape, and sodomy.
There were plenty of celebrities who are convicted sexual offenders. Director Roman Polanski can't come back to the US because he'll be arrested on rape charges over an encounter with a 13-year-old girl back in the 1970s. Jared Fogle, the subway guy, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail after being convicted of child porn and sex acts with minors. R. Kelly is in jail for 30 years on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and child sexual abuse.
Woody Allen, Mike Tyson, Bill Cosby, Tupac, Michael Jackson. They've all been at least implicated and in some cases charged and convicted. And then there's Jimmy Savile, the British DJ and media personality, who under the veneer of being philanthropic may have been one of the most prolific predatory sex offenders in British history. There's more too. This is episode 15 of Uncharted Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. I have three tales of evil predators from the world of rock.
And boy, do I have some stories for you. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross, and there is just no getting around it. This episode of Uncharted is going to feature three absolutely horrific stories about rock stars behaving exceptionally badly when it comes to sexual abuse. There's a subset of famous people who believe that because of who they are and what they've achieved, that they're immune from the rules of law.
They live in a bubble and think that they can get away with whatever they want. Some even go their whole lives without being caught. But when the truth comes out, and it always does, we learn of some evil stuff. How can people be this vile? We begin with the case of Kim Fowley, the American record producer, songwriter, musician, and sometime manager. He's also described as a sleazy, repulsive scumdog.
Fowley was born in Los Angeles. Both parents were actors and not the most effective or loving parents. He spent years in foster care, at one point living with 27 other kids in a one-bedroom house. Fowley came down with polio in 1946 and again in 1957. By the time he was full grown, he was 6'5", very thin, and had to walk with a cane. It's possible, too, that he had an IQ of more than 160.
Back with his mother, he indirectly learned about music from his stepfather, who gave lessons to pro musicians in the house. He then started hanging out at studios and with songwriters and artists and producers, sometimes working as an unpaid assistant. That included doing odd jobs for Alan Freed, the legendary DJ.
After managing a band that included Phil Spector, he ended up in the armed forces and, according to him, in the sex industry as a teenage prostitute, although he later claimed to be a male virgin with, quote, defective plumbing. He revealed that when he wrote an autobiography called Lord of Garbage. But there are stories that a psychiatrist hired him to provide certain sexual services to middle-aged women with physical disabilities.
He also had side hustles and petty theft, selling weapons and writing college term papers. At some point, he found a room above a gas station in Los Angeles next to a recording studio and moved in. A songwriter named Dallas Fraser gave Fowley a song about a comic strip caveman in exchange for being able to use the bathroom at the gas station. Fowley paid a group of musicians $92 to record it.
It was a novelty song, sure, but it also became a hit, reaching number one in 1960 for a group he called the Hollywood Argyles. There's a man in the funny papers we all know. He lives way back a long time ago.
That opened the door for Fowley. More novelty records followed. He soon found himself recording with Frank Zappa, co-writing with the Byrds, and producing records for various garage rockers. He spent time in the UK watching the British Invasion bands take shape. He became friends with John Lennon and wrote songs for Alice Cooper, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Kiss, and Van Halen.
Fowley also made his own records. Here's something from 1974 entitled Werewolf Dynamite. Oh, wow. Rocking down the church road, our sandals on the gas. Rolling down the highway, our life is zooming past. Storming down the side street, moving much too fast. Dynamite, flashing light, how long will we last? Ripping up the country, our motor is...
Work kept coming Fowley's way. He was part Phil Spector, part Colonel Tom Parker, part Malcolm McLaren. But he never really struck it big with any of his acts or songs. The misses far, far outweighed the hits. He had something of a reputation of where everything he touched turned to crap. But he also must have made some good money. For example, he had a co-write on two songs on Kiss's Destroyer album, a record that sold several million copies.
But Fowley was also known as a foul-mouthed, off-putting vulgarian. Even in the L.A. music business of the 1970s, he stood out as a dirty old man, someone to stay away from. He referred to himself as a manager, producer, songwriter, and, his own words, pimp.
And here's a quote about Fowley himself. I'm everybody's worst nightmare and someone's wet dream. I'm a horrible human being with a heart of gold. I'm a bad guy who does nice things as opposed to a nice guy who does bad things. Well, like what? He did have an ability to find damaged, vulnerable, underage young women that he could exploit in a variety of ways.
In the 1970s, there were plenty of women like that in Hollywood, and Fowley made it clear that he liked them young. I have another quote from Fowley: "If you are 18 and like it, or if you are under 18 and legally emancipated with paperwork, then you may have just stumbled upon the opportunity of a lifetime." His abusive behavior was well known. He assaulted a woman in a club. He had sex with women in front of other people.
He was known as a gross shark who, in his own words, could smell blood in the water. He looked creepy in his pink and peach suits and makeup. He was especially mean to teenagers and was known in fetish circles. This was a guy who lived in an apartment he called "The Dog Palace" and it wasn't because he was into pets. At the same time though, he did have some kind of weird charisma which is how he got away with this behavior for so long.
Sometime in 1974, after being introduced to the New York Dolls and failing to put together a similar glam band for the West Coast, he came up with an idea. What if he could put together an all-female hard rock band? There were several in existence, but none to his taste. Done right, he reasoned. Such a group could be a major novelty.
Then, in early 1975, Fowley was at a party for Alice Cooper, and he met Cary Crome, an aspiring lyricist from a poor, broken family who was probably already an alcoholic by the time she was 13. He hired her on salary on the occasion of her 14th birthday and told her to start looking for young women to form a rock band. First to join up, Joan Jett, 18 years old.
Then came Sandy West, age 16, whom Fowley met in the parking lot of the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset Boulevard. Mickey Steele, at least at first, age 20. Jackie Fox, Steele's replacement, age 16. Rounding things out were guitarist Lita Ford, age 17, and lead vocalist Cherry Curry, who was also 16.
Things moved fast. The group rehearsed some songs, made a live debut in September, and signed a record deal in December 1975. That debut album, entitled Queens of Noise, came out in March 1976. In the liner notes of the album, Fowley made sure that each member's age was listed.
The ad campaigns were terrible. One had a tagline, Try a Virgin. And there were headlines like, Teenage, Wild, and Brawless. And another, The Sex Kittens of Rock. I'm just a waiting fuck daddy. Mom, I'm your t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t
The Runaways endured a tremendous amount of sexist abuse during their three-album run. The manipulation by Folly was intense. There was no other adult supervision. They finally split with Folly in 1977, and after lineup changes and some internal issues over musical direction, The Runaways broke up for good in April 1979. Joan Jett would later have a successful solo and acting career. She's now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Lita Ford has also had an excellent career in music.
Sandy West became a drum teacher and died of lung cancer in 2006. Mickey Steele joined the Bengals. Cherry Curry continued with music, but is also known as a master chainsaw carver, and her work has been displayed in galleries. Jackie Fox became an entertainment lawyer who appeared on Jeopardy, winning four games. But now we must get dark again.
Kim Fowley died of bladder cancer on January 15, 2015. And once he was gone, the story started coming out. They'd already begun, actually. In 2001, Mickey Steele gave an interview that said she left the Runaways after just a few months because Fowley was always strongly hitting on her. But it was when Jackie Fox spoke up six months after Fowley died that things really started to explode.
Now that her rapist was dead, she finally felt safe to speak up. Now back to using her real name, Jackie Fuchs. She claimed that Fowley raped her in 1975 during a New Year's Eve party. The Runaways had played a gig earlier that evening at a tiny club called Wildman Sam's. Fowley took them all, with the exception of Leta Ford, back to a dumpy motel to celebrate. Once there, Fox was instructed to take a Quaalude, and then another, and then another, maybe as many as six.
She became extremely drowsy and then foully threw himself upon her. She froze and then passed out. One witness say a hairbrush was involved. Others remember her foully pretending to be some kind of wild dog. All this happened less than two weeks after her 16th birthday. None of the witnesses intervened. Everybody was too frightened, too intimidated, too stoned, too drunk. And it wasn't the first time either.
Fuchs claimed that Fowley had begun sexually assaulting her when she was 14. She was a straight-A student and surfer girl when they first met. Afterwards, she became lost. Fuchs tried to shrug off that night and stayed with the runaways through their entire time with Fowley. She finally had enough when she had an emotional breakdown during a 1977 tour of Japan, during which she carved up an arm with a broken Coke bottle.
But there was more. Carrie Crome, now using her real name, Carrie Mitchell, also had something to say. First, she supported Jackie's story. And then she started telling what happened to her. She claims that when she was 13, she was a regular at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, a club on the Sunset Strip. Bingenheimer was known as the mayor of Sunset. He noticed her and invited Mitchell to stay at his apartment with other multiple young girls.
This escalated into situations where Bingenheimer, age 28, allegedly sexually assaulted Mitchell, age 13. And this happened many times over several months. Bingenheimer then introduced her to Kim Fowley. When she was staying with him, it's alleged that Fowley began sexually assaulting her with him calling the episodes dog worship. She was 14 or 15. He was 36. This, she says, happened at least a dozen times.
As with Jackie Fuchs, Carrie Crome was lost. She either gave in or was sent back to her family or turned loose. Too much stress. In 2023, she filed a lawsuit against Fowley's estate under California's Child Victims Act. In the document, she says she turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the trauma and has suffered tremendous physical and emotional stress. Carrie and Jackie Fuchs reconnected along with a few other people who knew Fowley.
He died without any remorse. In a biography of the band, Fowley said, "They can talk about it until the cows come home, but in my mind, I didn't make love to anybody in the Runaways, nor did they make love to me." That's Kim Fowley. Up next, it's the evil of Gary Glitter. In the early 1970s, Gary Glitter was a major pop star.
Glam rock was a big thing in the UK, and the man formerly known as Paul Gad was right in the middle of it all. He had a seriously good run that extended through the 70s and 80s, selling somewhere around 20 million records. And for the longest time, this B-side was a staple in sports venues around the planet. That song, Rock and Roll Part II, was later sampled by the Time Lords for a 1988 song called Doctor and the Tardis.
After that song reached number one in the UK, resulting in royalty cash for Glitter, he re-recorded the original. A few others have sampled the song too. Glitter also earned a ton of money thanks to Oasis. If you go back to the What's the Story Morning Glory album from 1995, the opening track is called Hello, and it contains a lyrical snippet that goes, Hello, hello, it's good to be back. That's a line from Glitter's 1983 hit, Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again.
Glitter sued for copyright infringement, and he won £200,000. As a result, too, Glitter was entitled to a piece of every copy of the album sold, and all radio airplay of that song. And given that the Morning Glory album has sold over 22 million copies, Glitter's share for doing nothing was substantial, easily worth more than a million pounds. That's in addition to the $300,000 in royalties generated by his own music.
Glitter was also quite the entrepreneur. There was a restaurant, a record label, ads for British Rail, an autobiography, a role in a revival of The Who's Quadrophenia, and more. But there were problems, too, especially with drunk driving convictions. After being charged for a third time in 1986, he narrowly avoided prison and was instead hit with a 10-year driving ban. That, however, was nothing compared to what we learned in November 1997.
Glitter had been having problems with his laptop, so he took it to a repair shop in Bristol. The tech discovered plenty of child porn on the hard drive. He reported the matter to police, and they were on hand when Glitter picked up his machine. He was arrested. Police then went through two of his homes, finding even more child porn. By the time the investigation was over, it was determined that Glitter was in possession of more than 4,000 images.
He pleaded guilty to 54 charges of making indecent photographs of children under the age of 16. Glitter claimed that when he started collecting the pictures, he wasn't in his right mind, under a lot of financial pressure. He had gone bankrupt in 1977, and he was looking to resolve trauma resulting from being abused himself. When everything came to trial in November 1999, he was sentenced to four months in jail and put on the sex offenders list.
He was also questioned about having sex with a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970s, but he was acquitted of those charges. Overnight, Glitter went from being a legend in British music to one of the most hated men in the country. When he was released from prison in 2000, Glitter left the UK, selling his yacht to a private residential area in Andalusia, Spain. To everyone at the marina, he was known as Larry Brilliante and tried to keep a low profile.
That lasted for about six months before his real identity was discovered. Glitter needed to move again. Next stop, Cuba. And from there, Phnom Penh and Cambodia. When his sex offense record was discovered, he was thrown in a Cambodian jail for four days before being released on bail and then deported to Thailand. Finally, he found a spot in southern Vietnam in a seaside villa.
But he kept getting into trouble. He was reported to have groped a young waitress in a club. He was seen taking two young girls to his villa. Cops were called, but before they could reach the villa, Glitter disappeared. They did find a 15-year-old girl living there. Questioning led to more young women, and six of them, aged 11 to 23, claimed that Glitter had sex with them. On November 20, 2005, he was arrested at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, attempting to board a flight to Bangkok.
Glitter was thrown in jail while there was an investigation. The rape charges were dropped because of lack of evidence. A fortunate thing for Glitter, because had he been convicted of child rape, he would have faced execution by firing squad in Vietnam. It seems that only some payments and fines to the family of the girls and women kept him alive. As for the rest of the charges, he faced the prospect of 14 years in jail, but was only sentenced to three for sexual abuse and committing obscene acts.
On March 3rd, 2006, he reported to prison, knowing that he would face mandatory deportation when his time was up. He was also required to pay 5 million Vietnamese dong to the families. That sounds like a lot until you do the exchange. That amounted to less than $500.
The entire time, Glitter claimed that he'd done nothing wrong and that he'd been framed by the British tabloids. He claimed that they paid young girls to approach him in a bar so the paps could take incriminating photos. He denied being a pedophile and said he never knowingly had sex with anyone under 18 ever. Knowingly.
Glitter served out his sentence in a cell with 18 other foreign inmates. Normally, he would have had to do hard labor, but because of heart issues and high blood pressure, he was spared. Even then, he had a heart attack in January 2008 and spent time in the hospital.
You may have heard what happened when he was released on August 19, 2008. Glitter was immediately put on a flight to London with a connection in Bangkok. But once he got to Bangkok, he refused to get on the plane to the UK. He wouldn't leave the transit lounge, saying that he was having health issues and that he was also a free man and not obligated to go back to the UK. But Thailand didn't want him and wouldn't let him through immigration because they considered him to be a threat to domestic morality.
Glitter stayed in that transit lounge for two days before he managed to fly to Hong Kong. He requested medical treatment, saying that he had terrible tinnitus and was probably having another heart attack. He never made it past immigration and was returned to Thailand. Meanwhile, at least 19 other countries said Glitter was not welcome. That included the Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore, and Cuba. With nowhere to go, Glitter finally agreed to fly back to the UK.
He arrived at Heathrow on August 22nd. He was met by cops and added to the sex offenders registry again. The next couple of years were rather quiet as Glitter attempted to finish another album. But then, in October 2012, there was an explosive report on British television that blew the lid off all the sexual abuse carried out by the British DJ and media personality Jimmy Savile.
In that report were allegations that Glitter had raped a girl, who may have been as young as 13, in Savile's dressing room at the BBC. Glitter was arrested and another investigation began. On June 5th, 2014, he was charged with eight counts of sexual offenses stemming back from 1977, involving two girls between the ages of 12 and 14 who say they were attacked when he invited them backstage.
There was another charge of attempted rape of a girl under the age of 10. The trial lasted almost three weeks. In the end, Glitter was convicted of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault, and one of having sex with a girl under 13. The sentence was 16 years. He remained in jail until February 2023 when he was released on probation after serving half his sentence.
But just a month later, he was back in jail after downloaded images of children were connected to his cell phone and the dark web. He's currently back in prison after the parole board determined that Glitter has an enduring sexual interest in teenage girls. Glitter is now in his 80s. He may never leave jail alive. One more horrible predator tale. It's the story of an alt-rocker who was convicted of some of the most awful crimes you can possibly imagine.
The story of Ian Watkins is very difficult to tell because the crimes of which he was convicted are unbearably awful. Watkins, a former straight-A student, was the singer of Lost Prophets, a Welsh alt-rock band that was formed in 1997. They released five major label studio albums, which sold close to 4 million copies globally. Singles were played on alternative radio worldwide, and in the process, they won a bunch of industry awards.
You might remember a track from 2006 called "Rooftops." Lost Prophets had it pretty good for about 15 years. But then the truth about their lead singer started coming out. Sometime in 2006, when the band was touring behind their Liberation Transmission album,
The other members and some of the road crew couldn't help but notice that Watkins had begun surrounding himself with some underage fans backstage. They'd noticed an obsession with online porn, but this was even more uncomfortable. It also didn't help that Watkins was using a lot of drugs, something that was causing plenty of internal tension. Watkins soon had his own dressing room away from the rest of the group.
When lost profits weren't on the road, they barely saw him. He stayed at his home in Wales by himself while the other five members were living in Los Angeles. The conflicts with Watkins continued. When he didn't show up for a gig, bass player Stuart Richardson went berserk, administering a beating to Watkins that included smashing a can of energy drink into his face.
In 2009, an ex-girlfriend made the first complaint to police when she received a text from Watkins. He told her that he wanted to rape 12-year-old underage twins. In 2010, that same ex-girlfriend was appalled when Watkins showed her many, many, many pictures of young girls. She made multiple complaints to the police in Wales, and they did nothing. At least five other people did the same.
No action taken. That same year, an Australian woman claimed that Watkins had assaulted her little girl. No investigation. The ex-girlfriend also heard from Watkins himself that he'd abused a two-year-old girl in Los Angeles when the band was recording an album. The child's parents called the police in Wales. But again, nothing happened. It wasn't until June 2012 when Watkins was arrested on charges of smuggling coke and meth from LA back to Wales.
there was an arrest on the drug charges, and then another based on some accusations of child porn. After a third arrest, more drug allegations, police finally searched his home. They found a huge trove of obscene images carefully filed on his computer. On December 19th, Watkins was charged. Number one, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a one-year-old female. Two, possession and distribution of indecent images of children. And number three,
Extreme animal pornography. The trial began almost a year later. Watkins pleaded guilty to attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13. He also pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault involving children, plus six counts related to indecent images of children, and one count relating to that extreme animal pornography. This is when the court also heard about a one-year-old baby boy who was a victim.
Watkins reportedly texted the mother, quote, If you belong to me, so does your baby. Experts decrypted the hard drive on his computer. They found all kinds of awful video evidence featuring Watkins and his victims. That also included a webcam chat where he encouraged a fan to abuse her own child.
There were also details of Watkins blowing meth smoke into a baby's face to get the child addicted, presumably so he could do whatever he wanted to the baby. The deviants and the evil are beyond understanding. The senior investigating officer described Watkins as a, quote, committed, organized pedophile and, quote, potentially the most dangerous sex offender he had ever seen.
The judge said that Watkins had a corrupting influence, had shown a complete lack of remorse, and plunged into the depths of depravity. On December 13, 2013, Watkins was sentenced to 29 years in prison. He wasn't alone either. Watkins had co-defendants, mothers of two of the abused children. They were given sentences of 14 and 17 years. But even after Watkins was sent to prison, he kept it up.
In October 2017, he was accused of grooming another young mother through a series of letters they exchanged. It turns out that she visited him in prison and brought him a ring as a token of her love. The woman, who was 21 at the time, was investigated and lost custody of her two-year-old. In March 2018, a mobile phone was confiscated. Watkins was using it to call a new girlfriend,
He also kept getting letters from men who had propositions about taking advantage of vulnerable and deluded young women. Just as shocking are the regular female visitors Watkins received. They're all fans who believe he's innocent, or at the very least, hasn't done anything wrong. He continues to receive fan mail, hundreds of letters, according to some reports. What about the cops who failed to intervene despite all the early complaints? An internal case file was opened and disciplinary action was taken.
Watkins remains in prison. As is the case with most child rapists, he's not popular with the other inmates. In August 2023, he was taken hostage by three other prisoners who also stabbed him. Watkins was freed after six hours, and his injuries turned out to be non-light threatening. What about the other guys in Lost Prophets? The group broke up in October 2013, saying that they were completely disgusted by Watkins and unaware of his crimes.
They also urge any other victims to report what happened to them. As a band, Lost Prophets have pretty much been cancelled, although you can still buy and stream their music. The members have all moved on to other projects. Meanwhile, the victims of Ian Watkins continue to deal with unspeakable trauma, wondering if he'll be eventually paroled when his sentence is up in 2031. Sadly, these aren't the only stories of abuse from the world of music. There are many more stories out there just like this.
You can catch up on all episodes of Uncharted by downloading them from your favorite podcast platform. Please rate and review if you get a chance. If you have any questions or comments, shoot me an email, alan at alancross.ca. We can also meet up on all the social media sites, along with my website, a journal of musical things.com. It's updated with music news and recommendations every single day. And there's a free daily newsletter that you should get.
And please check out my other podcast, The Ongoing History of New Music. There are hundreds and hundreds of episodes that you can enjoy all for free. Technical Productions by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross.
