Pod Insights The Binge Crimes Hunting the Bogeyman | 6. Answers About this episode Nicole wrestles with whether she should try and meet the rapist face to face. Then she finds some measure of peace in an unexpected way.
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Transcript 5,608 words · 12 speakers
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0:30 Speaker 01 Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day, the creator and host of How to Fail. It's the podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right. And what, if anything, we've learned from those mistakes to help us succeed better. Each week, my guests share three failures, sparking intimate, thought provoking, and funny conversations. You'll hear from a diverse range of voices, sharing what they've learned through their failures. Join me Wednesdays for a new episode each week. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
1:01 Speaker 02 Listen to all episodes of Hunting the Bogeyman ad free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge: Feed your true crime obsession.
1:29 Speaker 02 After Nicole and I had been talking for a couple of months, I asked her if her feelings about meeting Roy Waller face to face had changed.
1:38 Speaker 03 I don't want to sit down with him as like his victim. It's almost an intellectual curiosity. Almost like I'm a detective. He's like a black hole. And he's still a black hole. And I don't like that.
1:57 Speaker 02 Nicole still had questions that only Roy Waller could answer. So even from prison, he still held on to control and power. And I think Nicole wants to take it back. But how is she going to do that if he won't admit to what he's done? What if she makes all this effort, builds up all this expectation, and he won't tell her a thing? I wasn't sure if Nicole would even be allowed to meet Waller behind bars, but I started to look into it. In the meantime, I thought maybe I could help find some of the answers Nicole was seeking. For starters, Nicole still didn't know how her case had finally been linked by DNA to the NorCal series.
2:39 Speaker 02 I thought Paul Holes should be the one to tell her. So one morning, we knocked on the door of her lovely house in Sonoma County. She was expecting us, and so were her two little dogs.
2:51 Speaker 04 You guys are so quiet. What is it today? They usually bark their heads off at everybody.
2:56 Speaker 05 All right.
2:57 Speaker 04 But come on in. Would you like any water?
2:59 Speaker 02 From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, you're listening to the finale of Hunting the Bogeyman. I'm Peter McDonnell. This is episode six, Answers. Paul, Nicole, and I sat in the dining room of Nicole's home, and for the first time, he told her how he got involved in her case.
3:21 Speaker 05 I was working for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Crime Lab. And then ultimately Detective Caleb Helt. He and I collaborated, and it was like, well, Broner Park, they have DNA in their case. We need to see is that related or not? And I said, my lab will do the DNA work. It was specifically to generate a DNA profile and see if your attack was related to these other unsolved cases.
3:56 Speaker 04 They'd never done that before.
3:57 Speaker 05 They hadn't pursued the DNA at that point. And so-
4:02 Speaker 02 Is that news to you?
4:03 Speaker 04 Uh, yeah.
4:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:07 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:08 Speaker 05 And I know Lapel was constantly harassing them. And so eventually, so Lapel brought that evidence to me, to my lab,
4:19 Speaker 05 when formally, the DNA from your case was linked to the NorCal rapist series.
4:26 Speaker 03 So what you're saying is that not only were you aware, but Ronard Park was aware in 2002, that the case that they had in their jurisdiction in 1991 was a serial rapist that you've identified?
4:40 Speaker 05 They should have been aware. Now, I can't, I can't say for certain that they were, but I don't know how they wouldn't be.
4:47 Speaker 03 Wow. Not one person bothered to tell me until 2006.
4:52 Speaker 02 I wanted the Ronard Park Department of Public Safety to have a chance to respond to what Nicole had told me about her interview with the two detectives, the DNA testing, and the way they talked about her case in the newspaper. So I reached out to the chief of police, Tim Mattis. Chief Mattis had joined the department at the end of 2018, just a few months after Roy Waller was caught. Mattis knew about the NorCal rapist series, but he didn't know about Nicole's case in particular. I filled him in on what Nicole had told me and emailed him a copy of the newspaper article from 1992, the one where Ronard Park questioned Nicole's credibility and said, "There are some parts of her story that were hard to believe." Then Chief Mattis and I hopped on the phone. I first asked him about the article.
5:39 Speaker 06 That was unfortunate. I don't know of any investigative class I've ever been to, statements like that would have ever been given to a reporter to doubt a victim. Right? Our job is to be advocates for the victim. And, uh, and the facts of the case will, will, in the end, lead where it needs to go. But to question the victim's credibility like that was, that's nothing I've ever done and nothing I would ever support.
6:09 Speaker 02 I also asked him about when Officer Diane told Nicole that her account of the rape sounded like a movie. Remember how I was told that the transcript of that interview couldn't be found? Well, Chief Mattis did some digging of his own.
6:24 Speaker 06 I can't find the transcript of that interview. And so I couldn't find where that like that statement was made regarding the, you know, this sounds like it came out of a movie. It's not the approach that any department ever worked in. Our job is to investigate the crimes and take care of our victims, not doubt them.
6:44 Speaker 02 That was nice to hear. But what Chief Mattis said about following the facts reminded me of something that had worried me since I began covering this story. Had Ronard Park's doubt of Nicole impacted the rigor with which they investigated her case? Put plainly, did Waller commit more rapes because they didn't believe Nicole? I asked Chief Mattis.
7:07 Speaker 06 When I pulled this case to review it a couple of days ago after we talked, I was reading it from a, let's, let's find out what we did wrong in this case. And I wasn't seeing it. They didn't investigate it like they doubted her. They, they went after every lead they could and exhausted it.
7:25 Speaker 02 Chief Mattis said it does not appear to him that there was a missed opportunity to find Roy Waller sooner.
7:31 Speaker 06 I didn't see anywhere where I thought, oh, if you'd have done this, you'd have probably caught him. If all of them had been done in Ronard Park, it might've, might've been different, but they were all over the place. So I'm so thankful that, you know, DNA came along and we were able to get enough evidence at the scene in 91 that helped later.
7:49 Speaker 02 I think doubt may have played a role in one big missed opportunity.
7:55 Speaker 02 As Chief Mattis pointed out, the rapist attacked across such a huge region that it was almost impossible for any one jurisdiction to solve the series. So linking the cases was essential. And the first opportunity to do so, at least through MO, was six months after Nicole was attacked, when that similar rape occurred in the town of Sonoma. What if, instead of doubting Nicole in the newspaper, Ronard Park had confidently come forward and said, yes, we believe this victim. And we believe there's a serial rapist on the loose in Northern California.
8:33 Speaker 02 When Chief Mattis and I first talked, he said he'd just read Nicole's police report for the first time. And he was surprised by what an absolutely phenomenal witness she was. It felt like we'd come full circle, that after all these years, the head of the Rohnert Park Police Department was now seeing what makes Nicole unique.
8:56 Speaker 06 Victims of sexual assault, they will, they'd just go to a different place in their mind while this is happening to them, right? I got the feeling in reading her statement that she, she realized, I can't do anything physically right now to stop this, but I can surely use my other senses. I can concentrate and, and, and just try to remember everything that's happening to me. She said, I'm, I'm gonna win in the long run on this. You may have me right now,
9:28 Speaker 06 but at some point, I'm gonna win. And she, she really concentrated on, on focusing on the moment and staying in the moment. And just the detail she was able to give was incredible. I, in reading that, I was like, how did she do this? We should be celebrating the fact that we've got an amazing witness here.
9:47 Speaker 02 For a long time, Nicole told me, her anger about what happened with the Rohnert Park Police had pulled her focus away from the rape itself. But when she learned that her case was part of the series, her focus turned to catching him. And she wanted to understand how someone could become such a monster. I figured Paul Holes might be the one with answers to those questions. After all, Paul's the guy whose parents gave him a book about sexual predators as his 25th birthday gift. For his whole career, Paul has been thinking about why and how people like Waller become boogeymen.
10:24 Speaker 02 Paul started off with a bit of a story. He said, "Imagine it's nighttime and you're walking alone in a nice neighborhood when you suddenly decide to step off the sidewalk and go through someone's gate into their yard. How would that feel?"
10:41 Speaker 05 You get a little bit uncomfortable because in our society, it's like, well, that's that person's property. Now imagine being a peeping tom where not only you're walking onto their property, you're looking inside their house.
10:53 Speaker 02 For Waller, Paul said, that part was probably thrilling. The next step was to go inside the person's house when nobody's home. That was the next social barrier and only certain people, people like Waller, would cross it.
11:08 Speaker 05 There's like video surveillance videos of offenders that have broken into a house while residents are asleep and the offender will just stand at the foot of the bed and watch them. That is a person that is fantasizing about taking that next step and going hands on. Well, when somebody is breaking into a house and sexually assaulting, well, they likely have hundreds of burglaries in their past. I'm pretty sure this is NorCal rapist Waller. He is now, you know, getting off of being inside this woman's residence. He's probably breaking into homes during his teenage years and he's, you know, just starts ramping up.
11:52 Speaker 05 Sexual assaults are so under-reported. There is a chance that in between some of these cases, he's got other victims that have just never been tied to.
12:01 Speaker 03 He has to. He has to. I can't imagine. You don't just stop doing that.
12:07 Speaker 05 And you do see, you know, offenders will do cases in clusters. Sometimes you'll see an uptick in attacks when work is getting stressful or they get fired.
12:21 Speaker 03 Well, he had been fired that the year right before me.
12:24 Speaker 02 That's true. And at the time, he had two children with different mothers. One was a newborn. Waller remained unemployed for the rest of 1991, which overlaps with the rape in Sonoma, the one Nicole noticed in the newspaper. It's never been proven to be Roy Waller, but the MO was identical. Then, in February, the day before Valentine's Day, Waller attacked a woman in Vallejo. That's two, maybe three rapes in nine months, all while unemployed. A few months later, he got his job at UC Berkeley. Nicole also wonders how Roy Waller found her. The general assumption has been that he saw her ad in the newspaper for a roommate. But that doesn't explain how he knew
13:09 Speaker 02 she'd had an expensive video camera in her house just a few weeks earlier. A video camera that she no longer had when she posted the newspaper ad. When Waller called Nicole pretending to be Bob Smith, he probably got her phone number from the newspaper. But he may have begun stalking her weeks before that.
13:29 Speaker 05 His agitation about the camera is interesting because I'm not thinking that the agitation is, well, he just lost out on stealing this very valuable camera.
13:38 Speaker 03 I don't either.
13:44 Speaker 03 I think, and I will go to my grave thinking this, I think he wanted to record the act.
13:51 Speaker 05 Oh, sure.
13:52 Speaker 03 And that he was pissed that he couldn't. And so I think that's what really got him angry, is that it wasn't there. But it's interesting because he did steal my camera. He stole my camp, my regular camera. And he took a picture of the top of his head with his hair. You could see his hair. You could tell something had been on it. Took a picture of the top of his hair, took the film out, left it on my coffee table, and took the camera.
14:15 Speaker 05 And I mean, there's definitely a voyeur type of aspect to him. I would not put it past him to have left a little message. I think when he was inside your house and he saw that camera, he may have left a message on that camera.
14:30 Speaker 03 Oh, I didn't go there.
14:31 Speaker 05 I think he could have sat there and filmed himself. You know, that's part of his fantasy is he's left you a message.
14:38 Speaker 03 And now that's now.
14:39 Speaker 05 And now it's gone.
14:40 Speaker 03 Now the, oh, God, I never even thought about that.
14:43 Speaker 02 That is really creepy.
14:44 Speaker 05 Yeah, no, that's how these guys think.
14:48 Speaker 02 Which raised another question. Where did Waller's MO come from?
14:55 Speaker 02 Nicole had told the detectives from Rondert Park that Waller's crime seemed scripted, and they took that in the wrong direction. But what she meant was that Waller's every action seemed practiced.
15:08 Speaker 05 You mentioned you think he's going off of a script. Yes, he is. He has developed a fantasy. He very well could have seen something that really kind of just turned him on.
15:21 Speaker 02 That reminded me, a few days earlier, when Paul and I drove through the East Bay along I-80 toward Vallejo, he brought up the Zodiac Killer, who has famously never been found. In the late 1960s, Zodiac killed five or more people, preying on couples.
15:40 Speaker 05 You know Vallejo is Zodiac's stomping grounds, right? Yes. There was that murder at Lake Bariessa, right? Yep. So that's... That was his third case.
15:54 Speaker 02 In 1969, the Zodiac Killer, wearing a mask and a weird costume, approached a young couple having a picnic near the lake. He threw bindings to the woman and had her tie up the man. Then, the Zodiac Killer tied up the woman and stabbed both of them. Only the man survived.
16:12 Speaker 05 I've wondered if that attack inspired Golden State Killer with his MO on how he approached his couples. Interesting, learning from the serial killer who came before him. And that's what they do. They pay attention.
16:26 Speaker 02 Nicole told me that when she heard that the Golden State Killer was caught, her first reaction was, huh, maybe he has a son who became the NorCal Rapist. It was kind of a joke, but the idea was, like Paul said, these predators learn from the ones who came before them. And it fits in Roy Waller's case.
16:49 Speaker 02 He was born in 1960 and was a teenager in Lake County when Joseph D'Angelo, aka The Golden State Killer, was making headlines just 90 minutes south, breaking into homes, wearing a mask, and binding and raping women. Lake County is also just north of Lake Bariessa, a key location in Zodiac lore. So it's highly possible that Waller based part of his MO off of these two serial killers.
17:19 Speaker 02 One of the biggest unsolved mysteries of Nicole's case is the terrifying phone call she got in 1992. It was a year after the attack, and she'd just gotten married.
17:30 Speaker 03 He was a big guy. He was, you know, a big Norwegian dude. I thought, this guy can protect me. He can protect me from anyone.
17:37 Speaker 02 They had just moved into a new house in Petaluma when she got the phone call.
17:43 Speaker 03 And he said, well, I see you've moved. And I said, who is this? And he said, where's that little green robe?
17:56 Speaker 02 You might remember that the Petaluma police found the caller. He was a local guy who'd been in the military. In everyone's mind, including Paul's, the guy we're calling Carl G was suspect number one. But of course, Carl was eventually eliminated with DNA.
18:14 Speaker 03 It was like, how is this not him?
18:16 Speaker 02 What is interesting about the Carl phone call as well is that behaviorally, it seems to fit what Waller would do, right? Yes.
18:23 Speaker 03 Well, Roy Waller called the Halloween victim like a month later at her job?
18:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
18:29 Speaker 02 If Carl didn't do it, how does he know about the green robe? Maybe you remember this. I called every number I could find for Carl G and got nothing. So I emailed him. I wasn't sure if I had the right address, but eventually he emailed me back. And he gave me his correct phone number.
18:56 Speaker 07 Hey, can you hear me now, sir?
18:58 Speaker 02 Yes, I can hear you now. There we go.
19:00 Speaker 07 Okay.
19:01 Speaker 02 The reason I'm calling is that Nicole knows, and I know that you're not, you're not the NorCal rapist, but you did make that phone call and you did know that detail, that robe. And for over 35 years now, that has been a mystery to her that she would like to resolve.
19:19 Speaker 07 Yeah. Here's, here's a, just as honest as I can be.
19:31 Speaker 07 Is that my memory of those days is is really not great because I was just pretty regularly under the influence of something. I can explain to you my MO with regard to phone calls that I made in a very addictive, compulsive, disgusting ways. Okay. It was luck. It was sheer luck. There was a way that I had of manipulating conversations on the phone, much like a tarot card reader.
20:13 Speaker 07 That people would give up information that they didn't realize they were giving up. I believe I met Nicole at Red Lion Hotel and thought that she was an attractive person and because of the way I sit in my own struggles, would never have had a real chance at, so I would fantasize.
20:42 Speaker 02 Okay. So you're saying you met Nicole at the Red Lion, was able to ascertain her name and decided to call her to take your fantasy just one step further and the robe was pure coincidence?
21:06 Speaker 07 If I'm remembering correctly, it's a battle I can give you.
21:15 Speaker 02 When we hung up, I puzzled over Carl's claim that he'd intuited, like a psychic, that not only did Nicole have a green robe, but that the robe was frighteningly significant. It was the only thing she was wearing when the rapist attacked. Could anyone really intuit a detail like that from a 30-second phone call?
21:35 Speaker 02 That detail cast Carl as the rapist. So much so, that not only did Nicole believe it, but so did Paul Holes, Avis Bury, and Kayla Pelt. Only when Carl's DNA didn't match, were they certain it wasn't him. Nicole told me she's never been to the Red Lion Hotel, where Carl claims he met her. He may not remember how he came across her, or he may not want to tell me, but I don't think he found out about the robe through some psychic phenomena. What if Roy Waller told him about it? So I emailed Carl a photo of Waller circa 1991, and asked, "Do you know who this is?" Carl wrote me back and said, "Unfortunately, yes."
22:19 Speaker 02 But he couldn't remember where he'd met him. "Maybe at a bar in Ronard Park," he said. So, the green robe is still a mystery. One thing is clear to me, though. Even though Carl broke some of the social barriers Paul talked about, he never became a boogeyman, like Roy Waller. Carl's now married with kids, and he admitted to me that he made a lot of mistakes. This was one of them. But he's trying to atone. Waller will live in a jail cell until he dies. He doesn't get a second chance. And in prison hierarchies, rapists are near the bottom. Will he die denying what he's done? Or can he find the courage to admit it, and show remorse,
23:03 Speaker 02 and give Nicole, and maybe others, the answers they're looking for?
23:10 Speaker 02 It turns out, Nicole's interest in meeting with Waller isn't an anomaly. Thirty states offer programs to facilitate meetings between victims and offenders, including California. The victim has to initiate it, and the offender has to agree to it. They say it can help victims of violent crimes, including murder and sexual assault, heal. But they caution against it in cases where the offender acted in a sadistic way, like Waller did. I sent information about the program to Nicole, and she brought it up with Paul.
23:42 Speaker 04 I'm just more curious.
23:44 Speaker 05 I can tell you're a very strong person. But I can also see what he's going to try to do is he's going to try to push your buttons. Yeah, you know, and that might provide you some insight in terms of facts of the case that you're you're looking to get answered. But you may walk away and he's pushed a button where you're just like, oh.
24:04 Speaker 03 Shit.
24:07 Speaker 03 Damn it, he got me.
24:08 Speaker 05 You know, there's a reason why some of these these convicted predators, you know, they're never shown photos of their victims because they feed off of that.
24:18 Speaker 03 Right.
24:19 Speaker 05 And him sitting across the table from you could just be a big turn on.
24:24 Speaker 03 Because his fantasies never stop. They never go away.
24:28 Speaker 05 I always say you have to know how this type of offender identifies. So like BTK, Dennis Rader.
24:37 Speaker 02 Dennis Rader, AKA BTK, meaning Bind, Torture, Kill, is a serial killer from Kansas who killed at least 10 people. He was a churchgoer, a Boy Scout leader, and was married with the two children.
24:51 Speaker 05 When he was arrested, he was going, that's all a facade. I'm BTK. He identified as the predator. With Waller, how does he identify?
25:02 Speaker 02 While Waller was in jail awaiting sentencing, he occasionally talked with his family members on the phone. Nicole had heard about some of these calls.
25:11 Speaker 03 There was a lot of crying and sobbing. It's not me. And they, how are they doing this to me? I'm being railroaded.
25:16 Speaker 02 Waller wasn't willing to admit that he was a rapist.
25:20 Speaker 03 The police planted the evidence. I can't believe this. Oh, my God, you know.
25:23 Speaker 02 So then if he's admitting to you, here's how I did it. Then he's also admitting that he lied to his family and his daughter on all those phone calls from prison. I found some transcripts of Waller's phone calls from prison to his wife. He acts like an innocent man caught in the web of a corrupt system. At the end of these calls, before saying goodbye, he'd say something really disturbing. He'd say, be careful. It's nighttime. Check the windows. Make sure all the doors are locked. It's chilling to read his words. He was lying to his wife by acting like she should be careful of predators like the NorCal rapist, as if it wasn't him.
26:08 Speaker 02 I've since called some of Waller's family members. One of them hung up on me three times. Another doesn't want to discuss it. But a third talked with me briefly, under the condition that I not use their name because they're afraid of some of the family members who believe he's innocent.
26:27 Speaker 02 The person I spoke with has known Waller for a long time. They told me he presented as normal, but that he could be socially awkward. He could be cringey in a sexual way. And there was just something about him. This person couldn't put a finger on it. It was off. But they never thought he was a serial rapist.
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27:24 Speaker 09 Welcome to The Haunted Library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human.
27:44 Speaker 09 Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.
27:51 Speaker 02 When Nicole told me she wanted to meet Roy Waller, I reached out to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for a referral to a facilitator who could tell me how these victim offender meetings work. They told me to call one of their favorite facilitators, Rebecca Weicher, a co-founder of a not-for-profit group called Mend Collaborative, which handles these victim offender dialogues. Rebecca has been doing this work for 10 years. I asked her, "How does the process work?"
28:21 Speaker 10 So there's probably anywhere from four to nine to 12 months of preparation. We talk with the incarcerated person. We want to understand their insight into why they committed their crime. And with the survivor, we talk with them about what their experience has been and what they are hoping to get out of the dialogue. And this is a voluntary and confidential process. I've seen that people come with questions that have been plaguing them for decades and get answers. And then for the incarcerated person, they get to apologize, they get to take responsibility,
29:03 Speaker 10 they get to show up as a more than their crime, as a full human being.
29:08 Speaker 02 I asked Rebecca, what if a victim wanted to meet an offender who was found guilty, but denied committing the crimes? And I didn't mean a situation where there was actual doubt, as in a wrongful conviction case, but rather someone in outright denial of the facts.
29:25 Speaker 10 It's rare that somebody would say, "I didn't do it." And it's even more rare that they would say, "I didn't do it, and I'll still participate in a process where I'm going to engage with the survivor in some way." Those are not the typical cases that we get, I'll just say.
29:44 Speaker 02 Roy Waller's crimes are atypical. His denial is atypical. And his remorse, as far as anyone can tell, is nonexistent. What Nicole wants from him, he may not be willing to give. But he might be willing to meet with her. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has connected Nicole with a facilitator. It might even be Rebecca. But the rest of Nicole's journey to talk with Waller will be a private one. It could take months. It could also never happen. But if it does, I hope that Nicole gets the answers she's looking for. I won't be there for that part. But when I think of Nicole facing Waller, I see her getting answers and reclaiming control.
30:29 Speaker 02 It's a light on the horizon, a north star, and she's moving toward it.
30:37 Speaker 02 Right after the trial in 2020, Nicole got a surprising email from a woman named Melissa. When Roy Walther was arrested, investigators had knocked on Melissa's front door in Ronard Park and asked to come inside and measure her rooms for an exhibit at his trial. Melissa had no idea that her townhome was where the NorCal rapist committed one of his attacks. When she saw Nicole on the news, she put two and two together. Melissa emailed Nicole that if she ever wanted to come over to cleanse the place of negative energy, she was welcome to. Recently, Nicole decided it was time. So on a sunny day, we drove to Ronard Park, to her old townhome.
31:23 Speaker 04 Yep, this all looks exactly the same as I used to. So where she's parked is where I parked my car. She has the gate open for you? Yep. So that was what I used as my front door.
31:42 Speaker 04 My goodness. Here we are. Here we are. The memories. Looks exactly the same.
31:51 Speaker 02 We walked through the gate and into Melissa's patio, and there she was.
31:56 Speaker 04 How are you? It's so nice to meet you.
32:01 Speaker 08 Hi.
32:01 Speaker 04 Oh my goodness, how are you? It's so nice to meet you. Oh, it's so pretty back here.
32:06 Speaker 08 Thank you.
32:08 Speaker 02 Nicole and Melissa hugged, and then she let us inside.
32:12 Speaker 04 I can't wait to see what you've done with the place. Is this the same door?
32:16 Speaker 08 Yeah, this is the... Well, no, I redid all the windows.
32:18 Speaker 04 Oh, you did? Okay.
32:20 Speaker 02 Nicole went right into the small living room.
32:22 Speaker 04 This is where my couch was. Yeah, that's where my TV was.
32:30 Speaker 04 Do you mind if I go upstairs?
32:32 Speaker 08 You want to go there yourself?
32:33 Speaker 04 Um, sure. That'd actually be great. I can.
32:43 Speaker 04 This would probably be a good place for me. Sorry, I'm having a... This has always been the hardest part, these stairs.
32:53 Speaker 02 Nicole stopped halfway up the stairs, started to come back down, stopped again, and then tried to go back up.
33:05 Speaker 04 I don't know why the stairs are a problem for me.
33:09 Speaker 04 I do know why the stairs are a problem for me.
33:14 Speaker 04 The stairs are when I first realized that I was in real trouble. It wasn't until I was on the stairs. And the stairs are always a big problem. Were always a big problem for me, sorry. Well, actually, water would be great. Thank you.
33:28 Speaker 02 Nicole had come so far, and yet, being in this house again, climbing the stairs to the bedroom, it was understandable that she struggled. But she didn't want to leave.
33:40 Speaker 04 I didn't expect that to happen at all. That doesn't normally happen now. It's been thirty-some-odd years. So, I think sageging is a good idea.
33:57 Speaker 04 How do we do this thing again?
33:58 Speaker 02 It's called smudging.
33:59 Speaker 04 Smudging?
34:01 Speaker 02 Smudging, I read, is a spiritual ritual of indigenous peoples in North America. It's meant to purify and cleanse a place of negative energy. I've never done it. Melissa and Nicole hadn't either. But this seemed like the right place to try it. Nicole had come down, and we were standing in the kitchen. She picked up a bundle of sage. You just light the end. You wait for the smoke to start generating, then you blow it out.
34:28 Speaker 04 Okay.
34:29 Speaker 02 And you'll want to keep it over the bowl.
34:31 Speaker 04 Do we each do our own, or do we do one?
34:33 Speaker 06 Yeah, let me get you another bowl.
34:34 Speaker 02 Okay.
34:34 Speaker 04 And we like to light the whole thing? Until it starts smoking.
34:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, maybe. Oh, it smells good.
34:48 Speaker 04 And then we start walking around, right? Mm-hmm.
34:51 Speaker 02 Melissa opened all the windows, and Nicole walked to the corners of the rooms downstairs and fanned the smoke. It rose, pooled, and flowed outside.
35:01 Speaker 04 Spent a good amount of time where the couch was.
35:04 Speaker 02 Then Nicole climbed the stairs again and waved the smoke in front of her.
35:08 Speaker 04 You don't mind if I go in your room?
35:28 Speaker 04 I didn't expect this.
35:33 Speaker 04 I didn't expect this.
35:40 Speaker 04 I let the stairwell go away.
35:58 Speaker 02 Hunting the Bogeyman is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence. It's hosted and reported by me, Peter McDonald. From Perfect Cadence, I'm the executive producer. From Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. The series was sound designed and mixed by Matt Gergel. We used music from Audio Network. The show's production manager was Sammy Allison. Our lawyer is Allison Sherry. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rassik, and Jamie Myers. And extra special thanks to Nicole Ernest-Pate for all her candid storytelling.
36:38 Speaker 02 Thanks also to Paul Holes, Avis Beery, Chris Orr, Keith Hill, Carlos Pate, Kay Lapelt, Kirk Campbell, Monica Czajkowski, Chief Tim Mattis, and Melissa. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. It's the best way to support us. Thank you for listening.
37:13 Speaker 11 I'm Josh Manikowitz and I hope you'll join us for season five of Dateline: Missing in America. In each episode of Dateline's award-winning series, we will focus on one missing person's case and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them. Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search Dateline: Missing in America to listen completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium to unlock new episodes early.
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