Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 56: Service Poodle

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Today, we're recapping episode 56, which we named Service Poodle.

Of course we did. Of course we did.
We had to. So this episode came out on February 15th.

Happy Valentine's Day 2017. Let's get into the intro of episode 56.

Hi. Hey.
What's going on? Oh, nothing. How are you? Oh, pretty good.
Hey, this is my favorite murder. That's Karen.
That's right. That's Georgia.
That's right. And this is a podcast where we talk to you about murders that have happened.

What's going on? Well, the thing that people keep on tweeting to us, and when I say keep on, and certainly I want to communicate with people, and I certainly want to know things when it's breaking news. Do I want to know things 300 times from breaking news?

Probably not.

Vincent Lee,

the man from the bus. do I want to know things 300 times from breaking news? Probably not.

Vincent Lee,

the man from the bus that killed that boy that was sitting next to him because he thought he was a demon.

In our cannibal episode.

And it was the most horrifying story,

cannibal or not.

And it seemed to be that the horrifying details got lost in the fact that I

don't know Canadian geography very well. That's really what people got up in arms about.
That's what people are angry about. Listen, I tried to correct my saying of Wooster and apparently I was wrong again.
Listen, I tried. I mean, look, I feel like we might be making a mistake even acknowledging anything at this point.
But that man, Vincent Lee, has now been entirely released. How the fuck? It's how Canada does it.
How the fuck? They've decided that he is rehabilitated and that he is going to go free. It's the way their system is set up.
You know what's interesting is that instead of having a like, like there's a parole board of people who are, I don't know if they're voted or whatever the fuck, but there's a parole board that decides if people stay or go. Why isn't that also a jury of our peers who are like, hell no, I don't want that guy living next door to me.
Well, because I think that's the given. I think that if you asked anybody, do you want a criminal out in society? The answer is no, lock them up forever.
But I think the idea is if you are trying to aim for rehabilitation, especially with this guy who was a complete schizophrenic who just didn't take his meds. He did not know where he was.
He honestly believed a demon was sitting next to him. None of that, of course, is an excuse or makes anything okay, especially for that family.
Yeah. There's also no assurance that you won't kill me right now.
I think that the overall discussion of what is jail for and what is rehabilitation for real, because I think that anybody who feels unsafe wants the answer to be lock them up forever. We never see them again.
Right. It's, you know, I mean, we have gotten so many emails and everybody's response is like what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck but there are tons of articles about the way canadian like the canadian justice system works and that that is the goal is not lock them up and you never see them again and because of that there's a lot of people that are super pissed off about it yeah i mean that's not our goal here either but um i was out on saturday night with vince we got an uber home by a retired cop who was a policeman in compton for years it was so fucking cool and had his service poodle with him, who was the sweetest fucking dog.
It was just like sat on a laps the whole time. So he drops us off at Del Taco.
Oh, what? I mean, we didn't even ask. We love Del Taco.
We were like, I can't go further than this. We're like, all right.
Fine. And so Vincent and I get Del Taco and we're heading home and we're walking across the street and someone pulls over and rolls their window down and i was like oh fuck and he yelled and it's just some random dude by himself you know like at midnight and he yells stay sexy that's crazy i know i mean i had a toxic masculinity shirt on so I don't know if he knew it was me

there you go

or he's like

this is my favorite murder

yeah

girl

he's just shouting you out

he's just fucking shouting at me

that's awesome

and I screamed

again

screamed at him

now that's hilarious to me

because I think you and I talked about that

where you were like

is it

nerdy to wear your own shirt

right

and you clearly made that decision

I made the decision on that shirt because it's a it's a it's a it's a like protest message and it says my favorite murder very small on it and it looked really good on me i love that shirt which one did you get well all right actually it's funny to ask that this is not a a setup. I got just the regular unisex T-shirt size small.

And the next day I emailed our fucking awesome girl at the printful, Kirsten, and was like,

can we get this in women's shirts as well?

Because that didn't fit me very well.

You know how you want certain shirts to fit a well?

So we now have ladies' shirts instead of just unisex.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

Cool.

I like it.

I like that you're personally walking the message around.

Yeah.

That's fun.

I felt pretty cool.

Okay, we are back.

Wow.

Do you have an update, Karen, on Vincent Lee?

There are updates.

He's now living under a different name.

He's been free since 2017 without further incident.

He was found not criminally responsible for murdering Tim McLean on that Greyhound bus. The mother of Tim McLean, Carol Dedele, has been vocal about being unhappy with Lee's release.
She says that's wrong and should never be. In a statement to APTN News, she says Vince Lee committed one of the most horrific murders in Canadian history and has faded back into society.
My son is still dead. End quote.
Which is so sad and true. I mean, like, it is separate from the context.
Just when it stands alone, it is just one of the most horrible things you could hear about. Yeah.
The whole story is horrifying. I can't imagine living through that.
Yeah. I had totally forgotten about that Uber ride I took with two great things, a service poodle and an ex-cop, right? Like, wow.
And then I got yelled at. I love it.
Or like yelled to. Yelled around? Yelled for.
Yelled for. That's it.
A positive. That's a positive yell.
It's the positive. I mean, there's something about going over these old episodes and it is almost like a diary we didn't keep.
And like thinking about it, because at first it was just like, oh God, we fucked so many things up and we did things wrong. And what these things we said that we wish we never said, blah, blah, blah.
But then it's like, but then you have these little nuggets of life of what we were just kind of doing in the day to day that like, yeah, you probably never would have remembered a specific Uber ride, but now you do. And that's so funny and true because like, yeah, I never write a diary.
I always wish I had, but I should have started 10 years ago, but this is kind of that. And it's exciting because we, you and I know now that our lives are about to change so drastically.
So insanely. So insanely.
They already have at this point, episode 56, changed big time, but even more so. We don't know what's coming.
I think that might be a part of it too, looking back. There's a piece of it where we don't know.
Totally. I don't know.
It's so wild. It is.
It is. It only got bigger from here.
I feel like the peak was 2018 through 2020 when life was just bananas. This can't be really happening.
Let's ride this. Wow.
Let's do three cities a weekend on tour and write a book. Yeah, we wrote a book.
And just so many little things. So many things.
Yeah. Crazy.
All right. Okay, now let's get into Georgia's story about Darlie Rudier.
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Okay. First.
So on June 6, 1996, at 2.31 a.m., 9-1-1 dispatchers in Rowlett, Texas, which is a suburb east of Dallas, receives a call from Darlie Roti-Air. She's panicked, and she tells the operator that her home had been broken into and that a stranger had attacked herself and her two sons, Devin and Damon, who were five and six, while they were asleep on the couch.
The person who broke in and stabbed the boys multiple times and slit her throat. So Devin was stabbed twice in the chest with a ton of force and Damon was stabbed half a dozen or more times in the back.
And Darlie, the mom who was sleeping downstairs with the kids, so her throat was slashed and she had a bunch of other wounds. Darlie's husband and the father of the two boys, he was asleep upstairs in bed at the time with their seven-month-old baby boy.
The two boys ended up dying while Darlie was treated at the hospital and released two days later. She had two slice wounds in her right forearm and one in her left shoulder, and her throat had been cut, and the doctor said she survived only because the knife stopped two millimeters short of her carotid artery.
So it doesn't seem like a defensive wound or a self-inflicted wound. She'd be going right up to the verge if that was self-inflicted.
That'd be insane. Exactly.
And then the necklace she was wearing had to be surgically removed from the wound. So it's kind of the only reason it didn't go through the crotted arteries.
Her own necklace savior? Pretty much. When they cut, they cut the necklace in.
So maybe it would have gone deeper. Wow.
Yeah. So Darlie, who's 26 at the time, says that she fell asleep on the couch with the boys the um and the reason she was sleeping downstairs with them is that she was a light sleeper the baby had been waking her up often and as she's sleeping on the couch she's awakened by damon's cries screaming mommy mommy and then she saw a man moving through the kitchen and followed him as he went towards the garage.
And when she got to the utility room, she saw a knife and picked it up. And only then, she said, did she return to Devin and Damon and realize that she had been stabbed as well.
Her husband, Darren, comes downstairs after hearing Darlie cry and scream and begins administering CPR to Devin. And by then, whoever it was had disappeared, so Darren never saw him.
And at the scene, the police find a window screen in the garage has been cut, but the windowsill is undisturbed. Like all the dust and dirt's still there, so no one really jumped out of it or in through it.
And the knife that was used came from inside the house, but also there was a sock with the boy's blood on it dropped a few houses down on the sidewalk. And a few days after leaving the hospital, Darlie shows up at the police station with dark bruises all over her arms, saying that they had come from the attack.
But the doctors who examined her said that the bruises were too fresh to have been inflicted on the night of the attacks. And they say that her wounds are self-inflicted.
But I saw them, and it is like a full bruise from her shoulder down to her wrist. Like, it's not just a couple little light bruises.
It's fucking half of her arm is a gnarly bruise. Yeah.
You're completely convinced she didn't do it to herself. I don't know that.
Yes. Yes.
I don't know how you would have done that to yourself. Right.
But eight days later, on what would have been Devin's seventh birthday, but he died, the family goes to the cemetery, family and friends. And apparently they're having a ceremony to honor Devin because it's his birthday.
And there's a whole two hour thing of them crying and having a whole ceremony and it being a sad thing. But then the news put the only part the news put on as footage was when they're having a birthday celebration following the ceremony in which Darlie is singing, is laughing and spraying silly string on the graves and singing happy birthday.
Remember that fucking video footage? Yes. Everyone was like, what in the fucking fuck? The silly string is like, yeah.
I'll never forget it. She's spraying it at the grave.
It's not even like up in the fucking fuck this silly string is like yeah i will never forget it she's spraying it at the grave it's not even like up in the air i mean whatever it's she's chewing gum and she's laughing and i don't care if you fucking had a ceremony before that and you're crying it's fucking weird and she's and she's just creepy and so days later, she's charged with capital murder. Wait, the one who cut her own throat? Uh-huh.
Or I mean, whose throat was cut? Yeah, throat was cut so deep. So closely.
That it almost cut her two centimeters away from her carotid artery. Millimeters, you said? Millimeters, I don't know.
Crazy. Yeah.
She's arrested for capital murder. The crime scene consultant says that the evidence suggests the crime scene had been staged.
So the prosecution suggests that Roti Air murdered her sons because of the family's financial difficulties as well as postpartum depression from her seven-month-old child. She had never been convicted of anything.
She had never shown abuse towards the kid, didn't have any mental illness, apparently. But they described her as a pampered, materialistic woman with substantial debt, plummeting credit ratings, and little money in the bank who feared that her lavish lifestyle was about to end.
And it's true. She bought, they had a lavish lifestyle for sure, but fucking said to a lot of people.
So San Antonio chief medical examiner testifies that the wound to Rottier's neck came within two millimeters of her crawdad artery. And that was not consistent with self-inflicted wounds he had seen in the past.
But Tom Bevel, who we'll get to, testifies that cast-off blood found on the back of her nightshirt indicates that she had raised the knife over her head as she withdrew it from each boy to stab against. It's the old blood spatter that we...
Right. And let's remember Tom Bevel's name.

Oh, okay. Mm-hmm.
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
Post-it note on Tom Bevel. Mm-hmm.
Okay, so I listened to the 911 call? Mm-hmm. Because of course I did.
Mm-hmm. And I'm about to play the whole thing for you right now.
No, I'm not. And then door slam.
Yeah. My car.
Peeling. Yeah sounds, to me, it sounded a lot like the JonBenet Ramsey 911 call.
Patsy? Patsy Ramsey's like panicked. I'm freaking out.
I can't answer the questions correctly. There's something off.
And the way that it went, when the analysis happened, the me, the I, my baby, her,

like not,

which I'll get to as well.

So it's more,

the 911 call,

she's talking about herself more than the people who need 911 services.

Yes.

And she's answering questions very well until the question is pointed.

And then she freaks out.

You know what I mean?

Like remember,

she was like,

what happened?

And then Patsy just starts screaming, my baby, my baby, baby you know she won't fucking answer the question right um okay so there's this okay so let's get to that there's this fucking incredible blog called that statement dash analysis dot blog spot which i've been to before just to read i read john benet ramsey the patsy ramsey 91 call analysis this guy's really fucking at it, and it's super cool. He examines the entire call and finds a bunch of discrepancies that leads to him thinking that she actually knows more than she's saying.
So a couple of the thing is that she's more concerned with explaining what happened than with the fact that her sons are dying. So she keeps coming to conclusions about, they came in, how did they get in? Why would anyone do this? It's inconsistent.
She can't keep her pronouns or articles straight, which this guy, Statement Analysis Explains, is very weird, such as he says stuff like them and then calls them him and then calls them they, then someone, then it's never like him it's never always him or always a certain person talking about the guy that broke in yeah yeah it's always a different pronoun which i find very or article it's very interesting um and in the call she establishes her alibi um for the fact that so the 911 caller says, so Darlie says that there was a knife in the utility exit. And the 911 caller says, okay, leave it there.
Don't touch it. And Darlie says, I already grabbed it.
And then she says, God, I bet we could have gotten Prince from that maybe. But she's having a panic attack.
She's panicking while she does that, i already grabbed it i already grabbed it and like establishing the fact and then goes back to it later like but sorry in that panic also says we could have gotten prints off of it goes back to it i can't believe i grabbed the knife reminding you i bet we could have gotten prints off of that but imagine someone having hysterical patsy ramsey breakdown during that imagine your children bleeding in front of you and you're talking about where you, that you could have or couldn't have gotten print. She also says like, I bet, I bet this happened.
Like she's establishing, she's trying to convince the 911 operator of what happened. Yeah.
And her husband too. So, so she's trying to convince her husband of what happened while he's administering CPR to his kids.
Instead of asking how they are, she keeps saying, Darren, this thing happened. Can you believe this happened? Someone broke in, Darren, they broke in.
She's trying to convince him of it. She's talking about the crime as opposed to, like the criminal as opposed to the result.
What happened as opposed to, are they okay? Are they alive? What's happening at this moment? And he says the mother accepts the children's death, even while they're still breathing, saying they're dead, they're dead. My children are dead.
And one of them is dead. One of them is still breathing.
I think he's giving him CPR and I think they can tell that he's still Yeah. So she keeps acknowledging their death.
And he was saying,

the guy from this website is saying that,

you know,

parents won't acknowledge their children's death for,

even when saying,

you know,

your kid passed away.

No,

no,

no,

it didn't happen.

I don't believe,

it can't be true.

Right.

That's,

that's a normal parental.

Oh,

sorry.

I feel like I've seen that on some shows or whatever people,

how they know it's fake on the 911 call is that exact thing of when you're on the call, it's always about the hope and help and fixing it, getting it done. Get here quicker.
Why aren't they here yet? Exactly. As opposed to like, let's all on this call decide this is over.
Yeah. She keeps yelling, they're dead, they're dead.
Okay. And then here's the other thing about it.
So she keeps saying, she keeps calling her kids by different things. So it depends on how she's saying they are that she changes.
So at one point she can say they're dead. My babies are dead.
And then when they're still alive, they're called the boys or my children. Changes depending on what state she's saying they're in.
So it's never my babies. It's never the boys.
Never my children. It's always dependent on my babies are dead, period.
There's never my children are dead. It's always my babies.
Then the children the children why would they attack the children they're still you know it's it's just like like she's almost got written her lies these certain ways it's not even it's something rehearsed but it's also the way like the way someone who was legitimately reacting wouldn't say those things they wouldn't stick to it they would stick to it but they would my babies or my children they would stick to one of the whole time yeah i got it yeah um and she can't keep the chronology of her story consistent things keep fucking changing like them him someone those things are not they're supposed to say the same the whole time and because she's doing

the whole thing of like

this must have been what happened

they did this they did that

that she has intimate knowledge of the

killer's intentions and thoughts

why would they do this you know

and explaining it crazy

how long was this fucking 911 call

it's like nine minutes it's like five and a half minutes

did you listen the whole thing

doesn't do nothing for me especially when I know I think they're not. Yeah.
That's even worse when they're lying. I know.
No, it's not worse to me. I don't want to hear someone's genuine grief.
Oh, that's true. But it's almost like, well, anyway, gone.
What? It makes me think of that Sherry Rasmussen thing I was telling you about that was on Case File.

It's an amazing episode.

I think it's like three or four Case Files ago.

And if you haven't listened to it, you have to go listen to it.

But it's this woman who was a cop who killed her.

She was obsessed with this boyfriend who didn't basically want her.

She ended up killing his wife and then basically making sure she would never get caught for it. For years, right? For years.
And then they finally trace it back to her and they have the entire interrogation, which she doesn't think is an interrogation. And they're telling her is not one.
They just need to ask her a couple of questions. And you basically listen to her lie, lie, lie.
And then it slowly breaks down breaks down and like i had to turn it off because

she listening to a person who still thinks that they're lying and getting away with it they're smarter than the person who when it's blatantly obvious it's just like painfully obvious and they're playing the cops are playing stupid like they would never believe stupid yeah so they're going they're just basically saying listen we just need this information and she'd be like, I don't know.

Like she did it the same way every time where she would do this fakie stutter yeah painful that's why i love reading the line for line here like this guy is like this thing they just said those two little like he'll highlight i instead of me or you know what i mean like that's shit that you just don't pay attention to I fucking love that stuff like because you can't control it in the moment right because a normal person and they've and this person studied you know so many normal uh true 911 calls and confessions that here's what people say when they're legitimately going through grief and freaking the fuck out yeah you don't say these other things and here's how you know they're lying so i mean we know the ones that are lying and and he brings up examples of them a lot of the ones that are like it's like this one that is untrue that is proven to be untrue i don't know i think it's fucking awesome it is it's fascinating um okay and here's my favorite part this is the last thing i'll say about it also talks about how, he says, she also talks about how the knife is, quote, the knife was, quote, lying in the garage, like laying in the garage. And then he says, when an inanimate object is reported to be lying, standing, sitting, et cetera, the passive language suggests the subject placed it there.
Knives cannot, quote, lie down, nor stand, nor sit. So when the language is employed, it is a verbal sign that the speaker or the subject is responsible for the placement.
This is commonly seen in murder weapons and in drugs, as in the drugs were sitting on the cabinet, as an example. And it is like, you think of it, it's like, it was doing this thing away from me that I had nothing to do with.
The drugs were just sitting on the cabinet instead of the drugs were on the cabinet. So it's basically like in their mind, they're watching themselves put it on the ground.
So then it's like, it's lying on the ground. Or they're purposely distancing or saying what they would have seen if they weren't part of it, if they weren't involved.
I saw a knife

lying on the ground. Well, it's like, if you weren't involved in that, you would just see

a knife on the ground. A knife on the ground.
Yeah. That's fascinating.
Isn't that interesting?

Yes. That's like that.
Did you ever see that fucking Tim Roth TV show where it was all about

catching lying and micro expressions and all that stuff? No, but I knew I would like that

every time I heard about it. Yes.
That's what that show was like. It was all like, I isn't what lie to me.
Right. Yes.
It's like right now. Don't tell me.
Um, try it. Uh, that, that, and you look up to, you look up one direction when you're telling the truth, remembering, and you look up the other when you're lying, remembering, remember which one, which one is which.
I don't know. But then you end up looking at every single person's like blink or like her eyelash moved.
Yes. Is she lying? It doesn't.
I think those ones don't apply to everything, but language, it makes more sense. You can't control it as well.
Yeah, because you distance yourself from things by saying certain things and it's not rehearsed that you read a script and said, okay, here's what I'm going to say.

And he keeps saying that when you're going from memory, from legitimate memory, you don't stop to say these inconsistencies.

You know?

I fucking love it.

You don't stop to go, we could have gotten prints off the net.

Right.

That's just blatantly fucking.

Or at that point it's like it doesn't matter that's you're you telling me over and over again that someone broke into your house and came at you doesn't matter what matters is getting someone over there right away like you don't need it the 911 operator doesn't need to know that you say it once and that's all the information they need to know yeah and they said like when they when they say 911 what is your emergency it's so there that doesn't have to be any greeting any yeah you know pretenses you just fucking say what your emergency is and she started with a man came into my house this happened I got my throat is slit or whatever and my babies got stabbed like she doesn't even start get someone over here right now my children are dying you know like you don't need this isn't the trial you don't you're not here to tell the story of what just happened which you clearly made up what should be your immediate action is to save my fucking baby get someone fucking as soon as possible yeah all right so remember tom bevel i sure do i put a post-it note on the mental idea of him i saw that um so he stated that the blood stains on her victoria's secret night shirt were quote consistent with cast off blood blah blah blah-ba-dee-blah. He says that cast-off stains on the front indicate that she could not have been lying on the couch when the sons were attacked and that the crime scene was staged because of that.
So Tom Bevel is the dude who is being taken to court and has proven that a bunch of the blood spatter analysis that he testified to and got people fucking found guilty for, a lot of that is incorrect and bunk science. He's the one that made it up, right? Like he basically became a blood spatter expert on his own declaration.
Yeah.

And I don't even know if he thinks that he made it up.

It's almost like he just seems like a cocky son of a bitch who was like,

here's what happens and believed it and became this big time, you know,

prosecuting witness and fucking loved it and kept talking about it.

Now he's the guy from the staircase, right?

Yeah. Yeah.
That basically like at the end,'re just like all of this is yeah thrown out well it's so many so much of that evidence like remember we were talking about the hair evidence uh that's not really conclusive the blood spatter evidence all this shit is like proving to be bullshit all right so there's evidence to suggest that she wasn't the killer.

This article in Texas Monthly by Skip Hollinsworth.

Oh.

It's got the best name.

So several neighbors told police

that they had noticed a dark car

slowly cruising through the area

in the weeks before the crime.

And one even said that the car occasionally stopped near their house, the Reuters, the Reutier's house. And that a private investigator working for Darley's appellate attorney says that Darren, her husband, admitted that in the spring of 96, when his business was in trouble and he was $22,000 in debt, he asked Darley's stepfather if he knew anyone who might break into the family's house as part of an insurance scam.
What the fuck? I know. He admitted this to the reporter, Skip Hollinsworth, who wrote an article about it and said that he confessed to the scheme that this was true.
He asked someone to break into their house to steal shit. So they could make money.
So they could get the insurance money off the items he stole. Right.
Which is like different than having someone killed, but it's not far from it. Well, it's, yes.
It's the willingness to break the law so you can get your ass out of whatever financial problem you're in. And it's knowing that you can hire someone to do a deed for you so that you can get insurance money.
And you're dumb enough to tell people. Which makes me think, if you're dumb enough to tell the father of your wife who ends up getting her throat slit, that doesn't seem cagey enough to me, too.
Oh, on his part? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So anyways, he says that he had discussed it with other people in town. He says there's a possibility I said the same thing in conversation with people that worked around me.
I don't remember what I said, but there's a strong possibility that was on my mind in conversation. I could have said that.
So he is saying that maybe he mentioned to someone that he wanted insurance money. So maybe someone broke in and killed his children and tried to kill his wife.
So it's like, just, I don't know. It's so fucking weird.
So they say it would have been financial trouble. That was his motive.
And he had a 250,000 policy life insurance policy on Darlie.

So maybe the main motive was to kill her.

Why would he kill?

Why would they kill the children though?

Whatever.

But he,

but Darren had an $800,000 life insurance policy on him.

So who's to say that if Darlie was in,

had done it,

why wouldn't she have just killed the husband? Why would she kill her two children? It's fucking confusing. And the policies on the kids was really low.
So it wasn't like they were the main motive. He failed a polygraph test and is shown to be lying to four questions.
The questions were, was he involved in any plan to commit a crime at his house on June 6, 1996?

Did he stab Darlie?

Did he know who planted the sock in the alley?

And could he name the person who stabbed Darlie?

So he failed those four questions. And, but part of the bargain that the high profile lawyers that cost $94,000 to hire for Darley was that they would agree to not go with the original defense attorney's strategy, which was to raise reasonable doubt for Darley by casting suspicion on the husband.
So they were like, we'll represent you or we'll pay you, but you can't suggest that the husband did it.

Which is weird.

So Darlie is convicted of murdering Damon, only one kid.

And on February 4th, 97, she's sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Sorry, really quick.

Did the second kid live?

No, they both died.

Okay.

She was just still alive on that call.

Right. For some reason, it's just one children child i don't understand um it's just so confounding a juror is later expressed regret saying that there were photos of her injuries that never were shown during the trial um and that she felt coerced by other jurors to find Darlie guilty.

The court reporter made 33,000,

3,300 mistakes in the transcript,

which is now as a court reporter.

No,

never a court student.

Oh,

well,

a student,

someone that knows a little bit about it.

You would have never passed your class.

You would never become a court reporter if you made that many mistakes that's an insane amount like that's insane those people have to be like because it's it's what what their writing becomes like it's the only it's the only uh evidence of what happened in that,300. That should be a mistrial alone.
What was she doing? Or he? I don't know. She acknowledged that she had lied to cover what she feared was an irreversible error that would have gotten Darley a new trial.
So, she made these many mistakes and she lied about it. Because she didn't want her to get a new trial? Because she didn't want to get in trouble.
Oh, oh. And she lost her license.
I think that's fair. Yeah.
But she was granted immunity from prosecution by the DA's office, which would have had to, which would have, if she had been, if she had spoken about it, they would have gotten a new trial for Dar darlie so it's all fucked up um so i watched like the first jailhouse interview of darlie and she has that creepy little girl voice of like i've been like the weird little girl voice of like something is not right with your voice you know what i mean oh yeah no i was just thinking maria bamford has a The higher your voice, the angrier you are. Yeah.
Maria Bamford could play this chick really well. I bet you could.
She looks like our friend Gwyneth McCarthy. Oh, wow.
Pretty blonde, looks all American, and then just has this little voice where she's just trying really hard. And it's just so creepy because the interviewer the woman the news one news reporter is female and the way darlie is talking to her is just like very it just seems creepy it's just not right which i know is not a reason why someone killed someone what's the vibe though the vibe is not understanding that that you seem off like the soci, like here's what empathy looks like and I'm trying to do that and I must be so believable.
Oh, so like what? Overly or under? Overly, not even overly, just not authentic.

She's not overdoing it.

It just doesn't seem authentic,

which I will fucking take back if she's found innocent.

Little girl voice.

Oh, and at the end of the interview,

she asks to sing a hymn she used to sing to her sons,

and she sings it straight to the camera,

looking forlornly with her fucking furrowed brow and she does all the like christina aguilera highs and lows not very low not very well but does the like jesus you know like you know no yeah it's fucking weird and she's going straight to camera, trying to look sad.

That's, there you go.

That's all I need.

Do you know what I find weird too?

And this could just be me being an atheist is like when people are like, well, it's okay.

I'm going to see them in heaven.

I'm fine.

Like they're fine with someone dying because they think they're going to see them soon,

which is like, if that's what you believe, fine.

But you should still be mourning the fact that they're dead and they died horrifically.

You shouldn't be like, it's fine.

I'm going to go a goddamn song it's like and and the reporter in the show says she asked to sing a song that she like she can you can tell by the way she says like she didn't just let it play out with her singing she voiceover um she asked us like and she asked us to do this wait is it local or is it like a 2020 it's like a 2020 but it's like late 90s um the other thing is all these people online and there's all these like darlings and darlie's innocent darlie's not innocent and everyone goes to um the silly string at the at the graveyard and how fucking crazy that is and she's laughing and chewing gum and every single time that someone mentions that says well you don't know how someone grieves for their like that's the argument for everything like you can't read into that at all because you don't know how you'd grieve and blah blah blah and it's like that's true for the night of and you're in shock and you don't cry in hysterics but eight days later and you're fucking laughing and don't have a sign of fucking you look really pretty and the news vans are there and they're supposed to be there. Yeah.
And you're celebrating. You're doing a show is what you're doing.
You're not, you're quote celebrating. Well, yeah.
The idea of like, we're going to celebrate his life even though it just ended. Yeah, that doesn't happen for 10 years.

Then 10 years later, like, we're going to celebrate his life. We're going to let some balloons go.
Right. Whatever the fuck.
Yes. It's not like laughter and kind of joy.
Also, all of that indicates a drug or a drink of some kind. Right.
Because there's a bit of separation of like, to me, that's what that sounds like. it reminds me of, remember in the, in the, oh, that fucking horrible case.
No, I'm not doing that. Which one? Tell me, tell me, tell me.
The whatever three. Oh, West Memphis Three.
Yes. Remember that one where the one mother, she, like, once they have to go, she starts getting interviewed and she's clearly fucked up.
She's like drunken on pills. And she's like collapsing.
Yes. Like it's that kind of thing where that it makes perfect sense.
Like I don't expect people to grieve correctly or do anything. And I do expect them to take something to medicate themselves so they don't have to sit in that horrible shit.
And you understand denial being like, I'm not crying because I don't understand. I'm at a hospital around strangers and you're telling me like, this isn't, I'm not at home looking at my children's clothing.
You know, I'm not acknowledging this. This doesn't make any sense right now.
Yeah. You're just in this nightmare world.
Right. All of that is fine.
Right. But it doesn't have an underpinning of celebration and laughter.
Totally. It has an underpinning of like when you can, when someone's like a tragic drunk and you're like, oh no, they're on the verge of tears, but they're like, eh, it's fine.
Everything's fine. Well, the things that remind me, okay, so this happened in June of 96, December of 96 is when fucking JonBenet happened.
And there are really a lot of similarities. Patsy Ramsey going on camera and crying about my babies, which are my baby, hold your babies close.
Same kind of wording and full face of makeup. Looks fucking put together as shit.
Is on it already doing PR. Her lawyers already like get in there and do some PR and like clean the shit up i mean no don't don't i i can't imagine first of all i can't imagine what it'd be like to have a child because it's so goddamn stressful how you would do anything like if i lost a child and then they were like you have to go talk on tv i'd be I will murder you.
Like get the fuck away from me. When one of these two little fucking sleepy furry beings that are hanging out with me right now, my cats, they're not whatever.
That could be taken in a lot of ways. I will fucking, I will be a wreck when these two die.
Of course. For the rest of my fucking life.
And they're not my children. Right.
I don't, it doesn't make any sense to me. So I think what happened is that Darlie and Darren planned something together.
There's no way that he was just oblivious to all of that. No way.
Right? Not if he was already asking people if he could make money by getting his house robbed. He knows insurance scams.
Yeah. He knows what's going on.
Her deep neck wound, I don't think she could have done herself, but you know, it could have someone else who's fucking trying to make it look that way. But who stabs their own children to death? How? Maybe the intruder they paid to come in and do it can.
They're not their own children. But? That's not their own children.
What do you mean? I think they did hire someone to come in.

But they're hiring someone to kill their own children.

You're not saying it's not their children.

You're saying it's not the intruders.

It's not the intruders.

And that maybe Darlie was the only intended victim.

And something went wrong.

Oh.

Because there's so many ways she could have covered it up. She could have just not been sleeping downstairs that night.
You know what I mean? Because the kids were sleeping downstairs. They were doing that on a regular basis.
It was summer. They watched TV late.
She could have just gone to bed and let the kids sleep downstairs if she really didn't. Yeah.
Why did she have to be in the mix at all? Yeah. And why, do you think? Why what? Why do you think she had to be in the mix at all? That doesn't make any sense to me.
Maybe she legitimately has nothing to do with it and Darren is the only one involved. Maybe it's some guy who worked for him and was like, I'm going to do this and then he's going to owe me money.
And they had nothing to do with it.

I don't think that's true because there's no other evidence. I mean, whatever.
Fuck, I've been going on too long. I'm sorry.
It's just, it's bonkers. No, it's fascinating.
Well, also, if she, okay, then, yeah, flip it around. if he did attack her

and almost killed her

and killed her children

then flip it around if she if he did attack her and almost killed her and killed her children then all that other stuff did she just fucking snap and like knowing if she was she in on it but then didn't think she was going to get attacked and went crazy maybe or did she realize i mean that's but the thing that they said too is that mothers who kill their children drown them poison them suffocate them don't manically stab your own child stabbing is fucking awful and intense and like the personal one especially when she's never had a history mean, aside from postpartum depression, which I think fucking everyone gets every mother gets. And, you know, she's freaking out because they don't have any money.
So she's stressed, but you don't know. You don't go from no mental issues like Andrea Yates, who had them, who kept trying to fucking get help for that.
But there is like the Diane Downs, which is she shot, which is different, but at close range. Yeah.
Her three children. Right.
That's even shooting and stabbing fucking light years when it comes to your children. Don't you think? Is that that fucking fair? I mean, we can say this because we don't have kids, so we don't.
Well, how the fuck, A, how the fuck would we know at all? B, I agree with you in that stabbing is, like, if it was once, if each one was stabbed once in the chest and they both died.

Or even throat slit.

As much as I hate to say it,

it's like,

you know,

you're going to,

but here's what I didn't say is that one of the kids was stabbed on the

ground.

They were on the ground through to the carpet four times.

Oh,

like it was not a like,

no,

you know,

it's like a fucking angry stabbing.

I know what happened. I think it was an intruder, but I don't think that they're not involved.
But she's the one that went to jail. And he did not? Death penalty.
So she's still on death row? Yeah. And he is never- He's living with the baby.
Who's now older, obviously. Because this was from the 90s? 96.
90s 96 fuck yeah dude and the whole family is behind her they all don't think she did it like his family ever no one thinks she did it i mean go watch go watch the her interviews and tell me what you think and go watch the video of her fucking spraying silly string and no iping gum. I saw that video like right after it happened and I can still replay it in my head at this moment.
The silly string is so aggressive. It's like even if it just was the balloons, the silly string is like, if you fucking sprayed me with silly string out of nowhere, I would be pissed off.
Yes. It's too strong.
Yeah. It's like, it's very, it's kind of like some pranks where it's like actually very aggressive.
Like, look how stupid you look. You're getting silly stringed in the face.
Because it's not like, toot toot. No.
It's like a weird attack. And she's doing it like that.
To a gravestone. Yes.
To a gravestone. And she's laughing while she's doing it.
Like, hi, guys. Isn't this? Introduce me to the person.
I 100% agree with the people that are like, you don't know how other people grieve. Agreed.
100%. I 100% believe if you have a child die, you get to take every drug you want.
Totally. You get to drink all the drinks in the world, do whatever the fuck you want.
And it might make you act super weird, but there would still not be an element of celebration, especially because all of those things have a depressive quality to them. Alcohol is a depressant.
Those pills would be depressants. Everyone's parent, when I die, when I'm 85, I want you to have a party and celebrate my life.
And it's like, okay, dad, nobody fucking does that. Yeah, nobody will.
Like even your father had like an amazing life. You're not going to be like, let's have a party.
You love this song. No, you're all fucking grieving.
But, and even if you're like, like my mom's funeral, there was lots of laughing because she was super funny. Right.
But people were fucking sobbing. You can entertain the complexity of an emotional situation like that.
A child being stabbed to death. By someone you're purporting to not, by some psychopath that you don't know who it is that is on the fucking loose.
Yeah, you don't have a birthday party at the gravesite. You simply do not.
You can go to the gravesite and grieve, but you also don't call the fucking news vans and tell them you're there because they weren't just hanging out there. It's like when celebrities are like, oh, we got caught having a date at fucking Spago.
It's like, no, your publicist calls and says, so-and-so's going to be at Spago. So you think she called news vans? I can't imagine.
Maybe they followed her there. I don't know.
Like, you's a reason they were there yes that's right that's right they thought and maybe it could have been like the singing where she thought this will look good on tape for me because she doesn't understand human emotion and what it's supposed to look like and so here's what it's supposed to look like we're celebrating their life like most normal people who have fucking real emotions are like uh-uh like look at this hymn i used to sing to my babies at night but look at what a great singer i am yeah it's really what it's saying right and look how sad i look steven why are you laughing right now this isn't funny it's funny steven it's just it's so gross yeah it's insanely gross it's like can i sing a song? Yeah. And even the newscaster or the newswoman was like, no, I'm telling you that she asked to do this because this is fucking weird.
Yeah. I would want to get on tape.
You'd be like, make sure everyone understands we didn't pre-produce her or lead her into this. This was her idea.
Totally. And also that that is a dividing line because it's like, this is a person who is thinking of themselves and what they seem like more than anything else.
What they think a mom should do. I want to sing this song.
It's the song I sang to my children. So she's like, look at this thing I did for my children.
That's right right not you know it's it's her first it's the crazy narcissism you think your kids were really stoked to hear the song every night about jesus no they want to fuck do you want to sing the fucking itsy bitsy spider like that's what your fucking little five-year-old kid was into not your fucking him of you singing like christina aguilera man it's also that makes me think of the Diane Downs video where she, in showing the guy, started laughing and flirting with the guy, the reporter she was supposed to be showing it to. That is the creepiest video.
Okay. Here we go.
That was really long, I'm sorry. No, no, no, it was good.
I liked it. Okay.
Oh, last thing. Yeah.
Her prison job is cross-stitching baby blankets that are later sold to state prison employees. Baby blankets.
She cross-stitches it. Can you imagine? Is someone being sarcastic in the jail job? Let's give her this job.

Or is she,

is that somehow supposed to be her fix?

Maybe she's telling people that,

but it's not true.

They trust me enough to make their baby blankets,

but really it's like... I also want to know about that neck wound.

It's neck wound, right?

I mean, there's photos of it

and you can't tell

because it's covered up by like bandages,

but it looks... I don't know.
I can't tell because it's covered up by like bandages but it looks i don't i can't tell but from what i read about it it's deep fucking crazy yeah also because most of those people just they do something to the opposite arm and it was on both sides of her body that she got hit which is not normal he was in it he did it he She did it to her? She wasn't supposed to do it as deep, maybe. Fuck, man.
When do we find out? What? If that really happened? What happened? Tomorrow. Oh, good.
You call me? Yeah. Okay.
We'll go to our Twitter. We're going to be the only ones who know, and we're going to.
i mean that it is like cut to 40 years later it's just all these that's how all these are and maybe that's part of the draw it's just that thing of like this long real life mystery and you can like entertain all these different possibilities because you don't want to be like this is what happened and i know it right because you can't be who fucking knows who knows but also you know a little like like that thing of like analyzing language and stuff and it's been 20 years can you fucking believe that so you know I read conflicting comments on every fucking thing of like this happened this happened I'm like I never like, I never read anything about fingerprints anywhere else. What are you fucking talking about? And then you have to go down that.
Let's just like. Was there any new stuff? Just little things.
DNA. They're going to do DNA testing on this fingerprint.
Like, I don't know. But nothing is concluded too.
It is pretty fascinating that that guy, that the blood spatter expert was in this case. Right.
Specifically him. How many, did he just travel around the country fucking up murder cases? It sounds like it.
It's all right. Piece of shit.
Okay. We're back.
How about any updates for this case? No updates. Nothing really has changed.
I did hear from a friend who grew up down the street from this case after I covered it, my friend Jackie Johnson, who was like, it was the talk of the neighborhood, obviously. But Darlie remains on death row, continues to maintain her innocence, and she and her family continue to file appeals and claim there is DNA that will eventually clear her.
Ugh. I know, I mean, as of 2024, prosecutors say they have tested 100 DNA samples from the scene and all belonged to Darlie and the little boys.
So, who knows? I mean, will she ever... It's been 30 years.
I can't imagine she'll just turn now after all her family's

been supporting her and stuff too. You can't just be like, okay, I'm done with this.

That's right. Especially such a heinous fucking crime.

It's so horrible. And then you can just keep switching from, this is a person who actually

did this and has been lying this whole time to this is a person who did not do this and

is trying to convince people like you have to believe me.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know which one's worse. Yeah, definitely.
You don't

have to pick. I won't pick.
Thank you. I just realized.
They're horrible and we'll never know,

I think. Choice in life.
Oh my God. Okay.
Let's get into your famous story about Fatty Arbuckle. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal.
Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline.
He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me.
How far would he go to cover up what he'd done? The fact that you lied is absolutely horrific. And quite frankly, I question how many other women are out there that may bring forward allegations in the future.
Listen to Betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. you want people to like it.
Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there. I'm Simone Boyce, host of The Bright Side, and those were my recent guests, comedian Phoebe Robinson and writer Erin Foster.
On this show, I'm talking to the brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture. And every week, we're going places in our communities, our careers, and ourselves.
It's not about being perfect. It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming.
Few people know that better than soccer legend Ashlyn Harris.

It's the journey. It's the people.
It's the failures. It's the heartache.
It's the little

moments. These are our moments to laugh, learn, and exhale.
So join me every Monday and let's

find the bright side together. Listen to the bright side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies.
But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that?

Hopes. More incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes.

How did he fall for that?

Hoax is a new podcast for me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood.

And me, Lizzie Logan.

Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question, why we believe what we believe.

Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, are you ready for this one? Always.
This is a story that I heard when I first moved to Los Angeles. This is kind of like a popular old-timey Hollywood rumor story, which is the fatty Arbuckle rape and murder case.
Have you ever heard that one? Yes, I love this one, but I don't know a ton of facts about it. Okay.
Same here. That's why I looked into it, which is makes it fascinating because the only thing I ever knew for a really long time was Fatty Arbuckle was a silent film star, like around the time of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd.
And he was, and he, that he raped and killed a girl. That's the only thing I knew that he was a huge star.
And then after that, his reputation of course was ruined and you never heard from him again. So here's the real story.
And it's pretty amazing. So Fatty Arbuckle, when he was eight years old, we're just going to start from the beginning as if we don't know anything.
We don't know any of those stories. Got it.
Let's just tell it like that. Okay.
Because that's what the very aggressive British narrator of this Fatty Arbuckle Crimes and Misdemeanors or some fucking show that I watched. He was just like, and none of it's true.
And he's just like really defensive of Fatty Arbuckle. Okay.
So, but he was basically like, put it all out of your mind. Yeah.
So. Stop thinking.
Stop thinking about it. Okay.
So in 1895, Fatty Arbuckle was a kid hanging around the back door of a theater. And a producer walks by and sees him and grabs him and says, do you want to be in a play? Because they needed a kid to play an eight-year-old.
And he does it and he's great. And he ends up being in every production that they did at that theater that year.
He was a magician's assistant. He went from, it was everything from being a magician's assistant to having a small part in a victorian drama so he was like made for the theater yeah um then four years later his mother dies and his father abandons him so he just starts having to work um just by himself as a young teen he works in a hotel and his co-workers one day overhear him singing and they encourage him to enter a talent contest and he does and he wins it and that's how he gets into vaudeville so this was like right at that time where it's the very beginning of silent movies this is when all of los angeles was orange groves and then like three basically film studios one of which was was Max Sennett's Keystone Films.

And Max Sennett's Keystone Films was like huge.

And they would just go basically take people out of vaudeville

and start making movies of them.

So like if you see, you know,

very few people have seen that much of Fatty Arbuckle.

But like if you see any, and I highly recommend that you do it, like W.C. Field started in vaudeville also.
And when you start in vaudeville and you work in vaudeville, you have to be able to do this crazy shit. So it's like, you have to be an acrobat and you have to like do sleight of hand and you have to kind of learn all the things so that you can be any act, basically.
Like if you're a comedian back then, you kind of had to be much more talented than you have to be now. The play to the back of the room.
Right. And so like, I mean, this is, I only saw the clips that they had in this documentary of Fatty Arbuckle, but he was like fat, big and fat, but he was super graceful and he could like kind of do anything.
And he, it was of course a lot of physical comedy, but he would do these really funny things. Like he would do a thing and trip and then he would recover and do almost like a ballerina move.
So it was, I laughed out loud during this documentary. I love it.
Basically they pull him out of vaudeville. He starts making short films for Max Sennett.
And he is basically kind of the fat guy foil for like Charlie Chaplin. He becomes the most popular comedian that make any of these films.
People love him. And then they let him start directing his own.
He hired, I believe he's the first person to hire. I shouldn't say first person, but he's one of the earliest people to work with and hire Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.
But Buster Keaton worked under him for a while. I have such a crush on Buster Keaton.
Buster Keaton is fucking amazing. He's so hot.
The big eyes? Yes. Yeah.
And legitimately amazing. Yeah.
No, I mean, i mean incredible yeah and also hot and well because like he did all those fucking stunts yeah like he did them yeah um they actually showed a clip of a movie that was a very early fatty arbuckle movie and in it it was called backstage i believe and it about these people that were like, it was like a silent film about a comedy

about life in the theater.

But there's a part where he's sitting there

serenading a girl and the front of the house

falls down over him.

Yeah.

That basically later on,

Charlie Chaplin made famous and got super famous for.

And it was basically like of Freddie Arbuckle.

I'm sorry.

So it's a little bit like he was one of the orig yeah original case of comedy um he started the tour that's what it was his idea um so he becomes huge at max senate studios or keystone studios um and he starts making a bunch of movies short movies with mabel norm, who was a famous actress of the time. And the two of them got crazy popular.
They, it was like, it was super cute. They were like husband and wife.
And then they would, it would just be these little comedic kind of vignettes. Um, and they got so popular, um, that they were asked in 1915, they were asked to go to, it was called the World's Something Fair in San Francisco.
So I don't know if it was the World's Fair, the official one. Or like a specific fair for something.
Yes, but they basically, silent film was becoming this huge business. The film industry was like exploding and the PR industry around the film industry was exploding.

Like podcasts. Exactly.
People are finally figuring it out. They were like, what? We are the new Mabel Norman and Fatty Arbuckle.
Yeah. Do not say who's who.
You're Mabel Arbuckle and I'm Fatty Norman. Nice.
Nice cover. Fair.
Very fair. So by the summer of 1921, he had moved to Paramount Pictures.
So I'm sure there was some kind of like, and I think this might, I don't know, I have theories about this. He moved from Mac Sennett Studios to Paramount Pictures.
And he got paid a million dollars a year. In that money that time? Yes.
Holy fuck balls. That is crazy.
It's crazy. He signed a contract for $3 million, a three-year contract for $3 million to make- Can you imagine if we got one of those right now in this life? No, I know.
And back, this was fucking 1920. Like fucking 1920.
Like this was the great depression essentially, or well, 10 years before, but still like. Bananas money.
It was like back when people would be like, brother, can you spare a dime? And that was like a meaningful amount of money. Yeah.
So. Penny candy.
He, button candy, the most useless candy with pieces of paper stuck on it that has ever been invented. Um, so that contract was for him to star in 18 silent films in three years.
Um, he, uh, he had just made a movie called crazy to marry. Um.
Tell me about it. Right.
And it was playing in theaters across the country. And he had, I think he had just finished six feature length films in seven months.
Can you fucking imagine? Yeah, that's bullshit. That's like you make a full on movie a month and then he's like, guys, I'm tired.
Let's go on vacation. Take a nap, bro.
Yeah, so that was his plan. So him and two of his friends decide they're going to drive up to San Francisco to have like a weekend of fun.
Do you know how long, I'm sorry, how long it would take to drive to San Francisco back then? Oh, fucking. Three million is a lot of money.
It would take you 14 and a half hours to drive to San Francisco. If that, like, and there would be no gas.
None. You'd have to bring gas with you, I bet.
You'd have to wind your car up. Did they do that still then? That's right.
It would take you 29 hours to get up there. 20 winds.
It would take you so much energy. All right.
So there was no five back then. No, there was no five freeway.
You were on that one the whole time. Okay.
In the days leading up to this weekend, Fatty Arbuckle was not in the best of moods because he was having his Pierce Arrow automobile serviced when he sat down on an acid soaked rag at the garage. What? And the acid burned through his pants to his buttocks, causing second-degree burns.
What the fuck kind of acid? And he, I don't know, I get that's something that they did in the 20s. Very common.
Jesus. Acid rags were everywhere.
So he wanted to cancel the trip, but his friend, what's this guy Al Fishback the fuck is his name where is it somebody Fishback I'll find it said no we gotta go it's gonna be fun we've already planned it whatever my butt is burning I have to sit for 29 hours he secured his Fishback, just secured a rubber padded ring for our buckle to sit on. Can you secure a go fuck yourself? For me to sit on? For me to sit on.
They made the drive up the coast to the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.
Is that nice? Have you been there? Very fancy. Has the best lobby.
It's the one that's on union square at christmas time they have a humongous christmas tree and they have a great bar i want to go we should totally go we're going to oakland we have no time we do not jump on that bart to go sit in the bar at the saint francis three minutes bye everybody um but it's the kind of place that Like, I don't know what the style is. I would guess Art Deco.
Georgian. Georgian.

But. the St.
Francis. For three minutes.
Bye, everybody. But it's the kind of place that, like,

I don't know what the style is.

I would guess Art Deco.

Georgian.

Georgian.

But it's, the ceilings are so high.

Yeah.

And it's so gorgeous.

Yeah.

I love that shit.

Okay. So they're staying there.

Good spot.

So that's where they are.

Okay.

They've got, so they have two rooms

that are adjoined to a reception suite.

Jesus.

So basically a party room in the center, two rooms off the sides. That's what we have booked for our trip.
Is that how we're doing it the whole time? Mm-hmm. Okay.
And then we were going to pick people. You can come to the party suite.
You can sit in the reception room, but you can't come into the suite. You have to earn your way into the suite.
Okay. So Fishback arranged everything.
Now, it's Prohibition era. Okay.
So there's no, legally, there's no liquor. Sure.
But San Francisco is known as an open city, which meant there's fucking liquor everywhere. Tea cups abound.
That's right. Go San Francisco, go.
So Fishback has arranged the liquor to be delivered to the hotel room um and on labor day september 5th 1921 fatty arbuckle awakes to find that there are many uninvited guests that for at least uninvited from him in the reception room how annoying so uh and he also has a bunch of work to do and i And I guess he was up there like they were going to have fun, but he also, I guess, had a meeting. So he was walking around in his pajamas when he saw that like the basically the first thing that happened was his friends.
It's like, I want to say Al fishback.

And there's another guy named low,

low Loman or something like that. Alan low fishback woman.

Um,

so they went out and when they came back,

they were like,

we just saw,

um,

that actress.

Uh,

it was a woman named Victoria rap. And they're like, we just saw her in the lobby of a different hotel.
So we're going to bring her over here. And so she comes over, a couple other people, a woman named Ma Delmont shows up after a little while.
Now, Ma Delmont had a very bad reputation.

She was known as,

there's one guy in this documentary

who said she'd basically been arrested

for everything except murder.

Wow.

So she was known as a madam.

She was known as a blackmailer.

She had been arrested a bunch of time for fraud.

This all sounds awesome.

Right.

Sounds like she's in charge of her fucking destiny A couple people's destinies actually So she shows up after I hope I can't see any of these names anymore My eyes are going insane Want me to look? It's I want to say Victoria the young, pretty actress shows up. Mod shows up after.
Then a couple other people show up. It turns into a party.
Fatty Arbuckle is basically like, I can't fight this anymore. Whatever.
And he starts drinking too. So they're all drinking.
And at one point, um, one of his friends who started the party party and Maude Delmont go into one of the adjacent bedrooms bathrooms and they're in there for a while. And while they're in there and everybody else is partying, Virginia Rapp, who's been drinking with everybody and hanging out and having a good time, gets nauseous and feels sick.
So she goes into that adjacent bedroom to go into the bathroom to get sick, but they're in there and they tell her to go into the other bathroom. So she goes into what is basically Fatty Arbuckle's bedroom and she gets sick in that bathroom.
So Fatty Arbuckle realizes he has to go to this meeting. So he goes in to take a shower, to shave and shower or whatever, to get ready for the meeting.
And he finds Virginia on the floor in his bathroom. And he assumes that she's just drunk and she can't handle her liquor.
And so he gets her up off the floor and puts her on the bed. And then he goes into the bathroom, shuts the door, takes a shower, shaves, takes like 10 minutes in there and gets ready.
And when he comes out, he sees that she's gotten sick again on the bed. So at that point, he goes out into the party and says, I think this girl is

actually really sick. We should call a doctor or call somebody.
So they call a doctor. A doctor

shows up and a little while later, a female nurse shows up. They, you know, I was going to say inspect her.
They look at, you know, give her the once-over. What's the word I'm looking for? What are we looking for? Not inspect, not the once-over.
It's not inspect. Examine.
They examine her. They examine her.
There's, she's not, she, there's nothing wrong with her physically. She has no bruises on her.
There's, she's not been hurt in any way. But they see that she has a very bad fever and she's in a lot of pain.
And she's got, the pain is coming from her stomach area. And so they decide that she should go to a local hospital.
So they take her out of there, like a couple hours go by, I think. And then they finally, they finally get her out of there.
And they take her, eventually they find out that they had taken her to a maternity hospital. Was she having a miscarriage? No.

What they think is that, no, no, no.

What they think is that she was either

her appendix burst

or her bladder burst.

But they

don't know because when the coroner

finally got her body after she

died. She dies in this hospital.

She died in the maternity hospital. Her body is brought back to Los Angeles, I believe, or they did the coroner in San Francisco, but I assume because she was an actress in Los Angeles.
When the body is inspected by the coroner, all of her sex organs have been removed. So there's nothing to look at.
They don't know. There's no reason for it.
Also, they said bringing a woman who was sick in this way to the maternity hospital was a super weird decision. She's not going to get the things she needs.
Exactly. She should have gone to the general hospital.
So she basically suffered with whatever her internal illness was

because they all assumed she was drunk.

They all just were like,

oh, it's some kind of floozy actress from LA who was at this like-

Drank too much, couldn't hold her liquor.

Yeah, with this party that they shouldn't have even had liquor

in the first place with all these actors and Hollywood types,

these sinful Hollywood types.

So basically, they don't know. when they leave San Francisco

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

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for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time

for a long time for a long time for a long time for a long time for a long time for a long time types these sinful hollywood types so basically um they don't know when they leave san francisco a fatty and his friends um they just know that she was sick and she got taken to the hospital they don't know anything else um so uh he gets a call from the san francisco police saying this girl died can you come come up and answer some questions? And he's like, of course. So he goes up to San Francisco to answer some questions.

And what he doesn't know is that Maude Delmont had told the police that Arbuckle had raped Virginia Rapp and that Maude had heard her screaming in the other room, that she knocked on the door and kicked on it. And after a delay, Arbuckle came to the door in his pajamas, wearing Rapp's hat, cocked at an angle, smiling, and behind him, Rapp was sprawled on the bed and moaning.
And she said that Fatty had said to the actress, I've waited for you for five years, and now I've got you. And then basically, she's told the police he did it.
He attacked her. And that because he forced himself on her, that caused her bladder to burst.
And that's why she was in that situation. Um, so, uh, Fatty Arbuckles like went up there to be like, yeah, here's what happened.
Meanwhile, there were a handful of witnesses that witnessed the first way I told it to you. They all watched her walk into the other room, come back out, go into the other room by herself, watched him walk in after her, and then put her on the bed, come back out.
All the doors were were open. Also, Ma Delmont was in the bathroom of the other bedroom with the door closed, fucking his friend.
So there was no way she could have heard her screaming. And no one else that was in the middle room closer to her heard screaming at all.
And they all attested to that. But the problem was not only was it prohibition, but the film industry was coming under a lot of scrutiny because there were, and they were showing clips of like movies where a man looked at a woman's ankle and they both give each other like the eye.
So there's like this, it was pre Hayes code. Right.
So it's, it's like. Decency shit.
Exactly. So there's a lot of people in the country that are like, alcohol is of the devil and so are movies.
So it's silent films. Here's what it leads to, the show, yeah.
And he's basically the king of all of it. Right.
Making a shit ton of money off of it. So the district attorney in San Francisco was a man named Matthew Brady.
And he saw this case, who it was, what the scenario was, as the perfect political situation for himself because he wanted to have a career in politics. And he knew if he could put Fatty Arbuckle away as this rapist and basically- Headlines.
Exactly. And also kind of like alcohol was part of it and that's another reason and just like all the whole mix was a bottle of alcohol being the fucking murder weapon the wine bottle that he supposedly oh right yeah exactly that was gossip that actually came out way later um that didn't that didn't come in.
But him basically using his body and smashing her to death. The whole thing was so, it kind of also perfect because he was such, when you see his face, it's just this big smile.
He looks like a big moon face guy. All of his comedy was really light and cutesy.
And so to be like, oh, this guy's a monster was perfect for all of the tabloid rags. And William Randolph Hearst had, basically had a field day with this story.
They had just been, the newspapers that came out about Fatty Arbuckle and this rape and murder sold more than when this Lusitania sank. Like it was the hugest story and they never stopped.
They actually took, there was a, the San Francisco police released a picture of Fatty Arbuckle when they were like, now you're under arrest. And he was just like, sorry, what? I came up here to answer your questions.
So it's this picture of him standing there just looking completely like, what the fuck? And they took the picture, released it, and that went straight into the tabloids. And then the next picture they did, they actually early version photoshopped.
So it's him standing there looking off and they photoshopped bars in front of him. So it looked like a reporter got in and took a picture of him sitting in jail, which they never did.
So basically they tried and convicted him in, in the newspaper. Um, and people couldn't get enough of this story because it was one of the first big Hollywood scandals.
I mean, I think it may have been the first big Hollywood scandal and it was so graphic and so terrible that, I mean, that's, so anyway, the problem was that when they get in to get all their witnesses and their stories for trial, Ma Delmont cannot keep her story straight. So she had told them at first that she and Virginia Rep were lifelong friends.
Then the next time that they talked to her, she says that they just met days before the party. Also, they discovered then that she has this insane criminal record.
A lot of people know her as Madame Black. She had procured women for parties where she knew wealthy male guests would find themselves accused of rape and blackmailed, blackmailed into paying her.
So that was basically her whole thing that she did. And yet, um, then there was the matter of the fact that there were telegrams that she had sent to attorneys in both San Diego and Los Angeles that read, we have Roscoe Arbuckle in a hole here, chance to make some money out of him.
Holy shit. Yeah.
But even though he knew those facts, he still took the case to trial. And those newspapers never questioned Delmont's version of the events or ever talked about her background or what an unreliable witness she was.
They just went after him relentlessly. And Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin vouched for his character and tried to speak out for him, but it was too late and his reputation was in shambles.
Also, Fatty Arbuckle's lawyers introduced medical evidence showing that Rapp had had a chronic bladder condition and her autopsy concluded that there were no marks of violence on her body. There were no signs that she had been attacked in any way, but the defense wouldn't let, sorry, the, the prosecution wouldn't let the doctor who had treated rap at the hotel testify.
Cause she had told the doctor that fatty Arbuckle had not tried to sexually assault her. But the prosecutor got that point dismissed as hearsay.
So that was not- I'm fucking sorry. Yeah, so that didn't get in at all.
And meanwhile, the defense was going to call witnesses that had damaging information about Virginia Rapp's past, and Fatty Arbuckle would not let them testify out of respect for the dead, he said. So he took the stand in his own defense and jurors voted 10 to 2 for his acquittal.
Wow. 10 to 2? Right.
So there were two people that were holding out. And so then the prosecution tried him a second time.
The jury deadlocked again. Oh, my God.
And it wasn't until his third trial that Fatty Arbuckle allowed his attorneys to call the witnesses who had known Rapp to the stand. And that was only because his funds were depleted.
He had spent $700,000 on his defense. His career was dead.
They testified that Rapp had suffered previous previous abdominal attacks drank heavily just often disrobed at parties after doing so was promiscuous and had an illegitimate daughter um which none of which is none of which is only the first one is is relevant the drinking and the abdominal tax or was relevant but at that that point they were like, it's a character assassination and just attack. One of them also attacked Maude Delmont as the complaining witness that never witnessed.
So they basically up there saying that woman saw nothing and yet she was your main witness. And that, but those were the only people that could say that.
Yeah. And he hadn't let them say it up until that point uh so on april 12 1922 the jury acquitted arbuckle of manslaughter and after deliberating for five minutes jesus um oh that poor dude and the poor woman after after a week later um will hayes for whom the motion picture industry hired as a sensor to restore its image, because this was such a huge scandal that like the entire motion picture industry was rocked.
And Will Hayes banned Fatty Arbuckle from ever appearing on screen again. He would change his mind eight months later, but the damage had already been done.
and Arbuckle changed his name to William B. Goodrich or Will Be Good and he worked behind the scenes directing films for friends who remained loyal to him barely earning a living in the only business he had ever known and a little more than 10 years later in 1933 he had a heart attack and died in his hotel room he was 46 holy fuck yeah wow yeah that's really fucking depressing i didn't know it was like there was so much evidence that he hadn't done it i know it's weird like no one talks about that well i think it's like why that guy was all fired up at the beginning of that special.
But then when you actually hear it, it's that thing that makes perfect sense because it's like the early days of like getting people over a barrel and blackmailing it. And decency laws and all this crap.
It makes me, you know, it makes me sad. I feel like if virginia had lived she would have fucking blown this off so much and been like this never you know it's like sad when it's like you're not doing justice for the victim you're just it's not you're not helping the victim by accusing fatty arbuckle of doing this yeah it has nothing to do with the victim she's just taking advantage of like a horrible scenario.
It's just bullshit at that point.

And also the idea that that woman was even invited to that party

when she's like a known criminal,

in my mind it's like I think there's,

and I bet you if I did one hour more research,

there's probably a lot of information about it,

but there's probably a really good chance he was getting set up. If he was like making the most amount of money in show business.
It sounds like that's what she did. Well, it's what she did definitely, but like somebody probably had it out for him and wanted to bring him down specifically for some reason.
Was it his friend who insisted that he come with him to San Francisco? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Oh, I get it.
That's fucked up, man. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, we're back.
It's an old case, but any updates? I don't have any updates. I do have several bits of business, of course, because you can always do a corrections corner, even from across the decades.
That's what's beautiful. You can always, in your life, remember that.
Yes. It's never too late to say, I'm sorry.
The two friends in San Francisco with Fatty Arbuckle, their names were Fred Fishback and Lowell Sherman. Thank God you cleared that up.
And I genuinely am sorry from the bottom of my heart. The audience has been waiting for you.
They're just like, and you better apologize. My grandpa Lowell is turning in his grave.
I said in the original, Al Fishback and another guy possibly named Lo Loman. Al Fishback, that's a good fucking name.
Al Fishback would be a good name for like a line of clothing. Al Fishbacks.
My stepdad wears it. He loves Al Fishbacks.
Okay, so there have been biopics for this story discussed over the years. People have pitched it for Chris Farley, for Louis Anderson, RIP the great Louis Anderson.
Incredible. Wonderful man.
Eric Stone Street from Modern Family. They've all been attached, but a full feature film has never been made.
But there, of course, have been nods to the Fatty Arbuckle kind of story throughout media over the years. You know, lots of times as a joke.
But it's actually kind of a tragic thing. It's like his name is forever, forgive me for using the word besmirched but it is it's like that name always means a disgusting kind of sexual assault and yeah it isn't true he was featured in that show that we loved called not matlock a crime to remember not a crime to remember probably that too.
But I'm thinking of the one where he was the lawyer.

Yep.

Old Ironsides.

Where he's so cute.

What's it called?

Back in LA lawyer.

No, it's...

The Welsh guy.

Yeah, he goes on stand and his name is...

His name...

The lawyer's name is the name of the TV show.

Yes.

It's on HBO.

It had the best opening graphics of all time. Remember that it would come up and then it would be like the city behind it? Oh, yeah.
That was so pretty. Are you talking about Perry Mason? Perry Mason.
Perry Mason. God damn it.
Perry Mason. Yes, we are.
Thank God we got that name right. Starring Al Fishback and Perry Mason.
And Loa Lohman. Loa Lohman Sherman.
As the dad. As the dad.
God, I love that show. That's the one that has to come back for season three.
For sure. For sure.
I might rewatch season two now. If you insist.
I insist. Okay, we're about to listen to the end of episode 56.
We do our good things. Oh, yeah.
This is cute.

I like that.

Do we have a good thing this week?

Do you?

See that thing right there?

Roomba.

That's my good thing this week.

It's the best thing that's ever happened.

No, it's great.

I'm serious.

Talk about it. It's a Roomba.
It's a vacuum that you's ever happened. No, it's great.
I'm serious. A Roomba.
Talk about it.

It's a Roomba.

It's a vacuum that you and your cats follow around the house and just watch and cheer on.

So what, you just set it and it just vacuums while you do other stuff?

Or while you follow it around and watch it.

How long does it take?

Well, however long you want it. You set it and forget it.

I'm serious.

It's like, and it gets all this cat hair and we all follow it around it's great wow i know what about you oh i'm just staring at this room but that room of the whole time not like actively staring at it but lovingly gazing at it what oh well i think i told you, but, or maybe I talked about, I can't remember. But I went to see the Zodiac.
Did I talk about that on the mini-sode? No, you talked about it to me at lunch yesterday. Okay.
That's good. Good.
Okay. So CineFamily, which is the movie theater in town that shows rad things often and that I love and need to rejoin.
I was a member for a year and then I was like, I never go to the movies. Like, why am I doing this? And then it's like, Oh, because support, keep businesses open that do shit.
That's awesome. Right.
And that's a perfect example because it's so cheap to be a member. And then they do things like this, which is they re they did a special showing of the movie Zodiac.
cool and it is the best movie i keep thinking about it because when you see it in the theater um like the sound was really good and that theater was really small you used that movie that theater used to be called the silent movie theater which is kind of hilarious where a guy got fucking shot and killed in yes um did i ever tell you that story of that they did a benefit at largo for the for the guy it was two um it was a gay couple that ran this theater and one got shot by an ex-employee right um well they did this benefit they raised money for the guy that that was still alive and then that guy got arrested because it was, he had his lover murdered. Uh huh.
Okay. Oops.
Uh huh. Take that money back.
Uh, yeah. I love that story because Flanagan and John Bryan, they were down the street at Largo and they were like, Oh my God, this terrible thing happened.
This man, we have to raise money. And they did this whole huge, like they kept talking about it on all the shows and they had all these special shows to raise money for the silent movie theater guy who was the criminal in the first place anyway if you get a chance and i don't know how you would to see the movie zodiac on the big screen it is so it's such a perfect movie yeah i haven't seen it in so long but it's a great movie it's so good that's awesome a perfect movie.
Yeah. I haven't seen it in so long, but it's a great movie.
It's so good. That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah. That was super fun.
I have an update on my Roomba situation. Oh, yeah? Do not get a Roomba if you have cats.
Because cats like to barf everywhere. Oh.
And the Roomba will just slide right over. That was the last Roomba I owned.
And I'm devastated because I want one so bad. You loved that Roomba.
I did. I totally forgot that the cats and I would follow it around.
It was fucking fascinating. We were all just like, oh my God.
You're so excited. And then suddenly the Roomba's like, wait, is this my job too? It's like the Flintstones when like the garbage disposal is a sassy bird or whatever.
Yeah. Your Roomba's like, I'm not eating cat furf again.
Oh, you can't do it. It's just such a, it's just like a thing you know that you can't knit and sew and have a Roomba if you have a cat, period.
Everyone does that. Those things are not your, those options are not for you.
No. Shut up, Mimi.
Mimi says, I'm still here in 2025, motherfuckers. Mimi's like, guess what? I am here to say goodbye.
I mean, should we wrap it up? Is that Mimi's cue? Let's do it. Mimi's Immortal.
Let's wrap it up. If we were naming this today, this episode today, if it wasn't called Service Poodle, perhaps we would call it.

Well, I would name it Mimi's Immortal.

I mean, that's a great title right there.

Yeah.

So good.

What about It's a Roomba?

I mean, that's obviously,

it's got to be that one.

Mimi's Immortal and It's a Roomba

are the front runners.

Yeah, that was good.

That was a good one.

That was fun times on that episode.

Thanks for listening to Rewind, you guys. We appreciate it.
Yes. And we're going to let old us say goodbye to you so that Elvis can say goodbye.
And Mimi. And Mimi.
Follow us on things. Stephen Ray Morris, the podcast.
Thank you for Being our Guide Through this Fucking Trippy And And stay sexy And don't get murdered Bye Bye Elvis you want a cookie Mimi Oh I think that's the new one Elvis You want you want a cookie? Oh, hi. But me and me wants one, too.
Okay. Kevin and Rachel and peanut M&Ms and an eight-hour road trip.
And Rachel's new favorite audiobook, The Cerulean Empress, Scoundrel's Inferno. And Florian, the reckless yet charming scoundrel from said audiobook.
And his pecs glistened in the moonlight. And Kevin, feeling weird because of all the talk about packs.
And Rachel handing him peanut M&Ms to keep him quiet. Uh, Kevin? I can't hear.
Yellow, we're keeping it PG-13. M&Ms, it's more fun together.
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That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result.
That's comedian Phoebe Robinson. And yeah, those are the kinds of gems you'll only hear on my podcast, The Bright Side.
I'm your host, Simone Boyce.

I'm talking to the brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture.

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