Broken

dressing dressing oh french dressing exactly oh that's good i'm aj jacobs and my current obsession is puzzles and that has given birth to my podcast the puzzler something about mary poppins exactly this is fun you can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears listen to the Puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm ready to fight.

Oh, this is fighting worse.

Okay, I'll put the hammer back.

Hi, I'm George M. Johnson,

a best-selling author with the second most banned book in America.

Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back.

Part of the power of Black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know? We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
My name is Brendan Patrick-Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J.
Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J.
Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees.
Listen to Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are your ears bored? Yeah.
Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say, ¿qué? Yeah. Then tune in to Locatora Radio Season 10 today.

Okay!

Now that's what I call a podcast.

I'm Diosa.

I'm Mala.

The host of Locatora Radio,

a radiophonic novella.

Which is just a very extra way of saying,

A podcast!

Listen to Locatora Radio Season 10

on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Previously on Happy Face.

Keith fell in high school. I believe it was 25 feet.

When they interview killers, they have found that a large percentage of them damaged their frontal lobe before they were 22, changes their whole personality.

Keith's father, Les, was a very resourceful, ingenious man, but he could be a monster. He was horrible.
I hated him. Les told him, this is the way what you're going to say in court for the mobile part.
So he lied in court. Absolutely he did.
He dragged me to a nursing home to visit one of his hunting buddies. He said, my friend Smitty's not doing too good with his lung cancer, Keith.
Talk to him, son. Nobody likes to die alone.
I never feared a dead person after that. One of the few people that Keith opened up to about his childhood was psychologist Al Carlyle.
So even by the age of eight, there was a lot of anger. You do me wrong, I was bound and determined to get even.

No, not really. So you're intelligent.

I'm very intelligent, but I just didn't adapt myself to it.

I received a letter a week before he got arrested.

It said, Rose, what I did is bigger than O.J. Simpson.

That I'll probably be in hell forever.

Keith. In the pines where the sun

don't ever shine

I would shiver

the whole

night through

The subconscious mind often knows the truth long before we do. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is Happy Face.
I was driving in a car down the road, and this was after your dad and I were separated. Not officially divorced.
But we were separated. And they had on the news that they were searching for the Green River Killer.
And I go, hmm, I wonder if that's Keith. Why did I say that? But I think you internally know things that you don't state, you don't acknowledge.
So intuitively. I just said it out loud, I go, hmm, I wonder if that's Keith.
And then I gasped, like, why did I think that? I don't know. Because I think by the time we were separated, I had so many more pieces of the puzzle, and and I was starting to connect things because before it was I got a piece here and a piece here.
I think I got enough pieces that I was beginning to connect it. Melissa also remembers having thoughts she couldn't explain.

There was a time where I actually had a vision of my father behind bars. And there was nobody I could tell to because nobody would believe me.
It was when I was in seventh grade. I was walking to school and I had a mental image pop up in my mind of my father being behind the glass and having a telephone.
And my stomach sunk and I felt sorrow and sadness. I just remember thinking that was a very intense emotion attached to the vision.
From I, The Making of a Serial Killer by Jack Olson. Dawn was coming, and pretty soon the traffic would be too heavy for me to unload her on the shoulder.
I thought back to when I first met her and loved

her and wanted her for all time. I needed to do one more killing and then end this murder machine for good.
I put my fist against her throat for the last time. Just before she passed out, I told her, You're number eight

And yes

I will get away with it

She didn't breathe again. It's especially hard for Melissa to process some of her seemingly happy memories now, even something as harmless as watching television together.
Growing up with my dad, something that we used to do together is we used to watch true crime shows. Even when I was like a young girl, I remember him sitting on the brown velvet couch, and I would crawl up on his lap, and then because he was so tall, I would actually crawl up on the back of the couch and sit on his shoulders, and we would watch like Unsolved Mysteries.
I remember that was, seemed to be our favorite show. And I would always be terrified at the end of the program as a young girl thinking, oh my gosh, there's a million ways I could be abducted.
And like just terrified, absolutely terrified. As you're sitting on the...
that could have saved her life. I was analyzing this.
And ironically, I think my father was analyzing how to get away with murder. And what tools did the detectives have? It is eerie to me to see my timeline of events and my father's timeline of his murders.
Because there's moments where we were together and then knowing he had just committed a murder and now was taking me to McDonald's like it was nothing. How was he able to do that? Soon after my parents' divorce, my dad would spend summer vacations with us.
And during his visitations, he would say things that were alarming, were odd and bizarre and explicit. Like what? And was it targeted towards you? Yeah, he would target it towards me.
I didn't see my brother and my sister getting the same treatment. Maybe because I'm the oldest, I was his confidant.
It was just peppered throughout our conversations, these things he would say that were startling. He would say, I know how to commit the most perfect murder.

And how old were you?

I was a young woman.

I was in my early teens.

And I remember thinking, this is odd.

But it was one of the first times I heard him say something like that.

He would say, I would cut the buttons off of her jeans so that my fingerprints wouldn't be on them.

I would then wear my cycling shoes so that I wouldn't leave a sole print in the dirt.

And then I would make sure her belongings were other places.

From I, The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olson.

I drove to a spot on the downhill side of Highway 14,

on the Washington State side of the Columbia Gorge,

across the river from where I threw Tanya Bennett's body in Oregon.

I carried her over past a guardrail and some garbage sacks

and pitched her down a 15-foot embankment.

I stared at her crumpled body in the weeds

and thought how she'd only lasted five days with me. What a waste.
1995, the year Keith Jesperson was arrested, was already an incredibly traumatic one for Melissa for a variety of reasons. To get further insight into what she was going through, we traveled to meet with her high school boyfriend, Nick.
We're close to Shadle. So this is where I went to high school in 1995 when I heard the news about my dad.
I was going to this school. was dating a guy named Nick he was actually my first boyfriend he um when I started my freshman year here he was in my English class and he was just actually kind of similar to my dad in the sense that he was a jokester he was funny everybody laughed he was charismatic he just seemed to have an edge and like I thought that he was a jokester.
He was funny. Everybody laughed.
He was charismatic. He just seemed to have an edge.
And like I thought that he was a misunderstood person. I was out to prove that people didn't get him right.
And my friends and everybody said that he's bad news. Why? What was his reputation? He had been arrested.
I had heard rumors about drug deals. He had a pager.
He had money all the time, cash all the time. He had a money clip with lots of hundred dollar bills.
I found that appealing. He asked me to dance that fall and before I knew it he just became a part of my life you know and I got pregnant.
I got pregnant my freshman year.

Something was off with my body, and I could just tell something was up.

And so I got a pregnancy test, and I went into the bathroom stall here at Shadle right here.

It was after classes, and the pregnancy test turned positive.

And I was alone and thinking, holy like what do I do how did he react to finding out you were pregnant not well not well at all he didn't handle it well I mean like he's a teenage boy too so like I'll give him that but I didn't handle it well either. I was in panic mode at that point.

Once I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified, had no idea what to do.

I couldn't tell my mom.

I felt like if I told my mom, she would think I was a whore.

And so right after I found out that I was pregnant

is when the news hit about my dad.

With her mother and siblings living in poverty, Melissa found herself once again back in her grandmother's basement, young and scared and having to face a really difficult choice. You only have, I believe it's 12 weeks.
And every week that would pass, it was just like getting closer to that deadline and the pressure was building. But also at the same time, while I was going through that, I was learning about my dad and his crimes.
And now we're living in the basement of my grandmother's house. That's where Nick actually became a really critical part in my life because he had a car.
He would actually come to the north side of town and come pick me up and take me to school. He made it so much more convenient to get to school.

When I was in my relationship with him, it was a very dysfunctional relationship. It was extreme

highs and lows and when things were good, they were good. When things were bad, they were

Thank you. my relationship with him it was a very dysfunctional relationship it was extreme highs and lows and when things were good they were good when things were bad they were extremely bad physical and um he was very possessive of me he would hold my when we walk around high school he would hold my belt loop i can just like he always had his hands on me.
He was always claiming me with his face. And we were constantly together.
I never had a break. It was a very codependent, abusive relationship, I would say.
From I, The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olson

I went back to my truck and rehearsed the lies I planned to tell when I was arrested. I took myself back to when I killed Tanya and tried to figure out what made me cross the line into murder.
Was it the things I read about in the detective magazines? Arson? Animal abuse? Did I kill to make up for a wasted life? For my own fuck-ups? Was it dad's fault? My brother's? My mother's? It was too easy to blame the rest of the family. Maybe I was just a no-good son of a bitch that got off on killing women.
Maybe it was my nature. I was living a nightmare and it became my only option in my mind when I came home one day, saw my sleeping bag on the cot and thought a crib does not fit here.
Next to a cot, I just couldn't see it. And that's when the choice was made for me.
I don't see how a baby bed could be right there and I couldn't bear the thought of being financially dependent on Nick or welfare like my mom was. So I felt like the only option for me to break out of this poverty was to not not have the baby.
If anybody says 1995 some people people will think O.J. Simpson.
Some people will

think, you know, Menendez Brothers or something like that. I think of the time I was in that dark

bathroom stall seeing I was pregnant and the news hitting of my dad and losing everything

in my life. I really thought everything was against me.
Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.
Arapa way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth.
Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.
Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Did you know that companies hire the most in the first two months of the year, or that nearly half of workers are worried about being left behind? I am Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's editor-at-large for Jobs and Career Development, and my show, Get Hired, brings you all the information you need to, well, get hired.
People are forming opinions of you even before you log into the Zoom or walk into the room, And so you really have to think about what is it I want to display. You don't plant a garden and then just walk away and expect it to thrive.
You are in there pulling out the weeds. You're pruning it.
You're watering it. It's the same thing with your network.
You should always be in there actively managing your network. If you don't feel confident to say a number, even admitting that to a recruiter is going to be far better than saying, well, what is your budget for the role? A lot is in the follow up, right? Don't wait to follow up.
Whether you're a new grad, an established professional, or contemplating a career change, Get Hired is for you. Listen to Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you like to listen.
Why would you do that to me when I thought we were friends?

We are friends.

Los Angeles, 2021.

A friendly neighbor appears out of nowhere and promises to make all my dreams come true.

Let's not forget that David Bloom was a professional con artist, so you didn't stand a chance.

But my dreams soon turned into a nightmare. Bloom generally targeted people with money.
And I was not alone. He took over 100 people for over $15 million.
One of the victims was his own grandmother. I was married to David for almost 10 years.
It was insane. I was barely functioning.
And I just had this realization that he will not stop until he kills me. Getting a con artist to pay for their crimes isn't easy.
Charge David Blum! I'm Caroline DeMore. Listen as I take down my scammer on Once Upon a Con on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This milestone in a big way. In this special episode, Peloton yogi Chelsea Jackson-Roberts shares how yoga has taught her to stay grounded and present while balancing motherhood and self-care.
I can't control my partner. I can't control my child.
I can't control anyone outside the way that I govern myself in this world. And the celebration doesn't stop there.
We'll continue this milestone with Dr. Lauren Mims, who joins me to discuss the powerful yet sometimes challenging transition from girlhood to womanhood for Black femmes.
Together, we explore how we navigate this transformative journey with strength and grace. Black girlhood is giggling.
It's sisterhood. But it is also, I think, focusing on learning how to cope with really difficult things that are happening.

With insights like these, this 400th episode celebration is one for the books.

Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As Melissa began to put the pieces of her past back together, after more than 20 years, she decided to visit Nick.
Maybe to confront him, maybe for closure. It was hard to tell.
Maybe just to remember. How far are we from the house? We're just about a minute away.
Okay. I just haven't

seen him for at least 20 years. I'm so nervous.
Your destination is on the left. Oh, right now?

Right there. Oh, God.
Well, it's a cute house. Oh, there he is on the porch.
Oh my God. He sees us.
Okay. He's dressed nice too.
Ah, okay. Hey, Nick.
How are you? Long time no see. How's it going? It's going well.
You have to say.

You do as well.

It's good to see you.

You do as well.

So thanks for agreeing.

Yeah, yeah, come on in.

All right, thanks.

So is this your place?

Yeah, welcome.

Melissa didn't think that Nick would sit down and meet with her.

And when I called him and reached out, he immediately responded with such positivity. The first thing you thought of when you walked through the door was, it was so bright and cheerful and didn't look like a bachelor pad at all.
The house was spotless, almost as if it were staged for a real estate photo. I've got lots of spare room because I'm hoping to get my kids coming soon.
Now you have kids? Yes. I'm working on it.
Working on getting them here. There was something very tidy and cheerful about the house and something very sad, too, because you could feel the absence of his kids.
It's like he had built this house for his children to enjoy, and they weren't there. So, do they live in another state or something? No, they're with their mom right now, and it's a long story.
I was married for seven years, have four kids, and all I want is my weekends,

and I just want the kids to know that I've been trying and that I never stopped and I've never given up,

and whatever their mom says to them,

they're going to know something else someday too.

That's about all I want to say about it right now,

because it's a mess.

Sure, sorry about that.

Oh, it's okay, and life happens. Yeah, and then I got one more spot.
At the end of the tour, we settled down at this impeccably clean dining room table to talk about his past with Melissa. Do you remember? My memory's a little blurry.
Me too on some of that. What do you remember? Maybe you could just tell me what you remember of that time frame.
Well, I remember one day you just coming out and telling me that there was something about your dad you wanted to tell me and you weren't sure if the information was true or what to believe and you told me what you knew. It was shocking to me, but I didn't know what to say or what to do to help you.
At the time it was one murder it was Julie Winningham I didn't even know her name yet and we went to the library. We did several times and we we would look up the articles and I remember you had said you weren't sure what to believe and it was shocking and you also had heard that after he was arrested he had wrote a letter to his family that had stuff in it that you didn't get to know what was in it but you heard that he had he had made a lot of uh statements that would would be admissions and I didn't know what to think either yeah we were just young I was 15 how old were you 16 15 as well you're both same age I remember just being stunned and not sure what to believe well I just I trusted you and I didn't feel judgment from you about it at all well I remember one paper in particular there was a statement from the son of Julie Winningham, the victim, that was towards the end, towards the trial, and that was pretty devastating, where he talked about, obviously, he's torn up and devastated, rightfully so, and wanted my dad to be killed.
He wanted him dead, and I remember thinking, this is really hard. At the, it was a transition.
Like I still loved my dad. I was trying to figure out how to reconcile my mind, these crimes, and then also wanted to not believe it.
And then reading that was hard. So that's what I remember just as you said it.
And it was hard to help you in any way other than just kind of be your friend to listen and be there if I could. You didn't want to believe it.
I remember that. Out of all of the talking that we did, most of it, you didn't want it to be true.
Do you remember meeting him? Yes, once. He was a real nice guy.
Just calm and there was nothing abnormal at all about him. I didn't realize...
Did he intimidate you? Because you were my boyfriend at the time. No.
Or was he just like... No, but he pulled me into the kitchen and asked me how I felt about you.
Oh, really? Yeah, I remember that. And I told him that I cared about you a lot and you were really cool.
And I just told him that it was nice to meet him, and I thanked him, and I tried to keep it.

Cool.

Yeah, because, you know, I was nervous.

I've never met him before, but he didn't intimidate me at all.

He didn't scare me in any way.

I didn't feel any.

Why would I have? From the Oregonian, March 29, 1995, by John Painter Jr. A long-haul trucker told a Clark County Sheriff's Office detective by phone that he strangled Julianne Winningham, 41, while raping her in the sleeper cab of his rig after gagging her with duct tape.
During the autopsy, smoke-like stains were found on parts of her body, suggesting the corpse had been hauled around before being dumped. Keith H.
Jesperson, 40, made his admission Friday to Detective Rick Buckner in a telephone conversation.

In an earlier phone message to Buckner on Thursday,

Jesperson, who is 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds,

said he'd, quote, tried to kill himself a couple of times.

And it hasn't worked.

Not enough pills in the damn country. While Melissa has very strong recollections about what transpired between her and Nick, Nick's memories are much more fond and kinder.
What becomes clear is that they went through a very difficult situation as two young teenagers, and it's still hard as adults. Something that I haven't really talked about a lot, though, is that we got pregnant.
Do you remember that? Yes, and I haven't talked to anybody about that. I tried not to think about it then and it came back years later.
What do you mean? I had a lot of emotions that came from it and it was when I had children later. That's when things came back and that's when I started thinking about it again.
Because I would get too much emotions to think about it. So I didn't.
And I probably should have, now looking back on it, I wish I would have dealt with it better and maybe talk to you more about our options.

And I don't know.

I have no blame.

Like, we're young kids.

Is there a physical side to your relationship?

There was a couple incidents.

Do you remember?

What do you mean?

We had kind of a violent relationship a little bit. There were some aspects that were not healthy.
Probably arguing more than we should about certain things. Not knowing how to talk about it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I remember we had some heated discussions about what we wanted to do and how we were going to move forward. I do remember that.
Yeah. Do you think it was just out of fear? Yeah, probably.
You could tell that there was a pain, a hesitation,

when Nick spoke about his own emotions regarding Melissa's pregnancy.

And it seemed like it was something that deeply bothered him, even now.

Did you follow her father's case at all over the years?

Do you remember?

No, I didn't. Only because I was dealing with my own emotions about stuff with her.
And I then, at that time, I hadn't processed all the way yet anyways. The last time I really thought about you the mostly was when I was first married and had my first kid.
And I was talking to my wife about you. Yeah, no, I got it.
I got it. I won't forget those times.
It's going to be with me forever, of course. It was an impact on my life, too.
Yeah. And like I told you, I cared about you.
So you were one that got away for me. From I, The Making of a Serial Killer by Jack Olson.
My 14-year-old son Jason and my 15-year-old daughter Melissa visited me through glass. And it only made things worse.
The phone connection was bad and the guards rushed me away before we really started talking. I cried as they led me off.
I felt sorry that my kids had to see me this way. I couldn't even tell them I loved them.
I had a feeling I wouldn't see them again. After we left, we spoke a bit about what it was like for Melissa to see Nick again

and what she took away from meeting with him.

I could tell he didn't want to talk about that.

You know, you always tell me hurt people hurt.

And I'm starting to see maybe where his hurt came from. Yeah.
You know, I want the best for everybody. I want people to be, I want to think that people can be reformed.
I want to think that good things can happen to people and that there is redemption. There are changes.
There are

like, you know, I, I want to believe in that. And if it's possible, then I hope he for you And I hope this for me too From the Salt Lake City Tribune, August 21st, 1995.
When Julie smiled, it was like sunshine came out of her mouth. She just loved everybody and everything, her sister Joni says in an interview.
Trucking was her way of life, and she wanted to die on the road. But not like this.
Not to be killed by some monster. With all the evidence against me, it looks like I am truly a black sheep, his March 24th letter reads.
I'm sure they will kill me for this. I'm sorry that I turned out this way, he scrawled.
I've been a killer for five years and have killed eight people, assaulted more. I guess I haven't learned anything.
I can see a spark of belief.

I pray it to be a beautiful thing.

When I found out I was pregnant and all that was happening

and I decided I was going to have an abortion,

I told myself this is going to be a second chance in life.

I'm going to turn my life around and everything's going to be very intentional. I'm going to come up with a plan.
And I promised myself I was going to graduate high school, which I was the first in my family to graduate. And I was going to go to college and I was going to get an education so that I never have to live like this ever again and never be dependent upon a man ever again and I told myself I was going to start over with my life.
So your dad's in prison at the time? Yeah he's at prison because I didn't have anybody to talk to and I didn't want to tell my mom. I wrote him a letter and I said um I vented out like all of my anger about what he did to our family and to the victims' families and how much he's hurt everybody.
And about my sorrow, I explained how alone I felt in my sorrow. I remember the letter being tear-soaked.
I sobbed and released everything that happened to me. I told him I was in an abusive relationship, that I got pregnant,

that I made the difficult choice during the time of his incarceration to have an abortion.

My biggest fear is that I can be like my father.

I look like my father Every night in the woods there I wonder about DNA Sits a lonesome fighter I know I'm not capable of murder I know that I could never cross that line And he screams my name And so I was surprised.

A couple months later, I got a letter from my dad back in response.

And when I opened up the letter,

first he...

He mocks me for feeling sorry for myself.

That's the first part of the letter.

It's just like, I'm having a pity party.

And then the second part of the letter, he said, you deserve toeter, and Will Pearson. Supervising producer is Noel Brown.
Music by Claire Campbell, Paige Campbell, and Hope for a Golden Summer. Story editor is Matt Riddle.

Audio editing by Chandler Mays and Noel Brown.