transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:16] Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 2:
[00:18] That's Georgia Hardstark.
Speaker 1:
[00:20] That's Karen Kilgariff.
Speaker 2:
[00:21] And we're here to present some things to you real quick.
Speaker 1:
[00:24] Real quick, just wanted to tell you a couple things.
Speaker 2:
[00:26] It's gonna be fast, like an hour and 52 minutes.
Speaker 1:
[00:29] We'll get you out of here, in and out.
Speaker 2:
[00:31] Yep. Boom, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:
[00:33] Okay, I have to pull this out immediately because we put lotion on before every show. It's like our ritual. That's our ritual. And I was putting my nod on it, I'm going to tell you that I got my nails done by a murderino today. This murderina named Jess, she was awesome, old school murderino. And then I just realized as I was putting lotion on that I forgot to put my fucking wedding ring back on.
Speaker 2:
[00:50] Does that mean it's at the...
Speaker 1:
[00:52] No, no, no, it's at my house. I took it off at my house, thank God. But I just was like, if I don't have a wedding ring on and this goes up, people are going to be like, are they okay?
Speaker 2:
[01:01] The DMs are going to start. Yeah. And people are going to be like, what's up, girl?
Speaker 1:
[01:05] Plus it looks like Vince left for fucking WrestleMania this morning. It looks like I'm like, husband's gone, take off my ring for the weekend.
Speaker 2:
[01:11] Yeah, that's too many coincidences.
Speaker 1:
[01:13] It is.
Speaker 2:
[01:14] I'm calling him now. I don't know, I didn't see her anywhere specifically, but I know I can feel it.
Speaker 1:
[01:21] Hashtag what's even happening.
Speaker 2:
[01:23] But that ring on that ring.
Speaker 1:
[01:24] This one. He did give me this one too. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:
[01:26] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[01:27] And I did wear this one on purpose. It has to do with my story.
Speaker 2:
[01:29] So you do.
Speaker 1:
[01:30] There we go.
Speaker 2:
[01:30] There. It's all day. It's all day. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:
[01:33] I almost got a divorce just there. Out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:
[01:36] Really quick before the show started.
Speaker 1:
[01:37] Spontaneous divorce, is that a thing?
Speaker 2:
[01:39] It could be. I mean, I think it has been.
Speaker 1:
[01:42] It must be.
Speaker 2:
[01:42] In the past. You know, it's funny. I was thinking about when we were in Austin for the I Heart Radio Awards and a girl came up to us afterwards and was just saying hi and then said, I'm the one that you called a bitch on Cameo.
Speaker 1:
[01:58] What?
Speaker 2:
[01:58] Remember that?
Speaker 1:
[01:59] No.
Speaker 2:
[02:00] I could have sworn you were standing next to me. A girl came up and was like, ha, ha, ha. I spent $250 on Cameo for you to tell my friend happy birthday or something like that. And she goes, and you called me a stupid bitch, and then I never got my Cameo. And I was like, excuse me.
Speaker 1:
[02:15] We're not on Cameo.
Speaker 2:
[02:17] We're not on Cameo.
Speaker 1:
[02:18] We're not on Cameo. No. We've never been.
Speaker 2:
[02:20] Don't ever.
Speaker 1:
[02:22] So she gave her money to some fucking people pretending to be us.
Speaker 2:
[02:25] Not only pretending to be us, but insulting people after they gave them their money. I hate that.
Speaker 1:
[02:30] Let's look it up right now. So, oh my God, I think I have Cameo.
Speaker 2:
[02:32] See if you can look it up.
Speaker 1:
[02:33] Who did I get to do Cameo once?
Speaker 2:
[02:36] Well, you got all my, is it Kevin Hart?
Speaker 1:
[02:39] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[02:39] No, no, no. That's a comedian.
Speaker 1:
[02:41] The wrestler.
Speaker 2:
[02:42] The wrestler guy.
Speaker 1:
[02:43] Kevin Von Erich? No.
Speaker 2:
[02:44] No, it's the guy that was on Detroiters that plays Tim Robbins' dad.
Speaker 1:
[02:48] He was the stripper in the strip club.
Speaker 2:
[02:51] In Magic Mike?
Speaker 1:
[02:52] Magic Mike, that's it.
Speaker 2:
[02:53] Big fan. I've gotten two Cameos from him, from Georgia and Vince.
Speaker 1:
[02:56] Kevin Nash?
Speaker 2:
[02:57] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[02:58] Kevin Nash.
Speaker 2:
[02:58] Kevin Nash.
Speaker 1:
[03:00] Okay. Here's people are also asking, why is My Favorite Murder being canceled? Are Karen and Georgia still friends? Who is? Okay. Wait a second.
Speaker 2:
[03:07] That's a fan cult video right there. We can answer the, we will answer those questions, but it's going to be behind a paywall.
Speaker 1:
[03:13] I don't know. Nothing's coming up, but, we are not on cameo. That's so horrible.
Speaker 2:
[03:19] I know. There's also a chance that girl mistook me for somebody else. And she was like, oh, I meant the Giggly Squad girls or something like, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:
[03:26] Oh, I bless the day we get fucking mixed up with the Giggly Squad girls. Like, please, can I get?
Speaker 2:
[03:32] We're 40 years younger. We're the Giggly Squad. We know what's going on.
Speaker 1:
[03:37] You're aunties. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[03:39] Nora actually told me that's her favorite podcast. I just stared into her face.
Speaker 1:
[03:43] Not you.
Speaker 2:
[03:44] What am I supposed to do here?
Speaker 1:
[03:45] No, that's, no, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[03:46] Everybody gets to like what they want, but please don't. Don't pay money for.
Speaker 1:
[03:51] Also, we would never charge $250 to hear us. This is free. This is free.
Speaker 2:
[03:56] Yeah, here, hold on. Happy birthday.
Speaker 1:
[03:58] Ashley.
Speaker 2:
[03:59] Happy birthday.
Speaker 1:
[04:01] Ashley what?
Speaker 2:
[04:04] Ashley too.
Speaker 1:
[04:05] I get what we're doing. Okay. Ashley with an E-E.
Speaker 2:
[04:08] E-E-E, E-Y.
Speaker 1:
[04:10] Do you have anything? Did you see the Baby Jessica thing?
Speaker 2:
[04:13] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[04:14] Baby Jessica, who you covered.
Speaker 2:
[04:16] Say that show title.
Speaker 1:
[04:17] In episode 221, Symbolic Violins, who was down a well when she was a baby, was arrested on assault charges.
Speaker 2:
[04:28] No fun.
Speaker 1:
[04:29] No fun.
Speaker 2:
[04:30] Did you already watch Trust Me, The Lost Prophet?
Speaker 1:
[04:32] We're in the middle of it right now.
Speaker 2:
[04:33] I have to start it, but everyone keeps talking to me about it, where I'm just like, I know, I know, I have to watch it.
Speaker 1:
[04:38] Did you watch the movie with, it's called The Drama, Zendaya, and Robert Patterson? Is that his name?
Speaker 2:
[04:43] Pattinson?
Speaker 1:
[04:44] Whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[04:45] Okay. No.
Speaker 1:
[04:46] You haven't seen that? I'm surprised.
Speaker 2:
[04:48] No. I haven't gone to the movies in so long.
Speaker 1:
[04:51] It's like the first time I want to go to the movie in ages because there's a spoiler and I know by the time it goes on streaming, I'm going to have heard it and I'm trying to avoid it, but I just need to go see it.
Speaker 2:
[04:59] That's a big part of movies. You just want to know first.
Speaker 1:
[05:02] Yeah. I want to know authentically, not reading a fucking New York Post or something.
Speaker 2:
[05:08] Yes. The cinema has been ruined in many ways for all of us. But that way where I watch people or read people fighting about it, and all these opinions, and then I'm like, well, I don't want to have any of these opinions. I'll have a brand new opinion, and then it's like, what? Then you go to the movies and you're doing a whole different thing.
Speaker 1:
[05:25] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[05:26] It's such an irritating way to have pre-processed entertainment.
Speaker 1:
[05:29] Well, thank God there's alcohol in theaters now because it's true. I don't know how other people do it. It's two and a half fucking hours just sitting there without a vodka soda, please.
Speaker 2:
[05:39] You know what I did see recently? Johnny Pemberton is the star of a movie. I think it's called Mermaid.
Speaker 1:
[05:45] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[05:46] It's indie and we went to see it. It was like its first showing in LA.
Speaker 1:
[05:50] Is it great?
Speaker 2:
[05:51] It was so, I adored Johnny as a comedian, to see him as a kind of serious kind of comedic because it's a creepy movie.
Speaker 1:
[05:58] Right.
Speaker 2:
[05:59] There's a lot going on, definitely worth the watch.
Speaker 1:
[06:01] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[06:02] But to watch Johnny be like the leading man is amazing.
Speaker 1:
[06:05] The leading man who looks 20, it's like the best.
Speaker 2:
[06:09] I know. So many people love him from Fallout. People love him from all kinds of stuff that he's already done.
Speaker 1:
[06:14] Everything.
Speaker 2:
[06:14] He's been in so many things.
Speaker 1:
[06:16] That's really exciting.
Speaker 2:
[06:16] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[06:17] Mermaid. Why am I playing footsie with you? Should we?
Speaker 2:
[06:19] Do you need more room over there?
Speaker 1:
[06:21] That means we should get started. That's right.
Speaker 2:
[06:23] That's you signaling to me under the table.
Speaker 1:
[06:27] Hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media.
Speaker 2:
[06:31] That's correct. Slip your mind.
Speaker 1:
[06:33] Yep. Here's some highlights from it.
Speaker 2:
[06:35] Over on our podcast, The Knife, Hannah and Pesha revisit the 1995 murder of 21-year-old Jennifer Evans in Virginia Beach, and then advocate Aaron Lottman joins them to walk through Dusty Turner's case and all the questions surrounding his conviction.
Speaker 1:
[06:51] Then this week on Brief Recess, it's a Hope Corps episode. Michael and Melissa reveal they share a birthday week. They didn't know that.
Speaker 2:
[07:00] No. I just love it.
Speaker 1:
[07:02] It's a big reveal.
Speaker 2:
[07:03] He's an immigration lawyer literally fighting ice in the courts every day, and then they're like, you know what? We have the same birthday week. It's like, yep, get it where you can.
Speaker 1:
[07:13] And Seth Porges, Director of Class Action Park. Oh my god. That was such a good documentary. And the upcoming SantaCon documentary returns to discuss news that the founder of SantaCon was charged with federal wire fraud for stealing over $1 million from the organization. Where did they get $1 million from?
Speaker 2:
[07:30] What organization? Isn't the whole thing disorganization?
Speaker 1:
[07:33] I think they get money to give presents to children in need.
Speaker 2:
[07:36] I hope so.
Speaker 1:
[07:37] But no, because he took all that money.
Speaker 2:
[07:39] And got super drunk.
Speaker 1:
[07:40] Allegedly.
Speaker 2:
[07:41] And then harassed the citizens of New York City.
Speaker 1:
[07:44] Exactly.
Speaker 2:
[07:44] Okay, then of course, Disgraceland, our newest hit podcast. So exciting to have Jake Brennan here with us. They're back this week covering Depeche Mode. Jake tells the story of excess, addiction and the West Hollywood overdose that left frontman David Cahan clinically dead before the band's unlikely resurrection.
Speaker 1:
[08:02] I love this. Like just he does these like snippets of time about the band. It's not the history from start to finish. It's just like here's what life was like during this time when whatever happened happened with them. It's so fucking fascinating.
Speaker 2:
[08:16] It's such good writing.
Speaker 1:
[08:17] Yeah. Such good writing. And then we have a little treat for you. The Disgraceland feed drop hits the MFM feed. So if you haven't listened to Disgraceland yet, we're making it easy for you.
Speaker 2:
[08:26] Disgraceland?
Speaker 1:
[08:27] Disgraceland? Disgraceland yet? We're making it easy for you. But also get your shit together and please go follow and rate, review, subscribe to Disgraceland and its celebrity spinoff, Hollywoodland. What are you doing?
Speaker 2:
[08:39] Hollywoodland. I'm trying to upstage you as you- Just break your shit over there. I literally tried to move this very subtly and yanked this off. Over on Hollywoodland, Jake looks at Sigourney Weaver through a very strange and unsettling lens. He's telling the story of how one death row inmate came to see her as a goddess sent to battle evil.
Speaker 1:
[09:00] Wow.
Speaker 2:
[09:01] Not a hard thing to assumption to jump to.
Speaker 1:
[09:04] I don't know if that's not true, but it's scary.
Speaker 2:
[09:07] It's very scary.
Speaker 1:
[09:08] Yeah. All right. Well, you go first?
Speaker 2:
[09:10] I go first.
Speaker 1:
[09:11] Great.
Speaker 2:
[09:13] So I'm going to turn it around on you.
Speaker 1:
[09:16] Oh, shit.
Speaker 2:
[09:17] The story I'm doing is one of the most notorious cold cases in recent history.
Speaker 1:
[09:21] Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[09:22] It begins with the 2010 disappearance of a young woman named Shannon Gilbert. Police begin to search for her on the beachside roadway where she's last seen, and that's when they begin to find one horrific discovery after another. The remains of 10 women are found between December 2010 and April 2011, setting off a chain of events that now more than 15 years later has finally been solved. This is the story of the Gilgo Beach murderer.
Speaker 1:
[09:48] Holy shit.
Speaker 2:
[09:50] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[09:50] Neither of us have ever done it.
Speaker 2:
[09:52] We've never done it, and when I was talking to Molly about it, our producer, and we're like, do you think Marin could turn this around where we could do it and try to be timely because all of this is happening right now? Marin's like, hold my beer.
Speaker 1:
[10:05] Were you planning on covering this before it got solved, like it wasn't on your list at all?
Speaker 2:
[10:09] No.
Speaker 1:
[10:09] Yeah. No same.
Speaker 2:
[10:10] Not on my list because to me it felt like, and especially all the things I've seen of it over the years, it's just like, well, we know this is where all these bodies have been found, and that's about it.
Speaker 1:
[10:21] Totally.
Speaker 2:
[10:22] We have some suspects and we have some ideas. Then of course, there was like, well, let's get into it. Let's do it. I was literally just going to start talking it out and then repeat it later. But thanks, Marin, our researcher, for turning it around and always doing such an amazing job. That idea, it's like, wait, this is breaking news. Can we actually start talking about this?
Speaker 1:
[10:42] What are you doing this week? Can you just do this? Yeah. Marin and Ali, my god, the best.
Speaker 2:
[10:47] Our researchers on the show are the best in the best.
Speaker 1:
[10:50] Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
[10:51] The main source used in this story today is the writing of journalist Robert Kolker who has reported extensively on this case. He actually published a book about it called Lost Girls, and also he did a deep dive in the New York Times Magazine called The Botched Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Killer. Then the rest of the sources are in our show notes. We start on the early morning of May 1st, 2010 and Shannon Gilbert is in a car headed for Long Island. She is just 23 years old, but she's been through a lot. She's endured some very difficult things in her childhood, including having to go to foster care at one point. But Shannon's friends remember her as a radiant, popular girl with undeniable talent. Because going through hard stuff in life also really galvanizes you and who you are. The thing I've never heard about Shannon before is that Shannon can really sing. Reporter Robert Kolker describes her as having a quote soulful voice that gave some of her friends chills and made others cry. She's a good singer. In eighth grade, she was cast as Miss Hannigan in her school's production of Annie, and that was a life-changing experience for her. She realizes she wants to be a star. After she graduates from high school, she does try to make that dream come true. But as many of us know, it's very hard to make a living when that is what your goal is. So Shannon sometimes earns money through sex work, and she advertises as an escort on Craigslist and in Backpage. So when she gets a booking, typically she'll use a male driver to take her to the appointments, both for transportation and for her personal safety. So that's what she does on May 1st, 2010. Her driver is a man who she's not only worked with before, but she considers a friend. His name is Michael Pack. He picks her up, they head down Ocean Parkway, which is that long road that runs right next to the ocean and spans a very long swath of southern Long Island. Parts of Ocean Parkway are very dark at night, except for like the cars coming in the other direction. Shannon's driver, Michael, pulls off the road into a gated community in Oak Beach. As Shannon disappears into her client's home, the driver waits outside in the car, and everything is basically routine until around 5 a.m. Also, I just say the client is a man named Joseph Brewer. I think it's important to start talking about the men that are involved in these cases. It's weird because I just caught myself doing that, where it's like, oh, well, we don't have to get into that. But we're getting into Shannon's whole life. So Joseph Brewer is in this too, and that should be, I think, standard. There's a lot we don't and may never know about what happened that night. But what we do know is that at one point around 5 a.m., Shannon calls 911 and she sounds terrified and disoriented. She can't explain where she is or what's happening to her. She just says someone's trying to kill her.
Speaker 1:
[13:47] This is the most chilling part but also none of this story, I feel like, would have gotten out there if this weird chilling thing hadn't happened almost.
Speaker 2:
[13:56] Exactly.
Speaker 1:
[13:57] It made people pay attention to what was already going on for years.
Speaker 2:
[14:00] Yes. A horrible rock being moved and this victim who heard death while entirely senseless actually brings the authorities to all of these other cold cases that are just right there. So, the 911 recording of the call has been released since. You can listen to it and on it you can hear both Joseph Brewer and Michael Pack talking to Shannon in the background, but it's hard to make out or make sense of what's going on. What we know from here is based on witness statements. Shannon's client says that she suddenly started to panic when she was in his house. He went outside to ask the driver for help getting her out of the house, letting her to leave and then the driver and the client both tried to calm her down while still inside the house with the goal of basically trying to get her into the car. But because Shannon is so terrified, it doesn't work and after a few minutes, her driver states that he goes back to the car, unsure of what to do presumably, and that's when he watches Shannon bolt out of this house and sprint into the darkness. What we do know now is that she went and knocked on some of her neighbor's doors and actually, at least one of those neighbors brought her inside, but then she was still so freaked out. And the thing I keep thinking of, this is all theory and opinion, but what I keep thinking of is that she got drugged.
Speaker 1:
[15:24] Ketamine, ketamine will fucking do that to you immediately.
Speaker 2:
[15:26] Right, or just like any drug worse that you think you're here and you're handling things this way and all of a sudden, you know it's not good and you're not in control.
Speaker 1:
[15:34] We've all been there, with drugs that we knew we took, we freaked the fuck out and then not knowing that you took them, that's like 10 times worse.
Speaker 2:
[15:41] Being drugged, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[15:43] Being drugged, also known as being drugged.
Speaker 2:
[15:46] So Michael Pack says he tries to find her, he drives around for a while looking for her, he never finds her so he goes home, assuming she just find a way to get back to New Jersey herself. Not the job of a driver in that scenario. The problem is Shannon never finds her way back to New Jersey and her worried boyfriend there quickly reaches out to the driver. He admits that he left Long Island without her. The two reportedly call around to different precincts, no one's seen her. So her boyfriend files a missing persons report and that's it basically. Shannon's case gets almost no media attention as author Robert Kolker writes, quote, a missing sex worker rarely does. So now we're back on Long Island and investigators begin searching for Shannon where she was last seen, including the coastal stretch off Ocean Parkway along Oak Beach and nearby Gilgo Beach. The terrain is marshy and uneven and because it's spring turning to summer, it's also crawling with poison ivy and very thick brambles, very hard to search.
Speaker 1:
[16:51] It looks very swampy, like Florida-y almost, right?
Speaker 2:
[16:55] And it's a part of Beach where it truly is like there's houses, there's Ocean Parkway, there's these brambles, sand and the ocean right there. So the police continue the search throughout the year. I don't know how often, but it does continue. And then as fall turns to winter, that overgrowth is finally less thick. And on December 11th, seven months after Shannon was last seen, police dogs hit on human remains. They found these remains hidden deep in the brambles, bound with strips of burlap. Two days later, they find three more burlap bound sets of remains. So they basically stumble upon a graveyard that they are there just to get additional evidence for the first remains. And then it's another and another, and they're bound the same way with the same material, same size of assuming a woman, I mean, like, horrifying. None of the remains belong to Shannon Gilbert. When the DNA tests come back, investigators identify 24-year-old Melissa Bartholomew, who had been missing for over a year. She'd gone missing in 2009, last seen at her apartment in the Bronx. And like Shannon, she was ambitious. She dreamed of opening her own hair salon. She's a really talented hairdresser. She did sex work to pay the bills. Melissa was very close with her family, who clearly loved her very much. In fact, in July of 2009, right before she went missing, her little sister, Amanda, was planning to come and visit her in New York. In a July 11th phone call, they talked through Amanda's upcoming trip, and the next day, July 12th, Melissa set out to meet a client on Long Island, and she was never seen again. Melissa's disappearance devastated her family, and her sister Amanda once said, quote, She was not only my blood sister, she was my soul sister. So they were very close, obviously. Yeah. Another body identified is 25-year-old Maureen Brainerd Barnes of Norwich, Connecticut. She was reported missing in July of 2007, and she'd last been seen in New York City. Her loved ones remember her as being creative, courageous, and gifted with words. At times, she did sex work to pay family bills, but what she really loved was writing poetry, and she loved to write rap lyrics. She had two children, and her daughter Nicolette, who's now an adult, has said that losing her mom quote, drastically changed the trajectory of my life. There were countless times I needed her, and she was not there. I remember she read to me every night, and now I can no longer remember the sound of her voice.
Speaker 1:
[19:30] Oh, God. That's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:
[19:33] Yeah. The next remains to be identified belong to 22-year-old Megan Waterman of Scarborough, Maine. Her family has said that they believe she was forced into sex work. Author Robert Kolker reports Megan's boyfriend, the man she considered the love of her life, was seen by others as quote, her pimp and abuser. Sad. She sometimes saw clients in New York. She was last seen leaving a Long Island hotel in June of 2010, presumably to meet a client, back home in Maine. Megan has a young daughter named Lily, who she loved very much. Megan's been called a quote, fun, caring and loving mom. Lily's in her teens now and has talked about the pain of losing her mother, saying quote, I still wonder what her voice sounded like or her laugh. I do remember missing her and always wondering when she was coming back. I don't wish this on anyone. The pain I went through or go through. On top of that, because what is getting me, when your mom dies, especially when you're young, it's devastating and for young girls, it's like, it's foundationally devastating.
Speaker 1:
[20:41] Definitely.
Speaker 2:
[20:42] Then the idea that anybody would treat your mom's death, like it was less important than anybody else's.
Speaker 1:
[20:48] Deserved it too. That's what people say.
Speaker 2:
[20:52] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[20:53] And to feel that and not care as much about your own mother, that's devastating.
Speaker 2:
[20:58] It's just the authority moralizing, cops moralizing, this doesn't matter, this does. And that's what this story is all about.
Speaker 1:
[21:05] Totally.
Speaker 2:
[21:05] At the end of the day. It's people thinking that they can classify human beings that way. The final set of remains are identified as those of 27-year-old Amber Costello, who lived in West Babylon, New York, at the time of her disappearance in September 2010. So, it was just months after Megan Waterman went missing. And Amber struggled with addiction, so she sometimes picked up sex work. She was last seen leaving her apartment to get picked up by a client. And on her way out the door, she tells her roommate, quote, If my sister calls, tell her I love her. So these four women, Melissa, Maureen, Megan and Amber, become known as the Gilgo Four. And because of the similarities, their remains being found in the same area, wrapped in burlap, the use of online escort ads, and the fact that they were all young, very petite white women, many people assume that a single person is responsible for their murders, right? The serial killer theories start immediately. And with good reason. But the Suffolk County police, who have the jurisdiction over this case, don't publicly confirm this at first. The commissioner at the time tells the press, quote, I don't want anyone to think we have a Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with blood dripping from a knife. God forbid.
Speaker 1:
[22:20] Yeah. Because then we won't have tourists coming.
Speaker 2:
[22:23] I mean, it's, yeah, we're stuck in jaws for the rest of our lives. And it's instead it's like, no, get on this right now and solve it right now. Statements like this, of course, don't sit well with the victim's families. And they, along with the public, start connecting the dots that maybe there is a Long Island serial killer, and that is what's being discovered. But if you know anything about this case, you've already read about the widely reported procedural missteps at the Suffolk County Police Department, despite having access to cell phone and internet data because the victims used their phones to contact their clients. Statements from the people who knew these women, among many other leads to chase, the police just somehow don't initially identify any suspects or persons of interest at all.
Speaker 1:
[23:09] Like talk to all the sex offenders in the area. You know what I mean? Like the basics.
Speaker 2:
[23:14] Or how about just the sex clients in the area? Go into those rich people neighborhoods and say, who among you are hiring and we need to talk to you in a serious way. But God forbid it's a professional man that gets questioned. In fact, they turned down the FBI's help.
Speaker 1:
[23:30] Don't ever do that.
Speaker 2:
[23:33] Reporting suggests that the Suffolk police had serious internal corruption and misconduct issues at the time. Author Robert Kolker describes the department as being in a quote, ethical freefall. This may have hampered, if not totally frozen, any real investigating into these deaths as implicit biases around sex workers and what they do and do not deserve. Go completely unchecked. That's not to say that there weren't people that were there. If they were still looking for her from the beginning of 2010 until the winter, then someone cared enough to keep on going back out there. That definitely was happening. But when the system is set up like that.
Speaker 1:
[24:15] Yeah, not a chance.
Speaker 2:
[24:16] So, per Kulker's reporting, at one point, this is going to make you very mad, like it made me, the then chief of detectives publicly victim blames the Gilgo Four, pointing out that they were, quote, willing to get into a car with a stranger.
Speaker 1:
[24:29] Fuck you.
Speaker 2:
[24:31] That's called Uber. You fucking do it every goddamn day. He also called it a, quote, consolation that the killer was targeting a specific group of people, sex workers and not the general public.
Speaker 1:
[24:45] Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[24:47] Yeah. It's an infuriating attitude for local law enforcement to display, especially when these homicides fit into an even larger pattern of violence and murder on Long Island. Several sets of human remains have been discovered in this area, going back to the mid-90s.
Speaker 1:
[25:04] Holy shit.
Speaker 2:
[25:04] It's not new. And they include 20-year-old Jessica Taylor of New York City, whose remains were discovered in Manorville in July of 2003. She had gone missing from the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan days before the discovery of her body. And 24-year-old Valerie Mack of Philadelphia, who disappeared in the year 2000. Her remains were discovered 11 years later, also in Manorville. 34-year-old New Yorker Karen Vergata's remains are first to be discovered on nearby Fire Island in 1996, which is the same year she went missing. And the remains of 28-year-old Sandra Castilla, who's a native of Trinidad and Tobago, living in New York City, are also ID'd. And she was found in Southampton in 1993. She had vanished only days earlier. So Sandra Castilla was one of the first of these bodies, and then it just kept happening.
Speaker 1:
[25:58] Right. I mean, everyone after that could have been saved if there had been enough of a, one would think.
Speaker 2:
[26:06] So we don't know much about those women. Authorities have alleged that Jessica Valerie and Karen worked as escorts, with police stopping short of describing Sandra as doing the same, and instead calling her lifestyle, quote, substantially similar to that of a sex worker's, whatever that means. Obviously, there's much more to these people than the jobs that they paid the bills with. They all had people in their lives who cared about them and wondered what happened to them. Fortunately, the Suffolk County Police Department does experience some serious overhauling in the coming years, and as investigators continue working the Gilgo Four case, they begin to find even more remains off of Ocean Parkway. I mean, it's fucking crazy, the amount of bodies and the idea that anyone would let anybody say no thanks, FBI, when that's what's happening.
Speaker 1:
[27:01] You want to be like, oh, you're so, what's it called, sure of yourself that you don't think you need them, but no, it's actually you're corrupt and you don't want them to figure that out. That's the real fucking thing. That's why corruption is so fucked up, where it's, I mean, obviously it is, but also...
Speaker 2:
[27:15] It keeps out any possibility of justice. Guys...
Speaker 1:
[27:21] You guys, why do we have to keep doing this podcast? Can't we run out of fucking stories?
Speaker 2:
[27:26] Please let us run out. Okay. This includes more remains belonging to Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Karen Vergata, all found in the spring of 2011, suggesting that those remains had been scattered. Then in December 2011, more than a year after she went missing, investigators finally find Shannon Gilbert's phone, clothing and ID on Oak Beach, not far from where she was last seen. A few days later, her remains are finally located in a marsh off Ocean Parkway, about a quarter of a mile from those belongings. It won't be until 2015 after sustained pressure from the victims' loved ones, and I believe it's Shannon's mother that just goes to town and is like, Yep, I'm not going away. I'm relenting. It won't be until 2015 after sustained pressure from the victims' loved ones and under a new Suffolk County Police Commissioner, that the FBI is invited back into the investigation. Welcome. And the real breakthrough comes years after that, in 2022, when a dedicated task force is put together to investigate these murders specifically. 2022, 11 years later.
Speaker 1:
[28:38] Like, the shame you should feel that it's taken that long to even put together a task force, let alone solve it.
Speaker 2:
[28:44] Task force first.
Speaker 1:
[28:45] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[28:46] Please. With fresh eyes, the task force pours over case files, evidence, and statements collected by earlier detectives, and they quickly hit on a statement provided by Amber Costello's roommate at the time of her disappearance. He had told police about a quote, ogre-like client of Amber's who drove a green Chevy Avalanche pickup truck.
Speaker 1:
[29:06] Could he be more specific? Like just he's telling you, have you seen the documentary that he is in, that the roommate is in?
Speaker 2:
[29:12] The roommate? No.
Speaker 1:
[29:13] He's just the best. He's like a character out of euphoria. Like got to watch him? Love him. Yes.
Speaker 2:
[29:20] Also just these people who are like just trying to get by in their day to day and suddenly they have to take up the like, I need to get my roommate justice.
Speaker 1:
[29:29] I told you who did it and you won't even fucking listen to me.
Speaker 2:
[29:32] Yeah. Maren writes, File that information away for a second. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[29:37] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[29:38] So long established by this point is that Melissa Maureen, Megan and Amber, the Gilgo Four, they'd all been contacted by someone using a burner phone shortly before they disappeared.
Speaker 1:
[29:48] I don't even know where you get a burner phone in the mall, at one of the kiosks.
Speaker 2:
[29:52] The black market internet? Isn't that what they call it? The Silk Road?
Speaker 1:
[29:55] I don't know, but that's traceable, isn't it?
Speaker 2:
[29:56] I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[29:58] I hope I never have to. You hope you do? Have to?
Speaker 2:
[30:02] I'm like, well, wouldn't it be kind of fun to have a burner phone? Prank calling people. Someone had also used a burner phone and Melissa's own phone to repeatedly contact Melissa's little sister, Amanda.
Speaker 1:
[30:15] So fucking disgusting.
Speaker 2:
[30:16] It's Craven. That's the one who was planning a trip to meet her sister in New York. While Melissa was actively missing, Amanda is 15 years old, and she says a man would be on the other line taunting her, at one point telling her he had raped and murdered her sister.
Speaker 1:
[30:33] Oh my God, the depravity. It's the same with a fucking Golden State killer.
Speaker 2:
[30:38] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[30:38] You are so sick in a way that we will never understand.
Speaker 2:
[30:43] Thank God it is rare, but at the same time it's like, and that's why women choose the bear. The bear doesn't call you for years afterwards.
Speaker 1:
[30:54] Exactly.
Speaker 2:
[30:55] Okay. Burner phones are tricky to trace, the whole point of having a burner phone, but calls made from these phones still ping nearby towers. I didn't know that. Police had already figured out these calls typically hit towers in midtown Manhattan and on Long Island, particularly in the town of Massapequa. By 2022, when the task force is at work, Melissa's family had long been begging police to investigate those locations more fully. Now, the task force does, hoping they can find a man who matches the description of an ogre who owns a Chevy Avalanche, who has connections to midtown Manhattan and Massapequa. It doesn't take long for them to land on a name, and that name is Rex Heurman.
Speaker 1:
[31:38] Doesn't take long except a decade to land.
Speaker 2:
[31:41] Doesn't take long for the task force who is assigned fucking over a decade later.
Speaker 1:
[31:46] Basic fucking research and find.
Speaker 2:
[31:49] And these families having to beg. 59 year old Rex Heurman described by some acquaintances as quote, a big goofy guy, and others as quote, cold and distant, kind of creepy. Men, women. Is that what you were gonna say?
Speaker 1:
[32:06] No, I was gonna point to the hometown that we just recently did.
Speaker 2:
[32:10] Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1:
[32:11] Will have come out before this episode, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:
[32:15] No, I think we're breaking news to this thing. We've got a mini-soad coming up where you can hear from someone who wrote in.
Speaker 1:
[32:21] I had a personal relationship with this guy.
Speaker 2:
[32:24] Right, worked near and around.
Speaker 1:
[32:25] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[32:26] Okay. So, Rex Heurman lives in Massapequa. He works in Midtown Manhattan where he has an architecture firm. His personal cell phone records show that he's used his cell phone in those same areas as the burner phone has been used. Many of our victims went missing at times when Heurman's wife and kids were away on trips without him. This is all compelling circumstantial evidence, but there's also physical evidence and new ways to test DNA versus what was available earlier in the investigation. I mean, you think about 2011 versus 2026. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:
[33:01] It's huge.
Speaker 2:
[33:02] Yeah, big difference. Now detectives take a few hairs found at the crime scenes and compare them against a DNA sample pulled from a pizza box that Heurman had thrown away.
Speaker 1:
[33:13] Have you seen the footage of it? I have it on like security.
Speaker 2:
[33:15] Of them getting that pizza box?
Speaker 1:
[33:17] I think they have them getting the pizza box. They definitely have it arresting him.
Speaker 2:
[33:20] Yes. That day that started happening, it was again this like, it's finally happening. The DNA is consistent with Heurman and or a member of his household. And then in July of 2023, Heurman's arrested and search warrants are filed for his home and electronic devices. What investigators find is truly heinous. It's deeply disturbing, like searches for porn involving the mutilation of women. They also find Google searches for family members of the Gilgo Four victims, members of the police task force, and a document of Heurman's that's been characterized as a quote, serial killer checklist. Among other things, it notes problems a killer might face, DNA, hair and fiber, and how to solve them, booties, hair net.
Speaker 1:
[34:08] Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:
[34:09] The planning, the dedication going into destroying human life. Despite everything that I've just told you, Heurman will maintain that he's innocent until this month, April 8th, 2026, when he shocks the world by pleading guilty to the murders of the Gilgo Four as well as the murder of Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Sondra Castilla. He also admits to killing Karen Vergata, but he will not be prosecuted for her murder as part of his plea deal, which also entails cooperating with agents from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, who hope to gain more insight into his crimes. In the wake of his guilty plea, Rex Heurman's trial, which was scheduled for later this year, will not happen. And while it closes, several cases commonly associated with this so-called Long Island serial killer case, this story is not entirely over. Unsolved murders and disappearances on Long Island remain under investigation. There is real reason to believe Rex Heurman is not behind all of them. Among the lingering cases is Shannon Gilbert's. If you remember, in May 2010, she ran into the darkness of Oak Beach. Her body was found more than a year later, separate from her clothing and her belongings. Reports note that after fleeing her client's home, Shannon knocked on a couple of doors, asking residents inside for help. By the time someone actually calls the police though, and gives them Shannon's location, she's gone. Shannon's client and her driver were questioned by police. They are never considered persons of interest in this case, and her client insists that he doesn't know why she suddenly started panicking that night. Things get very fuzzy. I know.
Speaker 1:
[35:52] It's so weird.
Speaker 2:
[35:52] It's so crazy, but it could have been a million things. Things do get fuzzy after Shannon leaves her client's house. Reporter Robert Kolker makes space for the possibility that somebody who encountered her that night might know more than they are disclosing. Investigators, meanwhile, think Shannon's death may have been accidental. She could have been intoxicated. That was never proven. She could also have been drugged, if we're just going to say theories, and then wandered into the chilly marsh, which many have pointed out would have required a ton of strength and energy to wade through, especially for a woman as petite as Shannon. And that's where she ultimately either drowned or died of hypothermia. But as for her clothing and belongings being found far away from her remains, a former Suffolk County Police Commissioner once theorized, quote, that's explainable because she's, you know, hysterical. And she's discarding her possessions as she moves along. Her jeans might have come off from running in that environment. And that is a possibility.
Speaker 1:
[36:54] Okay, bro.
Speaker 2:
[36:55] I mean, also, it's like, then let's start naming any possibility in the world.
Speaker 1:
[37:00] Yeah, let's not do that.
Speaker 2:
[37:01] And also it's kind of going back to she's hysterical.
Speaker 1:
[37:04] Right.
Speaker 2:
[37:04] Like, why would you use that word?
Speaker 1:
[37:06] Don't use that fucking word.
Speaker 2:
[37:07] Hysterical because she thinks someone's trying to kill her.
Speaker 1:
[37:10] Yeah, we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 2:
[37:11] And she ends up dead.
Speaker 1:
[37:12] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[37:13] Along with all the other people who are dead.
Speaker 1:
[37:15] She's hysterical because she thinks she's going to die. And then she dies. That kind of makes the hysterical part.
Speaker 2:
[37:21] You don't get to use that word.
Speaker 1:
[37:23] Well and void.
Speaker 2:
[37:24] How about logical?
Speaker 1:
[37:25] Right.
Speaker 2:
[37:26] And if you use the word logical, none of that other stuff tracks at all.
Speaker 1:
[37:29] Totally.
Speaker 2:
[37:29] Shannon's family has long suspected foul play and the lack of knowing exactly what happened to her is something they've had to wrestle with for more than a decade. Robert Kolker has spoken extensively with Shannon's family, including her mom, Mary, who managed to find a silver lining in this unimaginably horrible situation. Kolker writes, quote, Mary understood that one way of finding at least a shred of meaning in the loss of her daughter was that her disappearance lead to the discovery of those four women several months later and that without Shannon there would be no case, there would be no search for the killer.
Speaker 1:
[38:03] Right.
Speaker 2:
[38:04] And that is the story of the Gilgo Beach murders.
Speaker 1:
[38:08] My God, great job.
Speaker 2:
[38:09] So now we're all up to date.
Speaker 1:
[38:11] Great.
Speaker 2:
[38:11] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[38:12] Wow.
Speaker 2:
[38:13] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[38:13] That story is just makes you feel real bad.
Speaker 2:
[38:16] How do we break down the institutional system that is based in racism, sexism and abuse and build a new one that helps a girl who thinks she's being killed and then gets killed and calls them on the phone to ask for that help.
Speaker 1:
[38:38] Or like needs money because she's trying to live a life and can't afford to do that and so turns to something that men pay for and want and then gets extra size for it.
Speaker 2:
[38:51] Puts her at risk and then she's blamed for their violence.
Speaker 1:
[38:55] Right. Because she couldn't make a living the way she wanted to or not enough or whatever it is. And so she's, yeah, I don't know how we do that. Next timeline? You want a timeline hop?
Speaker 2:
[39:09] We'll timeline jump on that one.
Speaker 1:
[39:13] Okay, well, as we do, we're going to make a fucking sharp right turn.
Speaker 2:
[39:18] Great.
Speaker 1:
[39:19] Different direction completely.
Speaker 2:
[39:20] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[39:21] And we're going to the spring of 1871.
Speaker 2:
[39:25] Hey.
Speaker 1:
[39:25] You love that era.
Speaker 2:
[39:26] I love the past.
Speaker 1:
[39:27] In San Francisco.
Speaker 2:
[39:28] Hey.
Speaker 1:
[39:29] Your fave. So the California Gold Rush is long over by this point. But this is still very much a town of prospectors and bankers who fuel their treasure hunts. So the prospectors and bankers pay the fucking regular people to go find the diamonds and shit, right?
Speaker 2:
[39:46] Prospectors do it. Bankers pay them to do it.
Speaker 1:
[39:49] Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2:
[39:50] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[39:50] Okay. So recently, a vein of silver has been discovered in Nevada, and much of that mining is being spearheaded from San Francisco. And people are moving to San Francisco every day to get a piece of that action. So one evening, a mining investor named George Roberts gets a knock on the door of his office in San Francisco. Outside on his doorstep are two men, one he recognizes and one he doesn't. The one he knows is a handsome 41-year-old named Philip Arnold. And Philip had worked with George on some gold and silver mining endeavors, so he already knew him and trusted him. But he currently works at a company that makes drill bits out of industrial-grade diamonds. Did you know they did that?
Speaker 2:
[40:28] I mean, no.
Speaker 1:
[40:29] No. Because it turns out some diamonds aren't really worth a lot of money.
Speaker 2:
[40:33] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[40:33] And they turn them into stuff like drill bits, which is where this guy, Philip, works. Well, with this detail, we begin the story of the great diamond hoax. Ooh. A hoax. We got a scam.
Speaker 2:
[40:44] Hell yeah.
Speaker 1:
[40:44] Here we go.
Speaker 2:
[40:45] Love it.
Speaker 1:
[40:46] The main source for the story is a 1940 New Yorker article called The American Golconda by AJ. Liebling. And the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. So that's, I still need this paper. OK, so the other man with Philip, let me show you Philip real quick. He's fucking hot, I guess, for that time. Here's his photo.
Speaker 2:
[41:05] We'll see. I'll be the judge of that. Oh my. That looks like Paul. What's his name from Ireland?
Speaker 1:
[41:12] Totally. Paul. Mescal? Mescal. He does, with really flat hair and a severe part down the middle.
Speaker 2:
[41:20] I love his layering. It's a great coat.
Speaker 1:
[41:23] What do you think his mustache smells like?
Speaker 2:
[41:25] It smells like gold. He's got a Kirk Douglas dot in his chin.
Speaker 1:
[41:29] Yeah, he's a handsome fella.
Speaker 2:
[41:31] He combs that hair pretty seriously.
Speaker 1:
[41:33] Yeah, and he looks like he knows it. Okay, so the other man with our friend Philip here is a guy named John Slack. He's Philip's cousin. He's a bit surly. He doesn't talk much. Both look really dirty like they've been traveling a long time. They are the prospectors, essentially. Philip is clutching a leather sack, the kind someone might use to hold gemstones. It's like just straight out of a cartoon. Like goonies, exactly. They tell George, the investor, that the bag contains diamonds and rubies, which they discovered on an exploratory trip through a region and they refuse to name what the region is, but they're excited about it. They say that because they've arrived back into town after banking hours, they want to use George's office safe to store the stones overnight. Hey, you know me, can you just hold onto these for me overnight? George is like, absolutely, and they make him promise he won't look in the bag.
Speaker 2:
[42:27] But you'd look in the bag, right?
Speaker 1:
[42:29] Yeah, and he does.
Speaker 2:
[42:31] Yeah, I mean, how could you not?
Speaker 1:
[42:32] Of course, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[42:33] Is that part of the setup? Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[42:35] See, when someone comes around, they're like, I don't want you in on this thing, and you're like, I gotta get in on this thing. Because it's your idea now that you're in on it. So George says, okay, he says he won't look in the bag, and then he doesn't press them for details about where they were, even though he really wants to know. Philip and John, they say that the region they were in is controlled by Native Americans who, if the story had been true, are rightfully hostile towards white outsiders. But the story is a lie, and they say that because of the Native Americans, because of the hostile area, that means any future larger expeditions will require significant upfront investment in order to have adequate defenses. So it costs a lot of money to go find a diamond mine and to have everything you need.
Speaker 2:
[43:20] You're not just going to go out there and be like panning for gold type of thing.
Speaker 1:
[43:23] No.
Speaker 2:
[43:23] Well, and also because it's very well dealt with in the TV show Deadwood, which I highly recommend everyone watch. But like you think you want it, you're out there trying to get it with all everybody else, then you get it. Now you're in like 10 times the danger.
Speaker 1:
[43:36] Totally. Now everyone wants what you've got and they're not afraid to try to get it. And so if there's one thing we've learned when we do stories about scams, it's when someone has let slip some information about a moneymaking scheme, and they seem reluctant to tell you more about it at first. And now you're in the position of wanting to be involved, that should be a red flag, right? And you should stay away. Unfortunately, George does not do this. Instead, exactly according to Philip's plan, the two men leave, George takes the jewel bag and looks inside it. And what he sees to his semi-trained eye is a pile of gemstones, all uncut, but very precious looking. Nonetheless, he sees garnets, sapphires, diamonds, and I wore this ring so we could look at all the— Are those garnets and sapphires and diamonds? Yeah, and they're vintage. I don't think they are real, anything, but yes, I wanted to do a— But look at what those look like. This is called a Sputnik ring, and I'm definitely married. So all these are commonly found in Arizona, and so it makes George feel pretty sure that that's the region that Philip and John have returned from. But the fact that there are diamonds in the bag is actually a huge detail. No one has found diamonds in North America yet. And George brings the bag to a man named William Chapman Ralston's house. He's the chairman of the board of the Bank of California. And the two of them are like, holy shit, and they bring the stones to an appraiser. But the thing is, Philip, the scammer who is hot, knows that no appraiser in San Francisco has the equipment or expertise to gauge the quality of uncut diamonds. He's just betting on everyone being a little uninformed, based on these things.
Speaker 2:
[45:20] And very impressed by a bag of gems.
Speaker 1:
[45:21] Exactly, and it happens over and over again. They can tell that there are real diamonds in there, but they have no idea that they are industrial grade diamonds, the ones they turn into those drill bits where he works, they're not gem grade. Plus they're mixed in with a few stones that are actually of good quality. So the appraiser tells George and William, the richie guys, that the stones are probably worth around $100,000. We have a few opportunities to do in today's money.
Speaker 2:
[45:46] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[45:47] 1871, $100,000.
Speaker 2:
[45:49] $2 million?
Speaker 1:
[45:50] $2.8 million!
Speaker 2:
[45:51] Oh my god!
Speaker 1:
[45:52] I never do it! That means you win it. That means you win the... You put this on your head.
Speaker 2:
[45:59] My paperclip crown finally.
Speaker 1:
[46:05] So that's what they think it's worth. In fact, they're actually worth about $12,000, not $100,000, which is still $300,000. In today's money.
Speaker 2:
[46:14] You always got for the big scams, you got to invest that money.
Speaker 1:
[46:18] Exactly. So at this point in time, let's talk a little about diamonds.
Speaker 2:
[46:22] Diamonds.
Speaker 1:
[46:23] Diamonds. At this point in time, the majority of the world's diamond deposits have not yet been discovered. For the first 2000 years of the recorded history of diamond mining, diamonds have come from only one place, a place called Golconda, India. And these are now considered some of the rarest and highest quality diamonds in the world. They're the fucking OG. And the Hope Diamond is from Golconda, just to like give you a fucking idea. And I looked at some photos and they're just so beautiful. By 1830, the Golconda diamonds had been completely mined. Oh, they're gone. They're done.
Speaker 2:
[46:55] So we took them all.
Speaker 1:
[46:56] We took them all. And by that point, the center of the diamond mining industry has moved to Brazil, where diamonds had been discovered in the 1700s by Portuguese colonizers. I mean, hence colonization fucking everywhere.
Speaker 2:
[47:08] Right. Because I want to say, did the colonizers find it or did the natives find it and they murdered the shit out of the natives to steal them?
Speaker 1:
[47:15] Probably that one. I mean, they're not worth anything unless you can sell them and you put worth on them. So if the natives did find them and they were just like...
Speaker 2:
[47:24] Here.
Speaker 1:
[47:24] Here, yeah. But then in 1867, five years before Philip walks into George's office with his bag of jewels, a 21.25 carat diamond is discovered in South Africa. And so this kicks off the frenzy of prospecting in South Africa. And also it generates a lot of interest in where the next big deposit of diamonds is going to be found. And there are rumors that Arizona, for some reason, might be a fruitful place to look because the prospectors believe that there's some geological similarities to South Africa. So that's just like an educated guess from the 1800s. So people in the mining world are already focused on Arizona at this point and George and William are now, the rich guys are now under the impression that Philip and John have found that sought after vein of diamonds there and that they need to invest in order to find more.
Speaker 2:
[48:14] I'm not a geologist. I meant to tell you that.
Speaker 1:
[48:16] Excuse me.
Speaker 2:
[48:17] 10 years ago. But is it, and you're not either, but is it possible that you'd find a diamond mine and a ruby mine and a garnet mine, like all those things together?
Speaker 1:
[48:28] You're being too sensible.
Speaker 2:
[48:30] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[48:30] You'd ask that question.
Speaker 2:
[48:32] My mistake.
Speaker 1:
[48:32] So let's talk a little bit about Hot Philip here. He had been born in Kentucky. He has a wife and family there, though it sounds like he left them to travel to the Gold Rush in the West, which seems like a lot of them did. He does send back money periodically, but who the fuck knows what that means. He had settled in San Francisco and in the late 1860s, after the Gold Rush had died down, he took a job as a bookkeeper at that company that makes rock drills out of industrial diamonds. So that's how he got a hold of them. These drills are used for mining other stones, and there he learned a bit about different grades of diamonds and where they come from. So knowing everything that he does, he goes first to London, where he buys all of those uncut stones that George will later see in the bag. Those stones are mostly industrial grade diamonds with a few nice gemstones mixed in. And after returning to the US, he meets up with his cousin John in St. Louis, and together the two travel through Arizona where they buy the telltale garnets from a Native American. So they mix all the stones up, shake it up like a shake and bake, and then they bring that bag to where we were in the beginning of the story, to George's doorstep with the intention of enticing him to invest. The plan works. George and William, the banker, and George, tell Philip and John that they insist on being allowed to invest in their new diamond venture.
Speaker 2:
[49:51] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[49:52] You have to include us. I looked in the bag.
Speaker 2:
[49:54] Yeah. Listen, I did all the things you told me not to do.
Speaker 1:
[49:58] You must. They say they can help raise the capital that the men need to establish a new mine and can help provide the security they need to defend against the made up Native Americans and the made up mine. Philip says he's unwilling to part with controlling interest in his mining venture, but he'll allow George and William to invest. Very generous of him.
Speaker 2:
[50:16] Very kind, yes.
Speaker 1:
[50:17] Before proceeding though, William the banker insists on sending a scout to the area to make sure the diamonds are real. He at least has some forethought into the legitimacy of this whole fucking plan. So Philip and John say that's fine, but they make the scout wear a blindfold for the journey so he can't tell where it is because he doesn't want to reveal the exact location yet until he has the money. So William chooses a gold miner named David D. Colton to accompany the men and like everyone pretty much in the US., he's never seen a diamond field in his life, so he doesn't really have a point of reference for it. So maybe he's not the best guy to go.
Speaker 2:
[50:54] And they're going to build a little diamond field for him?
Speaker 1:
[50:58] Yeah, I mean, essentially, yeah, they take him on a train, they don't go to Arizona, they go to Wyoming instead, and then they put him, I think, on a horse and they blindfold him and essentially just walk him around for a long time blindfolded on a horse. You could not pay me to go blindfolded on a horse. That's for three days.
Speaker 2:
[51:15] Oh, no.
Speaker 1:
[51:15] You could not fucking pay me for an hour.
Speaker 2:
[51:17] Back then it was the only option.
Speaker 1:
[51:19] Not the blindfold part, though.
Speaker 2:
[51:21] Oh, the blindfold part.
Speaker 1:
[51:21] I'll do the horse.
Speaker 2:
[51:22] Yeah. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:
[51:23] I don't want to. I'm not, like, begging to, but, like...
Speaker 2:
[51:26] Got it. You're basically just having to feel how to ride that horse correctly.
Speaker 1:
[51:31] Right.
Speaker 2:
[51:31] Yeah, that's scary.
Speaker 1:
[51:32] No, that's... I get car sick.
Speaker 2:
[51:34] Lot of trust issues there.
Speaker 1:
[51:35] So when they take the blindfold off, this gold miner finds himself on a 7,000-foot-high mesa in the middle of a vast wilderness, they walk for a bit and come to what looks like an ant hill shimmering with diamond dust. They dig for a few hours with pocket knives and they each find several diamonds and a few other precious stones. So once they're back in California, the gold miner's like, it's fucking legit. He takes the stones to a jeweler who again says they're worth a lot of money and if you found this there, then there's got to be a lot more. So just like nobody fucking knows what they're talking about. Everyone's bullshitting.
Speaker 2:
[52:11] Everyone's bullshitting and then it's that thing of like, if I did that and got the confirmation, I would go, okay, now somebody know blindfolds.
Speaker 1:
[52:18] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[52:19] Well. Because now we know.
Speaker 1:
[52:20] Yeah, right, but then they'd know where it is and they wouldn't have to pay him. You know, I don't know. I 100% agree.
Speaker 2:
[52:25] I'm trying to scam solve here. It's not going to work because this already happened 100 years ago.
Speaker 1:
[52:30] More than that.
Speaker 2:
[52:31] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[52:31] What David doesn't know is that Philip or John, one of them had simply scattered some more of those London diamonds in that spot while he was still blindfolded. So they walked him up. And then they were like, come on down.
Speaker 2:
[52:43] And he's like, plink, plink, plink. Is it starting to rain?
Speaker 1:
[52:46] Diamonds?
Speaker 2:
[52:47] Diamonds.
Speaker 1:
[52:48] So once David, the mining scout, tells William George the diamond field is legit, the two rich dudes get really excited and they know they're going to have to raise some serious capital. And as we know, another classic hallmark of a scam is urgency. So William and George think that at any moment, some other prospector or trapper or just any dude on the street could come across this unclaimed diamond field and take it for themselves. Because nobody owns it except the Native Americans, of course. So they think they have to raise enough money to open a brand new diamond mine and fund an army to protect it and they have to do it fast. When this and you get stupid when you're doing stuff fast, you know.
Speaker 2:
[53:26] And also it's so much money.
Speaker 1:
[53:27] Right. So it requires a trip to New York to get investors on board. And in New York, the diamonds are again appraised by fucking the founder of Tiffany and company, Mr. Tiffany. And he values them at at least $150,000. And in today's money, he gets it wrong too.
Speaker 2:
[53:46] Oh, does he?
Speaker 1:
[53:46] Yeah, like I think I think everyone gets it wrong and keeps getting it wrong. And no one wants to be the one who's like, I don't think this is real because what if you're wrong, like three guys ahead of you.
Speaker 2:
[53:54] And like Tiffany J. Tiffany, who got in there and was like, no, these are great. Like, oh, I guess I'll go up against that guy.
Speaker 1:
[54:00] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[54:01] After a while, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:
[54:02] Right. So he says that what they found so far is worth at least $150,000, which in today's money would that put it over?
Speaker 2:
[54:09] Is that $3.1 million?
Speaker 1:
[54:10] $3.5 million? Karen Kilgariff?
Speaker 2:
[54:13] I'm learning.
Speaker 1:
[54:14] Yeah. So now the New York investors believe that this tiny sample from this vast diamond field is worth millions. But again, they're wanting to do their due diligence and send their own mining expert just to be sure. So Philip, the main hot guy, agrees that he'll do this if they give him an upfront investment of $650,000, which is worth almost $18 million today. Oh, shit. And she says, we'll buy him and the cousins out of any, like I'll show you where it is with the money.
Speaker 2:
[54:45] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[54:46] And it seems like everyone forgot that at the beginning of the scam, Philip claimed he would never let go of a controlling stake in the mine. It's like, oh, you're now willing to do it? Even though now you know it's worth so much more?
Speaker 2:
[54:55] Everyone forgot including Philip.
Speaker 1:
[54:57] Yeah, red flag.
Speaker 2:
[54:58] He didn't track that.
Speaker 1:
[54:59] So they basically agree to it. Before Philip can take the group on the trip, he says he and his cousin need $200,000 up front of that $650,000. The investors agree to these terms. And so with that $200,000, because they're already knowing they're going to get $650,000 total, the cousins go back to Europe and buy $50,000 worth of the worst diamonds in Amsterdam. What that trip. And then they seem to blow a decent chunk of the rest on nice hotels, meals and entertainment. Hey. Take me there.
Speaker 2:
[55:30] Can we bring that picture back up again? What it would be like? He's like, let me take you to Amsterdam. Do you like Sir Lloyd's Day?
Speaker 1:
[55:37] You know who he looks like? Rory Scovel.
Speaker 2:
[55:40] Oh, Rory Scovel. No, he doesn't.
Speaker 1:
[55:42] Yes, he does. Look, he looks just like Rory Scovel. That's funny.
Speaker 2:
[55:46] It's because Rory crosses his arms all the time.
Speaker 1:
[55:48] He does love to cross his arms like that. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[55:50] That's so funny.
Speaker 1:
[55:52] All right. Okay, so they go, they party in Amsterdam. They bring back a bunch of fucking cheap ass diamonds. So Philip now takes the investors and the mining expert. They have selected back to the High Mesa, which turns out to be a mountain that is now called Diamond Peak. And I can show you a photo. So it's like that. So you just throw diamonds at that and everyone finds them. I mean, it's so gorgeous.
Speaker 2:
[56:11] It's amazing.
Speaker 1:
[56:12] Probably really hot.
Speaker 2:
[56:13] It's very cool.
Speaker 1:
[56:15] So Diamond Peak is actually only about 15 miles from the railroad stop. But as I said, he made them walk around blindfolded for days and days. And at this point, one of the cousins has clearly had time to go plant more stones. And once they're there, everybody digs around with pickaxes. Everyone finds diamonds and other precious stones. And so at this point, the investors are like, okay, we believe you and we're ready to give you the rest of the money. And at this point, John, the surly, quiet cousin bows out of the whole scheme and makes himself scarce with his remaining money. He's kind of smart. He's like, don't be greedy. Get it and go.
Speaker 2:
[56:51] Yeah, this can't last.
Speaker 1:
[56:52] So he has about $30,000 left after his romp through Europe. So he skedaddles on $30,000, which in today's money, 1.8, 836,000. So that's enough to live off of the rest of your life back then.
Speaker 2:
[57:06] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[57:07] Shit was like a fucking penny.
Speaker 2:
[57:08] A cup of coffee was three cents.
Speaker 1:
[57:09] Exactly. And Philip takes his remaining $450,000, which is about 12 million today. His cousin got, he should have got more. And he pretends that he's really upset that he got such a small amount of money. Like, well, I guess you guys bested me.
Speaker 2:
[57:24] Oh, my field of diamonds.
Speaker 1:
[57:27] 12 million dollars. These investors are so stoked. They start, you know, setting up shop. They open an office in San Francisco. They display some of the gems that have been found at this new and mysterious diamond field, thinking it's like the first one in the fucking US. But they don't sell any additional interest in the property because they want to keep all the profits for themselves. They're greedy about it and they just can't do that. Then a geologist named Clarence King, who would go on to form the US. Geological Survey, which you're in, of course, My favorite. and who had just finished a geological expedition in the exact same area where this mine was supposed to be, or supposedly was, went into the investors mining expert on a train. Just a coincidence. It's bad fucking news for everybody. The odds. Well, everyone's a fucking miner back then.
Speaker 2:
[58:13] Yeah, I guess that's true. There's a lot of experts because there's a lot of kind of shit that people are trying to do.
Speaker 1:
[58:18] Exactly. The mining expert had been promised a small share in the land, but he had already sold off his portions, so he actually doesn't give a shit about keeping it a secret, like everyone else does. He tells this guy Clarence all about the diamonds and other precious gems in this one particular area of Colorado. And Clarence, our expert, is like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Bullshit. He calls bullshit on the whole thing. He had just studied this area. He knows it's impossible that was found, but he has to go see for himself. So he takes the train to the general area he's heard about and asks some local shepherds to tell him where a bunch of random San Franciscans and New Yorkers had been digging lately. Have you seen a lot of dudes lately? Where are they? Where were they?
Speaker 2:
[58:58] A lot of pinstripes.
Speaker 1:
[58:59] Yeah. Probably, you know, slipsum of 20.
Speaker 2:
[59:01] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[59:01] The shepherds point him to the exact spot near Diamond Peak. And once there, Clarence discovers multiple kinds of diamonds that are clearly from different locations. Rubies, garnets, sapphires, emeralds, and amethysts, which, as Clarence puts it in a letter to the so-called mining expert, who really only ever knew about gold, calls it, quote, an association of minerals impossible of occurrence in nature. Meaning they don't fucking grow together.
Speaker 2:
[59:26] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[59:27] Duh.
Speaker 2:
[59:27] Oh, it's a treasure field.
Speaker 1:
[59:29] They were almost like too greedy, our hot guy, because it's like, just put the diamonds in there. It's enough. Right.
Speaker 2:
[59:34] That kind of like mixing it up. And I mean, getting people excited, it makes sense for the bag. But then to source them all in one place, it's like, I flunked out of college, and I know that ain't.
Speaker 1:
[59:44] You knew. I mean, they're lucky they didn't get caught earlier. He says he finds diamonds in places where it would be impossible for them to be like a tree stump. They had just thrown them around. And his assistant even finds a little polished, like, diamond ready for jewelry use, like the ones we see in rings, which must have been accidentally mixed in with the other stones where they bought them for cheap and then threw them. And it's like, here's a fucking cut diamond. Like, this is impossible.
Speaker 2:
[60:11] But also, why would they leave it all behind? Like, this is our special thing, just in case somebody went and checked. It's so weird to me, because there is value in those. They are mining for stuff. Like, it's not like...
Speaker 1:
[60:24] I think they, like, left them there so when those investors come back, they don't realize they've been had. But someone else could have found them at the same time. No, it's very weird.
Speaker 2:
[60:32] I'm going to mine that gem field.
Speaker 1:
[60:34] Right. Clarence sends a telegram to the investors at their brand new San Francisco office. He's like, I can't let these guys, you know, he says, quote, I have hastened to San Francisco to lay before you the startling fact that the new diamond fields upon which are based such large investments and such brilliant hope are utterly valueless. That's way to say that you got fucking face. And yourselves and your engineer, the victims of an unparalleled fraud, end quote. So by this point, the new mining company has been huge news, like this shop they set up, especially in San Francisco. So it's even bigger news when the whole thing turns out to be an elaborate scam. I'm sure so many people were like stoked to read, like it's just gossip mags about miners or about investors.
Speaker 2:
[61:19] Because you know that one of them went down there with this pocket watch in his vest pocket and was like, boys, I'm going to open this office.
Speaker 1:
[61:27] Yeah, he's got those like sock garters on and shit. Diamonds in his sock garters.
Speaker 2:
[61:31] Yeah, rich guy in all over the place.
Speaker 1:
[61:33] That's right. So the story runs in the San Francisco bulletin and the whole thing just comes crashing down. But by this point, John and Philip are later days. They're gone.
Speaker 2:
[61:45] He shaved that mustache, filled in the hole. It's over.
Speaker 1:
[61:49] I got some filler. Yeah. Ultimately, only one of the investors, a man named William Lent, he's the only person that's not too embarrassed to try to track Philip down and get some of his money back. Everyone else is so shame that they don't want to even make it a bigger deal. They just want to quietly go away. I got had, that's the end of it.
Speaker 2:
[62:07] Because I think maybe in that business, if they get had, then they're just the idiots forever. They can't go back and be like, well, let's make another deal.
Speaker 1:
[62:15] Totally. No one believes in them anymore. This guy William Lent is probably the most motivated since he had bought out several investors and was on the hook at that point in Philip's scheme for $300,000 which in today's money.
Speaker 2:
[62:30] I'm going to say $710,000.
Speaker 1:
[62:33] $8 million, Karen.
Speaker 2:
[62:34] Oh, wait.
Speaker 1:
[62:36] What? What did you say? $700? No.
Speaker 2:
[62:38] I said it wrong. I said it wrong.
Speaker 1:
[62:40] I heard it wrong. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[62:43] You heard the seven. You're like, we're there.
Speaker 1:
[62:44] I heard what I wanted to hear.
Speaker 2:
[62:45] We got there. I mean, listener, if you've just joined us, first of all, we've been playing this stupid game for 10 years and I am not a winner of this game usually at all.
Speaker 1:
[62:54] No, you got closer I think this time than ever.
Speaker 2:
[62:57] Than ever. Because usually my brain goes like crazy and then it's like, save $52 million.
Speaker 1:
[63:02] I think I've gotten close or correct one time and then every other time was so far off, it's embarrassing and I would, I'd be like, these investors and not go after my money.
Speaker 2:
[63:11] Let's put down the hubris around not only in today's money, but all the jewels in our lives.
Speaker 1:
[63:16] Truly. Like a diamond ring that I forgot to put on. Okay. Ultimately, this investor tracks Philip down. He had skedaddled to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, your favorite place to summer.
Speaker 2:
[63:29] It's so nice.
Speaker 1:
[63:30] Where he's back with his family. So he didn't ditch his family. And he's bought 500 acres of land and has opened the first store in town that has plate glass windows. Like he's got the money to spend on plate glass windows at this point.
Speaker 2:
[63:43] And back then in that era of America, it was all swindlers that opened a store with plate glass windows and built their empires. It's all on the foundation of lying.
Speaker 1:
[63:54] Your great great great grandfather that you're so proud of, that sets you up for life with the fucking trust fund. He was a scammer.
Speaker 2:
[64:00] He was an absolute human rights exploiter.
Speaker 1:
[64:05] Sorry, enjoy your money.
Speaker 2:
[64:06] My own grandfather, who was a cop in San Francisco, totally crooked, got rich, then his wife, the widow, donated all of it to the SPCA.
Speaker 1:
[64:17] Girlfriend, how much?
Speaker 2:
[64:19] Like enough, a crooked cop level amount to be like, oh, we could have lived in, and my mom and I used to talk about it all the time.
Speaker 1:
[64:26] The Kilgariff fortune.
Speaker 2:
[64:28] We could have been. Neck and tender.
Speaker 1:
[64:29] Is it the Kilgariff fortune or the, or your mom's side?
Speaker 2:
[64:31] Night.
Speaker 1:
[64:32] The Night Fortune.
Speaker 2:
[64:33] The Night Fortune.
Speaker 1:
[64:35] I didn't know that was her last name. That's amazing. K or N?
Speaker 2:
[64:38] K.
Speaker 1:
[64:39] That's good. Okay, so play class windows. Philip has plenty of cash left when this guy comes after him to hire a lawyer. And ultimately, he settles with Lent for $150,000. So half of what he had taken him for.
Speaker 2:
[64:52] Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:
[64:52] And so he still has money left over. And in the end, his net profits from the hoax are $520,000. So essentially with the lawyer paying this guy back, he's got away with about in today's money, $10 million. Whoa. Done.
Speaker 2:
[65:07] Just worth it. Worth it. Absolutely. He would do it again.
Speaker 1:
[65:10] 100%.
Speaker 2:
[65:11] God damn.
Speaker 1:
[65:12] Yeah. After the settlement, Philip decides to open a bank. And this is where ultimately karma comes back to bite him in the ass.
Speaker 2:
[65:19] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[65:20] So there are two competing banks in town. And the owners of one of those banks challenges Philip to a duel. They were still doing duels then.
Speaker 2:
[65:29] Great.
Speaker 1:
[65:29] Like say no. Such a fucking dude thing to do.
Speaker 2:
[65:32] They got to do it.
Speaker 1:
[65:32] Hey, I want to shoot at you. You want to shoot at me?
Speaker 2:
[65:34] Yes, I do.
Speaker 1:
[65:35] I think I'm going to survive it. I think I will. So let's just do this.
Speaker 2:
[65:38] Both dead.
Speaker 1:
[65:40] Philip shoots his competitor in the arm, but the competitor's dueling partner sneaks up behind Philip and shoots him in the back, killing him.
Speaker 2:
[65:48] That's cheating.
Speaker 1:
[65:49] Such cheating. So at the age of 48, in 1878, Philip dies. Philip's cousin and co-conspirator John Slack is never heard from again.
Speaker 2:
[65:59] So smart.
Speaker 1:
[66:00] This is why we have to do the Ancestry DNA test. I want to know whose fucking great-great-grandpa this is in Europe.
Speaker 2:
[66:07] You want to do other people's Ancestry DNA test.
Speaker 1:
[66:09] I want them to do it. Yes.
Speaker 2:
[66:11] Everyone's got to do it.
Speaker 1:
[66:12] There's some reports that he moved to New Mexico and became a coffin maker. So if that sounds familiar, your great-great-grandpa, let us know. That is the story of the great diamond hoax.
Speaker 2:
[66:23] Incredible. I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1:
[66:25] I had neither and it worked. You guys, follow your dreams.
Speaker 2:
[66:29] It pays. Follow your diamond cheating dreams.
Speaker 1:
[66:32] Just get a scam, make it good, leave immediately.
Speaker 2:
[66:36] Get out right before the peak.
Speaker 1:
[66:37] Wait a second. Should we be listening to our own advice?
Speaker 2:
[66:41] All right. Well, guys, this has been 10 years. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:
[66:45] Thanks for letting us get away with this for 10 years. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2:
[66:49] Go find your diamonds. But if someone shows you a bag of diamonds that says, don't look in here and then you do, those aren't real diamonds.
Speaker 1:
[66:55] That's right. But you are. You're the real diamond of this story.
Speaker 2:
[66:58] Stay sexy.
Speaker 1:
[66:59] Don't get murdered.
Speaker 2:
[67:00] Goodbye.
Speaker 1:
[67:01] Elvis, do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2:
[67:10] This has been an Exactly Right production.
Speaker 1:
[67:12] Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
Speaker 2:
[67:15] Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 1:
[67:17] This episode was mixed by Liana Squillacci.
Speaker 2:
[67:20] Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1:
[67:23] Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
Speaker 2:
[67:25] And follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1:
[67:28] Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2:
[67:33] And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.
Speaker 1:
[67:35] And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show.
Speaker 2:
[67:41] Goodbye.