Pod Insights My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark 499 - First Live Show in 6 Years!! About this episode Karen and Georgia are back on tour! In their first live show at Denver’s Paramount Theatre, Georgia covers the murder of William Dickens and Karen tells the story of the Killdozer.
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Transcript 18,050 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is Exactly Right.
0:06 Speaker 01 In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way. When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, the rubber hits the road. And what the feds uncover is a complex scheme of staged wrecks, financial fraud, and a pair of conspiring lovers behind it. This is a story about fake accidents that led to real consequences. Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
0:42 Speaker 00 Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.
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1:08 Speaker 02 Goodbye. The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Sunny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception, his mom.
1:22 Speaker 00 Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.
1:29 Speaker 02 Watch the Hulu original series, Phony.
1:31 Speaker 00 Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
1:36 Speaker 02 Goodbye. Hey, everybody, it's Georgia and Karen here to tell you about a brand-new limited series from Blanchard House with Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts.
1:45 Speaker 00 Hell in Heaven is the unbelievable true story of John and Ann Bender, a young American couple who moved to the Costa Rican jungle with $600 million and a plan to build their own private Eden.
1:56 Speaker 02 But what starts as a dream spirals into a nightmare, complete with abduction plots, armed guards, uncut diamonds, and in the end, one dead body and a mystery that stunned two countries.
2:06 Speaker 00 Hell in Heaven is the newest true crime podcast hosted by award-winning journalist Becky Milligan. She investigates how one perfect couple's dream life in the jungle Turned into an international scandal and ended with a murder trial that had everyone gasping.
2:19 Speaker 02 So stick around after this episode of My Favorite Murder and hear the trailer for Hell in Heaven, premiering Thursday, October 9.
2:26 Speaker 00 You can follow Hell in Heaven now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2:31 Speaker 02 Goodbye.
3:35 Speaker 03 What's up, Denver?
3:43 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
3:44 Speaker 00 Incredible work, you guys.
3:46 Georgia Hardstark? You did it.
3:47 Speaker 00 Incredible.
3:47 Georgia Hardstark? And that's it, right?
3:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, we're done.
3:49 Georgia Hardstark? Hi.
3:52 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again.
3:56 Speaker 00 Oh my God.
4:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's been a, it's been a long time coming.
4:05 Georgia Hardstark? Been a minute. I forgot what this feels like. It's pretty fucking awesome, you guys.
4:16 Georgia Hardstark? Hi, how are you guys tonight?
4:21 Speaker 00 I feel like I should say, just as we start, we're not gonna remember our lines.
4:27 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, yeah.
4:28 Speaker 00 There's gonna be things that you remember that we do not remember. It's been six years since we have been on stage.
4:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, except for...
4:40 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
4:41 Speaker 00 When we came to the Bananas show here in Denver.
4:44 Georgia Hardstark? That's right.
4:47 Speaker 00 And we only wanna perform live in Denver. I guess that's what we're saying.
4:55 Georgia Hardstark? Wanna talk about your outfit? What you're wearing tonight?
4:58 Speaker 00 Oh, you're immediately moving on to outfits?
4:59 Georgia Hardstark? I don't know, I don't remember how to do this.
5:03 Georgia Hardstark? Wanna talk about your tights?
5:05 Speaker 00 Oh, um, these are tights and we made a post about this. I just realized, I would say 11 minutes ago, that I did not have any tights with me, at all.
5:18 Speaker 00 So my friend Vicky and my friend Craig ran out and bought them, like, truly at the 11th hour. It was very scary, very mean, very mean.
5:29 Georgia Hardstark? We almost canceled the whole thing.
5:31 Speaker 00 We almost had to just say, you know what? Everybody go home.
5:36 Georgia Hardstark? I'm hot in an unhealthy way.
5:39 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:39 Georgia Hardstark? That's like, I don't think is okay, but I did...
5:43 Speaker 00 Who else here is in perimenopause, menopause, or post-menopause?
5:48 Georgia Hardstark? Hell, yeah. Let's get angry over nothing. Everybody now. The air conditioning's not on in the car. Oh, my fucking god.
6:02 Speaker 00 Where'd you get your outfit, Georgia?
6:04 Georgia Hardstark? I got my outfit today.
6:08 Georgia Hardstark? At a vintage store here.
6:13 Georgia Hardstark? Called Goldmine? Is that right? Yes. Is that right? That's right. Yeah, I went in there, I had my whole outfit planned for like weeks. And then I was like, I should probably just go to a vintage store real quick here. Found this fucking insane vintage dress.
6:28 Speaker 00 It looks like it's tailored to fit you.
6:30 Georgia Hardstark? I know.
6:30 Speaker 00 It's crazy.
6:31 Georgia Hardstark? I'm wearing lots of undergarments.
6:33 Speaker 00 Okay. Shirt.
6:35 Georgia Hardstark? But then I steamed it in backstage and I can definitely like smell the vintage.
6:40 Speaker 00 Smell the ladies of the past?
6:42 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. It's a show dress, not a party dress.
6:45 Speaker 00 What did those ladies smell like? Just describe it to us right now.
6:48 Georgia Hardstark? It's a dusty, musty mothball cigarette perfume martini.
6:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. Our kind of lady.
6:58 Georgia Hardstark? That's right.
6:59 Speaker 00 Nice. I mean, that's an incredible vintage stroke of luck, I'd say.
7:05 Georgia Hardstark? Yes, yes. I want to do it every city, I think. Just not bring anything, bring jeans to wear.
7:09 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:10 Georgia Hardstark? Just be like, fuck it, and then find something in the city that fits perfectly.
7:13 Speaker 00 It's perfect.
7:15 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, this is the first fucking night of our tour.
7:22 Speaker 00 So funny.
7:23 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you for selling it out two nights in a row. You guys are the best.
7:30 Georgia Hardstark? Then what do we do?
7:32 Speaker 00 Oh, I'm gonna tell them about my dress now.
7:33 Georgia Hardstark? Oh yeah, go for it.
7:34 Speaker 00 It has pockets, ladies and gentlemen.
7:41 Speaker 00 The arc. The spin arc.
7:43 Georgia Hardstark? Work it.
7:45 Speaker 00 Right?
7:48 Georgia Hardstark? Did you see there's someone in a hot dog?
7:51 Speaker 00 Holy shit, we've got a hot dog in the front row.
7:57 Speaker 00 No, it's all you.
7:58 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
7:58 Speaker 00 It's all you.
7:59 Georgia Hardstark? She should be our ambassador, probably, right?
8:00 Speaker 00 Oh, that would be good. Wait, are you from around here?
8:04 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
8:04 Speaker 00 Well, you know how to pronounce street names and the kind of things that people yell at us about?
8:11 Georgia Hardstark? Good as gold?
8:13 Speaker 00 Oh.
8:14 Georgia Hardstark? Her guess is as good as ours.
8:15 Speaker 00 Hey, hot dog, fuck off.
8:18 Speaker 00 We're not having you, hot dog, drive us down some weird, blind alley. And then everybody on this side's furious. And everybody on this side posts on social media. We can't do it again, hot dog.
8:29 Georgia Hardstark? And at the end of it, she takes her fucking hot dog costume off and hides it because she knows on the way out, people are gonna like shame her. Like, "I'm not the hot dog." And it's like, "You're the fucking hot dog."
8:37 Speaker 00 Hot dog shame is the worst kind of hot dog. Shame. The worst kind of shame.
8:45 Speaker 00 Yeah. What is this?
8:48 Georgia Hardstark? I don't fucking know. It feels like a fever dream.
8:53 Speaker 00 What a joy.
8:56 Speaker 00 What a joy.
8:56 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you.
8:58 Speaker 00 Thank you. Thank you for being here. We're very, very excited to be here.
9:02 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
9:02 Speaker 00 There's been a lot of buildup.
9:05 Georgia Hardstark? Lots.
9:06 Speaker 00 People are fighting in the walkways. This is the kind of stuff... Can I just... How about we share our favorite live show memories with each other? I think we've done this on the show.
9:16 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, you go first because I don't remember any of them.
9:19 Speaker 00 Wait, hot dog, you tell me. Have I told this story already on the show? My favorite live show memory is when... And it was kind of right there, but I can't... I think we were in...
9:29 Georgia Hardstark? Washington DC?
9:31 Speaker 00 I think it was... Was it Miami? It's the throwing up story? Oh, no.
9:39 Speaker 00 I think it was at Casey Theater in Brooklyn.
9:40 Georgia Hardstark? Yes, yes.
9:41 Speaker 00 When, literally, seven minutes into the show,
9:46 Speaker 00 an usher, and a very angry usher, justifiably so, had to walk down and snap out a big, black, glad, black... glad garbage bag to start to clean up someone's barf. Right at the beginning. Right at the beginning of the show.
10:04 Georgia Hardstark? However, they served this, like... They served canned wine, right? Which is like, that's a mistake. And then some kind of cocktail that, like, surely made everyone shit-faced immediately.
10:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think it was like a Karen and Georgia Long Island Ice Tea type of situation that people got very excited about.
10:21 Georgia Hardstark? Right, so we didn't technically make her throw up.
10:25 Speaker 00 We didn't make her, but we were a big part of it.
10:29 Speaker 00 And that's what the legacy of this podcast will be when we finally wrap this motherfucker up.
10:34 Georgia Hardstark? Oh!
10:34 Speaker 00 Right.
10:35 Georgia Hardstark? This is my favorite murder of the podcast!
10:37 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah!
10:39 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
10:41 Speaker 00 Thank you.
10:42 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you.
10:43 Speaker 00 Thank you. That person over there forgot to clap and then when I looked at them, they were like, "Oh, that's..." Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry. Yep.
10:52 Georgia Hardstark? It's clapping. Kind of part of the show.
10:54 Speaker 00 It's hard with podcasts.
10:55 Georgia Hardstark? Kind of be rude.
10:56 Speaker 00 Because you're just used to like, hearing us in your head, like you're hallucinating a little bit.
11:00 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
11:01 Speaker 00 Arguing about the stuff we're getting wrong, you know?
11:03 Georgia Hardstark? I thought you were the other one and she was you this whole time.
11:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, there's that. That's a big piece of it.
11:09 Georgia Hardstark? Has anyone been to a show before, a live show? (audience cheering) Okay, great. We're gonna rely on you to tell us how this fucking goes. Thank you.
11:18 Speaker 00 Should we, uh... Uh, is it time to sit down?
11:21 Georgia Hardstark? I think so, yeah.
11:22 Speaker 00 Should we do it? All right, let's do this.
11:24 Georgia Hardstark? (audience cheering)
11:25 Speaker 00 Look at this.
11:26 Georgia Hardstark? I know. How madmen are we?
11:29 Speaker 00 This is all from Article. Promo code murder.
11:33 Georgia Hardstark? I really needed to sit down because I need to demurely grab the tissue I tucked into my s... There we go.
11:40 Speaker 00 There it is.
11:41 Georgia Hardstark? (audience cheering)
11:42 Speaker 00 Where'd you have that? Where was that, Georgia?
11:44 Georgia Hardstark? Up in the carriage.
11:45 Speaker 00 Up in there?
11:46 Georgia Hardstark? Undercarriage.
11:47 Speaker 00 In her Kleenex undercarriage. Sponsored by Kleenex.
11:51 Georgia Hardstark? That's right. Oh, man, I really thought I'd get, get, get over this by now. This fucking tissue thing, but...
11:59 Speaker 00 I think it's a great personality trait.
12:01 Georgia Hardstark? Never.
12:02 Speaker 00 Yeah. It's one of your foremost personality traits.
12:06 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, it's a martini, dusty mothball tissue, girl.
12:10 Speaker 00 I mean...
12:11 Georgia Hardstark? Me!
12:12 Speaker 00 What if you were the ghost of the woman who owned that dress before?
12:16 Georgia Hardstark? I love that, for me.
12:19 Speaker 00 Magical.
12:22 Georgia Hardstark? Wow. And then what do we do? Oh.
12:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
12:28 Speaker 00 We don't really want you to yell at us.
12:31 Speaker 00 Remember, I'm the bitchy one.
12:35 Speaker 00 That's right. That's right.
12:40 Speaker 00 I was a big bitch back before it was trendy. Remember that? I was all alone with it. Now we're all here, 2025.
12:48 Georgia Hardstark? Everyone's a bitch now.
12:49 Speaker 00 Just cutting it up all over the place.
12:53 Speaker 00 As is our right.
12:55 Georgia Hardstark? I mean, enough is enough.
12:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, since the last time we saw you, our rights have been taken away. Our bodily autonomy has been taken away. And I think by the end of this tour, we should figure out what to do about that.
13:07 Georgia Hardstark? Absolutely.
13:08 Speaker 00 But in the meantime, we're just gonna have a fun podcast. How about that?
13:14 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, I forgot to take a beta blocker. I just remembered. Not only that, I drank a fucking Red Bull, so...
13:20 Speaker 00 Oh.
13:21 Georgia Hardstark? This is gonna be fun for...
13:24 Speaker 00 That's the poor man's speedball right there. Yeah, girl. Can you check in about how it feels to be up and down at the same time?
13:32 Georgia Hardstark? My skin is tingling.
13:34 Speaker 00 Yes.
13:35 Georgia Hardstark? For sure. And, um, yeah, I'm hot again in a weird... Like, feel my...
13:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'll feel your neck.
13:45 Georgia Hardstark? Feel that?
13:45 Speaker 00 It's very hot. That's kind of a George Foreman grill heat right there.
13:51 Georgia Hardstark? And not even that cool. It's like, ugh.
13:54 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:55 Georgia Hardstark? Do you wanna tell them, the people who haven't been here before, or the drag-alongs, like, the rules of the show?
14:01 Speaker 00 We know you're out there. You poor, poor people that don't listen to this podcast, but had to come anyway tonight. We call you drag-alongs. We personally apologize.
14:12 Georgia Hardstark? We do. We understand. You're a great friend. You're a very good friend or sister or whatever.
14:18 Speaker 00 Here's the thing. If you're gonna use your camera, you can't have the flash on, grandma.
14:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, check your stats there before you throw the camera up and then put a big light in our fucking face. Please don't get that usher angrier at us than he already is.
14:36 Georgia Hardstark? Hell, yeah. You made the fucking usher or security guard laugh. That's a win for you.
14:41 Speaker 00 That's all we need.
14:43 Georgia Hardstark? That's the point.
14:44 Speaker 00 That's all we're looking for.
14:45 Georgia Hardstark? Because they're like, what the fuck is this show tonight? Like, and why do I have to work it?
14:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:51 Georgia Hardstark? These two weird chicks with a rug?
14:53 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:53 Georgia Hardstark? What?
14:54 Speaker 00 Look, it's this thing called podcasting. They started it. Marc Baron started it in 2011, and it's gone since there.
15:01 Georgia Hardstark? It's just like that.
15:02 Speaker 00 That wasn't real.
15:05 Speaker 00 They're like, "She's stealing the history of podcasts." Old man Marin started it way back when. What do we say?
15:14 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
15:14 Speaker 00 We say, "This is a comedy true crime podcast, which is kind of hard for some people who don't like comedy, true crime, or podcasts to understand." Which we understand.
15:26 Georgia Hardstark? We get it.
15:27 Speaker 00 "We don't think murder is funny. We think we're funny." And, finally, there might be other lines, but I can't remember. If you don't like it, you can get the fuck out.
15:41 Speaker 00 But we don't want you to. What else should we say?
15:46 Georgia Hardstark? What else is there to say?
15:47 Speaker 00 Oh, wait, just really quick. Because we're back at a live show, it does feel like a, kind of a monumental event.
15:54 Georgia Hardstark? Are you gonna propose to me?
15:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, give me that big fucking ring right now.
15:59 Georgia Hardstark? Big fucking ring. I'm Taylor Swift, bitch.
16:06 Speaker 00 I just wanted to give a shout out to Steven. He's not dead, but he's also not here.
16:14 Speaker 00 He's totally fine.
16:16 Georgia Hardstark? He's fine, he's still our friend. He hasn't cut us out of his will or life.
16:21 Speaker 00 No. He actually recently sent me a picture of a sinkhole. And then, it was his friend that did it, and then they went and put one of our t-shirts. It was a "Here's the Thing" t-shirt. And they just put it right at the edge of the sinkhole. And when I looked at the picture, you know, sometimes when you look at your phone, you see the picture before you see who sent it or what the hell is going on? And I was just like, "Wait, what?"
16:42 Georgia Hardstark? Is someone threatening me?
16:45 Speaker 00 Sinkholes have merch now? And they're ripping off our merch? That's amazing.
16:51 Georgia Hardstark? Sinkholes have merch? Hell, yeah.
16:53 Speaker 00 Right?
16:54 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
16:54 Speaker 00 Can I, really quick, just one technical thing? Can we hear ourselves on the monitor, just a hint more?
16:59 Georgia Hardstark? I can't hear a word she's saying when she's not kissing me.
17:02 Speaker 00 Just a little more.
17:03 Georgia Hardstark? Just laughing.
17:04 Speaker 00 A little more us.
17:07 Speaker 00 This is where the show gets good, because we can actually hear each other talking. Watch this.
17:10 Georgia Hardstark? I'm sure it's funny, but what if it was sad?
17:14 Georgia Hardstark? Laughed hysterically at it.
17:15 Speaker 00 We look out and Hot Dog is sobbing. No, it's supposed to be funny. How's this? This is better?
17:23 Georgia Hardstark? This is good.
17:23 Speaker 00 Yes.
17:24 Georgia Hardstark? So this tour's-
17:24 Speaker 00 Thank you so much.
17:25 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you. This tour's really hard, because we've almost done 500 fucking episodes of this podcast.
17:33 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you.
17:34 Speaker 00 Most people quit at 63, just a quick reminder.
17:37 Georgia Hardstark? And they should. So I feel like finding stories that we haven't done in the city or the state, okay, if it's the state, don't boo, is hard, right?
17:48 Speaker 00 Yeah, we have to dig.
17:49 Georgia Hardstark? So, yeah.
17:51 Speaker 00 Luckily, we have our researchers, Marin and Ally, who bust their asses for us.
17:55 Georgia Hardstark? Badass.
17:56 Speaker 00 Do amazing work. Our producer, Molly Smith, who came on, yes, you can totally applaud Molly Smith. Amazing. Basically, in two weeks, became the producer of this podcast. So we love her. She makes it work, as do, we could be naming lots of people that work at ERM right now, but I'm just thinking of the people that literally got us to these seats right now.
18:22 Georgia Hardstark? Did we win an award? We have to like, thank everyone now?
18:25 Speaker 00 And my mother.
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21:56 Speaker 02 Goodbye.
22:00 Georgia Hardstark? Um, all right, should we start?
22:03 Speaker 02 You should start. You go first.
22:04 Georgia Hardstark? I'm first this time.
22:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:10 Georgia Hardstark? It's confusing because we're going by stories. Who goes first, not by like who's supposed to actually go first. So I'm sure we'll get it wrong one day. And, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, as we tend to do. It's kind of our style. All right, well, I'm gonna do a story tonight. It's technically one of Colorado's oldest cold cases. You guys know I love cold cases. Even though it was probably solved, but I'm gonna need you because I have a theory too. And I think I'm right.
22:43 Georgia Hardstark? Always. I'll figure out a way to argue with you. No, you'll like it. So, okay. "In the early 1900s, a prominent businessman was killed, leading to a winding investigation, civil scapegoats, and ultimately, an escape from justice. This is the story of the murder of William Dickens. Is anyone related to him here?" You guys, we're in Longmont, Colorado.
23:12 Georgia Hardstark? Longmont?
23:15 Georgia Hardstark? He's like one of your founders, like your founding father. So you should know this. Yeah. He founded it for you. That's right. And so the sources used in today's episode are... Episode? Story? Let me do that. That's right. A WordPress essay titled "Mysterious Death of William H. Dickens" by Carol Turner, and an article from the Colorado Culture Magazine called "The Oldest Unsolved Murder in Boulder" was probably solved a century ago by Erica Sims. The other sources in our show notes, so look them up right now. What if you did the whole story in that voice?
23:48 Georgia Hardstark? God, like just channeled the woman who wore this dress before. She just... Light up the cig. Oh my God. What else do I have in my Spanx, do you think? Just start pulling shit out. Caprice. Okay. This is scary. I can't believe we're doing this. I mean, I'm going first and I'm terrified. You're really leading it, leading the way here. You got it. Don't get it twisted. We seem fucking cool and collected, but we are... I am not right now. Yeah, I know. Speak for yourself.
24:18 Georgia Hardstark? Karen took the beta blocker, not me. Jealous. Uh-huh. Okay. Um, thank you. That one person supports you. Mom? Janet? Is that you? Janet's here?
24:34 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. So it's the night of November 30th, 19... Holy shit, this is fucking weird, I'm not kidding you. 1914. Carrie just texted me and told me that's when this ring is from. 1914. Whoa. Oh my god, that's spooky. This is crazy. I didn't... Do it on purpose? No. Wow. Admit it now if you did. Everyone... No one thinks it's as crazy as I do, right? That's fucking bananas, there's a ghost. There's a ghost. My diamonds. My diamonds are haunted. Play this fucking story. Stop it. Okay. November 30th, 1914. A 71-year-old businessman named William Dickens and his wife Ida are relaxing. They're reading in the library of their home. Me too. In Longmount, Colorado.
25:18 Georgia Hardstark? It's a little bit north of Boulder.
25:22 Georgia Hardstark? I love Boulder. It's got this big boulder. Did you see the moth? There's a little moth. But it's good luck, right? Moths are good luck, so don't kill it. There, I see it, okay. Stop. About 8:00 PM, they're chilling in their library, as rich people do. And when a bullet pierces the library window and hits William in the back, it passes all the way through him, which is not good, and grazes Ida's cheek and then lands in the wall. Ida's injury is minor, and she jumps to her husband's aid, but tragically she watches as he passes away within 10 minutes of being shot. Wow.
26:02 Georgia Hardstark? The drag-along's are like, "This was not sold to me as I thought it would be." They're like, "I fought with you in the car all the way over here just for this." Okay, so let's back up a little bit, as we like to do, and talk about the Dickens family. William Henry Dickens is born, this dude, born on May 25th, 1843, on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Sounds fucking horrible for her, for the mother. Yeah, for real. Right? Yeah, it's just like, the go-for-the-perser, there to help? Boiling water or something? Yeah. Love Boat reference, no one? Okay. That's how your parents met. It is. We're cruise line people.
26:46 Georgia Hardstark? Congratulations.
26:47 Speaker 00 Thank you so much.
26:48 Georgia Hardstark? So, um, his parents moved, are moving the family from England by way of Quebec. When Mary gives birth to William, it's probably a nightmare onboard the ship.
26:58 Speaker 00 You can assume. Also, being, having a baby in international waters.
27:02 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
27:03 Speaker 00 Where's that baby from?
27:05 Georgia Hardstark? That's a great question.
27:06 Speaker 00 The ocean?
27:07 Georgia Hardstark? Everywhere.
27:09 Speaker 00 The Little Mermaid movie?
27:11 Georgia Hardstark? Does he get to go back to the ocean anytime he wants? Because he's a citizen?
27:15 Speaker 00 Just tucks right in?
27:16 Georgia Hardstark? Like, I get to live here now? Like, I want to do in Ireland, wouldn't that be great? But I can't? Okay. Da-da-da-da. Um, the family are all distant relatives of, you guessed it, English author Charles Dickens.
27:29 Speaker 00 Oh my god, I knew that.
27:30 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
27:30 Speaker 00 Wait, for real?
27:31 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, because it's their last name, Dickens, remember?
27:34 Speaker 00 Yeah. Which indicates being related to someone. Yeah?
27:38 Georgia Hardstark? Always.
27:39 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:39 Georgia Hardstark? Which is also, Ally's probably like, Georgia probably didn't remember any of this because she told me some of the names that Charles Dickens, of his books.
27:47 Speaker 00 Oh, nice.
27:48 Georgia Hardstark? So, but I know, Ally.
27:49 Speaker 00 Let's hear him. Let's hear him so we can finally cheer for Charles Dickens the way we've always wanted to.
27:55 Georgia Hardstark? Oliver Twist.
27:56 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:57 Georgia Hardstark? Great Expectations.
27:59 Speaker 00 My favorite.
28:00 Georgia Hardstark? And A Christmas Carol.
28:02 Speaker 00 Oh.
28:03 Georgia Hardstark? Mm, I love the Muppet one.
28:05 Speaker 00 Oh. So good.
28:08 Georgia Hardstark? I read that one. Soon after arriving in Quebec, the family then moves to Wisconsin, and William's father...
28:14 Speaker 00 Sure.
28:14 Georgia Hardstark? All right.
28:16 Speaker 00 Cheese sets in the crowd.
28:18 Georgia Hardstark? The father and sisters pass away as their want-to-do back then. Like, everyone just fucking gets a cold and dies. It's awful.
28:25 Speaker 00 They died, you know what they did a lot? They coughed into like a kerchief and died a lot.
28:29 Georgia Hardstark? Ooh, phlegmy.
28:30 Speaker 00 Yeah?
28:31 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, that's right. So his mother, Mary, remarries a man named Alonso Nelson Allen. They remain in Wisconsin until William is 16, but they need to make more money, so he and his stepfather move to Boulder. So they must have got along a little bit, right? And they go for, um, they go mine for gold in what would be known as the Colorado Gold Rush. So congratulations, you guys.
28:53 Speaker 00 You guys did amazing during that period of time.
28:55 Georgia Hardstark? Incredible.
28:56 Speaker 00 So much gold.
28:57 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. William and Alonso aren't very good miners, though.
29:02 Speaker 00 You don't hear these stories that often. The shitty mining stories.
29:06 Georgia Hardstark? The shitty miners.
29:07 Speaker 00 Yeah.
29:08 Georgia Hardstark? But they're smart, though. Instead, they leave Boulder, they build a cabin near where Saint Rain is. Saint Rain Creek and Left Hand Creek cross in an area that soon becomes Long Mount, Colorado.
29:22 Speaker 00 Can I just say that when you said they were bad miners, then I immediately pictured two people with super-long, skinny arms. They just can't get that pickaxe going at all.
29:31 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, the pickaxe. I was thinking of the sieve, you know.
29:35 Speaker 00 Oh, they can't, yeah, they can't sift for gold?
29:38 Georgia Hardstark? Sift, sift, yeah. No.
29:40 Speaker 00 Pan.
29:41 Georgia Hardstark? Pan.
29:42 Speaker 00 Fucking pan, ladies and gentlemen. Fucking pan. We got it. We still got it.
29:47 Georgia Hardstark? We are miners. Okay, so, this is what they do. They build a farm together, and as more and more people start moving into the area, because those are the people who made the long masting money. The ones who took advantage of the gold rush people by opening businesses to sell them shit.
30:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
30:04 Georgia Hardstark? Right? It's called, um, what's it called?
30:07 Speaker 00 Capitalism?
30:07 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you.
30:08 Speaker 00 You're welcome.
30:09 Georgia Hardstark? I was absolutely gonna say communism.
30:14 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you for that. Okay, so, they, what did they do? Then they, the farm business grows. In 1863, William...
30:23 Speaker 00 Is this a dress rehearsal?
30:27 Georgia Hardstark? I swear to God, I've been studying this, because I've been so nervous.
30:30 Speaker 00 I can't, literally, I can't hold a thought in my mind. I'm just like, we're doing it. It's happening.
30:36 Georgia Hardstark? This isn't a dress rehearsal.
30:38 Speaker 00 It's so surreal.
30:39 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my God, I have notes. And I'm still warm.
30:43 Speaker 00 Okay, sorry, sorry.
30:44 Georgia Hardstark? No, you're good. No, you're right. You're totally right to question me. Okay, so then the mom and their kids all show up, and because this family home is situated along a prominent stagecoach route connecting Wyoming to Denver, the Cherokee Trail... I don't know why I'm pointing at you.
31:01 Georgia Hardstark? I'm pointing at you, thank you. Mary and Alonso set up a tavern and an inn, and that does really well. This family was also, they become like fixtures in their community after having been struggling before. And at age 26, oh, I have a photo of him. He serves in the Colorado cavalry, and he gets out, and here is a photo of William Dickens.
31:22 Speaker 00 What, what, what, what?
31:26 Speaker 00 Oh, okay. All right then.
31:29 Georgia Hardstark? Right?
31:31 Speaker 00 This is from the Longmont Museum, by the way.
31:33 Georgia Hardstark? I know, thank you for Longmont.
31:34 Speaker 00 So this is on loan from the Longmont Museum. We gotta get it back to them by midnight.
31:38 Georgia Hardstark? It's like, at first you're like, "What?", and then you're like, "I don't know."
31:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:42 Georgia Hardstark? Right?
31:42 Speaker 00 Yeah. You see this guy in a tavern in Longmont?
31:45 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
31:46 Speaker 00 In Longmont, whatever it is. You're like, "Hello, sir."
31:49 Georgia Hardstark? There can't be a lot of eligible bachelors back then, in general, right?
31:53 Speaker 00 No. I doubt it. Also, doesn't it look like he made that three-piece suit out of a cow 25 minutes before he took this picture?
32:02 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
32:03 Speaker 00 I mean, you can almost see the hair on that.
32:05 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, they didn't have lint rollers back then. Oh, you mean the cow hair? I get it. That's funny.
32:15 Georgia Hardstark? Not cat hair.
32:16 Speaker 00 Nope.
32:17 Georgia Hardstark? Cow hair.
32:18 Speaker 00 Well, we never know. You don't ever know.
32:21 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
32:22 Speaker 00 You don't never know.
32:23 Georgia Hardstark? You don't ever know, and I refuse to accept it. Okay, so, um, he takes the family profits and builds this place called Independence Hall, which is a community center and drugstore. So like, they just get rich selling people shit.
32:36 Speaker 00 Do you think it's still there?
32:37 Georgia Hardstark? I don't, is it?
32:38 Speaker 00 For real?
32:39 Georgia Hardstark? Do they sell ice cream?
32:41 Speaker 00 Do not lie about Independence Hall right now.
32:46 Georgia Hardstark? Tavern, the tavern's still there. Fuck. Party after, after-party is what I meant to say.
32:53 Speaker 00 Well, just drive three and a half hours to Longmont and get fucked up.
32:57 Georgia Hardstark? That's right.
33:01 Georgia Hardstark? So, I don't know what you're yelling, and I don't care.
33:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, no. We literally can't hear.
33:05 Georgia Hardstark? It makes me so nervous.
33:06 Speaker 00 We can't hear each other.
33:07 Georgia Hardstark? Well, yeah.
33:08 Speaker 00 Of course we can't hear you.
33:09 Georgia Hardstark? When you yell, even in like, a good spirit, like, a happy way, it makes us think you're mad, and it scares me. Okay?
33:15 Speaker 00 We're very, very damaged people.
33:18 Speaker 00 You should know that.
33:19 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, Jesus. The 69, within the next four years, he acquires a 120-acre plot of land he uses to expand the farm, cattle, like that cow outfit.
33:32 Georgia Hardstark? And so now he's making an honest living and he's ready to settle down. He marries the woman from the beginning of the story, Ida Kite Lee. Oh, here's a picture of her. Yeah, did pretty good, right?
33:44 Speaker 00 Yes, she looks like many of the TikTokers I watch.
33:48 Georgia Hardstark? What?
33:49 Speaker 00 She's about to teach me how to use setting spray correctly. Come on, girl.
33:53 Georgia Hardstark? She sure is. Oh, my God, yeah.
33:56 Speaker 00 Do you think, I mean, they made people pose all serious like that for pictures back then?
34:00 Georgia Hardstark? Right, because you can't, you have to sit there for three minutes, and so smiling for three minutes is kind of hard.
34:05 Speaker 00 Yeah, but what if, like, deep down, she was like, "You guys, let's go get pictures taken."
34:10 Georgia Hardstark? I know. I always think that.
34:12 Speaker 00 She's the party girl of Longmont.
34:14 Georgia Hardstark? She might be so fun.
34:15 Speaker 00 No one will ever know.
34:16 Georgia Hardstark? So sad.
34:17 Speaker 00 Anyway.
34:18 Georgia Hardstark? Sorry for her. So, they have five children. They really liked each other.
34:27 Speaker 00 Or it was cold that winter.
34:30 Georgia Hardstark? And he adds more and more business ventures to his plate. In 1881, he builds the Dickens Opera House on Main Street. I don't want to keep referring to pictures. Do you know it? There is a picture of it, though.
34:40 Speaker 00 Whoa.
34:42 Georgia Hardstark? Fuck, yeah, does it still look like that?
34:43 Speaker 00 There's so-
34:44 Georgia Hardstark? Just with a bunch of Teslas everywhere?
34:45 Speaker 00 So many potential opera houses that we could be looking at right now.
34:49 Georgia Hardstark? I mean, pick one, you know? There, I think, I think it's that one. No, on the right, there's a bunch of-
34:57 Speaker 00 Do not do Hot Dog's job, because they're not having it. Is it the one on the right?
35:07 Speaker 00 Once again, Hot Dog throws up her hand.
35:11 Speaker 00 It's gorgeous.
35:12 Georgia Hardstark? It's cute.
35:13 Speaker 00 Yeah.
35:13 Georgia Hardstark? Right? Um, I'm sure there's just meter after meter, parking meter, you know? That's just what happens.
35:19 Speaker 00 It's the horse having to put the coins in with their big teeth, though.
35:23 Georgia Hardstark? Aww.
35:23 Speaker 00 Aww.
35:24 Georgia Hardstark? That's cute.
35:26 Georgia Hardstark? So, they have kids, then in 1891, he finds the farmer, he founds, founds, not finds.
35:32 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
35:32 Georgia Hardstark? It's not a thing.
35:33 Speaker 00 You got it.
35:33 Georgia Hardstark? The Farmers National Bank, and soon after, he co-found the milling and elevator company. What? How did those go together?
35:40 Speaker 00 What range this man has. Money, elevators.
35:45 Georgia Hardstark? Milling.
35:45 Speaker 00 Booze.
35:46 Georgia Hardstark? What's milling?
35:47 Speaker 00 Oh, uh, making stuff?
35:48 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. Oh.
35:50 Speaker 00 Rubber yellow hookers from the back?
35:56 Georgia Hardstark? Sugar, thank you. Sugar?
35:58 Speaker 00 Sorry.
35:58 Georgia Hardstark? Milling?
35:59 Speaker 00 That was me. Then that was on me.
36:03 Georgia Hardstark? Uh, oh, hey, guess what? It says, "The only flour mill large enough to compete."
36:08 Speaker 00 Just mere words away.
36:10 Georgia Hardstark? I have read this before, I swear to God. I'm fucking sweating.
36:15 Speaker 00 I was having a thing backstage where my, it felt like my eyes weren't taking in information anymore, like, they were sitting on things, but like, I didn't know what it meant, or I was like, this is an interesting way to be.
36:26 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
36:27 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:27 Georgia Hardstark? That's anxiety.
36:29 Speaker 00 Is it?
36:29 Georgia Hardstark? I think so.
36:30 Speaker 00 Okay.
36:31 Georgia Hardstark? Um, and anyways, he maintains his wealth and social status as a successful businessman and philanthropist into his early 70s, watching his children grow into adults. He enjoys his retirement with his wife, Ida, until, of course, the night of November 30th, 1914.
36:49 Speaker 00 Yep, they're on board now.
36:51 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
36:51 Speaker 00 They love it.
36:51 Georgia Hardstark? See? Um, and he gets shot, as I said. And back at the crime scene, investigators find that bullet was shot with what would've come to be a fair, what would've been a very distinctive, high-powered rifle, which you know all about.
37:05 Speaker 00 Yes, ask me anything. On Reddit.
37:10 Georgia Hardstark? Because he's such a prominent figure in the Longmont community, the press picks up the story of his murder, it seems that he had done so much good while he was alive that it was hard for people to believe that he had an enemy capable of killing him, but he can make a lot of enemies.
37:25 Speaker 00 He's the banker.
37:26 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
37:27 Speaker 00 Don't people hate bankers?
37:30 Speaker 00 Huge banking area.
37:32 Georgia Hardstark? Oh shit.
37:33 Speaker 00 Karen. We've been listening to you since day one.
37:38 Georgia Hardstark? Um, so...
37:39 Speaker 00 She just starts reading it to herself. Anyway.
37:44 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my...
37:45 Speaker 00 Oh my god. Just tell about the good part.
37:48 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. Okay, so the sheriff Sanford Buster comes up with some theories. First they set their sights on a man named M. Swallow.
37:58 Speaker 00 Spell it.
37:59 Georgia Hardstark? Swallow.
38:00 Speaker 00 Well...
38:02 Georgia Hardstark? Do you need me to spell that for you?
38:04 Speaker 00 No.
38:06 Speaker 00 You don't usually work blue, but...
38:09 Georgia Hardstark? I know.
38:10 Speaker 00 M. As in just the letter?
38:11 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, I think that Ally was like, "Oh, sometimes old-timey newspapers just refer to men by their first initial." So we're going up, we're going with M. Because we couldn't find any other name. Let's call him, what?
38:23 Speaker 00 Maurice.
38:24 Georgia Hardstark? Maurice Swallow.
38:28 Speaker 00 People, are you guessing, or do you actually know?
38:31 Georgia Hardstark? Is he your uncle, your great-uncle?
38:33 Speaker 00 All these citizens that are just like, "Please get our history correct."
38:38 Georgia Hardstark? Um, and he had an argument with him, but he's cleared. And then, so he has no enemies. And so Sheriff Buster and his team consider the possibility of someone maybe who wants revenge on him. Because it turns out he wasn't the best. I guess when he served in the Colorado 3rd Cavalry back in the 1860s, he participated in the Sand Creek massacre.
39:01 Georgia Hardstark? Yep.
39:03 Georgia Hardstark? You did that one, didn't you? That was awful. You did, you covered that one, right?
39:08 Speaker 00 Did I? How would I fucking know? I don't, I don't listen to this show.
39:15 Speaker 00 That was me doing an impression of my sister.
39:20 Georgia Hardstark? It was great. So they were thinking that maybe people were like, gonna plot revenge against him, but it'd been so long. And then, um, let's see. I'm gonna skip that, that, that, and that.
39:31 Speaker 00 Just read it. People like it.
39:33 Georgia Hardstark? They do?
39:34 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're fine.
39:38 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, thank you.
39:39 Speaker 00 This is actually, this is really interesting.
39:40 Georgia Hardstark? We're not the opening act and they want us out of here?
39:45 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
39:45 Speaker 00 You got this.
39:46 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, thank you.
39:49 Georgia Hardstark? Thanks, guys.
39:53 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you. But in 1870, a full 44 years before the murder, there was one or other event that sucked that could point to someone who would want revenge against William Dickens. That year, a man named Billy Dubois...
40:06 Speaker 00 Hmm, French.
40:10 Georgia Hardstark? Killed an innocent man. And a posse of vigilantes, which included William Dickens, went after Billy Dubois. And they tried to arrest him, but it led to a shootout. Billy goes down in the fight, and he swears to William that one day he will have his revenge. Right? Always a bad thing.
40:31 Speaker 00 I'd suspect that guy for sure.
40:33 Georgia Hardstark? Right. However... Oh, no, he's dead.
40:36 Speaker 00 Oh. Okay.
40:39 Georgia Hardstark? He won't have his revenge, but maybe his brother will.
40:42 Speaker 00 Oh.
40:43 Georgia Hardstark? You know how brothers are.
40:46 Speaker 00 I actually don't.
40:47 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, you don't. They fucking suck. They're real dicks. They steal your shit and hide it from you. It's annoying. But it had been so long, and this brother is like, working as the clerk of a... Let's see, Laramie County. And does that... you guys? He's got no criminal record. It sounds like he's just like, let his brother's memory, you know, live on in a positive way instead of seeking revenge.
41:18 Speaker 00 Right.
41:18 Georgia Hardstark? So, he's out.
41:20 Speaker 00 Okay. And then... And it's... sorry, really quick. It's Laramie County?
41:24 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, shit, thank you. What is it?
41:27 Speaker 00 They actually, in a very organized way, yelled that back at us.
41:30 Georgia Hardstark? Today, I wasn't listening to that.
41:31 Speaker 00 I didn't want to deny it because it was great work.
41:33 Georgia Hardstark? I appreciate it. No, you're totally right. I see it here now.
41:37 Speaker 00 Clear as day.
41:38 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, yeah. That was what I was meant to say. So, okay, so he's out. He's out. Investigators find themselves back at square one, but they get a new lead when a clerk at a store out of Denver... Let's see, guys.
41:55 Speaker 00 No one class from Denver.
41:59 Georgia Hardstark? They're like, "Ah, the fucking..." "Streetlights here are real rough." Aren't they? Like, you stop at every streetlight, every red light. My god, stop it.
42:10 Speaker 00 You mean the streetlights work here?
42:15 Georgia Hardstark? They make you stop and then they ask you to go. It's ridiculous here.
42:20 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. Sorry, I was mean about the streetlights. I didn't mean it. No, you were. You were correct. So, someone in Denver reports the purchase of a high-powered rifle and silencer just one month before the murder. They can trace these things back then, and they care. And it's the same type of gun that was used in the shooting, which was a rare gun. And the person who purchased this weapon is none other than William's own son, Rienzi Dickens.
42:47 Georgia Hardstark? You surprised? That surprises you? Heartbreaking. Thirty-four years old. I mean... Spoiled. Yeah. Nepo baby.
42:56 Georgia Hardstark? Nepo tavern baby? You know how they are. The worst kind. Filled with pretzels and ego.
43:06 Georgia Hardstark? So, he's arrested on December 3rd, 1914, just minutes after his father's funeral, which had to be a fucking scene, right? Like, that's kind of fucked up. That is... Those cops were like... That's revenge from cops. Totally. Like, you better be sure you got the guy if you're gonna, like, storm a funeral. Yeah. Right? One would hope. When Sheriff Buster asks if he ever purchased the gun and silencer, Rienzi swears he didn't, but then the authorities search his home and find the rifle and silencer. Where'd he put it? Where'd he put it? I don't know. Well, it's dismantled into several pieces and hidden throughout his own home. Yeah. Which I bet houses back then didn't have a lot of hiding places, you know? It's not like today. There's one big vase. You just had to put everything in there. Right. Yeah.
43:51 Georgia Hardstark? Police also dig through a pile of ash in the alley behind his house, looking for evidence, because one witness claimed to have seen him frantically digging there the morning of his father's funeral. Which is a weird... Like, maybe that's his religious... No.
44:11 Speaker 00 Try the second one.
44:12 Georgia Hardstark? I don't want to. It wasn't hip to begin with.
44:14 Speaker 00 Okay.
44:14 Georgia Hardstark? But thank you for the opportunity. In the ash they find the cartridge that held the bullet that killed William. Like the bullet, not the same one. So he is like, alright, you got me. I did buy the gun, but I insisted he was just shooting at a fence post for fun.
44:31 Speaker 00 Sure, toward his father's library.
44:33 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
44:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
44:34 Georgia Hardstark? The fence posts with the library behind it.
44:37 Speaker 00 For fun.
44:39 Georgia Hardstark? So fun. And so he has an alibi, though. He was home on the night of the murder with his kids, but his wife was out to the movies, so there's no witnesses to actually place him there that night.
44:51 Speaker 00 There was movies back then?
44:53 Georgia Hardstark? A picture. I don't know. That's a great fucking question.
44:55 Speaker 00 What fucking movie was it?
44:57 Georgia Hardstark? There were pictures. It wasn't a talkie.
44:59 Speaker 00 Kramer vs Kramer.
45:04 Georgia Hardstark? Definitely.
45:05 Speaker 00 It was just that train coming at him over and over. She was there forever, screaming.
45:10 Georgia Hardstark? Screaming their heads off. So his alibi isn't good enough to like prove, and police discover a potential motive, of course, because it's, guess what it is? Right, money.
45:22 Speaker 00 Oh, money, money.
45:22 Georgia Hardstark? Right. What were you gonna guess?
45:24 Speaker 00 My mind was completely blank.
45:28 Speaker 00 Literally, your finger went like that and I was like, oh, I'm supposed to say something right now.
45:32 Georgia Hardstark? I know. I hate when you do that, so I don't know why I just did that to you. I'm sorry.
45:37 Speaker 00 Well, I'll get my revenge during my story.
45:40 Georgia Hardstark? Fuck. Okay.
45:43 Georgia Hardstark? What'd you do?
45:44 Speaker 00 This.
45:47 Georgia Hardstark? So it turns out he's got a lot of debt. Records indicate that Renzi owes somewhere between $35,000 to $40,000 in debt. Guess how much that is today?
45:57 Speaker 00 Okay, we're talking 1914?
45:59 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
46:00 Speaker 00 35 to 40. God, I'm bad at this. I have to admit, after nine and a half years of doing this podcast, I'm so bad at this.
46:07 Georgia Hardstark? We got it right once.
46:08 Speaker 00 Let me just try it out.
46:09 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
46:10 Speaker 00 It's, don't help me. It's $350,000?
46:14 Georgia Hardstark? Mmm, I really wanted you to get this, because everyone would have... You're right, a million dollars.
46:21 Georgia Hardstark? Alright! Yay! And that's an example of what it feels like to be a nepo baby. Okay. You have another chance. Because his father's worth, estimated net worth, is about $300,000, which in today's money... 20 million. 9.5 million.
46:42 Georgia Hardstark? Sorry. It's okay. I've never been a math person, that's for sure. Me neither, that's why we have a podcast. Podcast! Yay!
46:52 Georgia Hardstark? So he was gonna, of course, inherit some of that, of course, and so, but he's like, "But I swear to God I didn't kill my dad." Probably.
47:02 Georgia Hardstark? His mom and siblings, they all have his back. They don't think he did it. And later the same month, later in the same month of his arrest, and, oh my God, we haven't done this in so long, December 1914. You have to remember and reflect up. Right. And come back now. He's arraigned, pleads not guilty, he's released on $37,000 bond, which I don't know how much it is. 800,000? Yes, yes, it has to be.
47:29 Georgia Hardstark? So they hire a whole team of private investigators to track down the real killer and get him, you know, out of here. And they find one suspect worth considering. It's a rancher named John Ensley. Everyone's related to these people, I bet. Yeah, I'm sure. And they just don't know it. Every single one of these people, yeah. Oh, I have a cousin I don't know in the audience, I just remembered. That's what he said, I don't know. And you don't know your own cousin? He's like, second cousin, yeah. So kind of a stranger? Yeah. What do you think he thinks of you right now?
47:58 Georgia Hardstark? I don't know, but his wife likes me, so that's cool. Okay, that's good. I think he's a drag long, and I appreciate you, Stephen.
48:06 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, he used to work for William, but people close to him says he always resented William. He was spotted drinking at a Longmont bar on the night of William's murder, and a bottle of this liquor that he drinks was found nearby, outside of the Dickens home. So that's not great. Shouldn't have left that behind. Right, right, but he was probably drunk off it. It's enough for the police to question Ensley, but he tells them something interesting that unravels the private detective's story. According to Ensley, most of the group of private investigators, they all got him shitfaced, basically. And one of them, yeah, pretended to be a priest who tried to trick him into confessing. So, a whole scam. What do you think? Yay or nay?
48:50 Speaker 00 So it's like 1914 cops, so they're probably literally beating the shit out of him. And then they're like, "Okay, well, we'll give you a moment to bleed," and walk outside. And then one of them like turns their shirt around and is like, "Hey, I'm also gonna beat you up, but you'll tell me, right?"
49:06 Georgia Hardstark? That's, but I love God, so you tell me.
49:09 Speaker 00 Peace up to the big one.
49:10 Georgia Hardstark? Yep.
49:12 Georgia Hardstark? And then the whole thing just was a big setup to try and frame him. And so with no hard evidence against Enslie Police, believe him and go back to the sun. So his trial for the murder of his father begins April 24th, 1915. And Judge Neil F. Graham, your favorite, presides over the case. And they come in hot and drop a bombshell. He claims he's received a confession letter in the mail from the actual killer.
49:43 Speaker 00 Oh.
49:43 Georgia Hardstark? You want me to read it to you? He reads it in court.
49:45 Speaker 00 Please do, and please do it in a classic Colorado accent. Yes.
49:52 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. "Dear sir, please don't let them convict Ramsey Dickens." Do I have it?
49:59 Speaker 00 Pretty dead on, I think, yeah.
50:01 Georgia Hardstark? "Please don't let them convict him. I am the murderer. I'd kill any man who would do me the way old blank blank did. I shot him in the window with a rifle, which afterward..." It's just like admitting to it in such a ridiculous way.
50:14 Speaker 00 Read the letter, read the letter.
50:17 Georgia Hardstark? "I shot him through the window with a rifle, which I afterward buried in Loveland. For God's sake, don't let them convict an innocent man. Someday, they will be sorry. I did it because he had it coming. Signed, X." So it's a real convenient...
50:32 Speaker 00 Real bullshitty.
50:33 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
50:34 Speaker 00 It's the "for God's sake" that pushed it over the edge for me.
50:37 Georgia Hardstark? Right, "Oh, please, oh, please."
50:38 Speaker 00 Easy.
50:39 Georgia Hardstark? "I'm fine killing a dude, but I don't want anyone to go to prison for it." You know what I mean? Like, I don't know about that. The district attorney is like, bullshit, calls bullshit.
50:51 Georgia Hardstark? And so after about a month of going back and forth in court, Judge Graham sends the jury off to deliberate and he gives them an option to either find Rienzi guilty of first degree murder or guilty of second degree murder or not guilty. And they find him guilty of second degree murder. His wife faints in the courtroom when she finds out, which is dramatic. Very old fashioned. Yeah. Yeah. They fainted a lot back then. They loved fucking feigning back then. They had like couches, literal couches for it. I hear it was the corsets, but... Oh, that's right. That might just be a rumor. Yeah. He gets a retrial and he gets out on $40,000 bail and... $237,000.
51:35 Georgia Hardstark? Yes. Man, you're fucking killing it. It might every single one is right. And it looks like his mother pays the bill, you know, as... And then they, in the course of the next trial, they find a weapons specialist who's like, "Maybe it wasn't the gun, the murder weapon that was hidden all over his house. Maybe it wasn't. Could it not have been? Maybe." So... There's so many things in this world. Right. That one of them could be this. And so, so he... Okay, so, no, here we go. Just read the letter again.
52:17 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, their application for retrial is denied and he's given a sentence of 18 to 27 years imprisonment for the murder of his father. And, but he continues to appeal his guilty verdict. And in October of 1919, the Colorado Supreme Court orders a new trial on the grounds that the second degree premeditated murder charge was invalid because whoever did it was like premeditated. You guys know how true crime works. So only, the only valid verdict would have been first degree or not guilty.
52:46 Speaker 00 Yeah.
52:47 Georgia Hardstark? So, technicality, you're out. Which is, you know, there for people who aren't guilty.
52:55 Georgia Hardstark? You know?
52:55 Speaker 00 I mean...
52:56 Georgia Hardstark? He's released from prison while he awaits a second trial, and he relocates to Long Beach, California for some reason.
53:01 Speaker 00 Hey!
53:02 Georgia Hardstark? I don't know.
53:03 Speaker 00 We went to the Rocky Stadium for the game last night. It was...
53:07 Georgia Hardstark? That's right!
53:08 Speaker 00 So, I should have talked about that at the top.
53:10 Georgia Hardstark? I know!
53:11 Speaker 00 As like an anecdotal thing to warm everybody up and win people over.
53:15 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
53:15 Speaker 00 But, I forgot. It was so gorgeous and cool and the Giants won, so I was excited. But, it was cool, sorry, don't be mad. Just don't, let's not turn it into a sports thing like you always have to. Just like, let us do our show.
53:30 Georgia Hardstark? She has one team, that's it, that she wants to win.
53:33 Speaker 00 That's all I ask.
53:34 Georgia Hardstark? Let her have it. And in October 1921, he returns to Colorado for a second trial. Couple weeks, focuses on that, was the gun and the bullet the same? And they paid a lot of people a lot of money to say, maybe it wasn't.
53:48 Speaker 00 There's so many things in this world.
53:49 Georgia Hardstark? There's so many things in this world, yeah. And in the end, about two weeks, after two weeks of trial, he's found not guilty this time. So, after receiving his not guilty verdict in 1921, he had, wait, there's been other photos. And I forgot them. Is there another photo?
54:05 Speaker 00 Let's just take a look!
54:07 Georgia Hardstark? Hey! Yeah. So that's him right, that's right before he dies, probably. William Dickens. No, probably, he looks kinda young. That's just the same picture with the fake goatee.
54:19 Speaker 00 He's wearing a fake beard and he finally got that limp roller he was dreaming of.
54:25 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, and then I think there's a photo of his house for some reason, if you feel like seeing it.
54:28 Speaker 00 Ooh!
54:29 Georgia Hardstark? Right?
54:30 Speaker 00 Third Avenue, the place to be in Longmont, am I right?
54:33 Georgia Hardstark? Do you guys know it? Do you love it?
54:34 Speaker 00 I used to go trick or treating there as a child.
54:37 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, and I think that's it, so, yeah, that's, that's all the photos.
54:41 Speaker 00 Just stop looking over there.
54:43 Georgia Hardstark? So look away.
54:44 Speaker 00 So stop it.
54:46 Georgia Hardstark? And so, he lives in Long Beach the rest of his life, passes away in 1961, and what if, okay, here is my, so they never really caught, it's a cold case because they never actually caught the murderer, even though everyone thinks that they did, it was the sun.
55:01 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:01 Georgia Hardstark? What if he had an insurance policy taken out on himself? Hear me out. It's in a book that I won't spoil for you.
55:09 Speaker 00 Okay.
55:09 Georgia Hardstark? But he has himself.
55:11 Speaker 00 Guilt?
55:11 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. This is terrible.
55:13 Speaker 00 Why would he have himself killed?
55:14 Georgia Hardstark? Because then his wife can get the insurance money.
55:18 Speaker 00 So do you think he had suicidal ideation? He was like, "Let's get five other people in on this plan and make some cash?" Wasn't he already rich?
55:26 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
55:29 Speaker 00 Shit. But you know what? That's what greed is like, you know what I mean? It's never enough. It's never enough.
55:35 Georgia Hardstark? Tell it to the hot dog. That's why.
55:39 Georgia Hardstark? That's why I'm a podcaster and not a detective.
55:42 Speaker 00 That's right.
55:42 Georgia Hardstark? Among other things. Like I didn't go to college.
55:46 Speaker 00 Look, we're doing our best.
55:50 Georgia Hardstark? As for his murder, the case technically remains cold, though most people believe Ramsey was guilty, but he was able to cast enough doubt with enough money.
55:59 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
56:00 Georgia Hardstark? To win his freedom, and he maintained his innocence to the end, leaving the truth about his father's death a mystery.
56:07 Speaker 00 Hmm.
56:07 Georgia Hardstark? And that is the story of the murder of William Dickens.
56:10 Speaker 00 Yeah. You're done. You did it. It was great. I know.
56:19 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you.
56:24 Georgia Hardstark? It happened.
56:26 Speaker 00 Yeah.
56:26 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, thank you.
56:27 Speaker 00 You got it done.
56:28 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you, thank you.
56:29 Speaker 00 We all thank you, the people of Longmont thank you.
56:34 Speaker 00 Right? The Longmont Museum, now our business partners.
56:39 Georgia Hardstark? That's right.
56:39 Speaker 00 It's incredible opportunity.
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1:00:09 Speaker 00 Okay, are you ready for my story? Mm-hmm. I'm gonna tell one of them.
1:00:13 Speaker 02 You guys know that we don't know, ever know each other's stories, which we're talking about how annoying that must be for everyone who has to work on the show. Because we have to like take separate calls, so I don't know this, what she's gonna do.
1:00:23 Speaker 00 Yeah, well, so I'll tell you right now.
1:00:25 Speaker 02 I wish you would.
1:00:26 Speaker 00 All these people in the audience are like, we've been listening to this bullshit for nine years. We know you don't know. But it's fun. It's fun to talk about. Guys, tonight I'm gonna tell you a story that takes place in one of your beautiful, charming, little scenic towns in the Rockies here in Colorado. It's one of those towns that has great hiking, skiing, fishing, and what one website describes as, quote, "strong old west vibes."
1:00:56 Speaker 02 Hmm, I love those things.
1:00:58 Speaker 00 Right? Everyone's got kind of a weird, janky hat on. The town has around 2,000 people. It's a tight-knit community. It's been described as sleepy, cozy, and laid back.
1:01:10 Speaker 02 Me too.
1:01:11 Speaker 00 Right? That's you all over. You're so tight-knit.
1:01:18 Speaker 00 But all of that changed on the afternoon of June 4th, 2004, when a man came roaring down the streets of this quiet little town in a customized bulldozer.
1:01:32 Speaker 00 With the intent of leveling everything in his path. The man's name was Marv Heemeyer, and the town was called Granby. This is the story of the Killdozer.
1:01:47 Speaker 00 Good job. Yeah. Wow. I'm pretty sure Maren found this one, and I was like, "You have done me a great service here." Truly, truly. This story is fucking nuts. Oh. This is a great you story, too. Like, I feel like this one was made for you. It's really... There's a lot of heroes and anti-heroes in this story. And then there's one big-ass bulldozer, and that's all I need, really. I'm like a three-year-old boy in that way. I just want... I just want to look at big bulldozers. Bulldozers and sinkholes and... Sinkholes and bulldozers. Fire trucks. You know? Uh, okay. Did you say your sources for yours? Yes. Okay, great.
1:02:31 Speaker 00 The... I wasn't listening. You even commented on it. Did I? Yeah, you did. Was that tonight? Yeah, yeah.
1:02:40 Speaker 00 So the main sources that Maren used for this story today are the book Killdozer: The True Story of the Colorado Bulldozer Rampage by author Patrick Brower, and a 2020 documentary called Tread.
1:02:56 Speaker 00 Okay. So we'll just talk about Marv first, and, uh, so you learn a little background. Marv Heemeyer is born in 1951 in South Dakota.
1:03:08 Speaker 00 Are you fucking serious? Are you serious? Did you drive? Wow, they drove. How long is the road trip?
1:03:19 Speaker 00 Eleven seven... Someone goes in a bulldozer.
1:03:24 Speaker 00 Classic. That's good. It's like the straight story, but with a bulldozer from South Dakota. How long does it take to get here, driving? Six hours. Thank you very much. Yeah. All the rest of the shit you're saying, we can't hear, and we'll talk about it later. Yeah. South Dakota. I know. I feel like I've never met a person from South Dakota. No, you haven't. This is... What's one of your names? Carrie? Veneras? Mary. Mary. Mary. Mary? Mary Smith? Nice to meet you, Mary. Now I've met someone from South Dakota. Yeah. Okay.
1:04:07 Speaker 00 But Marv's family comes to Colorado in the mid... No, sorry, Marv himself comes to Colorado in the mid-1970s. He's stationed at the now-defunct Lowry Air Force Base right here in Denver. Thank you for your service. And then when Marv leaves the Air Force, he stays in Denver to pursue his newest passion. Just give a guess. Okay. Is this you pointing at me to guess? A little bit. Uh, bulldozers? No? Race car driving? Snowmobiling. Damn it! That's kind of close, though. I got it's like a vehicle, you know? And it's also one of those vehicles with the chainy things, not actual wheels. So I'm gonna take that as a win. I think it's a huge win.
1:04:52 Speaker 00 I need it. Also, I just think it's funny when I was looking at this, where it's like the words "passion" and "snowmobiling" are quite a combination. Yeah. So, snowmobiling becomes a huge part of his life. He takes weekly trips out to rugged areas with his friends, so they can ride their snowmobiles and hoot and holler and whatnot. They snowmobile so hard together that eventually Marv decides to go into an auto repair business with one of those friends, a man named John Kleiner. So they open up a shop in Boulder, and Marv becomes known as a virtuoso when it comes to welding and repairing mufflers. Kinda hot. The Mozart of mufflers.
1:05:36 Speaker 00 Did you say "kinda hot"? Yeah.
1:05:39 Georgia Hardstark? I don't know why welding to me is just like one of those like tough person things.
1:05:44 Speaker 00 Yeah, let's show it.
1:05:45 Georgia Hardstark? Can we see?
1:05:46 Speaker 00 Yeah. Hey.
1:05:50 Georgia Hardstark? If you saw that while you were scrolling whatever the apps, what would you do?
1:05:54 Speaker 00 Push left? What's the thing you do?
1:05:56 Georgia Hardstark? I don't know.
1:05:57 Speaker 00 The answer's yes.
1:05:59 Georgia Hardstark? Does his hat say silver bullet?
1:06:02 Speaker 00 Does it?
1:06:03 Georgia Hardstark? Shit, yeah.
1:06:04 Speaker 00 Hell, yeah. He got that for free.
1:06:09 Georgia Hardstark? Or with like points from the tabs.
1:06:13 Speaker 00 He sent away for that.
1:06:14 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
1:06:14 Speaker 00 So, um, one of Marv's friends will later tell the AP that quote, "He could change a muffler by himself in 20 minutes. No wasted motion. He knew what he was doing."
1:06:26 Georgia Hardstark? Alright.
1:06:28 Speaker 00 It'd be nice to have friends that talked about you like that.
1:06:30 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:32 Speaker 00 True appreciation of your skill.
1:06:34 Georgia Hardstark? Especially of mufflers. She's great. Karen's great at mufflers.
1:06:38 Speaker 00 She's so good at mufflers. No wasted motion. It's the thing I'm sick of when I go get my car fixed and they're like, "Ugh." It's like, "Come on."
1:06:48 Speaker 00 20-minute oil change, for fuck's sake. So at some point, Marv and John, uh, they split off and do their own things. Uh, Marv opens a different shop on his own, and that does very well. He's also made a bunch of money investing in real estate, so he's doing good. Uh, and then in the early 90s, he moves to Grand Lake, Colorado.
1:07:10 Speaker 00 It's just this huge lake. I don't know, grand. Um, and he does it for this no-mobile-ling. That's right. Um, and then this is when he hears that his old friend and business partner, John, is thinking of expanding his business toward the Rocky Mountains. Um, and that news gets Marv's wheels turning because he had recently come across a vacant two-acre lot in Granby, near his current home in Grand Lake. Um, that lot was previously owned by a concrete business that changed hands before that business failed and went bust.
1:07:50 Speaker 00 Sometimes Maren uses these phrases, like, she'll be like, "And everything went bust." And I'm like, "I don't really talk like that, but I guess I missed that one."
1:08:01 Speaker 00 So, that piece of property's been bank-owned for three years. And when Marv sees it, he sees it as the perfect place for an auto repair shop. It's got a two-bay garage, it has lots of storage space, beautiful lighting, a great room in the front, an office, and it's perfectly located at the intersection of two highways, so.
1:08:25 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Breakdown, here you go.
1:08:28 Speaker 00 Tow it right over here. The best thing about it, though, is the price. The property is appraised at around $100,000, but the starting bid is $20,000.
1:08:38 Georgia Hardstark? That's cheap, right?
1:08:39 Speaker 00 Yeah. Marv's like, "I'm gonna go to that auction, I'm gonna kick some ass." Do you wanna guess how much? $20,000? $20,000.
1:08:48 Georgia Hardstark? Seventies?
1:08:49 Speaker 00 No, no.
1:08:50 Georgia Hardstark? Ninety-four. That's the last...
1:08:53 Speaker 00 Ninety-two.
1:08:54 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. The last thing I heard was seventies. Okay. Twenty thousand in the nineties today would be eighty-five thousand.
1:09:02 Speaker 00 Forty-six...
1:09:03 Georgia Hardstark? Fuck, thousand. That doesn't sound like enough. Shit, okay.
1:09:09 Speaker 00 Reporter Patrick Brower says, quote, "Marv hoped he could buy it for a song, lease it or sell it back to Kleiner on favorable terms, and add to his already fairly comfortable income stream." So the two men work out a deal where Marv agrees to buy the two-acre Granby lot and finance it back to John for $66,000. That's still well below the appraised value, making it worthwhile to John, but a big payday for Marv, as long as he can buy it close to that starting price. So, it's 1992, Marv shows up at a real estate auction, ready to get that property, but right as the bidding begins, he realizes that someone else wants that property too,
1:09:51 Speaker 00 and it's the former mayor of Granby, a man named Gus Harris. So Mayor Harris also has a friend with him. It's the former property owner of the concrete business that used to be there...
1:10:08 Speaker 00 They, right? You know what I'm about to deal with. So this man's named Cody Dochev. And Cody sold his concrete business. Someone else bought it. And then that person went out of business. And then the bank owned it.
1:10:21 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
1:10:21 Speaker 00 So Cody actually made money off of that.
1:10:23 Georgia Hardstark? Got it.
1:10:24 Speaker 00 So he's there with the mayor. And author Patrick Brower describes Cody in his book as quote, "higher ener-" "high ener-" as a quote, "high-energy spark plug of a man." See, when you're here at the live show, you can hear all the edits that we can't make.
1:10:39 Georgia Hardstark? That's right.
1:10:40 Speaker 00 The blabbing and the, and the tut-tut-tut.
1:10:42 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, yeah.
1:10:45 Speaker 00 It's hard to, it's hard to, yeah, that's right. So, um, so he's basically, Cody's there to egg on the old mayor and to get, you know, get him bidding and have some fun. So the auction begins. It's immediately intense. The bidding, of course, goes back and forth between Mayor Gus, then Marv, and then Gus raises, and then Marv raises, and it goes back and forth until finally Marv wins the auction with a bid of $42,000, which is about how much in today's money?
1:11:17 Georgia Hardstark? Uh, sixty-eight.
1:11:20 Speaker 00 Ninety-five.
1:11:21 Georgia Hardstark? Fuck, dang it.
1:11:22 Speaker 00 Yeah. Should we stop doing this?
1:11:24 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Maybe that's an old fucking trope that we should put away.
1:11:29 Speaker 00 Just, just shelve it? And never again guess money?
1:11:32 Georgia Hardstark? Maybe this tour is the last money guessing tour. And then we fucking end it.
1:11:37 Speaker 00 We were, we were trying to think of a title for this tour. And now we've finally stumbled upon the best title ever. So once that auction's over, Marv claims that Cody came over to him and starts to chew him out. He will later describe Cody as quote, "the rudest and most arrogant person." I mean, this guy is just a fucking asshole.
1:11:57 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
1:11:58 Speaker 00 Marv, language.
1:11:59 Georgia Hardstark? Love it.
1:12:01 Speaker 00 Marv also claims that he immediately offered to sell the lot that he just bought to Cody, even though Mayor Gus is the one that was bidding on it, for $66,000, which was the same price that he offered to finance it for his friend John. Cody, and a handful of other people who were at the auction that day, flatly deny that that exchange ever took place. But the problem is, now in this very small town of Granby, Marv Heemeyer is rubbing some locals the wrong way. And as we all know, the people of us that come from the country, that's a problem. You don't want to do that. But Marv's problems are about to get worse, because not long after purchasing this property,
1:12:45 Speaker 00 a man named Bud Wilson, from the Granby Water and Sanitation Department, comes out and informs Marv that this property is not connected to the city septic system. Yeah, what does that mean? That means, when you flush the toilet, it just kind of goes out. All right. Actually, in the country, you think called, wait, it's a leach field, right? Where it just, it's like, well, it just goes out into being empty field. I don't know. Okay, so listen. Let's not talk about shit anymore. Because that's not the worst part.
1:13:26 Speaker 00 The worst part is, it turns out that the main line hookup, for him to get connected to the city septic system, is 100 feet away off of his property, and so it's on somebody else's property. And if that's not bad enough, the owner of that land is none other than former Mayor Gus Harris. Oh, man. His auction enemy. This is like a Looney Tunes cartoon. It is a, it's getting, it's a little Coen Brothers-y, this story. Yeah. So, after the way things shook out at the auction, it is easy to assume that Gus probably wouldn't be the hugest fan of Marv, might even be a little resentful of Marv's obnoxious behavior, plus, as anyone who grew up in the country knows, the installation and upkeep for a new sewer system is pricey.
1:14:14 Speaker 00 And that's when Marv learns it's gonna cost him upwards of $80,000 to install this.
1:14:19 Georgia Hardstark? Fuck, man.
1:14:21 Speaker 00 And that's, of course, twice what he just paid for the land itself.
1:14:24 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:14:25 Speaker 00 So the project is automatically way over budget from what he and John Kleiner originally agreed to be working on. So, suddenly Marv's investment property is morphing into a serious money pit, and he tries to do some damage control. He shows up at the next Granby Town Hall meeting, and he thinks he can somehow push or reroute the negotiations away from Gus and to the city of Granby itself. And, um, he wants, he basically wants them to handle the negotiations and the subsequent installation costs. And Marv actually tells the city board, quote, "You've got to hook me up."
1:15:07 Georgia Hardstark? Get that on a shirt.
1:15:08 Speaker 00 Yeah. And then there's just a bunch of shit underneath.
1:15:13 Georgia Hardstark? Karen's going blue today. Is that blue or no?
1:15:16 Speaker 00 No, it's just gross.
1:15:17 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:15:18 Speaker 00 I guess it's brown, if anything.
1:15:19 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, Karen!
1:15:22 Speaker 00 The Granby Town Board tells Marv that the city will not be holding his hand through this process, and that Marv needs to get his property hooked up to the city sewer system, which means he has to work things out with Gus Harris. And as you might guess, Marv does not like this answer, and he tells the board members in what some might say is a condescending tone, that, quote, "You can't expect to grow if this is your policy. It's extortion by the government fiat. I don't need you, you need me."
1:15:51 Georgia Hardstark? Uh-oh. Yeah. That's foreshadowing.
1:15:54 Speaker 00 Then he tries to drop the mic, but it's one of those ones that connected to the podium, so he's just like pushing it down.
1:16:02 Speaker 00 And then he storms out, "Yes, queen, go."
1:16:06 Speaker 00 Right? Men are so dramatic. I love... This dance of, "You're asking me to be reasonable. How can you grow if that's your policy?"
1:16:18 Georgia Hardstark? Maybe they don't want to grow.
1:16:19 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:16:20 Georgia Hardstark? You know?
1:16:20 Speaker 00 Maybe that's Granby.
1:16:24 Speaker 00 So, the whole thing is taking place in a town hall meeting on the record in front of a bunch of people. It's not a good look for the new guy, who basically just screwed up and is now begging the town for help. Marv then informed town officials in the interim that he will be putting in a new septic tank, so Granby's fine with that. What he doesn't tell them is what he's doing is, he found an old cement mixer on the property, and he's just gonna bury that and use that as the septic tank.
1:16:52 Georgia Hardstark? The cement mixer?
1:16:54 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
1:16:54 Georgia Hardstark? I guess I don't really know how septic tanks work.
1:16:56 Speaker 00 It's just a big...
1:16:58 Georgia Hardstark? If I'm being honest. I'm from the suburbs.
1:17:00 Speaker 00 It's like a waiting room for your shit.
1:17:03 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
1:17:04 Speaker 00 It's more complicated than that, but... We don't need to talk about it. And then Maren wrote, "And if you think that sounds like a bad idea, that's because it is a bad idea."
1:17:18 Speaker 00 So Bud Wilson, from the Water and Sanitation Department, warns Marv. He can't rely on a septic tank forever. He will need to figure out how to hook up to the city sewer line at some point. But before Marv... This is my writing. "But before Marv can expel the cortisol from his system and work amicably with his neighbor, his business buddy snowmobile sister, John Kleiner, unexpectedly finds himself involved in an EPA audit over some old oil spills."
1:17:51 Georgia Hardstark? That doesn't sound good.
1:17:52 Speaker 00 Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. It's just personal oil spills that the EPA has to get involved with.
1:17:59 Speaker 00 It's personal.
1:18:00 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
1:18:01 Speaker 00 So, when you know it, John now begins backpedaling to get out of the Granby plan that he was gonna do with Marv. So, Marv decides that he's just gonna do it himself. He's gonna set up his new muffler shop. But remember, he planned to lease and finance that property to and with John. It's not happening. So, Marv has to go it alone. He opens Mountain View Mufflers.
1:18:29 Speaker 00 Everybody loves it.
1:18:30 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
1:18:31 Speaker 00 And he services just about everybody in town and he actually does really well. So things start looking up. And even better, because he does such great work at the muffler shop, he basically starts doing damage control with the locals. He even makes some friends. People are like, "Oh, this guy's really good," and they get to know him as a person and...
1:18:52 Georgia Hardstark? And he doesn't waste a movement, or whatever it was.
1:18:54 Speaker 00 That's right. No wasted movement.
1:18:56 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:18:57 Speaker 00 They're like, "Look at the clean lines of this guy and his muffler work."
1:19:00 Georgia Hardstark? Look at him go.
1:19:01 Speaker 00 He's like a ballerina with the muffler.
1:19:06 Speaker 00 Locals think that Marv is nice. He's friendly. He's making friends. Things are starting to go smoothly. And Marv is really happy about his transplant to this mountain community. And then he's making good money. And what is he doing with that money?
1:19:20 Georgia Hardstark? Snowmobiling.
1:19:21 Speaker 00 That's right.
1:19:22 Georgia Hardstark? I knew it this time.
1:19:24 Speaker 00 It's the dream life. He's thriving. But there is one problem for Marvin. It's Bud Wilson, the Grand B Water and Sanitation guy, who keeps on calling and reminding him he's got to connect to the city sewer line.
1:19:40 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, how's he... okay, yeah.
1:19:43 Speaker 00 Well, it's that kind of thing where like, you know how some of us get very good at pushing off other people to not do the thing that they just don't feel like doing? Well, he does this for five years.
1:19:54 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
1:19:55 Speaker 00 Epic procrastination. Just masterful. No wasted movement in that. So now it's 1997. Marv's in his mid-40s. He has been running this muffler business for five years. And that is when the Dochuff family approaches him, asking if they can buy the property. So this is Cody Dochuff's family. They owned the concrete plant before. And Cody was the spark plug of a man. And the family basically wants to start the concrete plant on that property again. But Marv doesn't like Cody.
1:20:31 Georgia Hardstark? God, he doesn't like a lot of people.
1:20:33 Speaker 00 He's, I think he's sensitive.
1:20:35 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:20:35 Speaker 00 Maybe a little emotional, like he's, you know?
1:20:38 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, sometimes you gotta look at yourself, though, if you're like not getting along with a lot of people.
1:20:42 Speaker 00 That's very true.
1:20:43 Georgia Hardstark? You know?
1:20:44 Speaker 00 You're saying that to me, you're saying that to you.
1:20:50 Speaker 00 Surprisingly, Marv says he is not opposed to selling to the dough chefs. In fact, he gets the lot appraised and he lets them know the property is now worth $270,000. But when the dough chefs agree to that price, Marv ups the price to $375,000.
1:21:13 Speaker 00 Before claiming that actually the land is worth a million dollars.
1:21:17 Georgia Hardstark? Dude, calm down.
1:21:20 Speaker 00 So he kind of does a bait and switch of like, "Sure, friend, I'll negotiate with you." And then, not really. So this forces the dough chefs basically to just walk away from this deal. But what they do, because they're also petty bitches, is they buy the land next door to Marv. Or maybe they just had to, you know what I mean? Maybe that was just, you can't put a concrete plant just anywhere.
1:21:42 Georgia Hardstark? Sure.
1:21:43 Speaker 00 It was just like, they didn't have a ton of choices.
1:21:45 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:21:46 Speaker 00 So, when Marv finds that out, he tries to buy that property out from under them before they can finalize the deal. But it's too late, ink is dry, he can't do it. And this is when Marv goes on an all-out crusade to fight that forthcoming concrete plant being put in next door to him.
1:22:02 Georgia Hardstark? This guy is exhausting. Like, fuck dude, take a nap and go ride your fucking snowmobile.
1:22:07 Speaker 00 My thing is, for real, right? It's like, you can't only snowmobile your way out of your emotions. You have to pit, you have to go to therapy. You have to fucking go to therapy. I'm sorry.
1:22:17 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, you can say "snowmob-"
1:22:22 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, yeah.
1:22:23 Speaker 00 Were you saying?
1:22:24 Georgia Hardstark? Nothing.
1:22:25 Speaker 00 Okay. So... What is that bug?
1:22:29 Georgia Hardstark? It's a moth, I'm telling you. It's a ghost. From 1914.
1:22:34 Speaker 00 It's a big moth. If it lands on my shoulder, I'm leaving.
1:22:40 Speaker 00 Okay, so Marv frames this concrete plant as a toxic, harmful project. He says he's worried that the dust and the environmental issues will bring all kinds of problems to his property. He cites all sorts of zoning violations and issues. To be fair, Marv is not the only person in Granby who feels this way about this concrete plant, but for Marv, it's personal. He starts going door to door in Granby. Yikes. And he also runs countless ads in the local newspaper. Oh, god. Sky High News. Anyone heard of it? Love it. "Of course not," they say. "We're not from Granby." But basically, he's doing everything he can to kind of lobby against this plant.
1:23:25 Speaker 00 He also lawyers up. He files a lawsuit in hopes of halting construction. So now, the Sky High News starts covering this battle because it's so public. Marv's not pleased with the angle they take on the situation, though, because they position both him and his attorney as outsiders. I'm considered an outsider in Petaluma. Really? Because I moved there when I was two. It's how small towns are. Got it. And that town is a big town compared to Granby. Yeah. If that fucking moth doesn't get out of here while I am performing... Excuse me, excuse me. Mom?
1:24:10 Speaker 00 They're good luck. Man on the street interview with a moth. "How long have you lived at the Paramount Theater, moth?" Okay, this is so fucking long. I gotta go. All right. Unfortunately for Marv, all his time, money, and energy fighting this cause does not stop the concrete plant. If anything, it causes the town of Granby to make sure everything is done exactly by the book, so they're not breaking any rules. And the Dochovs work with the town to iron out all those zoning issues that he was trying to cite. And meanwhile, Marv has convinced himself that the city is conspiring against him and his business. He might be right. I mean, I don't think he is. Oh. Okay.
1:24:53 Speaker 00 Knowing what is at the end of this document. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Keep it in mind.
1:25:00 Speaker 00 So then in 2001, which is four years into his crusade against the concrete plant, a really bad thing happens. We're going back to...
1:25:09 Georgia Hardstark? 2001, yeah.
1:25:11 Speaker 00 We're...
1:25:12 Georgia Hardstark? I think I know what it is.
1:25:13 Speaker 00 It's not 9/11.
1:25:14 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
1:25:18 Speaker 00 The concrete mixer fills up and begins to overflow.
1:25:23 Georgia Hardstark? Ew!
1:25:24 Speaker 00 Yeah. And so what Marv does is he doesn't solve the problem. He just, he simply pumps all of that human waste into a ditch behind his property.
1:25:35 Georgia Hardstark? Nah, dude. You can't do that.
1:25:37 Speaker 00 Nope.
1:25:38 Georgia Hardstark? Turns out.
1:25:38 Speaker 00 It turns out it is against the rules.
1:25:40 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. He's like mad at the concrete people, but then he's just like dumping shit?
1:25:44 Speaker 00 Exactly. He's an environmental toxicity warrior.
1:25:48 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
1:25:48 Speaker 00 And then it's like, "It's natural."
1:25:53 Speaker 00 Um, yeah, he's only mad at concrete, not human feces everywhere. So, he immediately gets caught doing that. He gets fined $2,500 and warned that he absolutely must get connected to the city sewer system, or his business could be shut down. And Marv calls this requirement a form, quote, "a form of terrorism."
1:26:14 Georgia Hardstark? Ah, bad timing, dude.
1:26:17 Speaker 00 What, do you want me to have indoor plumbing too? What is this?
1:26:23 Georgia Hardstark? Did it land on me? Oh, it landed on me!
1:26:25 Speaker 00 Is it on you?
1:26:26 Georgia Hardstark? That's good luck, right? Anyone?
1:26:28 Speaker 00 Is it on you?
1:26:28 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:26:30 Speaker 00 What do you want from us?
1:26:31 Georgia Hardstark? Hi.
1:26:33 Speaker 00 We're trying to do our first live show back after six fucking...
1:26:38 Georgia Hardstark? It's cute.
1:26:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:26:39 Georgia Hardstark? I'm happy about it. Oh, wait, maybe it came from my dress.
1:26:47 Georgia Hardstark? Maybe I don't smell like mothballs.
1:26:49 Speaker 00 That poor moth is like, "I just want to go home." "Please let me, please let me go home."
1:26:55 Georgia Hardstark? This fucking hot lady is wearing my fucking dress.
1:27:00 Speaker 00 You steamed him out of the dress.
1:27:01 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, no.
1:27:03 Speaker 00 Okay.
1:27:03 Georgia Hardstark? Oops!
1:27:08 Speaker 00 He's still there. Put your finger up, wait if he flies away. So, this is when Cody Dochev calls Marv and offers to cover the cost of the sewer line installation if Marv will just stop fighting about the concrete plant. So, Marv hangs up on him. Yes. He is not down. So, at this point, Marv's been spending a lot of time alone, often in his hot tub, which you would think would be a positive. I get it, yeah. This is the one man who a hot tub is not a positive, doesn't have a positive effect on him. It makes it worse somehow. He's wearing those overalls, he has a muffler, and he's just like, "I've never wasted any motion, and still, here I am."
1:27:53 Speaker 00 Stewing in anger and paranoia in a hot tub. If this sounds like you, please call the Granby Hot Tub Hotline.
1:28:05 Speaker 00 Also, I wrote in, this is just a guess, but it sounds like it might be spring, so I think he hasn't snowmobiled in a while. Oh. He's itching. All this is to say, Marv is in a bad place, and we know this and we know what happens next, because Marv ends up recording a very long manifesto. Oh, man, when there's a manifesto, shit's going south. Right? This is, that's the gate through which you walk, and you're like, "Now, this goes into a terrible true crime story." Right. The timeline goes like this: In April of 2002, Marv's lawsuit against the Dochevs is officially dismissed. Back in the hot tub. Hot tears. Five mufflers this time.
1:28:49 Speaker 00 So, the concrete plant is going full steam ahead. Three months later, in July of 2002, a special delivery arrives for Marv in Granby. What is it? It's an enormous Komatsu D355A bulldozer, which he reportedly got a great deal on. Oh. So, these were designed, these are the gigantic bulldozers that were designed for oil fields and mining operations. I didn't know there were different kinds of bulldozers. Yeah, yeah. That's great to know. There's like a little one, like a skip loader that they use at Costco, and then there's these fucking gigantic ones that are like, "We're gonna dig into the center of the earth and release cryptids."
1:29:28 Speaker 00 That's my personal dream. Anyway, they're over 12 feet tall, nearly 30 feet long, and they can weigh over 100,000 pounds. Jesus. What else is 30 feet long? A standard school bus, a large RV, an adult blue whale.
1:29:45 Speaker 00 Good to know, for reference. That's according to AI, I'll say, which also recommended that to stay healthy, you should eat six small rocks a day. So let's take everything with a grain of salt in our AI future.
1:30:01 Speaker 00 This whole thing was written by AI. So the manifesto, of course, is a terrible sign. Giant earth-moving equipment is not a great one either. Then Marv starts selling everything he owns at auction. Horrible. His shop equipment, motorcycles, boats, his house, and worst of all, his seven beloved snowmobiles. It's very bad. I thought you were gonna say dogs, but snowmobiles isn't as bad. So by October of that year, Marv has sold almost all of his assets. He's closed his muffler business. Nobody is seeing these signs, which is very upsetting. Yeah. And maybe he just alienated enough people where it's just like, oh, that guy.
1:30:42 Speaker 00 He also moves all his money into his father's bank accounts without telling him or anybody else. He also works out a temporary arrangement with the people that he sells his, like, house and land to, that he, they're allowing him to lease back the muffler shop for a year. So, as he explains to them, so he can, quote, "finish some work." Fun fact, one day after closing the sale on this property, the new owners connect the property to the city sewer system. Just that easy.
1:31:14 Speaker 00 My god. 24 hours. Okay. So Marv secretly moves himself and his giant bulldozer into his muffler shop, and for the next year, no one knows what he is doing in there. This is when he begins recording this manifesto, in which he says of the local people of Granby, quote, "They thought they could do whatever they wanted. To me, they were wrong." And so, his revenge project begins. Marv begins modifying this gigantic bulldozer, adding steel and concrete panels up to a foot thick, attaching video cameras protected by bulletproof lenses, and mounting several gun ports, basically turning this machine into a full-on weaponized tank.
1:31:59 Georgia Hardstark? Jesus.
1:32:00 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
1:32:00 Georgia Hardstark? Dude.
1:32:01 Speaker 00 And then, on June 4th, 2004, Marv climbs into this gigantic armored bulldozer and lowers a steel slab weighing several tons over the hatch. And once he does this, he has no way of getting back out.
1:32:17 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
1:32:18 Speaker 00 Let's take a look at the kill dozer.
1:32:20 Georgia Hardstark? Can we? Holy shit!
1:32:24 Georgia Hardstark? It's the Death Star of bulldozers.
1:32:26 Speaker 00 I mean...
1:32:27 Georgia Hardstark? Right? Wow. I mean, yeah. I guess welding, that's what welding does.
1:32:33 Speaker 00 That's what welding can give you. That's what no wasted motion can end up looking like. It's just so sad. It's like, that is, that took so long. That's a person who is in so much pain, and nobody, he didn't have anybody to turn to. He just was like, "Fine, I'll just weld the fuck out of these feelings."
1:32:50 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:32:50 Speaker 00 Horrible.
1:32:54 Speaker 00 So, around 2:00 PM, this 90-ton machine bursts out of the muffler shop, and going 3 to 5 miles an hour.
1:33:04 Georgia Hardstark? That's not as tough, you know?
1:33:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. Very, very...
1:33:08 Georgia Hardstark? Make up a different number.
1:33:09 Speaker 00 It's like, it's a slow attack, which I think are worse.
1:33:14 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:33:15 Speaker 00 It's like the zombie thing. I'd prefer a fast zombie and just get it over with.
1:33:19 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, yeah.
1:33:20 Speaker 00 It's the...
1:33:22 Georgia Hardstark? Alright, alright.
1:33:23 Speaker 00 Okay. So, his first target is the dough chef's concrete plant.
1:33:29 Georgia Hardstark? That...
1:33:30 Speaker 00 Workers there watch in disbelief as this steel-covered bulldozer smashes onto the property through the plant walls. The building collapses around it. Bystanders try stopping this bulldozer by jamming debris into the treads. One person fires a handgun at it, but you saw it. It does nothing.
1:33:54 Speaker 00 And they can't see if there's a driver inside, they don't know if somebody is working it remotely, like, no one understands what's going on. And this is when Cody Douchef shows up. Can, oh, I bet you, can you go backwards if you could? Because I think, I have a theory that that's Cody Douchef. He tried to get into it. Oh, yeah. But he actually slipped off of that. That's a guess, though, because there's a cop there, so that could be a cop, and I could be wrong. But Cody Douchef actually tried to get up and inside when he was doing that, and he was unable to. So what he did, he gets the rest of the concrete plant evacuated, and then he goes and gets his own front-end loader, and he tries to basically go lift, I don't think we have that, go lift
1:34:37 Speaker 00 the, that bulldozer off the ground. Damn. It's like, that's sad, don't, no, we are not going to beat that thing. All Cody can manage doing is spinning the bulldozer like around a little bit, but as the two machines ram each other, Cody gets knocked out. Aw, man. So, this is when Marv starts shooting. Oh, fuck. He fires 10 to 12 rounds toward Cody's loader, sorry, that's really hard to say, toward Cody's loader, but the steel plating makes it hard for him to aim on the right side. So, it's not very well, you know, planned out, I guess. So thankfully, he misses Cody.
1:35:20 Speaker 00 And I'm not sure if Cody was still unconscious or not, but how scary for everybody else, where like, then the gunshots start, either way, if he was awake or not. So now, the police made it on the scene, they have to duck for cover as Marv turns the bulldozer's guns in the direction of a fuel truck. Ooh. But thank God, he can't aim well, so instead of hitting the fuel truck, he just takes out some natural gas piping, which is, it's fine, it's natural.
1:35:47 Speaker 00 And a couple electrical boxes, which is just sparks, and that's fun. And a transformer, which is a great cartoon.
1:35:56 Speaker 00 So, once that's done, the bulldozer then turns and slowly drives off, heading toward downtown Granby. And this is where it gets bad. Marv drives the bulldozer into Granby, and his path of destruction begins. He crushes a Ford Expedition. He destroys the Granby Town Hall. The town fucking hall. Oh, no. Then he destroys the library. Then he destroys the city's only traffic light.
1:36:29 Speaker 00 Come on. Then a bank. We have the bank. Holy shit. Yeah. Fuck the banks. That gorgeous, stone-faced bank.
1:36:45 Speaker 00 Then, this guy, hey, newspaper offices who had been reporting on him. Oh, my god. That's a lot of fucking damage. That is fucking damage like crazy. And then, a house owned by Granby's, uh, Granby Town Board Member. As it goes, people are trying to shoot at the bulldozer. Some people try throwing grenades at it. What the, I, this is, I'm, that's, that's crazy. I'm sorry, you don't carry a grenade?
1:37:15 Speaker 00 Well, then you're not ready when the big bulldozer comes to town. The top of your list of things you destroyed was a Ford Explorer. Yeah. That was... I'm really mad about that. They're a gorgeous vehicle.
1:37:29 Speaker 00 Bullets bounce off of this thing. Some locals get it like Cory tried to do. Some get into their own construction machinery and also drive at the bulldozer. None of them are a match. Soon, Denver media outlets have helicopters in the air on the scene, while everyone's radios are tuned to the blow-by-blow that the local AM radio station is basically giving everybody. Hell, yeah. So, everyone hears it when Marv turns his bulldozer toward a propane storage yard. Ooh. That has five 3,000-gallon tanks and two huge 30,000-gallon tanks of propane. That's big. If he is able to shoot at even one of these tanks,
1:38:13 Speaker 00 the whole area could go up. And right across the street is a senior living center. Come on! Yeah. Luckily, Marv's aim is impeded, so he abandons that horrific plan. So it's just like, everyone's standing there waiting for something to happen, and he's just like... (mimicking a horn)
1:38:34 Georgia Hardstark? Never mind, goes the other way.
1:38:38 Speaker 00 And what he heads for is one of my favorite names of a business ever. Grambles Hardware Store. Grambles Hardware Store.
1:38:48 Georgia Hardstark? It's cute.
1:38:50 Speaker 00 No one likes it as much as me. Alone again. And, thanks. And Grambles is owned by another town board member. So Marv drives directly into the front of this hardware store, and he brings the whole thing down around him. Can we see that?
1:39:10 Georgia Hardstark? There it is. That's the one.
1:39:12 Speaker 00 Is that the last one? To be this... okay. That was it.
1:39:17 Speaker 00 Grambles, we hardly knew ye. This is when the bulldozer stops, and steam starts hissing out of the now-dead engine, and the bulldozer's treads, like, there's debris stuck in all of them that can't go any further. Deputies carefully approach the silent bulldozer, actively avoiding the gun ports, and that's when they hear a gunshot from inside. It takes Bomb Techs ten hours to cut through the steel armor to get inside. Wow. So at 1 a.m., they are able to blowtorch a hole big enough to see inside, and that's where they see that Marv Heemeyer is slumped over dead. He has shot himself in the head. Wow.
1:39:59 Speaker 00 So despite the name that the press ends up giving to this creation, the Killdozer, miraculously, no one in this town... I almost said Grambles.
1:40:11 Speaker 00 No one in the town of Grambles, where I'm the mayor.
1:40:17 Speaker 00 This is good news. No one is killed. It's very sad that Marv is killed. Yeah. But thank God, no one else is hurt or killed. Yeah. Except for the Ford exposition. Yeah. Okay, so because of his manifesto, many outsiders have come to see Marv as like a kind of a folk hero. Being an anti-bureaucrat vigilante who's taken a stand against a small-town's big government. That's not what happened here. Yeah. This is a person who isolated themselves, started believing every goddamn thing that they thought, got real into money, ego, bullshit, and didn't have a person to call up and go, "Hey, can I run a couple things by you?
1:41:01 Speaker 00 I would really love to build the largest killdozer anyone's ever seen and attack my enemies." And then that person goes, "Marv, get out of the hot tub. Get down to the tavern and be around other people." Yeah. So, people do go to the town asking to see the killdozer. They're told there's nothing to see. People do not like it when people go there, obviously. Authorities actually dismantled the killdozer and sent its parts to different scrapyards across the country. So that it could never be made into like a shrine or, you know what I mean, anything like that. And over 20 years later, from that day of discretion, the town of Granby and the people who live there still have painful memories.
1:41:46 Speaker 00 And of course, massive trauma about like, one of the most like insane, but also like, is this actually happening? Moments of all time. Marv Heimeyer's two-hour rampage cost $7 million in damage. And it was done to basically mom-and-pop businesses, just local people. Yeah. Many were never able to recover. Some were able to rebuild, and the town actually really came together to help each other very beautifully. But, you know, some people just had to go out of business. In the aftermath of that day, the people of Granby came together as a community. As I was just trying to improvise, but now I have to read it off the paper.
1:42:31 Speaker 00 Oh, look. There we are. There they are. So this is where it ended up. This is Grambles. That was Grambles. Look at all those genes. And those are all those people.
1:42:43 Speaker 00 You're not into the denim?
1:42:44 Georgia Hardstark? I love it.
1:42:45 Speaker 00 We told you it had an old west feel.
1:42:47 Georgia Hardstark? You did.
1:42:49 Speaker 00 These people cleaned up the destruction and the debris together. They actually found new spaces for displaced businesses and they did their best to move forward as a community. It's a very stark contrast to Marv Heemeyer's own trajectory. He worked to become a very well-liked fixture in the town, but ultimately, he couldn't get past these ideas he had in his head of what he was supposed to get and what he was owed and that entitlement that a lot of people have a problem with. And that, of course, caused him to withdraw into his hot tub and go insane. In the documentary Tread, one friend of Marv's actually offers a simple, sad, and I will
1:43:33 Speaker 00 say, a little bit funny, explanation for Marv's dark turn, saying, quote, "He became a lonely man. He spent too much time alone. That's what I put it off to. He spent too much time in the hot tub alone."
1:43:46 Georgia Hardstark? He said that?
1:43:47 Speaker 00 He said that.
1:43:48 Georgia Hardstark? Damn.
1:43:48 Speaker 00 That's the full quote. And that's the story of The Killdozer.
1:43:58 Georgia Hardstark? Great job.
1:43:59 Speaker 00 Thank you.
1:44:00 Georgia Hardstark? Wow. What a tale.
1:44:02 Speaker 00 Amazing. Amazing story, Colorado.
1:44:06 Georgia Hardstark? Good job, guys.
1:44:07 Speaker 05 Welcome back, girl. I'm famous for that.
1:44:09 Speaker 00 I'm a member.
1:44:12 Speaker 05 What's up? Hi. How are you? How are you?
1:44:16 Speaker 00 We thought it would never happen.
1:44:18 Speaker 05 One small note that got lost in the kerfuffle. This is Georgia Hardstark.
1:44:23 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
1:44:23 Speaker 05 And that's giving you here.
1:44:28 Speaker 05 Good afternoon.
1:44:29 Speaker 00 Thank God for ya. Thank God for ya.
1:44:31 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, good job.
1:44:33 Speaker 05 So whoever gets picked, I'm gonna be right over there.
1:44:35 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. Did you find the button? Did you find the button? Remember?
1:44:39 Speaker 05 I got it.
1:44:39 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, you do? Here, give it to me. Oh, hell, yeah. You're the best. Thank you.
1:44:42 Speaker 00 Can you do your couple stuff offstage, please?
1:44:46 Georgia Hardstark? Well, I forgot to tell him. Remember I told you that I bought something today at Goldmine for the hometown person? Here, it's a button. You wanna read it out loud?
1:44:55 Speaker 00 Ask me about my bad habits and red flags.
1:44:59 Georgia Hardstark? It's kind of like made for this podcast.
1:45:02 Speaker 00 It's perfect.
1:45:02 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:45:03 Speaker 00 It's so good. Well, so this, if you don't know.
1:45:06 Georgia Hardstark? I spilled my water on this gorgeous carpet.
1:45:12 Speaker 00 If you don't know, this is the part where Georgia randomly picks anybody from the audience to come up and tell their hometown with us onstage.
1:45:21 Georgia Hardstark? And there's rules behind it. Don't, just make it short. Don't be shitfaced, right? Don't point at someone you don't know.
1:45:31 Georgia Hardstark? You want it? Yeah? Okay. Right here. Go over there, please. Sorry. I hate doing that.
1:45:38 Speaker 00 For one second, I thought it was the hot dog putting their hand up. And I was just like, well, here we go.
1:45:45 Georgia Hardstark? Here she, okay. And then we wait a little while.
1:45:47 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah. Then we're like, how did you feel about that first show?
1:45:51 Georgia Hardstark? Pretty good.
1:45:51 Speaker 00 I think we did okay.
1:45:52 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:45:56 Georgia Hardstark? Here she is.
1:45:57 Speaker 00 Oh, here they come.
1:46:02 Georgia Hardstark? Hi, Katie. You guys, it's Katie.
1:46:08 Speaker 00 Yes, right here, front and center.
1:46:10 Georgia Hardstark? Hi.
1:46:11 Speaker 00 I'm from Bradenton, Florida. We flew in from Florida yesterday. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Do you like Colorado? I do so far. We've only been here a day, and it's my first time ever, and we're having so much fun. Sorry, Katie, I think they're all booing you right now.
1:46:28 Georgia Hardstark? Hey. They're mad because she, it's not a Colorado hometown.
1:46:32 Speaker 00 Oh, okay. Oh, was it supposed to be? It doesn't matter.
1:46:35 Georgia Hardstark? We didn't say.
1:46:36 Speaker 00 Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Maybe there could be another one.
1:46:41 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
1:46:42 Speaker 00 If you're not mean. Unless we get kicked out of this theater. People are like, get out of here. Okay, Katie, tell us your hometown. My hometown is Bradenton, Florida. Okay. And we like it. We like that idea. Yeah. Yep. Is that all I'm supposed to do?
1:46:57 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, no. Oh, she doesn't know. I don't know how it works.
1:47:01 Speaker 00 Katie? Is that it? Katie? Hey, does anybody have a hometown from Colorado?
1:47:08 Georgia Hardstark? You pick someone. You do it.
1:47:11 Speaker 00 Really?
1:47:11 Georgia Hardstark? You pick it.
1:47:12 Speaker 00 Oh, well, then I'll pick the clapping lady. Is it from Colorado? Come on up.
1:47:17 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
1:47:17 Speaker 00 Okay, here she comes.
1:47:18 Georgia Hardstark? Hi.
1:47:18 Speaker 00 Here we go.
1:47:21 Speaker 00 Cassandra, everyone. From Colorado.
1:47:29 Speaker 00 Here, okay, what's your name?
1:47:31 Speaker 03 My name is Cassandra, hi.
1:47:33 Speaker 00 Sandra or Cassandra?
1:47:35 Speaker 03 Cassandra.
1:47:35 Speaker 00 Cassandra?
1:47:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:47:36 Speaker 00 Cassandra, everybody.
1:47:40 Speaker 00 And where are you from?
1:47:42 Speaker 03 Vail.
1:47:43 Speaker 00 From Vail, Colorado? Your whole, your mouth.
1:47:47 Speaker 00 See what, see how they did it? Yeah, okay.
1:47:50 Speaker 03 I don't know how to do this, I'm sorry.
1:47:51 Speaker 00 No, you do. Just tell us why you got into True Crime. What story you, got you into True Crime? Yeah.
1:47:57 Speaker 03 Uh, your voice. It wasn't a story.
1:48:00 Speaker 00 Get out, get out.
1:48:04 Speaker 03 But my story, my fun story is, um, from up in Vail in those areas, we all look at them, they're very, you know, toity-toity.
1:48:13 Speaker 00 Oh.
1:48:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:48:14 Speaker 00 Richie, Richie Rich people?
1:48:16 Speaker 03 Right.
1:48:16 Speaker 00 Okay.
1:48:16 Speaker 03 So when I was a freshman in high school, I went to a party in Aspen, Colorado.
1:48:21 Speaker 00 Hmm.
1:48:22 Speaker 03 And the mother walked around with a silver platter of illicit substances.
1:48:29 Speaker 00 Oh. A good one or a bad one?
1:48:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, a good one.
1:48:33 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah, good, good, good.
1:48:34 Speaker 03 Very, very clean.
1:48:35 Speaker 00 Okay.
1:48:35 Speaker 03 Very clean.
1:48:36 Speaker 00 Wow.
1:48:37 Speaker 03 Um, but later on, somebody snitched, uh, to their mother.
1:48:43 Speaker 00 Hmm.
1:48:44 Speaker 03 And the, uh, wife and son that were involved literally took all of the fall for this husband, who purchased everything and owned the house.
1:48:54 Speaker 00 Wow.
1:48:54 Speaker 03 Just so that his name wasn't involved.
1:48:56 Speaker 00 Wow. Really?
1:48:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:48:57 Speaker 00 And did they go to jail?
1:48:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:49:02 Speaker 03 For like, a hot minute.
1:49:04 Speaker 00 No, really?
1:49:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:49:05 Speaker 00 How old was the son?
1:49:07 Speaker 03 Seventeen.
1:49:08 Speaker 00 No fucking way. Did he have, did, did he have to go to juvie?
1:49:13 Speaker 03 I'm married and I had a crush, crush on him. Oh, god, no, they were too rich.
1:49:16 Speaker 00 Oh, okay.
1:49:17 Speaker 03 No.
1:49:17 Speaker 00 Okay.
1:49:18 Speaker 03 No juvie. He probably like cleaned up trash on the side of the road for like six months.
1:49:23 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's how it is in Vail. That's Vail.
1:49:26 Speaker 03 But yeah, no, Aspen.
1:49:27 Speaker 00 Oh, I'm sorry. That's Aspen.
1:49:30 Speaker 03 In Vail, our parents still yell at us.
1:49:32 Speaker 00 Oh, okay. Good. Yay. Cassandra, everyone.
1:49:36 Speaker 03 Cassandra, everyone.
1:49:39 Speaker 00 Thank you. Cassandra, guess what you got?
1:49:44 Speaker 00 Wait, Cassandra, Cassandra. You get this pin.
1:49:47 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
1:49:52 Speaker 00 I practiced for like six weeks and it still sucks. It's hard. This is hard. She said I practiced for six weeks and it still sucks.
1:50:02 Speaker 00 Cassandra, that's how we feel. That's the vibe, baby. Yeah, that's 100%. Well...
1:50:11 Speaker 00 Thank you so much for being here tonight, Denver.
1:50:16 Georgia Hardstark? This is incredible. We appreciate you guys coming to our first live show in six frickin' years.
1:50:23 Speaker 00 Oh my god.
1:50:24 Georgia Hardstark? It's selling out two nights in Denver. Thank you guys so much.
1:50:29 Speaker 00 We love you so much. Thank you, Denver.
1:50:31 Georgia Hardstark? Stay sexy.
1:50:38 Speaker 00 Elvis, do you want a cookie?
1:50:45 Speaker 06 Two rich young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one of them will end up dead, and the other tried for murder three times. From the start, the omens are bad.
1:51:01 Speaker 07 That place is the darkest jungle you've ever seen in your life. You have no clue.
1:51:06 Speaker 06 John and Ann Bender are young, rich, and attractive. He's a Wall Street whiz kid. Just handsome. Movie star handsome. And they're devoted to each other.
1:51:16 Speaker 08 There was a lot of just like warmth and care.
1:51:20 Speaker 06 They set up a nature reserve and build a strange new home.
1:51:24 Speaker 03 It's like a spaceship's landed on the top of a hill in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica.
1:51:29 Speaker 06 But slowly, their dreams start to crumble. I was just doomed. Just doomed. I'm Becky Milligan, and this is Hell in Heaven, a new podcast from Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts, produced by Blanchard House. I'm a seasoned investigative journalist, and I've reported on some pretty weird stories over the years. But believe me, stories don't get much weirder than this. Because even out here in the jungle, you can run. But you can't hide.
1:52:04 Speaker 08 And all of a sudden, there's guys with guns, lots of men with guns.
1:52:07 Speaker 06 They were saying, "Help, help, they're kidnapping us." As their past catches up with them, our couple retreat from reality.
1:52:16 Speaker 07 They lose it. They actually lose it.
1:52:18 Speaker 06 They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control.
1:52:26 Speaker 08 He says, "Colonel, we heard a shot inside the boss's house." "And I could see the gun on the floor, the trail of blood."
1:52:35 Speaker 06 And one of them will end up being tried for murder. Not once. People yasped. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. We were all looking at each other just in total disbelief.
1:52:55 Speaker 06 Hell in Heaven premieres on October 9th. New episodes Thursdays. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:53:21 Speaker 02 This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci. Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ally Elkin. Email your hometowns to [email protected] . Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page. While you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbye.
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