499 - First Live Show in 6 Years!!

Karen and Georgia are back on tour! In their first live show at Denver’s Paramount Theatre, Georgia covers the murder of William Dickens and Karen tells the story of the Killdozer. 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 Watch full episodes of My Favorite Murder on YouTube: https://www.youtube.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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is Exactly Right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way. When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, the rubber hits the road. And what the feds uncover is a complex scheme of staged wrecks, financial fraud, and a pair of conspiring lovers behind it. This is a story about fake accidents that led to real consequences. Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Goodbye. The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Sunny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception, his mom.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Watch the Hulu original series, Phony.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Goodbye. Hey, everybody, it's Georgia and Karen here to tell you about a brand-new limited series from Blanchard House with Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Hell in Heaven is the unbelievable true story of John and Ann Bender, a young American couple who moved to the Costa Rican jungle with $600 million and a plan to build their own private Eden.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  But what starts as a dream spirals into a nightmare, complete with abduction plots, armed guards, uncut diamonds, and in the end, one dead body and a mystery that stunned two countries.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  Hell in Heaven is the newest true crime podcast hosted by award-winning journalist Becky Milligan. She investigates how one perfect couple's dream life in the jungle Turned into an international scandal and ended with a murder trial that had everyone gasping.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  So stick around after this episode of My Favorite Murder and hear the trailer for Hell in Heaven, premiering Thursday, October 9.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  You can follow Hell in Heaven now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Goodbye.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  What's up, Denver?

• 3:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  Incredible work, you guys.

• 3:46Georgia Hardstark?

  You did it.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  Incredible.

• 3:47Georgia Hardstark?

  And that's it, right?

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're done.

• 3:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi.

• 3:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's been a, it's been a long time coming.

• 4:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Been a minute. I forgot what this feels like. It's pretty fucking awesome, you guys.

• 4:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi, how are you guys tonight?

• 4:21Speaker 00

  I feel like I should say, just as we start, we're not gonna remember our lines.

• 4:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  There's gonna be things that you remember that we do not remember. It's been six years since we have been on stage.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, except for...

• 4:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  When we came to the Bananas show here in Denver.

• 4:44Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  And we only wanna perform live in Denver. I guess that's what we're saying.

• 4:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Wanna talk about your outfit? What you're wearing tonight?

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Oh, you're immediately moving on to outfits?

• 4:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know, I don't remember how to do this.

• 5:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Wanna talk about your tights?

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Oh, um, these are tights and we made a post about this. I just realized, I would say 11 minutes ago, that I did not have any tights with me, at all.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  So my friend Vicky and my friend Craig ran out and bought them, like, truly at the 11th hour. It was very scary, very mean, very mean.

• 5:29Georgia Hardstark?

  We almost canceled the whole thing.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  We almost had to just say, you know what? Everybody go home.

• 5:36Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm hot in an unhealthy way.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's like, I don't think is okay, but I did...

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Who else here is in perimenopause, menopause, or post-menopause?

• 5:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell, yeah. Let's get angry over nothing. Everybody now. The air conditioning's not on in the car. Oh, my fucking god.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Where'd you get your outfit, Georgia?

• 6:04Georgia Hardstark?

  I got my outfit today.

• 6:08Georgia Hardstark?

  At a vintage store here.

• 6:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Called Goldmine? Is that right? Yes. Is that right? That's right. Yeah, I went in there, I had my whole outfit planned for like weeks. And then I was like, I should probably just go to a vintage store real quick here. Found this fucking insane vintage dress.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  It looks like it's tailored to fit you.

• 6:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 6:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm wearing lots of undergarments.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  Okay. Shirt.

• 6:35Georgia Hardstark?

  But then I steamed it in backstage and I can definitely like smell the vintage.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Smell the ladies of the past?

• 6:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It's a show dress, not a party dress.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  What did those ladies smell like? Just describe it to us right now.

• 6:48Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a dusty, musty mothball cigarette perfume martini.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Our kind of lady.

• 6:58Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Nice. I mean, that's an incredible vintage stroke of luck, I'd say.

• 7:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, yes. I want to do it every city, I think. Just not bring anything, bring jeans to wear.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Just be like, fuck it, and then find something in the city that fits perfectly.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  It's perfect.

• 7:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, this is the first fucking night of our tour.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  So funny.

• 7:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you for selling it out two nights in a row. You guys are the best.

• 7:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Then what do we do?

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Oh, I'm gonna tell them about my dress now.

• 7:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh yeah, go for it.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  It has pockets, ladies and gentlemen.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  The arc. The spin arc.

• 7:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Work it.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Right?

• 7:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Did you see there's someone in a hot dog?

• 7:51Speaker 00

  Holy shit, we've got a hot dog in the front row.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  No, it's all you.

• 7:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  It's all you.

• 7:59Georgia Hardstark?

  She should be our ambassador, probably, right?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Oh, that would be good. Wait, are you from around here?

• 8:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  Well, you know how to pronounce street names and the kind of things that people yell at us about?

• 8:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Good as gold?

• 8:13Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 8:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Her guess is as good as ours.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Hey, hot dog, fuck off.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  We're not having you, hot dog, drive us down some weird, blind alley. And then everybody on this side's furious. And everybody on this side posts on social media. We can't do it again, hot dog.

• 8:29Georgia Hardstark?

  And at the end of it, she takes her fucking hot dog costume off and hides it because she knows on the way out, people are gonna like shame her. Like, "I'm not the hot dog." And it's like, "You're the fucking hot dog."

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Hot dog shame is the worst kind of hot dog. Shame. The worst kind of shame.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. What is this?

• 8:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't fucking know. It feels like a fever dream.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  What a joy.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  What a joy.

• 8:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thank you for being here. We're very, very excited to be here.

• 9:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  There's been a lot of buildup.

• 9:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Lots.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  People are fighting in the walkways. This is the kind of stuff... Can I just... How about we share our favorite live show memories with each other? I think we've done this on the show.

• 9:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, you go first because I don't remember any of them.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Wait, hot dog, you tell me. Have I told this story already on the show? My favorite live show memory is when... And it was kind of right there, but I can't... I think we were in...

• 9:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Washington DC?

• 9:31Speaker 00

  I think it was... Was it Miami? It's the throwing up story? Oh, no.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  I think it was at Casey Theater in Brooklyn.

• 9:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, yes.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  When, literally, seven minutes into the show,

• 9:46Speaker 00

  an usher, and a very angry usher, justifiably so, had to walk down and snap out a big, black, glad, black... glad garbage bag to start to clean up someone's barf. Right at the beginning. Right at the beginning of the show.

• 10:04Georgia Hardstark?

  However, they served this, like... They served canned wine, right? Which is like, that's a mistake. And then some kind of cocktail that, like, surely made everyone shit-faced immediately.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it was like a Karen and Georgia Long Island Ice Tea type of situation that people got very excited about.

• 10:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, so we didn't technically make her throw up.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  We didn't make her, but we were a big part of it.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  And that's what the legacy of this podcast will be when we finally wrap this motherfucker up.

• 10:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh!

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:35Georgia Hardstark?

  This is my favorite murder of the podcast!

• 10:37Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah!

• 10:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 10:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Thank you. That person over there forgot to clap and then when I looked at them, they were like, "Oh, that's..." Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry. Yep.

• 10:52Georgia Hardstark?

  It's clapping. Kind of part of the show.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  It's hard with podcasts.

• 10:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Kind of be rude.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Because you're just used to like, hearing us in your head, like you're hallucinating a little bit.

• 11:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Arguing about the stuff we're getting wrong, you know?

• 11:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought you were the other one and she was you this whole time.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's that. That's a big piece of it.

• 11:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Has anyone been to a show before, a live show? (audience cheering) Okay, great. We're gonna rely on you to tell us how this fucking goes. Thank you.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Should we, uh... Uh, is it time to sit down?

• 11:21Georgia Hardstark?

  I think so, yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Should we do it? All right, let's do this.

• 11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  (audience cheering)

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Look at this.

• 11:26Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. How madmen are we?

• 11:29Speaker 00

  This is all from Article. Promo code murder.

• 11:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I really needed to sit down because I need to demurely grab the tissue I tucked into my s... There we go.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  There it is.

• 11:41Georgia Hardstark?

  (audience cheering)

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Where'd you have that? Where was that, Georgia?

• 11:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Up in the carriage.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Up in there?

• 11:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Undercarriage.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  In her Kleenex undercarriage. Sponsored by Kleenex.

• 11:51Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. Oh, man, I really thought I'd get, get, get over this by now. This fucking tissue thing, but...

• 11:59Speaker 00

  I think it's a great personality trait.

• 12:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Never.

• 12:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's one of your foremost personality traits.

• 12:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's a martini, dusty mothball tissue, girl.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  I mean...

• 12:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Me!

• 12:12Speaker 00

  What if you were the ghost of the woman who owned that dress before?

• 12:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that, for me.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Magical.

• 12:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. And then what do we do? Oh.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  We don't really want you to yell at us.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Remember, I'm the bitchy one.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  That's right. That's right.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  I was a big bitch back before it was trendy. Remember that? I was all alone with it. Now we're all here, 2025.

• 12:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Everyone's a bitch now.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Just cutting it up all over the place.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  As is our right.

• 12:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, enough is enough.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, since the last time we saw you, our rights have been taken away. Our bodily autonomy has been taken away. And I think by the end of this tour, we should figure out what to do about that.

• 13:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  But in the meantime, we're just gonna have a fun podcast. How about that?

• 13:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I forgot to take a beta blocker. I just remembered. Not only that, I drank a fucking Red Bull, so...

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 13:21Georgia Hardstark?

  This is gonna be fun for...

• 13:24Speaker 00

  That's the poor man's speedball right there. Yeah, girl. Can you check in about how it feels to be up and down at the same time?

• 13:32Georgia Hardstark?

  My skin is tingling.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:35Georgia Hardstark?

  For sure. And, um, yeah, I'm hot again in a weird... Like, feel my...

• 13:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll feel your neck.

• 13:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Feel that?

• 13:45Speaker 00

  It's very hot. That's kind of a George Foreman grill heat right there.

• 13:51Georgia Hardstark?

  And not even that cool. It's like, ugh.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you wanna tell them, the people who haven't been here before, or the drag-alongs, like, the rules of the show?

• 14:01Speaker 00

  We know you're out there. You poor, poor people that don't listen to this podcast, but had to come anyway tonight. We call you drag-alongs. We personally apologize.

• 14:12Georgia Hardstark?

  We do. We understand. You're a great friend. You're a very good friend or sister or whatever.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Here's the thing. If you're gonna use your camera, you can't have the flash on, grandma.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, check your stats there before you throw the camera up and then put a big light in our fucking face. Please don't get that usher angrier at us than he already is.

• 14:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell, yeah. You made the fucking usher or security guard laugh. That's a win for you.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  That's all we need.

• 14:43Georgia Hardstark?

  That's the point.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  That's all we're looking for.

• 14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Because they're like, what the fuck is this show tonight? Like, and why do I have to work it?

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:51Georgia Hardstark?

  These two weird chicks with a rug?

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:53Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Look, it's this thing called podcasting. They started it. Marc Baron started it in 2011, and it's gone since there.

• 15:01Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just like that.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  That wasn't real.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  They're like, "She's stealing the history of podcasts." Old man Marin started it way back when. What do we say?

• 15:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  We say, "This is a comedy true crime podcast, which is kind of hard for some people who don't like comedy, true crime, or podcasts to understand." Which we understand.

• 15:26Georgia Hardstark?

  We get it.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  "We don't think murder is funny. We think we're funny." And, finally, there might be other lines, but I can't remember. If you don't like it, you can get the fuck out.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  But we don't want you to. What else should we say?

• 15:46Georgia Hardstark?

  What else is there to say?

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Oh, wait, just really quick. Because we're back at a live show, it does feel like a, kind of a monumental event.

• 15:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Are you gonna propose to me?

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, give me that big fucking ring right now.

• 15:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Big fucking ring. I'm Taylor Swift, bitch.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  I just wanted to give a shout out to Steven. He's not dead, but he's also not here.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  He's totally fine.

• 16:16Georgia Hardstark?

  He's fine, he's still our friend. He hasn't cut us out of his will or life.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  No. He actually recently sent me a picture of a sinkhole. And then, it was his friend that did it, and then they went and put one of our t-shirts. It was a "Here's the Thing" t-shirt. And they just put it right at the edge of the sinkhole. And when I looked at the picture, you know, sometimes when you look at your phone, you see the picture before you see who sent it or what the hell is going on? And I was just like, "Wait, what?"

• 16:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Is someone threatening me?

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Sinkholes have merch now? And they're ripping off our merch? That's amazing.

• 16:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Sinkholes have merch? Hell, yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 00

  Right?

• 16:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Can I, really quick, just one technical thing? Can we hear ourselves on the monitor, just a hint more?

• 16:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I can't hear a word she's saying when she's not kissing me.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Just a little more.

• 17:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Just laughing.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  A little more us.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  This is where the show gets good, because we can actually hear each other talking. Watch this.

• 17:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm sure it's funny, but what if it was sad?

• 17:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Laughed hysterically at it.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  We look out and Hot Dog is sobbing. No, it's supposed to be funny. How's this? This is better?

• 17:23Georgia Hardstark?

  This is good.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:24Georgia Hardstark?

  So this tour's-

• 17:24Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 17:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you. This tour's really hard, because we've almost done 500 fucking episodes of this podcast.

• 17:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Most people quit at 63, just a quick reminder.

• 17:37Georgia Hardstark?

  And they should. So I feel like finding stories that we haven't done in the city or the state, okay, if it's the state, don't boo, is hard, right?

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, we have to dig.

• 17:49Georgia Hardstark?

  So, yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Luckily, we have our researchers, Marin and Ally, who bust their asses for us.

• 17:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Badass.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Do amazing work. Our producer, Molly Smith, who came on, yes, you can totally applaud Molly Smith. Amazing. Basically, in two weeks, became the producer of this podcast. So we love her. She makes it work, as do, we could be naming lots of people that work at ERM right now, but I'm just thinking of the people that literally got us to these seats right now.

• 18:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Did we win an award? We have to like, thank everyone now?

• 18:25Speaker 00

  And my mother.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Turning something you love into a career is exciting. Then come the invoices. Lucky for you, Squarespace can handle the business stuff, so you can focus on your business. From consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your skills with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone can build a beautiful, professional, online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Get paid on time with professional invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Head to Squarespace.com/murder for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code MURDER to save 10% off your first purchase

• 19:15Speaker 00

  of a website or domain. Goodbye. Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date, all in one search.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping, and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be. Goodbye.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  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.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  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.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Goodbye.

• 22:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, all right, should we start?

• 22:03Speaker 02

  You should start. You go first.

• 22:04Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm first this time.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:10Georgia Hardstark?

  It's confusing because we're going by stories. Who goes first, not by like who's supposed to actually go first. So I'm sure we'll get it wrong one day. And, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, as we tend to do. It's kind of our style. All right, well, I'm gonna do a story tonight. It's technically one of Colorado's oldest cold cases. You guys know I love cold cases. Even though it was probably solved, but I'm gonna need you because I have a theory too. And I think I'm right.

• 22:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Always. I'll figure out a way to argue with you. No, you'll like it. So, okay. "In the early 1900s, a prominent businessman was killed, leading to a winding investigation, civil scapegoats, and ultimately, an escape from justice. This is the story of the murder of William Dickens. Is anyone related to him here?" You guys, we're in Longmont, Colorado.

• 23:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Longmont?

• 23:15Georgia Hardstark?

  He's like one of your founders, like your founding father. So you should know this. Yeah. He founded it for you. That's right. And so the sources used in today's episode are... Episode? Story? Let me do that. That's right. A WordPress essay titled "Mysterious Death of William H. Dickens" by Carol Turner, and an article from the Colorado Culture Magazine called "The Oldest Unsolved Murder in Boulder" was probably solved a century ago by Erica Sims. The other sources in our show notes, so look them up right now. What if you did the whole story in that voice?

• 23:48Georgia Hardstark?

  God, like just channeled the woman who wore this dress before. She just... Light up the cig. Oh my God. What else do I have in my Spanx, do you think? Just start pulling shit out. Caprice. Okay. This is scary. I can't believe we're doing this. I mean, I'm going first and I'm terrified. You're really leading it, leading the way here. You got it. Don't get it twisted. We seem fucking cool and collected, but we are... I am not right now. Yeah, I know. Speak for yourself.

• 24:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Karen took the beta blocker, not me. Jealous. Uh-huh. Okay. Um, thank you. That one person supports you. Mom? Janet? Is that you? Janet's here?

• 24:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. So it's the night of November 30th, 19... Holy shit, this is fucking weird, I'm not kidding you. 1914. Carrie just texted me and told me that's when this ring is from. 1914. Whoa. Oh my god, that's spooky. This is crazy. I didn't... Do it on purpose? No. Wow. Admit it now if you did. Everyone... No one thinks it's as crazy as I do, right? That's fucking bananas, there's a ghost. There's a ghost. My diamonds. My diamonds are haunted. Play this fucking story. Stop it. Okay. November 30th, 1914. A 71-year-old businessman named William Dickens and his wife Ida are relaxing. They're reading in the library of their home. Me too. In Longmount, Colorado.

• 25:18Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a little bit north of Boulder.

• 25:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I love Boulder. It's got this big boulder. Did you see the moth? There's a little moth. But it's good luck, right? Moths are good luck, so don't kill it. There, I see it, okay. Stop. About 8:00 PM, they're chilling in their library, as rich people do. And when a bullet pierces the library window and hits William in the back, it passes all the way through him, which is not good, and grazes Ida's cheek and then lands in the wall. Ida's injury is minor, and she jumps to her husband's aid, but tragically she watches as he passes away within 10 minutes of being shot. Wow.

• 26:02Georgia Hardstark?

  The drag-along's are like, "This was not sold to me as I thought it would be." They're like, "I fought with you in the car all the way over here just for this." Okay, so let's back up a little bit, as we like to do, and talk about the Dickens family. William Henry Dickens is born, this dude, born on May 25th, 1843, on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Sounds fucking horrible for her, for the mother. Yeah, for real. Right? Yeah, it's just like, the go-for-the-perser, there to help? Boiling water or something? Yeah. Love Boat reference, no one? Okay. That's how your parents met. It is. We're cruise line people.

• 26:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Congratulations.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 26:48Georgia Hardstark?

  So, um, his parents moved, are moving the family from England by way of Quebec. When Mary gives birth to William, it's probably a nightmare onboard the ship.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  You can assume. Also, being, having a baby in international waters.

• 27:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Where's that baby from?

• 27:05Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a great question.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  The ocean?

• 27:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Everywhere.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  The Little Mermaid movie?

• 27:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Does he get to go back to the ocean anytime he wants? Because he's a citizen?

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Just tucks right in?

• 27:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, I get to live here now? Like, I want to do in Ireland, wouldn't that be great? But I can't? Okay. Da-da-da-da. Um, the family are all distant relatives of, you guessed it, English author Charles Dickens.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Oh my god, I knew that.

• 27:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Wait, for real?

• 27:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, because it's their last name, Dickens, remember?

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Which indicates being related to someone. Yeah?

• 27:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Always.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is also, Ally's probably like, Georgia probably didn't remember any of this because she told me some of the names that Charles Dickens, of his books.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Oh, nice.

• 27:48Georgia Hardstark?

  So, but I know, Ally.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Let's hear him. Let's hear him so we can finally cheer for Charles Dickens the way we've always wanted to.

• 27:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Oliver Twist.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Great Expectations.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  My favorite.

• 28:00Georgia Hardstark?

  And A Christmas Carol.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 28:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm, I love the Muppet one.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Oh. So good.

• 28:08Georgia Hardstark?

  I read that one. Soon after arriving in Quebec, the family then moves to Wisconsin, and William's father...

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 28:14Georgia Hardstark?

  All right.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Cheese sets in the crowd.

• 28:18Georgia Hardstark?

  The father and sisters pass away as their want-to-do back then. Like, everyone just fucking gets a cold and dies. It's awful.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  They died, you know what they did a lot? They coughed into like a kerchief and died a lot.

• 28:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh, phlegmy.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Yeah?

• 28:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's right. So his mother, Mary, remarries a man named Alonso Nelson Allen. They remain in Wisconsin until William is 16, but they need to make more money, so he and his stepfather move to Boulder. So they must have got along a little bit, right? And they go for, um, they go mine for gold in what would be known as the Colorado Gold Rush. So congratulations, you guys.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  You guys did amazing during that period of time.

• 28:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Incredible.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  So much gold.

• 28:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. William and Alonso aren't very good miners, though.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  You don't hear these stories that often. The shitty mining stories.

• 29:06Georgia Hardstark?

  The shitty miners.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:08Georgia Hardstark?

  But they're smart, though. Instead, they leave Boulder, they build a cabin near where Saint Rain is. Saint Rain Creek and Left Hand Creek cross in an area that soon becomes Long Mount, Colorado.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Can I just say that when you said they were bad miners, then I immediately pictured two people with super-long, skinny arms. They just can't get that pickaxe going at all.

• 29:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, the pickaxe. I was thinking of the sieve, you know.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Oh, they can't, yeah, they can't sift for gold?

• 29:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Sift, sift, yeah. No.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Pan.

• 29:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Pan.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Fucking pan, ladies and gentlemen. Fucking pan. We got it. We still got it.

• 29:47Georgia Hardstark?

  We are miners. Okay, so, this is what they do. They build a farm together, and as more and more people start moving into the area, because those are the people who made the long masting money. The ones who took advantage of the gold rush people by opening businesses to sell them shit.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? It's called, um, what's it called?

• 30:07Speaker 00

  Capitalism?

• 30:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 30:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I was absolutely gonna say communism.

• 30:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you for that. Okay, so, they, what did they do? Then they, the farm business grows. In 1863, William...

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Is this a dress rehearsal?

• 30:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I swear to God, I've been studying this, because I've been so nervous.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  I can't, literally, I can't hold a thought in my mind. I'm just like, we're doing it. It's happening.

• 30:36Georgia Hardstark?

  This isn't a dress rehearsal.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  It's so surreal.

• 30:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God, I have notes. And I'm still warm.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Okay, sorry, sorry.

• 30:44Georgia Hardstark?

  No, you're good. No, you're right. You're totally right to question me. Okay, so then the mom and their kids all show up, and because this family home is situated along a prominent stagecoach route connecting Wyoming to Denver, the Cherokee Trail... I don't know why I'm pointing at you.

• 31:01Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm pointing at you, thank you. Mary and Alonso set up a tavern and an inn, and that does really well. This family was also, they become like fixtures in their community after having been struggling before. And at age 26, oh, I have a photo of him. He serves in the Colorado cavalry, and he gets out, and here is a photo of William Dickens.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  What, what, what, what?

• 31:26Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. All right then.

• 31:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 31:31Speaker 00

  This is from the Longmont Museum, by the way.

• 31:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, thank you for Longmont.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  So this is on loan from the Longmont Museum. We gotta get it back to them by midnight.

• 31:38Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like, at first you're like, "What?", and then you're like, "I don't know."

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. You see this guy in a tavern in Longmont?

• 31:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  In Longmont, whatever it is. You're like, "Hello, sir."

• 31:49Georgia Hardstark?

  There can't be a lot of eligible bachelors back then, in general, right?

• 31:53Speaker 00

  No. I doubt it. Also, doesn't it look like he made that three-piece suit out of a cow 25 minutes before he took this picture?

• 32:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  I mean, you can almost see the hair on that.

• 32:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, they didn't have lint rollers back then. Oh, you mean the cow hair? I get it. That's funny.

• 32:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Not cat hair.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 32:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Cow hair.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  Well, we never know. You don't ever know.

• 32:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  You don't never know.

• 32:23Georgia Hardstark?

  You don't ever know, and I refuse to accept it. Okay, so, um, he takes the family profits and builds this place called Independence Hall, which is a community center and drugstore. So like, they just get rich selling people shit.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  Do you think it's still there?

• 32:37Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't, is it?

• 32:38Speaker 00

  For real?

• 32:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Do they sell ice cream?

• 32:41Speaker 00

  Do not lie about Independence Hall right now.

• 32:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Tavern, the tavern's still there. Fuck. Party after, after-party is what I meant to say.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Well, just drive three and a half hours to Longmont and get fucked up.

• 32:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 33:01Georgia Hardstark?

  So, I don't know what you're yelling, and I don't care.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, no. We literally can't hear.

• 33:05Georgia Hardstark?

  It makes me so nervous.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  We can't hear each other.

• 33:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Of course we can't hear you.

• 33:09Georgia Hardstark?

  When you yell, even in like, a good spirit, like, a happy way, it makes us think you're mad, and it scares me. Okay?

• 33:15Speaker 00

  We're very, very damaged people.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  You should know that.

• 33:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, Jesus. The 69, within the next four years, he acquires a 120-acre plot of land he uses to expand the farm, cattle, like that cow outfit.

• 33:32Georgia Hardstark?

  And so now he's making an honest living and he's ready to settle down. He marries the woman from the beginning of the story, Ida Kite Lee. Oh, here's a picture of her. Yeah, did pretty good, right?

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Yes, she looks like many of the TikTokers I watch.

• 33:48Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 33:49Speaker 00

  She's about to teach me how to use setting spray correctly. Come on, girl.

• 33:53Georgia Hardstark?

  She sure is. Oh, my God, yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  Do you think, I mean, they made people pose all serious like that for pictures back then?

• 34:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, because you can't, you have to sit there for three minutes, and so smiling for three minutes is kind of hard.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, but what if, like, deep down, she was like, "You guys, let's go get pictures taken."

• 34:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. I always think that.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  She's the party girl of Longmont.

• 34:14Georgia Hardstark?

  She might be so fun.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  No one will ever know.

• 34:16Georgia Hardstark?

  So sad.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Anyway.

• 34:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry for her. So, they have five children. They really liked each other.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Or it was cold that winter.

• 34:30Georgia Hardstark?

  And he adds more and more business ventures to his plate. In 1881, he builds the Dickens Opera House on Main Street. I don't want to keep referring to pictures. Do you know it? There is a picture of it, though.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Whoa.

• 34:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck, yeah, does it still look like that?

• 34:43Speaker 00

  There's so-

• 34:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Just with a bunch of Teslas everywhere?

• 34:45Speaker 00

  So many potential opera houses that we could be looking at right now.

• 34:49Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, pick one, you know? There, I think, I think it's that one. No, on the right, there's a bunch of-

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Do not do Hot Dog's job, because they're not having it. Is it the one on the right?

• 35:07Speaker 00

  Once again, Hot Dog throws up her hand.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  It's gorgeous.

• 35:12Georgia Hardstark?

  It's cute.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? Um, I'm sure there's just meter after meter, parking meter, you know? That's just what happens.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  It's the horse having to put the coins in with their big teeth, though.

• 35:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Aww.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Aww.

• 35:24Georgia Hardstark?

  That's cute.

• 35:26Georgia Hardstark?

  So, they have kids, then in 1891, he finds the farmer, he founds, founds, not finds.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:32Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not a thing.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  You got it.

• 35:33Georgia Hardstark?

  The Farmers National Bank, and soon after, he co-found the milling and elevator company. What? How did those go together?

• 35:40Speaker 00

  What range this man has. Money, elevators.

• 35:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Milling.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  Booze.

• 35:46Georgia Hardstark?

  What's milling?

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Oh, uh, making stuff?

• 35:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Oh.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Rubber yellow hookers from the back?

• 35:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Sugar, thank you. Sugar?

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 35:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Milling?

• 35:59Speaker 00

  That was me. Then that was on me.

• 36:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, oh, hey, guess what? It says, "The only flour mill large enough to compete."

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Just mere words away.

• 36:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I have read this before, I swear to God. I'm fucking sweating.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  I was having a thing backstage where my, it felt like my eyes weren't taking in information anymore, like, they were sitting on things, but like, I didn't know what it meant, or I was like, this is an interesting way to be.

• 36:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:27Georgia Hardstark?

  That's anxiety.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 36:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I think so.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 36:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, and anyways, he maintains his wealth and social status as a successful businessman and philanthropist into his early 70s, watching his children grow into adults. He enjoys his retirement with his wife, Ida, until, of course, the night of November 30th, 1914.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  Yep, they're on board now.

• 36:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  They love it.

• 36:51Georgia Hardstark?

  See? Um, and he gets shot, as I said. And back at the crime scene, investigators find that bullet was shot with what would've come to be a fair, what would've been a very distinctive, high-powered rifle, which you know all about.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  Yes, ask me anything. On Reddit.

• 37:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Because he's such a prominent figure in the Longmont community, the press picks up the story of his murder, it seems that he had done so much good while he was alive that it was hard for people to believe that he had an enemy capable of killing him, but he can make a lot of enemies.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  He's the banker.

• 37:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Don't people hate bankers?

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Huge banking area.

• 37:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh shit.

• 37:33Speaker 00

  Karen. We've been listening to you since day one.

• 37:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, so...

• 37:39Speaker 00

  She just starts reading it to herself. Anyway.

• 37:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my...

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Oh my god. Just tell about the good part.

• 37:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Okay, so the sheriff Sanford Buster comes up with some theories. First they set their sights on a man named M. Swallow.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  Spell it.

• 37:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Swallow.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Well...

• 38:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you need me to spell that for you?

• 38:04Speaker 00

  No.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  You don't usually work blue, but...

• 38:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  M. As in just the letter?

• 38:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I think that Ally was like, "Oh, sometimes old-timey newspapers just refer to men by their first initial." So we're going up, we're going with M. Because we couldn't find any other name. Let's call him, what?

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Maurice.

• 38:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Maurice Swallow.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  People, are you guessing, or do you actually know?

• 38:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Is he your uncle, your great-uncle?

• 38:33Speaker 00

  All these citizens that are just like, "Please get our history correct."

• 38:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, and he had an argument with him, but he's cleared. And then, so he has no enemies. And so Sheriff Buster and his team consider the possibility of someone maybe who wants revenge on him. Because it turns out he wasn't the best. I guess when he served in the Colorado 3rd Cavalry back in the 1860s, he participated in the Sand Creek massacre.

• 39:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep.

• 39:03Georgia Hardstark?

  You did that one, didn't you? That was awful. You did, you covered that one, right?

• 39:08Speaker 00

  Did I? How would I fucking know? I don't, I don't listen to this show.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  That was me doing an impression of my sister.

• 39:20Georgia Hardstark?

  It was great. So they were thinking that maybe people were like, gonna plot revenge against him, but it'd been so long. And then, um, let's see. I'm gonna skip that, that, that, and that.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  Just read it. People like it.

• 39:33Georgia Hardstark?

  They do?

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're fine.

• 39:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, thank you.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  This is actually, this is really interesting.

• 39:40Georgia Hardstark?

  We're not the opening act and they want us out of here?

• 39:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  You got this.

• 39:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, thank you.

• 39:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Thanks, guys.

• 39:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you. But in 1870, a full 44 years before the murder, there was one or other event that sucked that could point to someone who would want revenge against William Dickens. That year, a man named Billy Dubois...

• 40:06Speaker 00

  Hmm, French.

• 40:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Killed an innocent man. And a posse of vigilantes, which included William Dickens, went after Billy Dubois. And they tried to arrest him, but it led to a shootout. Billy goes down in the fight, and he swears to William that one day he will have his revenge. Right? Always a bad thing.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  I'd suspect that guy for sure.

• 40:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. However... Oh, no, he's dead.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  Oh. Okay.

• 40:39Georgia Hardstark?

  He won't have his revenge, but maybe his brother will.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 40:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You know how brothers are.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  I actually don't.

• 40:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, you don't. They fucking suck. They're real dicks. They steal your shit and hide it from you. It's annoying. But it had been so long, and this brother is like, working as the clerk of a... Let's see, Laramie County. And does that... you guys? He's got no criminal record. It sounds like he's just like, let his brother's memory, you know, live on in a positive way instead of seeking revenge.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:18Georgia Hardstark?

  So, he's out.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  Okay. And then... And it's... sorry, really quick. It's Laramie County?

• 41:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shit, thank you. What is it?

• 41:27Speaker 00

  They actually, in a very organized way, yelled that back at us.

• 41:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Today, I wasn't listening to that.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  I didn't want to deny it because it was great work.

• 41:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I appreciate it. No, you're totally right. I see it here now.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Clear as day.

• 41:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah. That was what I was meant to say. So, okay, so he's out. He's out. Investigators find themselves back at square one, but they get a new lead when a clerk at a store out of Denver... Let's see, guys.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  No one class from Denver.

• 41:59Georgia Hardstark?

  They're like, "Ah, the fucking..." "Streetlights here are real rough." Aren't they? Like, you stop at every streetlight, every red light. My god, stop it.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  You mean the streetlights work here?

• 42:15Georgia Hardstark?

  They make you stop and then they ask you to go. It's ridiculous here.

• 42:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Sorry, I was mean about the streetlights. I didn't mean it. No, you were. You were correct. So, someone in Denver reports the purchase of a high-powered rifle and silencer just one month before the murder. They can trace these things back then, and they care. And it's the same type of gun that was used in the shooting, which was a rare gun. And the person who purchased this weapon is none other than William's own son, Rienzi Dickens.

• 42:47Georgia Hardstark?

  You surprised? That surprises you? Heartbreaking. Thirty-four years old. I mean... Spoiled. Yeah. Nepo baby.

• 42:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Nepo tavern baby? You know how they are. The worst kind. Filled with pretzels and ego.

• 43:06Georgia Hardstark?

  So, he's arrested on December 3rd, 1914, just minutes after his father's funeral, which had to be a fucking scene, right? Like, that's kind of fucked up. That is... Those cops were like... That's revenge from cops. Totally. Like, you better be sure you got the guy if you're gonna, like, storm a funeral. Yeah. Right? One would hope. When Sheriff Buster asks if he ever purchased the gun and silencer, Rienzi swears he didn't, but then the authorities search his home and find the rifle and silencer. Where'd he put it? Where'd he put it? I don't know. Well, it's dismantled into several pieces and hidden throughout his own home. Yeah. Which I bet houses back then didn't have a lot of hiding places, you know? It's not like today. There's one big vase. You just had to put everything in there. Right. Yeah.

• 43:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Police also dig through a pile of ash in the alley behind his house, looking for evidence, because one witness claimed to have seen him frantically digging there the morning of his father's funeral. Which is a weird... Like, maybe that's his religious... No.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Try the second one.

• 44:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't want to. It wasn't hip to begin with.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 44:14Georgia Hardstark?

  But thank you for the opportunity. In the ash they find the cartridge that held the bullet that killed William. Like the bullet, not the same one. So he is like, alright, you got me. I did buy the gun, but I insisted he was just shooting at a fence post for fun.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  Sure, toward his father's library.

• 44:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:34Georgia Hardstark?

  The fence posts with the library behind it.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  For fun.

• 44:39Georgia Hardstark?

  So fun. And so he has an alibi, though. He was home on the night of the murder with his kids, but his wife was out to the movies, so there's no witnesses to actually place him there that night.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  There was movies back then?

• 44:53Georgia Hardstark?

  A picture. I don't know. That's a great fucking question.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  What fucking movie was it?

• 44:57Georgia Hardstark?

  There were pictures. It wasn't a talkie.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Kramer vs Kramer.

• 45:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  It was just that train coming at him over and over. She was there forever, screaming.

• 45:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Screaming their heads off. So his alibi isn't good enough to like prove, and police discover a potential motive, of course, because it's, guess what it is? Right, money.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Oh, money, money.

• 45:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. What were you gonna guess?

• 45:24Speaker 00

  My mind was completely blank.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  Literally, your finger went like that and I was like, oh, I'm supposed to say something right now.

• 45:32Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. I hate when you do that, so I don't know why I just did that to you. I'm sorry.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  Well, I'll get my revenge during my story.

• 45:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck. Okay.

• 45:43Georgia Hardstark?

  What'd you do?

• 45:44Speaker 00

  This.

• 45:47Georgia Hardstark?

  So it turns out he's got a lot of debt. Records indicate that Renzi owes somewhere between $35,000 to $40,000 in debt. Guess how much that is today?

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Okay, we're talking 1914?

• 45:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 00

  35 to 40. God, I'm bad at this. I have to admit, after nine and a half years of doing this podcast, I'm so bad at this.

• 46:07Georgia Hardstark?

  We got it right once.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Let me just try it out.

• 46:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  It's, don't help me. It's $350,000?

• 46:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Mmm, I really wanted you to get this, because everyone would have... You're right, a million dollars.

• 46:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Alright! Yay! And that's an example of what it feels like to be a nepo baby. Okay. You have another chance. Because his father's worth, estimated net worth, is about $300,000, which in today's money... 20 million. 9.5 million.

• 46:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry. It's okay. I've never been a math person, that's for sure. Me neither, that's why we have a podcast. Podcast! Yay!

• 46:52Georgia Hardstark?

  So he was gonna, of course, inherit some of that, of course, and so, but he's like, "But I swear to God I didn't kill my dad." Probably.

• 47:02Georgia Hardstark?

  His mom and siblings, they all have his back. They don't think he did it. And later the same month, later in the same month of his arrest, and, oh my God, we haven't done this in so long, December 1914. You have to remember and reflect up. Right. And come back now. He's arraigned, pleads not guilty, he's released on $37,000 bond, which I don't know how much it is. 800,000? Yes, yes, it has to be.

• 47:29Georgia Hardstark?

  So they hire a whole team of private investigators to track down the real killer and get him, you know, out of here. And they find one suspect worth considering. It's a rancher named John Ensley. Everyone's related to these people, I bet. Yeah, I'm sure. And they just don't know it. Every single one of these people, yeah. Oh, I have a cousin I don't know in the audience, I just remembered. That's what he said, I don't know. And you don't know your own cousin? He's like, second cousin, yeah. So kind of a stranger? Yeah. What do you think he thinks of you right now?

• 47:58Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know, but his wife likes me, so that's cool. Okay, that's good. I think he's a drag long, and I appreciate you, Stephen.

• 48:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, he used to work for William, but people close to him says he always resented William. He was spotted drinking at a Longmont bar on the night of William's murder, and a bottle of this liquor that he drinks was found nearby, outside of the Dickens home. So that's not great. Shouldn't have left that behind. Right, right, but he was probably drunk off it. It's enough for the police to question Ensley, but he tells them something interesting that unravels the private detective's story. According to Ensley, most of the group of private investigators, they all got him shitfaced, basically. And one of them, yeah, pretended to be a priest who tried to trick him into confessing. So, a whole scam. What do you think? Yay or nay?

• 48:50Speaker 00

  So it's like 1914 cops, so they're probably literally beating the shit out of him. And then they're like, "Okay, well, we'll give you a moment to bleed," and walk outside. And then one of them like turns their shirt around and is like, "Hey, I'm also gonna beat you up, but you'll tell me, right?"

• 49:06Georgia Hardstark?

  That's, but I love God, so you tell me.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Peace up to the big one.

• 49:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep.

• 49:12Georgia Hardstark?

  And then the whole thing just was a big setup to try and frame him. And so with no hard evidence against Enslie Police, believe him and go back to the sun. So his trial for the murder of his father begins April 24th, 1915. And Judge Neil F. Graham, your favorite, presides over the case. And they come in hot and drop a bombshell. He claims he's received a confession letter in the mail from the actual killer.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 49:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You want me to read it to you? He reads it in court.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Please do, and please do it in a classic Colorado accent. Yes.

• 49:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. "Dear sir, please don't let them convict Ramsey Dickens." Do I have it?

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Pretty dead on, I think, yeah.

• 50:01Georgia Hardstark?

  "Please don't let them convict him. I am the murderer. I'd kill any man who would do me the way old blank blank did. I shot him in the window with a rifle, which afterward..." It's just like admitting to it in such a ridiculous way.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Read the letter, read the letter.

• 50:17Georgia Hardstark?

  "I shot him through the window with a rifle, which I afterward buried in Loveland. For God's sake, don't let them convict an innocent man. Someday, they will be sorry. I did it because he had it coming. Signed, X." So it's a real convenient...

• 50:32Speaker 00

  Real bullshitty.

• 50:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  It's the "for God's sake" that pushed it over the edge for me.

• 50:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, "Oh, please, oh, please."

• 50:38Speaker 00

  Easy.

• 50:39Georgia Hardstark?

  "I'm fine killing a dude, but I don't want anyone to go to prison for it." You know what I mean? Like, I don't know about that. The district attorney is like, bullshit, calls bullshit.

• 50:51Georgia Hardstark?

  And so after about a month of going back and forth in court, Judge Graham sends the jury off to deliberate and he gives them an option to either find Rienzi guilty of first degree murder or guilty of second degree murder or not guilty. And they find him guilty of second degree murder. His wife faints in the courtroom when she finds out, which is dramatic. Very old fashioned. Yeah. Yeah. They fainted a lot back then. They loved fucking feigning back then. They had like couches, literal couches for it. I hear it was the corsets, but... Oh, that's right. That might just be a rumor. Yeah. He gets a retrial and he gets out on $40,000 bail and... $237,000.

• 51:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. Man, you're fucking killing it. It might every single one is right. And it looks like his mother pays the bill, you know, as... And then they, in the course of the next trial, they find a weapons specialist who's like, "Maybe it wasn't the gun, the murder weapon that was hidden all over his house. Maybe it wasn't. Could it not have been? Maybe." So... There's so many things in this world. Right. That one of them could be this. And so, so he... Okay, so, no, here we go. Just read the letter again.

• 52:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, their application for retrial is denied and he's given a sentence of 18 to 27 years imprisonment for the murder of his father. And, but he continues to appeal his guilty verdict. And in October of 1919, the Colorado Supreme Court orders a new trial on the grounds that the second degree premeditated murder charge was invalid because whoever did it was like premeditated. You guys know how true crime works. So only, the only valid verdict would have been first degree or not guilty.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:47Georgia Hardstark?

  So, technicality, you're out. Which is, you know, there for people who aren't guilty.

• 52:55Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 52:55Speaker 00

  I mean...

• 52:56Georgia Hardstark?

  He's released from prison while he awaits a second trial, and he relocates to Long Beach, California for some reason.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Hey!

• 53:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  We went to the Rocky Stadium for the game last night. It was...

• 53:07Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right!

• 53:08Speaker 00

  So, I should have talked about that at the top.

• 53:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I know!

• 53:11Speaker 00

  As like an anecdotal thing to warm everybody up and win people over.

• 53:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  But, I forgot. It was so gorgeous and cool and the Giants won, so I was excited. But, it was cool, sorry, don't be mad. Just don't, let's not turn it into a sports thing like you always have to. Just like, let us do our show.

• 53:30Georgia Hardstark?

  She has one team, that's it, that she wants to win.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  That's all I ask.

• 53:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Let her have it. And in October 1921, he returns to Colorado for a second trial. Couple weeks, focuses on that, was the gun and the bullet the same? And they paid a lot of people a lot of money to say, maybe it wasn't.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  There's so many things in this world.

• 53:49Georgia Hardstark?

  There's so many things in this world, yeah. And in the end, about two weeks, after two weeks of trial, he's found not guilty this time. So, after receiving his not guilty verdict in 1921, he had, wait, there's been other photos. And I forgot them. Is there another photo?

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Let's just take a look!

• 54:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey! Yeah. So that's him right, that's right before he dies, probably. William Dickens. No, probably, he looks kinda young. That's just the same picture with the fake goatee.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  He's wearing a fake beard and he finally got that limp roller he was dreaming of.

• 54:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, and then I think there's a photo of his house for some reason, if you feel like seeing it.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Ooh!

• 54:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 54:30Speaker 00

  Third Avenue, the place to be in Longmont, am I right?

• 54:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you guys know it? Do you love it?

• 54:34Speaker 00

  I used to go trick or treating there as a child.

• 54:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, and I think that's it, so, yeah, that's, that's all the photos.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Just stop looking over there.

• 54:43Georgia Hardstark?

  So look away.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  So stop it.

• 54:46Georgia Hardstark?

  And so, he lives in Long Beach the rest of his life, passes away in 1961, and what if, okay, here is my, so they never really caught, it's a cold case because they never actually caught the murderer, even though everyone thinks that they did, it was the sun.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:01Georgia Hardstark?

  What if he had an insurance policy taken out on himself? Hear me out. It's in a book that I won't spoil for you.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 55:09Georgia Hardstark?

  But he has himself.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Guilt?

• 55:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. This is terrible.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Why would he have himself killed?

• 55:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Because then his wife can get the insurance money.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  So do you think he had suicidal ideation? He was like, "Let's get five other people in on this plan and make some cash?" Wasn't he already rich?

• 55:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Shit. But you know what? That's what greed is like, you know what I mean? It's never enough. It's never enough.

• 55:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Tell it to the hot dog. That's why.

• 55:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why I'm a podcaster and not a detective.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 55:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Among other things. Like I didn't go to college.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Look, we're doing our best.

• 55:50Georgia Hardstark?

  As for his murder, the case technically remains cold, though most people believe Ramsey was guilty, but he was able to cast enough doubt with enough money.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:00Georgia Hardstark?

  To win his freedom, and he maintained his innocence to the end, leaving the truth about his father's death a mystery.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 56:07Georgia Hardstark?

  And that is the story of the murder of William Dickens.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. You're done. You did it. It was great. I know.

• 56:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 56:24Georgia Hardstark?

  It happened.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, thank you.

• 56:27Speaker 00

  You got it done.

• 56:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  We all thank you, the people of Longmont thank you.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Right? The Longmont Museum, now our business partners.

• 56:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  It's incredible opportunity.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal. With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search. You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder. Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to budget beach bliss at your fingertips. Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be. Goodbye. 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

• 57:28Speaker 02

  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. 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

• 58:12Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  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 sprayed 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. Goodbye. The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception: his mom. To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives. But for Sonny, he knows something is off.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger. Is this all in his head or is there really an imposter in his house? Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nevola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface. Watch the Hulu original series Phony. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Goodbye.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Okay, are you ready for my story? Mm-hmm. I'm gonna tell one of them.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  You guys know that we don't know, ever know each other's stories, which we're talking about how annoying that must be for everyone who has to work on the show. Because we have to like take separate calls, so I don't know this, what she's gonna do.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, so I'll tell you right now.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  I wish you would.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  All these people in the audience are like, we've been listening to this bullshit for nine years. We know you don't know. But it's fun. It's fun to talk about. Guys, tonight I'm gonna tell you a story that takes place in one of your beautiful, charming, little scenic towns in the Rockies here in Colorado. It's one of those towns that has great hiking, skiing, fishing, and what one website describes as, quote, "strong old west vibes."

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Hmm, I love those things.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Right? Everyone's got kind of a weird, janky hat on. The town has around 2,000 people. It's a tight-knit community. It's been described as sleepy, cozy, and laid back.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  Right? That's you all over. You're so tight-knit.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  But all of that changed on the afternoon of June 4th, 2004, when a man came roaring down the streets of this quiet little town in a customized bulldozer.

• 1:01:32Speaker 00

  With the intent of leveling everything in his path. The man's name was Marv Heemeyer, and the town was called Granby. This is the story of the Killdozer.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  Good job. Yeah. Wow. I'm pretty sure Maren found this one, and I was like, "You have done me a great service here." Truly, truly. This story is fucking nuts. Oh. This is a great you story, too. Like, I feel like this one was made for you. It's really... There's a lot of heroes and anti-heroes in this story. And then there's one big-ass bulldozer, and that's all I need, really. I'm like a three-year-old boy in that way. I just want... I just want to look at big bulldozers. Bulldozers and sinkholes and... Sinkholes and bulldozers. Fire trucks. You know? Uh, okay. Did you say your sources for yours? Yes. Okay, great.

• 1:02:31Speaker 00

  The... I wasn't listening. You even commented on it. Did I? Yeah, you did. Was that tonight? Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 00

  So the main sources that Maren used for this story today are the book Killdozer: The True Story of the Colorado Bulldozer Rampage by author Patrick Brower, and a 2020 documentary called Tread.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  Okay. So we'll just talk about Marv first, and, uh, so you learn a little background. Marv Heemeyer is born in 1951 in South Dakota.

• 1:03:08Speaker 00

  Are you fucking serious? Are you serious? Did you drive? Wow, they drove. How long is the road trip?

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  Eleven seven... Someone goes in a bulldozer.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  Classic. That's good. It's like the straight story, but with a bulldozer from South Dakota. How long does it take to get here, driving? Six hours. Thank you very much. Yeah. All the rest of the shit you're saying, we can't hear, and we'll talk about it later. Yeah. South Dakota. I know. I feel like I've never met a person from South Dakota. No, you haven't. This is... What's one of your names? Carrie? Veneras? Mary. Mary. Mary. Mary? Mary Smith? Nice to meet you, Mary. Now I've met someone from South Dakota. Yeah. Okay.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  But Marv's family comes to Colorado in the mid... No, sorry, Marv himself comes to Colorado in the mid-1970s. He's stationed at the now-defunct Lowry Air Force Base right here in Denver. Thank you for your service. And then when Marv leaves the Air Force, he stays in Denver to pursue his newest passion. Just give a guess. Okay. Is this you pointing at me to guess? A little bit. Uh, bulldozers? No? Race car driving? Snowmobiling. Damn it! That's kind of close, though. I got it's like a vehicle, you know? And it's also one of those vehicles with the chainy things, not actual wheels. So I'm gonna take that as a win. I think it's a huge win.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  I need it. Also, I just think it's funny when I was looking at this, where it's like the words "passion" and "snowmobiling" are quite a combination. Yeah. So, snowmobiling becomes a huge part of his life. He takes weekly trips out to rugged areas with his friends, so they can ride their snowmobiles and hoot and holler and whatnot. They snowmobile so hard together that eventually Marv decides to go into an auto repair business with one of those friends, a man named John Kleiner. So they open up a shop in Boulder, and Marv becomes known as a virtuoso when it comes to welding and repairing mufflers. Kinda hot. The Mozart of mufflers.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  Did you say "kinda hot"? Yeah.

• 1:05:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know why welding to me is just like one of those like tough person things.

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's show it.

• 1:05:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Can we see?

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Hey.

• 1:05:50Georgia Hardstark?

  If you saw that while you were scrolling whatever the apps, what would you do?

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  Push left? What's the thing you do?

• 1:05:56Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know.

• 1:05:57Speaker 00

  The answer's yes.

• 1:05:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Does his hat say silver bullet?

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  Does it?

• 1:06:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit, yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  Hell, yeah. He got that for free.

• 1:06:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Or with like points from the tabs.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  He sent away for that.

• 1:06:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  So, um, one of Marv's friends will later tell the AP that quote, "He could change a muffler by himself in 20 minutes. No wasted motion. He knew what he was doing."

• 1:06:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Alright.

• 1:06:28Speaker 00

  It'd be nice to have friends that talked about you like that.

• 1:06:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 00

  True appreciation of your skill.

• 1:06:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Especially of mufflers. She's great. Karen's great at mufflers.

• 1:06:38Speaker 00

  She's so good at mufflers. No wasted motion. It's the thing I'm sick of when I go get my car fixed and they're like, "Ugh." It's like, "Come on."

• 1:06:48Speaker 00

  20-minute oil change, for fuck's sake. So at some point, Marv and John, uh, they split off and do their own things. Uh, Marv opens a different shop on his own, and that does very well. He's also made a bunch of money investing in real estate, so he's doing good. Uh, and then in the early 90s, he moves to Grand Lake, Colorado.

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  It's just this huge lake. I don't know, grand. Um, and he does it for this no-mobile-ling. That's right. Um, and then this is when he hears that his old friend and business partner, John, is thinking of expanding his business toward the Rocky Mountains. Um, and that news gets Marv's wheels turning because he had recently come across a vacant two-acre lot in Granby, near his current home in Grand Lake. Um, that lot was previously owned by a concrete business that changed hands before that business failed and went bust.

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  Sometimes Maren uses these phrases, like, she'll be like, "And everything went bust." And I'm like, "I don't really talk like that, but I guess I missed that one."

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  So, that piece of property's been bank-owned for three years. And when Marv sees it, he sees it as the perfect place for an auto repair shop. It's got a two-bay garage, it has lots of storage space, beautiful lighting, a great room in the front, an office, and it's perfectly located at the intersection of two highways, so.

• 1:08:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Breakdown, here you go.

• 1:08:28Speaker 00

  Tow it right over here. The best thing about it, though, is the price. The property is appraised at around $100,000, but the starting bid is $20,000.

• 1:08:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That's cheap, right?

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Marv's like, "I'm gonna go to that auction, I'm gonna kick some ass." Do you wanna guess how much? $20,000? $20,000.

• 1:08:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Seventies?

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 1:08:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Ninety-four. That's the last...

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  Ninety-two.

• 1:08:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. The last thing I heard was seventies. Okay. Twenty thousand in the nineties today would be eighty-five thousand.

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  Forty-six...

• 1:09:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck, thousand. That doesn't sound like enough. Shit, okay.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  Reporter Patrick Brower says, quote, "Marv hoped he could buy it for a song, lease it or sell it back to Kleiner on favorable terms, and add to his already fairly comfortable income stream." So the two men work out a deal where Marv agrees to buy the two-acre Granby lot and finance it back to John for $66,000. That's still well below the appraised value, making it worthwhile to John, but a big payday for Marv, as long as he can buy it close to that starting price. So, it's 1992, Marv shows up at a real estate auction, ready to get that property, but right as the bidding begins, he realizes that someone else wants that property too,

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  and it's the former mayor of Granby, a man named Gus Harris. So Mayor Harris also has a friend with him. It's the former property owner of the concrete business that used to be there...

• 1:10:08Speaker 00

  They, right? You know what I'm about to deal with. So this man's named Cody Dochev. And Cody sold his concrete business. Someone else bought it. And then that person went out of business. And then the bank owned it.

• 1:10:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  So Cody actually made money off of that.

• 1:10:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it.

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  So he's there with the mayor. And author Patrick Brower describes Cody in his book as quote, "higher ener-" "high ener-" as a quote, "high-energy spark plug of a man." See, when you're here at the live show, you can hear all the edits that we can't make.

• 1:10:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  The blabbing and the, and the tut-tut-tut.

• 1:10:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  It's hard to, it's hard to, yeah, that's right. So, um, so he's basically, Cody's there to egg on the old mayor and to get, you know, get him bidding and have some fun. So the auction begins. It's immediately intense. The bidding, of course, goes back and forth between Mayor Gus, then Marv, and then Gus raises, and then Marv raises, and it goes back and forth until finally Marv wins the auction with a bid of $42,000, which is about how much in today's money?

• 1:11:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, sixty-eight.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  Ninety-five.

• 1:11:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck, dang it.

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Should we stop doing this?

• 1:11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Maybe that's an old fucking trope that we should put away.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

  Just, just shelve it? And never again guess money?

• 1:11:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe this tour is the last money guessing tour. And then we fucking end it.

• 1:11:37Speaker 00

  We were, we were trying to think of a title for this tour. And now we've finally stumbled upon the best title ever. So once that auction's over, Marv claims that Cody came over to him and starts to chew him out. He will later describe Cody as quote, "the rudest and most arrogant person." I mean, this guy is just a fucking asshole.

• 1:11:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  Marv, language.

• 1:11:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 1:12:01Speaker 00

  Marv also claims that he immediately offered to sell the lot that he just bought to Cody, even though Mayor Gus is the one that was bidding on it, for $66,000, which was the same price that he offered to finance it for his friend John. Cody, and a handful of other people who were at the auction that day, flatly deny that that exchange ever took place. But the problem is, now in this very small town of Granby, Marv Heemeyer is rubbing some locals the wrong way. And as we all know, the people of us that come from the country, that's a problem. You don't want to do that. But Marv's problems are about to get worse, because not long after purchasing this property,

• 1:12:45Speaker 00

  a man named Bud Wilson, from the Granby Water and Sanitation Department, comes out and informs Marv that this property is not connected to the city septic system. Yeah, what does that mean? That means, when you flush the toilet, it just kind of goes out. All right. Actually, in the country, you think called, wait, it's a leach field, right? Where it just, it's like, well, it just goes out into being empty field. I don't know. Okay, so listen. Let's not talk about shit anymore. Because that's not the worst part.

• 1:13:26Speaker 00

  The worst part is, it turns out that the main line hookup, for him to get connected to the city septic system, is 100 feet away off of his property, and so it's on somebody else's property. And if that's not bad enough, the owner of that land is none other than former Mayor Gus Harris. Oh, man. His auction enemy. This is like a Looney Tunes cartoon. It is a, it's getting, it's a little Coen Brothers-y, this story. Yeah. So, after the way things shook out at the auction, it is easy to assume that Gus probably wouldn't be the hugest fan of Marv, might even be a little resentful of Marv's obnoxious behavior, plus, as anyone who grew up in the country knows, the installation and upkeep for a new sewer system is pricey.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  And that's when Marv learns it's gonna cost him upwards of $80,000 to install this.

• 1:14:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck, man.

• 1:14:21Speaker 00

  And that's, of course, twice what he just paid for the land itself.

• 1:14:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Speaker 00

  So the project is automatically way over budget from what he and John Kleiner originally agreed to be working on. So, suddenly Marv's investment property is morphing into a serious money pit, and he tries to do some damage control. He shows up at the next Granby Town Hall meeting, and he thinks he can somehow push or reroute the negotiations away from Gus and to the city of Granby itself. And, um, he wants, he basically wants them to handle the negotiations and the subsequent installation costs. And Marv actually tells the city board, quote, "You've got to hook me up."

• 1:15:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Get that on a shirt.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then there's just a bunch of shit underneath.

• 1:15:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Karen's going blue today. Is that blue or no?

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  No, it's just gross.

• 1:15:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  I guess it's brown, if anything.

• 1:15:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Karen!

• 1:15:22Speaker 00

  The Granby Town Board tells Marv that the city will not be holding his hand through this process, and that Marv needs to get his property hooked up to the city sewer system, which means he has to work things out with Gus Harris. And as you might guess, Marv does not like this answer, and he tells the board members in what some might say is a condescending tone, that, quote, "You can't expect to grow if this is your policy. It's extortion by the government fiat. I don't need you, you need me."

• 1:15:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh-oh. Yeah. That's foreshadowing.

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  Then he tries to drop the mic, but it's one of those ones that connected to the podium, so he's just like pushing it down.

• 1:16:02Speaker 00

  And then he storms out, "Yes, queen, go."

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  Right? Men are so dramatic. I love... This dance of, "You're asking me to be reasonable. How can you grow if that's your policy?"

• 1:16:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe they don't want to grow.

• 1:16:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  Maybe that's Granby.

• 1:16:24Speaker 00

  So, the whole thing is taking place in a town hall meeting on the record in front of a bunch of people. It's not a good look for the new guy, who basically just screwed up and is now begging the town for help. Marv then informed town officials in the interim that he will be putting in a new septic tank, so Granby's fine with that. What he doesn't tell them is what he's doing is, he found an old cement mixer on the property, and he's just gonna bury that and use that as the septic tank.

• 1:16:52Georgia Hardstark?

  The cement mixer?

• 1:16:54Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:16:54Georgia Hardstark?

  I guess I don't really know how septic tanks work.

• 1:16:56Speaker 00

  It's just a big...

• 1:16:58Georgia Hardstark?

  If I'm being honest. I'm from the suburbs.

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  It's like a waiting room for your shit.

• 1:17:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:17:04Speaker 00

  It's more complicated than that, but... We don't need to talk about it. And then Maren wrote, "And if you think that sounds like a bad idea, that's because it is a bad idea."

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  So Bud Wilson, from the Water and Sanitation Department, warns Marv. He can't rely on a septic tank forever. He will need to figure out how to hook up to the city sewer line at some point. But before Marv... This is my writing. "But before Marv can expel the cortisol from his system and work amicably with his neighbor, his business buddy snowmobile sister, John Kleiner, unexpectedly finds himself involved in an EPA audit over some old oil spills."

• 1:17:51Georgia Hardstark?

  That doesn't sound good.

• 1:17:52Speaker 00

  Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. It's just personal oil spills that the EPA has to get involved with.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  It's personal.

• 1:18:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  So, when you know it, John now begins backpedaling to get out of the Granby plan that he was gonna do with Marv. So, Marv decides that he's just gonna do it himself. He's gonna set up his new muffler shop. But remember, he planned to lease and finance that property to and with John. It's not happening. So, Marv has to go it alone. He opens Mountain View Mufflers.

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  Everybody loves it.

• 1:18:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:18:31Speaker 00

  And he services just about everybody in town and he actually does really well. So things start looking up. And even better, because he does such great work at the muffler shop, he basically starts doing damage control with the locals. He even makes some friends. People are like, "Oh, this guy's really good," and they get to know him as a person and...

• 1:18:52Georgia Hardstark?

  And he doesn't waste a movement, or whatever it was.

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  That's right. No wasted movement.

• 1:18:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 00

  They're like, "Look at the clean lines of this guy and his muffler work."

• 1:19:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Look at him go.

• 1:19:01Speaker 00

  He's like a ballerina with the muffler.

• 1:19:06Speaker 00

  Locals think that Marv is nice. He's friendly. He's making friends. Things are starting to go smoothly. And Marv is really happy about his transplant to this mountain community. And then he's making good money. And what is he doing with that money?

• 1:19:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Snowmobiling.

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:19:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I knew it this time.

• 1:19:24Speaker 00

  It's the dream life. He's thriving. But there is one problem for Marvin. It's Bud Wilson, the Grand B Water and Sanitation guy, who keeps on calling and reminding him he's got to connect to the city sewer line.

• 1:19:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, how's he... okay, yeah.

• 1:19:43Speaker 00

  Well, it's that kind of thing where like, you know how some of us get very good at pushing off other people to not do the thing that they just don't feel like doing? Well, he does this for five years.

• 1:19:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:19:55Speaker 00

  Epic procrastination. Just masterful. No wasted movement in that. So now it's 1997. Marv's in his mid-40s. He has been running this muffler business for five years. And that is when the Dochuff family approaches him, asking if they can buy the property. So this is Cody Dochuff's family. They owned the concrete plant before. And Cody was the spark plug of a man. And the family basically wants to start the concrete plant on that property again. But Marv doesn't like Cody.

• 1:20:31Georgia Hardstark?

  God, he doesn't like a lot of people.

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  He's, I think he's sensitive.

• 1:20:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  Maybe a little emotional, like he's, you know?

• 1:20:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, sometimes you gotta look at yourself, though, if you're like not getting along with a lot of people.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  That's very true.

• 1:20:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 1:20:44Speaker 00

  You're saying that to me, you're saying that to you.

• 1:20:50Speaker 00

  Surprisingly, Marv says he is not opposed to selling to the dough chefs. In fact, he gets the lot appraised and he lets them know the property is now worth $270,000. But when the dough chefs agree to that price, Marv ups the price to $375,000.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  Before claiming that actually the land is worth a million dollars.

• 1:21:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude, calm down.

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  So he kind of does a bait and switch of like, "Sure, friend, I'll negotiate with you." And then, not really. So this forces the dough chefs basically to just walk away from this deal. But what they do, because they're also petty bitches, is they buy the land next door to Marv. Or maybe they just had to, you know what I mean? Maybe that was just, you can't put a concrete plant just anywhere.

• 1:21:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 1:21:43Speaker 00

  It was just like, they didn't have a ton of choices.

• 1:21:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  So, when Marv finds that out, he tries to buy that property out from under them before they can finalize the deal. But it's too late, ink is dry, he can't do it. And this is when Marv goes on an all-out crusade to fight that forthcoming concrete plant being put in next door to him.

• 1:22:02Georgia Hardstark?

  This guy is exhausting. Like, fuck dude, take a nap and go ride your fucking snowmobile.

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  My thing is, for real, right? It's like, you can't only snowmobile your way out of your emotions. You have to pit, you have to go to therapy. You have to fucking go to therapy. I'm sorry.

• 1:22:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, you can say "snowmob-"

• 1:22:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:23Speaker 00

  Were you saying?

• 1:22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Nothing.

• 1:22:25Speaker 00

  Okay. So... What is that bug?

• 1:22:29Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a moth, I'm telling you. It's a ghost. From 1914.

• 1:22:34Speaker 00

  It's a big moth. If it lands on my shoulder, I'm leaving.

• 1:22:40Speaker 00

  Okay, so Marv frames this concrete plant as a toxic, harmful project. He says he's worried that the dust and the environmental issues will bring all kinds of problems to his property. He cites all sorts of zoning violations and issues. To be fair, Marv is not the only person in Granby who feels this way about this concrete plant, but for Marv, it's personal. He starts going door to door in Granby. Yikes. And he also runs countless ads in the local newspaper. Oh, god. Sky High News. Anyone heard of it? Love it. "Of course not," they say. "We're not from Granby." But basically, he's doing everything he can to kind of lobby against this plant.

• 1:23:25Speaker 00

  He also lawyers up. He files a lawsuit in hopes of halting construction. So now, the Sky High News starts covering this battle because it's so public. Marv's not pleased with the angle they take on the situation, though, because they position both him and his attorney as outsiders. I'm considered an outsider in Petaluma. Really? Because I moved there when I was two. It's how small towns are. Got it. And that town is a big town compared to Granby. Yeah. If that fucking moth doesn't get out of here while I am performing... Excuse me, excuse me. Mom?

• 1:24:10Speaker 00

  They're good luck. Man on the street interview with a moth. "How long have you lived at the Paramount Theater, moth?" Okay, this is so fucking long. I gotta go. All right. Unfortunately for Marv, all his time, money, and energy fighting this cause does not stop the concrete plant. If anything, it causes the town of Granby to make sure everything is done exactly by the book, so they're not breaking any rules. And the Dochovs work with the town to iron out all those zoning issues that he was trying to cite. And meanwhile, Marv has convinced himself that the city is conspiring against him and his business. He might be right. I mean, I don't think he is. Oh. Okay.

• 1:24:53Speaker 00

  Knowing what is at the end of this document. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Keep it in mind.

• 1:25:00Speaker 00

  So then in 2001, which is four years into his crusade against the concrete plant, a really bad thing happens. We're going back to...

• 1:25:09Georgia Hardstark?

  2001, yeah.

• 1:25:11Speaker 00

  We're...

• 1:25:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I think I know what it is.

• 1:25:13Speaker 00

  It's not 9/11.

• 1:25:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:25:18Speaker 00

  The concrete mixer fills up and begins to overflow.

• 1:25:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Ew!

• 1:25:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so what Marv does is he doesn't solve the problem. He just, he simply pumps all of that human waste into a ditch behind his property.

• 1:25:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Nah, dude. You can't do that.

• 1:25:37Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 1:25:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Turns out.

• 1:25:38Speaker 00

  It turns out it is against the rules.

• 1:25:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. He's like mad at the concrete people, but then he's just like dumping shit?

• 1:25:44Speaker 00

  Exactly. He's an environmental toxicity warrior.

• 1:25:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:25:48Speaker 00

  And then it's like, "It's natural."

• 1:25:53Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, he's only mad at concrete, not human feces everywhere. So, he immediately gets caught doing that. He gets fined $2,500 and warned that he absolutely must get connected to the city sewer system, or his business could be shut down. And Marv calls this requirement a form, quote, "a form of terrorism."

• 1:26:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Ah, bad timing, dude.

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  What, do you want me to have indoor plumbing too? What is this?

• 1:26:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Did it land on me? Oh, it landed on me!

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  Is it on you?

• 1:26:26Georgia Hardstark?

  That's good luck, right? Anyone?

• 1:26:28Speaker 00

  Is it on you?

• 1:26:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:30Speaker 00

  What do you want from us?

• 1:26:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi.

• 1:26:33Speaker 00

  We're trying to do our first live show back after six fucking...

• 1:26:38Georgia Hardstark?

  It's cute.

• 1:26:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm happy about it. Oh, wait, maybe it came from my dress.

• 1:26:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe I don't smell like mothballs.

• 1:26:49Speaker 00

  That poor moth is like, "I just want to go home." "Please let me, please let me go home."

• 1:26:55Georgia Hardstark?

  This fucking hot lady is wearing my fucking dress.

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  You steamed him out of the dress.

• 1:27:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 1:27:03Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:27:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oops!

• 1:27:08Speaker 00

  He's still there. Put your finger up, wait if he flies away. So, this is when Cody Dochev calls Marv and offers to cover the cost of the sewer line installation if Marv will just stop fighting about the concrete plant. So, Marv hangs up on him. Yes. He is not down. So, at this point, Marv's been spending a lot of time alone, often in his hot tub, which you would think would be a positive. I get it, yeah. This is the one man who a hot tub is not a positive, doesn't have a positive effect on him. It makes it worse somehow. He's wearing those overalls, he has a muffler, and he's just like, "I've never wasted any motion, and still, here I am."

• 1:27:53Speaker 00

  Stewing in anger and paranoia in a hot tub. If this sounds like you, please call the Granby Hot Tub Hotline.

• 1:28:05Speaker 00

  Also, I wrote in, this is just a guess, but it sounds like it might be spring, so I think he hasn't snowmobiled in a while. Oh. He's itching. All this is to say, Marv is in a bad place, and we know this and we know what happens next, because Marv ends up recording a very long manifesto. Oh, man, when there's a manifesto, shit's going south. Right? This is, that's the gate through which you walk, and you're like, "Now, this goes into a terrible true crime story." Right. The timeline goes like this: In April of 2002, Marv's lawsuit against the Dochevs is officially dismissed. Back in the hot tub. Hot tears. Five mufflers this time.

• 1:28:49Speaker 00

  So, the concrete plant is going full steam ahead. Three months later, in July of 2002, a special delivery arrives for Marv in Granby. What is it? It's an enormous Komatsu D355A bulldozer, which he reportedly got a great deal on. Oh. So, these were designed, these are the gigantic bulldozers that were designed for oil fields and mining operations. I didn't know there were different kinds of bulldozers. Yeah, yeah. That's great to know. There's like a little one, like a skip loader that they use at Costco, and then there's these fucking gigantic ones that are like, "We're gonna dig into the center of the earth and release cryptids."

• 1:29:28Speaker 00

  That's my personal dream. Anyway, they're over 12 feet tall, nearly 30 feet long, and they can weigh over 100,000 pounds. Jesus. What else is 30 feet long? A standard school bus, a large RV, an adult blue whale.

• 1:29:45Speaker 00

  Good to know, for reference. That's according to AI, I'll say, which also recommended that to stay healthy, you should eat six small rocks a day. So let's take everything with a grain of salt in our AI future.

• 1:30:01Speaker 00

  This whole thing was written by AI. So the manifesto, of course, is a terrible sign. Giant earth-moving equipment is not a great one either. Then Marv starts selling everything he owns at auction. Horrible. His shop equipment, motorcycles, boats, his house, and worst of all, his seven beloved snowmobiles. It's very bad. I thought you were gonna say dogs, but snowmobiles isn't as bad. So by October of that year, Marv has sold almost all of his assets. He's closed his muffler business. Nobody is seeing these signs, which is very upsetting. Yeah. And maybe he just alienated enough people where it's just like, oh, that guy.

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  He also moves all his money into his father's bank accounts without telling him or anybody else. He also works out a temporary arrangement with the people that he sells his, like, house and land to, that he, they're allowing him to lease back the muffler shop for a year. So, as he explains to them, so he can, quote, "finish some work." Fun fact, one day after closing the sale on this property, the new owners connect the property to the city sewer system. Just that easy.

• 1:31:14Speaker 00

  My god. 24 hours. Okay. So Marv secretly moves himself and his giant bulldozer into his muffler shop, and for the next year, no one knows what he is doing in there. This is when he begins recording this manifesto, in which he says of the local people of Granby, quote, "They thought they could do whatever they wanted. To me, they were wrong." And so, his revenge project begins. Marv begins modifying this gigantic bulldozer, adding steel and concrete panels up to a foot thick, attaching video cameras protected by bulletproof lenses, and mounting several gun ports, basically turning this machine into a full-on weaponized tank.

• 1:31:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 1:32:00Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude.

• 1:32:01Speaker 00

  And then, on June 4th, 2004, Marv climbs into this gigantic armored bulldozer and lowers a steel slab weighing several tons over the hatch. And once he does this, he has no way of getting back out.

• 1:32:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:32:18Speaker 00

  Let's take a look at the kill dozer.

• 1:32:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Can we? Holy shit!

• 1:32:24Georgia Hardstark?

  It's the Death Star of bulldozers.

• 1:32:26Speaker 00

  I mean...

• 1:32:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? Wow. I mean, yeah. I guess welding, that's what welding does.

• 1:32:33Speaker 00

  That's what welding can give you. That's what no wasted motion can end up looking like. It's just so sad. It's like, that is, that took so long. That's a person who is in so much pain, and nobody, he didn't have anybody to turn to. He just was like, "Fine, I'll just weld the fuck out of these feelings."

• 1:32:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  Horrible.

• 1:32:54Speaker 00

  So, around 2:00 PM, this 90-ton machine bursts out of the muffler shop, and going 3 to 5 miles an hour.

• 1:33:04Georgia Hardstark?

  That's not as tough, you know?

• 1:33:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Very, very...

• 1:33:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Make up a different number.

• 1:33:09Speaker 00

  It's like, it's a slow attack, which I think are worse.

• 1:33:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:15Speaker 00

  It's like the zombie thing. I'd prefer a fast zombie and just get it over with.

• 1:33:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:33:20Speaker 00

  It's the...

• 1:33:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Alright, alright.

• 1:33:23Speaker 00

  Okay. So, his first target is the dough chef's concrete plant.

• 1:33:29Georgia Hardstark?

  That...

• 1:33:30Speaker 00

  Workers there watch in disbelief as this steel-covered bulldozer smashes onto the property through the plant walls. The building collapses around it. Bystanders try stopping this bulldozer by jamming debris into the treads. One person fires a handgun at it, but you saw it. It does nothing.

• 1:33:54Speaker 00

  And they can't see if there's a driver inside, they don't know if somebody is working it remotely, like, no one understands what's going on. And this is when Cody Douchef shows up. Can, oh, I bet you, can you go backwards if you could? Because I think, I have a theory that that's Cody Douchef. He tried to get into it. Oh, yeah. But he actually slipped off of that. That's a guess, though, because there's a cop there, so that could be a cop, and I could be wrong. But Cody Douchef actually tried to get up and inside when he was doing that, and he was unable to. So what he did, he gets the rest of the concrete plant evacuated, and then he goes and gets his own front-end loader, and he tries to basically go lift, I don't think we have that, go lift

• 1:34:37Speaker 00

  the, that bulldozer off the ground. Damn. It's like, that's sad, don't, no, we are not going to beat that thing. All Cody can manage doing is spinning the bulldozer like around a little bit, but as the two machines ram each other, Cody gets knocked out. Aw, man. So, this is when Marv starts shooting. Oh, fuck. He fires 10 to 12 rounds toward Cody's loader, sorry, that's really hard to say, toward Cody's loader, but the steel plating makes it hard for him to aim on the right side. So, it's not very well, you know, planned out, I guess. So thankfully, he misses Cody.

• 1:35:20Speaker 00

  And I'm not sure if Cody was still unconscious or not, but how scary for everybody else, where like, then the gunshots start, either way, if he was awake or not. So now, the police made it on the scene, they have to duck for cover as Marv turns the bulldozer's guns in the direction of a fuel truck. Ooh. But thank God, he can't aim well, so instead of hitting the fuel truck, he just takes out some natural gas piping, which is, it's fine, it's natural.

• 1:35:47Speaker 00

  And a couple electrical boxes, which is just sparks, and that's fun. And a transformer, which is a great cartoon.

• 1:35:56Speaker 00

  So, once that's done, the bulldozer then turns and slowly drives off, heading toward downtown Granby. And this is where it gets bad. Marv drives the bulldozer into Granby, and his path of destruction begins. He crushes a Ford Expedition. He destroys the Granby Town Hall. The town fucking hall. Oh, no. Then he destroys the library. Then he destroys the city's only traffic light.

• 1:36:29Speaker 00

  Come on. Then a bank. We have the bank. Holy shit. Yeah. Fuck the banks. That gorgeous, stone-faced bank.

• 1:36:45Speaker 00

  Then, this guy, hey, newspaper offices who had been reporting on him. Oh, my god. That's a lot of fucking damage. That is fucking damage like crazy. And then, a house owned by Granby's, uh, Granby Town Board Member. As it goes, people are trying to shoot at the bulldozer. Some people try throwing grenades at it. What the, I, this is, I'm, that's, that's crazy. I'm sorry, you don't carry a grenade?

• 1:37:15Speaker 00

  Well, then you're not ready when the big bulldozer comes to town. The top of your list of things you destroyed was a Ford Explorer. Yeah. That was... I'm really mad about that. They're a gorgeous vehicle.

• 1:37:29Speaker 00

  Bullets bounce off of this thing. Some locals get it like Cory tried to do. Some get into their own construction machinery and also drive at the bulldozer. None of them are a match. Soon, Denver media outlets have helicopters in the air on the scene, while everyone's radios are tuned to the blow-by-blow that the local AM radio station is basically giving everybody. Hell, yeah. So, everyone hears it when Marv turns his bulldozer toward a propane storage yard. Ooh. That has five 3,000-gallon tanks and two huge 30,000-gallon tanks of propane. That's big. If he is able to shoot at even one of these tanks,

• 1:38:13Speaker 00

  the whole area could go up. And right across the street is a senior living center. Come on! Yeah. Luckily, Marv's aim is impeded, so he abandons that horrific plan. So it's just like, everyone's standing there waiting for something to happen, and he's just like... (mimicking a horn)

• 1:38:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Never mind, goes the other way.

• 1:38:38Speaker 00

  And what he heads for is one of my favorite names of a business ever. Grambles Hardware Store. Grambles Hardware Store.

• 1:38:48Georgia Hardstark?

  It's cute.

• 1:38:50Speaker 00

  No one likes it as much as me. Alone again. And, thanks. And Grambles is owned by another town board member. So Marv drives directly into the front of this hardware store, and he brings the whole thing down around him. Can we see that?

• 1:39:10Georgia Hardstark?

  There it is. That's the one.

• 1:39:12Speaker 00

  Is that the last one? To be this... okay. That was it.

• 1:39:17Speaker 00

  Grambles, we hardly knew ye. This is when the bulldozer stops, and steam starts hissing out of the now-dead engine, and the bulldozer's treads, like, there's debris stuck in all of them that can't go any further. Deputies carefully approach the silent bulldozer, actively avoiding the gun ports, and that's when they hear a gunshot from inside. It takes Bomb Techs ten hours to cut through the steel armor to get inside. Wow. So at 1 a.m., they are able to blowtorch a hole big enough to see inside, and that's where they see that Marv Heemeyer is slumped over dead. He has shot himself in the head. Wow.

• 1:39:59Speaker 00

  So despite the name that the press ends up giving to this creation, the Killdozer, miraculously, no one in this town... I almost said Grambles.

• 1:40:11Speaker 00

  No one in the town of Grambles, where I'm the mayor.

• 1:40:17Speaker 00

  This is good news. No one is killed. It's very sad that Marv is killed. Yeah. But thank God, no one else is hurt or killed. Yeah. Except for the Ford exposition. Yeah. Okay, so because of his manifesto, many outsiders have come to see Marv as like a kind of a folk hero. Being an anti-bureaucrat vigilante who's taken a stand against a small-town's big government. That's not what happened here. Yeah. This is a person who isolated themselves, started believing every goddamn thing that they thought, got real into money, ego, bullshit, and didn't have a person to call up and go, "Hey, can I run a couple things by you?

• 1:41:01Speaker 00

  I would really love to build the largest killdozer anyone's ever seen and attack my enemies." And then that person goes, "Marv, get out of the hot tub. Get down to the tavern and be around other people." Yeah. So, people do go to the town asking to see the killdozer. They're told there's nothing to see. People do not like it when people go there, obviously. Authorities actually dismantled the killdozer and sent its parts to different scrapyards across the country. So that it could never be made into like a shrine or, you know what I mean, anything like that. And over 20 years later, from that day of discretion, the town of Granby and the people who live there still have painful memories.

• 1:41:46Speaker 00

  And of course, massive trauma about like, one of the most like insane, but also like, is this actually happening? Moments of all time. Marv Heimeyer's two-hour rampage cost $7 million in damage. And it was done to basically mom-and-pop businesses, just local people. Yeah. Many were never able to recover. Some were able to rebuild, and the town actually really came together to help each other very beautifully. But, you know, some people just had to go out of business. In the aftermath of that day, the people of Granby came together as a community. As I was just trying to improvise, but now I have to read it off the paper.

• 1:42:31Speaker 00

  Oh, look. There we are. There they are. So this is where it ended up. This is Grambles. That was Grambles. Look at all those genes. And those are all those people.

• 1:42:43Speaker 00

  You're not into the denim?

• 1:42:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it.

• 1:42:45Speaker 00

  We told you it had an old west feel.

• 1:42:47Georgia Hardstark?

  You did.

• 1:42:49Speaker 00

  These people cleaned up the destruction and the debris together. They actually found new spaces for displaced businesses and they did their best to move forward as a community. It's a very stark contrast to Marv Heemeyer's own trajectory. He worked to become a very well-liked fixture in the town, but ultimately, he couldn't get past these ideas he had in his head of what he was supposed to get and what he was owed and that entitlement that a lot of people have a problem with. And that, of course, caused him to withdraw into his hot tub and go insane. In the documentary Tread, one friend of Marv's actually offers a simple, sad, and I will

• 1:43:33Speaker 00

  say, a little bit funny, explanation for Marv's dark turn, saying, quote, "He became a lonely man. He spent too much time alone. That's what I put it off to. He spent too much time in the hot tub alone."

• 1:43:46Georgia Hardstark?

  He said that?

• 1:43:47Speaker 00

  He said that.

• 1:43:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Damn.

• 1:43:48Speaker 00

  That's the full quote. And that's the story of The Killdozer.

• 1:43:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Great job.

• 1:43:59Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:44:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. What a tale.

• 1:44:02Speaker 00

  Amazing. Amazing story, Colorado.

• 1:44:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Good job, guys.

• 1:44:07Speaker 05

  Welcome back, girl. I'm famous for that.

• 1:44:09Speaker 00

  I'm a member.

• 1:44:12Speaker 05

  What's up? Hi. How are you? How are you?

• 1:44:16Speaker 00

  We thought it would never happen.

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  One small note that got lost in the kerfuffle. This is Georgia Hardstark.

• 1:44:23Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:23Speaker 05

  And that's giving you here.

• 1:44:28Speaker 05

  Good afternoon.

• 1:44:29Speaker 00

  Thank God for ya. Thank God for ya.

• 1:44:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, good job.

• 1:44:33Speaker 05

  So whoever gets picked, I'm gonna be right over there.

• 1:44:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Did you find the button? Did you find the button? Remember?

• 1:44:39Speaker 05

  I got it.

• 1:44:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, you do? Here, give it to me. Oh, hell, yeah. You're the best. Thank you.

• 1:44:42Speaker 00

  Can you do your couple stuff offstage, please?

• 1:44:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, I forgot to tell him. Remember I told you that I bought something today at Goldmine for the hometown person? Here, it's a button. You wanna read it out loud?

• 1:44:55Speaker 00

  Ask me about my bad habits and red flags.

• 1:44:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's kind of like made for this podcast.

• 1:45:02Speaker 00

  It's perfect.

• 1:45:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:03Speaker 00

  It's so good. Well, so this, if you don't know.

• 1:45:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I spilled my water on this gorgeous carpet.

• 1:45:12Speaker 00

  If you don't know, this is the part where Georgia randomly picks anybody from the audience to come up and tell their hometown with us onstage.

• 1:45:21Georgia Hardstark?

  And there's rules behind it. Don't, just make it short. Don't be shitfaced, right? Don't point at someone you don't know.

• 1:45:31Georgia Hardstark?

  You want it? Yeah? Okay. Right here. Go over there, please. Sorry. I hate doing that.

• 1:45:38Speaker 00

  For one second, I thought it was the hot dog putting their hand up. And I was just like, well, here we go.

• 1:45:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Here she, okay. And then we wait a little while.

• 1:45:47Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Then we're like, how did you feel about that first show?

• 1:45:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Pretty good.

• 1:45:51Speaker 00

  I think we did okay.

• 1:45:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Here she is.

• 1:45:57Speaker 00

  Oh, here they come.

• 1:46:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi, Katie. You guys, it's Katie.

• 1:46:08Speaker 00

  Yes, right here, front and center.

• 1:46:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi.

• 1:46:11Speaker 00

  I'm from Bradenton, Florida. We flew in from Florida yesterday. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Do you like Colorado? I do so far. We've only been here a day, and it's my first time ever, and we're having so much fun. Sorry, Katie, I think they're all booing you right now.

• 1:46:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey. They're mad because she, it's not a Colorado hometown.

• 1:46:32Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. Oh, was it supposed to be? It doesn't matter.

• 1:46:35Georgia Hardstark?

  We didn't say.

• 1:46:36Speaker 00

  Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Maybe there could be another one.

• 1:46:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 1:46:42Speaker 00

  If you're not mean. Unless we get kicked out of this theater. People are like, get out of here. Okay, Katie, tell us your hometown. My hometown is Bradenton, Florida. Okay. And we like it. We like that idea. Yeah. Yep. Is that all I'm supposed to do?

• 1:46:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no. Oh, she doesn't know. I don't know how it works.

• 1:47:01Speaker 00

  Katie? Is that it? Katie? Hey, does anybody have a hometown from Colorado?

• 1:47:08Georgia Hardstark?

  You pick someone. You do it.

• 1:47:11Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:47:11Georgia Hardstark?

  You pick it.

• 1:47:12Speaker 00

  Oh, well, then I'll pick the clapping lady. Is it from Colorado? Come on up.

• 1:47:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:47:17Speaker 00

  Okay, here she comes.

• 1:47:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi.

• 1:47:18Speaker 00

  Here we go.

• 1:47:21Speaker 00

  Cassandra, everyone. From Colorado.

• 1:47:29Speaker 00

  Here, okay, what's your name?

• 1:47:31Speaker 03

  My name is Cassandra, hi.

• 1:47:33Speaker 00

  Sandra or Cassandra?

• 1:47:35Speaker 03

  Cassandra.

• 1:47:35Speaker 00

  Cassandra?

• 1:47:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Speaker 00

  Cassandra, everybody.

• 1:47:40Speaker 00

  And where are you from?

• 1:47:42Speaker 03

  Vail.

• 1:47:43Speaker 00

  From Vail, Colorado? Your whole, your mouth.

• 1:47:47Speaker 00

  See what, see how they did it? Yeah, okay.

• 1:47:50Speaker 03

  I don't know how to do this, I'm sorry.

• 1:47:51Speaker 00

  No, you do. Just tell us why you got into True Crime. What story you, got you into True Crime? Yeah.

• 1:47:57Speaker 03

  Uh, your voice. It wasn't a story.

• 1:48:00Speaker 00

  Get out, get out.

• 1:48:04Speaker 03

  But my story, my fun story is, um, from up in Vail in those areas, we all look at them, they're very, you know, toity-toity.

• 1:48:13Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:48:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:14Speaker 00

  Richie, Richie Rich people?

• 1:48:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:48:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:48:16Speaker 03

  So when I was a freshman in high school, I went to a party in Aspen, Colorado.

• 1:48:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:48:22Speaker 03

  And the mother walked around with a silver platter of illicit substances.

• 1:48:29Speaker 00

  Oh. A good one or a bad one?

• 1:48:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, a good one.

• 1:48:33Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, good, good, good.

• 1:48:34Speaker 03

  Very, very clean.

• 1:48:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:48:35Speaker 03

  Very clean.

• 1:48:36Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:48:37Speaker 03

  Um, but later on, somebody snitched, uh, to their mother.

• 1:48:43Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:48:44Speaker 03

  And the, uh, wife and son that were involved literally took all of the fall for this husband, who purchased everything and owned the house.

• 1:48:54Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:48:54Speaker 03

  Just so that his name wasn't involved.

• 1:48:56Speaker 00

  Wow. Really?

• 1:48:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:57Speaker 00

  And did they go to jail?

• 1:48:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:02Speaker 03

  For like, a hot minute.

• 1:49:04Speaker 00

  No, really?

• 1:49:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:05Speaker 00

  How old was the son?

• 1:49:07Speaker 03

  Seventeen.

• 1:49:08Speaker 00

  No fucking way. Did he have, did, did he have to go to juvie?

• 1:49:13Speaker 03

  I'm married and I had a crush, crush on him. Oh, god, no, they were too rich.

• 1:49:16Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 1:49:17Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:49:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:49:18Speaker 03

  No juvie. He probably like cleaned up trash on the side of the road for like six months.

• 1:49:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's how it is in Vail. That's Vail.

• 1:49:26Speaker 03

  But yeah, no, Aspen.

• 1:49:27Speaker 00

  Oh, I'm sorry. That's Aspen.

• 1:49:30Speaker 03

  In Vail, our parents still yell at us.

• 1:49:32Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. Good. Yay. Cassandra, everyone.

• 1:49:36Speaker 03

  Cassandra, everyone.

• 1:49:39Speaker 00

  Thank you. Cassandra, guess what you got?

• 1:49:44Speaker 00

  Wait, Cassandra, Cassandra. You get this pin.

• 1:49:47Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:49:52Speaker 00

  I practiced for like six weeks and it still sucks. It's hard. This is hard. She said I practiced for six weeks and it still sucks.

• 1:50:02Speaker 00

  Cassandra, that's how we feel. That's the vibe, baby. Yeah, that's 100%. Well...

• 1:50:11Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for being here tonight, Denver.

• 1:50:16Georgia Hardstark?

  This is incredible. We appreciate you guys coming to our first live show in six frickin' years.

• 1:50:23Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 1:50:24Georgia Hardstark?

  It's selling out two nights in Denver. Thank you guys so much.

• 1:50:29Speaker 00

  We love you so much. Thank you, Denver.

• 1:50:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Stay sexy.

• 1:50:38Speaker 00

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:50:45Speaker 06

  Two rich young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one of them will end up dead, and the other tried for murder three times. From the start, the omens are bad.

• 1:51:01Speaker 07

  That place is the darkest jungle you've ever seen in your life. You have no clue.

• 1:51:06Speaker 06

  John and Ann Bender are young, rich, and attractive. He's a Wall Street whiz kid. Just handsome. Movie star handsome. And they're devoted to each other.

• 1:51:16Speaker 08

  There was a lot of just like warmth and care.

• 1:51:20Speaker 06

  They set up a nature reserve and build a strange new home.

• 1:51:24Speaker 03

  It's like a spaceship's landed on the top of a hill in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica.

• 1:51:29Speaker 06

  But slowly, their dreams start to crumble. I was just doomed. Just doomed. I'm Becky Milligan, and this is Hell in Heaven, a new podcast from Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts, produced by Blanchard House. I'm a seasoned investigative journalist, and I've reported on some pretty weird stories over the years. But believe me, stories don't get much weirder than this. Because even out here in the jungle, you can run. But you can't hide.

• 1:52:04Speaker 08

  And all of a sudden, there's guys with guns, lots of men with guns.

• 1:52:07Speaker 06

  They were saying, "Help, help, they're kidnapping us." As their past catches up with them, our couple retreat from reality.

• 1:52:16Speaker 07

  They lose it. They actually lose it.

• 1:52:18Speaker 06

  They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control.

• 1:52:26Speaker 08

  He says, "Colonel, we heard a shot inside the boss's house." "And I could see the gun on the floor, the trail of blood."

• 1:52:35Speaker 06

  And one of them will end up being tried for murder. Not once. People yasped. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. We were all looking at each other just in total disbelief.

• 1:52:55Speaker 06

  Hell in Heaven premieres on October 9th. New episodes Thursdays. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:53:21Speaker 02

  This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci. Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ally Elkin. Email your hometowns to [email protected]. Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page. While you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbye.

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal. With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search. You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder. Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips. Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be. 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, it's designed to relax and prepare you for a night of rest. If you need a reset after your day, make Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray part of your nighttime routine. Generously spritz each foot before bed

• 1:54:41Speaker 02

  and you'll be all set. I've actually started doing this and I'm obsessed with magnesium. It does everything. Something like this is just like, it's simple, it's easy, and it actually works. Totally. For wellness you can feel, find Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray online or in your local bath aisle. Goodbye.

• 1:54:56Speaker 09

  Do you ever feel like your computer is tracking you? Well, it's not. It's your browser following you. But not if you come back to Firefox. Firefox blocks the trackers automatically, doesn't follow you from site to site and supports the ad blockers other browsers dropped. Plus, you can switch AI on or off when its intelligence is acting too artificial. And switching? Totally painless. Your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history come right with you. Come back to Firefox. Visit Firefox.com.