Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 26: Twenty Six Six Six

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Goodbye. No one brings out your inner monster like a bad neighbor.

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Speaker 1 It's a game of cat and mouse that sets them on a collision course with fatal consequences. The Beast and Me now playing only on Netflix.
You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Hello

Speaker 1 and welcome to Rewind with Karen in Georgia. That a lot of spice.

Speaker 1 Rewind. Rewind.

Speaker 1 This is our Wednesday episode, our new Wednesday episode, where we recap our old shows with new commentary, updates, and potentially retractions if necessary. I think this one is necessary.

Speaker 1 Also, happy New Year's Day if you're listening on the day that this comes out. It's 2024.
It's 2024.

Speaker 1 Four now. Five.
Five for you. Five.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I get time. This is being done in the past.

Speaker 1 Believe it.

Speaker 1 Before you start your new year, which is going to be incredible, by the way. What a year it's going to be for you.
It's going to be. But before we go into the future,

Speaker 1 let's let us drag you into the past.

Speaker 1 Oh, because, yes, that's right.

Speaker 1 Because today we are recapping episode 26, Little Babies. We were.

Speaker 1 And we named it 2666 because, of course we did. Punk rock.
Yeah. And it came out originally on Thursday, July 21st, 2016.

Speaker 1 I just want to say July 21st in mid to late July in Los Angeles is a pretty warm time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We were still in your apartment with no air conditioning. That's correct.
I'm not saying that to you accusatorially. No, I love it.
It's my roots.

Speaker 1 I mean, I, but that's all I can think of when I think of like these, when I look at these and I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. And then I'm like, I was having a great time and sweating my ass off.

Speaker 1 We were sweating. I was wearing tiny clothes.
We were, we talked about in the beginning of this, like the worry that more fireworks are going to happen. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Because that's Los Angeles the first, like couple of weeks before the 4th of July and a couple of weeks after in Los Angeles. It's just constant.
Fireworks in the tinderbox of a city.

Speaker 1 That's just like dry, wood-based insanity. And we were so traumatized by the week before.
That's right. When we had those.

Speaker 1 Where someone said they almost got in a car accident because they heard the fireworks from the week before and drove off the road. I thought it was happening in there, that they were being shot at.

Speaker 1 We must be careful when we listen to podcasts on the road. We have more power than we realize.
And it feels great. Doesn't it though? Here in 2025.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Are you ready?

Speaker 1 It's the rewind episode. Now we all get to be day one listeners.
So let's listen to the intro of episode 26.

Speaker 2 Let's start

Speaker 2 now. Let's start right now.

Speaker 2 Let's start right now. Fireworks.
Baby, you're a firework.

Speaker 2 The whole building collapses. Someone on some social media site said that they almost got in a car accident when they heard the firework because they thought it was a gunshot.
Oh, no. I know.

Speaker 2 Sorry, we were just as scared as you were. We were more scared because, as loud as it was on the podcast, it was fucking 15 times louder in real life.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're fine.

Speaker 2 Sorry. It was very, very scary, surprising.
And to me, funny. It's hilarious.
It keeps happening, though. So it might happen again tonight.
And what is it? September?

Speaker 2 I mean, how much longer? I don't know.

Speaker 2 So prepare yourself and your dogs because I'm sure people, some people has, there were like thunder jackets off, but

Speaker 2 I tried to put a thunder shirt on George one time. Yeah.
And when I came home, it was eaten. Yes.
It was like ripped to shreds and parts were gone. I know, I know that well.
I have to know.

Speaker 2 I put a cat, a collar on my cat once and came back, and it was like, here's what I think of it. Yeah.
Get fuck yourself. Get fucking.
I mean, I wouldn't want a fucking collar.

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess I did when I was 14 and thought I was punk. I wore collars.
I mean, that was the 90s, right? It was, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 It was all about cat collars and shit back then. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Punk, fake punk rock. Totally.
I still have mine. It still smells like

Speaker 2 Victoria's Secret

Speaker 2 apple spray, apple body spray. No.

Speaker 2 Oh, no. You mean sorrow? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yep. It still smells like ecstasy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Hey, how are you? How was your week? What's going on? Hi.

Speaker 2 I've just been working. Oh, this is my favorite murder.
Oh, guys, listen. I mean, I figure if you press play on this, you probably know that.

Speaker 2 If you're one of those rando people that just goes through iTunes and picks different podcasts and hits play. No one's ever done that, right? No, I seriously doubt it.

Speaker 2 But welcome if you're that one person. If you're the lone wolf.
Hi. Hi.
New to this.

Speaker 2 I'm Georgia. That's Karen.
I'm Karen. This is my voice.
Karen was the one singing. I do that because it's my passion.
It's her passion and she's good at it. And I am not.

Speaker 2 I disagree that I'm bad at it, that I'm bad. You disagree that you're good at it.
I disagree that you're bad at it. Thank you.
Because I've heard you do it jokingly, and it's not bad at it. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's not. I guess the secret is not to try.
Or care. Or care.
Yeah, that's true. Here's a good segue into the presents we just got.

Speaker 2 I'm holding a cold beer to the stab wound that I gave myself. Okay, can I just explain this very quickly?

Speaker 2 So we had, Georgia had a little pile of presents waiting for me when I got home to her apartment from work. No, this isn't my home.
And it was like, I waited for you so we can open these up.

Speaker 2 We wanted to open them off air so it wouldn't take forever.

Speaker 2 And one of them, I opened two because

Speaker 2 Georgia was slightly afraid they could be a bomb or something dangerous. So it's like Karen's face.
So I'll go, I was like, I'll go ahead and take the hit. I mean, you're off-camera talent.

Speaker 2 So I need this.

Speaker 2 I can have the iPad. All you need is your brain.
And I would love for my teeth to be blown out so I can get some awesome veneers. Anyhow.

Speaker 2 so So I did the first two, and Georgia was like, I said, she picked up the third one and I said, do you want me to open that? And she was like, I can do it.

Speaker 2 I'm not that insane or whatever it was you said. Fuck anxiety.
And then she went to open it and stabbed herself in the bare leg with a pair of scissors.

Speaker 2 And it, I have to tell you, as painful as I'm sure it is, it's also hilarious. It's one of those things, and this happens to me a lot where I'm glad it happened because it's worth it.

Speaker 2 Like I run into stuff all the time and like do dumb shit. And I'm like, I'm so glad that that happened.
Yes. That's humor and life.
Instead of just when you look down and have a rando,

Speaker 2 that's the second time I've said that word and I've never really said it before at all. Interesting.

Speaker 2 What's going on? What teen boy am I trying to impress?

Speaker 2 When you look down and there's just a huge bruise for no reason where you're just like, does this mean I have blood cancer? Yeah. Why?

Speaker 2 The majority of my bruises I don't remember getting and it's not because I'm constantly drunk. I'm not.
You're not. And I and I mean, when I'm drunk, I'm smooth as shit, too.
Like, I'm good.

Speaker 2 I'm much better in person when I'm drunk than I'm. When you're drunk, what I notice is that you seem to just enjoy every single thing that goes.
Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You just have a big smile on your face, and you think everything's kind of funny and like enjoyable, it seems like. Yeah, I like,

Speaker 2 I think I like understand moments so much better and understand people and get

Speaker 2 life better. Yeah.
Which is like so unhealthy, but

Speaker 2 you have a good idea. I I think maybe I'm not anxious.
Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm amused and not anxious.
Deep down underneath when you use beer to uncover your true personality.

Speaker 2 Well, we got some

Speaker 2 amazing gifts. We just had it like a baby July Christmas.
Dude, what was that? That was someone slamming the door, but it sounded like a gun.

Speaker 2 That sounded like a half-firework to me. Yeah, it did.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 We got a beautiful card that's the sparkliest thing. It's gorgeous.
With a really funny, cute joke on the front

Speaker 2 and really great printing inside. Beautiful printing.
The kind of printing I wish I could do, but I don't understand why that looks the way it does. I might, I don't know, do this.

Speaker 2 I might trace over the handwriting later. It's so satisfying.
Have you ever tried that?

Speaker 2 I've never done it. It's from, this card is from Emily, and she just said a bunch of lovely things, and it was, it's basically a thank you card for our podcast, which is the cutest thing of all time.

Speaker 2 She was raised, well, girl, and she likes a card. We would like to thank her parents for this card.
Mr. and Mrs.
Emily's parents. Right.

Speaker 2 Move on to the next one. Then we got from Candice.
She sent us this really fucking red.

Speaker 2 She's going to start doing murder zines. And the first one is...

Speaker 2 The murder zine is called the Matilda Effect. And the first one is about Frances Glessner Lee.

Speaker 2 They're women in science scenes.

Speaker 2 Oh, I thought they were murder. No, they're women in science scenes.
Women in science zines. Sorry.
But the first one

Speaker 2 is about a woman who did she want to be a cop? Did that card say? Yeah, she wanted to be a scientist.

Speaker 2 She wanted to be...

Speaker 2 She's basically, if you guys have seen the documentary The Nutshell Studies, where she really, this woman way back when really wanted to be a doctor or a nurse, and she wasn't allowed to because of her family.

Speaker 2 I think she was a rich, I think she was from a wealthy family. So instead, she started to make detailed miniature models of composite crime scenes.

Speaker 2 So she just made miniature crime scenes so that cops could study them without screwing up the crime scene. And she's just had this huge effect on

Speaker 2 crime scene procedure. And she's incredible.
I love Candace.

Speaker 2 You can get these at Smut Punks. It's S-M-U-T-P-U-N-X.com.
And she's going to make, she makes other buttons and stuff. And she just makes shit.

Speaker 2 And I haven't seen a fucking zine in real life in so long. I know.
Do you ever make a zine? No, I never did. I made a zine for,

Speaker 2 it was like a tribute to Ray Bradbury and D-Light. Combined? Yeah.
Wow. Because those are the two things you like.
That's what I liked when I was 16. So seeing a zine is like exciting.
It's very cool.

Speaker 2 And I think we should all support zines. You know what I did was I just assumed that Candace made a zine for all the things I like instead of what she's in.

Speaker 2 She's like, women in science. This was, yeah, it was, it was specifically for me.
Well, it is a true crime

Speaker 2 subject. Yes.
So and so fascinating. if you get what it's called the nutshell what's the documentary called the nutshell studies you gotta watch it

Speaker 2 yeah she's it's great candace

Speaker 2 thank you thank you so much please keep remaining to be a badass then we got oh my god this amazing puzzle from holly

Speaker 2 She said, Karen of Georgia, thanks so much for sharing your favorite murders. I made a puzzle about mine.
Thought you might like it.

Speaker 2 Like it. Yeah.
We fucking lost our minds. I'm so excited.
I kind of like, I kind of begged Karen for it. It's a it's a 3D puzzle of H.H.

Speaker 2 Holmes' murder castle in Chicago, which is the best thing of all time. So, I think everybody probably knows, but if you're if you just started liking True Crime, right, H.H.

Speaker 2 Holmes, they're, I think they're gonna make the Devil in the White City movie with Leo DiCaprio. I think you give her a go.
Oh, and you can get this at where can you get her the puzzle?

Speaker 2 Yeah, wait, wait, wait. Okay,

Speaker 2 you can get

Speaker 2 hollycardin.com. So it's H-O-L-L-Y-C-A-R-D-E-N.
And I think she's going to start just making

Speaker 2 true crime puzzles. It's amazing.
I cannot wait to make this. I'll take photos.
It's very cool. So anyway, she started off with H.H.
Holmes' Murder Castle, which

Speaker 2 you can watch the movie. It's the best story ever.
If you get creeped out by premeditated, planned psycho-murder, this is the story for you.

Speaker 2 And I would do it, but they did it on last podcast on the left. I know.
I I am not.

Speaker 2 It's been done a lot. It's been done a lot.
And it's very well known, and a movie's going to come out. Yeah.
So

Speaker 2 it got taken care of in our minds.

Speaker 2 And finally. Oh my God.
And then finally, Bethany,

Speaker 2 who may

Speaker 2 Bethany Jones, I'm assuming these people are okay with their names being said. Yeah, I think they want a shout out, which they absolutely are.

Speaker 2 So Bethany Jones is from the base element makeup bath and body, I would call it company. And

Speaker 2 she sent us

Speaker 2 her card says, I hope you like your namesake lipsticks. I loved creating them while listening to your podcasts, all of your podcasts, one after the other, iTwitch.

Speaker 2 And fittingly, when I was done, my kitchen looked like a murder scene and I was smeared red to the elbows.

Speaker 2 I've got a bit rock and roll and made skull bath bombs in your honor, too. So see what an inspiration you are.
Stay sexy, don't get murdered. It's so awesome.

Speaker 2 This box smelled, we could smell the bath bombs from outside. That's how I knew it wasn't a bomb because I feel like they wouldn't go to the trouble of making it pleasant.

Speaker 2 A soapy bomb. Well, it was a bomb.
Oh my God. I didn't even think that was that.
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 You were right. See, you're right all along.
Bombs psychic. But bombs can be good.
Bombs can be good. So we just got...

Speaker 2 A shit ton of lip gloss and lip balm and lip scrub and eyeshadow.

Speaker 2 A lot of them are named, like have quotes from the podcast. There's a fucking lip balm called Elvis Want a Cookie.

Speaker 2 And once we got excited and exclaimed that when we saw it, Elvis lost his fucking mind because he thought he was getting one, so I had to give him one. Yeah, we kept saying Elvis.

Speaker 2 I won't say it again. No, no, he's okay.
But yeah, there's, I mean, our names are on lip balms. This is, this is right up my eyes.
So she's going to make them.

Speaker 2 She just wanted us to get the first ones, which is so fucking cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So you can go to the base element

Speaker 2 at Etsy and buy Murderino and non-murderino you guys we can have our own makeup line fucking love this podcast from Bethany it's so cool

Speaker 2 it's very cool thank you for our gifts totally worth it to open up to open you up to danger I know and get that pot that PO box hey look that's plenty of presents that's plenty I'm okay with the PO I talked to my therapist about it

Speaker 2 I really fucking lost my shit this last week. I talked to her about it.
I got some pepper spray. The reality is it's not going to fucking, happen.
I mean, what are the chances that's going to happen?

Speaker 2 It's not. Then I get scared when you say that.
Fuck again.

Speaker 2 Sorry. All right.
If you really, really want to find it, and if you actually have something that you're making that's like legit, you can have the P.O. box.

Speaker 2 Also, there's 80 million ways to contact us so that you could probably say, Hey, here's what I'm going to send you. Totally.

Speaker 2 And here's a copy of my driver's license so that if I do harm you in any way. Right.
And now we have evidence.

Speaker 2 Evidence, it's all on the internet. So that was present, uh, present, that was present corner.
What we call present corner.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're in. This is fun.
So we start opening like gifts from listeners, which I know scared the shit out of me in the very beginning. Yeah, clearly.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're taking true precautions and then hurting yourself in the

Speaker 1 process. It sounds, sounds like me.
It sounds like me through and through. Taking precautions, hurting yourself on accident.
Yeah. I mean, I can relate.

Speaker 1 I think that's very relatable. Also, I think we were doing a lot of those kinds of, okay, strangers are sending us big boxes.
We just got to go with God on this one and like play along.

Speaker 1 And I have to say this, we've been doing this for almost nine years.

Speaker 1 We've got been given a lot of amazing gifts, a lot of hilarious gifts, a lot of downright weird gifts. And I maybe shouldn't be saying this, but we've never gotten a scary gift.

Speaker 1 No, I've never felt threatened by a gift, except that doll that had the happy face and the sad face. But the person who gave it to us was hilarious.
Was hilarious.

Speaker 1 And God, I wish I can remember her name, but also knew that that's what they were doing. We needed it.
Yeah. It was great.
And do you remember we sent it to a listener? Yes. Someone won it.

Speaker 1 Who has that? If you won the scary two-faced doll, please send us an email of how your life has been going since it entered your home. We must know.

Speaker 1 And actually, so what's really cool about these gifts that we just opened is that at Holly's store, who gave us the H.H. Holmes murder castle puzzle, is still active at hollycardin.com.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she has a whole empire over there. Amazing.
Check that out. Yeah.
And also, we talked about the devil in the white city, and we got so excited because the movie was supposed to come out

Speaker 1 nine years ago. It's never come out, but all the same people are still attached.

Speaker 1 And it is essentially, it's Leonardo DiCaprio, and I think it's supposed to maybe be Corsese. I can't remember.

Speaker 1 But it's a famously cursed project now. Yeah, because I want to watch it now, though.
I want, I want it, but I want it. It's like that idea.
I just saw a TikTok on it, and there's a shot.

Speaker 1 The opening TikTok, the opening picture of the TikTok was this, the scene from the statue's shoulder overlooking that big pond or lake or whatever they built it.

Speaker 1 In the state fair or the, what's it called? Fairgrounds. Fair.
World's fair. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. For the World's Fair, but they built it like it was all white.
It's an incredible looking thing that like, like I got to actually see this one picture that I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 1 And then of course the Ferris wheel. You know what's so crazy is that when this came out, this episode, TikTok didn't exist.
Is that true? I'm making that up. I think it's true.
I think it's true.

Speaker 1 I bet you it was, I wonder if Vine had even been shut down yet. Oh shit.
Like Vine walked so that TikTok could run. Remember when we were Vine stars?

Speaker 1 Were we? No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 We could make that up. Pat Walsh was a Vine star.
Was he? Yeah, he was. Oh, that's so cute.
He would get on there and sing little songs like, all the girls are going to a pizza party.

Speaker 1 Yeah, vine. Okay.
Legendary. So let's now, as we always do on this podcast, take a left turn because

Speaker 1 this episode is horrible. It's horrifying.
It's child murder abuse. This is basically a listener warning, but it's not just about child murder.
It involves brutal child abuse.

Speaker 1 It's funny how our stories start to sink up at this point, where it's like we both had the same mindset. Yeah.
And so this episode is especially horrible because of that.

Speaker 1 But I also find it really interesting as I was reading through.

Speaker 1 It's clear that we're, you and I are understanding how to talk about true crime in a way that we hadn't been taught.

Speaker 1 May I correct just starting to understand? Okay, starting to understand, yes. In a way that

Speaker 1 we didn't, we weren't taught and that we were figuring out from listeners' notes and from the way it made us feel. Yes.

Speaker 1 And not, and so there's a lot of comments here that it's almost like you can hear us feeling out our own empathy and what it means and what it doesn't excuse, but

Speaker 1 how to think about.

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 stories. Yeah.
And so it is a different time completely. And I think you and I are clearly feeling our way through that.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think about it all the time where, and we have talked about it a lot, but it's like growing up on quote unquote tree crime and the way the media used to treat it was normal to us.

Speaker 1 That's, that's just how it was. Salacious.
You're trying to, you know,

Speaker 1 sell these stories. Killer-centric,

Speaker 1 just kind of it pop culture-y. And so us coming in from that stance

Speaker 1 in 2016, looking back now and looking back basically the whole time, it's just kind of like, why are we, why are we this disconnected? Why aren't we?

Speaker 1 And I mean, disconnected maybe isn't the right word, but it is like, yeah, you can, you can hear us slowly starting to realize nothing is black and white, nothing is straightforward.

Speaker 1 And at the same time, like, oh, you know, the woman from your story later went on and got to tell her story. Right.

Speaker 1 And it was a complete, it like flipped that kind of very singular media narrative that we learned and kind of went with when it happened. Right.

Speaker 1 Like the story can be nuanced without taking away the perpetrator's culpability.

Speaker 1 And you can understand a story and people's motivations in ways without saying that they didn't deserve the punishment or that justice exists and so does empathy.

Speaker 1 But, you know, how do we look at that? And I think we had to do that in a different way for this podcast. Right.

Speaker 1 And in a way that it's embarrassing to go, oh, I never, I didn't really think of the victim's family, but no one really did in a forthright way that we could have copied. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like everyone now gets to copy everybody else that caught up and is doing better and doing better.

Speaker 1 Because of course, all of our anonymous internet friends have

Speaker 1 logged on to say do better many, many times. We said, okay, okay, okay.
You're right. You're right.
We'll do our best. All right.
So let's get into Karen's story,

Speaker 1 a classic story, one that I can't think about without thinking about you as a child because she truly does look exactly like you. Yeah.
This is the story of Mary Bell.

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Speaker 2 Hey, do you want to talk about our favorite murders? We might as well. Skippers, come back to us.

Speaker 2 It's time.

Speaker 2 I think you're first. Is it me? I think so.
The

Speaker 2 murder that I chose this week. Yes, Karen.
And my favorite murder

Speaker 2 Is one that's always, it's been one that, like, the first time I read it, I couldn't, I would have to turn my eyes away from the page because it is

Speaker 2 horrible and horrifying, but also, like, there's an underpinning of salaciousness to it that I thoroughly enjoy. It's about Mary Bell, the child child killer.
Buck. Yeah.
The childhood child killer.

Speaker 2 Yes. Now, what I realized in looking through my researchers, my researches today,

Speaker 2 I mean from weeks ago. Right, for when all that research we've been doing.
Just piles and piles. Every night I go to the city library like Morgan Freeman and I let the guy play.
It's the same one from

Speaker 2 first Ghostbusters movie, right? The big, huge, cavernous, ghosty. Yes.

Speaker 2 I go down in the basement where the very old dead

Speaker 2 ghost librarian is. Microfiche is involved.
You scroll microfiche. Just for hours.
Hours.

Speaker 2 So, in the pictures of Mary Bell, which we should put up on the Instagram page, I will. That's what I look like when I was listening.

Speaker 2 Exactly. So, I've always had a bit of a connection to Mary Bell

Speaker 2 in certain ways. But I also know, and we got called out,

Speaker 2 I think it was on, I can't remember the woman, the girl's name, but the girl that shut up the school. I don't like Mondays.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Mary.

Speaker 2 Anyways,

Speaker 2 sorry.

Speaker 2 Lisa,

Speaker 2 that girl, we kind of got, there's a couple people who are like, we were being too sympathetic to her or being like too nice when normally we're mean.

Speaker 2 If it's like a man and it's older, we're mean and like hang him high. I disagree with that.
I know. I mean, everyone has a lot to say about every fucking

Speaker 2 single thing.

Speaker 2 I agree. Well, I brought it up because I was thinking, is that home going to be about Mary Bell? But the truth is, I honestly believe that Mary Bell is a psychopath.

Speaker 2 I think she, anytime she seems sympathetic, it's because she's trying to seem sympathetic.

Speaker 2 I think she is like, I think she's a nightmare. Like, we need to talk about Kevin, the bad seed.
She is the reality of all of that fiction evil child. Right.
Like, nothing can be done.

Speaker 2 Now, I think there's a reason she's that way. I don't, she may have been born that way because they do talk about how she, from an early age, like, didn't bond, but she had this fucking crazy mother.

Speaker 2 Either way, to me,

Speaker 2 I'm just want to say it at the start.

Speaker 2 I'm not defending her. I'm not defending Mary Belle.
Okay, but I also want to say another thing about it.

Speaker 2 Whenever there's like a child molester or a murderer or someone, we talk about their past and we're like, yeah, that sucks.

Speaker 2 I don't think we were softer on her.

Speaker 2 I don't either. I think we're always like...
investigating the past of the person who's killing people. That doesn't exonerate them from.

Speaker 2 But I think sometimes you know when it's personal opinion which is all all of this podcast is yeah sometimes more empathy will come out even if you have it it you won't express it like i don't have a ton of empathy for richard ramirez even though he did get hit in the swing and he's the worst uncle in the world yeah whatever it's just we're just saying it's understandable that this person didn't become a normal member of society yes and for me that's what's interesting to me yeah when you can when it's not just oh you were born with this defect where you do not have mirror neurons and you do not empathize with other human beings, that's one thing.

Speaker 2 But like, if there is like a little path you could have been normal,

Speaker 2 if you didn't experience this parent or this aunt or whatever, it's some awful pit that you fell in in your childhood.

Speaker 2 To me, that's like, that's really what's fascinating. That's the study.
Slash horrifying. That's the study.
That's the study.

Speaker 2 The effect that they killed someone and murdered them and raped and did all these horrible things. That's the effect.
You know, there's a cause and effect. Yeah.
Etc.

Speaker 2 And the cause is fascinating. Right.

Speaker 2 And if I had A, an education, B, didn't have ADD, I would probably read up on it a ton and become some type of

Speaker 2 a learned expert about it. Me too.

Speaker 2 Instead?

Speaker 2 Instead,

Speaker 2 I work in TV, so I am rewarded for not paying attention to it.

Speaker 2 And also, but we do have a true crime podcast, so I think we're good I think we're basically doing that uh yeah yeah we're doing our best anyhow sorry go on uh no

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 so I've I've always found Mary Bell fucking fascinating so this happened in 1968

Speaker 2 actually I thought it happened a lot longer ago that's cool 68 yeah and it happened in new in the inner city suburb of Newcastle in England

Speaker 2 that's Stephen Kingstown right no no no, no, in England. Never mind.

Speaker 2 Newcastle. No, Newcastle.
Castle Rock. It's Castle Rock in England.
Oh, yeah. Castle Rock's the.
Yeah. He's all about Maine.
Can we just strike all of that from the record? Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2 We're going to go in and edit this down so good.

Speaker 2 We're not. No, we're not at all.
And we never do.

Speaker 2 Okay, so

Speaker 2 she was born to an

Speaker 2 unwed, unstable, 17-year-old sex worker

Speaker 2 named Betty McCrickett.

Speaker 2 And Betty used to leave her daughter with relatives and acquaintances just dumped her off anytime she could because she had to go.

Speaker 2 I guess she would go into

Speaker 2 Glasgow a lot

Speaker 2 and work as

Speaker 2 a sex worker.

Speaker 2 Even as a non-17-year-old sex worker that I was, the thought of having a child at 17

Speaker 2 Nightmare. Nightmare.
It's just, it's what a great opportunity for a ton of bad decisions. Totally.
Like this one, where she once gave Mary to a woman she met on the street outside an abortion clinic.

Speaker 2 Shut up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Betty was doing it.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 apparently their household was filthy and sparsely furnished. And

Speaker 2 Betty's family members said that Betty tried to kill Mary more than once in her first few years of life. Oh my God.
And tried to make it look accidental.

Speaker 2 So they all became very suspicious when Mary, quote unquote, fell out a window. Head trauma.

Speaker 2 Possibly. And also when she accidentally consumed sleeping pills.
What the fuck?

Speaker 2 So they think she could have definitely gotten brain damage because she had sleeping pills, iron pills. And apparently Mary,

Speaker 2 sorry, Betty would feed the pills to Mary and tell them they were candy. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Speaker 2 There are some people who now say that they think Betty probably had Munchhausen's by proxy,

Speaker 2 which is the fascinating disease where a parent gets

Speaker 2 addicted to the attention and

Speaker 2 sympathy that they get from a sick child. And so they make the child sick on purpose.
It's basically what happened in the movie Seven

Speaker 2 when the barfing girl finally brings him back to her house. That's a great scene.

Speaker 2 No. Not seven fucking

Speaker 2 both. You're like the other number movie.
Makes six cents. Our brains are sinking up because that was just.

Speaker 2 Oh, you know what's so hilarious? Yeah,

Speaker 2 it's like our mistake brains are like,

Speaker 2 I did the same thing where when I was talking about the Polly Kloss murder, I called it. I called it Cloverfield, which is a movie.
And the city name where her body was found is Cloverdale.

Speaker 2 And Adrian, my friend. The whole time you called it that? Yeah, but I think I only said it once.
Adrienne texted me and she's like, dude, it's Cloverdale.

Speaker 2 You went there for softball games. What are you doing? And I was just like, she's like, I'm the only one that noticed, but seriously, it's Cloverdale.
It's a monster movie.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Grow up.
Maybe you were just trying to protect the town so people like, so L'Akilo's wouldn't show up there. That's right.
That's what you were doing. Just stay away from Cloverfield.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 bad news, obviously, and in her upbringing.

Speaker 2 And so, of course, at school, Mary was known as a chronic liar, disruptive pupil.

Speaker 2 She,

Speaker 2 on occasion, would voice her desire to hurt people.

Speaker 2 She did a lot of kicking and punching and

Speaker 2 lying. And so all the kids, they would make fun of her a lot because she was just basically a monster and a mess.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 later on, it

Speaker 2 sorry, I was just trying to figure out where when a good but basically later on it came to be discovered that Mary's mother would use her and sell her in prostitution as well from the age of four.

Speaker 2 Holy shit. So she,

Speaker 2 I guess, this is another thing that does fascinate me. This is another thing that, like, that kind of trauma can affect you and does affect your personality.
Really?

Speaker 2 So she was subjected to really awful things at such a young age that they think that that probably plays into the psychopathy and the behavior. Yeah, you're like, this isn't a safe world.

Speaker 2 Nothing is safe. I need to fucking defend myself.
And I want to start hurting others the way I'm being hurt. And it's a way.
But it's normal.

Speaker 2 It's the way children, yeah, it's the way children communicate that they're being hurt when they know they're not allowed to talk about it. Right.

Speaker 2 Fascinating. Totally.
Okay. So on May 25th, 1968, two boys playing in an abandoned house found the corpse of four-year-old Martin Brown lying in an upstairs room.

Speaker 2 Um, Mary Bell and her friend Norma Bell, who was not related to her, they just had the same last name, followed the boys inside the house.

Speaker 2 And when the police arrived, the two girls had to be ordered out. So they really liked looking at this dead person.
How old were they?

Speaker 2 Mary was just about to turn 11. Okay.
And

Speaker 2 Norma Bell was 13, but Mary was the dominant of the two. Sure.
And like a little more mature and smart.

Speaker 2 There was no obvious cause of death, so it was assumed that Martin Brown had swallowed pills from a discarded bottle, which was found nearby.

Speaker 2 So the next day, Normabelle's father caught Mary choking

Speaker 2 Norma. and he slapped her face and sent her home.

Speaker 2 She was choking her so bad. Holy shit.

Speaker 2 The day after this little boy died.

Speaker 2 So four days later, Mary Bell appeared at the Brown residence asking to see Martin. And when she was reminded that Martin was dead.

Speaker 2 Wait, she showed up? She showed up at the dead boy's house asking to see him. And when the adult that answered the door reminded her that Martin was dead, it was the mother that answered the door.

Speaker 2 And when the mother said, He's dead, Mary said, oh, I know he's dead. I want to see him in his coffin.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Couldn't you have, oh, what would you do? I'd scream. I'd run screaming.
I mean, a little girl, too. Yeah.
Who's

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay, so two months later, three-year-old Brian Howe goes missing.

Speaker 2 An immediate search is mounted, and Mary Bell tells Brian's sister that he might be playing on a heap of concrete blocks that had been dumped out. in a nearby vacant lot,

Speaker 2 and which is where he was discovered dead from manual strangulation, legs and stomach and penis mutilated with a razor and a pair of scissors.

Speaker 2 The police discover at the scene the letters M and N were scratched into his stomach.

Speaker 2 So as the investigation narrows, Mary,

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 somebody that had been walking by said they saw kids

Speaker 2 around that pile of stones that day. And then when they took the three-year-old's body body into the corner, he said,

Speaker 2 It looks like he's strangled, but it's such light force that I think we're looking at a child murderer.

Speaker 2 So then the cops went around and started interviewing all the kids in the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 And Mary and Norma were both dinged right away because their stories kept changing. Mary acted super weird.
They got freaked out by how creepy and weird she was. And Norma couldn't stop giggling.

Speaker 2 Holy shit.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 Mary,

Speaker 2 when the investigation got narrowed on to Mary Bell, she suddenly remembered seeing an eight-year-old boy with Brian on the day he died. And she said that the boy hit Brian for no reason.

Speaker 2 And that she said that same boy had been playing with broken scissors.

Speaker 2 But the boy, she was naming a specific boy. She was basically trying to pin it on him, but he had been at the airport that afternoon.

Speaker 2 And so the thing that Mary didn't know is that the scissors were confidential evidence. No one knew about the scissors.
Oh, Mary. That wasn't public.

Speaker 2 When you're a fucking 10-year-old murderer, is that you didn't, you don't understand?

Speaker 2 You can't keep your shit in line.

Speaker 2 Dude. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So baffling. She essentially implicates herself.

Speaker 2 with the scissor comment and she had described them exactly. So she's trying to pin it on the the other boy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And in doing so, she's like, they were silver colored and there was something wrong with them. Like one leg was either broken or bent.
So she basically describes the exact scissors to a T.

Speaker 2 I mean, smart, smart,

Speaker 2 smart investigating by the cops that they like figured this shit out pretty quickly. And can you imagine sitting in a room across from an 11-year-old girl when you see this picture,

Speaker 2 big blue eyes, little button nose, kind of vacant? Just think baby Karen. But just think baby Karen.
I was precious lamb. But

Speaker 2 she's lying to you. So you're buying her at first, and then

Speaker 2 she does the old Inglorious bastards holding up a three. And you don't even want it to be true.

Speaker 2 Like, you're not even like, we're going to get this guy. It's like, wait a second, you just said this wrong thing.

Speaker 2 Creepy enough that the coroner says you're probably going to want to look for a kid because a kid strangled a three-year-old. So you probably don't want it to be true.

Speaker 2 You probably have children of your own and this little girl is like.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the scissors.

Speaker 2 I mean, the chills go down your back. Chills.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 okay. I did the slidey thing again, which I always do.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 Brian Howe was buried on August 7th. And the investigative detective was named Detective Dobson.
And he was there.

Speaker 2 And he says, Mary Bell was standing in front of the Howe's house when the coffin was brought out. I, of course, was watching her.

Speaker 2 And it was when I saw her there that I knew I did not dare risk another day. She stood there laughing, laughing and rubbing her hands.

Speaker 2 I thought, my God, I've got to bring her in or she'll do another one. Holy shit.

Speaker 2 So.

Speaker 2 They bring in Mary Bell. Why are you laughing, psychopath? Because it's me.
She's also rubbing her hands together right now.

Speaker 2 No, because I'm picturing it, and it's like how they, why don't they make this movie? It's the creepiest thing of all time. Seriously.
This is like the ring,

Speaker 2 except for the girl has her hair back out of her face. And she's like, she thinks she's getting away with it.
She wanted to kill that little kid. She killed him.

Speaker 2 And then she wanted to see his dead body get carried out of the house. It's just, what's so crazy is the like,

Speaker 2 you know, when you, when adults kill, they like try really hard to hide it and try to outsmart people. That's like what you do.
But this little person who, I guess, you can argue didn't understand

Speaker 2 that either death was permanent or what it meant.

Speaker 2 Maybe, maybe, maybe. Or she enjoyed the feeling so much that she had done it.

Speaker 2 She, you know, because there was some killer that we talked about where they said, I want people to feel on the outside the way I feel on the inside. Was that one of those Cheshire murders? Yeah.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Or was it the person you talked about last week? No.

Speaker 2 Either way. Facts.
This is factual.

Speaker 2 It's not fact-based. It's that thing of like, when you finally feel right in the world, is when, like, that's how she felt right.
She killed that.

Speaker 2 She had the power to take his life away and put him in that box. She finally had power.
But she also had to be a little bit

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 arrested in her

Speaker 2 in

Speaker 2 she couldn't be smart enough. She couldn't have been smarter than a 10-year-old.
She just didn't understand right

Speaker 2 from wrong. You don't think so? Go on.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 this is where it gets crazy. Oh, my God.
This is where?

Speaker 2 This is where, well, this is where it shows that she was raised by two criminals because her mother ended up marrying,

Speaker 2 I think his name was Billy Bell, and he was like a career criminal. And so they clearly talked about being arrested, going in and out of jail, and all this stuff.

Speaker 2 Because when she's arrested, first of all, when they say you're going to be charged with murder, she said, that's all right by me. Whoa.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she,

Speaker 2 sorry.

Speaker 2 When she was in jail, there was a stray cat in jail. Oh, fuck.

Speaker 2 Elvis, cover your ears. Yeah, Elvis, you're not going to like this.
She grabbed the cat

Speaker 2 tightly by the neck, and the guard told her not to hurt the cat. And

Speaker 2 Mary allegedly replied, oh, she doesn't feel that. And anyway, I like hurting little things that can't fight back.

Speaker 2 In another incident, a policewoman said that Mary said she'd like to be a nurse, quote, because then I can stick needles into people. I like hurting people.
Oh, my God. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 So there was kind of a naive quality about it. Then also, the jailers, once she was in there, she calmed down a little bit after a while.
And a lot of the jailers liked her.

Speaker 2 The guards, you know, because they said she was very smart. She's, she was very sharp.
But

Speaker 2 she was a chronic bedwetter. Oh.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And she's got one of the pieces, probably two, if we count those being overdosed on drugs by your mother.

Speaker 2 Dropped out of a and dropped out of a window sure probably got two at least um what's the other one fires fire yeah okay no no report of fire on her but um she was terrified of going to sleep because she was afraid she was gonna wet the bed and

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 2 she said to one of the guards i usually do

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 and at home Her mother would humiliate her anytime she wet the bed.

Speaker 2 So she would rub her daughter's face in the pee when she found it and she would hang the mattress outside so the neighborhood would see it.

Speaker 2 So when they went to trial, Norma was acquitted of all charges and Mary was convicted of two counts of manslaughter. So I think it

Speaker 2 they say that Norma was there. Norma had like eight brothers and sisters or some huge family, and their whole family was there supporting her.

Speaker 2 And she did a lot of crying on the stand and saying Mary did it, Mary did it.

Speaker 2 And Mary did the same thing of saying Norman did it, but all she had was her lunatic mother who was wearing a blonde wig and would freak out so much and cry and do all these things that her wig would fall off.

Speaker 2 And then she would get up and run out of the courtroom and then come back. And so, because of that Munch Hausen's by proxy, like this was her drama,

Speaker 2 she was basically,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 saying the very slight chance that Mary wasn't guilty, she was condemning her anyway because no one had sympathy for that family.

Speaker 2 Whereas everyone was like, oh, this little girl's just been set up by Mary Bell.

Speaker 2 And then in the tabloids, Mary Belby just became just the face of evil for years and years.

Speaker 2 They didn't have anywhere to put her because they didn't have, they had never had to deal with sending an 11-year-old girl to jail.

Speaker 2 So there was like lots of places for Juvie for little boys, but none for little girls. So they had to keep her, they kept her in like a separate quarters in a, in a boys' detention center

Speaker 2 for a long time until she was in her teens.

Speaker 2 When she was in her teens, she escaped jail for a little while with two other boys, but then they, then they were only gone for two weeks and then they went back. She spent

Speaker 2 up until her

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 I can't find it now.

Speaker 2 I think it was like in her mid-20s in jail. and then when she got out, all of England was like freaking out, they were super pissed.
She made money off a book that someone wrote about her.

Speaker 2 Again, they were like, we need to pass laws, you know,

Speaker 2 whatever. She got out, and then what

Speaker 2 she ended up becoming a grandmother, like a mother and a grandmother. She got pregnant.
I don't think she got married, and then she was

Speaker 2 how did she change her name?

Speaker 2 There was, they passed a thing where they kept her. Yeah, she's she now lives under a pseudonym.
Right.

Speaker 2 And they like the British people wanted that repeal. They wanted to make her live as herself.
Oh. But they, they,

Speaker 2 whatever you, they continued the ruling that she could live under a pseudonym for the rest of her life.

Speaker 1 Okay, wow, we are back. Um, Karen, do you have any updates? I wanted to know, like, where is she now? So bad.
And I know. It's good that we don't.
Yes.

Speaker 1 However, there's this part of me that wants to know. I know.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, that's like the other media training that we have, which is kind of like, this is now we get the 15-year update, the 30-year update, like, whatever. But no, they're

Speaker 1 the adult Mary Bell and her daughter remain anonymous. They're protected under an order from the UK's High Court.
So I think that's all good. I mean, I was talking to Alison Agassi, our writer, about

Speaker 1 this story and how like this child was raised with a mother who was actively trying to kill her all the time yeah and and horribly abusing her and then it's like

Speaker 1 i i it's it's just mind-blowing to be like that if that's your perspective and that's how you get treated we can't know

Speaker 1 it's hard to imagine because we take for granted that we were picked up and held and cared for and looked in the eyes and it killed children psychology in the past like 10 years at least for myself is learning that the tools you learned as a child that you had to learn that helped you get through that period were actually helpful.

Speaker 1 And so in a way, this empathy that Mary Bell was able to turn off completely and have no care about anyone else and not understand other people's feelings was actually beneficial to her because she was being horribly abused.

Speaker 1 It just turned into. hurting other people as well, you know? Right.
Which is, I think, kind of a common thread in all these stories. Right.

Speaker 1 You can't consistently consistently hurt a child and think that that child should just be resilient. And, hey, they're kids.
They'll get over it. Like, it doesn't work that way.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The tools that you learn to protect yourself, you know, can turn on you and aren't always positive. Right.
So also, they're tools that you're just getting.

Speaker 1 Like, and then as you grow up, you later, when you realize that of like, I don't need this anymore, it can be like shameful or embarrassing, but it's like, but that's just the human experience.

Speaker 1 It's like you could, you just do it until you know better. That's what everyone's.
And you think it's who you are. It's your personality.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about myself at this point, about like dissociating. I'm only ever talking about myself all the time.
And that's yours. I'm talking about yourself all the time.
It really helps.

Speaker 1 Like, you don't realize isn't your personality. It's just like your learned behavior because it fucking helps.
It helps.

Speaker 1 Well, also, I had that realization about five years ago where it's like, oh, that's right. Stand-up comedy and wanting to be a comedian was a coping mechanism.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 What? What? I could have just been like a marine biologist like I wanted to. You don't think marine biology is a fucking coping mechanism too? I think it is.
Oh, just staring at whales all day.

Speaker 1 Hey, you love a whale. Oh, well, I hope your childhood was great.

Speaker 1 I guess. I guess.
I guess you can focus on kelp all the time. You're not terrified of the ocean? Well, congratulations.
Must be nice. Must be nice.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, this guy, this story. Oh.

Speaker 1 We have to now go into, I think we talked about it at the time. I think we have talked about it multiple times since.
I will say it now.

Speaker 1 Potentially one of the most nightmarish, horrible human story ever. Just absolutely terrible.

Speaker 1 Georgia's about to cover the death of Lisa Steinberg.

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Speaker 2 What's your favorite murder of the week? Hi, mine is also a child mark. Is it really? Yeah.
Man, this is a long episode for parents. It is very weird.
That's crazy. It's very weird.

Speaker 2 But this is this is by, this is a parent, a parental murder. And this one stuck with me for a, has stuck with me.

Speaker 2 I've read about it for a long time because there's a photograph of the little girl who gets killed.

Speaker 2 Oh, you're not. Oh, you're saying the child is murdered.
Child murder. Got it.
Child murder. Yes.
Got it.

Speaker 2 So there's a photo of the little girl the day before her death that really fucking stuck with me.

Speaker 2 I hope that.

Speaker 2 Do you hear that? Yes. It sounds like thunder.
My fucking downstairs neighbor plays

Speaker 2 some video game, World of War. Call of Duty.
Is that a thing? Yes. Call of Duty.

Speaker 2 So if you hear that, I'm sorry. So Lisa Steinberg, this poor little angel baby.

Speaker 2 That's the one. That's the one.
Oh, my God. It's heartbreaking.
This is the worst story. Okay, sorry.
It's okay. No, you're right.
I'm breathing not because I'm. Okay.

Speaker 2 So it's in 1981, 45-year-old Hedda Neusbaum and 46-year-old Joel Steinberg, who was a defense attorney who sometimes handled adoption cases, Joel was.

Speaker 2 They took custody of an infant girl that they named Lisa, and they illegally adopted her.

Speaker 2 The child's birth mother had paid Steinberg, the attorney, a $500 legal fee to place the child with a Roman Catholic family, but they just kept her instead.

Speaker 2 They were Jewish. I don't know.
I don't think that matters. But they, whatever, anyways.

Speaker 2 So this, Hedda and Joel were a well-educated, they were upper-class New York couple. They lived in Greenwich Village in New York City.

Speaker 2 At school, Lisa's teachers said she was bright and friendly, but they worried about her arriving at school with bruises and chunks of hair missing from her head.

Speaker 2 And she would tell them that her little brother, who was also a younger, was an adopted child, had hit her. And none of them had ever made reports of abuse, which changed a lot of stuff in the system.

Speaker 2 So there's a photo from Halloween the day before this big incident happens that one of the teachers took of Lisa and it's just a photo of her at her desk it's Halloween all the other children are dressed up and she's wearing her normal clothes and she's just kind of staring off and it's this

Speaker 2 with this sad face like an empty sad face and the next day

Speaker 2 on November 1st 1987 Hedda, the mother, calls the police to report that her daughter had choked on food. That's what she said.

Speaker 2 And when the police arrived, they found six-year-old Lisa Steinberg unconscious, and she had multiple bruises on her body, and the mother had a claim that she had fallen a lot lately on her roller skates.

Speaker 2 So according to initial reports, on November 1st,

Speaker 2 at around 7 p.m., Joel Steinberg had somehow rendered Lisa unconscious with severe blows to the head.

Speaker 2 And what Hedda later said as the reasoning was that Lisa wanted to go, quote, Lisa wanted to go to dinner with her father, but he did not want to take her.

Speaker 2 And then he inflicted the head injury because she wouldn't stop bugging him about wanting to go to dinner before he left the party. But before he left the apartment, Lisa was unconscious.

Speaker 2 So he left, and the mother, Hedda, was alone with the kid who was dying for roughly 10 hours, failing to notify police or medical personnel.

Speaker 2 Joel left and came back many times. They were freebase and cocaine sometimes together because they were also like weird drug addicts.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she says she didn't, Heda said she didn't call authorities because she believed that Joel had supernatural healing powers. Oh, God.
And she was waiting for him to come home and fix her,

Speaker 2 which we'll get into in a bit. Don't do drugs.
If you're going to do drugs, don't adopt children, stupid motherfuckers. Don't.
So around 6 a.m. the next morning, Lisa stopped breathing.

Speaker 2 And shortly after,

Speaker 2 Steinberg called 911 at Newsbaum's urging.

Speaker 2 Lisa died four days later in the hospital. And it was determined that the cause of death was a head injury apparently inflicted by what they say was a rubber-headed hammer.
Holy shit. I know.

Speaker 2 It's heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 The St. Vincent doctors, this is according to Joyce Johnson, who wrote a book called What Lisa Knew.
The doctors showed a, quote, map of pain on her body.

Speaker 2 I know. This poor little thing, man, I wish, I wish I

Speaker 2 they also,

Speaker 2 let's see. Um, the house was filthy and contained large quantities of cocaine and other drugs, and the couple was arrested on child abuse charges.

Speaker 2 Um, New York law state stated at the time that if one parent beats a child and the other stays silent about it, each is equally guilty.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I know, but Hedda was late. I mean, is it because is that giving any understanding to the

Speaker 2 to the other parent who didn't do it, who was probably abused as well and victimized? True, true, true. We don't know.
But here's the, here's the difference.

Speaker 2 So, Heda was later found to have been abused by Joel throughout their relationship. She suffered from nine broken ribs, a broken jaw, and a broken nose.

Speaker 2 And if you look at photos of her at this trial and right after this happened, this person is fucking disfigured. Yes.

Speaker 2 Like this person's, she had to get cartilage from her, quote, good ear taken out to reconstruct her nose, which had collapsed. Because he'd punched her so many times? Yeah.
Oh, fuck.

Speaker 2 So she wasn't prosecuted due to the belief that years of abuse had rendered her incompetent at the time of the murder. And instead.
That makes sense. Yeah.
And yeah, we'll talk about.

Speaker 2 fucking culpability, man. Instead, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
In exchange for her testimony against Joel, Hedda was not prosecuted. And Joel was charged with first-degree manslaughter.

Speaker 2 So the trial.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Go ahead.

Speaker 2 Why not murder?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't need it.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Oh, you know why? Because later it was said that if Hedda had called the ambulance at that moment, Lisa would have survived for sure.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 it wasn't his intent to murder her when he did kill her, right?

Speaker 2 Jesus Christ. Breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing.
What's our dress right now?

Speaker 2 Seafoam green wall. We're here in 2016 and not in 80s, New York, in this horrible apartment.
What do you feel under your hand?

Speaker 2 I just remembered as you were talking, describing her appearance, there was an amazing article in Oprah's magazine

Speaker 2 that she, Hedden Nessbaum, wrote. Well, she wrote a book.
Did she? Yeah. I bet that was just publicity then, and it was just an excerpt from the book.
It was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 She wrote a book about, she does like

Speaker 2 talks and about being abusive relationships, and she wrote a book about it that I didn't really want to include because I don't want to make this about. Okay.
You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But we, you know, I'm not, she wrote a book. It's just the side-by-side of her when she was young, when she first met him, and when she was arrested, is crazy.
She looks like an old witch.

Speaker 2 And she was this gorgeous young New York woman. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I just have to.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 this is the problem is I've never been, it's not a problem. This is great.
I've never been in an abusive relationship before. So I don't know the fucking

Speaker 2 head games and

Speaker 2 the way you have to

Speaker 2 rationalize things in your head because this person you care about

Speaker 2 is doing these things and you want them to believe that they're that they have no control over that they're not doing it on purpose that they would never hurt you otherwise your whole fucking world is just shattered and that's right insane and on top of that they're using strong they're free basing at this point i mean freebasing cocaine is like you're you're doing cracks you're crackhead you're a psychopath yeah okay um and they were there was also some weird like cult stuff and they had been convincing her that she like mind games with her that she had been um sleeping around and had been um hypnotized and there was just some very fucked up mind games with the schedule.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 all right, so the trial. So this is actually the first trial which made

Speaker 2 New York, which turned New York into the 44th state to allow television cameras in the courtroom. Oh, this was like fucking watched.
Like people tuned in constantly for this.

Speaker 2 So during the trial, they said that Lisa's injuries were severe, but she would have almost certainly survived if given prompt medical treatment. So, this is probably why you had manslaughter.
So,

Speaker 2 the jury wanted to convict Steinberg on the more serious charge of second-degree murder,

Speaker 2 but they couldn't because so they could only convict him of

Speaker 2 the second most serious charge, which is first-degree manslaughter.

Speaker 2 So, the judge then sentenced him to the maximum penalty then available.

Speaker 2 Guess how long that is, Karen?

Speaker 2 God, is it seven years? Eight and one-third. Oh.
To 25 years in prison.

Speaker 2 And he's a lawyer, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So on two occasions, so Steinberg served his time. On two occasions, he was denied discretionary parole because he never expressed any remorse for the killing.
He never said he was

Speaker 2 he hit her. He was always an argument that something mustn't happen with Hedda.
Yeah, and the girl.

Speaker 2 But on June 30th, 2004, he was paroled paroled under the state's, quote, good time law, meaning he did good time. He was a good inmate.
Congratulations, fucking latents. You can't kill him.

Speaker 2 He was a kid. He wasn't a good father.
Yeah. He was a rotten father and husband.
That's insane.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 Okay. It mandates the release of inmates who exhibit good behavior while incarcerated after having served as little as two-thirds of the maximum possible sentence.

Speaker 2 After his release, he moved to Harlem

Speaker 2 and he works in the construction industry.

Speaker 2 industry he continues to main maintain his innocence but there was this really great New York magazine article where this journalist I don't have his name was like clearly like this guy's full of shit he was interviewing his attorney who's like just a fucking dick lick motherfucker

Speaker 2 excuse me

Speaker 2 why now

Speaker 2 what

Speaker 2 why now you say fuck every five seconds why excuse myself excuse me excuse me for that something about dick lick motherfucker was a little more.

Speaker 2 That was one step too far. Weirdly, that's something I say on the regular.
Dick Lick motherfucker. Learn it.

Speaker 2 In the magazine article, he like needled Joel and finally Steinberg finally admitted that he quote pushed his daughter a little quote with the soft pad, you know, on your palm.

Speaker 2 He finally kind of gave in.

Speaker 2 Because the whole article they were trying to the the lawyer was trying to make it seem like Joel was the the victim of this like media slander to make Hedda look innocent and him look guilty.

Speaker 2 And it's like, just what a piece of shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 In 2003, Steinberg was ordered to pay Lisa's biological mother, the one who gave her up for adoption, 15 million for the quote, heinous, outrageous crime of murdering Lisa. Wow.
I'm a little bit like,

Speaker 2 do you deserve that money? No.

Speaker 2 But still, I like the idea he has to pay.

Speaker 2 And But then a civil suit, Heda

Speaker 2 wanted to collect 3.6 million from Joel for eight years of beatings she said she endured and the permanent disfigurement she has suffered. Which at that point, I'm a little like,

Speaker 2 this child died. You need to walk the fuck away.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Or am I being insensitive to I mean, there's there's a lot.
There's a lot of ways that we can offend people in this, but here's, this is my stance, because I remember. The wanting money is like.

Speaker 2 The wanting money is bullshit. Yeah.
Because

Speaker 2 you, I understand that she was in an abusive relationship. I also understand that she was a drug addict, which is a lot of people don't have empathy for that.
I do.

Speaker 2 And I understand that you go into a place that is inexplicable and indefensible a lot of the time. Yes.

Speaker 2 You don't ask for money for doing that. You make reparations.
You fix your life. You make your amends, you clear away the wreckage of your past.
You don't ask to be paid for the thing you fucked up.

Speaker 2 The thing about it is, is like,

Speaker 2 you were an adult in this relationship, as mind-fucked as you were, as victimized as you were,

Speaker 2 you stayed in it. You chose to stay in it until this awful thing happened.
If that hadn't happened, you would have stayed in it and the children would have still been abused.

Speaker 2 It just so happens that Lisa died, that you got out of it. Right.

Speaker 2 And there's so many examples, I'm sure, listeners too, who have figured out a way to get out of abusive relationships and how fucking difficult it is and awful it is, but you fucking do it.

Speaker 2 And that's your choice as an adult.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're back.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's hard to listen to us talk about and debate even with ourselves and our own conscience, like who deserves what and why, as, you know, know, when it comes to justice and reparations, and, you know, it's just such a different, it's such a different mindset back in 2016 than it is today.

Speaker 1 Well, it's just ignorance. I mean, like, it's not, I don't think you and I have ever pretended to be anything we're not.

Speaker 1 And so when we were having those kinds of conversations, it's literally just, and I think why people like this podcast, we're just regular people that are like sharing our kind of like, oh, I guess this is what I think about this.

Speaker 1 And I think that's why listeners like it because then they literally can be like, here's what I think about it. And here's why your answer either delights me or disgusts me.

Speaker 1 And then it's like, oh, right. What are we doing? Like, we're doing critical thinking together.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, we got, I remember us getting follow-up stuff about Heda Nussbaum and really good information that was like, it really did feel like the beginning of bigger picture, more to consider.

Speaker 1 It's not just you and I sitting in your apartment chatting. Totally.
And you know what's interesting to me about this is I am in the middle of JC Dugard's memoir, A Stolen Life.

Speaker 1 And it is harrowing and difficult and mirrors this story in a lot of ways and is really even now in 2025, opening my eyes to the abuse that victims endure. And JC just goes through this thing.

Speaker 1 that is mind blowing and I will never understand and you can never understand unless you've been through it.

Speaker 1 And just the space you need to leave open for people who have been in abusive relationships and that, just the understanding that you will never understand. Yes.

Speaker 1 So I'm trying to wrap my brain around that and looking at the story from that angle as well. Yeah.
It's really eye-opening to me.

Speaker 1 Really quick, did I ever tell you about Adrienne's mother-in-law and JC Dugard? No. Okay.

Speaker 1 I'll try to make this as fast as possible.

Speaker 1 Adrienne, my sister's friend, Adrian,

Speaker 1 who she's also my friend. That's now the longer title that she has.

Speaker 1 Her mother-in-law, Pushpa, is this brilliant woman um

Speaker 1 who

Speaker 1 she's the teacher she is no that's my sister no

Speaker 1 her english teacher wasn't adrian's mom the english teacher that's adrian's mom judy oh who are you talking about her mother-in-law oh got it okay pushpa and pushba was um a parole officer oh in that area and that's a big deal in the story it's a big deal because pushba got sent to that house

Speaker 1 and she went back and said something's not right. They wouldn't let me in the front door.
I, she actually tried to look over their shoulder.

Speaker 1 He was like at the front door, wouldn't let her look inside. Then she went around, even though he was like, no, no, it's all fine.
So then she went around and peeked over the fence,

Speaker 1 saw the tarps, went back to work and was like, you got to go in there. Something's wrong there.
Blah, blah, blah. And they were like, we don't have any cause.
They basically didn't listen to her.

Speaker 1 And there, you know, you've got to be a nosy neighbor.

Speaker 1 Well, and also like that kind of thing where it's like especially that specific situation where she was held there for so long yeah it's so awful and like the idea of at any point something could have changed yeah and it was just like somebody on the other end being like it's not that big of a deal right is so frustrating that's a huge part of the story is like in her mind it's like no one cared yeah no one was looking and it was just

Speaker 1 it was just a peek over the fence away because they didn't realize that the backyard went on further than it did right there's like a false just where she was being kept yep yeah yeah wow that's incredible i mean be the nosy neighbor you guys that's the um pushba is the one where when nora was like five years old pushba asked her what she wanted to be

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 what she wanted to be when she grew up and pushba's a sri lankan and nora was like i want to be a cheerleader and pushba goes don't be a cheerleader be a doctor so we say that to nora all the time and she will be you know it i think it worked i think it worked on her i think like just being able to accept that you have blind spots not that you're bad for them not that it means anything except for that you're a human being but just like the humility of going yeah i must and i know i do and the way i see the world is just that the way i see the world is from my own experiences and and that's a very singular experience of it's a very and also you know having the internet suddenly, like the world was like, there's more than your experience.

Speaker 1 And here it is right here. And now you should have known this already.

Speaker 1 And like, it really was this very insane dividing line of like, all of a sudden there were people snapping their fingers being like, you should be smarter than this.

Speaker 1 And it's like, I know I should be smarter than this. Like, it's crazy.
So yeah, those kinds of like, I could never imagine. Therefore, I don't even know.

Speaker 1 You don't know what you don't know. You don't know what you don't know.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I have a couple of case case updates the baby from the story baby mitchell lisa's adopted younger brother was returned to his birth mom he was given a new name and he eventually graduated with honors from his high school earned a college degree got married and pursued a career in banking so beautiful thank god for that thank god around the time joel was being released from prison which

Speaker 1 jesus christ had a news bomb changed her name and moved out of new york so he wouldn't be able to find her her exact whereabouts are unknown And, you know, you heard us talking about abusive relationships.

Speaker 1 So if you or anyone you know is struggling to leave an abusive partner, we wanted to give you a few resources.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is free, confidential, available 24 hours a day, and it's 1-800-799-SAFE, 7233. So that's 1-800-799-SAFE.

Speaker 1 And their website is thehotline.org, where you can find resources and also get involved in supporting survivors, either through volunteering or, hey, donation. Oh, we do that.
Shall we? Let's please.

Speaker 1 10 grand to thehotline.org, the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Yeah.
And if you have anything to give this new year,

Speaker 1 that would be amazing. I think that's an incredibly helpful charity to support.
Definitely. Well, that was a heavy episode.
Sure was. At least we ended it on a donation.

Speaker 1 We ended on donation and a happy new year. That's right.
Hey, happy new year, everybody. Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

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