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All right, welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia podcast. I am your co-host Tank Sinatra here with my co-host. Investigator Slater. How are you doing? Great. Great. Me too. Excellent. Yeah. The podcast is just so much fun. I'm loving it. And I'm glad that you put all the work that you put into it to make it possible. Are you loving it because I do all the work?
Yeah, you know what? So here's the thing. We were talking about it before we recorded. We do a really good job. Oh. And by we, I mean you. No, that's... Oh, stop with your false humility. Stop it. Let me talk. You do such a great job.
I do nonsense. Your energy... Your nonsense is on point. It's appreciated. It brings the levity we need. It brings the humor we need. But you're always respectful. You have tremendous insight. And I've said this before...
into so many random topics. I know that whatever case I bring to the table, whatever the subject matter, you will contribute meaningfully. That's true. I was listening to an episode the other day and I forget what it was, but you were like, you know a lot of stuff. It's very impressive and it is a pleasure to do this with you. I know a lot of shit. I know a lot of nothing. I don't research. I research constantly in life.
Because I make memes for a living, so I have to be painfully aware of all the... You're like a learned doctor. I am a learned doctor. This is a house of learned doctors.
Just real quick, I want to read a review from Chin Chillin' because the name is just really good. And just, it's a short one, but it's punchy. Short and punchy and sweet. Yeah. Like your co-host. Yeah. Boom. Love it. Five stars. Chin Chillin'. True crime scares me, but y'all make it fun. Why are you saying it like that? Because that's how I read it. I think.
I am almost positive that's how they wrote it. True crime scares me, but y'all make it fun. Oh. I'm not making fun of them. I actually find it very endearing. So do I. They remind me of like a movie character that has one line, but you remember the whole... All right, all right, all right. We got a Matthew McConaughey here. You can do it!
Like that's what it reminds me of. Just perfect, like right to the point. And that's what we want to do is make true crime fun. Digestible. Because it shouldn't be fun. It's like a hummingbird. Should not be able to fly by the laws of physics. What? Explain that. Hummingbirds are so fat for their wings.
That they're literally not supposed to be able to fly. And not only do they fly, they fly in a way that is more poetic and beautiful than pretty much any other bird out there. There's got to be a lesson in that. Of course. You can do anything you want to. Be a hummingbird.
Be a true crime podcaster. Be a hummingbird true crime podcaster. When we first started doing this, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it fun or funny. But I mean, obviously, thanks. Listen, we say this all the time. The subject matter is never the butt of any joke. Obviously, neither are the victims. It's serious. We take it seriously and we try and treat everybody in the case with respect and
But there's humor everywhere in this world. And if Tank Sinatra can't find it, then no one can. That's right. So you know what? We're going to dive into the case right now. But you are the investigator for the details and the facts. And I am the investigator for the humor. I love it. I extract humor from places where there really should be none there.
Amen. But I do it. So getting into this case, you've been working on it for what? Six months straight now, day and night? At least. Yeah. So with all due anticipation, how about you just start talking and how about I stop talking? That's a start. And you start talking. All right.
Human beings tend to enjoy having the power of choice. We like to determine and control the outcome of a situation through our own decision-making to the extent that we can versus relying on luck or chance.
But when it comes to love, which is arguably one of the more important aspects of existence, many people, call them romantics, in Western society often feel that it's not a matter of choice and that falling in love is something that often happens beyond our control. Word. Amen.
The connection is made outside of our brains and is somehow facilitated by a greater power or energy, right? Consider the number of people who have faith in the reliability of astrology, horoscopes, horoscopes, you see what a true crime fan does with that word? They're horrible. Zodiac signs, birth charts, people really, really put a lot of stock into that.
No matter how sensible it may or may not be or how much society or our families approve, we cannot help who we love, right? We love who we love, generally speaking. Yeah. Regardless of what your personal perspective is on how relationships form or whether you believe that love is the result of divine intervention or fate or the stars or hormones, whatever.
The individual... Hormones or horoscopes? Both. Whatever. Whatever you think causes love. The individuals in this case have asserted that love extends beyond any conscious decision or choice and that it cannot and should not be restrained. Interesting. But what if it's just a little more complicated than that? It always is. What if the two individuals who feel that they were destined to be together by cosmic design...
Also happen to share DNA. Yeah. God made us brother and sister because he wanted us to fall in love. What if a 43-year-old father falls in love with and marries his 20-year-old biological daughter? Oh, God. Brother, sister, mother, father. I'm sorry I'm taking you there. No, they're both brother, sisters. Not good. But father, daughters. That's like extra bad.
Not whatever. I'm not judging, you know, you love who you love, right? Right. Well, I'm glad that you caught yourself in that because it's human nature to judge and we're going to get on to why it's human nature, quite literally, genetically speaking, scientifically speaking, to feel a visceral kind of disgust towards the idea of an incestuous relationship. You're going to address that? I will later in the episode. So just hang tight. Tonight.
Tonight, we're discussing the 2018 case of Katie Fusco and Stephen Pladel. We're going to explore highly taboo topics like incest and familial marriage while hearing about fascinating scientific topics concerning genetics and sexual attraction, which I just alluded to. This case is extremely tragic and very unsettling.
So let's commence our journey through this twisted love story and let's start at the beginning, yeah? In this episode of Psychopedia Podcast, Investigator Slater explains why incest is bad.
Stay tuned. This is why I present the facts and you make your own choice. It is hard to, listen, obviously people are strange, not strange, but like unique and there's no, you don't know if somebody is looking at you going, you do that? I would never do that. I'll bang my own daughter, but I won't fucking sleep till eight. Right. Five every day.
So yeah, different strokes for different folks, but incest is one of those things that's kind of universally agreed. And we are designed to have that feeling. So we are designed to feel disgust at the thought of sexual relationships with our own family members. But that means when somebody does, that means something has gone awry. Let me get into the case. I'm going to walk you through it. And in doing that, we're going to explore all of these questions that you have.
Pop quiz. Pop quiz. Does Tank want me just to get into it? What is the most searched for term on Pornhub.com? Oh, boy. Incest. Nuh-uh. No, I'm kidding. But it is like stepmom porn or something. Yeah, okay. Depending on where you look. Depending on what state you're in, I mean. Depending on where you look. No, depending on what state you're in, there's like different top terms. Okay. Something like that.
In the year 1995, 20-year-old Stephen Pladel developed an online relationship with a 15-year-old girl named Alyssa. Wait, how old was he? He was 20. Okay. And Alyssa was 15. And this is the very, very, very, this is actually the background of the case. So what I'm telling you right now isn't even the meat and potatoes of what we're getting into tonight. But things, you know, you've said something already that's a little off. And that is excellent. You're perceptive as always. Yeah.
A 20-year-old and a 15-year-old? No bueno. I watch whatever that show is, To Catch a Predator. Oh, I have a lot to say about that show, but we'll save it. I think we've talked about it. We have talked about it off air. Yeah. Maybe we should bring it on air for an episode. I don't know, a discussion. The discussion would be based on the fact that I think Chris Hansen is turned on by busting sexual predators. Okay. He's like, why don't you have a seat over there while I...
Take my pants off. Yeah, he's weirdly satisfied by the catching of the people.
Stephen used the internet to gain 15-year-old Alyssa's trust. He built an emotional bond with her, and then he manipulated her teenage vulnerability for the purpose of his own sexual gratification. Simply said, he groomed her. And after he digitally and sufficiently groomed this child over the interweb, Stephen then traveled in the flesh from his home in Manhattan, New York, to San Antonio, Texas, where Alyssa lived with her parents.
And with the approval of Alyssa's parents, Stephen then removed 15-year-old Alyssa from her life in Texas and brought her back to New York so they could start a sexual relationship together. Now, given their age gap, we have a phrase for this.
It's called statutory rape. Yeah. Okay, but her parents gave their blessing. I don't understand it, but here we are. Can a parent's blessing undo statutory rape? No. Okay, I didn't think so. I learned, though, about a very interesting legal caveat that exists in some states in the U.S. It's not in New York where this case takes place, but it's called the Romeo and Juliet Laws.
Romeo and Juliet laws are provisions of statutory laws that pertain to people who are under the age of consent but engage in sexual intercourse with someone having a minor age difference. So, in other words, if a 15-year-old or a 16-year-old minor is sexually involved with someone less than five years older than them, the charge may be reduced from a felony to a low-level misdemeanor. Yeah. I just thought that was interesting.
That's wild. She was a great mom.
The same, unfortunately, could not be said about Stephen. Not only did he not find fatherhood joyful and meaningful, but he developed a violent streak and almost sadistic tendencies that Alyssa had never seen before. Horrifyingly, Stephen began physically abusing Denise when she was just eight months old and would aggressively pinch, beat, bruise, and even drown her.
On one occasion, Stephen placed baby Denise inside of a cooler and kept her there until she nearly suffocated before finally deciding to pop open the lid and give her some air. For any, you know... He's unwell? Yeah. That's it? Sick puppy. Psycho. Correct.
Alyssa knew what she had to do. She had to protect her child, even if it meant never seeing her again. So she made the agonizing decision to place Denise up for adoption in order to save her from the cruel and dangerous hands of her diabolical father. That's sad. Alyssa maintained that all she wanted was for her daughter to live.
Now, admittedly, when I first read about this, my knee-jerk reaction was, why not leave your abusive piece of shit man and stay with your daughter? Like, that was my knee-jerk response, admittedly. But you have to remember that Alyssa was a victim herself. She was a child who was groomed and preyed upon by this man. And now she had no life outside of him. She left everyone and everything behind in San Antonio.
So her options were limited and I'm not so sure that she had the capacity to do what I just judged her for not doing. Yeah, as someone with way more experience in life than this person. Absolutely. So I'm not going to fault her. And I think that I give her actually a lot of credit, of course, because
for putting the safety of her child above all else. She loved this little girl, and she put her up for adoption to save her. And above her own happiness. Absolutely. So I really commend her for that. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Baby Denise was quickly adopted by Kelly and Anthony Fusco, who were described as being very compassionate and open-hearted people.
The couple renamed baby Denise Katie. They introduced her to their biological daughter back home and started living their lives together as a newly minted family of four about 80 miles north of Manhattan in a place called Dover, New York. And by all accounts, Katie, formerly Denise, had a baby.
had a very typical, wholesome, well-rounded upbringing with the Fusco's. She excelled in art as a child and became well-known at Dover High School for skillfully drawing comic strips and being an overall ambitious teen.
When she was a senior at Dover High, Katie created an extremely impressive portfolio in which she depicted the struggles faced by women throughout American history. She really had her shit together for a senior in high school. Like her mom. What do you mean like her mom? Her mom was a very young mother, but she was mature for her age. Okay, yes.
And she drew sitcomic strips. Yeah, her mom didn't. I know. No, I'm just saying like she was able to handle life in a way that most teens, I think, are unable to. Just like the mom had the baby when she was how old? And how old was the baby when she got adopted? Eight months. Oh, that young? Yeah. Oh my God. And it changed her name? Yeah. I mean, I don't, do you think an eight month old baby knows their name?
No, I just think of it as like, you know, I wouldn't even change like a dog's name that I. Oh no, we always, we change dog names in my family. Yeah. Cash, his name was Hank. Ew. Thank you.
So Katie planned on attending Duchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York for art before eventually pursuing a career in digital advertising after graduating from SUNY Purchase. That was her long-term goal. In a blog post, Katie once wrote, quote, For me, a life without art is no life at all. One day, hopefully in the near future, art will take on an even more important role in my life.
18 is very young to already know what you want to do with your life. So like, yeah, she definitely has it together. Yep. In January of 2016, at 18 years old, Katie, who'd always known that she was adopted, her adoptive parents were always very open about that fact. So she decided that she wanted to reach out to her biological parents, Alyssa and Steven Pladel. Pop quiz. How did Katie locate and subsequently connect with her biological parents? Dating app.
A, Ancestry.com. Weirdo. B, social media. C, through her adoptive parents. What year was this? 2016. Ancestry.com. False. Her parents? Her foster parents? Oh, tank. I'm sorry to say. Social media? Yeah. Wow. Katie sent Alyssa Pladel a message on Facebook.
which was the first move in a tragic series of events that would ultimately lead to her demise. Oh, man. The message to Alyssa from Katie said, quote, don't know if you're okay with this or not, but I thought I would give it a shot. Hi. End quote. So cute. Oh, that's it? That's it.
That's it. She's just putting her feelers out. She's putting out a high. She's just putting out a high. But you know what? To her credit, Katie also sent Alyssa links to the results of an online genealogy website confirming that she was indeed Alyssa's biological daughter. Wow. So I thought that was kind of a forward thinking. Yeah. Alyssa understandably experienced a range of emotions after receiving Katie's Facebook message.
From loss and regret at having selflessly given up her baby girl all those years ago, to sheer joy for having the chance to reunite after an 18-year separation. By this point in life, Alyssa and Stephen were living in Henrico County, Virginia, where they had gone on to have two more daughters many years after they placed Denise slash Katie up for adoption. Those daughters at this point in the case were 12 and 8 years.
While there was an entire lifetime separating Katie and her biological parents and sisters, the pull to reunite was undeniable. So in the summer of 2016...
Katie, Alyssa, and Steven decided to meet in person. For Katie, this was a very fulfilling experience. But as she grew closer to her biological parents, she became increasingly more distant from her adoptive parents and from the entire life that she built for herself during the previous 18 years.
So not only was she losing touch with her past, but she completely changed the course of her future as well. Because instead of going off to college in 2016 and pursuing art like she planned, Katie instead moved in with the Platels in Henrico County, Virginia. Oh, wow. That's a big step. That's a big move. Right? Yeah.
This must have been an extremely difficult pill for Katie's adoptive parents, Kelly and Anthony Fusco, to swallow. Oh, yeah. They were probably devastated. Right? And I've read this somewhere, and I can understand this, but I don't know firsthand if this is accurate. If anybody has experience with adoption, you can chime in.
But I did read, and again, I can understand this, that it's really not respectful to refer to adoptive parents as adoptive parents. Yeah. Right? These, you know, individuals took in a child, loved and raised the child as their own. They're the parents. You don't need to stick the descriptive word adoptive in there. Yeah. They're parents. Yeah.
So I just thought that was interesting. Dan Soder, I think, is the one. Or maybe Sam Murrell has a bit about his dad. He told his friend that he saw his biological father the other day. He's like, oh, you guys close? He's like, if we were, I probably wouldn't refer to him as my biological father. There you go. Yeah, those qualifiers, they say a lot.
They do. They do. And I don't, again, have firsthand experience with it, but I can understand where putting that label, it's almost like a disclaimer. Like, oh, they're my parents, but they're my adoptive parents. Excuse me. Yeah.
raised and loved you and provided for you and cared for you, they're your parents. Yeah. Just moving forward in this case, just to make it clear, we are going to refer to the Fusco's as the adoptive parents. Disrespectful. And the Plato's as the biological parents because it makes it easier to follow, but I'm not necessarily one to subscribe to that. Well, no, I mean, it's different when the kid says it. I know, I know, but I'm saying it just to keep it organized in this case. Yeah. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I have to. In this case, it's not a qualifier, it's a descriptor.
Okay. Thank you for that. You're welcome.
So while the Fuscos were apprehensive about the whole situation and how quickly Katie's relationship seemed to progress with her biological parents, the Platels, they ultimately supported their daughter and felt she was old enough to make her own decisions. So they, I'm not going to say gave their blessing for Katie to move in with her biological parents, but they supported her. It's eerily similar to the situation with her mom where the parents let her move out at 15. That's a parallel, you're right. Destiny. Except that Alyssa, Katie's mother...
She was 15. She was a child. Katie's 18 by this point. Yeah, still a child. A little different. Now, unfortunately for Katie, the Playdell household was far from the home environment she was used to living in with the Fusco's. Alyssa and Stephen were actually separated from each other and had been sleeping in different rooms for some time.
The tension in the home was palpable, and she did not experience that full house, lovey-dovey, we're all family, the more the merrier type of vibe. It was very tense. In fact, Alyssa was constantly on the receiving end of verbal and emotional abuse from Stephen, and she had been for years.
She even referred to her home as a house of horrors, which begs the question, why even bring Katie into that? Great question. I mean, maybe she just thought things would change with the arrival of that maybe missing link. Yeah. Or maybe she just so desperately wanted her daughter back with her that she didn't think about how the dysfunctional environment would impact Katie. Well, I would say it's the latter because she did send her off for adoption because of the dysfunction. Right. And I doubt she would have opened up...
her home to Katie if she knew that it would eventually wind up killing her. Do you know if the home was dysfunctional with the other two daughters? Stephen did not have a dysfunctional relationship with his two other daughters. He did not physically abuse them. He did not sexually interfere with them. There was nothing, according to Alyssa and according to the daughters, that Stephen did
rose to the level of abuse that he displayed with Katie slash Denise in those initial months when she was first born. Have you ever seen the movie Hancock with Will Smith? No. Maybe him and Katie are like mortal soul enemies and when they get close to each other, they get weak. Who's Katie's mortal soul enemy? Will Smith? No, her dad. Oh my God.
She was far away and things were good. Right. Hancock is Will Smith is like a superhero who's from another planet and he runs into this other woman who's married to a guy and whatever, but they are not supposed to be in close physical proximity to each other because they get weaker. Oh, interesting. I mean, listen, there are just not great combinations out there. Yeah, but I mean, if you have a problem with an eight-month-old baby, you're the problem. You are the problem.
After Katie moved in, the marital tension between Alyssa and Stephen grew steadily more intense as the days passed. So she didn't solve anything necessarily. No. According to Alyssa, Stephen would destroy things in the home when he was upset and he would punch holes in the walls when he was angry. Stephen's temper was unpredictable and he was almost always unhappy. And Alyssa said that she lived her life on eggshells when he was around and she'd been living like that for years.
For eight years, Stephen was unable to maintain steady employment, which left the burden of providing for the other two daughters solely on Alyssa. Alyssa often threatened to leave Stephen, but when she did, which of the following things would happen? Pop quiz. Pop quiz. A, Stephen would threaten to take their two daughters, quote, somewhere abroad before disappearing. B,
B, Stephen would threaten to murder Alyssa by trapping her inside of a meat freezer. Or C, Stephen would threaten to record a video of himself committing suicide and then have the video sent to Alyssa afterwards. Oh my God. What a fucking psycho. If any of those are true, which one of them are true? Um...
Trap her in a meat freezer? Nope. Play Rocky with her body? What? The scene in Rocky where he's punching the sides of beef in the freezer? Oh, yeah.
Kill himself on video. Yes, sir. Wow. He threatened to, quote, blow his brains out on camera. But prior to doing that, he would have arranged somehow for that video to have wound up in Alyssa's hands. I'm sure someone would fulfill his wishes. Yeah, I'm sure. No, I'm joking. That's a fucking crazy thing to ask. Maybe they don't know what's on the tape. But he's already dead. If, oh. Yeah.
Not my finest moment. Hey, man, I'm going to blow my brains out on this video. I just need you to come and don't, you know, don't bother cleaning up. Look away. Just press eject on the tape, pull it out, and then put it in the mail and mail it to my wife I'm separated from. I just want to ruin her day one last time. Well, that was his plan. That's what he threatened to do, and it was enough to keep her from leaving him.
Yeah, she should have thought about that a little bit. She should have been like, how are you going to get it to me, Steven? Well, if she's like me, she would just fall for it. Don't do it.
So now Katie is officially living with the Pladels. And remember, Alyssa was the breadwinner, so she was out of the house for most of the day working for a living, meaning that Stephen was home alone with Katie for hours and hours every single day. And Katie was completely isolated out there in Virginia, having left her entire life and family and network of friends back in New York. Just like a mother. As time progressed, Katie and Stephen began to grow closer and closer to one another.
The energy in the household began to shift and there were tangible changes to both Stephen's behavior and appearance. I know we just had a pop quiz, but this is way too good to pass up. Pop quiz. Pop quiz. In what ways did Stephen begin to noticeably change after spending more and more time with Katie? A, he joined a gym, purchased a motorcycle and got a tattoo that said semen demon. B,
B, he started to wear skinny jeans and form-fitting shirts, got a goatee, and grew out his hair. Uh-huh. Or C, took up guitar and started to write his own poetry, which he started to perform in live readings under the stage name Stefan. All right, so here's the deal. If you came up with the semen demon one, this podcast is over. So I'm just going to guess A. No. No.
Your girl is not well. What the fuck is up with you? He joined a gym, got a motorcycle, and got a tattoo that says semen demon. That'll throw him off. And it did. No, it didn't. I just, why? I can't. I mean, that is unbelievably specific. Is that from a movie or something? No, it's from my twisted brain.
I'm going to get a tattoo that says semen demon, but I'm going to have them misspell semen like the Navy ones. Just like Carpe Diem is misspelled on my leg. I think you should share a photo of that tattoo on our Instagram page. Yeah, it says Carpe Piem. I love it.
And I used to tell people that meant seize the night instead of seize the day. And they'd be like, oh, PM. So believable. No, dude, PM is post meridian. I got it from a Russian guy who couldn't fucking spell it. You should have got your money back, man. It's like 300 bucks. You should have got your 300 bucks back, man. I paid $300 for a great story. That's true.
And a post on Psychopedia. Exactly. So otherwise, he started wearing form-fitting jeans and whatever, and he did poetry. No. Oh, he started wearing form-fitting clothes? Yeah. Yeah.
Dude, this was a guy living in Virginia. He was like a schlumpf. Oh. And then all of a sudden he was like, oh, okay, let's spruce my look up here. Skinny jeans, form-fitting shirts. He grew out a goatee. He grew out his hair. To his credit, he did have nice hair, but that's neither here nor there. Gives a shit about hair. The hair is so overrated. Am I right? Wildly overrated. So within just six weeks of Katie moving in, Stephen started to sleep on the floor of Katie's bedroom.
At this point in the case, it's now November 2016 and Alyssa was not having it.
Good for her. She claims that she didn't know definitively whether there was any funny business going on between Stephen and Katie, but regardless, she wanted out. Yeah. Of course, Stephen and Katie had indeed already begun a sexual relationship. And that's why he was sleeping on the floor? He was not sleeping on the floor, my friend. By this point, they had apparently fallen in love.
Six months after that, so May 2017, one of Stephen and Alyssa's younger daughters had gone to stay over the house with Stephen and Katie. Okay, so it's Stephen and Katie now living in the house, just the two of them.
Alyssa took the two daughters and they're living elsewhere, but there must have been some kind of custody agreement. So the girls would still go over to see their father. While the young daughter was there, she started to misbehave as children will do. So Stephen calls Alyssa to come pick up the daughter. And while Alyssa was there picking up their misbehaving daughter, Stephen handed Alyssa their daughter's diary to read, presumably to see if there was anything written in there that may shed light on why she was misbehaving.
And boy was a light indeed shown on what may have been causing this little girl to act out. Yeah. What Alyssa read in that diary was absolutely jaw-dropping. The diary read, quote, Katie is pregnant.
Dad says they feel like couples. Did they maybe get a little too drunk that night? My dad is a slut. He's Satan. He's fucking Satan. He'll go to hell, but he won't be the one getting tortured. He'll be the one torturing people. Wait one second. If he's Satan, then Katie is a human, which means the baby will be half demon. Seaman demon. Seaman demon. Maybe that's where I got it from.
Now, apparently the two younger daughters had been instructed by Stephen to refer to Katie, who's their biological sister, to refer to her as stepmom. Wow. This is reportedly when Alyssa first became aware of their incestuous relationship in a definitive manner.
And when describing how she felt when she found out about the extent of the relationship that existed between Katie and Katie's father, she said, quote, I lost it. I started screaming. I felt like I was going to throw up. She said she was absolutely hysterical after reading that diary.
Alyssa immediately confronted Stephen about this, and she was prepared to hear his adamant denial. But instead, Stephen calmly looked at Alyssa and said, I thought you knew. We're in love.
Sure, buddy. Steve also informed Alyssa that Katie's adoptive family had come to accept it, so she would have to do the same. Did they know about it? They did. They did? They did. So I've read a lot about that, and it is a little bit of a pickle, right? You want to support your daughter. She's 18. Presumably, she's going to do what she's going to do. So to not support her runs the risk of her freezing you out.
Yeah, but she's banging her dad. I mean, I don't... It is Virginia. I don't condone it, but they love her, right? Her adoptive family is her family. Like, I feel like no matter what my children tell me, no matter what they bring to the table, no matter what they go through, God willing, I will always be in their corner.
Also, this is what Steven is telling Alyssa. Yeah. He's telling her that the family... I'm pretty sure he's lying. I'm pretty sure there were probably many debates between Katie and the Fuscos. Yeah, I'm sure they were like, what? What are you doing? If they even knew about it. If they even knew about it. Which I highly doubt.
Now, in the United States, the legality of incest varies widely between jurisdictions regarding both the definition of the offense and the penalties for its commission. Incest between consenting adults is in fact criminalized in all but two states in this great nation. Pop quiz. In which two states is incest between consenting adults not criminalized? A. Rhode Island and New Jersey. B.
B, Utah and West Virginia. C, Florida and New Hampshire. Utah and West Virginia. False. What? I know. Wait, hold on. Florida and what was the other choice? Florida and New Hampshire. And Rhode Island and New Jersey? Right. Florida and New Hampshire? I'm afraid not, my East Coast friend. New Jersey and fucking... Rhode Island, do you believe it?
In New Jersey and Rhode Island, incest between consenting adults, 16 or over for Rhode Island, 18 or over for New Jersey, is not a criminal offense, though marriage is not allowed. So what's the law telling you in New Jersey and Rhode Island? You can have sex with a relative, but you can't marry them. Yeah. Is that insane? Yeah.
I can't believe it's New Jersey. It's New Jersey, man. But just, I mean... And Rhode Island. But... Rhode Island's like a city. It's like... It's like a city. So small. There's like 800 people that live there. They're all probably related anyway. None of that is true, Tay. Yeah, I know. I'm just making stuff up. But New Jersey, I mean, I always knew I didn't like New Jersey. I just never knew why. Don't hate on dirty Jersey. I'm from a...
I'm from Long Island. I have to. You're from Strong Island? I would never say that. But it's written in the rules of living on Long Island that you have to. Also, by the way, to clear something up, I'll say I live in Long Island if I want to. You don't have to say on Long Island.
I'm sorry, what? People get all in a bunch, their knickers in a twist about saying in Long Island or on Long Island. I'll say whatever I want. Yeah. Why? Have you been corrected? So many times. I mean, it's on Long Island. I say in Long Island. You're wrong. According to who? I'm just messing with you, man. Oh, you got me good. Yeah, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Right. Just say you're a Long Islander and just avoid the whole thing. What am I, Billy Joel? Oh.
You wish. Long Island there. I might be the only person from Long Island who is not a Billy Joel fan. Yeah, no. And I play piano, so... I went to go see Billy Joel at MSG, and I knew like three songs. I know all of his songs because I grew up listening to them, but for some reason, I'm not a fan. However, after I went to the concert, I was listening to Billy Joel with your husband. I was like, bro, you don't know this song? He's like...
Dude, I'm not from Long Island. I was like, is it that regional with the love for him? Obviously, he's an international superstar. Everyone knows who he is. Absolutely. But as far as the fandom goes, like knowing every word and, you know, the deep cuts on the albums, scenes from an Italian restaurant, not a huge hit. Not a huge hit. No Uptown Girl. No. We didn't start the fire. I'll tell you that much. Oh, okay. We didn't start the fire. Last tangent here, and then we're going to get back to the case.
I do happen to love that song. When I was younger, my twin sister, my older brother and I, we performed a music video at Adventureland to We Didn't Start the Fire. This was like before YouTube, before everything. We made like a music video to We Didn't Start the Fire. Did you know all the words? Hell yeah, I still do. Okay, well, get ready to have your head blown wide off. Okay. I
I performed We Didn't Start the Fire in Boy Scouts. You were in the Boy Scouts? For like three years, yeah. I learned We Didn't Start the Fire. I believe that song is largely responsible for the way I see the world today. Interesting. It was formative for you. How so? Because the message of the song was like,
We didn't start the fire. We didn't, you know, but we're trying to put it out, but like fucking shit, it's a big fire. It's always burning. Since the world's been turning. I don't know what to tell you. Like, yeah, we're working on it. We're trying. Maybe I am a Billy Joel fan. I think you might be. So yeah, that song probably is responsible for forming Tanks Good News because it's like, yeah, there's some fucked up things going on in the world right now, but it's not all Bernie gets, you know?
So anyway, getting back to the case about New Jersey and Rhode Island. It does bring up an interesting discussion, though, right? When we're talking about case law and the various jurisdictions, to what extent should the state be allowed to intervene in relationships between two consenting adults? In Virginia, where Stephen and Katie lived at this point in the case, incest between consenting adults is punishable by up to one year in prison and or a $2,500 fine.
But in North Carolina, which borders Virginia, incest between consenting adults is punishable by 10 to 41 months in prison and no fine.
So Katie and Steven decided to make a fresh start and move to Nightdale, North Carolina. They'd rather go to jail for longer? They would rather, I guess, the minimum sentence is 10 months, which is smaller than one year, which is what the minimum is in Virginia. And there's no fine. Yeah.
Yeah, but they're probably giving that out to like cousins 10 months. They're giving father and daughter the full 41 months. Maybe. I know. I thought about that too. I'm like, I probably would have stuck in Virginia. Yeah. So the incestuous couple has now decided to make a fresh start in North Carolina. After that, on July 20th, 2017, just two months after Stephen and Alyssa's divorce was finalized...
Stephen and Katie traveled down to Maryland to officially tie the knot. And I'm not entirely sure why they went to Maryland to do this because incest is illegal in Maryland and they had to fudge all their documents. Like why not go to Rhode Island or New Jersey? Yeah. I don't know. But fun fact,
Guess what the state of Maryland has to say about incest laws? What does the state of Maryland have to say about it? It's not a pop quiz. It's just a fun fact. Oh. It's illegal to marry a close relative and to have vaginal intercourse specifically, which means that what? It's illegal to marry a close relative, but it's okay to have anal intercourse with them? Anal's on the table for the whole family. Evidently so in Maryland. Yeah.
Anyway, Katie and Steven lied on their marriage application and tied the knot in Maryland. And I can't see how they thought their marriage would ever hold up to the law because they fudged all their documentation. But here we are. Katie and Steven, daughter and father, are now pronounced husband and wife. Katie posted images all over social media depicting she and her husband blissfully kissing at their wedding with the hashtag Simple Wedding.
I feel like they could have done better, but that's the least of their issues. Yeah, they came up with that on their own.
Social media king over there throwing shade. Hashtag simple wedding. I mean, no poster going to get confused with this one. Nope. There were no bridesmaids. There were no fancy outfits. There was no videographer. But there were a few people in attendance, shockingly, including Katie's adoptive parents. Wow. As well as Stephen's elderly mother, who was also Katie's biological grandmother. Yeah. And now her mother-in-law. Very tricky. Wow. Crucially...
Also in attendance at the wedding and featured very prominently in the wedding photos posted online was Katie's very large pregnant belly. People who find the concept of a daughter marrying her father and having his baby viscerally off-putting, let's say, may be reacting in accordance with something called the Westmark effect, which is a scientific theory suggesting that this is a natural response for human beings to have.
The Westmarker fact, which is also referred to as reverse sexual imprinting, is a psychological phenomenon suggesting that individuals who grow up in close proximity to each other, like siblings, before the age of six tend not to be attracted to each other.
They become desensitized to sexual attraction, which biologically speaking prevents or suppresses inbreeding. Yeah. The effect is not only applicable for biologically related families, but also incomplete strangers who are brought up together during early childhood.
It's because there's dangers associated with inbreeding, right? That's correct. Okay, I don't know if I was making that up. No, no, that's accurate. Which is probably why it's illegal, right? Yes, it's why it's illegal. I think also it's illegal to protect animals
the younger person involved in that relationship because if you have, let's say, a parent and a child, there's definitely an imbalance of power. Of course. One is significantly older, but I think more to the point, yes. But I'm saying brother and sister, first cousin, whatever, like there's dangers associated with that. That's because it's illegal because you're putting an innocent life in danger. Yeah.
It's not just weird. We don't just think it's weird and gross and you're gross and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, there's some real actual consequences that could be suffered by someone who has nothing to do with the situation. Correct. Okay. While the Westmark effect remains commonly cited, its validity is contested. Now, Katie did not grow up around her biological father, Stephen, as we know. But there's another phenomenon called genetic sexual attraction or GSA that
which suggests that there exists a strong sexual attraction between close blood relatives, like between parent and child or siblings, who meet for the first time as adults. Wow. There's no evidence for genetic sexual attraction being an actual phenomenon, and many consider the hypothesis to be pseudoscience.
critics of the use of GSA, even using it as an acronym, meaning even using the initials GSA, critics say they argue that it suggests that the concept is medically diagnosable, that it's a disorder, when in reality, it's really only a hypothesis. Now, the phenomena of genetic sexual attraction was first developed in the late 1980s by a woman in Chicago named Barbara Gognio.
who later wrote a book in 2011 titled, I'm His Mother, But He's Not My Son. And in this book, she discussed developing sexual feelings and falling in love with her adult son when she met him years after he was adopted away as a baby.
Her son did not reciprocate the sentiment, but she explored this feeling and sort of started to bring some seriousness to this otherwise completely taboo conversation. Yeah, I was going to say that theory was definitely put forth by some parent who wanted to bang their child for sure. The GSA reaction, which is often referred to as double love or consensual adult incest,
can be a sensual thought, it can be a sensual physical reaction, or it can be a desire to have sexual contact with a close relative. Individuals who experience GSA thoughts or physical sensations are usually surprised by the experience. They weren't expecting it. They weren't inviting it. It just happened. Most individuals maintain that it's not a reaction that they wanted to happen.
Those who experience GSA discuss feeling isolated, ashamed, and embarrassed, and I can understand why. Yeah. So this is crazy, but apparently it's not rare. Some agencies estimate that elements of GSA occur in 50% of reunions. Well, it depends on if the kid is hot, right? Oh, my God. I'm going to leave.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Obviously, 50% is pretty high, though. That's pretty high. And with the increase of IVF and sperm donors and genealogy websites, GSA is apparently on the rise. Wait, so if you are a donor, right, and you somehow, someway meet your adult daughter 25 years later...
you would be attracted to them, like more so than a normal person? Maybe, according to this theory, 50% of the time? Yes. I was like going to correct you each time, but you kept going and you arrived at the point. Yeah, you should have let me speak. I'm highly intelligent. You are. I give you mad props all the time. You're fascinating. You just tried to cut me off though. I am excited by this case. I like to talk. Forgive me. Oh my God, that's wild. That's going to be a huge problem. It is wild and it may become a huge problem.
A psychotherapist called Robbie Ludwig told USA Today in 2016 that those who seek to normalize genetic sexual attraction are behaving irresponsibly because that's what people who sort of, I don't want to say push GSA, but who support it as a hypothesis. Yeah. According to this psychotherapist, they're behaving irresponsibly because this psychotherapist, Ludwig, could be a
compared the attraction between a child and a parent to students who are attracted to their teachers and vice versa. And he said, quote, when you are the professional in the parental role, you have the power. It is your role to set appropriate boundaries. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, just because it's a thing doesn't mean that the consequences for a potentially unborn child are not drastic. Outweighs that, right. Yeah. Doesn't matter. Agreed.
He also added that the societal taboos surrounding incest can prevent people with complicated emotions from seeking help. And that's a problem too, because these emotions exist, these feelings exist, and people who experience them need to feel safe going to a professional to figure out how to deal with them rather than suppressing it and likely acting on it or possibly acting on it. I shouldn't say likely. I don't know. 50% though seems pretty likely. Yeah.
Some theorize that GSA is nothing more than people feeling attracted to what they subconsciously see as familiar. And I've heard this theory a lot. And there are theories about how people tend to rank faces that look similar to their own as attractive and trustworthy. Yeah, of course. Right? I mean...
We joke about this, Dave and I, but our dogs always seem to look like Dave. The dogs that we rescue look like Dave. Explain that. I don't see it, but... You don't see Luca looking like Dave? No. We had an all-white deaf pit bull, and I'm sorry, but he looked like Dave. And I've had friends tell me that. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Anyway, others theorize that GSA is a symptom of narcissism, and it's a manifestation of self-love.
And some just think it's bullshit. Yeah. But over the last decade, there really hasn't been that much scientific research done on GSA. So it's hard to say with any level of certainty in my unqualified, unscientifically trained opinion that it's valid. Yeah. Anyway, getting back to the case.
It gets particularly tragic from this point on. So brace yourself. Buckled up. On September 1st, 2017, Katie gave birth to a little boy, her son slash brother, whom she named Bennett Kieran Pladel. Nice. And just like most excited new mothers, Katie plastered her social media accounts with photos of baby Bennett and her husband, Stephen, because
Because she was proud and she was elated and she loved her little family. And the baby had three arms and it was pretty crazy to see that. He actually was a beautiful little child. But a few months later, Katie and Stephen were arrested on incest charges.
In court, Stephen's attorney said, this case is an 18-year-old girl who shows up at the doorstep of a 40-year-old man going through difficult times with his wife. They have a bond because they're biologically related, but they never knew each other before they had a sexual relationship. He was head over heels in love with her, so much so that it outweighed the issue of them being biologically related. And that was part of the defense.
A judge released Katie and Steven on $1 million bonds each.
ordered that they discontinue all contact with each other and awarded custody of baby Bennett to Steven Plato's 72-year-old mother, Grace. What the fuck? Katie moved back in with her adoptive parents, Kelly and Anthony Fusco, back in Dover, New York, and she ended up breaking the judge's no-contact order when she reached out to Steven, plot twist, to officially end their relationship. Yeah.
Needless to say, Stephen did not take the breakup well. On Wednesday, April 11th, 2018, Stephen went to his mother's house under the guise of visiting baby Bennett. Stephen indicated to Grace, his mother, that he was going to take Bennett to visit Katie up in New York. And Grace, being a 72-year-old woman, perhaps unaware of the terms of the court order, allowed Stephen to take the baby.
Then Stephen took Bennett back to his home in North Carolina and proceeded to strangle him. Oh no. To death. Yeah. He left the poor baby's little body hidden in a closet before getting into his car and driving 600 miles through the night to Dover, New York. Where he... The next morning on Thursday, April 12th, Stephen sat inside his light blue Honda Odyssey minivan.
and stationed himself outside of the Fusco home where he watched and he waited. He then proceeded to follow Katie and her parents, Kelly and Anthony, as they drove off in their car to head towards Connecticut to visit Katie's adoptive grandmother, which is something they did every single Thursday, which is how Stephen knew how to find them and where. Now there's CCTV footage of the minivan following Katie and her parents in their truck.
Then, when their truck came to a stop between Route 55 and Lewis Avenue in Connecticut at 8.40 a.m., Stephen Pladel pulled up beside them, drew his assault rifle, and opened fire. Wow.
There happened to be an off-duty firefighter from New York who witnessed the ambush, and he was the one to call 911. You can hear this call. He described the horrific scene to dispatch and said, quote, he, meaning Stephen, emptied the full clip into his, Anthony's head. His brains are on the road. Ugh. Then 911 dispatch received another call, this time from Stephen's mother, Grace, saying,
And this call is absolutely crushing to listen to. It is widely available. I don't recommend it because it's really heartbreaking. On that call, Grace relayed to the police what Stephen had just confessed to her over the phone.
So to the police dispatch, Grace said, my son just called me and he told me, oh God, he killed his baby and he's in the house. He killed his wife. He killed her father. And I can't even believe this is happening. He left the baby dead when he left. When the police arrived at the murder scene of Katie and Anthony, as they were both killed. Wait, the mother wasn't there? The mother was there, but she was not killed.
Wow. Anthony and Katie were. And when the police arrived, they discovered Stephen's light blue minivan parked five miles away. The car was running and the police drew their weapons as they slowly approached the vehicle. But soon enough, it became clear that Stephen did not pose a physical threat to them as he was discovered slouched over in the front seat, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hmm.
Around 100 mourners in Dover Plains, New York, joined the wake and funeral of 20-year-old Katie Rose Pladel, seven-month-old Bennett Kieran Pladel, and 56-year-old Anthony Charles Fusco. The heartbreaking event of their funeral was the culmination of a tragic series of events that began with Katie reconnecting with her biological parents after 18 years apart. While she was, in fact, an adult at the time...
It's difficult for me, based on Stephen's past and the likely vulnerability of Katie, that she wasn't somehow manipulated and groomed by her predatory father, right? As her mother had been 19 years earlier. And I mentioned this earlier, the notion of there being a power imbalance between parent and child inherently. But I believe it's not a very clear-cut situation here, like the parent and child relationship, because they lived completely different lives for all of those formative years.
Katie was likely feeling a tremendous amount of emotions and trying to make sense of them without professional support. And it was probably an insurmountable task. And in the end, she followed her, you know, impulse to engage in a sexual relationship with her father.
I don't understand or promote Katie and Steven's relationship. And I question Katie's vulnerability and perhaps mental health condition during that time in her life. Yeah, sure. But I do empathize with people in general who feel compelled to engage in a behavior that is universally unacceptable, looked down upon, and in this case, illegal. And Tank, you can probably definitely comment to this question.
Way more than I can, but it almost reminds me, but please correct me if I'm wrong because I don't mean to misspeak here, but it almost reminds me of like addiction. Yeah. You're doing something in a situation that you know is not right, that you know is looked down upon, that you know is illegal, that you know may hurt you. Or other people. Or other people, and you cannot stop the impulse to do it. Yeah, when I first got sober, I remember, I don't know if I should say this publicly, but I will because whatever. I used to thank God for...
you know, getting me help and then also for not making me a serial killer or a child molester. Because from being on the other side of addiction and knowing how powerless I was during it, I had to imagine that people who act out of their best interests are doing so against their own will and
And it's very sad again, not to like say, Oh, well we should just let these people do what they want. Because when you start to hurt other people, like you can, you can stay in your home and drink 30 beers a night,
And nobody's like, it's sad, but nobody's going to come fucking, you know, arrest you. The second you get in your car and drive and potentially hurt somebody, now you're committing a potentially criminal act. Can I just circle back when you said earlier, like you thanked God that you weren't a serial killer or a child molester. Do you mean that you thanked God that you had addiction issues versus those issues? No, it was just, it became clear to me that the people who do the things that are the worst, according to people, right?
like kill people or molest children or whatever are doing so against their own will. I,
And I felt relief that those things were not part of my problem. So not instead of, but in addition to, I felt very fortunate that I don't have that itch inside me that needs to be scratched that says, you should kill somebody just to see what it feels like or just to get that obsession out of you. Like I know how to deal with obsessions now, but
But it took a long time. So in the beginning, I was just like, holy shit, I can't believe my brain is only broken in the way that makes me drink. And you were young when you got sober. 22, yeah. That's young. That's young for you to have arrived at the realization that you needed to have drastic intervention. And I don't, listen, I don't judge people. Like, I don't even, like, I hate to say this. I don't even judge people.
serial killers. I don't like it. I think it's abhorrent. I wouldn't want them around my family, but I just can't judge. I can't sit in a place of judgment of anybody, especially knowing what the conscience will do to them. Eventually. I know there are sociopaths and people who don't have feelings and whatever, like
that's sad also. And you're not saying they should be in mainstream society by any means. You're just saying you feel for them. No, I've from very early on, I came to realize like, especially with drinking and driving jail is a place. I think a quarantine for people who are too spiritually or emotionally ill to be in society. It's like, Hey, you're sick emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, whatever. And,
You can't be around other people because you're going to infect them. Not with your particular brand of sickness, but your brand of sickness has a manifestation that is devastating to other people. So you're going to punch a kid. You can't be around kids or you drive drunk. You might kill somebody. You have to go to jail. You need to be literally behind bars. There's a physical construct in trying to keep them from their spiritual sickness and
From affecting other people physically. From harming people, absolutely. Yeah, so again, I don't like it. I don't condone it. But I also don't pretend to understand how tough...
their life must be knowing that they're doing something that's hurting other people and hurting them. In this case with Katie and Steven, as I said, right, I don't understand or promote their relationship, but I completely empathize with the fact that they felt that they had sort of no choice but to pursue it. I think if they had the choice, they wouldn't have. I mean, maybe I'm being too like
blue sky scenario about it and naive about it. You work with people who are victims of sexual abuse. So I think that you probably think about it more than the average person. And the more you think about something, the more scenarios you run through your head and come to conclusions on. The average person who doesn't think about this stuff just knows bad. Molestation, bad. Yes. Right, right. Of course it's bad. But it's not... It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't. You know? So...
I hope people don't think we're like condoning incest. No, no, no, no. That's, I don't think I could have been any clearer. I don't understand or promote it, but I feel. You were winking the whole time. I was not. You laughed. You're such a freak. I was not. I was not.
I don't condone or agree with this, but you know. I don't. I just, listen, I'm a ball of emotions on a good day. Yeah. I really feel for everybody and everything. I don't like flowers. So it was just Mother's
day and my husband knew not to get me flowers. I don't like picking things that are alive out of the ground and killing them. Like I am over the top sensitive and empathetic, admittedly. Yeah. So I look at this situation in this case and I don't promote it and I certainly do not encourage it and I certainly would never want to see my child, God forbid, in Katie's situation.
but I feel so badly that they were in that situation. Yeah, of course. Feel bad for everybody. Steven is the perpetrator here, obviously, because he was the one who groomed the young girl from the very start. But what is his situation? What's his scenario? He's not well. Not well. Yeah, he's not well. Right. So in recovery, they say like, you know, grant the person who spiritually have the same patience you'd have someone who's physically like, you'd never be like,
you know, if your friend's leg was broken, he'd be like, bro, just go up the stairs. You fucking pussy. Stop complaining. My leg is broken. So to say to somebody who has a mental illness, just feel better. Stop being so worried. What is your, what is this anxiety you're talking about? So we just held a press conference, as you know, where we were advocating for survivors of sexual abuse. And one of the points that we were trying to make was,
is that the issues that stem from sexual abuse, which is what our clients have unfortunately suffered or survived, their damages, if you will, are not visible. It's emotional and it's psychological. So when we're trying to fight for compensation on their behalf, it's challenging because like you said, you can't point to a broken leg and say, okay, well, we can fix that leg and in six months you'll be fine. And here's how much it's going to cost. And here's how much it's going to cost. These survivors have...
fought the repercussions of what they experienced in childhood or as adults for years. How do you put a price or a label? Oh, it's affected every aspect of their life. Every aspect, Hank. Every aspect. Yeah. So that's the case. All right. Well, that case sucked. It was very disturbing.
And now I feel bad for everybody except for Steven. Thanks for dragging me through that again. I appreciate you putting all that work in. My pleasure. And if you've made it to the end of this podcast, what are you doing with your life?
I'm kidding. You're our people if you made it to the end. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. Truly. And for commenting on the posts when we post about the case and sending us DMs and commenting on Apple. Thank you for all of that feedback. It's tremendous. So this is my fourth podcast that I've done. And it's the first one where it's been like people give feedback. I'm not going to say
I don't know why I would ever even do more than three episodes of a podcast in the past. I got no feedback at all. Nobody gave a shit about the podcast I was doing for the most part. The feedback is nice. It feels good to know that people are paying attention and listening and getting something out of it and something that people are really into, true crime. We're putting a new spin on it and giving it to you in a new way. And that feels good. So thank you for letting us know. Thank you very much. It doesn't go unnoticed.
But, you know, while we're here, rate, review, subscribe. Rate that on Spotify. You can't even write anything. Just click that five stars and get those. I know how many ratings there are on a given day. So I do know when they go up. So I do see you. I just don't perceive you. You know what I mean? I do. And on Apple, obviously, those are my lifeblood at this point. Samesies. So...
Thanks for keeping us alive while we talk about killing people. And we'll see you next week. Bye, guys.