529 - How About Logical?

On today’s episode, Karen covers the Gilgo Beach murders and Georgia tells the story of the Great Diamond Hoax. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com http://www.exactlyrightstore.com/. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Karen Kilgariff?

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:36Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello and welcome.

• 1:30Georgia Hardstark?

  To my favorite murder.

• 1:31Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Georgia Hardstark.

• 1:32Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 1:34Karen Kilgariff?

  And we're here to present some things to you real quick.

• 1:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Real quick. Just wanted to tell you a couple things.

• 1:39Karen Kilgariff?

  It's gonna be fast, like an hour and 52 minutes.

• 1:42Georgia Hardstark?

  We'll get you out of here, in and out.

• 1:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 1:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Boom.

• 1:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't worry about it.

• 1:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I have to pull this out immediately because we put lotion on before every show. It's like our ritual.

• 1:51Karen Kilgariff?

  It's our ritual.

• 1:52Georgia Hardstark?

  And I was putting mine on, and I wanted to tell you that I got my nails done by a murderino today. This murderino named Jess, she was awesome, old school murderino. And then I just realized as I was putting lotion on that I forgot to put my fucking wedding ring back on.

• 2:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Does that mean it's at the...

• 2:05Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no. It's at my house. I took it off at my house, thank God. But I just was like, if I don't have a wedding ring on, and this goes up, people are gonna be like, are they okay?

• 2:14Karen Kilgariff?

  The DMs are gonna start.

• 2:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 2:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And people are gonna be, what's up, girl?

• 2:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Plus, it looks like Vince left for fucking WrestleMania this morning. It looks like I'm like, husband's gone. Take off my ring for the weekend.

• 2:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's too many coincidences.

• 2:26Georgia Hardstark?

  It is.

• 2:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm calling him now.

• 2:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know. I didn't see her anywhere specifically, but I know I can feel it.

• 2:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Hashtag what's even happening.

• 2:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Stick that ring on that ring.

• 2:37Karen Kilgariff?

  This one. Well, he did give me this one too, so.

• 2:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 2:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And I did wear this one on purpose. It has to do with my story, so.

• 2:42Karen Kilgariff?

  You do.

• 2:43Karen Kilgariff?

  There we go.

• 2:43Karen Kilgariff?

  There. It's all day. Oh, my God.

• 2:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I almost got a divorce just there out of nowhere.

• 2:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Really quick before the show started.

• 2:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Spontaneous divorce? Is that a thing?

• 2:52Karen Kilgariff?

  It could be. I mean, I think it has been.

• 2:55Karen Kilgariff?

  It must be.

• 2:55Karen Kilgariff?

  In the past.

• 2:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It's called Utah.

• 2:57Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, it's funny. I was thinking about when we were in Austin for the iHeart Radio Awards and a girl came up to us afterwards and was just saying hi and then said, "I'm the one that you called a bitch on Cameo."

• 3:11Karen Kilgariff?

  What?

• 3:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Remember that?

• 3:12Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 3:13Karen Kilgariff?

  I could have sworn you were standing next to me. A girl came up and was like, "Ha, ha, ha. I spent $250 on Cameo for you to tell my friend happy birthday," or something like that. And she goes, "And you called me a stupid bitch and then I never got my Cameo." And I was like, "Excuse me."

• 3:28Karen Kilgariff?

  We are not on Cameo.

• 3:30Karen Kilgariff?

  We're not on Cameo.

• 3:31Karen Kilgariff?

  We're not on Cameo. We've never been.

• 3:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't ever.

• 3:34Karen Kilgariff?

  So she gave her money to some fucking people pretending to be us?

• 3:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Not only pretending to be us, but insulting people after they gave them their money.

• 3:41Karen Kilgariff?

  I hate that. Let's look it up right now. Oh, my God. I think I have Cameo.

• 3:45Karen Kilgariff?

  See, you can look it up.

• 3:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Who did I get to do Cameo once?

• 3:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, you got all my, um, Kevin, is it Kevin Hart?

• 3:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 3:52Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, no.

• 3:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 3:53Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a comedian.

• 3:54Karen Kilgariff?

  The wrestler.

• 3:55Karen Kilgariff?

  The wrestler guy. Kevin Von Erich?

• 3:57Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 3:57Karen Kilgariff?

  No, it's the guy that was on Detroiters that plays Tim Robbins' dad.

• 4:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, he was the stripper in the strip club one.

• 4:04Karen Kilgariff?

  In Magic Mike?

• 4:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Magic Mike, that's it.

• 4:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Big fan. I've gotten two Cameos from him, from Georgia and Vince. Kevin Nash? Yes.

• 4:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Kevin Nash.

• 4:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you, Kevin Nash.

• 4:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, here's people are also asking, "Why is my favorite murder being canceled? Are Karen and Georgia still friends?" Who is, okay.

• 4:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Wait a second. That's a fan cult video right there. We can answer, we will answer those questions, but it's gonna be behind a paywall.

• 4:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know. It just, nothing's coming up, but fucking, we are not on Cameo. That's so horrible.

• 4:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. There's also a chance that girl mistook me for somebody else and she was like, "Oh, I meant the Giggly Squad girls," or something like.

• 4:38Karen Kilgariff?

  You know what I mean?

• 4:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, bless the day we get fucking mixed up for the Giggly Squad girls. Like, please, can I get?

• 4:45Karen Kilgariff?

  We're 40 years younger.

• 4:47Georgia Hardstark?

  We're the Giggly Squad.

• 4:49Karen Kilgariff?

  We know what's going on.

• 4:50Georgia Hardstark?

  You're aunties. Oh, my god.

• 4:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Nora actually told me that's her favorite podcast. And I just stared into her face.

• 4:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Not you.

• 4:57Karen Kilgariff?

  What am I supposed to do here?

• 4:58Georgia Hardstark?

  No, that's, no, yeah.

• 4:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Everybody gets to like what they want, but please don't.

• 5:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, it's so shitty.

• 5:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't pay money for.

• 5:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Also, we would never charge $250 to hear us.

• 5:07Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 5:07Georgia Hardstark?

  This is free. This is free.

• 5:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, yeah, here, hold on. Happy birthday.

• 5:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Ashley?

• 5:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Happy birthday.

• 5:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Ashley, what?

• 5:15Karen Kilgariff?

  They're all Ash. Ashley, too.

• 5:18Georgia Hardstark?

  I get what we're doing. Okay. Ashley with an E.

• 5:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. E, E, E, E Y.

• 5:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, do you have anything? Did you see the Baby Jessica thing?

• 5:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 5:26Georgia Hardstark?

  So Baby Jessica, who you've covered.

• 5:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Say that show title.

• 5:30Georgia Hardstark?

  In episode 221, Symbolic Violins.

• 5:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Who was down a well when she was a baby, was arrested on assault charges.

• 5:41Karen Kilgariff?

  No fun.

• 5:42Georgia Hardstark?

  No fun.

• 5:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you already watch, Trust Me, The Lost Prophet?

• 5:45Georgia Hardstark?

  We're in the middle of it right now.

• 5:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I have to start it, but everyone keeps talking to me about it, where I'm just like, I know, I know, I have to watch it.

• 5:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Did you watch the movie with, it's called The Drama, Zendaya, and Robert Patterson? Is that his name?

• 5:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Pattinson?

• 5:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Whatever, yeah.

• 5:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. No.

• 5:59Georgia Hardstark?

  You haven't seen that? I'm surprised.

• 6:01Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I haven't gone to the movies in so long.

• 6:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, it's like the first time I want to go to the movie in ages because there's a spoiler and I know by the time it goes on streaming, I'm gonna have heard it.

• 6:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 6:10Georgia Hardstark?

  And I'm trying to avoid it, but I just need to go see it.

• 6:12Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a big part of movies. You just want to know first.

• 6:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Georgia Hardstark?

  And I want to know, like, authentically, not, like, reading a fucking New York Post or something.

• 6:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. The cinema has been ruined in many ways.

• 6:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly.

• 6:23Karen Kilgariff?

  For all of us.

• 6:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly.

• 6:25Karen Kilgariff?

  But that way, where I watch people or read people fighting about it and all these opinions, and then I'm like, well, I don't want to have any of these opinions. I'll have a brand new opinion. And then it's like, what? Then you go to the movies and you're doing a whole different thing.

• 6:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Karen Kilgariff?

  It's such an irritating way to have pre-processed entertainment.

• 6:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, thank god there's alcohol in theaters now because I don't know how other people do it. Two and a half fucking hours just sitting there without a vodka soda, please.

• 6:52Karen Kilgariff?

  You know what I did see recently? Johnny Pemberton is the star of a movie. I think it's called Mermaid.

• 6:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 6:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's indie and we went to see it. It was like its first showing in LA.

• 7:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it great?

• 7:04Karen Kilgariff?

  It was so, I adore Johnny as a comedian.

• 7:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:07Karen Kilgariff?

  To see him as a kind of serious, kind of comedic, because it's a creepy movie.

• 7:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 7:12Karen Kilgariff?

  There's a lot going on. Definitely worth the watch.

• 7:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:15Karen Kilgariff?

  But to watch Johnny be like the leading man is amazing.

• 7:18Georgia Hardstark?

  The leading man who looks 20. It's like the best.

• 7:22Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. And so many people love him from Fallout. People love him from all kinds of stuff that he's already done.

• 7:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Everything.

• 7:27Karen Kilgariff?

  He's been in so many things.

• 7:28Georgia Hardstark?

  That's really exciting.

• 7:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 7:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Mermaid. Why am I playing footsie with you? Should we?

• 7:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you need more room over there?

• 7:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That means we should get started.

• 7:35Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. That's you signaling to me under the table.

• 7:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media.

• 7:44Karen Kilgariff?

  That's correct. Slip your mind.

• 7:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep. Here's some highlights from it.

• 7:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Over on our podcast, The Knife, Hannah and Pasha revisit the 1995 murder of 21-year-old Jennifer Evans in Virginia Beach. And then Advocate Aaron Lottman joins them to walk through Dusty Turner's case and all the questions surrounding his conviction.

• 8:04Georgia Hardstark?

  And then this week on Brief Recess, it's a Hope Corps episode. Michael and Melissa reveal they share a birthday week. And they didn't know that.

• 8:13Karen Kilgariff?

  No, it's like, I just love it.

• 8:15Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a big reveal.

• 8:16Karen Kilgariff?

  He's an immigration lawyer, literally fighting ICE in the courts every day. And then they're like, you know what? We have the same birthday week. It's like, yep, get it where you can.

• 8:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely. And Seth Porges, director of Class Action Park. Oh, my God. That was such a good documentary. And the upcoming SantaCon documentary returns to discuss news that the founder of SantaCon was charged with federal wire fraud for stealing over $1 million from the organization. Where did they get $1 million from?

• 8:43Karen Kilgariff?

  What organization? Isn't the whole thing disorganization?

• 8:46Georgia Hardstark?

  I think they get money to give presents to children in need.

• 8:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I hope so.

• 8:50Georgia Hardstark?

  But no, because he took all that money.

• 8:52Karen Kilgariff?

  And got super drunk.

• 8:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Allegedly.

• 8:54Karen Kilgariff?

  And then harassed the citizens of New York City.

• 8:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 8:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, then, of course, Disgrace Land, our newest hit podcast. So exciting to have Jake Brennan here with us. They're back this week covering Depeche Mode. Jake tells the story of excess, addiction, and the West Hollywood overdose that left frontman David Gahan clinically dead before the band's unlikely resurrection.

• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I love this, like, just, he does use, like, snippets of time about the band. It's not the history from start to finish. It's just like, here's what life was like during this time when whatever happened, happened with them.

• 9:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so fucking fascinating.

• 9:29Karen Kilgariff?

  It's such good writing.

• 9:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, such good writing. And then we have a little treat for you. The Disgrace Land feed drop hits the MFM feed. So if you haven't listened to Disgrace Land yet, we're making it easy for you.

• 9:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Disgrace Land?

• 9:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Disgrace Land? Disgrace Land yet? We're making it easy for you. But also, get your shit together and please go follow and rate, review, subscribe to Disgrace Land and its celebrity spinoff, Hollywoodland. What are you doing?

• 9:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Hollywoodland. I'm trying, I'm trying to upstage you as you-

• 9:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Just break your shit over there.

• 9:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I literally tried to move this very subtly and yanked this off. Over on Hollywoodland, Jake looks at Sigourney Weaver through a very strange and unsettling lens. He's telling the story of how one death row inmate came to see her as a goddess sent to battle evil.

• 10:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 10:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Not a hard thing to, like, assumption to jump to.

• 10:17Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know if that's not true, but it's scary.

• 10:20Karen Kilgariff?

  It's very scary.

• 10:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. All right, well, you go first?

• 10:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I go first.

• 10:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 10:56Karen Kilgariff?

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• 11:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Research shows 92% of patients report a positive impact on their care from working with an advocate. Advocacy improves outcomes, and Solace advocates are covered by insurance nationwide. Eligibility varies by insurance plan. Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice, or services must be 18 years or older. Go to solacehealth.com/murder to see if you qualify. It takes about two minutes, and it's covered by insurance. That's S-O-L-A-C-E health.com/murder. Goodbye. You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium. Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's magnesium spray. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals, powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt, it's designed to help you relax and get in the right state of mind for a good night's rest.

• 12:22Karen Kilgariff?

  If you need a reset after a crazy day, make Dr. Teal's magnesium spray part of your nighttime routine. It's an effortless way to get a boost of topical magnesium that can help you relax your body and mind before bedtime. Dr. Teal's magnesium spray comes in a lightweight, fast-drying formula. Just shake it up and generously spritz onto the soles of your feet and massage until absorbed. I was kind of blown away the first time I used this spray, because I do have problems sleeping. And when there's something this simple, you just spray it on your feet, and suddenly you're asleep, and the next morning you're like, wait, what happened? Did my problem just get solved? Like, it actually is that easy? And your stinky feet now smell like lavender. Like, what more do you want? How dare you call my feet stinky? For wellness you can feel, find Dr. Teal's magnesium spray online or in your local bath aisle.

• 13:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 13:09Karen Kilgariff?

  So I'm gonna turn it around on you.

• 13:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh shit.

• 13:13Karen Kilgariff?

  The story I'm doing is one of the most notorious cold cases in recent history.

• 13:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  It begins with the 2010 disappearance of a young woman named Shannon Gilbert. Police begin to search for her on the beachside roadway where she's last seen. And that's when they begin to find one horrific discovery after another. The remains of 10 women are found between December 2010 and April 2011, setting off a chain of events that now more than 15 years later has finally been solved. This is the story of the Gilgo Beach murderer.

• 13:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 13:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Neither of us have ever done it.

• 13:48Karen Kilgariff?

  We've never done it. And when I was talking to Molly about it, our producer, and we're like, do you think Maren could turn this around where we could do it and try to be timely? Because all of this is happening right now. Maren's like, hold my beer.

• 14:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Were you planning on covering this before it got solved? Like, it wasn't on your list at all?

• 14:05Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 14:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, no, same.

• 14:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Not on my list because to me it felt like, and especially all the things I've seen of it over the years, it's just like, well, we know this is where all these bodies have been found.

• 14:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 14:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And that's about it.

• 14:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 14:18Karen Kilgariff?

  And like, we have some suspects and we have some ideas.

• 14:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Karen Kilgariff?

  And then, of course, there was like, well, let's get into it.

• 14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's do it.

• 14:25Karen Kilgariff?

  I was literally just gonna start talking it out and then repeat it later. But thanks, Maren, our researcher, for turning it around and always doing such an amazing job. And that idea, it's like, wait, can we, this is breaking news. Can we actually start talking about this?

• 14:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, what are you doing this week? Can you just do this? Yeah. Maren and Ally, my god.

• 14:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Georgia Hardstark?

  The best.

• 14:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers on the show are the best in the bit.

• 14:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 14:47Karen Kilgariff?

  So the main source used in this story today is the writing of journalist Robert Colker, who has reported extensively on this case. He actually published a book about it called Lost Girls. And also, he did a deep dive in the New York Times Magazine called The Botched Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Killer. And then the rest of the sources are in our show notes. We start on the early morning of May 1st, 2010. And Shannon Gilbert is in a car headed for Long Island. She is just 23 years old, but she's been through a lot. She's endured some very difficult things in her childhood, including having to go to foster care at one point. But Shannon's friends remember her as a radiant, popular girl with undeniable talent.

• 15:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Because going through hard stuff in life also really galvanizes you. Totally. And who you are. And the thing I'd never heard about Shannon before is that Shannon can really sing. Oh. Reporter Robert Colker describes her as having a quote, "soulful voice that gave some of her friends chills and made others cry." Wow. So she's a good singer. In eighth grade, she was cast as Miss Hannigan in her school's production of Annie. And that was a life-changing experience for her. She realizes she wants to be a star. After she graduates from high school, she does try to make that dream come true. But as many of us know, it's very hard to make a living when that is what your goal is. So Shannon sometimes earns money through sex work.

• 16:14Karen Kilgariff?

  And she advertises as an escort on Craigslist and in Backpage. So when she gets a booking, typically she'll use a male driver to take her to the appointments, both for transportation and for her personal safety. And so that's what she does on May 1st, 2010. Her driver is a man who she's not only worked with before, but she considers a friend. His name's Michael Pack. He picks her up. They head down Ocean Parkway, which is that long road that runs right next to the ocean and spans a very long swath of southern Long Island. Parts of Ocean Parkway are very dark at night, except for like the cars coming in the other direction. Shannon's driver, Michael, pulls off the road into a gated community in Oak Beach.

• 16:57Karen Kilgariff?

  As Shannon disappears into her client's home, the driver waits outside in the car. And everything is basically routine until around 5:00 AM. Also, I'd just say, the client is a man named Joseph Brewer. I think it's important to start talking about the men that are involved in these cases. It's weird because I just caught myself doing that where it's like, oh, well, we don't have to get into that. But we're getting into Shannon's whole life. So Joseph Brewer is in this too. And that should be, I think, standard. Sure. So there's a lot we don't and may never know about what happened that night. But what we do know is that at one point around 5:00 AM, Shannon calls 911. And she sounds terrified and disoriented. She can't explain where she is or what's happening to her.

• 17:40Karen Kilgariff?

  She just says someone's trying to kill her. Oh, my God. This is the most chilling.

• 17:45Georgia Hardstark?

  The most chilling part, but also none of this story, I feel like, would have gotten out there if this weird chilling thing hadn't happened, almost.

• 17:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Exactly.

• 17:53Georgia Hardstark?

  It made people pay attention to what was already going on for years.

• 17:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. A horrible, like, rock being moved.

• 18:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And this victim, who heard death while entirely senseless.

• 18:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Actually brings the authorities to all of these other cold cases that are just there, like, just right there.

• 18:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Karen Kilgariff?

  So, the 911 recording of the call has been released since. You can listen to it, and on it, you can hear both Joseph Brewer and Michael Pack talking to Shannon in the background, but it's hard to make out or make sense of what's going on. What we know from here is based on witness statements. Shannon's client says that she suddenly started to panic when she was in his house. He went outside to ask the driver for help getting her out of the house, getting her to leave, and then the driver and the client both tried to calm her down while still inside the house with the goal of basically trying to get her into the car. But because Shannon is so terrified, it doesn't work. And after a few minutes, her driver states that he goes back to the car, unsure of what

• 18:57Karen Kilgariff?

  to do, presumably, and that's when he watches Shannon bolt out of this house and sprint into the darkness. What we do know now is that she went and knocked on some neighbor's doors, and actually, at least one of those neighbors brought her inside. But then she was still so freaked out. And the thing I keep thinking of, this is all theory and opinion, but what I keep thinking of is that she got drugged.

• 19:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Ketamine. Ketamine will fucking do that to you immediately.

• 19:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? Or just like, any drug worse that you think you're here and you're handling things this way, and all of a sudden, you know it's not good and you're not in control.

• 19:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I, we've all been there. With drugs that we knew we took, we freaked the fuck out.

• 19:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 19:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And then not knowing that you took them, that's like 10 times worse.

• 19:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Being drugged.

• 19:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Being drugged.

• 19:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 19:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Also known as being drugged.

• 19:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, being drugged. So, Michael Pack says he tries to find her. He drives around for a while looking for her. He never finds her, so he goes home, assuming she'd just find a way to get back to New Jersey herself. Not the job of a driver in that scenario.

• 19:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Karen Kilgariff?

  The problem is Shannon never finds her way back to New Jersey and her worried boyfriend there quickly reaches out to the driver. He admits that he left Long Island without her. The two reportedly call around to different precincts. No one's seen her. So, her boyfriend files a missing persons report and that's it, basically. Shannon's case gets almost no media attention as author Robert Colker writes, quote, "A missing sex worker rarely does." So, now we're back on Long Island and investigators begin searching for Shannon, where she was last seen, including the coastal stretch off Ocean Parkway, along Oak Beach and nearby Gilgo Beach.

• 20:38Karen Kilgariff?

  The terrain is marshy and uneven and because it's spring turning to summer, it's also crawling with poison ivy and very thick brambles, very hard to search.

• 20:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Looks very swampy, like Floridie.

• 20:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. And it's a part of beach where it truly is like, there's houses, there's Ocean Parkway, there's these brambles, sand and the ocean, right there. So, the police continue the search throughout the year. I don't know how often, but it does continue and then as fall turns to winter, that overgrowth is finally less thick. And on December 11th, seven months after Shannon was last seen, police dogs hit on human remains. They've found these remains hidden deep in the brambles, bound with strips of burlap. Two days later, they find three more burlap-bound sets of remains. So, they basically-

• 21:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Stumble upon-

• 21:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Stumble upon a graveyard that they are there just to get additional evidence for the first remains and then it's another and another and they're bound the same way with the same material, same size of assuming woman, I mean, like horrifying.

• 21:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Chaos.

• 21:47Karen Kilgariff?

  None of the remains belong to Shannon Gilbert. When the DNA tests come back, investigators identify 24-year-old Melissa Barthelamy, who had been missing for over a year. She'd gone missing in 2009. Last seen at her apartment in the Bronx. And like Shannon, she was ambitious. She dreamed of opening her own hair salon. She's a really talented hairdresser. She did sex work to pay the bills. Melissa was very close with her family, who clearly loved her very much. In fact, in July of 2009, right before she went missing, her little sister Amanda was planning to come and visit her in New York. In a July 11 phone call, they talked through Amanda's upcoming trip. And the next day, July 12, Melissa set out to meet a client on Long Island, and she was never seen again.

• 22:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Melissa's disappearance devastated her family. And her sister Amanda once said, quote, "She was not only my blood sister, she was my soul sister." So they were very close, obviously.

• 22:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Another body identified is 25-year-old Maureen Brainerd Barnes of Norwich, Connecticut. She was reported missing in July of 2007, and she'd last been seen in New York City. Her loved ones remember her as being creative, courageous, and gifted with words. At times, she did sex work to pay family bills. But what she really loved was writing poetry, and she loved to write rap lyrics. She had two children. And her daughter Nicolette, who's now an adult, has said that losing her mom, quote, "Drastically changed the trajectory of my life. There were countless times I needed her, and she was not there. I remember she read to me every night, and now I can no longer remember the sound of her voice."

• 23:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, God. That's heartbreaking.

• 23:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. The next remains to be identified belong to 22-year-old Megan Waterman of Scarborough, Maine. Her family has said that they believe she was forced into sex work. Author Robert Colker reports Megan's boyfriend, the man she considered the love of her life, was seen by others as, quote, "her pimp and abuser." Sad. She sometimes saw clients in New York. She was last seen leaving a Long Island hotel in June of 2010, presumably to meet a client. Back home in Maine, Megan has a young daughter named Lily, who she loved very much. Megan's been called a, quote, "fun, caring, and loving mom." Lily's in her teens now and has talked about the pain of losing her mother, saying, quote, "I still wonder what her voice sounded like,"

• 24:14Karen Kilgariff?

  or her laugh. "I do remember missing her and always wondering when she was coming back. I don't wish this on anyone, the pain I went through or go through." On top of that, because what it is getting me.

• 24:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 24:28Karen Kilgariff?

  When your mom dies, especially when you're young, it's devastating. And for young girls, it's like.

• 24:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 24:35Karen Kilgariff?

  It's foundationally devastating.

• 24:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 24:38Karen Kilgariff?

  And then the idea that anybody would treat your mom's death like it was less important.

• 24:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 24:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Than anybody else's.

• 24:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Deserved it to. People would like, that's what people say.

• 24:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 24:49Georgia Hardstark?

  And to feel that and not care as much about your own mother, that that's devastating.

• 24:54Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just the authority moralizing, cops moralizing, this doesn't matter, this does. And that's what this story is all about.

• 25:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 25:01Karen Kilgariff?

  At the end of the day, is people thinking that they can classify human beings that way. The final set of remains are identified as those of 27 year old Amber Costello, who lived in West Babylon, New York, at the time of her disappearance in September 2010. So it was just months after Megan Waterman went missing. And Amber struggled with addiction, so she sometimes picked up sex work. She was last seen leaving her apartment to get picked up by a client. And on her way out the door, she tells her roommate, quote, "If my sister calls, tell her I love her." So these four women, Melissa, Maureen, Megan, and Amber, become known as the Gilgo Four. And because of the similarities, their remains being found in the same area, wrapped in burlap,

• 25:45Karen Kilgariff?

  the use of online escort ads, and the fact that they were all young, very petite, white women. Many people assume that a single person is responsible for their murders, right? That the serial killer theories start immediately.

• 25:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And with good reason.

• 26:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 26:00Karen Kilgariff?

  But the Suffolk County Police, who have the jurisdiction over this case, don't publicly confirm this at first. The commissioner at the time tells the press, quote, "I don't want anyone to think we have a Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with blood dripping from a knife." God forbid.

• 26:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Because then we won't have tourists coming.

• 26:19Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, it's, yeah, we're stuck in Jaws for the rest of our lives. And instead, it's like, no, get on this right now and solve it right now. Statements like this, of course, don't sit well with the victims' families. And they, along with the public, start connecting the dots that maybe there is a Long Island serial killer, and that is what's being discovered. But if you know anything about this case, you've already read about the widely reported procedural missteps at the Suffolk County Police Department. Despite having access to cellphone and internet data because the victims used their phones to contact their clients, statements from the people who knew these women, among many other leads to chase, the police just somehow don't initially identify any suspects or persons

• 27:04Karen Kilgariff?

  of interest at all.

• 27:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, talk to all the sex offenders in the area. You know what I mean? Like, the basics.

• 27:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Or how about just the sex clients in the area?

• 27:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Fucking totally.

• 27:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Go into those rich people neighborhoods and say, who among you are hiring? And we need to talk to you in a serious way. But God forbid, it's a professional man that gets questioned.

• 27:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 27:24Karen Kilgariff?

  In fact, they turned down the FBI's help.

• 27:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't ever do that.

• 27:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Reporting suggests that the Suffolk Police had serious internal corruption and misconduct issues at the time. Author Robert Colker describes the department as being in a, quote, "ethical freefall." This may have hampered, if not totally frozen, any real investigating into these deaths as implicit biases around sex workers and what they do and do not deserve go completely unchecked. And that's not to say that there weren't people that were there. Like, if they were still looking for her from the beginning of 2010 until the winter, then someone cared enough to keep on going back out there. That definitely was happening. But when the system is set up like that.

• 28:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, not a chance.

• 28:12Karen Kilgariff?

  So, per Colker's reporting, at one point, and this is going to make you very mad, like it made me, the then-chief of detectives publicly victim blames the Gilgo for, pointing out that they were, quote, "willing to get into a car with a stranger."

• 28:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck you.

• 28:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That's called Uber.

• 28:30Karen Kilgariff?

  You fucking do it every goddamn day.

• 28:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:32Karen Kilgariff?

  He also called it a, quote, "consolation" "that the killer was targeting a specific group of people, sex workers and not the general public."

• 28:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god.

• 28:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. "It's an infuriating attitude for local law enforcement to display, especially when these homicides fit into an even larger pattern of violence and murder on Long Island. Several sets of human remains have been discovered in this area, going back to the mid-'90s."

• 29:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 29:00Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not new.

• 29:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 29:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And they include 20-year-old Jessica Taylor of New York City, whose remains were discovered in Manorville in July of 2003. She had gone missing from the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan days before the discovery of her body. And 24-year-old Valerie Mack of Philadelphia, who disappeared in the year 2000, her remains were discovered 11 years later, also in Manorville. 34-year-old New Yorker Karen Vergata's remains are first discovered on nearby Fire Island in 1996, which is the same year she went missing. And the remains of 28-year-old Sandra Castillo, who's a native of Trinidad and Tobago, living in New York City, are also ID'd. And she was found in Southampton in 1993.

• 29:45Karen Kilgariff?

  She had vanished only days earlier. So Sandra Castillo was one of the first of these bodies, and then it just kept happening.

• 29:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. I mean, everyone after that could have been saved if there had been enough of a... One would think.

• 30:02Karen Kilgariff?

  So we don't know much about those women. Authorities have alleged that Jessica, Valerie, and Karen worked as escorts, with police stopping short of describing Sandra as doing the same, and instead calling her lifestyle, quote, "substantially similar to that of a sex worker." Whatever that means. Obviously, there's much more to these people than the jobs that they paid the bills with.

• 30:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 30:27Karen Kilgariff?

  They all had people in their lives who cared about them and wondered what happened to them. Fortunately, the Suffolk County Police Department does experience some serious overhauling in the coming years. And as investigators continue working the Gilgo four case, they begin to find even more remains off of Ocean Parkway. I mean, that's, it's fucking crazy.

• 30:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Karen Kilgariff?

  The amount of bodies.

• 30:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:52Karen Kilgariff?

  And the idea that anyone would let anybody say, no, thanks, FBI, when that's what's happening.

• 30:57Georgia Hardstark?

  You want to be like, oh, you're so, um, what's it called? Sure of yourself that you don't think you need them. But no, it's actually you're corrupt and you don't want them to figure that out. That's the real fucking thing. That's why corruption is so fucked up. Or it's, I mean, obviously it is, but also.

• 31:11Karen Kilgariff?

  It keeps out, like, any possibility of justice. Guys.

• 31:17Georgia Hardstark?

  You guys. Why do we have to keep doing this podcast? Can't we run out of fucking stories?

• 31:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Please let us run out. Okay. This includes more remains belonging to Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, and Karen Vergata, all found in the spring of 2011, suggesting that those remains had been scattered. And then in December 2011, more than a year after she went missing, investigators finally find Shannon Gilbert's phone, clothing, and ID on Oak Beach, not far from where she was last seen. And a few days later, her remains are finally located in a marsh off Ocean Parkway, about a quarter of a mile from those belongings. So it won't be until 2015, after sustained pressure from the victim's loved ones. And, and I believe it's Shannon's mother that just goes to town and is like, yep, I'm

• 32:07Karen Kilgariff?

  not going away.

• 32:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Unrelenting.

• 32:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Just, yeah. It won't be until 2015, after sustained pressure from the victim's loved ones and under a new Suffolk County Police Commissioner, that the FBI is invited back into the investigation. Welcome. And the real breakthrough comes years after that, in 2022, when a dedicated task force is put together to investigate these murders specifically.

• 32:31Karen Kilgariff?

  2022.

• 32:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Karen Kilgariff?

  11 years later.

• 32:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, the shame you should feel that it's taken that long to even put together a task force, let alone solve it.

• 32:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Task force first.

• 32:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Please. With fresh eyes, the task force pours over case files, evidence, and statements collected by earlier detectives, and they quickly hit on a statement provided by Amber Costello's roommate at the time of her disappearance. He had told police about a, quote, "ogre-like client of Amber's who drove a green Chevy Avalanche pickup truck."

• 33:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Could he be more specific? Like, just, he's telling you.

• 33:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Have you seen the documentary that he is in, that the roommate is in?

• 33:08Karen Kilgariff?

  The roommate? No.

• 33:09Georgia Hardstark?

  He's just the best. He's like a character out of Euphoria, like...

• 33:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Gotta watch him.

• 33:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Love him, yes.

• 33:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, just these people who are, like, just trying to get by in their day-to-day, and suddenly, they have to take up the, like, "I need to get my roommate justice."

• 33:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. "I told you who did it, and you don't even fucking listen to me."

• 33:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Maren writes, "File that information away for a second."

• 33:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, okay.

• 33:34Karen Kilgariff?

  So, long established by this point is that Melissa, Maureen, Megan, and Amber, the Gilgo Four, they'd all been contacted by someone using a burner phone shortly before they disappeared.

• 33:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't even know where you get a burner phone. In the mall? At one of the kiosks?

• 33:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, the black market internet? Isn't that what they call it? The Silk Road?

• 33:51Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know, but then that's traceable, isn't it?

• 33:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know.

• 33:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't either. I'd hope I never have to. You hope you do have to?

• 33:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Suddenly, I'm like, nah.

• 33:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck.

• 33:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Wouldn't it be kind of fun to have a burner phone? Prank calling people? Someone had also used a burner phone and Melissa's own phone to repeatedly contact Melissa's little sister, Amanda.

• 34:11Georgia Hardstark?

  So fucking disgusting.

• 34:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It's Craven. That's the one who is planning a trip to meet her sister in New York. While Melissa was actively missing, Amanda is 15 years old, and she says a man would be on the other line taunting her, at one point telling her he'd raped and murdered her sister.

• 34:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god, the depravity. It's the same with a fucking Golden State killer, like...

• 34:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 34:34Georgia Hardstark?

  You are so sick in a way that we will never understand.

• 34:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And thank god it is rare, but at the same time, it's like, and that's why women choose the bear. The bear doesn't call you for years afterwards.

• 34:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 34:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. Burner phones are tricky to trace, the whole point of having a burner phone, but calls made from these phones still ping nearby towers. I didn't know that. Police had already figured out these calls typically hit towers in midtown Manhattan and on Long Island, particularly in the town of Massapequa. By 2022, when the task force is at work, Melissa's family had long been begging police to investigate those locations more fully. Now the task force does, hoping they can find a man who matches the description of an ogre who owns a Chevy Avalanche, who has connections to midtown Manhattan and Massapequa. And it doesn't take long for them to land on a name, and that name is Rex Huerman.

• 35:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Doesn't take long, except a decade, to land.

• 35:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Doesn't take long for the task force who was assigned fucking over a decade later.

• 35:42Georgia Hardstark?

  To do some basic fucking research and find.

• 35:45Karen Kilgariff?

  And these families having to beg. 59-year-old Rex Huerman, described by some acquaintances as, quote, "a big goofy guy", and others as, quote, "cold and distant, kind of creepy", men, women. Is that what you were gonna say?

• 36:02Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I was gonna point to the hometown that we just recently did.

• 36:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, that's right.

• 36:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, had come out before this episode? I don't think so.

• 36:11Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I think we're breaking news to this thing.

• 36:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 36:14Karen Kilgariff?

  We've got a mini-sode coming up where you can hear from someone who wrote in.

• 36:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Had a personal relationship with this guy.

• 36:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, worked near and around.

• 36:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. So Rex Huerman lives in Massapequa. He works in midtown Manhattan, where he has an architecture firm. His personal cellphone records show that he's used his cellphone in those same areas as the burner phone has been used. Many of our victims went missing at times when Huerman's wife and kids were away on trips without him. This is all compelling circumstantial evidence, but there's also physical evidence and new ways to test DNA versus what was available earlier in the investigation. I mean, you think about 2011 versus 2026. It's crazy.

• 36:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It's huge.

• 36:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, big difference. Now detectives take a few hairs found at crime scenes and compare them against a DNA sample pulled from a pizza box that Hureman had thrown away.

• 37:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Have you seen the footage of it? They have it on like security.

• 37:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Of them getting that pizza box?

• 37:13Karen Kilgariff?

  I think of them getting the pizza box. They definitely have arresting him.

• 37:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. That day that started happening, it was again this like it's finally happening. The DNA is consistent with Hureman and/or a member of his household. And then in July of 2023, Hureman's arrested and search warrants were filed for his home and electronic devices. What investigators find is truly heinous. It's deeply disturbing, like searches for porn involving the mutilation of women. They also find Google searches for family members of the Gilgo four victims, members of the police task force, and a document of Hureman's that's been characterized as a quote serial killer checklist. Among other things, it notes problems a killer might face, DNA, hair and fiber.

• 38:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God.

• 38:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And how to solve them, booties, hairnet.

• 38:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God.

• 38:05Karen Kilgariff?

  The planning.

• 38:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Karen Kilgariff?

  The dedication going into destroying human life.

• 38:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 38:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Despite everything that I've just told you, Hureman will maintain that he's innocent until this month, April 8th, 2026, when he shocks the world by pleading guilty to the murders of the Gilgo four, as well as the murder of Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Sondra Castilla. He also admits to killing Karen Vergata, but he will not be prosecuted for her murder as part of his plea deal, which also entails cooperating with agents from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

• 38:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 38:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Who hope to gain more insight into his crimes.

• 38:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Karen Kilgariff?

  In the wake of his guilty plea, Rex Hureman's trial, which was scheduled for later this year, will not happen. And while it closes several cases commonly associated with the so-called Long Island serial killer case, this story is not entirely over. Unsolved murders and disappearances on Long Island remain under investigation. There is real reason to believe Rex Hureman is not behind all of them. Among the lingering cases is Shannon Gilberts. If you remember, in May 2010, she ran into the darkness of Oak Beach. Her body was found more than a year later, separate from her clothing and her belongings. Reports note that after fleeing her client's home, Shannon knocked on a couple of doors, asking residents inside for help.

• 39:29Karen Kilgariff?

  By the time someone actually calls the police, though, and gives them Shannon's location, she's gone. Shannon's client and her driver were questioned by police. They are never considered persons of interest in this case. And her client insists that he doesn't know why she suddenly started panicking that night. Things get very fuzzy, I know.

• 39:48Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so weird.

• 39:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so crazy. But it's like, it could have been a million things.

• 39:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 39:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Things do get fuzzy after Shannon leaves her client's house. Reporter Robert Colker makes space for the possibility that somebody who encountered her that night might know more than they are disclosing. Investigators, meanwhile, think Shannon's death may have been accidental. She could have been intoxicated. That was never proven. She could also have been drugged, if we're just going to say theories. And then wandered into the chilly marsh, which many have pointed out would have required a ton of strength and energy to wade through, especially for a woman as petite as Shannon. And that that's where she ultimately either drowned or died of hypothermia. But as for her clothing and belongings being found far away from her remains, a former

• 40:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Suffolk County Police Commissioner once theorized, quote, "That's explainable because she's, you know, hysterical. And she's discarding her possessions as she moves along. Her jeans might have come off from running in that environment. And that is a possibility."

• 40:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, bro.

• 40:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, also, it's like, then let's start naming any possibility in the world.

• 40:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, let's not do that.

• 40:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, it's kind of going back to, she's hysterical.

• 41:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 41:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, why would you use that word?

• 41:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't use that fucking word.

• 41:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Hysterical because she thinks someone's trying to kill her?

• 41:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, we're not doing that anymore.

• 41:07Karen Kilgariff?

  And she ends up dead.

• 41:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 41:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Along with all the other people who are dead.

• 41:11Karen Kilgariff?

  She's hysterical because she thinks she's going to die. And then she dies. That kind of makes the hysterical part.

• 41:17Karen Kilgariff?

  You don't get to use that word.

• 41:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Null and void.

• 41:20Karen Kilgariff?

  How about logical?

• 41:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 41:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And if you use the word logical, none of that other stuff tracks at all.

• 41:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Totally.

• 41:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Shannon's family has long suspected foul play, and the lack of knowing exactly what happened to her is something they've had to wrestle with for more than a decade. Robert Colker has spoken extensively with Shannon's family, including her mom, Mary. Who managed to find a silver lining in this unimaginably horrible situation. Koka writes, quote, "Mary understood that one way of finding at least a shred of meaning in the loss of her daughter was that her disappearance led to the discovery of those four women several months later, and that without Shannon, there would be no case, there would be no search for the killer."

• 41:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 42:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And that is the story of the Gilgo Beach murders.

• 42:04Georgia Hardstark?

  My god, great job.

• 42:05Karen Kilgariff?

  So now we're all up to date.

• 42:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 42:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 42:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 42:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 42:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that story just makes you feel real, real bad.

• 42:12Karen Kilgariff?

  How do we break down the institutional system that is based in racism, sexism and abuse, and build a new one that helps a girl who thinks she's being killed and then gets killed?

• 42:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 42:31Karen Kilgariff?

  And calls them on the phone to ask for that help?

• 42:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Or like, needs money because she's trying to live her life and can't afford to do that, and so turns to something that men pay for and want, and then gets ostracized for it.

• 42:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Puts her at risk.

• 42:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 42:48Karen Kilgariff?

  And then she's blamed.

• 42:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 42:50Karen Kilgariff?

  For their violence.

• 42:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, because she couldn't make a living the way she wanted to, or not enough, or whatever it is, and so she's, yeah, I don't know how we do that. Next, go to the next timeline? Next timeline?

• 43:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Where?

• 43:04Georgia Hardstark?

  You want a timeline pop?

• 43:05Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll timeline jump on that one.

• 43:38Karen Kilgariff?

  We've all had moments where dealing with healthcare or insurance feels completely overwhelming. You're sick, worried about someone you love, trying to understand what comes next, and suddenly you're spending hours on hold, filling out paperwork and trying to figure out who to call. Research shows patients spend the equivalent of an eight-hour workday every month coordinating their own care. Nobody hands you a roadmap when you're dealing with a diagnosis or ongoing health issues. That's why there's Solace Health. Solace provides personal healthcare advocates who average 16 years of healthcare experience and can help you get answers fast. Think of them as someone in your corner who understands the healthcare system and can handle the logistics while you focus on your health. They can help with appointments, insurance denials, medical bills, treatment options, and understanding doctor recommendations.

• 44:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Research shows 92% of patients report a positive impact on their care from working with an advocate. Advocacy improves outcomes, and Solace advocates are covered by insurance nationwide. Eligibility varies by insurance plan. Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice or services, must be 18 years or older. Go to solacehealth.com/murder to see if you qualify. It takes about two minutes and it's covered by insurance. That's S-O-L-A-C-E health.com/murder. Goodbye. You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium. Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's magnesium spray. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt, it's designed to help you relax and get in the right state of mind for a good night's rest.

• 45:04Karen Kilgariff?

  If you need a reset after a crazy day, make Dr. Teal's magnesium spray part of your nighttime routine. It's an effortless way to get a boost of topical magnesium that can help you relax your body and mind before bedtime. Dr. Teal's magnesium spray comes in a lightweight, fast-drying formula. Just shake it up and generously spritz onto the soles of your feet and massage until absorbed. I was kind of blown away the first time I used this spray because I do have problems sleeping. And when there's something this simple, you just spray it on your feet and suddenly you're asleep and the next morning you're like, wait, what happened? Did my problem just get solved? Like, it actually is that easy? And your stinky feet now smell like lavender. Like, what more do you want? How dare you call my feet stinky? For wellness, you can feel find Dr. Teal's magnesium spray online or in

• 45:48Karen Kilgariff?

  your local bath aisle. Goodbye.

• 45:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, well, as we do, we're gonna make a fucking sharp right turn. Great. Different direction completely. Okay. And we're going to the spring of 1871. Hey. You love that era. I love the past. In San Francisco. Hey. Your fave. So, the California gold rush is long over by this point, but this is still very much a town of prospectors and bankers who fuel their treasure hunts. So, the prospectors and bankers pay the fucking regular people to go find the diamonds and shit, right? Prospectors do it, bankers pay them to do it. Yes, that's right. Yeah, okay. So, recently, a vein of silver has been discovered

• 46:33Georgia Hardstark?

  in Nevada, and much of that mining is being spearheaded from San Francisco. And people are moving to San Francisco every day to get a piece of that action. So, one evening, a mining investor named George Roberts gets a knock on the door of his office in San Francisco. Outside on his doorstep are two men, one he recognizes and one he doesn't. The one he knows is a handsome 41-year-old named Philip Arnold. And Philip had worked with George on some gold and silver mining endeavors, so he already knew him and trusted him, but he currently works at a company that makes drill bits out of industrial-grade diamonds. Did you know they did that? I mean, no. No, because it turns out some diamonds aren't really worth a lot of money. Yeah. And they turn them into stuff like drill bits, which is where this guy, Philip,

• 47:16Georgia Hardstark?

  works. Well, with this detail, we begin the story of the great diamond hoax. Ooh. A hoax, we got a scam. Hell, yeah. Here we go. Love it. The main source for the story is a 1940 New Yorker article called "The American Golconda" by A.J. Liebling, and the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. So, that's, I still need this paper. Okay. Okay, so, the other man with Philip, let me show you Philip real quick. He's fucking hot, I guess, for that time. Here's his photo. Let's see. I'll be the judge of that. Yeah. Oh, my.

• 47:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi, that looks like Paul, what's his name from Ireland?

• 47:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally, Paul.

• 47:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Meskell?

• 47:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Meskell. He does, with really flat hair and a severe part down the middle.

• 47:59Karen Kilgariff?

  I love his layering. It's a great coat.

• 48:02Georgia Hardstark?

  What do you think his mustache smells like?

• 48:03Karen Kilgariff?

  It smells like gold. He's got a Kirk Douglas dot in his chin.

• 48:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, he's a handsome fella.

• 48:10Karen Kilgariff?

  He combs that hair pretty seriously.

• 48:12Georgia Hardstark?

  And he looks like he knows it.

• 48:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so the other man with our friend Philip here is a guy named John Slack. He's Philip's cousin. He's a bit surly. He doesn't talk much. Both look really dirty, like they've been traveling a long time. They are the prospectors, essentially. Philip is clutching a leather sack, the kind someone might use to hold gemstones. Fucking, it's like just straight out of a cartoon.

• 48:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 48:34Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, like a leather. Treasure. Like Goonies, exactly, yeah. They tell George, the investor, that the bag contains diamonds and rubies, which they discovered on an exploratory trip through a region, and they refuse to name what the region is, but they're like excited about it. They say that because they've arrived back into town after banking hours, they want to use George's office safe to store the stones overnight. Like, hey, you know me, can you just hold on to these for me overnight? George is like, absolutely, and they make him promise he won't look in the bag.

• 49:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 49:06Georgia Hardstark?

  And then...

• 49:07Karen Kilgariff?

  But you'd look in the bag, right?

• 49:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and he does.

• 49:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I mean, how could you not?

• 49:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Of course, like, yeah.

• 49:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Is that part of the setup?

• 49:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 49:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah.

• 49:14Georgia Hardstark?

  See, when someone comes around, they're like, I don't want you in on this thing. And you're like...

• 49:19Karen Kilgariff?

  I gotta get in on this thing.

• 49:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Because it's your idea now that you're in on it. So George says, okay, he says he won't look in the bag. And then he doesn't press them for details about where they were, even though he really wants to know. Philip and John, they say that the region they were in is controlled by Native Americans, who, if this story had been true, are rightfully hostile towards white outsiders.

• 49:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 49:41Georgia Hardstark?

  But the story is a lie, and they say that because of the Native Americans, because of the hostile area, that means any future larger expeditions will require significant upfront investment in order to have adequate defenses. So... It costs a lot of money to go find a diamond mine.

• 49:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Georgia Hardstark?

  And to have everything you need.

• 49:59Karen Kilgariff?

  You're not just gonna go out there and be like panning for gold type of thing.

• 50:02Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 50:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, and also because it's very well dealt with in the TV show Deadwood, which I highly recommend everyone watch. But like, you think you want it, you're out there trying to get it with all everybody else, then you get it, now you're in like 10 times the danger.

• 50:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Now everyone wants what you've got and they're not afraid to try to get it. And so if there's one thing we've learned when we do stories about scams, it's when someone has let slip some information about a money-making scheme and they seem reluctant to tell you more about it at first, and now you're in the position of wanting to be involved, that should be a red flag.

• 50:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 50:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 50:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:36Georgia Hardstark?

  And you should stay away. Unfortunately, George does not do this. Instead, exactly according to Philip's plan, the two men leave, George takes the fucking jewel bag and looks inside it. And what he sees, to his semi-trained eye, is a pile of gemstones, all uncut, but very precious looking, none of the less. He sees garnets, sapphires, diamonds, and I wore this ring so we could look at all the...

• 51:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Are those garnets and sapphires and diamonds?

• 51:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and they're vintage. I don't think they are real anything, but yes. I wanted to do a...

• 51:07Karen Kilgariff?

  But look at what those look like.

• 51:09Georgia Hardstark?

  This is called a Sputnik ring. And I'm definitely married. So, so all these are commonly found in Arizona, and so it makes George feel pretty sure that that's the region that Philip and John have returned from. But the fact that there are diamonds in the bag is actually a huge detail. No one has found diamonds in North America yet. And George brings the bag to a man named William Chapman Ralston's house. He's the chairman of the board of the Bank of California.

• 51:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 51:39Georgia Hardstark?

  And the two of them are like, holy shit. And they bring the stones to an appraiser. But the thing is, Philip, the scammer who is hot, knows that no appraiser in San Francisco has the equipment or expertise to gauge the quality of uncut diamonds. He's just betting on everyone being... A little uninformed based on these.

• 51:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And very impressed by a bag of gems.

• 52:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly, and it happens over and over again. They can tell that there are real diamonds in there, but they have no idea that they are industrial grade diamonds, the ones they turn into those drill bits where he works. They're not gem grade. Plus, they're mixed in with a few stones that are actually of good quality. So, the appraiser tells George and William, the Richie guys, that the stones are probably worth around $100,000. We have a few opportunities to do in today's money.

• 52:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 52:26Georgia Hardstark?

  1871, $100,000.

• 52:28Karen Kilgariff?

  $2 million?

• 52:29Georgia Hardstark?

  2.8 million!

• 52:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god! I never do it!

• 52:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That means you win it.

• 52:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Boom, boom, boom, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

• 52:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep. You put this on your head?

• 52:39Karen Kilgariff?

  My paperclip crown, finally.

• 52:44Georgia Hardstark?

  So, that's what they think it's worth. In fact, they're actually worth about $12,000, not $100,000, which is still $300,000 in today's money.

• 52:53Karen Kilgariff?

  You always got, for the big scams, you got to invest that money.

• 52:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly, exactly. So, at this point in time, let's talk a little about diamonds.

• 53:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Diamonds.

• 53:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Diamonds. At this point in time, the majority of the world's diamond deposits have not yet been discovered. For the first 2,000 years of the recorded history of diamond mining, diamonds have come from only one place, a place called Golconda, India. And these are now considered some of the rarest and highest quality diamonds in the world. They're the fucking OG. And the Hope Diamond is from Golconda, just to like, give you a fucking idea. And I looked at some photos and they're just so beautiful. By 1830, the Golconda diamonds had been completely mined.

• 53:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 53:33Georgia Hardstark?

  They're gone, they're done.

• 53:34Karen Kilgariff?

  We took them all.

• 53:35Georgia Hardstark?

  We took them all. And by that point, the center of the diamond mining industry has moved to Brazil, where diamonds had been discovered in the 1700s by Portuguese colonizers. I mean, hence colonization fucking everywhere.

• 53:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 53:48Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 53:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Because I wanted to say, did the colonizers find it, or did the natives find it and they murdered the shit out of the natives to steal them?

• 53:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Probably that one. And I mean, they're not worth anything unless you can sell them and you put worth on them. So, if the natives did find them and they were just like...

• 54:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Here.

• 54:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. But then, in 1867, five years before Philip walks into George's office with his bag of jewels, a 21.25 karat diamond is discovered in South Africa. And so this kicks off the frenzy of prospecting in South Africa. And also, it generates a lot of interest in where the next big deposit of diamonds is going to be found. And there are rumors that Arizona, for some reason, might be a fruitful place to look because the prospectors believe it bears some geological similarities to South Africa. So that's just like an educated guess from the 1800s.

• 54:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 54:38Georgia Hardstark?

  So people in the mining world are already focused on Arizona at this point. And George and William are now, the rich guys, are now under the impression that Philip and John have found that sought-after vein of diamonds there and that they need to invest in order to find more.

• 54:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not a geologist. I meant to tell you that 10 years ago. But is it, and you're not either, but is it possible that you'd find a diamond mine and a ruby mine and a garnet mine, like, all those things together?

• 55:07Georgia Hardstark?

  You're being too sensible.

• 55:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 55:10Georgia Hardstark?

  You'd ask that question.

• 55:11Karen Kilgariff?

  My mistake, my mistake.

• 55:11Georgia Hardstark?

  So let's talk a little bit about hot Philip here. He had been born in Kentucky. He has a wife and family there, though it sounds like he left them to travel to the gold rush in the West, which seems like a lot of them did. He does send back money periodically, but who the fuck knows what that means. He had settled in San Francisco and in the late 1860s, after the gold rush, had died down, he took a job as a bookkeeper at that company that makes rock drills out of industrial diamonds. So that's how he got ahold of them. These drills are used for mining other stones. And there, he learned a bit about different grades of diamonds and where they come from. So knowing everything that he does, he goes first to London, where he buys all of those uncut stones that George will later see in the bag.

• 55:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Those stones are mostly industrial-grade diamonds with a few nice gemstones mixed in. And after returning to the US, he meets up with his cousin, John, in St. Louis. And together, the two travel through Arizona, where they buy the telltale garnets from a Native American. So they mix all the stones up, shake it up like a shake and bake, and then they bring that back to where we were in the beginning of the story. To George's doorstep with the intention of enticing him to invest. The plan works. George and William, the banker, and George tell Philip and John that they insist on being allowed to invest in their new diamond venture.

• 56:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 56:31Georgia Hardstark?

  You have to include us. I looked in the bag.

• 56:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep. Listen, I did all the things you told me not to do.

• 56:37Georgia Hardstark?

  You must. They say they can help raise the capital that the men need to establish a new mine and can help provide the security they need to defend against the made up Native Americans and the made up mine. Philip says he's unwilling to part with controlling interest in his mining venture, but he'll allow George and William to invest. Very generous of him.

• 56:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Very kind, yes.

• 56:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Before proceeding, though, William, the banker, insists on sending a scout to the area to make sure the diamonds are real. He at least has some forethought into, you know, the legitimacy of this whole fucking plan. So Philip and John say that's fine, but they make the scout wear a blindfold for the journey so he can't tell where it is because he doesn't want to reveal the exact location yet until he has some money. So William chooses a gold miner named David D. Colton to accompany the men. And like everyone pretty much in the US, he has never seen a diamond field in his life. So he doesn't really have a point of reference for it. So maybe he's not the best guy to go.

• 57:33Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're going to build a little diamond field for him?

• 57:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh. Yeah. I mean, essentially, yeah, they take him on a train. They don't go to Arizona, they go to Wyoming instead. And then they put him, I think, on a horse and they like blindfold him and essentially just like walk him around for a long time on a blindfold on a horse. You could not pay me to go blindfold on a horse. It's for three days.

• 57:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 57:54Georgia Hardstark?

  You could not fucking pay me for an hour.

• 57:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Back then, it was the only option?

• 57:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Not the blindfold part, though.

• 58:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, the blindfold.

• 58:00Georgia Hardstark?

  I'll do the horse.

• 58:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Oh, okay.

• 58:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't want to. I'm not like begging to, but like.

• 58:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Got it. You're basically just having to feel how to ride that horse correctly.

• 58:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 58:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's scary.

• 58:11Georgia Hardstark?

  No, that's, I'd get carsick.

• 58:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Lot of trust issues there.

• 58:14Georgia Hardstark?

  So when they take the blindfold off, this gold miner finds himself on a 7,000-foot-high mesa in the middle of a vast wilderness. They walk for a bit and come to what looks like an anthill shimmering with diamond dust. They dig for a few hours with pocket knives and they each find several diamonds and a few other precious stones. So, once they're back in California, the gold miner's like, "It's fucking legit." He takes the stones to a jeweler who, again, says they're worth a lot of money and if you found this there, then there's gotta be a lot more. So it's just like, nobody fucking knows what they're talking about. Everyone's bullshitting.

• 58:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Everyone's bullshitting and then it's that thing of like, if I did that and got the confirmation, I would go, "Okay, now somebody, no blindfolds."

• 58:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Because now we know.

• 58:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, right, but then they'd know where it is and they wouldn't have to pay him. You know, I don't know. I 100% agree.

• 59:04Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm trying to scam solve here. It's not gonna work because this already happened 100 years ago.

• 59:09Georgia Hardstark?

  More than that.

• 59:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 59:10Georgia Hardstark?

  What David doesn't know is that Philip or John, one of them, had simply scattered some more of those London diamonds in that spot while he was still blindfolded. So they walked him up, they went, "Pshh," and then they were like, "Come on down."

• 59:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And he's like, "Plink, plink, plink, is it starting to rain?"

• 59:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Diamond?

• 59:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Diamond.

• 59:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So once David, the mining scout, tells William George the diamond field is legit, the two rich dudes get really excited and they know they're gonna have to raise some serious capital. And, as we know, another classic hallmark of a scam is urgency. So William and George think that at any moment, some other prospector or trapper or just any dude on the street could come across this unclaimed diamond field and take it for themselves. Because nobody owns it, except the Native Americans, of course. So they think they have to raise enough money to open a brand-new diamond mine and fund an army to protect it, and they have to do it fast. And you get stupid when you're doing stuff fast.

• 1:00:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:00:04Georgia Hardstark?

  You know.

• 1:00:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, it's so much money.

• 1:00:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:00:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Georgia Hardstark?

  So it requires a trip to New York to get investors on board. And in New York, the diamonds are again appraised by fucking the founder of Tiffany and Company.

• 1:00:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:00:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Mr. Tiffany. And he values them at at least $150,000. And in today's money, he gets it wrong, too.

• 1:00:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, does he?

• 1:00:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, like, I think, I think everyone gets it wrong and keeps getting it wrong. And no one wants to be the one who's like, I don't think this is real because what if you're wrong? Like, three guys ahead of you.

• 1:00:33Karen Kilgariff?

  And like Tiffany J. Tiffany, who got in there and was like, no, these are great. They're like, oh, no, I guess I'll go up against that guy.

• 1:00:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Karen Kilgariff?

  After a while, it's not worth it.

• 1:00:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, so he says that what they found so far is worth at least $150,000, which in today's money.

• 1:00:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Would that put it over, is that 3.1 million dollars?

• 1:00:49Georgia Hardstark?

  3.5. Karen Kilkara.

• 1:00:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm learning.

• 1:00:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So now the New York investors believe that this tiny sample from this vast diamond field is worth millions. But again, they're wanting to do their due diligence and send their own mining expert just to be sure. So Philip, the main hot guy, agrees that he'll do this if they give him an upfront investment of $650,000, which is worth almost 18 million today.

• 1:01:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit.

• 1:01:18Georgia Hardstark?

  And she says we'll buy him and the cousins out of any, like, I'll show you where it is with the money.

• 1:01:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Georgia Hardstark?

  And it seems like everyone forgot that at the beginning of the scam, Philip claimed he would never let go of a controlling stake in the mine. It's like, oh, you're now willing to do it? Even though now you know it's worth so much more?

• 1:01:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Everyone forgot, including Philip.

• 1:01:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, red flag.

• 1:01:37Karen Kilgariff?

  He didn't track that.

• 1:01:38Georgia Hardstark?

  So they basically agree to it. Before Philip can take the group on the trip, he says he and his cousin need $200,000 upfront of that $650,000. The investors agree to these terms. And so with that $200,000, because they're already knowing they're going to get 650,000 total, the cousins go back to Europe. And buy $50,000 worth of the worst diamonds in Amsterdam. What that trip. And then they seem to blow a decent chunk of the rest on nice hotels, meals and entertainment.

• 1:02:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 1:02:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Take me there.

• 1:02:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Can we bring that picture back up again? It would be like, he's like, let me take you to Amsterdam. Do you like sirloin steak?

• 1:02:16Georgia Hardstark?

  You know who he looks like? Rory Scoville.

• 1:02:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, fuck him, Rory Scoville. No, he doesn't.

• 1:02:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, he does. Look, he looks just like Rory Scoville.

• 1:02:24Karen Kilgariff?

  That's it. It's because Rory crosses his arms all the time.

• 1:02:27Georgia Hardstark?

  He does love to cross his arms like that.

• 1:02:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah, that's so funny.

• 1:02:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, all right. Okay, so they go, they party in Amsterdam, they bring back a bunch of fucking cheap ass diamonds. So Philip now takes the investors and the mining expert. They have selected back to the High Mesa, which turns out to be a mountain that is now called Diamond Peak. And I can show you a photo. So it's like that. So you just throw diamonds at that and everyone finds them. I mean, it's so gorgeous.

• 1:02:50Karen Kilgariff?

  It's amazing.

• 1:02:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Probably really hot.

• 1:02:52Karen Kilgariff?

  That's very cool.

• 1:02:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So Diamond Peak is actually only about 15 miles from the railroad stop. But as I said, he made them walk around blindfolded for days and days. And at this point, one of the cousins has clearly had time to go plant more stones. And once they're there, everybody digs around with pickaxes. Everyone finds diamonds and other precious stones. And so at this point, the investors were like, okay, we believe you and we're ready to give you the rest of the money. And at this point, John, the surly, quiet cousin bows out of the whole scheme and makes himself scarce with his remaining money. He's kind of smart. He's like, don't be greedy, get it and go.

• 1:03:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, this can't last.

• 1:03:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So he has about $30,000 left after his romp through Europe. So he skedaddles on $30,000, which in today's money.

• 1:03:40Karen Kilgariff?

  1.8.

• 1:03:41Georgia Hardstark?

  836,000. So that's enough to live off of for the rest of your life back then.

• 1:03:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit was like a fucking penny.

• 1:03:47Karen Kilgariff?

  A cup of coffee was three cents.

• 1:03:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. And Philip takes his remaining $450,000, which is about 12 million today. His cousin got, he should have got more. And he pretends that he's really upset that he got such a small amount of money. Like, well, I guess you guys bested me.

• 1:04:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my field of diamonds. Oh, well.

• 1:04:07Georgia Hardstark?

  12 million dollars. These investors are so stoked, they start, you know, setting up shop. They open an office in San Francisco. They display some of the gems that have been found at this new and mysterious diamond field, thinking it's like the first one in the fucking US. But they don't sell any additional interest in the property because they want to keep all the profits for themselves. So they're greedy about it and they just can't do that. Then a geologist named Clarence King, who would go on to form the US Geological Survey, which you're in.

• 1:04:35Karen Kilgariff?

  My favorite.

• 1:04:36Georgia Hardstark?

  And who had just finished a geological expedition in the exact same area where this mine was supposed to be, or supposedly was, went into the investor's mining expert on a train.

• 1:04:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Just a coincidence. It's bad fucking news for everybody.

• 1:04:49Karen Kilgariff?

  The odds.

• 1:04:50Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:04:50Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean.

• 1:04:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, everyone was a fucking miner back then.

• 1:04:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I guess that's true. There's a lot of experts because there's a lot of this kind of shit that people are trying to do.

• 1:04:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. The mining expert had been promised a small share in the land, but he had already sold off his portions. So he actually doesn't give a shit about keeping it a secret.

• 1:05:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, like everyone else does. He tells this guy Clarence all about the diamonds and other precious gems in this one particular area of Colorado. And Clarence, our expert, is like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Bullshit. He calls bullshit on the whole thing. He had just studied this area. He knows it's impossible that was found, but he has to go see for himself. So he takes the train to the general area he's heard about and asks some local shepherds to tell him where a bunch of random San Franciscans and New Yorkers had been digging lately. Have you seen a lot of dudes lately? Where are they? Where were they?

• 1:05:37Karen Kilgariff?

  A lot of pinstripes.

• 1:05:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, probably, you know, slipped some a 20.

• 1:05:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:41Georgia Hardstark?

  The shepherds point him to the exact spot near Diamond Peak. And once there, Clarence discovers multiple kinds of diamonds that are clearly from different locations. Rubies, garnets, sapphires, emeralds, and amethysts, which, as Clarence puts it in a letter to the so-called mining expert, who really only ever knew about gold, calls it, quote, "an association of minerals impossible of occurrence in nature," meaning they don't fucking grow together.

• 1:06:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Duh.

• 1:06:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, it's a treasure field.

• 1:06:08Georgia Hardstark?

  They were almost like too greedy, our hot guy, because it's like, just put the diamonds in there. It's enough.

• 1:06:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. That kind of like mixing it up and.

• 1:06:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, getting people excited. It makes sense for the bag, but then to source them all in one place. It's like, I flunked out of college and I know that ain't.

• 1:06:23Georgia Hardstark?

  You knew. I mean, they're lucky they didn't get caught earlier. He says he finds diamonds in places where it would be impossible for them to be like a tree stump. They had just thrown them around. And his assistant even finds a little polished, like, diamond, ready for jewelry use, like the ones we see in rings, which must have been accidentally mixed in with the other stones where they bought them for cheap and then threw them. And it's like, here's a fucking cut diamond. Like, this is impossible.

• 1:06:50Karen Kilgariff?

  But also, why would they leave it all behind? Like, this is our special thing, just in case somebody went and checked. It's so weird to me, because there is value in those. They are mining for stuff. Like, it's not like...

• 1:07:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I think they, like, left them there so when those investors come back, they don't realize they even had. But someone else could have found them at the same time. No, it's very weird.

• 1:07:11Karen Kilgariff?

  They're gonna mine that gem field.

• 1:07:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Clarence sends a telegram to the investors at their brand-new San Francisco office. He's like, "I can't let these guys..." You know, he says, quote, "I have hastened to San Francisco to lay before you the startling fact that the new diamond fields upon which are based such large investments and such brilliant hope are utterly valueless." That's a way to say that you got fucking face.

• 1:07:34Karen Kilgariff?

  You got face.

• 1:07:35Georgia Hardstark?

  "And yourselves and your engineer, the victims of an unparalleled fraud," end quote.

• 1:07:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Georgia Hardstark?

  So by this point, the new mining company has been huge news, like, this shop they set up, especially in San Francisco. So it's even bigger news when the whole thing turns out to be an elaborate scam. I'm sure so many people were, like, stoked to read. Like, it's just gossip mags about miners and about investors.

• 1:07:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Because you know that one of them went down there with this pocket watch in his vest pocket, and was like, "Boys, I'm gonna open this office," or whatever.

• 1:08:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. He's got those, like, sock garters on and shit. Diamonds in his sock garters.

• 1:08:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Rich guy in all over the place.

• 1:08:12Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. So the story runs in the San Francisco Bulletin, and the whole thing just comes crashing down. But by this point, John and Philip are later days. They're gone.

• 1:08:24Karen Kilgariff?

  He shaved that mustache, filled in the hole.

• 1:08:27Georgia Hardstark?

  It's over. I got some filler. Yeah. Ultimately, only one of the investors, a man named William Lent, he's the only person that's not too embarrassed to try to track Philip down and get some of his money back. Everyone else is so shamed that they don't want to even make it a bigger deal. They just want to quietly go away.

• 1:08:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, I got had. That's the end of it.

• 1:08:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Because I think maybe in that business, right? If they get had, then they're just the idiots forever. They can't go back and be like, but let's make another deal.

• 1:08:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. No one believes in them anymore. So this guy, William Lent, is probably the most motivated since he had bought out several investors and was on the hook at that point in Philip's scheme for $300,000, which in today's money...

• 1:09:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm going to say $710,000.

• 1:09:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Eight million, Karen.

• 1:09:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wait.

• 1:09:15Georgia Hardstark?

  What? What did you say? 700?

• 1:09:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Nope, I said it wrong. I said it wrong.

• 1:09:19Georgia Hardstark?

  I heard it wrong. So I don't know.

• 1:09:21Karen Kilgariff?

  You heard the seven. You're like, we're there.

• 1:09:23Georgia Hardstark?

  I heard what I wanted to hear.

• 1:09:24Karen Kilgariff?

  We got there. I mean, listener, if you've just joined us, first of all, we've been playing this stupid game for 10 years, and I am not a winner of this game usually at all.

• 1:09:33Georgia Hardstark?

  No, you got closer, I think, this time than ever.

• 1:09:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Than ever. Because usually my brain goes like crazy, and then it's like,

• 1:09:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, same.

• 1:09:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Save 52 million.

• 1:09:41Georgia Hardstark?

  I think I've gotten close or correct one time, and then every other time was so far off, it's embarrassing. And I would, I'd be like, these investors, and not go after my money.

• 1:09:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's put down the hubris around not only in today's money, but all the jewels in our lives.

• 1:09:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly. Like, like a diamond ring that I forgot to put on. Okay. Ultimately, this investor tracks Philip down. He had skedaddled to Elizabeth Town, Kentucky, your favorite place to summer.

• 1:10:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so nice.

• 1:10:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Where he's back with his family, so he didn't ditch his family. And he's bought 500 acres of land and has opened the first store in town that has plate glass windows. Like, he's got the money to spend on plate glass windows at this point.

• 1:10:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And back then, in that era of America, it was all swindlers that opened a store with plate glass windows and built their empires. It's all on the foundation of lying.

• 1:10:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Your great, great, great grandfather that you're so proud of, that set you up for life with the fucking trust fund, he was a scammer.

• 1:10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  He was an absolute human rights exploiter.

• 1:10:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry, enjoy your money.

• 1:10:45Karen Kilgariff?

  My own grandfather, who was a cop in San Francisco, totally crooked, got rich. Then my, his wife, the widow, donated all of it to the SPCA.

• 1:10:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Girlfriend, how much?

• 1:10:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Like enough, a crooked cop level amount to be like, oh, we could have lived in. And my mom and I used to talk about it all the time.

• 1:11:05Georgia Hardstark?

  The Kilgariff fortune.

• 1:11:07Karen Kilgariff?

  We could have been a contender.

• 1:11:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it the Kilgariff fortune or the, or your mom's side?

• 1:11:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Night.

• 1:11:12Georgia Hardstark?

  The Night Fortune?

• 1:11:12Karen Kilgariff?

  The Night Fortune.

• 1:11:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't know that was her last name. That's amazing. K or N?

• 1:11:17Karen Kilgariff?

  K.

• 1:11:18Georgia Hardstark?

  That's good. Okay, so plate glass windows. Philip has plenty of cash left when this guy comes after him to hire a lawyer. And ultimately, he settles with Lent for $150,000, so half of what he had taken him for.

• 1:11:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:11:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And so he still has money left over. And in the end, his net profits from the hoax are $520,000. So essentially, with the lawyer, paying this guy back, he's got away with about, in today's money, $10 million.

• 1:11:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Whoa.

• 1:11:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Done.

• 1:11:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Just worth it? Worth it, absolutely, he would do it again.

• 1:11:49Georgia Hardstark?

  100%.

• 1:11:50Karen Kilgariff?

  God damn.

• 1:11:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. After the settlement, Philip decides to open a bank. And this is where ultimately karma comes back to bite him in the ass.

• 1:11:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:11:59Georgia Hardstark?

  So there are two competing banks in town. And the owners of one of those banks challenges Philip to a duel. They were still doing duels then.

• 1:12:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Great.

• 1:12:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, say no, it's such a fucking dude thing to do.

• 1:12:11Karen Kilgariff?

  They gotta do it.

• 1:12:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, I want to shoot at you, you want to shoot at me?

• 1:12:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, I do.

• 1:12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I think I'm gonna survive it.

• 1:12:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I think I will.

• 1:12:16Georgia Hardstark?

  So let's just do this.

• 1:12:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Both dead.

• 1:12:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Philip shoots his competitor in the arm, but the competitor's dueling partner sneaks up behind Philip and shoots him in the back, killing him.

• 1:12:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That's cheating.

• 1:12:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Such cheating. So at the age of 48 in 1878, Philip dies. Philip's cousin and co-conspirator, John Slack, is never heard from again.

• 1:12:38Karen Kilgariff?

  So smart.

• 1:12:39Georgia Hardstark?

  This is why you, we have to do the ancestry DNA test. I want to know who's fucking great-great-grandpa this is.

• 1:12:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:12:45Georgia Hardstark?

  In Europe.

• 1:12:46Karen Kilgariff?

  You want to do other people's ancestry DNA test?

• 1:12:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I want them to do it, yes.

• 1:12:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Everyone's got to do it.

• 1:12:51Georgia Hardstark?

  There are some reports that he moved to New Mexico and became a coffin maker.

• 1:12:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:12:55Georgia Hardstark?

  So if that sounds familiar, your great-great-grandpa, let us know. And that is the story of the Great Diamond Hoax.

• 1:13:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible, I've never heard of that.

• 1:13:04Georgia Hardstark?

  I hadn't either, and it worked. You guys, follow your dreams.

• 1:13:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It pays, follow your diamond cheating dreams.

• 1:13:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Just get a scam, make it good, leave immediately.

• 1:13:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Get out right before the peak.

• 1:13:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Wait a second. Should we be listening to our own advice?

• 1:13:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit. All right. Well, guys, this has been 10 years. Thanks so much.

• 1:13:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, thanks for letting us get away with this for 10 years. We appreciate it.

• 1:13:28Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, go find your diamonds.

• 1:13:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:30Karen Kilgariff?

  But if someone shows you a bag of diamonds and says, don't look in here, and then you do, those aren't real diamonds.

• 1:13:34Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. But you are. You're the real diamond of this story.

• 1:13:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Stay sexy.

• 1:13:38Karen Kilgariff?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:13:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:13:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:13:49Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right production.

• 1:13:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

• 1:13:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Lasevedo.

• 1:13:57Karen Kilgariff?

  This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.

• 1:13:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

• 1:14:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:14:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 1:14:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:14:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

• 1:14:15Karen Kilgariff?

  And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show.

• 1:14:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:14:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Calling all amateur detectives and podcast obsessives.

• 1:14:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Virgin Voyages' second True Crime Voyage sets sail March 20, 2027, for a five-night escape to Grand Turk and the Beach Club at Bimini.

• 1:14:37Karen Kilgariff?

  As part of the On Air at Sea collection, this immersive sailing brings together fan favorite podcasts, including Disgrace Land, Buried Bones, and Wisecrack, for live recordings, behind-the-scenes access, exclusive meet and greets, and crime-themed programming that you won't find anywhere else.

• 1:14:53Karen Kilgariff?

  All aboard our award-winning, kid-free ships.

• 1:14:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Head over to virginvoyages.com/truecrime to secure your spot.

• 1:15:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

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