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Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's Murder, Mystery, and Makeup Monday. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin and I do my makeup at the same time. Oh, well, I'm not doing my makeup right now because you're listening to the podcast. Hi podcast. So,
So, today I have a story about a guy named Thor. Yes, his name is Thor. You heard that right. And it's one that I have been sitting on for a while because I just like, it was just, I didn't know what to do with it. Yeah.
It's just like, it's such a weird story and there's so many crossovers, but let me just stop rambling per usual and get into today's story. You ready? Okay, here I go. So his name is Thor. I can't get over that. Thor. Thor Nis Christensen. Okay, his name is Thor. Okay.
I'm going to say that at least 18 times. His name is Thor Bailey. Great. But he was born in Denmark in 1957, and then he immigrated to America in the 1950s. So Thor's family settled down in Slovang, California. If you don't know, Slovang is known to celebrate Danish culture and has festivals where they have like Viking reenactments, etc.
wooden clog shops, and the whole place is like decorated. Just so cute, okay? The village, quote unquote village, is complete with an old school windmill that screams Denmark, at least for California, you know? The Christensen family opened a Danish restaurant and to the public it seemed that they were living the American dream. And as people got closer to Thor, they realized that Thor's dad, Nys,
he wasn't that great. He was an alcoholic and also he was physically abusive, especially towards Thor. So when Thor was younger, he had lots of friends, but as he got older, he became more estranged and scared off a lot of his friends. One of his friends recalled him stepping on the heads of small animals to kill them. Yeah, so you know, that's not great.
Okay, and when he got to middle school, he would catch bigger animals like birds and frogs and like tape firecrackers to them and then watch them explode. So he's a sick little fuck. All right.
I could, yeah, you could say that. He is. Thor began drinking a lot around the age of 12 and then tried to get his friends to drink with him. He attended Santa Ynez High School in his grades. They were good, but then they just started to plummet the more that he started doing drugs and drinking.
So, you know, things are just going downhill. And then before class, like every day, I guess he would take shots like in the parking area or just somewhere, anywhere that they wouldn't get caught. So some of his friends and him were just drinking a lot. So his parents' restaurant, it was going really well. And they bought Thor an Audi. Yeah, when he learned how to drive. So he got like a really nice car.
My first car was like an 86 Toyota Corolla. Thank you so much. But he got an Audi.
Good for him, but he didn't give a shit. He went to parties a lot and hung out in groups, but as he got older, he began to like distance himself from his childhood friends. Then Thor, he dropped out of high school before he got a diploma and then got a job working at a gas station. Once he did this, it was said that he became more moody and his friends, they gave him the nickname
Cloudy and Overcast Christensen. I don't know how that's a nickname, but it was. When I think of a nickname, I think of something short and sweet, but...
Who am I, you know? Cloudy and overcast Christiansen. Really just rolls off the tongue. When Thor was 19, he was a waiter at his family's restaurant, and that is when he began his murder spree. Jacqueline Rook was 21 years old and was a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and lived in Isle Vista, California.
And Isle Vista is a town you think of when you think of like a beach town, but also there was a bunch of students there as well because the college was close by. Jacqueline decided that she was going to go into town to go shopping on November 20th, 1976. As a student, she didn't have a car or anything. And the last she was seen was hitchhiking, trying to get a ride.
and then nobody saw her again. So two weeks later, December 6th, 1976, Mary Saris, who was a 19-year-old waitress in Isle Vista, disappeared. She was last seen at an appointment at 4:30 p.m. at the hospital in a busy part of town.
And like Jacqueline, Mary was known to hitchhike to get from one place to another. And it was like well known for hitchhikers to get rides outside of the hospital. And like, okay, so this was the 70s and like people hitchhiked.
you know, and like now when we think about it, we're like, oh my god, these people are crazy, like how could you hitchhike? But back then, like that's what they did. Yeah, I know, hard to believe, but they did that. Wild times. So I guess everyone just assumed that someone picked up Mary and then like didn't let her go. Now at this time, the town was already kind of feeling a little scared. They were like on edge after Jacqueline went missing, but
But now that Mary went missing, because no one had seen her since, fear was really starting to take root. So Mary went missing. Jacqueline went missing. Nobody knows where they're at.
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So then Patricia Laney. Patricia was also a student at UC Santa Barbara and was an aspiring actress. She was also involved in like bettering her community. She liked to volunteer and give it back and just be involved. So Patty had been rehearsing with her friends for a Peter Pan show that they wanted to put on because the community was growing.
like so frightened by this hitchhiker napper. So they were like, let's put on a show and like bring everyone together and do something else besides be.
afraid, you know? Oh my god, poor Patricia, right? Well, and Mary and Jacqueline, but you know, she's trying to give back and make everyone feel calm. On January 18th, 1977, Patty was handing out flyers to raise awareness about these girls being abducted on the corner where Mary had last been seen outside of the hospital. So she's handing out these flyers, right? Come see Peter Pan. So
So she was waiting to be picked up by her friend to go to the Peter Pan rehearsals. But when the friend arrived, Patty was gone, nowhere to be seen.
I know. So in the search for Patty, an officer found her body on the side of one of the back roads in the canyon in Isle Vista. Now to the police officers, the fact that she was on a back road made it clear that the killer was a local.
But the back road was not only part of the Isle Vista community, it also led to Sloving, California. According to police, Patty was shot in the side of the head and her killer had sex with her post-mortem. Oh God. Yeah. So Patty, sadly, she was...
She was nude and her clothes and backpack were found less than a mile away along with what was identified as restaurant paper towels. So on the paper towels, the police were able to recover fingerprints. Now the fingerprints didn't have a match because they belonged to someone that had never been arrested before. The investigators narrowed their search to what they knew for normal serial killers and
The M.O. we all have come to know. A white male, around 30, with a mental disorder and most likely a loner. Yeah, that really narrows it down. Two months after Jacqueline had disappeared, police found her body in the same canyon that Patty had been found in. She had been shot twice in the head,
And once she was dead, some of her clothes had been removed. And also she was raped after death. Police noticed at this point that their killer was lazy. I know.
I was like, okay, what does that mean? Here's what they meant. This killer was just pushing the girls out of the car and then driving away rather than taking them deeper into the woods or the canyon to try and conceal their bodies.
So they're like, "This guy's lazy." So that's all police know at this point. He's lazy, white male in his 30s, a loner and has a mental disorder. Great. So one night in 1977, Thor and one of his friends went out to like a cliff where teenagers were known to hang out, smoke and drink. So while they were there, Thor was in his car and his foot was resting on the brake pedal.
So his brake lights were on. An officer pulled over and took all of the alcohol and weed and was just going to give them a ticket until he felt the need to ask Thor to open his trunk. I guess this police officer just got like a funky feeling and was like, let me see inside your trunk, you know? So I guess Thor refused. But after his friend told him to, he was like, just open the trunk, dude. Like, what's the deal? Just open the trunk. Okay.
So Thor, he's like, okay. He opens the trunk and the officer found a .22 pistol. So the officer sees this, takes his gun away, gives the kids a ticket, and then lets them go. Hmm. I mean, close call for Thor. Listen, so the other day I was pissed off.
I was on one, okay? I was like, look, I'm spending too much time staring at screens and not enough time outside touching grass, you know? So I was like, F this, like I need to get outside. So my first thought was like, I need to cancel every streaming subscription I have because then I won't watch TV, right? But here's the thing.
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"Roan for every day, for every you, forever forward." So after this, Thor ended up moving to Oregon for a couple of months. It was said he was probably terrified that the cops were like onto him.
but they had no idea it was him at the time. When he moved back, he reportedly finished his high school diploma or got his GED. Then Thor met a girl named Carrie Solis in 1978 when he picked her up hitchhiking. So he must have really liked Carrie. They must have got to talking or something because the two of them would become boyfriend and girlfriend.
and Carrie would later say that the two of them would have sex like a ton, multiple times a day. Like he had this hunger that couldn't be fed. Do you know what I'm saying? Because I know some of you out there are like, okay, well, I do that. But like, it was different. It was worth noting. So their boyfriend, girlfriend, they're having sex a lot, great. So they ended up moving into an apartment together. And I mean, I don't know. I don't know what made Carrie different, but Thor...
did not murder her. She's very lucky, right? But shit, I don't know. Thor and Carrie, they're living in Southern California again. So Thor started to go out to Los Angeles pretty often. And when he returned, he would clean his car like inside and out, being all paranoid, like,
just deep cleaning. He would talk to his friends about how he was picking up hookers in Los Angeles and that it was the best sex of his life. He's like, you gotta do it. But I mean...
Who really knows if he was picking up hookers or if he was killing people still. I would bet he was still killing people. But anyways, let me not get ahead of myself. So two years after Patty had died, April 18th, 1979,
Thor picked up a woman named Lydia and he picked her up on Sunset Boulevard for $45. She was a sex worker. She tried to tell him different hotels to go to, but he just ignored her and like kept driving and
but talked to her saying that he was a construction worker from Santa Barbara. So he's driving, driving, and Patty's like, you should make a left here, and he's not. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's getting a little spooky. Thor then turned into Hollywood Hills and kind of parked the car there.
and then shot her in the head. When he did so, she ends up grabbing the wheel of the car and spins the car out of control. She's still alive. I mean like he shot her in the head and she is still alive. Okay, she grabs that wheel.
and the car's like spinning. She was able to get out of the car and then she was able to make it to a nearby house who was able to get her help, call 911, call the police and she survived. She of course had scars and became deaf in one ear
but her brain was unscathed and again she lived like incredible. So they were able to file a police report as to what happened but again this was what the late 70s like you know it was hard to catch people back then I guess but like they couldn't find the guy. He took off but then in July so a few months go by and it's July of 1979 Lydia went back to work
And one night she was hanging out at a bar called Bottom Line and it was on Hollywood Boulevard. So she's hanging out there. It's a work night. La-di-da, you know. And then in comes Thor. Oh, yes. He comes walking in. Lydia's like, oh, fuck, that's a guy. So she sees him. I don't know if he sees her, but she sees him.
And she immediately goes to the back of the bar. She goes to a pay phone and calls police. And she's like, listen, you need to listen to me. Like this person who shot me in the head is at the bar. So the police come out and she was able to play it cool. So Thor didn't know like what was going on and she didn't want him to leave. Right.
So she's playing it cool, like no big deal, whatever. Like, I don't know you. Police show up and Thor was arrested. So at the time Thor was 21 years old. Yeah, he's young, which is like, holy shit. If he wouldn't have gotten caught, who knows how many women he would have killed. Oh my God, but he was only 21. He was arrested and it was determined that Thor had been killing girls before.
in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara for a long time. They found 22-year-old Laura Benjamin, who was also a sex worker in Hollywood, and she was found in a nearby reservoir who had been dead for like a month, and they had no links, but they were able to link Thor.
to Laura. Laura had been shot and was also sexually assaulted in March or April of 1979 and I mean it's unclear how many victims Thor had.
but it's believed that Thor had been killing girls in Oregon while he lived there, but it's impossible to confirm this. They have no idea. So they arrest him. He's 21. He's young. He's dumb. He's a shithead. We all hate him. Like, fuck that guy. They have no idea where the other victims are, but they linked him to the murders. Thor was arrested and he ended up pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
but then he ended up changing his plea to just guilty after it could not be proven that he was insane. It was determined in court that he was a necrophiliac. I mean obviously. God that's so gross. I'm not judging but I'm fucking judging because that is disgusting but
It was determined in court that he was. And then in 1980, he was sentenced to life in prison. Oh, so sad. What a bummer. Poor guy. Not Thor. Fuck that guy. Okay. So he was in prison. He was at like Folsom Prison. And I guess it was like...
The prison Johnny Cash made famous. If you're familiar, doesn't matter. But he's at this prison and he didn't last there very long. I think it was that same year. Another inmate ended up stabbing Thor and murdered him. Yep. And that is the short life of Thor Christensen. But thank God, huh? Because if this guy would have kept living, who knows?
what else he could have done if he never got caught holy fuck like this guy's gross well fuck that guy huh but other than that that is the story of thor christiansen and um i don't even know how to i hate sometimes i don't know how to end these stories because i'm like okay um thanks
It's so awkward sometimes. But yeah, yeah, okay. So yeah, okay, all right. Thanks for hanging out with me today. And let me know who you want me to talk about next time. But other than that, be safe out there. Don't hitchhike, okay? I know, we don't really do it now, but like still, just be careful. All right, have a good day. Make good choices. And I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye.
