#585 - Serial Killer's Secret Graveyard - Kingston Township, Pennsylvania

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This week, in Kingston Township, Pennsylvania, what begins as a simple search for a missing pharmacist turns into the discovery of a makeshift graveyard with as many as 12 bodies, many of them burned and smashed.

But will it be enough to convict this suspected serial killer?

Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

Yay!

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Yay indeed.

My name is James Petrogallo.

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Like when someone sits you at a restaurant, they should go, congratulations, good choice.

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That's good.

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So I'm telling you now, there's going to be jokes and people are going to die.

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Everything here, there's nothing that's embellished for comedic effect or anything like that.

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Very easily.

You don't make fun of the victims or the victims' families.

Why, James?

Because we're assholes.

But.

But we're not scumbags.

See how that works?

It works out pretty good here.

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That's a dumb thought.

Ridiculous.

It's a terrible thought.

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Anyway, for the rest of you, though, you want to hear a great story and a great show we have coming up for you.

I think it's time to sit back.

Let's all clear the lungs.

What do you say, everybody?

And let's all shout.

Shut up

and

give me

murder.

All right, let's go on a trip, everybody.

Let's do this.

We are going to Pennsylvania this week.

We're going to Kingston Township, Pennsylvania.

This has been Kingston before, right?

In Rhode Island, which this town is named after.

So there you go.

It all connects.

I'm telling you, man.

When I saw that, I was like, oh, my God, it all connects.

Look at that.

This is in northeastern Pennsylvania.

It's about a half hour outside of Scranton.

Okay.

So this is kind of back in the mountains.

This isn't Philly.

This isn't Pittsburgh.

That's rural.

What would you call that?

Rural.

Is it industrial?

Yeah.

Rural, I would call this.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, Scranton's got some

old industrial stuff, but this is, they call this Back Mountain.

That's the name of this area.

Is that right?

Back Mountain.

So it is a different kind of place than that, buddy.

Let me tell you something.

Those are two bad words to put down.

Back mountain.

That sounds scary.

Definitely.

You hear the

banjos and you're like, this is not good.

Back mountain.

And local people, when they hear back mountain, that's like Colorado people saying western slope.

Like, it's not good people over there.

It's frightening.

We'll find out here.

It's about 30 minutes to Scranton, about two hours and 15 minutes to Philadelphia, and about two hours and 25 minutes to Washington Borough, which was our last episode in Pennsylvania, which was the Moronic murders, which was one of the craziest.

It's the moronic murders because it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.

These people were nuts.

This is in Lucerne County, Lucerne County, like the dairy product with a Z.

Yeah.

Oh.

L-U-Z-E-R-N-E.

So isn't that a dairy product like that, I think?

Or that's with a C.

Not sure.

The Safeway store brand is Lucerne.

There you go, but that's with a C, I think.

Different.

The motto here is The Gateway to the Back Mountain.

Okay.

That's the mother of the town.

So they're proud of it.

That's vineyard butthole.

You want to get the taint to the back.

It's really the taint.

It leads you to the promised land here.

So a little bit of history here.

Kingston Township was one of the original townships formed by the Susquehanna Land Company of Connecticut in 1790.

This is old.

Yeah.

The township is named after Kingston, Rhode Island, and was originally called Kingstown, like Kingstown.

They just dropped the W.

The township was downsized later when whole regions were stripped away to form new municipalities.

So it used to be a lot bigger place.

Some reviews of this town.

Here's four stars.

In the largest part, Kingston Township is a great place to grow up and settle down.

Those in between, however, may find it to be too slow-paced and quiet and seek the excitement of distance.

Everybody says, nice place to either grow up or retire.

That's kind of the way everybody keeps talking about.

Yeah, it's your beginning or your end, not the middle.

Yeah, if you're 26 and out looking for like mates, this isn't the place you want to be, probably.

Yeah.

Four stars here.

Sunoco gas station is right down the road from me.

Well, brag.

Wow.

Brag much asshole.

Jesus.

Aren't you cool?

Jesus.

Glad to get those suckers with the scorpions in them and

a bag of twisters.

What else are you going to do?

There's a Sunoco like an eighth of a mile from my house.

I never thought to brag about it.

It was just rebuilt and is up to date.

Wow, this is just a review for Sunoco.

I visit there almost every day because they carry every essential needed.

That's the whole review.

That one probably does because it's probably in a rural area.

Yeah, they're probably smart to do that.

Cat food and shit.

Oh, yeah.

Cereal and all that kind of shit.

Diapers.

Yeah, that's it.

Three stars here.

There are not many opportunities here.

The people who live here are all very wealthy, but there's not a lot of options for the up-and-coming generations.

I didn't really get the wealthy thing here.

I didn't really get that.

There's the Sunoco, man.

Where you get your essentials.

I don't know about, I mean, I'm sure there are some wealthy people that own large swaths of land and shit, but that's population.

Oof.

Population, 7,076 people here.

Okay.

So pretty small.

Way more females than males, 52.7% women here.

So that's way above the out-of-whack.

It's usually like 50.1%.

Median age is higher than it is in the rest of the country.

It's about 48 here, which is 10 years higher than the rest of the land here.

About 56% married, very few people divorced, very few people single with children.

Oh, yeah, I don't know what it is.

You just get your

plot of land and you're going to stay here, and that's that.

You're going to stay married even if you hate each other.

So, race of this town: 96.8% white, 1.1% black, 1.3% Asian, 0.5%

Hispanic.

The unemployment rate here is skyrocketing here

compared to the rest of the country.

It's 9.6%,

which is really high for a spot.

I think it's just rural.

I mean, I think that's why they're so jacked about the Sunoco.

Yeah, Sunoco can only hire so many people.

I mean, there's one guy standing there behind the counter.

That's all they got here.

Median household income here is $75,285 a year, which is

slightly above the national average, but I wouldn't say it's all rich people here.

That's not what I say.

Cost of living here, 100 being regular average.

Here it's 80.6.

So pretty, pretty, you know, low compared to the rest of the country.

Average money, too.

That's great.

Yeah.

And the housing cost is low.

Median home cost here, $181,000.

That'll make you feel like you're rich.

Oh, that's what I mean.

You'd feel rich if you're.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

So maybe everybody that's listening right now really wants to move here.

Just in case you do, we have for you the Kingston Township, Pennsylvania Real Estate Report.

Average two-bedroom rental here goes for about $1,030 a month, which is way lower,

a couple hundred under the national average.

Here's a three-bedroom, one bath, 1,125 square foot house, little starter house.

This is a small house, 1,100 square feet.

It's on 0.36 acres, so not a huge lot, but

not crammed in, though.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

You're not crammed in.

You got a yard.

It doesn't look good.

The roof has growth on it, which is never a good sign.

It's like moss or like trees.

Yeah, no, nothing with like a trunk, but definitely some foliage up there that probably shouldn't be.

I don't think that's a good sign here.

Something has taken root up there, and that's weird.

Yeah, there are rooms that have no floor.

Like it's just all torn up.

The floor is a really weird, like a flagstone that looks like it should be like an outside path.

It's a strange house, really weird house.

119,000 bucks, though.

So it's a bit high.

It seems like it, I guess, but yeah, you can probably do some stuff to it, I guess.

Here's a four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,420 square feet.

So that's not bad.

You got a couple of kids.

You can spread out.

It's a good-sized house.

0.47 acres, so almost a half acre.

Good size plot.

This house is just 70s.

The outside of it is like wood.

The inside of it is an insane 70s wood.

The kitchen has definitely not been touched since 1983.

It's got like that old fridge in it where you're like, oh man, that fridge is old as shit.

It just knobs on the microwave.

Yeah, it does.

It's weird.

Backyard's nice.

It's okay.

But it is $335,000 and it just had a price cut of $15,000.

It's going to go down further before it sells it.

I was going to say, I think this thing, I think you could wait on this thing, or at least lowball these people.

Here's a five-bedroom, six-bath T-ball for each and every B-haul.

Surplus of those T-balls.

11,775 square feet.

I can't even picture what that is.

I don't even know what that is.

It's like four big houses is what that is.

That's a four good-sized houses

on 11.92 acres.

I'm in love.

It's just humongous.

I don't even know you would get lost in this house.

It looks like a hotel.

There's a library in it.

And what I mean mean is i don't mean a room with some shelves i mean a hallway that you're walking down that's huge with like aisles on each side of book like a fucking library look

is in play it looks like a borders in this place it's the weirdest like a borders from the 90s it's really cool 1 million nine hundred ninety nine thousand bucks for that though which

seems a little high i would say i do like it and i still am in love with it i just wish i had a can we buy shit like that can we bring it down a notch on the price, possibly?

It's a bit much.

Things to do here.

Well, there's the Edwardsville Pierogi Festival.

I've been wondering what that was.

I've been looking for what's on my calendar, but I couldn't find what date to put it on.

This is the whole festival for them.

11th annual.

And if you don't know what a pierogi is, it is a Polish ravioli would be the best way to describe it.

It's fine.

It's good.

Pierogis are good.

They're fine.

I mean, it's a Polish ravioli.

How bad could it be?

What are you going to do?

They put sausage and shit in it.

It's good.

Noodles and meat.

Let's go.

That's what I mean.

It's going to be decent.

So So they say it's the biggest and best food festival to start your summer.

Over 80 vendors expected, which seems like too many pierogies for.

What are you selling?

I don't know.

They say they have live entertainment all weekend, but they're not listing what it is.

So that could be anything.

Pony rides.

That's nice for the kids.

A petting zoo.

A pierogi parade.

Got me.

I don't know.

Do we dress up like pierogies?

Do we carry pots full of pierogies as we walk down?

Do we come down the street and pelt people with the double yellow?

Do we we toss pierogies out to the children as we ride by on a float?

What are we doing here?

And a pierogi cook-off as well.

Who can cook the pierogies the fastest?

Whose water boils the hardest?

Is it best tasting or fastest?

Who knows?

Biggest?

I don't know.

That's all the information we have on the pierogi festival, which really sucks because I want so much more information about that.

I really want to know.

And then there is, this is wild here.

It's called American Soldier, a tribute to Toby Keith,

bringing the spirit and music of Toby Keith to life, capturing his essence and entertaining

his essence.

You can just pour a Bud Light on someone's head.

You've captured his essence.

On a Mexican fan.

There you go.

Yeah.

That's the essence.

With captivating performance that brings his music and energy to life.

Apparently,

the guy playing it is a guy named Dwayne Terry.

Yeah.

Big Toby Keith fan.

Well, he played with Toby for a number of years.

I think he was in his band.

He gives a shit.

Yeah.

This is the best part.

This is the most authentic and nationally recognized tribute to Toby Keith in the U.S.

Oh,

my God.

All the thousands of tributes to Toby Keith that we put on on a yearly basis, this is the best one, apparently.

I don't know.

I couldn't be turned off harder, man.

This is horrible.

Because, I mean, usually on, what is it, August 14th, Toby Keith Day that we all know of or whatever the fuck.

I don't know.

There's a lot of them.

Most authentic.

I don't know what the fuck that's supposed to be.

I don't know.

They have other bands, too.

From 245 to 330, they have the Sweet Biscuit Band

plays 90s and classic rock.

Then you have Alexis Bradford, who is the 2022 Serre Talent Show winner.

Oh.

From Mainsburg,

Pennsylvania.

That's her credit.

I think that's her prize for winning that, as you get to perform from 3.45 to 4.30 at the Toby Keith Tribute Show.

You get to open for a guy that knew Toby Keith.

How about that?

4.45 to 5.30, Jacob Gilpin, 2024 winner of Maple Festival's vocal talent, and he's the best country music guy in Vermont, I assume that is.

I'm telling you about a guy that once knew Toby Keith.

And then Chris Eckert, who.

Oh, yeah,

you know who this is?

That's a real country singer,

it says country.

It says torch singer to arson investigator to one-man band.

Oh,

no, you don't know who that is.

He's got like a harmonica around his neck, and he's got cymbals on his knees.

You know what I mean?

He's got like a fucking accordion strapped to his chest just in case he needs that.

Arson Investigator.

This is my favorite.

At the bottom of their webpage, it says final comments.

All sales are final.

No refunds.

You watch this shit and you want a refund.

Tough shit.

And the pre-sale tickets are $35 for the track seats, $30 for the bleachers.

That's the cheapest.

$30 to see this.

This is trash.

Wow.

That said, crime rate.

What we are interested in in this story here, property crime is less than half the national average in this town.

So pretty safe.

And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault.

The Mount Rushmore of crime is about one-third under the national average.

So this is great.

It seems like a real nice place where nothing crazy happens.

And we are going to talk about

Toby Keith's friend and a shitload of murder that we have to talk about here.

Wow, we got a lot.

Okay, let's do this.

Let's jump in and talk about a guy named Michael Jason Kirkowski Jr.

K-E-R-K-O-W-S-K-I.

So Michael Jason Krakowski.

Everybody's, a lot of people's names in this have ski on the end of it, and there's a pierogi festival.

I feel like this is a highly Polish area.

It has to be.

So, now Michael has a wife named Kim, and he's a licensed pharmacist.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good money.

And he's doing great.

He had owned his own pharmacy, had a nice home, a wife, and two children all before he was 35.

So I mean.

Unbelievable.

Dude, life set.

You're set.

Just enjoy.

Cruise control, count those fucking pills and enjoy.

What else, Deep?

The money, bud.

You're doing great.

Yeah, you're doing terrific.

This is great.

What year is this?

This is 2000, late 90s, is when he opens the pharmacy.

We'll go through the years here and we'll go through his life a little bit, but that's how he ends up.

He's known as a devoted father, a dedicated son, and a businessman held in high esteem by the community.

Couldn't be better.

So obviously, he's going to be on our show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Clearly.

So his wife and others said he was very upstanding and everything like that.

A woman who worked with him at a pharmacy earlier

in the 80s said he was wonderful.

He was kind.

He was the kind of kid anyone would want to take home with them, meaning when he was like a teenager.

Yeah.

Nice kid, which sounds really creepy.

It does.

That sounds like something that, like a compliment that Puff Daddy would give us

up-and-coming singer.

A lot of talent.

Type of guy you'd want to take home with you for a while.

Have him live in your house when he's 12 for some reason.

Make him do bad things for you.

Yeah, Jesus Christ.

So when he was about 16, he began working at a pharmacy as a pharmacy technician.

The woman who worked with him said his family was not well-to-do.

They were middle-class.

He had to work for the things he wanted, I'm sure, for part of his schooling as well.

So when he worked at this pharmacy, that's where he met his future wife, Kim, who worked at the pharmacy in high school.

So that's, they ended up hooking up there.

Michael graduated from Lake Lehman High School in 1983 and went to Temple University in Philly.

Wow.

So that's a good,

very good school.

Yeah.

So now Kim, the girl he met that he liked when they were both teenagers, she ended up, they didn't stay together.

He went to college.

She did her thing.

She got married and had a son with somebody else and then got divorced.

So that became, made her available again.

Michael graduated from Temple in 1988 and was a licensed pharmacist in Pennsylvania on August 16, 1988.

He worked at the

Trucksville Pharmacy.

Trucksville is nearby, by the way, in Trucksville, and later at the CBS Pharmacy in Dallas, Pennsylvania.

Is that right?

There's a Dallas.

There's a Dallas right around here, too.

Yeah, where the Eagles hate the cowboys?

Very confusing.

Yeah.

I think it's from there.

So, you sons of bitches,

you fucking hick bastards coming from the back mountain.

So, in 1989, he met up with Kim again because she came to the CVS in Dallas just to fill out a prescription, have a prescription filled.

She didn't even know he worked there.

And he was like, I know you.

You're the chick from the pharmacy.

And she was like, Yeah, you're the dude from the pharmacy.

And there you go.

So by 1992, they're engaged.

Wow.

Yeah.

And in November of 92, they signed a contract to build a $150,000 home, which was a good amount of money back then.

Sure.

And real good.

At 647 Pritchard Road in Hunlock Creek.

They got married on April 9th, 1994.

And then they had a son named Tyler on September 25th, 1996.

They'll have another son named Connor on May 6th, 1999.

So he is killing it.

Just having a great life.

I mean, if this is what you want, if you want to settle down, have a nice business and a nice family.

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like, you know, the old-timey American dream, you know, quote unquote, seems like this would be it, right?

And it's like a nice, fortuitous,

serendipitous meeting, too, where she's just there to get her.

He didn't go stalking her or anything.

Yeah, she just needed to get rid of her chamydia.

And then he happened to be there.

He cleared up her yeasty.

And then he was like, listen, now I know

I know she's up to date.

You know what I mean?

She's got all her shots.

She's had a couple of things.

So they lived a comfortable but average lifestyle.

They weren't lavish.

They didn't spend a lot of money or anything like that.

And maybe that's saving up for later or, you know, college funds or I don't know what they're doing.

She's been careful.

Yeah, a friend of theirs said they never took vacations.

They didn't drive expensive cars.

They had a nice upper middle class home, but they didn't live an extravagant lifestyle by any stretch.

So that's just the way it is.

Now, in March 1999, Michael and Kim enter into a franchise agreement with the medicine shop, and that's PPE, like an old-timey.

The

medicine shoppy pharmacy

on State Route 29 in Eaton Township, which is in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania.

There's a Dallas, there's a Wyoming County, the whole thing's too much.

Kingston, God damn it.

It's all just too much, man.

It's named after somewhere else.

It's just too much.

None of us like it here.

I was so confused in the beginning of putting this all together.

I'm like, wait, he was in Dallas?

Fuck.

And then I was like, no, oh, this Dallas, because I put like on my notes, moved to Texas.

And then I'm like, no, he didn't.

Apparently, he's in Pennsylvania.

Scratch that.

This is a very confusing episode to put together.

San Francisco, PA.

It really started with that.

Las Vezin, Las Vegas, Pennsylvania.

I don't understand it.

So now Kim is part owner of this business, but she has no involvement with day-to-day operations.

She's not a pharmacist.

Brilliant.

Yeah, it's just those two are on it because they're married.

Apparently, though, they start to have some problems here, as we'll talk about in 2001, 2000, 2001.

Basically, right after, right when he signs this lease to have his own little pharmacy, that's when things start to go off the rails for him.

Yeah.

Apparently,

there's a quote from one of their friends that said a year prior to their separation, he would not even allow her in the medicine shop.

Wasn't even allowed in the store.

The few times she tried to enter, he chased her out.

He did not want her involved.

He wanted to run everything on his own.

Get out, but I need some.

No, go.

I'm just here for toothpaste.

Shut up.

Go.

I'll bring it home.

Get out.

I'll bring it later.

So,

yeah,

the thing is, this whole business and the reason he went from being this open, honest, normal guy to being sort of weird and closed off is because he's doing doing some shit that is not above board in this pharmacy.

Oh no.

He is selling all sorts of painkillers to people.

He's one of these guys.

He's one of the okay.

And this is, I mean, OxyContin didn't come out until the mid-90s, and he is selling it in 99 like it's fucking candy.

Yeah.

He's allowing people to doctor shop there.

Oh, absolutely.

No, he's doctor shit.

He's just giving, he's writing, he's giving out drugs.

He's just selling people drugs.

It's fucking crazy.

So it's Lorset and OxyContin OxyContin are the big ones that he's doing.

Yeah.

Which are painkillers and opiates.

And I don't know if Lorset's an opiate, but I assume it is.

It is.

OxyContin, I know.

So

they didn't.

He's also got a mistress on the side.

So you don't want your wife coming in when you got strange trim that might be walking through there every once in a while.

Getting drugs and getting pussy.

Get out.

Yeah, I was going to say, I got a drug deal lined up.

I got my side fucking piece coming over.

I got a lot going on here.

I'll bring the toothpaste home.

So apparently everybody says it's just greed that he's why he's doing this, which is very weird because they still don't live a lavish lifestyle.

It's not like he's, you know, he bought a fucking Bentley or he, you know, like bought himself a Porsche and he's going to Atlantic City on the weekends.

And none of that's going on.

He's still.

But it might feel good to not have that opulent lifestyle, but like it's, I'm capable of having it.

That would be kind of cool.

I guess, yeah.

It's just so weird to have an upper middle class lifestyle and then do a bunch of illegal shit to make more money to still live the same lifestyle.

It doesn't make any sense.

I don't understand what the point of that is.

So he would fill out, he filled false prescriptions that he knew were false

for tens of thousands of pills that that's what police ended up documenting.

So who knows what he actually did?

Yeah.

They also suspect he filled untold thousands of others that they just couldn't track.

So they estimate that his crime netted him more than $3 million in sales of these drugs.

Netted him.

Not gross net.

That's after pills paid for.

So I guess he began selling these drugs to people as early as November 99, which is like two months after he got his own pharmacy.

Which means he's always wanted to do this and he finally could now.

He had the dream.

It would take you a while to figure that out if you were going to just start doing it.

Yeah, I mean, he probably at working for someone else was like, I could fucking make so much money if I had my own shit going on and they didn't have so much paperwork tracking this.

And he gets his own account.

And for CVS, which I'm sure is

pretty

shrewd of conglomerate.

Yeah, I'm sure they keep track of shit there.

So court records show that he began this as early as November 99, like I said.

A woman named Shirley Richter entered the pharmacy to fill a prescription for Lorset, and her address was not listed in court records.

They say later, her authorities, she told the authorities she obtained thousands of Lorecet pills from Michael all the way up until September of 2000.

So he was just filling her shit.

He filled the prescriptions under the guise that they were refills of an original legitimate prescription that she once obtained.

That's how he did it.

So he used the same scheme with other people who would travel to his store from all around.

People would drive for hours to come here because.

Yeah, because he's doing it.

You're selling drugs.

That's what people do.

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Now back to the show.

The investigation started in September of 2000 when a person arrested for using a forged prescription said, Well, I know a guy who's selling pills out of a pharmacy.

Yeah.

And that was that.

So

once

somebody rats on him.

So an undercover state trooper made several buys from Michael in September and October of 2000.

They continued to investigate the case for several months, interviewing people who purchased drugs from him.

So they had a giant ⁇ I mean, they tracked thousands of, tens of thousands of pills.

On April 20th, 2001, they raided his pharmacy, seizing thousands of pills and records detailing transactions.

And all sorts of investigations start now.

This is a big deal.

So, yeah, they estimate he made between the illegal drugs and the insurance fraud, about $3 million he cleared from all this.

They say that the prosecutor says they believe his sole intent in buying the pharmacy was to sell drugs illegally.

There it is.

It's just that's the only reason he was doing it.

They said that, you know, if he worked for CVS, too easy to catch.

This prosecutor said, I think his ambition was to get there, do this for several years, make big money, then quit.

He figured in a small town like Tuckhannock, he could get away with it.

He was wrong.

I would think you'd have a much better chance of getting away with it in a big city.

Well, I got news for you guys.

He did it to the tune of $3 million.

He did all right.

He did fine.

He should have stopped.

Yeah.

I would honestly think in a big city, it'd be easier to get away with this because there's probably 100 other people doing it.

So it might fall.

You're probably the only illegal pill pharmacy in the whole county, I would assume, otherwise.

So you're kind of drawing attention to yourself here.

So he's charged with three counts of distribution.

Well, many more counts, but he'll later plea to three counts of distribution of a controlled substance by a practitioner.

And he'll later plead guilty to insurance fraud and reckless endangerment in connection with a man who overdosed and died on prescriptions he'd supplied.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

That's not good.

It's a lot going on here.

People who knew him describe him as affable, laid-back, down-to-earth.

One guy said, I never knew Michael to go on any big trips or even talk about fancy stuff or even be envious of people who had it.

I don't have any idea why he got involved in something like that.

I've been racking my brain, but it just doesn't make any sense.

Yeah.

What do you do it for?

A thrill?

I don't get it.

That's what I mean.

I don't understand what it is, except that I've led such a such a just middle-of-the-road

fucking, you know, just lifestyle that

has no deviation from the norm, and now I want to be a different person.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe...

My fire's not even out, is it?

I mean, it's just coming out when he got busted.

I mean, it's 2001 it came out.

That's not why.

That's not why he did it.

I don't understand it.

It makes no sense.

Now, his sister, Maria, is also a pharmacist.

And she said she was sick when she learned about all this.

She said he was very outgoing and personal.

It's so confusing.

I don't understand what happened.

Apparently, something was missing in his life, I guess.

Yeah.

He's also having an affair.

At the same time, too.

So he just wants to have another life where he's like a cool guy who has affairs and deals drugs.

I mean, he, yeah, he got his life together so early and was always busy being whatever it is that you're supposed to be.

You know what I mean?

Imagine being

no, imagine being so successful so early that you're bored with it.

Imagine that.

You're just like, this is boring.

Got to be on the other side of the law.

Yeah, just, you know, we did that when we were 16, you know, like got over it, but this guy never had it, maybe.

So I guess he

befriended,

he ends up making a friend here, Michael does, or Kurkowski here, as we'll talk about, while he's awaiting trial.

And this friend of his is going to give him advice on his criminal case.

Oh.

This is not a lawyer, by the way.

Okay, great.

He met him in jail?

He's a guy who just got out of federal prison for seven years.

We'll talk about him in a minute.

Yeah, great.

That's who you, I mean, I guess he knows the legal system.

He's out.

That's how Lori Vallo said she's qualified to represent herself, by the way.

She said, well, I've been through so much court stuff between family courts because she'd been divorced fucking three times and, you know, my other murder trial that I think I know court by now.

I think I can handle it.

The ultimate Dunning-Kruger effect person right there.

Like, well, I went to court a couple times, so I know everything there is to know about court.

It's that idiot.

Daisy Anthony's pulling that shit and talking about shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like,

for the wrong reason.

You've been in true crime since 2012.

I don't know if you've been in criminal law.

Those are very different places.

So anyway,

Michael was leading an interesting life, to say the least, before this all happened.

Now, his estranged wife, Kim,

and his former girlfriend, who he was having an affair with,

are first cousins.

So he's having an affair with his wife's first cousin.

Okay.

Also,

his wife's first cousin, who he had an affair with, is godmother to their son.

You can't see God, mommy.

They really are taking this back mountain shit very seriously.

They're living very back mountain.

Cousins involved, and it's all a mess.

So family trees are crossing.

Things are weird.

You can't bang your wife's family, man.

No, not good.

The worst thing you could do, probably.

So Kim files for divorce on April 30th.

I don't know if it was the banging her cousin or the federal offenses that did it, but one of the two.

Could just be banging anybody else.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons here.

Wow.

Brought her to the courthouse.

She's granted custody of the children.

You know, he's a drug-dealing philanderer.

It's not really a good.

Who fucks the family?

Who fucks the kid's godmother?

Yeah.

So

Kim's lawyer said, quote, she told me this was not the man that she married and that she loved.

It was like a separate life that he was leading.

Absolutely.

Well done.

So he is given visitation rights every other weekend and on certain holidays.

He's out on bail after he gets arrested here.

Their divorce is going on through 2001, 2002.

Takes a while here.

Now, he's got a new girlfriend named Tammy Fassett, F-A-S-S-E-T-T.

That's his new girlfriend that he's hanging out with.

Got himself a Tammy out there.

So, like we said, he is convicted of these crimes.

He pleads guilty to all of these defrauding Medicare, to defrauding insurance, unauthorized sale of controlled substances.

And he is set for sentencing on May 14th, 2002.

But he's out on bail until his sentencing.

They're like, he's a pharmacist.

Where's he going?

Yeah.

He used to be a pharmacist.

He's not going to get to pharmacy anymore.

I would think that we're keeping all pills away from him.

He's lost his pill counting stick.

Isn't that what they do?

They have a stick I always see.

Yeah.

This potsickle stick their throat depressor.

Yeah, that's all they do.

I think.

I I don't know.

They do know a lot, though.

From what I understand.

They're fucking great, man.

From what I understand, like, if you want to know, like, if this drug is okay with this drug, don't ask your doctor, ask a pharmacist.

They'll know way better.

I've actually heard doctors say that before.

Right.

So that's interesting.

Out the window.

They'll just be like, eat with this one.

This one's fine.

And don't take them all together.

Get out of here.

They know exactly what's going on with all these pills.

So that's impressive.

I guess you don't have to necessarily know the exact structure of the human foot and bones.

You just know the structure of this pill, and it's all built into the word.

Whatever the word is, it's all pieces of the pill.

That's what makes the word.

It's weird.

So, Kim, the wife, the estranged wife at this point, she said she never knew her husband was selling drugs illegally.

She never had any idea.

She was excluded from the family finances, and she wasn't really allowed to visit the pharmacy.

She said she thought he was just fucking around behind her back.

That's why she wasn't allowed to visit.

Well, there wasn't.

Which she was right about.

Yeah.

But he also has a drug dealing empire going on here.

She said, I had no idea what he was doing.

No clue.

No clue.

No clue.

Not one ever.

I think she has no clue.

She doesn't know anything.

I think she has a clue?

She knew anything at all?

I'm not sure.

So she said that

her husband seemed very, oh, I'm sorry.

No, this is the other guy.

Yeah.

She said that.

that her husband has that friend that we talked about, and his name is Hugo Selinsky.

and she said that Hugo Selensky seemed very interested in her husband's legal case and would attend her hearing his hearings and give him advice and all this type of shit so we'll talk about Hugo Selensky here

Hugo Selensky is S-E-L-E-N-S-K-I so this is a little Polish helping Polish out here that's what we do here now he comes from a family here's uh of Ron and Ruth Selensky I think Ron is actually Hugo's stepfather oh but he adopted him, so gave him his name and all that.

Now, there's seven kids total here, by the way.

God damn.

They got seven kids, Ruth and Ron, here.

Now, the one we're going to talk about, Michael Kirkowski's friend, is Hugo Marcus Selensky.

He's born in 1974.

Always had problems.

Just a problem child

from fucking jump.

He had juvenile court when he was a kid, that kind of thing.

Always in trouble, in and out of jail since he was 12.

One of those kids.

Just a complete fuck up.

So his half-brother, who is Ron Selensky Jr.,

said that relatives always poked fun at him because Hugo didn't ever hunt.

He refused to go hunting with them, was squeamish around deer carcasses, and wouldn't get on a boat because he was afraid of water.

Okay.

So they said he's an outdoorsy boy.

Generally, yeah, he's not an outdoorsy boy.

They call him a scary cat and all that kind of shit.

And his brother said he was afraid to drown.

So

like we all aren't.

You know, it helps learning to swim is a good

reason we swim.

I fucking

drown.

I'm pretty confident if I'm in water, I'm not going to drown because I'll swim.

I'm still afraid of it.

I don't want to drown.

When I see the ocean, I go, I'm not going in there.

That's huge.

They'll suck me right in, never be found.

Too much, yeah.

A pool?

Great.

I'm not afraid of that.

I'm scared.

Yeah, fuck yeah.

You never know.

So they said Hugo was tough when he needed to be, though.

And we'll find out what that means later.

In 1993, Hugo's about 19 and he gets a DUI.

So this is an addition to his many, many, many legal problems.

But this is one of the first ones that he really has as an adult here.

If the liquid's in the bottle, he's not afraid to drown from that, huh?

No, no, no, no.

He'll take that right in and gargle it.

So then in June 1994,

Hugo and another man

slipped some ski masks on over their head

and entered the bank branch on North River Street in,

I believe it was in Kingston or in Dallas, I believe this was.

They drove there in a stolen Chevy citation.

Hell yeah.

The best getaway car ever.

We'll just join the chase and they'll all be confused.

They'll all be able to put the little light on top.

You got the 70s hubcaps.

It'll work.

So it might have been one of those little citations from the 80s, though, or those little fuckers there.

And he'll later abandon that in Kingston.

It's a silver citation here, but they go into this bank and rob this fucking bank.

And

it's pretty crazy.

It was the Mellon Bank in Plains Township.

They said they were still searching.

They know right away after it happens, they know Hugo's one of the guys, but they were searching for the second suspect here.

It's pretty crazy.

So he basically is wanted for a week.

They can't find him after he robs the bank here.

And then finally, finally, they find him and they arrested him and it was a five-day search.

His mother said, I've been a basket case since Friday.

That's what Ruth said.

She was happy.

They went to his house and his stepdad or his adopted dad and one of their seven children were watching Beauty and the Beast in their house there.

And they said,

all of a sudden, more than a dozen people rushed through the door.

Cops came in, pounding.

And Ron said, I nearly had a heart attack.

He said, It was our FBI agents with search warrants and Dallas Township police searching through the house.

They dug in the cookie jar, rummaged through the clothes, scoured the washing machine.

They were hoping to find stolen money, but they didn't.

But what they did find inside the washing machine agitator, they discovered dye.

That's the same dye that bank tellers use in a bank in dye packs.

That's not good.

They tried to literally wash the money.

Wow.

It's like, well, launder it.

It's fine.

That is fucking wild.

So they also seize six rounds of ammunition, a rock, and a stack of telephone bills.

I don't know what the rock could possibly have evidentiary value for in a bank robbery.

They didn't throw it through a front window of the bank, and then I don't get it.

And telephone bills?

Telephone bills.

That might be between, you know, to get correspondence between the,

but I don't get a rock.

Also, they found $4,000 in $50,000 and $100 bills, which probably came from the bank.

So then

they said they're still searching for their second suspect, described as a 6'4, 230-pound man.

And they said that man,

the Selensky family said they was renting their Wyoming home, Wyoming County home since May, and now he took off.

So they know who it is they're looking for.

Now, in court here, Selensky meets with FBI agents before his trial and decides to cooperate with authorities here.

He goes with his dad.

His dad tells the media he's cooperating with them.

He's trying to do what's right and help them arrest the other man.

So

that's what he did.

They said that, and his mom was there, and his mom said she doesn't want to believe her oldest child was involved in anything.

Because they're also charging him and talking about him being involved in a string of burglaries as well.

What the fuck, man?

She's like, that's crazy.

And of the bank robbery, she says, well, we know he did it, but Hugo's just, he's not a big guy.

He's a skinny guy, and he got coerced by the big guy.

That's what happened.

The guy forced him to forced a ski mask on his head and forced a shotgun into his hand.

Peer pressure to rob a bank?

Yeah, you know how that goes.

How many times have I pressured you into robbing a bank with me?

It's happened so many times.

You just go along with it now.

You just stayed into a podcast.

You just go along with it now.

You don't even argue.

Yeah, now that's evident.

Shit.

Now, any bank robbed by a 6'4 guy and a 5-foot-eight guy is going to be really bad for us.

So he said, she said, Hugo isn't perfect and he's had his problems, but it's not like him to rob a bank.

It's not like him, you know.

Yeah, I mean, it's not like anybody until they do it.

Yeah, and then she said, this is killing the family.

Hugo's not a bad person.

It's just not fair.

He robbed a bank.

What we're doing to your family, sure.

Christ, he is going to be sentenced to, you, sir, may fuck off, seven years in prison, just about a little shy of that for his armed robbery.

It's about six years and 10 months.

And he's also ordered to serve two years of supervised release.

Before his sentence,

before a sentencing thing here, a brief hearing was held on Selensky's objection to a statement in pre-sentence report prepared by probation officers that he brandished a weapon during the robbery.

He takes exception to that.

They found, though, the judge found and the court found that the statement was accurate after a bank teller said yeah this motherfucker they they came in and robbed me it was him and earl nagels as co-defendant a 31-year-old and uh they entered the bank and they made off with nine thousand seven hundred and seventy seven dollars in cash

wow so he he still had almost all his cut yeah he had just about all his cut after they fled the bank that's when the die pack burst

and stained most of the cash with red dye.

So at that point, Selensky tried to remove the dye from $4,000 to $5,000 of the stolen cash by running it through his mother's washing machine.

Yeah.

And he admits to that.

So, and they found the dye in the agitator and all that kind of shit.

So that's why he cooperated because he was kind of fucked here.

So yeah, he's going to serve a bunch of time.

And

they try to say during his sentencing, he says that

he says, I'm very sorry.

And then his attorney says, this is a young man with a very serious alcohol problem.

That's what happened here.

Oh, the booze.

Yeah, it's the booze that does it because I get drunk and I start looking for banks to rob.

It happens all the time.

First of all,

you shouldn't be drunk at any, really, anytime a bank's open for business.

You probably shouldn't be hammered.

Number one.

I've treated a lot of my issues with booze, and never once have I considered doing anything more illegal than going to get more booze while I was drunk.

Going to get fucking Filibertos.

Yeah.

Even though you shouldn't be driving.

So she said that the lawyer said she realized and that Hugo realized that he needs to get help for his problem when he surrendered to the FBI.

So, you know, he's here.

Now, the assistant U.S.

attorney said, quote, I don't buy it.

He even says that a bank employee, because they keep saying that he didn't intend to scare anybody.

He was just trying to get the money.

He just wanted the money and blue.

But the prosecutor said, that's funny.

Why did he rack a shotgun round?

Yeah.

When

in front of a cashier's face, in front of a clerk's teller's face?

Yeah.

So that's interesting.

And so anyway, they end up reducing his sentence on the bank robbery to 22 months from a range of 51 to 63 months.

However, let the mandatory 60-month sentence on the firearm charge in place, left that in place.

And in addition, the judge ordered Selensky to pay $100

special assessment, a fee charged of convicted defendants.

So that's what he's going to get.

So altogether, 82 months in federal prison is what he gets here.

Okay.

Now, in prison, he is stabbed during a prison fight at one point.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And he wouldn't, people in prison said he wouldn't take shit from anybody.

He knew he was in an environment that he needed to be, you know, fighting.

He was quick to come to the aid of friends as well and people in prison like that.

His dad even said when something happened, he would stand up for himself, but he wasn't violent.

Okay.

So he's not violent.

That's what we know.

Okay.

Now, January 2001 is when Hugo is released from prison.

This is right around the time that year is when Kirkowski gets busted for what he's doing.

So he returned to his home and struggled with being out of jail because he was in there

from 20 to 26, 27, too.

You know, that's a lot of your formative years there.

Yeah.

So he comes home to live with his family, and

I guess they said he didn't get along with his father at this point, with Ron.

His lone ally was his mother, and she got to the point where she couldn't intervene because she's dead.

She died

while he was in prison.

So his lone ally is gone.

Yeah.

Now he's at home and he's buttshead with his dad, who's his stepfather, but adopted.

Adopted, yeah.

And he probably throws in his face a lot.

You just got out of prison, you fucking moron.

No, absolutely.

And Ron said that this was a woman who'd walk on hot coals for him, meaning for Hugo, but she died.

And he also said, quote,

while she lived for her son, seeing her firstborn in prison-issue jumpsuit is what partially killed her, Ron says.

Yep.

She lost it, and I could see the change.

She had cancer, though.

I don't think that can cause cancer.

Orange jumpsuits cause cancer.

Yeah, wow.

You know what?

That's some science we need to look into.

So apparently he and Ron and Hugo didn't get along about anything, anything.

And I guess Ron never forgave him for the bank robbery because it was embarrassing.

And he's embarrassing for the family.

And I guess Ron was a bank manager.

Really?

Yes.

So he was like, you can't do that.

You can't.

So after about two months, he ends up moving out of the house, Hugo does.

It's not working out at all.

He kind of sleeps on some couches for a while, does all of that shit,

doesn't really hang out with his family,

shows up at his grandmother's 80th birthday party and shit like that, but otherwise he's away from the family.

Ron said Hugo was offered every opportunity in this house that everyone else was.

He just got mixed up when he was 14 and wanted a wild way of life.

Yeah, he's got a girlfriend named Christina Strum, by the way, at this point as well.

So he's going to end up living with her, and they're going to try to have a little life together.

So now this is the time when he moves out and everything, and he's couch surfing and all that.

That's when he hooks up with Kurkowski

and starts giving him legal advice.

Kirkowski ended up paying Hugo

somewhere between $60,000 and $80,000,

which was supposed to be for some kind of legal assistance he's providing for Kurkowski, but he's not a lawyer.

So you could just give that money to a lawyer who would actually do that.

But apparently he's giving it to this guy for help with, I don't even know what.

Hugo spent the money that he obtained from Kurkowski

and including putting a down payment on a house

on Mount Olivet Road in Kingston Township.

Okay.

So that's he's going to use this money to fuck literally to buy a house.

Yeah, start a family and build a life.

Yeah, he's got this girlfriend with Christina Strom.

It's going to be purchased in the name of her, in Christina's name.

That's the house.

So they closed on the purchase of the property, Hugo and Christina, on April 30th, 2002, but they did not have the funds to cover the closing costs, which is about $10,000.

So

that's what they're trying to figure out.

Now, on May 1st, 2002, that is about, what is that, April 30th is the closing.

On May 1st, Hugo's brother gives away a shotgun.

This is Ron Jr.

He gives his 16 gauge shotgun.

That is so weird that that keeps 16 gauge keeps coming up when it's not the most common shotgun by any stretch.

It's a rear shotgun.

Weird.

And it came up in multiple episodes in the last month.

He gives this shotgun to a guy named Patrick Russon, which is a Russian without an A.

Russon.

He thought,

now Ron said he thought this shotgun was going to be used to shoot skunks that were running wild on Hugo's property.

Really?

Just, it's a fucking skunk farm up there.

Just all skunks, which is the, that's the worst thing you could have is a skunk infestation.

I'm not sure have a rat infestation.

At least rats don't squirt me with stinky liquid if I go outside to throw my garbage out after dark.

You know what I mean?

Out of their asshole.

That's fucked up, man.

Get your asshole juice off of me.

So Russon came to Ron Jr.'s house in Dallas asking to borrow the shotgun for skunks.

So, yeah, he said the skunks keep spraying these dogs, so we got to shoot these skunks.

No good.

All right.

Now, remember, May 14th, 2002 is Kurkowski's sentencing date.

So he's been getting all this legal advice and everything like that.

And then May 14th, 2002, the date comes and he does not show up for sentencing.

Really?

Oh, no.

Tammy's no longer.

They're both gone.

Tammy and he are on the run.

On the fucking fucking lamb it looks like here so yeah they take off they're not gonna go i'm not going down for this shit man he hasn't even been sentenced and told how long he's going but he knows he's going so he's ready he knows he's going to prison um yeah and apparently he was supposed to pick his kids up from school that is how we knew he was missing before that even happened before he didn't show up for sentencing because his ex-wife said that she remembers this day because she had left a voicemail on his cell phone saying, quote, you better be in a car accident.

You better be stuck on the side of the road somewhere, you son of a bitch bastard, screaming and yelling at him.

So apparently,

his parents, Geraldine and Michael Kurkowski Sr.

here,

knew that their son was involved in these criminal acts and apparently hid a significant amount of his ill-gotten gains at their home.

The parents ended up, after he disappears, the parents take $40,000 in cash from the house and go and pay their son's bail bondsman because he didn't show up for sentencing.

So now they owe him this money.

So rather than lose their house or whatever they put up, they took his $40,000 that he had left behind and they use it for that.

Now,

May 4th, 2002, so that is,

you know, this is, we're going back 10 days before.

There's a deposit here.

There's a bank teller who says that Hugo deposited $9,900, deposited, okay, which is just below where you start looking at the transactions into Heather Strom's checking account.

That's on a Saturday, May 4th here, and explained that this was, she's going to, he's going to close on a house with this.

479 Mount Olivet Road is the address that they're closing on.

They said that Strom only had $400.46 in her checking account prior to the deposit.

So there we go.

And then there was a check drawn from her account that Monday for $10,079.50, which I assume is the closing cost.

Now,

how the fuck did they get $10,000?

Yeah, where did that come from?

Well, apparently, remember Patrick Russon, the guy with the shotgun, there's another guy here named Paul Weakley.

W-E-A-K-L-E-Y.

Paul Weakley.

He is a guy that Hugo met in federal prison.

Now, apparently, those two started cooking up a plan.

They were buddies in prison, and they start cooking up a plan that they are going to rob Kurkowski.

He's got tons of cash all over his house.

He's a drug dealer hiding cash.

So anyway,

Hugo and Paul Weakley went to Kurkowski's house on May 3rd, 2002, the day before the $10,000 deposit.

They hang out for a while, drink a beer for a bit, you know, hang, just normal social shit.

Michael and Tammy are both there, and it's, you know, Hugo and Paul.

Out of nowhere, Hugo pulls out a gun and orders Michael and Tammy to lay on the floor.

Okay.

Okay.

He binds them with flex ties and duct tape.

Oh, no.

Duct tape over their eyes, mind you.

Oh.

And then,

apparently,

they both beat Michael Michael Kurkowski with a rolling pin into telling them where the money was.

Where's the money?

Where's the money?

So they're beating him.

He apparently said there's two bags of cash of approximately $60,000 that he has here in his house.

And he said his father has another $60,000 cash, too, of his.

So that's where cash is.

At that point, Paul Weakley says that Hugo pulled the zip tie around Kirkowski's neck until he died.

Oh my God.

Strangled him with a fucking zip tie, which is absolutely brutal.

That is fucking brutal.

And lazy.

Like, that's the

worst thing.

Takes very little.

One real good pull, and that's pretty much it.

And then you just walk away.

That's a lazy strangulation there.

So he tied it so hard that he stopped breathing and he died.

Then he went over and killed Tammy the same way.

God, Jesus.

She's just the the girlfriend.

She isn't involved in any of this shit.

So anyway, he was able to pay his closing costs after that.

Yeah.

And now several days after this, but before they actually moved into the property, he asked the property owner, the seller of the house, to leave the property for a day.

Just leave.

I got to have the house to myself for a day.

I got to do some, I got to sage the place.

Whatever.

Yeah, I'm having a priest in.

I don't know what the fuck he's doing.

So

that's what he was told.

The guy left for a day, and that was that.

Yeah.

And Hugo also contacted Kurkowski's parents, contacted Michael's parents, who

they believed that he had taken off and ran away.

And he said, yeah,

he called him and said, fuck, I don't know where he is either.

Do you guys know where he is?

And they said, no.

He said something about 60 grand there.

That's the thing here.

Now, over the next couple of months here,

he

basically convinces, Hugo convinces Kirkowski's father to give him the $60,000 that Kirkowski gave his father with the promise that this is for Kirkowski's new lawyers who are going to try to help him avoid going to prison for running away from his sentencing.

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Okay.

So he's telling him, look, I'm in contact with Michael.

I need this money so I can pay his lawyers so we can have him be able to come back and all this shit.

So then he, and the father did it.

He gave him $60,000.

Then he went over and got another $40,000 from Krakowski's father with a little less clever ruse.

You know, that of the lawyer, oh, he just pulled a a gun on him and told him, give me $40,000 or I'll shoot you in the fucking head.

That's all.

Now,

that happened in May of 2002.

So a year goes by.

Literally a year goes by.

They think Kurkowski's on the run.

Everybody does.

They think he's on the lamb.

He had so much cash from his drug dealing.

He's probably in South America by now.

That's what everybody thinks.

I mean, why else?

Why would he stick around if he's got $3 million in cash?

Fucking take off.

So then on June 4th, 2003, so about a year later, Paul Weakley, the partner in the Kurkowski murder here,

Hugo's pal, he gets arrested on a burglary charge and was a suspect in the robbery of a bartender in Kingston Township.

Yeah, because $100,000 split two ways,

even if he doesn't split it evenly, that doesn't stretch.

No.

And I don't think these guys are like, well, I got this much for I'm going to move into a sensibly priced apartment and I'm going to have a budget this out.

I got this much.

I'm going to get myself a bachelor's degree.

I'm going to

go to community college with this money and then I'm going to parlay that into a decent group.

No, I think these guys are probably fucking off buying drugs and booze and women and whatever else they can fucking get their hands on.

Probably going to Vegas and partying or something.

Oh shit.

Yeah.

Based on a burglary charge and being a suspect in a robbery case, which this is a guy who's already been in federal prison.

So it's got a record.

He's in a lot of trouble.

He decides to start cooperating with the cops.

I'll tell you guys some things.

And he goes, I know of bodies buried

at a house on Mount Olivet Road in Kingston Township.

He gives all these statements regarding the killings, exactly what we just told you, which we'll tell you in more detail later.

He initially attempted to distance himself from this.

Like, I was there, but I don't know, nothing.

Eventually, he confessed to his involvement.

Yes, I hit the guy a couple of times, asked him where the money is and all that, and says he can lead law enforcement to the burial site as well.

He can do that.

He said that Hugo had in his possession a shoebox filled with cash that Kurkowski had given him, constituting an incredibly large sum of money, like maybe $100,000.

And we know that money is completely gone.

So we know that for a fact.

There might be a shoebox.

There might be a shoebox with like four singles in it.

Yeah.

So Weekly told the cops here that on the day of the murders, he was the one who dragged Kurkowski and Tammy Fassett's bodies

out of his car and into the residence that he shared with Hugo and his girlfriend, Heather Strom, at their new house that they just got.

So he said, or that was the old house, because then, yeah, that's the old house.

They stashed these two corpses in their house for a couple days.

Golly.

And they stayed at a hotel.

And then two nights later,

after the murder there, they left the bodies that were in his vehicle then.

And that's when he said he was going to bury them after that.

He says about Hugo, quote, when he gets those googly eyes, watch out.

Googly.

Great googly googly eyes.

Just wander around in his head.

Yeah, it starts bouncing around.

You better watch out, boy.

He also led police to,

he said, there's two bodies there.

He goes, there's another corpse there as well.

It's burned.

There's a third corpse.

And he says, I also have knowledge of

up to as many as 11 other murders.

I can tell you about.

Yeah.

And they were like, we think he's lying about a lot of this, but not the Kurkowski thing.

So June 5th, the very next day, Hugo's sister, Marianne, says she was at her brother's house, the house that he moved into with Heather Strom.

They were preparing for a graduation party for her daughter, apparently.

That is when the house is swarmed with police with search warrants here.

That's a nice graduation.

That poor kid, I feel.

Dude, all her friends are there.

That sucks.

Imagine that.

Yeah, my uncle is there.

They start digging corpses up for Christ's sake while you're trying to, but the punch is good.

Just you can have some.

We got a six-foot sandwich.

It says graduate, graduate on that pillow.

That's the most like confusing

instruction ever.

Balloons?

There's not usually balloons at like corpse unveilings, like a corpse unearthing.

There's not usually balloons and party favors and shit.

There's a sister reveal of the corpse.

It's so strange.

So they said that the woman said she was very shocked when she learned what was happening.

His sister said, this is Hugo's sister, quote, he immediately looked at me and said, oh my God, they're looking for bodies.

That's not good.

No, that's pretty bad.

If a bunch of cops were in my yard, I'd go, I don't know what the fuck they're doing here.

I would have literally no idea.

He knew exactly.

He knew exactly what was happening.

Nailed it.

I'd be very confused.

I'd be like, maybe they're setting up on the neighbor.

I don't know what's happening.

I've done nothing.

So,

yes, so he's arrested, Hugo, obviously, on June 5th, when they serve the the search warrant and found bodies in his fucking yard.

They find the bodies of Kurkowski and Fassett buried in a mixture of natural earth, store-purchased soil, and coal remnants.

What's the...

Oh, like...

Huh.

He used bags of topsoil, too.

Oh, not tried.

Yeah, we'll talk.

Well, the coal is from other fires.

These two are not burned.

We'll talk about people who were.

Investigators also discover a burn pit on the property with the remains of at least three people.

Three people.

These are three people besides Tammy and Kurkowski that we just found.

Oh my God.

Yes, they identify two of these people

as Adaya Keiller, 22 years old, and Frank James, 29 years old.

And they have nicknames too, we'll get into.

Frank James is,

we'll get into it.

So there's a guy who lives on a trailer on Hugo's property, said he was talking to Hugo when the cop showed up, and he said they must have known what they they were doing because they went right to the spot

because Weekly had told them.

Now,

that is when they bring Patrick Russon into the whole deal here.

And Patrick Russon says that the shotgun that he got to shoot skunks from Hugo's brother was the same shotgun used to murder these two men that we found in the burn pit.

So the prosecutors later

say that he killed, it was Frank james's name is rudy and a daya keeler's nickname is red man you can't kill red man

a lady named red man that makes you she's no it's a guy it's a guy a day is his name it's a man oh what is it a day a d e i y e

Okay i think it's a daya but um yeah red man they're both both of them are black guys by the way okay so they gotta be a cha guy right gotta be a what a cha guy red man the pouches

oh oh my god what are you doing

dude i got so scared for a second there i was like what kind of weird fucking racist rabbit hole are you going on here a chaw guy what does that mean i was like i don't even know what that means what is

i was like what is happening right now who am i talking to

ladies and gentlemen my partner andrew jackson has been a long time

he created a new slur to the chaw guy maybe um a lot now i just know from knowing a lot of black people, there's

kind of red is kind of a

yellow.

There's people that are more red.

Yeah, so he might be red man for that, or he might have really liked red man.

Hey, he could, yeah, it could be a red man.

This is like 2001 or, you know, who knows?

Like him so much, I stole his name.

So I'm Red Man now.

This is my partner, Method Man.

Here we are.

So

big fun of Eminem.

Call me Eminem from now on.

Just all the time.

So, besides implicating Hugo as the trigger man in the murders, Patrick Russon also says that Hugo called his younger brothers to ask if he could borrow the gun the same day as one of the murders.

So, Hugo asked to borrow the gun.

Russon just went to pick it up.

That's what he says.

So, Russon also says he couldn't remember if Hugo went to pick up the shotgun or if the guy came or if Ron Jr.

came and delivered it.

But Ron Jr.

says Patrick came and got it.

So it's neither of the things Patrick says it is.

So, yeah.

Now,

apparently, the murders of Frank James and

Redman Keiller here,

Selensky picked up Frank James and his girlfriend, Yurita Bradford, at a Wilkes-Bear hospital on

Wilkes-Barry?

Wilkes-Barry, yeah, right?

Wilkes-Barr?

I think it's Wilkes-Barry.

It's a little bit of a B-E, right?

It's Wilkes-Barry, I think.

It's a real, it's weird, but I think that's what it is.

Picked them up on May 13th, 2003.

So that is,

you know, what, not even 10 days after the murder of, or just, that was exactly 10 days after the murder.

May 13th?

Oh, no, that was, I'm sorry, that's a year and 10 days after he killed

Kirkowski and Fassett.

So apparently the woman here, Yorita, had just given birth to their child, to her and Frank James's child.

And Selensky took them to a city right aid in the afternoon so she could get a prescription.

He gave them a ride to her Sherman Hills apartment where somebody else popped in, and that's Adaye Keeler, Redman.

He popped in.

Both of these guys, by the way, apparently allegedly sell drugs, Frank and Adaye.

So that is when apparently Selensky took both of these guys, so dropped the baby and the new mother off.

This guy

is coming home from the hospital with a new baby and he's like yeah you guys go inside I'm gonna go with my friends for a while see you later imagine any any guy who's had a child yeah with a woman come home with a woman you're with and everything like that imagine number one you get a ride from your friend to go home from the hospital and then you're like all right peace while she like carries in like a car seat and a bag with fucking diapers in it and a baby on one hand all this shit

alive alone.

I'm going to go out for a while.

I'll see you later.

Like, that is ballsy.

Try that move.

I'm going out with my fry.

What?

You were in there.

You were in labor for like 12 hours.

That was a long time I had to sit there with you.

So now I got to go out.

Wow.

I was cooped up in that hospital for the last 48 hours.

I got to go.

I got to go.

I got some fucking tail to get on the side here.

So now he's driving away.

Hugo's driving away with Rudy and Redman here.

Okay.

Now that is when Selensky

took both these men to his home on Mount Olivet Road.

Russon was at the home, Patrick Russon, when he saw Selinsky arrive with two black males in the car.

I guess they all came in.

They got some pizza.

Yeah.

Having a little party.

This guy's having pizza at his friend's house.

Wow.

Mind exploded.

That hospital food for the last 48 hours was shit.

I'm going to need a Papa John's.

My ex-wife would have stabbed me in the throat if I did this.

Mix that with like postpartum and everything else.

Holy shit.

That would have taken more than she took from me.

Fuck yeah.

Yeah.

She may have taken my life.

That's what I mean.

You would be deserving of it.

So Patrick said at one point he went to sleep inside the home during this.

That's how long it was meandering.

They're hanging out.

Selensky later went inside and told Patrick Russon, this is according to Russon, that the guys are in the garage.

Um, and Russon went to get them.

And as he did, he saw Selinsky grab the shotgun and load it with three shells.

Oh, boy.

Then they went into the garage.

Patrick Russon said he heard a bang, one loud bang.

He says, quote, so then he turns and sees Frank James, Rudy, falling to the ground, shot.

That's what he said.

He then chased Redman and handcuffed him.

Hugo does.

That's what Russon is saying now.

So apparently here,

Patrick Russon says that Hugo dragged Frank James's body into the garage and stole his drugs and money.

Around the same time, he said, Selensky went back outside, and Russon heard Selensky talking to his former girlfriend on the phone, who lived at his house from outside the garage, or not on the phone, just talking to her outside on the property.

This is why they, well, they kept Redman tied up in the garage for a while and then inside the home.

So the next morning, after the girlfriend left for work at about 7.30, Selensky began interrogating Redman for information about another drug dealer he wanted to rob.

He just held him hostage all night till his girlfriend left.

His girlfriend came out and said, what was that noise?

And he went, oh, I dropped a fucking thing and it's fine.

She goes, sounded like a gunshot.

And he's like, no, no, gunshot.

That's crazy.

And he's like, okay, no more gunshots till she leaves for work.

This guy's not allowed to die tonight.

Wow.

She said so.

So apparently Red Man cooperated, even offered to help.

Oh.

Even offered to help before they ended up taking him outside.

And Patrick said then he heard another shot and Red Man was shot and on the ground.

Selensky told Patrick Russon to pick him up.

But I guess he wasn't dead, Red Man.

So he tried to get up.

He was trying to get up.

And Hugo shot him again.

And Patrick said he didn't move after that.

So what they did is they took the bodies into the burn pit and burned them and tossed the remaining bones in garbage bags, which were also found.

Bags full of burnt bones, they found.

Bagged up remains.

Fuck, man.

That is pretty goddamn crazy.

And he says that Paul Weakley also helped with the burning and the disposing as well.

So that is pretty fucking wild.

Yeah, because they came in, they identified the bodies of Kirkowski and Fassett and then literally found more bodies.

And they were like, well, if these are the people we're looking for, who the fuck are these people?

So this is a mess now.

Now we have at least five bodies.

A lot, yeah.

And they have

bone fragments of what they believe are up to 12 people

altogether here.

This is a mess, a fucking mess.

I mean,

it's John Wayne Gacy's house just out.

He didn't have a yard this big, or else he would have just did this.

It's so many people.

It's so many people.

Think about how many people 12 people is.

He's just thinking like

I can just do things, kill people, and throw them in the yard.

No one will notice.

It's just a habit he's gotten into now.

It's weird as fuck.

So

now, his ex-wife here, this is Kirkowski's ex-wife, Michael, the victim here,

Kim, She said she doesn't know how his body ended up in her cousin's ex-boyfriend's backyard.

Because also, yeah, Hugo was involved in that as well.

Hugo went out with another cousin of hers.

Oh, my God.

The cousin said she doesn't know either.

So I think that's how they met, by the way, is through the family.

Because I think we'll find that out later in court.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

She, by the way, has been telling her kids that her father was missing.

Their father was missing for the last year.

We don't know where he is.

But now she said that his remains are identified.

She told her kids, I just want to tell you, we know where daddy is now.

Yay!

He's still not going to come to your birthday.

And then she said, he's in heaven.

He died.

Oh, my God.

You got to start that out with bad news, kids.

You can't say, hey, kids,

we know where daddy is.

He's in heaven.

Oh,

Jesus.

She thought

once back in the day, she thought that he should just be left in jail for what he had done to his family, you know, with all this legal bullshit that Kurkowski caused.

But now this words are going to come back to haunt this woman.

Yep.

She said it sickens me to know that he

died like that.

And the whole thing troubles her.

And

so, yeah, there is that.

According to her,

Kim, and several other people, Selinsky, Hugo, was considered Kurkowski's best friend.

Oh, geez.

Kirkowski considered him his best friend.

So they're talking, they're arresting everybody, obviously.

They arrest Weakly.

He's been arrested.

They arrest Russin.

They arrest Hugo.

Bring everybody in.

And they're asking a lot of people, did he, because what they're saying is that Hugo kept people from going on certain areas of his property on purpose.

He kept certain areas like off-limits to people.

But then they talk to his little sister, Brooke, who says she was 12 when this happened, because this is later on.

And she says that he had gave her unfettered access to the property, her and others.

There were no forbidden areas, none of that.

She said she and others would ride ATVs on the trails that he made behind the property and that he was a stickler for safety.

She said there were no restrictions.

Just make sure you wear a helmet when you ride the quads.

I don't want to have to burn and bury another body, okay?

So

wow wow imagine dahmer just being a stickler about seat belts it would have been so funny if he was a real stickler for bicycle safety that was his thing he's like listen people with traffic let's go reflectors all around yeah dude and i murder children did he do the speed limit to get people to his home to rape and murder them i think he did he why he wants them to get there safely

if we get into an accident and get killed on the way there how am i going to drill a hole in your head and make a fucking sex zombie out of you how is that possible no fuck zombies if we get in an accident not gonna happen

jesus jesus christ man

so here's one witness louise ben sat bensikin um she is um kurkowski's neighbor now michael kurkowski's neighbor and she said she observed a man with a tattoo driving away from kurkowski's house as a passenger in a brown car at approximately 5 p.m on may 3rd 2002 which is the date of the murders

She then identified Hugo as the individual she saw on the date of those murders from a photograph of him and the brown vehicle from a photograph of the one that belonged to Carrie Bartu,

Kim's cousin, who Hugo was fucking, and I guess Michael used to have a relationship with.

I don't know what's going on.

It's wild.

Where's the tattoo?

Right on his fucking face?

Maybe it was on his arm.

When is this?

May?

Maybe he had

no sleeves on.

I have no idea.

Yeah.

Who knows?

An acquaintance of him

here, she said she may have given him a ride from Kurkowski's house on that date.

She said, I think I may have picked him up.

He asked me for a ride.

I gave him a ride, but, you know, that was that.

Now, the evidence against Hugo

here includes Paul Weakley's testimony and

statements to the cops regarding Hugo's role in planning the crimes, you know, committing the robbery, the murders, and doing everything like that, the burial of the bodies, eyewitness testimony of the neighbor showing that he left Michael Kurkowski's house on the date of the murders, the testimony of Hugo's girlfriend, Christina, regarding their immediate need to raise approximately $10,000 to cover the closing costs, and testimony of the bank employee saying that he deposited approximately $10,000 in cash in this account the day after the alleged murders happened and would have no other way to get it.

Also that Hugo and Weekly statements to Patrick Russon regarding Michael Kurkowski's murder prior prior to the discovery of the bodies.

Then there's obviously the June 2003 discovery of the bodies.

That's pretty big evidence.

There is

the homeowner that they bought it from, the seller of their house,

who also says that Hugo asked him to get out of the house for a day, and that was like two days after the murders, which lines right up with what Weekly said, which they kept him for a couple days.

There's also a guy named Samuel Guse,

who is, this is very complicated, the Samuel Guse.

He's a drug dealer who says he was robbed by Hugo and Paul Weakley.

But even in court, there's all sorts of discrepancies because Hugo doesn't smoke and never smokes.

But Guse said that he smoked a cigarette with both guys.

They all had a cigarette, but Hugo never smokes.

So there's this whole thing there.

It doesn't matter.

Either way,

he said that he heard

about Hugo's participation in the robbery here

and his, or I'm sorry, he knew about it because it happened to him, and he said it had similar characteristics to the Kurkowski robbery.

So they kind of, it's the same thing.

They tie him up, they ask him where the money is, they just didn't kill him.

So additional evidence of guilt here includes the testimony of Rodney Sampson that Hugo offered him $20,000 in April 2002 to assist in, quote, taking care of Kurkowski, which Samson knew was murder.

And he was like, I don't think so.

Also, the cousin, Kim's cousin, Carrie Bartu's testimony that

Hugo gave her $1,000 several hours after the murders occurred and told her to give $300 of that amount to Kim Kurkowski and say it was from Michael, the guy they just killed.

Yeah, this is creepy as fuck, dude.

That's cold.

Go give this to his ex-wife, mother of his children, and be like, it's from him.

He said to give this to you.

Wow, is all I have to say.

That's fucking dark, man.

Then five days after the murders, Hugo contacts Kim Kurkowski's boyfriend.

Wow.

Or talks to Kim Kurkowski's boyfriend and offers to pay for diapers and food for Michael and Kim's children.

Which are like, why would you do that?

That's weird.

Then also they, so everything basically is all this now also Ernie Culp is the guy I believe who lives on the property and the trailer trailer yeah and he said he saw weekly and Hugo in early May 2002 holding digging implements near a freshly dug patch of land on the property which is right when the bodies were buried

now Hugo says I'm an innocent man really I didn't do any of this stuff.

That's crazy.

There's a lot of bodies, man.

I didn't kill any of them.

People must be burying bodies on my property without my knowledge.

That's what they're doing.

They're burning bodies and burying them on my property.

I didn't do any of this.

This is crazy.

So dumb.

This is so crazy.

He said, look, your timeline doesn't make any sense.

That's what it is.

He goes, see, if you look at the timeline, you can see how innocent I am.

Yeah.

He says there's three inconsistencies here.

His lawyer says.

First, that Hugo insists that the timeline here is all fucked up.

He says, it doesn't make any sense.

He cites Weakley's statement that he, Paul Weakley, that he arrived, that Weakley arrived with Hugo at approximately 2 p.m.

and that the two men drank beer and talked with Kurkowski and Fassett for over an hour.

Yet Paul Weakley also stated that Kurkowski needed to leave by 3 p.m.

to pick up his children at daycare by 4 p.m., and there was no issue that Kurkowski was ever late in having to get ready or leave.

So he's saying that the times must have been earlier then.

So

he also, Hugo also says that the neighbor's testimony that says she saw Kirkowski mowing his lawn between 2 and 4 p.m.

that day, which means that Hugo and Weakley would have had to have arrived well after 2 p.m., but before he had to pick his kids up.

And Kirkowski's testimony, Kirkowski's mother's testimony, that she had a 15-minute telephone conversation with Tammy Fassett while Kirkowski, or I'm sorry, while Hugo and Weakley were in the house.

She said, oh, yeah, we have people over.

That took place between

2:30 and 4 p.m.

So

now, she doesn't know exactly when.

Now, he also says that there's no possible way the timeline immediately after the murders could be accurate.

He says, Paul Weakley said that Hugo left

that Paul left Hugo behind to finish cleaning up and drove away from Kurkowski's house with the two bodies, arriving at the home that they all shared together here.

Now,

Hugo contends that the timeline doesn't make sense with the neighbor's testimony who saw Hugo drive away at 5 p.m.

Which, why not?

They could go in separate cars, and that's not an issue.

He left with the cousin, the other guy left with the bodies.

So that's how it works.

So how does that lead to the timeline?

Is that that makes it that he didn't do it?

That makes less bones in his fucking yard appear.

That's

crazy as fuck.

He also says the timeline later on in the evening of the murders was similarly impossible.

Hugo references Kurkowski's parents' testimony that they returned home from dinner on May 3rd, 2002 at approximately 10 to 11 p.m.

to discover their son had not picked up his children from daycare, and then they drove over to Michael's house.

However, the neighbor stated she began taking notes after speaking with Kurkowski's father and that the journal that she kept tracking the events related to Kurkowski's disappearance showed her first entry at 9.36,

which is before the time that the parents even arrived home from dinner.

So,

yes, a year ago, people don't remember if it was fucking 9.30 or 10.30.

That's what this is.

That's all it is.

Bodies in the yard, my friend.

He's doing timeline based on word, not proof, so it doesn't matter anyway.

Yeah, based on people's recollection a year later, which is crazy.

I mean, mean, if you get the month right a year later, you're pretty good.

The time, forget about it.

So, anyway, everybody's arrested.

They find at least five bodies and as many as of 12 sets of human remains on the property.

Jesus.

So,

yeah, they found the bones of Keillor and James in garbage bags, and they also found a piece of skin tissue they believe to be Keillor's on a garage door panel.

Awful viscera.

Oh, wow.

That is human shrapnel, is what that is.

That is gross.

He's also accused of burning the victims, obviously.

Here, they said that Patrick Russon used a rake and

shovel to clean out the burn pit after the bodies were destroyed.

You know, put it all in bags.

23 fragments of human bone, a shovel, and a panel of Selensky's garage door are all taken as evidence.

That's where the panel that has the human tissue on it.

There's also, they find two buttons, one from a pair of Tommy Hill figure jeans and the other from a pair of Snoop Dogg clothing jeans.

He's the guy that bought it.

This is very 2002 K Momo here.

Like, this is,

wow.

What was Snoop Dogg's brand?

Snoop Dogg Clothing.

Was it?

SDC.

That's what it was.

Snoop Dogg clothing.

Yeah, I guess I did see the SDC logo.

I've never, I didn't.

Not a great name.

That shows how unsuccessful that was that was that was that was weird

well there's a there's a time in between famous and nostalgia famous when no one gives a about you and that was the time when snoop dog couldn't get nobody won't give a about snoop dog in 2002 that's why he was making clothes because no one cared it was after he was on like fucking no limit for a while you would all remember that fucked him all up and like he was he was damaged goods at that point nobody cared yeah then by like 2012 he's in this hey i remember him Then it's different.

Then everybody.

Selling me

things that tease that it's weed related.

Now he's just selling weed.

That's what everybody does.

That's the life cycle of a celebrity.

Yeah.

Famous, famous, famous.

Fuck you, go fuck your mother.

10 years later, I love that guy.

Okay.

Remember that song?

That was so much fun.

Remember that?

I remember.

That was great.

Yeah, Jin and Juice.

Don't hate people.

Meanwhile, he hated everybody wearing red for the longest time.

Except for Shuge Knight.

Right, one guy

with some money in his pocket.

So, yeah, this is two buttons, Tommy Hillfiger Snoop Dogg clothing jeans that were found in garbage bags outside the home.

A charred Nike sole, shoe sole with the trademark swoosh still intact was also presented as evidence

here.

The letters SDC, which stands for Snoop Dogg Clothing, were clearly visible on one button.

Wow.

And witnesses all said that both victims were last seen in that clothing, by the way.

Oh, boy.

You could tell a pair of Snoop Dogg jeans when you see it.

That's all I'm saying.

So there's also a chandelier that comes into question here.

Ron Selensky, Jr., this is his brother, not his father, said that his brother Hugo asked him to remove the chandelier from the Mount Olivet Homes garage.

The conversation took place at the correction facility here at the county jail where Hugo's being held.

And the chandelier is relevant to the prosecution's case because Hugo Selensky and Patrick Russon allegedly stole the chandelier and other items from a former Plymouth clothing store.

Before Keillor was killed, Hugo and Russon allegedly interrogated him.

Keillor had told them about the store and how they might find money and drugs there.

And that's where they stole the chandelier from.

As for the chandelier, Ron said that he sold it for $15 to an antique store.

Okay.

And the owner said that, yes,

he did that.

They said that was not the only thing Ron and Hugo talked about that day at the correctional facility.

They also

were talking about the bodies.

And they said, did you ask him what was going on?

And Ron said, yeah, of course.

He said, I'm being set up.

I didn't do it.

People are placing bodies in my yard.

It's crazy.

I mean,

really, like once a year, you should go around with a cadaver dog just to make sure nobody, like while you were on vacation at work one day, just happened to slip a couple of bodies in there because you really never know.

I mean, honestly, get in there.

Sometimes those dogs fail.

Get yourself a metal detector and see if you can find some Snoop Dogg clothing buttons on your property.

If you can find that, there's a body not far behind, obviously.

Now, he goes to court for his preliminaries.

He's described as looking cocky and unconcerned in court.

He always looks cocky and unconcerned.

He's a real cocky asshole, Hugo.

Really?

He stared down the witnesses, which, again, that's a new one.

Wild behavior for a man with 12 bodies on his property.

Eye fucking witnesses.

That's a lot.

Smiled at the prosecutors,

all that kind of shit.

Thought he was cute.

Yeah.

He's essentially Karen Reading.

That's exactly what she's doing right now, except it's less threatening because

she's a lady, not a dude with 12

fucking bodies.

Yeah, 12 bodies in his yard.

If she had 12 bodies in her yard, I don't think she'd be that smug, though.

According to her, the entire Boston Police Department is against her.

Maybe don't be so fucking smug.

That's what I'm saying.

Well, we'll talk about that at the Patreon.

Don't you worry about that.

We've got a lot.

Can't wait.

So, and there's a lot of dirty shit going on there, too.

There's a lot, man.

That's one of those where you go,

we'll hopefully have an opinion on it by the end of the episode.

So this guy here, he said he told reporters.

He knew nothing about corpses and garbage bags full of burnt bones found in his home.

I don't know nothing about it.

No, no shit.

So after this, this is in July, police complete a 35-day search of the property, and then

Heather,

Christina Strom comes back.

Lives there.

Yeah, she's living there.

Yeah.

They said, accompanied by a large black dog, she was seen walking in the yard at about 1:30 p.m.

And she said a reporter came up to her and she said, I really don't want to be interviewed.

Sorry.

I'm sure you don't.

Yeah.

What is this where the corpses were?

So 2003, while Hugo's in jail awaiting multiple trials for lots of shit here, he has a conversation with his father, okay?

Or whatever, adopted father.

And Ron said, there's crazy people in this world.

That's why you're sitting here.

There's a crazy person

in Luzerne County jail, Hugo.

That's what he told reporters afterwards.

My son's crazy.

They said that when the reporters first knocked on his door, he said that he told them right away, the only connection I have to him is our name.

That's it.

He's adopted.

I don't hang out with him.

Literally, he was just like, don't know him.

I didn't do that goddamn paperwork.

He said I had a normal, stable family of seven children.

And he said, he's the oldest, by the way,

Hugo.

And he said that it was disassociation.

They're not together.

He said he was a mischievous kid.

Who thought it would blossom into such a notorious criminal record?

He says it's, you know, seeing his son splashed across TV screens and front pages has been less painful this time around, he said, though.

The first time with the bank robbery, it was worse.

Trust me.

Now I

disowned him.

Now I just say, fuck him.

He said, it's been a hell of a lot easier than 10 years ago.

People are compassionate.

People I would never expect.

People were much more brutal 10 years ago.

Yep.

He said, now he said, then he talks to the fucking reporters about the other six children and everything like that.

And he said the age span of the kids ranged nearly two decades.

And he says, I have six other children.

Six out of seven is not a bad record.

Six good ones, you know?

Yeah.

So October 2003,

it's a Friday, a little after sundown.

So anybody Orthodox can't turn the lights off.

And that's a very northeastern joke.

And

you didn't even get it, did you?

I don't know what that means.

Orthodox Jews can't do anything after Friday at sundown.

They can't turn their lights on, they can't do anything till the next day.

Yeah, it's a what?

It's the Sabbath, they're not allowed to do stuff.

There's a whole

industry of people that make like devices to get around it.

It's hilarious.

Really?

Every weekend they do it?

Saying your religion is hilarious.

I'm just saying, it's hilarious that you're like, you know, maybe I can get around it, though.

That's funny.

Anytime you try to get around what you think is the word of God, I always find that hilarious.

It's like, I think he knows.

He'll probably know that you're cheating.

He said this, but I mean, meant that.

Yeah.

They look for loopholes like it's the law or some shit.

So October of 2003, Selensky opens up a window at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility and uses a rope made of bed sheets to climb down seven stories.

Seven stories?

Seven stories he climbed down.

Nobody saw this

70-foot-long tail hanging out the window?

Nobody saw this old-timey burglar fucking rope hanging out of a window.

What are we talking about?

This is the silliest.

This is a cartoon that you escape from jail.

Bed sheet.

That is impressive.

And then tossed a mattress over the barbed wire fence to escape.

Brilliant.

Climbed right over it.

His partner in the jail break was a guy named Scott Bolton.

He didn't do so well.

No.

He fell and suffered internal injuries and broken bones when he slipped off the rope there and plummeted during the descent.

70 fucking feet to the ground.

I think he fell about 50 feet.

It's not good.

Wow.

He was in critical condition.

They had to airlift him out and everything.

Yeah, you're going to die, man.

Now, Bolton has a fun record.

He walked away from a prison work release program in 2001 and spent almost three years as a fugitive.

Wow.

During which time he stole 78 TVs.

What?

Valued at over $600,000.

78 TVs.

Each one,

every day.

He kept stealing them.

I guess he was probably selling them to people.

I mean, there's a big market market for those because people don't take them on the road.

Yeah.

And you can chop them up, dude.

Yeah.

Make a whole made one.

If you're using it

in the woods in your backyard, so no one's ever going to check that.

So, yeah.

While on the run, he eluded capture several times, including a close call in which he ran barefoot through the woods and then jumped into the Susquehanna River to escape.

Impressive.

And he was finally captured in September, and then in October, they're trying to escape.

That's how bad prison is.

Oh, shit.

Swim a river to not go.

And then fucking fall out a window also.

So,

yeah, police immediately upon the escape.

Now, fucking Selensky's gone.

Hugo took off.

Gone.

They catch Bolton, but Hugo's off.

Police notify Selensky's family, members of the Kurkowski family, and others associated with him of the escape.

Hey, heads up, by the way.

They thought they were seeking out family and friends and questioning them in hopes of finding where the fuck he is.

Now, Hugo's half-brother, Ronald, here,

the press talked to him, and he was like, Jesus Christ, man, what do I say here?

He said, quote, if he's innocent, he's going to be proven innocent.

This just makes it worse.

He should just turn himself in.

He says he worries that the cops are going to shoot Hugo.

That's how this is going to end because he's a fugitive.

He said they don't know him.

They hear all these things.

They see him.

Even if he's not armed, someone might take a shot at him.

Which is fair.

fair.

So they're searching for Hugo.

And this is a fun article here.

The headline is, In darkness, a grim search is launched

from a newspaper.

And it says, Wilkes-Barry fire captain Chris Hughes didn't need to think about it.

You want the knife on?

asked firefighter Robert Steininger, helping Hughes suit up to look for escapee Hugo Selensky.

Yes, he answered immediately.

In second, Steininger had a in a second, Steininger had the sheathed knife secured to Hughes's upper right right arm.

It was about 1.30 a.m.

Saturday, more than three hours since Zelensky rappelled down the side of the county correctional facility.

Hughes was already in his wetsuit and at the Nisbet Park boat launch on the Susquehanna River with the city's hovercraft.

The knife is standard equipment, he said, in case a rope needs to be cut, for example.

But a police officer carrying his pistol said that, yeah, we're keeping this too, though.

Don't worry.

I got this just in case.

They said this isn't a river river rescue.

This is a search.

So

I guess they said that they've been at the boat launch since about midnight, waiting to know when we're going out.

They said with the deployment order came down, Hughes was told he would take a police officer with him.

Hughes had one request, bring a small guy because weight makes the hovercraft hard to maneuver.

We're looking in water, not for...

What are we looking for?

We're going up and down the riverbank looking for him in the water.

So they got somebody there.

They bring a cop in, and the fireman told him, you're going to get wet.

That's a guarantee.

So the guy took off his uniform jacket, boots, gun belt, and put on a wetsuit here to protect him from all this shit.

They were suited up, and they were doing their thing here.

He left his uniform behind, but kept his gun.

So they're going on and looking for him here.

Now, relatives here, they're talking about his relatives are worried.

Selensky Sr.

here, Ronald, as he tended to yard work in his home here,

they also talked to Christina Strom, his girlfriend, who was, they went up to her, she was walking her dog again.

That's all she does is walk her dog.

He's just looking for more bodies.

Yeah.

And so other people said

his

ex-girlfriend's mother, they advised her even of the escape.

She said, we're fine.

He would never come here.

That's it.

Now, Frank James' brother, Randy James, said, quote, this is crazy.

I thought they were supposed to handle things a little better up there.

How can they let someone like him get away?

Right.

He said, how is he not in a more secure facility?

How could you put someone like him in a county prison?

That's like a daycare for this guy.

I don't know.

We put him 70 feet in the air.

I mean, we didn't expect that.

There actually was a fuck-up on their part, though, where they

had to talk about it.

He was near a window with 70 feet of bed bed sheet.

Well, no, he had to gather that.

Yeah,

it was quite the plot here, yeah.

Really?

Yeah, it wasn't all his bed sheet.

He got people to help him.

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Yeah, they said that.

How could you put someone in county prison?

And James said he hopes to keep the information from his mother, who's been upset with the slow pace of the investigation already.

He said she sees her son's not getting justice.

Now this maniac's on the loose.

So residents are also pissed or rather live around the jail.

They're like, what the fuck?

This is ridiculous.

One said, quote, we live by the prison, so you think it's safe here.

Huh?

What?

What's that now?

Look around a prison.

That says, do not pick up hitchhikers because they might get out of here.

Look at the aerial view on Zillow.

of housing prices right around a prison.

Not quite as high as if you get away from the prison some.

They tend to drive pricing down.

I figured the place they keep all the criminals would be the safest place to live next door to, right?

Which it would because they're going to take off and run past your house to get away from here, though.

They want to get away furthest.

But

they're people of opportunity.

And if there's a house or a car right there, they're going to try and hurt people and take.

Oh, we've heard of that before in cases we've had where they break into a house right by there.

He said, this person said, obviously, it's not that safe.

They took the entire window out.

You think someone would have heard?

And how do you hide a bunch of bed sheets?

Right.

One guy says it goes to show the prison isn't well secured.

Another neighbor learned of the prison break when she came home from dinner Friday and saw a yellow police tape near the prison.

She said, yeah,

how would you not be aware of someone having that many bed sheets?

Right.

Now,

how he collected the sheets also played on one guy's mind here.

Frederick Hopps is a neighbor who previously was incarcerated at this jail.

And he said, how did these men avoid detection from patrolling guards?

He said that he believes the men must have had help from other inmates or someone else inside the prison to collect the sheets needed for their escape.

He said,

you're issued two bed sheets when you go in.

More or less, if you put your name on them, they go to the laundry and back, and that's it.

Those are your sheets.

So other residents said the same thing.

They said, quote, it was too easy for him to get away.

It had to be somebody on the inside.

And one person said, let him head over to Manhattan, to the rock.

Let him get out of there.

He'd be sharkbait.

Okay.

I guess Rikers or Rikers or Alcatraz.

They want to say that.

Alcatraz is the rock.

Yeah.

Alcatraz is the rock.

No.

No.

Just Rikers.

Have him be in that

in New York.

It's their version of it, I guess.

I don't fuck with that.

We've got to get out more.

Wow.

This is the back mountain.

So, you know, we'll kind of a little bit of break here.

And state police said that they don't know if he's on foot, if there's a vehicle.

They don't know what to do here.

The state police trooper said, what's to say that Hugo can't change vehicles every hundred miles?

We don't know where he is.

Who the hell knows?

But after a week here, or not a week, I'm sorry, three days, he turns himself in.

Oh, really?

You can't hack it.

Yep.

He said he turned himself in about an hour and a half later.

He's going into into the jail, and a reporter asks him something, and he says, I wouldn't have missed this trial for anything.

And he smiles.

Really?

Trying to be punctual around here.

That's all.

He was on the lamb until about 8.40 p.m.

on Monday.

So three old days.

He made it.

When he turned himself in at his own home, he went home to turn himself in.

Really?

He probably went home, bang his girlfriend, and then was like, all right.

Dig me in.

I thought I had this all figured out.

It turns out I don't.

Jesus.

Well, apparently the police got a tip that he was there.

So they showed up at the house, but Christina Strom refused to let them search the residence when she had previously allowed multiple searches.

And now today she's like, no, you can't come in.

So about two hours later, the state police said that Hugo's lawyer called

saying that he's ready to turn himself in, basically.

So he was arrested at the house at 8.47 p.m.

on Monday without any incident.

They said that, you know, he surrendered.

They said we pulled in.

He came walking out with his hands up.

I'm ready.

There you go.

And, yeah, they said we left about an hour later.

His attorney said he'd meet us there, and that's what happened, which is fucking wild, I think.

Anyway, so

they said

that they're unsure why he specifically requested.

He requested two specific officers,

which is weird.

Yes.

And the lawyer said, I'm not sure why he requested those specific officers.

They said, we hadn't discussed it.

He said, I'm going to have to wait and see.

I was more concerned just to make sure that no one was injured and no one, you know, that he wasn't injured in any way.

He was wearing Army fatigue pants and a t-shirt.

He'd been wearing gray sweatpants when he fled the prison.

It's unclear where he got pants from, where he changed.

I assume his house.

He was in his house, so you know, could have been doing that.

State police reached into a pocket of his camouflage army pants and withdrew a $10 bill, a business card, several slips of paper containing phone numbers and addresses, and a handwritten note on lined paper that had worn at the folds.

There's that, all that shit.

So he's had some stuff in his pocket.

Now, while awaiting arraignment on his two escape charges, he smiled and shrugged and just hammed it up.

He said, I'm looking forward to the trial.

That's all there is to it.

I'm innocent, and that's all there is to it.

Then he said, I wouldn't have missed this trial for anything.

So they said, though some might say that these escape charges would indicate he was trying to miss the trial, he said, no, absolutely not.

That's crazy.

Just having some fun.

So they were saying there was intelligence.

The police said there was intelligence that told us he was in the area.

He was probably going to be at the residence.

Now, where did he go?

What lavish fun did he have?

He went to his aunt's house and was hidden in an attic for a day.

That's one.

That sounds better than jail, I guess.

I don't know, mildly.

Then he left the house in Pittston after a day, and the court papers shows he was dropped off in a wooded area of the back mountain, and he must have used a car to get there.

Car left there to make it to his house.

Someone must have helped him.

So he turned himself into the police anyway.

So there we go.

Now, reactions.

James's mother found out about it, apparently.

The son didn't keep it from her.

And the son said she fell to pieces when she learned that he had escaped.

And when they were notified he was captured, she said, oh my God, I feel so much better.

I was petrified.

He was headed for Brooklyn.

I couldn't sleep.

He said, come kill your family, too.

I don't know.

He heard the rocks there.

He's not coming there.

No way.

Staying out.

Now, how the fuck did he get out of this window?

Yeah.

That's something interesting.

Well, the jail window wasn't fixed after the last escape in 1989.

It's been almost 20 years, 15 years?

Yep.

It's crazy.

They said that this, it had happened in 89.

A guy named Cecil Robbins had used, tried to escape from the same cell in 89, and they said the window window was too small, too thin, poorly installed, and secured with only caulk after this guy had fucked it up the first time.

He just popped it out.

Glued it back there.

Jesus.

That's all.

So they viewed the cell block and said the mattresses in a double homicide suspect cell here had a large slit in it, making it possible for him to hide the 12 sheets he used to shimmy from the prison seventh.

I was going to say, where do you hide sheets?

I guess you could tuck them into your mattress.

That's all you could do.

That's the only place.

They said, yeah, they're big.

Yeah.

It's not like a little bag of fucking Coke or something.

Right.

Put it in your pocket.

And only one sheet, in addition to the four sheets in his cell, were unaccounted for in the entire cell block.

Wow.

They said accountability is definitely lacking.

And they say that also a shank was reportedly found in his cell, and that was material from an electrical outlet that could have been used to scrape the caulking from the window.

Okay.

So he's got a little piece of metal from that and scraped out that shit.

So

the captain at the prison, Al Ottensman, said that this will lead to security changes.

He said that they changed the policies.

Some security I can't talk about, but the sheets we found out that they threatened a lot of those inmates, especially the meek ones.

They were just bullying people for their sheets.

It's like, I thought you'd get raped in prison, not have your sheet taken.

What the fuck?

This is weird.

Give me your sheets or I'll rape you.

They cut eight and got their sheets.

So they said they, so we have, we changed having their names actually printed on some of them.

So now you know.

Now, is there going to be escape charges?

Well,

one of the charges is dismissed on a technicality because the bed sheets used to repel from the prison cell are admissible here.

And prosecutors say the prison escape shows his consciousness of guilt.

So they're holding off on the escape charges till after the murder charges because the bed sheets are admissible evidence in the murder case.

Multiple murder cases.

Now, Russon, Patrick Russon, pleads guilty to third-degree murder, which I didn't even know that was

third-degree.

Isn't that just manslaughter?

I think that's just you were in the same city when it happened.

I don't even know what that is for Rudy and Redman here.

But Hugo is going on trial for the murders of Frank James and Adaya Keeler.

So the defense attorney said the best way to summarize the story that Pat the Rat Russon concocted here,

old Pat the Rat, claiming Hugo lured the drug dealers into his home and then shot and killed him.

He said, quote, Patrick Russon's a liar.

That's my explanation.

Lies,

even though they were in my client's yard.

He said that the prosecution's case against him is littered with lies.

It's all lies.

He said, there's no evidence that Hugo drove these two guys around Wilkes-Barre, then back to his home here the day that they were killed.

He said, there's no evidence.

He said that a bloody shooting occurred at the home.

Although there is flesh on the garage door.

There's flesh on my garage door.

And their burnt corpses and fucking clothes and snoop dog jeans and shit.

So he also said there's no evidence that a massive fire burned the two bodies at the home days after the slangs.

He said no neighbors saw it.

So how is there a fire?

Well, there's fucking a fire pit with burnt bones in it.

So at some point, there's a fucking fire, right?

Unless you jug a fire pit and then we're like, throw our burnt bones in there, but don't light a fire.

Like, that wouldn't make any sense.

So, they said there is evidence, though, of Russon is the one that brought the shotgun over there.

There's also evidence that Rutton or Russon received special treatment in prison, including pay for no work and special visits in return for his cooperation with investigators.

He said, all that evidence will lead to an acquittal.

They said there is reasonable doubt in his story.

Reasonable doubt equals not guilty.

The attorney said.

So, physical evidence here.

they said they had not been able to find the rake used in the burn pit

the the state says only the shovel yeah totally innocent yeah

the defense attorney also inquired as to why some state troopers could not testify where some items were specifically found despite having control of the property for more than a month and they said did you look for any hair fiber fingerprints spit or any type other type of bodily fluid that may have produced any type of dna evidence

and he said that he, the cop said, I don't know.

I'm unsure.

I got to check the search warrant.

I don't know what the fuck the lab does.

What do I know?

I'll check the warrants and see.

Patrick Russon here is the star witness, obviously.

He testified that Selensky called his younger brother to borrow the shotgun.

And

they said there's no record of such a call to Ron Jr., though, from the phone that Hugo would have used.

Even though there's that.

And

they said, cell phone records don't lie, Mr.

Russon.

People lie.

Is this when you want to say oops?

And Russon said, I never made an oops.

I didn't lie.

And Russon is, so he could have used any other phone on earth except his phone.

That's all it is.

Russon is the only eyewitness to the shooting, obviously, which usually there's no eyewitnesses to murder.

So Hugo's brother testifies that

Hugo never called to borrow the shotgun.

They said, was there a time when you loaned that shotgun to Patrick Russon?

And he said, yes.

When you loaned the shotgun to Patrick Russon, was he in the presence of Hugo?

He said, not that I remember.

And they said, do you know why he borrowed the gun?

He said, he said something about skunks running around Hugo's house and was worried they were going to keep spraying Hugo's dogs.

So that's no evidence of him being there or being around the gun.

Then they talked to James's girlfriend, Frank James' girlfriend, the one who was allegedly driven to a right aid and then home here.

She said

she was their first witness, the prosecution, and after rehashing the version of the story, she admitted to lying to police the first time she spoke

about James's disappearance.

Now, the story I told you is the real story she told of what happened, but she didn't say that at first.

She said it was 26 days after James disappeared the cops talked to her, and she said she immediately told police James picked her up from the hospital himself and his maroon Nissan and never mentioned anybody else.

She said she lied because she figured her boyfriend was in trouble and that's why he was trying to run away and that's why I haven't seen him in a month because he's in trouble.

And now the cops are asking about him.

So I'm going to put them on another trail.

That's all.

She said she was trying to cover for them, even though she had already called prisons, morgues, and hospitals trying to track him down.

But she said, I figured I'd try to cover for him.

Then sometime later, during the Hugo Selensky investigation, she told police that Selensky was

the guy who picked her up at the hospital in a white Honda.

So,

yeah.

So,

they said that no one saw him with the men at the pharmacy.

So, he didn't go in with her to pick up the prescription.

So, she could be lying, is what the defense said.

They said no, the defense attorney said nobody but Pat Russon sees James and Keillor go with Hugo.

The white Honda was seized, and police found fingerprints inside it.

None of them belonged to either Red Man, Rudy, or the recently birth-given woman, either, the girlfriend.

So

they questioned also the pharmacy's record indicates her prescription was picked up at 8 that day by someone else instead of 4.30 when she said she was there.

She said she couldn't remember if she waited for the prescription at 4.30 and wasn't sure who picked up the prescription.

So the defense attorney challenged her credibility and

said, quote, you're going to have to judge credibility to the jury.

So watch and listen.

And so there's that.

Hugo Culp, who lives 100 feet from the house, is there in a trailer.

He said nothing about seeing massive fires on the property.

He said, I didn't see any fucking

fires, definitely not on May 14th anyway, which we think the fires happened on like May 7th.

So

May 4th.

Yeah.

They said, did you hear any gunshots on the night in question?

Oh, that's the other bodies.

I'm sorry.

That was.

Oh, no, they disappeared then too.

So it would have been the same thing.

So they said, did you hear any gunshots in the night in question?

And he said, none he could remember.

And they also said,

you know, police found no evidence besides what we said, the minuscule amount of flesh on a garage door, which is enough to me.

I mean, if somebody's skin flesh is on my garage door.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That person's probably hurt somewhere.

Yeah, that's like the Brian Koberger Koberger thing, where they have the one piece of DNA, the touch DNA on the knife sheath that was at the murder scene, like under the dead girl's body, one of the dead girl's bodies.

And he's saying, well, that doesn't mean anything.

Well, I don't know.

My DNA is in no murder scenes again.

That means a whole lot.

Yeah.

How'd you get it there?

You better have a pretty goddamn good explanation for how that got there.

Your DNA is on the knife sheath of

a knife, underneath a body that's been stabbed to death.

Among other bodies stabbed to death.

Dude, you're in a lot of trouble.

Now, outside the court, things aren't all bad for Hugo.

Okay.

Because inside court, it's not looking good, but outside the court, he's got a fan club now.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

Ladies love Hugo.

Really?

L-L-C-H.

Ladies love cool Hugo.

That's what he is.

Yeah.

They love him.

It's wild.

This article says, ludicrous as it may sound, Hugo Selensky is a babe magnet.

Women in offices and bars across Luzerne County describe him as sexy.

They love him.

Some female courthouse employees have even popped into the courtroom during jury selection to ogle him, perhaps locking eyes with his blue eyes.

People obsessed with Zelensky and the case have even branded Hugoists on one of the many internet chat rooms created in his honor, some featuring his picture.

Court employees are

ogling.

Coming on in to have a look at this guy.

Here's one of the comments from a website or one of the local newspaper websites following the whole case.

Quote, I personally agree that if Hugo did kill two drug dealers, that he did the world a favor.

He doesn't really look like a killer, in my opinion.

He is pretty hot.

Exclamation point.

Oh, well,

why don't we just release him then?

Maybe.

It's pretty hot.

12 people.

Let's just uncuff the.

You got any extra bed sheets for him?

Because I bet he'll be using them.

I mean,

Jesus.

Bundy killed how many?

30 women?

And

didn't believe it.

How many women didn't buy it?

They're like, he didn't do it.

Oh, my God.

That first, that trial, they talked to those women outside, and they're like, we don't think he did it because that's crazy.

He's too handsome.

Okay.

Oh, my God.

So they go on to say, such Hugo buzz might leave the guys scratching their head head and wondering, what's wrong with women?

We do the same shit.

How many guys wanted to fuck Casey Anthony?

It's

ridiculous.

One high-ranking county law enforcement employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he's baffled how a man on trial for two shotgun slayings can mesmerize women and even some men.

He said, he's our Charlie Manson, our David Koresh.

Jesus.

County Minority Commissioner Stephen A.

Urban says he's heard several women around the courthouse courthouse call Hugo hot.

Unbelievable.

While Selensky's looks and Aush Shuck's grin undoubtedly woo some, his appeal probably won't go beyond the physical description, says Sheila Eisenberg, author of Women Who Love, Men Who Kill.

It's a very specific book.

Jesus.

Research from her book showed a very specific niche, the niche audience there.

Research from her book showed some women, indeed our culture as a whole, warship macho men, quote unquote.

They said guns symbolize today's tough guys, whether the shooter is an officer of the law or a bad ombre.

It's an extremely macho thing to kill someone, and there's a certain segment of women who are turned on by that.

Yeah, we've noticed that.

We've seen that lately.

And they said also his 2003 prison escape, being so daring using a rope of bed sheets, probably elevated this for some women.

She said, it's the Robin Hood thing, the escape from authorities, the I'm going to get my freedom.

How many times do we see that on TV where some guy leaps out unhurt?

This proves he's young, vigorous, has muscles, and all that stuff we venerate in our culture.

He can survive.

He's 170 feet from bed sheets.

That can be

ripped.

I mean, Jesus, imagine how good he can clean the yard up after that.

You know, think about it.

Throw me over his shoulder and take me right to the bedroom.

Amazing.

So they said surviving unscathed is the key, she said, because then he looks like a big guy.

Selensky's partner in the escape, cellmate Scott Bolton, fell and landed on the county prison's roof, suffering injuries and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Doesn't have a fan club for him, do it?

Not going to be stealing any ATVs anytime soon.

Eisenberg said he's not being described as sexy.

I'm sure nobody's writing to him.

He's stuck in a wheelchair.

A failure in a wheelchair is the way they look at him, whereas this guy's cool.

Self-leg, motherfucker.

God.

Selensky received piles of fan mail, some of it rather intimate during his time at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas.

He's been asked to be featured in a song by a punk band and has been asked to be featured in an author's book.

A picture he said he received from the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleaders read, What?

Roses are red, violets are blue.

Hurry up and get out.

We're all waiting for you.

What the fuck is happening?

You can fuck

free men that are very wealthy, that are right in front of you, literally.

The cheerleaders for the 76, the whole squad wants to fuck one man.

The fact that Alan Iverson's not around, what are you doing?

What are you talking about?

Guys can dunk from the foul line, and you're interested in this guy with his bedshit.

She's looking for a guy with you guys.

Shotgun blasts people and buries 12 in his fucking yard.

Wow.

Eisenberg, who'd been interviewed on many national TV programs about the subject of intimate relationships, said her research found that many women who pursue relationships with killers behind bars want someone they can try to save or reform.

Well, yeah.

Others simply find bad guys a turn on.

There's that.

Often the women were abused.

Well, yeah.

Women who want this is they probably didn't have a great.

Where's your dad?

First question.

Yeah.

Where's your dad?

Who is this guy?

What prison was he in?

When did he leave and never see you again?

Like, let's talk about it.

When did he beat the shit out of you?

What's going on?

So she said, if he's in for life, he's safe, Eisenberg said.

He can't abuse her.

She's in control of the relationship.

And we do get that a lot.

If you watch Love After Lockup,

that's men and women that have someone on the inside.

It's because they control everything.

They control how much money they have, how much everything.

They're going to be out at the bar blowing everybody.

Once they get on the outside, it's a little different.

They go on to say, nevertheless, these women usually get actively involved in their inmate's case and fight to get him out,

she said, though the relationship would likely fizzle outside confinement.

Yeah.

So said, if there's no way to dispute an inmate's involvement in the crime, the women make excuses to justify or rationalize his involvement, such as an act being accidental, provoked, or drug-induced, she said.

Perhaps some women want a link with Selensky because he's somewhat of a celebrity, she said.

Also, she said, Selensky's got national coverage when he tried to escape, so women may reach out because they want some of that fame.

They said, though, Eisenberg believes Selensky would still attract admirers even if he wasn't so photogenic.

She mentioned John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer, obviously.

We know who Gacy is.

Who's that ugly fuck?

She said, Gacy wasn't considered handsome, but he still got bombarded with letters from women who wanted to meet him.

Wow.

It's something in the,

I don't know what it is.

It's the fame.

It's importance, something.

They said she goes on to say he was an overweight and physically unattractive guy.

What was attractive to some women about him was that he did those murders.

Poof.

Eisenberg is interested in talking to Zelensky if he is convicted for her new book which aims to find out why certain inmates pursue relationships with women from the outside well gee because they give you money and fucking and you it's nice to talk to people who aren't criminal men yeah and who aren't busy doing this bullshit all day they can tell me stories of things and

you can talk about emotions with them and shit that you can't talk about with guys in fucking prison and they give you money also for your commissary so uh she found inmates who post their pictures and hobbies on the internet seeking relationships, though it's unlikely they'll ever get out.

We know all about that from the prisoner dating game on Patreon.

One woman regularly attends Selensky's court proceedings, passing him mints through deputy sheriffs and taking notes.

See if he wants an altoid.

Mints.

Mints.

How is that allowed?

That could be drugs.

You don't know what that is.

Can't put anything in his fucking mouth.

It's fucking crazy.

She has declined to comment to the media.

Eisenberg got her idea for women who love men who kill when she saw a newspaper photo of a fairly attractive young blonde standing with a New York City man who was about to stand trial for murdering his second wife.

That blonde was described as his fiancé.

Wow.

Was that the other Peterson?

I don't know.

Who knows who that could be?

Anybody.

She said, I wondered why a woman would want to get involved with a guy accused of murder.

Yeah, I would wonder that myself, but I think we know.

She said, not everyone in the Hugo internet chat rooms and blogs is enamored with him.

When someone posted on one site saying Selensky is very attractive and it's hard to picture him doing evil things, the following response was submitted:

yes, looks can be deceiving, so it doesn't matter what someone looks like on the outside.

Someone on another side said, another site said, people really need to find better things to do than rally for the cause of fucking idiots like this, no matter how charismatic or charming they may be.

Also, during this trial, the mother of Redman here, Adaye Keeler, said she approached

Patrick Russon and to thank him for testifying.

Really?

Yeah, even though he helped dispose of

the bodies.

At least, that's according to him.

She said, I forgive Patrick, and I told him I forgive him.

He said, thank you.

So, verdict comes in.

This is just for the two.

This is Rudy and Redman.

And it's called the Rudy Redman trial.

That's what it's called.

And he is found not guilty of murder.

How?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I can't imagine how.

Their bodies are at his house, like right there.

And

there's remains on the garage door.

That's

how.

But he is found guilty of burning the bodies, though.

He's found guilty of,

you know, desecration of the corpse or whatever.

Now, his aunt said that she was ecstatic about the verdict.

This is Hugo's aunt.

She said,

I'm ecstatic and relieved it's over.

The family has known all along he wasn't guilty.

We've stuck by him.

There's another murder trial coming up here, by the way.

He is sentenced to for the corpse, whatever.

You, sir, may fuck off two to four years in prison.

That's what he got for that.

Wow.

So 2008, because that was 2006, that trial.

2008, Paul Weakley pleads guilty to federal charges, and he's serving life sentence and agrees to testify against Selensky for the Kurkowski and Fassett murders.

Okay, because he said he was with him.

You know, they did it together.

So 2009 here, also, Selensky goes on trial again, not for murder, but for a violent home invasion and robbery in the Poconos.

Oh.

Police say back in 2003, before the bodies were found in the backyard, he and Paul Weakley

broke into a jewelry store in Tannersville after breaking into the owner's home and assaulting him.

So

this is a thing they've been doing a lot.

He was found guilty on that charge of doing that, and he is sentenced to, you, sir, may fuck off 32 to 65 years

for that.

Nobody even died, huh?

No one even died.

32.

You can't do home invasions.

That's a big charge.

Home invasions to break into a fucking jewelry store.

That's crazy.

So the Kirkowski and Fasson trial does not take place until 2015.

Wow.

That's insane, isn't it?

They have had him since a year after the murder, and it's taken this long to actually.

Ten years later.

That is insane, dude.

So the big question is, is Weakley going to testify?

Paul Weakle, he'd be the star witness.

They said his willingness to take the stand has been in question in the run-up to this trial.

He's been attacked in prison multiple times for being a snitch.

Oh, boy.

And an inmate who did time with Selinsky pled guilty last year

for trying to hire a hitman to kill him in prison.

Holy shit.

Sounds like that came from Hugo.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, but it's not.

Sounds like it.

The family's still participating and helping.

Yep.

So days before jury selection, Weakley told prosecutors that he would not testify, but then once trial comes up, he says, okay, fine.

Because they told him, we're going to take you back to court.

That's part of your deal, motherfucker.

Now you're on trial for murder, too,

basically.

And he was like, okay, fine.

So in the openings, the prosecutor told the jury, what you will hear will shock you, will horrify you, and will break your heart.

He said he's going to take jurors on a journey through the world of Hugo Zelensky, a journey he's been waiting a long time to take them on.

He said that Zelensky blew through $200,000 in 2002, despite only legally earning $187,000.

Okay.

I don't know how the hell he legally did that.

What was he doing?

I don't know.

The assist, that would make no sense to me, despite only legally earning $187,000.

We're sniffing around because he had $13,000 more.

That doesn't make any sense.

No, that doesn't make any sense at all.

I guess having it handed to him by Kirkowski wasn't a crime, I suppose.

The assistant DA said that Zelensky took advantage of Kurkowski's legal troubles and all of that.

It also said Zelensky

made it look like Kurkowski and Fassett fled to avoid sentencing, but

instead the prosecutor described the beating and torture and said, imagine the terror, folks.

So the defense here, they try to blame Paul Weakley for everything.

Like he already admitted to it, so he's a guy who did it.

He said, the defense attorney said, did Hugo kill Kurkowski and Fassett or was it Paul Weakley?

He made the case to the jury that Weakley had some reason to frame Selensky.

He said Paul was jealous of Hugo and wanted him out of the way.

Yeah.

Jealous of him.

The defense.

He's just so hot.

How do you not be jealous?

It's not fair.

I want to murder him.

The defense said, I want to get him put in prison forever.

The defense even told jurors that they will hear testimony that Weakley tried to kill Selensky on two occasions.

They point out to the jury the many inconsistencies in his story to police and prosecutors as he was interviewed 15 times since the prosecution began over a 13-year period.

So, yeah, there's going to be some stories conflicting there,

which is why you don't want to wait that long.

The defense said that Zelensky didn't need all that money because his girlfriend had good jobs at the time.

She had $400 in her checking account, and he couldn't pay the closing costs.

So you apparently did need money.

They said, where did that money come from?

Tina Strom.

That's where.

Right.

So the defense acknowledged that Zelensky was getting money from Kirkowski, but that said Zelensky had no reason to kill him.

He said, why would you kill the goose that was laying the golden eggs?

Yeah.

He said that Hugo may have tried to help Krakowski flee, but he didn't kill him.

He helped him flee, and then somehow he ended up buried in his yard.

It's the weirdest thing.

He got away and came back and killed himself in my yard.

So crazy.

So there's a jailhouse conversation with his father and brother where Hugo seemed very nonchalant about all this shit, all these murder charges.

He says, I absolutely deny all the charges, but if I did do it, who gives a fuck?

He's recorded saying that.

I mean, a lot of people give a fuck, Hugo.

There's about 12 people in that box over there.

A guy in a robe sitting up there.

A couple people went to law school for a few years.

I bet those vaginas dry up if you didn't do it.

Yeah, right.

Oh, really?

Damn.

So Hugo laughs on one of the days in court because, oh, yeah, at one point, he turned to his right, smiled at his defense attorney, then removed his glasses and used his hands to cover his mouth in an attempt to disguise his laughter.

What the hell?

This happened during the minute or more it took state trooper Edward Urban to remove a makeshift rope of bed sheets from a brown evidence bag because he's pulling it out like a magician.

And it's taken so fucking long that Hugo starts laughing eventually because it's kind of funny.

Like a clown pulling those yellow, red, blue,

out of their sleeve.

People laugh laugh at that because it's ridiculous.

So is this.

It's kind of funny.

It took so long to tie those knots.

That's kind of hilarious.

The bed sheets were in one piece and an avalanche of evidence prosecutors as part of that avalanche of evidence this day.

So that's fucking funny.

Wow.

So they cross-examine the neighbor

who said she saw people driving away from Kurkowski's house, that one.

And she said she was near and far-sighted.

Uh-oh.

Both, required the use of glasses, and that there were obstructions from her vantage point looking out the window when she saw Hugo.

This is my cousin Vinny.

This is the lady with the glasses going, there's shit all over.

Your screen's dirty.

I think it's time for what is it?

Time for

thicker glasses.

Thicker glasses.

Because she said they keep getting thicker.

She said, I think it's time for thicker glasses.

What do you think now, dear?

I think it's time for thicker glasses.

Now, the trial counsel gauged her ability to identify by showing her a picture and asking questions regarding that and whether or not she could accurately see what was going on outside her window.

So her testimony is shaky at best.

I'm near and far from that.

You can see shit, and there's a tree in my face.

God damn it.

So Weakley is the big witness.

He testifies here and demonstrates in court how he and Selensky bound the victims with zip ties and took turns torturing Kirkowski to find out where he had hidden the money.

And he gets down on the floor and does a demonstration.

So

that's rough.

That's damning when you see somebody going through the motions.

He testified that Hugo showed him a shoebox in March 2002 with approximately $60,000 to $80,000 cash inside.

What size are those shoes?

Jesus.

There's some big ones.

That's a lot of shoes.

Some Shaq's shoebox.

Whose shoebox do you have there?

And

inside there, Hugo said that Kirkowski paid for him, quote, for ser paid him, quote, for services he was providing for Mr.

Kirkowski.

Wakely stated that the amount of money he testified to was only an estimate, and he was never able to physically count the money.

He said he agreed to help Zelensky, and they plotted to rob Kurkowski, kill him, and dispose of the body to make it look like he'd fled to avoid prison.

He's like, it's perfect.

Him and the cash disappears.

Everyone thinks he fled.

Weakly said, quote, I thought it was a pretty good idea.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

He said, when he arrived at Kirkowski's home, the girlfriend was there too.

They didn't expect that, apparently.

He said that wasn't part of the plan, but he and Selensky agreed that she was just going to be a victim of the crime too now.

That was that.

Oh, boy.

Yep.

Weakly took her to an upstairs bedroom and bound her with flex ties.

Weakly said, quote, she asked me why we were doing this.

She was scared out of her mind.

He said he reassured her they were only interested in robbing Kurkowski and that she would be fine.

That's fucked up.

Yep.

Weakley said he bound her with flex ties and duct tape, covered the eyes with duct tape of Kurkowski, beat him with a rolling pin and choked him until he told the location of $60,000 in cash.

Then Weakley had led the police to the property and north of Wilkesbury, and that was the day that, you know, that the bodies were found.

They also recalled Thursday that workmen, another witness recalled that workmen were setting up a tent for the party when a convoy of police showed up at the house and

that the sister testified.

He immediately looked at me and said, oh my God, they're looking for bodies.

He was very shocked.

Now, one of the weekly things here is, did he get a deal?

He claims on the stand he received no benefit for his testimony.

Okay.

That's the claim.

Now, yeah, he is testifying on direct examination that he received a federal sentence of life in

imprisonment for these murders that they're trying Hugo for, and that he'd been promised absolutely nothing for his testimony.

But apparently he was getting some benefits.

He was moved out of solitary confinement when he began cooperating, and he was not charged with taking his one-time cellmate, Francis McBride, hostage during an escape attempt.

Wasn't charged for that.

So everyone's trying to escape here.

This is crazy.

No kidding.

They questioned Weakly regarding his evolving falsehoods through the course of these interviews, including lies that he was not present when the murders occurred on some of his stories and only assisted in reburying the bodies at the property and that Patrick Russon and Kirkowski's ex-wife were involved in the murders.

He said that at one point, that Kim was involved.

Yeah.

Okay.

That was one of his stories.

He has literally 15 different stories.

So there's a lot of variation here.

He admitted on cross-examination to being a, quote, liar with a record of various criminal convictions that he added various details to his accounts to make them more believable as well.

You know, lying.

That's how, you know, liars do.

Wow.

So apparently that was that.

The trial counsel,

I could have, I guess, presented evidence that a search of Weakley's residence uncovered bomb-making equipment, disguises, a how-to murder manual.

What?

Oh, yeah.

All these things were found in his shit.

Also, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, there's some child pornography involved in this with him, too.

Yeah.

He said Zelensky then ratcheted a flex tie around Kurkowski's neck as tight as it could possibly be, quote unquote, and that killed him.

And then he said that Zelensky went upstairs and killed Tammy Fassett, and he doesn't know what happened up there, except that he must have killed her.

He said, Weekly said he kept about $40,000.

Selensky got $20,000 and they buried the bodies.

So he gave the helper more than he got.

Why wouldn't he just split it?

$30,000, 30?

Hugo's little sister then testifies to what she said before that

she

was never

told she couldn't go on certain parts of the property.

Nothing was off limits.

She could ride the ATVs around and all that kind of thing.

Now,

another thing that could have came up here is Hugo keeps saying that Weakley was obsessed with Hugo's family and gave his 12-year-old sister gifts.

Really?

Which he thinks would undermine the credibility

of, you know, obviously, if he was trying to pick up a 12-year-old, no one would believe him.

Hugo's brother testifies, too, about some phone calls and that kind of thing.

Now, there's witnesses not called that he's very upset about here.

They didn't call trooper Gerald Sachny, who investigated the Samuel Guse robbery, to testify to the following information he learned during the investigation.

That witnesses saw an Osmobile or Buick pulling away from Guse's house rather than a white Honda.

Blood found at Guse's house matched Weakley, not Hugo.

A hair on a glove in Weakley's car did not match Weakley, Hugo, or Guse.

Certain unspecified DNA did not match Weakley,

Guse, or Hugo.

Weakly sold jewelry from the Guse robbery along with coins presumably stolen in another robbery.

There are two other suspects named in the robbery.

And that Weakley admitted to smoking a cigarette with Guse.

Hugo contends that the trooper's testimony would have challenged Guse's credibility

and Hugo's involvement in the murders.

Because they bring this guy that they robbed on the stand, too, to describe it.

That's the guy who said that he said they all smoke cigarettes afterwards.

So, verdicts come in here.

Now, the charges against Zelensky are

two counts of criminal homicide, two counts of criminal conspiracy to commit criminal homicide, one count of criminal solicitation to commit criminal homicide, two counts of robbery, two counts of criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, one count of theft.

Heavy.

Heavy.

The jury deliberates for over a two-day period for 11 hours.

Really?

Yes, they do.

And they find him guilty.

Yeah, on all charges except conspiracy to commit robbery on Tammy Fassett and solicitation of murder on Kurkowski.

Somehow he's not guilty of those two.

Not sure.

Doesn't matter.

Those are lesser charges than the ones we have.

And they're still aggravators to the others because

all the conspiracy charges except for those two are in there.

And the robbery of his parents is fucking disgusting.

Yeah, that's awful.

He went to these poor people's house.

Yeah.

He went to these people's house.

It's off.

They were like 75 years old.

Hugo needs money.

That's crazy.

And then just said, give me the money.

Come and shoot you.

Right.

Now, Hugo's brother,

his brother Ronald here, Ronald Jr., the one that testified, apparently following family members of the victims and prosecutors to the elevator after the verdict is read,

apparently an affidavit filed said that Ron pointed his hand in the shape of a gun at the prosecutor and detective and said, you, I'm going to get you.

Ron.

In a courthouse, he did this.

And they arrested him right then, right?

He's immediately arrested, handcuffed, and taken away by court deputies.

Yeah, you can't do that.

He was charged with disorderly conduct and making terroristic threats.

Right.

And, yeah, he was released on his own recognizance, but you can't do that.

No.

Now, during sentencing, Kurkowski's mom, Geraldine, read from a prepared statement.

She said, he knew he killed my son, and for a year he was out at our door looking for money, trying to make us believe that Michael was still alive.

He kept coming, oh, Michael needs help.

He's overheated.

Michael took off.

And they didn't want to know, so they didn't know.

She said, and that just hurts to think that we were played for such fools.

I know I can be satisfied knowing you will spend eternity suffering in hell because you know there is going to be an eye for an eye.

Hugo,

you know you will be right where you belong in hell with Satan because you are the devil in every sense of the word.

Wow, she went hard.

So mitigating factors here.

Well, he's got...

daughters.

So they bring his kids up there.

Four of his sisters spoke, saying they loved him.

They called him an intelligent and caring man who's protective of his family.

A college student, and Selinsky's daughter, Madeline, said that

he sent her letters with, quote, big words to broaden my vocabulary, asking her to look the words up and use them in sentences to show she understood their meaning.

He told her to avoid alcohol until she turned 21.

Well, that's good.

So let's let him go.

Don't drink.

I'm a good dad.

Wow.

His two younger sisters, both nursing students in their 20s, called him a father figure who briefly took care of them more than a dozen years ago while their dad, who is now deceased, was ill.

They said, I wouldn't be who I am today without him.

Another sister, Ruth, said that Selensky sends artwork to her children, some of it painted with Kool-Aid and coffee, and then he tells them to scratch and sniff.

It smells like prison jizz.

He said

she said,

oh, God, no matter what, I will always want my children to know of Uncle Hugo.

Well, here we go.

The judge definitely knows of Uncle Hugo.

Yeah.

And he says, you, sir, Uncle Hugo, may fuck off

consecutive life terms

together, two of them, back to back, plus a maximum of 120 years on top of that as well.

I don't think he's going to get out, man.

Ensuring that what the judge said, that Selinsky will, quote, never again walk the streets of this Commonwealth or this community.

Yeah.

Fucking Rapunzel's tower with no bedsheets.

No bedsheets.

I wonder if he's still hot.

How hot are you now?

Also, the escape charges, finally, from way back then, he pleads guilty to the escape charges because they finally used the evidence, the bed sheets, and was sentenced separately to a maximum of three years and five months in prison, which is time already served.

So he got nothing for that.

It doesn't matter.

He's in jail for two lives plus 120 years.

Oh, boy.

Now, he does an interview.

Really?

He kept saying, from the time he got caught, from the time going into court, he kept saying, I'm not going to talk now.

I'll talk when all this is over.

I promise I'll give you interviews when all this is over.

And he actually does.

This is right after the sentencing.

And he says, quote, as far as the verdict, it's hard to say I respect the verdict.

I'll live with it.

I stand by my innocence.

Okay.

Okay.

He says it's been a trying time for his family.

He said, I'm in the hole.

It's a miserable experience and it's harder for my family.

He said that

with the trial, there's many things he'd do differently.

At the top of the list is his decision not to testify.

Really?

Should have done that.

He said, not testifying was a glaring mistake.

I should have got on the stand.

Somebody on that jury was holding out.

I believe I could have convinced the others had I gotten on the stand.

Which if you got on the stand, then it's your word against Weakley's word.

So if you can present a better self than Weakley,

you can say whatever you want in your defense.

The bummer is going to be when they get to question that.

And you don't want to do that.

No, you don't want to do cross with that shit.

That's going to be ugly.

That's why he didn't testify.

In his opinion, he explained that the jury went the wrong way thanks to his former partner in crime, Paul Weakley.

He said, I have a very unhealthy dislike for Paul Weakley.

Unhealthy.

You know, the type that makes you allegedly hire someone to hire a hitman to kill him in jail.

You know, that kind of thing.

So Selinsky believes without Weakley's testimony, he would have been acquitted.

I don't think so.

I really don't.

I really don't.

You got bodies in your yard, man.

You got bodies in your yard.

You got his parents saying that he fucking, you know, was coming over, extorting them for money, all this type of shit.

Wow.

Weakley didn't do that.

You did that.

That's what I mean.

He said throughout both trials, even the one he was acquitted in, he said that he was misrepresented.

He said, I'm portrayed as a vicious villain, and that's wrong.

I have people who love me.

I'm not a monster.

I'm fighting for my life, and I'm going to continue to fight.

So that's the definition.

If people love you, you can't be a monster.

And if you keep fighting.

Yeah, so that's nice.

BTK, you're fine.

Your family loved you.

You're good.

Ridiculous.

At the end of the conversation, he reiterated his innocence.

When asked how the bodies of Tammy Fassett, Michael Kurkowski, and at least three others ended up in his fucking yard, he said, quote, that's a question I'd like an answer to.

Oh, would you?

Would you?

I'm wondering the same thing.

I've been wondering that since 2002.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

The price tag for his defense in this trial was

$517,351.

And who paid that?

That's not him.

He didn't have any fucking money for that.

The county or whatever, the state, out of somebody.

So he appeals, obviously.

Sure.

Gonna appeal.

He appeals on several factors.

I'll give him quickly here.

One is ineffective assistance of counsel.

We knew that was coming.

He was setting that up in his jailhouse interview right away.

He says that counsel was ineffective for not rebutting Weakley's claim that he received no benefit for trial testimony.

Said he did get out of solitary and he got out of trying to hold a guy hostage in an escape attempt for that.

So the court says, though, that this claim fails as it lacks arguable merit.

Attorney Brown elicited testimony from Weekly on cross-examination that his plea agreement provided that charges related to several robberies and possession of child pornography were dropped.

They dropped his child porn charges.

Really?

He's in for life in federal prison, that's why.

So, yeah.

So, this guy's a scumbag.

You were hanging.

I'm sorry, Hugo.

Either way, you're hanging out with child porn scum.

Yeah.

I'm hanging out with dudes attracted to kids, so

he was trying to fuck your sister, allegedly.

So, man, part of his federal plea agreement has also agreed not to prosecute him for the instant murders, which could have led to a potential death sentence.

Also, that they should have challenged that neighbor, that old lady neighbor, near and far-sighted more.

He argued that her overreaching account was not challenged enough by trial counsel, and that she should have been asked various questions on cross-examination, including why she contradicted her deposition testimony that her children were of elementary school age by testifying at trial that they were in junior high and high school.

Well, Christ, by the time the trial came, they were fucking had careers and three kids, for Christ's sake.

Wow.

They further note here, he does Hugo, that the trial counsel did not call into question this witness's improbable testimony that she was working at her desk in her home by the window and yet somehow was paying close enough attention to what was happening outside her window to see him.

He posits that trial counsel should have asked her why she continued to stare with locked eyes at him, despite the fear this aroused in her.

Because when people are scared, they look at things.

That's how they do it.

You can tell a lot of times when you see an interrogation and you see somebody with their eyes locked on the interrogator, that's like a predator-prey thing.

You're keeping them in your sight because you're scared of them.

So that's actually a thing.

But they said that she should have done that.

Also, why she did not tell police about this memorable episode, notwithstanding the fact that she kept a journal at the request of Kurkowski's mother of the comings and goings from the house beginning on May 3rd, 2002.

They said lawyers should have also attacked

Kurkowski's mom more as well.

Should have went after, you go after the victim's mother.

That's how you win the murder case.

You go after the dead guy's elderly mother.

That'll get the jury on your side.

They said, though, as was pointed out in a hearing, Geraldine Kurkowski was in her 80s at the time of the trial,

of diminutive stature, and she had recently lost her husband.

So they said probably the attorney said it was their strategy that it wouldn't benefit the defense to disparage an aging widow who's also the mother of a murder victim by trying to accuse her of illegal acts because that's what he wanted.

It's been a tough week.

Let's let her be.

Yeah.

They said the strategy, his attorney said the strategy was to try to get her on and off the stand as quickly as possible because she's nothing but sympathy so get her the fuck out of there the more you try to attack her the jury's gonna start throwing things at you

i mean you can't leave the old lady alone yeah they said the attorney further explained that the victim's father was much more involved in with the illegal acts than his mother and therefore would have raised the issues with the father if he had been alive but he wasn't so

he said it would be very difficult to get to the bottom of these issues through Mrs.

Gurkowski.

And then she could just go, I don't know what you mean, sonny boy.

And then the jury thinks you're a monster.

Also, that the lawyer should have called Hugo's uncle in.

They said the first individual as to which the appellant argues trial counsel is ineffective for failing the call as a witness is Robert Higdon, his uncle.

They say that Higden would have testified that he had worked for him in the past.

Higman had previously lent him money, Hugo money, and that Hugo could have asked Higdon for money in May of 2002 if he needed, and he would have given it to him.

With respect to Hignon, the attorney agrees with with

the trial at the counsel that the first three factors of the five-part test for ineffectiveness claims related to a figure to call a witness were satisfied, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He did plenty.

It's just, it was an

things aren't ineffective assistance of counsel.

They're just strategy decisions.

That's all there is to it.

And also, the prosecution's timeline is off.

Remember the 3.30, 5 o'clock.

This one's at 7 o'clock, all that bullshit here.

So there's that.

By the way, they've,

so anyway, they tell him, fuck off, keep going.

Appeal denied, obviously.

I mean, he's not going to get off on appeal.

No one.

Yeah, he's got a plus two life sentences.

Two lives, yeah.

Consecutive.

Oh, boy.

No one has ever figured out who the fifth body was.

Are you shitting me?

We have no idea who the fifth body was, and we have no idea where the bone fragments are for up to seven more people.

We have no idea who they are.

What the fuck?

Yeah, nobody knows.

It could be anybody.

Could be anybody.

Those could be Civil War soldiers.

They don't know.

They could be.

Well, no, they're burned and in his burned pants.

So probably not.

Unless he dug up Thomas Stonewall Jackson and fucking burned him.

I don't think that.

So

next up here, now he's in prison.

You'd think the story's over, but it's really not here.

I am going to read an article here.

This is about a woman named Felicia Thomas.

This is from TrueCrimenews.com.

Okay, I got to give them credit for this because

this is legwork that they were doing.

So I got to give them credit.

So here we go.

There's a woman here named Pauline who says about Felicia Thomas, who is a young lady who has disappeared,

said, quote, I think she was killed because she came and told us what was going on.

The article, I'll just read the article.

When it comes to unsolved murders, sleepy towns like

this one are notorious for wild rumor and innuendo, but you've never heard anything quite like what you'll hear from locals here in Luzerne County in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Everything is in here.

Anything anybody told us, Pauline said.

Pauline, with the help of family friend Judy Fisher, had compiled thick case books full of hundreds of tips, leads, and newspaper articles about Felicia's disappearance.

And Pauline won't stop until she learns what happened to her daughter.

Felicia was the eldest of seven children, just like fucking Hugo.

Look at that.

And grew up helping mom care for the younger ones.

They say Felicia still might be around, had one of her friends, Jennifer Barzlowski, Barzlowski, another Polish person, had not gone missing three years before Hugo Selensky's backyard burial ground was discovered.

Now,

she disappeared while Hugo was in prison.

Okay.

But we'll talk about this.

This is what I mean, a possible link to these other bodies and possible other shit.

Felicia was looking for her.

She was telling people she was looking for Jen.

She literally went out like a, like a, like a fucking detective to find her friend.

So they said Felicia became obsessed with finding her.

She wouldn't let it go, Pauline, her mother said.

And while playing amateur detective, she may have learned too much for her own good.

Enter a guy with two comedians' names, which is weird.

Steve Allen Martin.

Steve Allen is a very famous old comedian, and Steve Martin is fucking Steve Martin.

So Steve Martin, he goes by.

Steve Martin here.

She, quote, this is Pauline, quote, she says, I think Steve Martin killed her and buried her in her basement.

Oh.

In his basement?

Her basement or his basement?

In her own basement, I guess.

I said, Felicia, that's so crazy.

People don't just kill people and bury them in their yards and basements and get away with it.

I guess in his basement, she might have misspoke.

But yeah, imagine that.

Steve Martin killed my daughter.

Oh, come on now.

Steve Martin was the boyfriend of Jennifer's sister and is said to be a friend of neighbor Hugo Selensky.

What?

Yes, this is all connected.

This is crazy.

This is so deep we couldn't even get into this because you guys got to all look into this on your own or we got to do a Patreon on Steve Martin or something here.

But they said

Trooper Kelly, who was involved in all of this shit, said he was definitely a person of interest in Jennifer's case.

Right from the start, he was the last person to be known to be with her on the day she went missing.

Then up to 12 bodies were found on Zelensky's property, and authorities thought Jennifer and another missing girl, 18-year-old Cindy Song, might be among them.

What the fuck is going on?

They said it was a case that shocked this area, Trooper Kelly said.

Even though Zelensky would admit he killed,

wouldn't admit he killed Cindy Song,

I guess they're saying that he might have admitted he killed her at some point, this Cindy Song person, after he was convicted.

She was not counted among the victims because the bodies were burned so badly that the police couldn't say exactly how many there were.

They said some of them were in a burn pit where the bodies were burned to almost a powder.

Jesus, because he used coal in there, too.

He wasn't using

coal-fired.

Said some of them were in a burn pit where the bodies were burned to almost powder.

Forensics experts were only able to identify two, and Jennifer was not among them.

She so Pauline said she tried to tell me, tried to bring her girlfriend justice, and I didn't listen.

Then, the year after Selinsky's arrest, Felicia Thomas goes missing.

Yeah.

So the friend, he was in prison both times that these people went missing here.

Was his neighbor already doing this before he even moved in?

Showed him how to do it.

That's what I mean.

Did they talk?

How would you get together with Steve Martin to talk about how you both like to kill people and dispose of their bodies?

I don't even know how that would come up.

They say on the night Felicia vanished, police say she had left work at a convenience store between 11.30 and midnight.

She went home and her boyfriend was on the couch sleeping, said Trooper Kelly.

She woke him up and asked him if he wanted to do anything,

if he wanted a beer.

I think I've already had a couple.

I'm sleeping.

Yeah.

He told her there was...

Wanted to do something.

He told her that there was some beer outside on his ATV, and that's it.

He went back to bed, and she was never seen by him again.

Whoa.

He was interviewed several times.

He's been cooperative with the investigation.

So truly no one is ruled out as a suspect at this time.

And everything he said to us was checked out and appears to be true.

Officer Kelly said Felicia went to a party that night, quote, when she left that party with Steve Martin and another male, and the other male was dropped off and her and Steve Martin continued on their way.

Felicia Thomas was never to be seen again.

So Steve Martin was also the last person to see Jennifer Barzelowski before she vanished.

So they're they're saying Felicia went to investigate, saying she thinks that Steve Martin killed her friend, but then she went to a party with him and took a ride from him.

That's odd.

That's strange, yeah.

It's weird.

So Kelly says, I think there's a lot of peculiarities, like Steve Martin was the last person to be seen with both people.

Both people ran with the same circle of friends.

So they say a massive search is launched, but it appears right from the start to be an impossible mission.

She went missing in June, which is full bloom in our trees in this area.

Heavy canopy, very dense wooded areas, caverns, ravines, creeks, dams, says Kelly.

This body gives you, or this gives you a sense of just how complicated the search has been for Felicia's body.

The focus has been on these wooded areas and forests punctuated by vast swamplands and muddy creeks.

The mom, Pauline, said hundreds of people came out.

They came out on quads, on horseback.

Everyone was really trying to help.

When the official search was called off after two months, Felicia's family keeps going out on their own and looking for her.

Then, by accident, a pair of teenagers out riding

ATVs in a ravine

found, quote, one of them observed to be what he believed was a skull.

Oh.

Forensics came back.

It's a human skull.

Quote, both the dental records and DNA on the skull came back to that being Jennifer Barzalowski.

Oh, boy.

Police hoped to find more evidence at the location.

They said the scene was scoured relentlessly by Forensic Services unit to come up with more of the remains, but the only thing that was located was that skull.

And he said the officer said, quote, I will say that skull was found within one mile of Stephen Allen Martin's home.

Oh.

Yeah.

He said, you'll recall Stephen Martin was the last person to see them.

Now, Pauline suspects Felicia may have been made to disappear because she knew too much.

Police have also considered that story.

Kelly said, for me, to say how close she was getting, I can't officially say that because we don't know, but it's definitely something that's been tossed around that she had information.

Information allegedly suggesting that Martin and other men had said to have been friends and neighbors of diabolical killer Hugo Selensky, may have been carrying on his evil handiwork after he was locked away.

Felicia reportedly had a direct connection to Selensky through their live-in boyfriend, Eric Rudaski, who allegedly took Felicia to a party where Selensky was among the guests.

Felicia, yeah, Felicia had actually partied with Selensky, alleging allegedly more than once.

Wow.

One person said the only connection between them is Ed and Steve Martin, they were all friends.

Felicia used to go to the parties that Hugo was at.

Steve was at with Ed.

From all the leads and tips coming in from to Judy and Pauline, there emerges one common story allegedly told by many witnesses that adds up to a horrifying account of what may have happened to Felicia

after the party that night.

One witness reportedly told

Judy, Judy, this other person, Steve Martin was there and a couple of other guys were there and they talked Felicia into going into the bedroom to smoke.

And she went and she said soon there was screaming coming from the bedroom and that the man in the bedroom had a camera.

They saw a camera go in the room with the one guy and they were scared they were taping and that she was going to be raped.

Several others allegedly told Judy that they heard Felicia screaming, one claiming

that he got afraid the cops were going to come because of the screaming.

He left because he was scared.

He thought they were beating her up.

Judy says several witnesses said Felicia's boyfriend, Edrew Dasky, was also at the party and in the bedroom, despite telling the police he went to bed after Felicia left the house.

They say they told him to take a walk and he did take a walk.

He left her there to die because he left while she was screaming and he couldn't take it.

So.

Another witness allegedly told Judy that several guests saw Felicia's body in the room.

She said that when they opened the door, that Felicia was wrapped in a blanket and they took her and buried her.

So they say, how much weight do you put in that?

This person says, well, I do know that I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't confirm it with the state police.

The state police did get the same story many times, but they've dismissed these stories, saying they believe whoever's telling these stories were affected by drugs at the time.

It doesn't matter if they were on drugs.

So the article goes on to say, I asked state police officer Tom Kelly about claims that snuff films were being made.

And is there any truth to these wild rumors?

And he said, to my knowledge, no.

I have no information or have heard anything about that.

So, yeah,

he's heard nothing.

They said, is that something that's crossed paths of the investigators on this case?

Was it something at one time that was being looked into that there might be a snuff group operating?

And Kelly said, yes.

I mean, if people related

the information to investigators, they may have that information.

But me personally, I do not.

So you'll recall that Felicia was last seen leaving the party with Steve Martin in a car and with a second unidentified man.

But despite that fact, he was last to see both Felicia and Jennifer.

Police were never able to charge him with the murders.

But Kelly said Steve Martin was arrested and incarcerated for an unrelated charge and hung himself inside his prison cell, quote unquote.

I wonder why.

So there's a lot of signs and inferences that can say maybe he was our guy, but officially we don't have a confession right now, so it's still unknown.

He had to be involved in all this with us.

He's something, right?

That's what I'm saying.

So, wow.

So Ed Radasky has not been charged with any wrongdoing and has cooperated with police.

Wow.

Yeah.

So Crime Watch Daily visited Ed Radasky's mother and said, did Ed have anything at all to do with Felicia's disappearance?

No, no, no, she said.

They go on to say, getting a door slammed in your face is nothing compared to what happens when I go into an auto shop to talk to some of Ed's neighbors.

Good morning, sir.

How are you?

Sorry, we've been rolling around the back of your property.

I apologize for that.

I wasn't sure.

And they get cut off, quote, you're lucky because my daughter-in-law had the gun aimed at you.

That's her job.

She called me and told me, she said she was all ready to bang, and I told her to hold off.

She was going to murk you.

There's a lady walking around your yard.

Shoot her now.

And he said, well, I'm glad she's, the reporter said, well, I'm glad you said that.

We're working with Felicia Thomas's family.

And he said, I don't know nothing about it other than what I read in the paper.

No idea.

So anyway, there is a book that just came out in 2024.

It's a paperback called Hugo's Graveyard.

Really?

Yeah, written by who the hell wrote this fucking thing?

Edward Lewis.

It has 4.8 stars out of 15 reviews.

It's only 296 pages and it's only available in paperback.

So no Kindle, no audiobook.

I don't know.

So, there you go, everybody.

Holy,

that is some crazy shit in Pennsylvania.

Boy, that is

insane.

I hate it.

Fucking insane.

So, if you like that story, or if you hated it a lot, either way, please tell the world about how great the show is.

It doesn't matter.

Get on whatever rap you're on.

Give us five stars.

Also, follow on social media at Small Town Murder on Instagram, Small Town Pod on Facebook.

Definitely head to shutupandGimmeMurder.com.

That's the website.

Head over there and get your tickets for live shows.

April 19th is the 420 virtual live show.

Want to come to a live show, but there's none in your area or just can't wait to go anywhere in the world you want to watch this that has internet, we can do it just like a regular live show, but in your living room and available for two weeks after the show as well to buy, purchase, watch a hundred times, do whatever you want with.

So do that and get tickets for regular live shows.

Chicago, May 18th at the Riviera.

You are next up.

Get your tickets right now for that.

And the night before is sold out.

So you definitely want that.

So do that.

Hang out with us.

Definitely get Patreon.

Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material.

This week is no different.

Anybody $5 a month or above, you get hundreds of bonus episodes immediately upon subscription.

New ones every other week.

This week, you get one for crime and sports.

We're going to do fraternity hazing issues,

which you get access to, of course.

And then for small town murder, we are going to talk about the Karen Reed debacle as this retrial comes up to a boil.

So that'll be be a lot of fun.

That's patreon.com/slash crime in sports.

And you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right now, Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful fucking people in the world who would never, ever, ever bury us in their yards.

Jimmy, hit me with them right now.

This was Xander Brewster's or Elena Zemmel's son, Noah.

Happy birthday, bud.

Hey, happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

He might be.

I don't know.

Well, happy fucking birthday.

You called him Bud like he was eight.

Raptor one, happy birthday.

Raptor two said so.

Raptor 1 and 2.

Gary Howard and Jordan Brockwell.

Brockwell.

Thank you all so much for what you're doing.

You're fucking great people.

Can't do this without you.

You're amazing.

Other producers this week are Michelle Centenno and her wolf pack at Centenno Farms in Centenno Kennels in Canada.

Peyton Meadows, Elizabeth Rockefeller.

We got Rockefeller money.

Janice,

give more.

Tiffany Thompson, Robert Baker, Your Highness, Justin Daggett, Travis Freeman, Shell Sinclair, Rosie with no last name,

Devin Hughes, or maybe it's Devon.

I don't know what that is.

Never mind.

D.

mentioned something else, but it doesn't matter because it's not spelled the same.

Brandon M.

Tyler Glevins, Vince Oswald, Corin Nilka, Janilka, Sierra Cash, Sophia Hernandez-Ortiz, Derek Patterson, Madison Benson, Jeremy Brent, Kilmas, Kilimas,

Ramon

Wuthrich, Wootrich, Sierra Payne, Heidi with no last name, Matt Antiphyls, Ian Harrington, Jeff with no last name, Michael Warame, Wermy,

Bamfer, 1987.

Maybe it's bad motherfucker, bad bam.

Bad motherfucker.

I think that's what it's supposed to be.

Connor Brown, Jen Veenstra, Lindsey Nadalski, Amy Ice, Rusty Ingerson, Heather Annis,

boy, oh boy, OG

Bumpsniff.

Okay.

Shauna

Cummings, I think.

Sienna, maybe?

I don't know.

I think it's.

Bumpsniff is putting your cards and your Coke right on the table, isn't it?

It's really

letting you know what they do.

Cajell, Kiel, Kell, Anderson, Faye McCulkey, McCully, Bryn Coffer, Kaufer, Rachel Ruthless.

That might be a title.

Is that a roller derby name?

What is it?

Is that a roller derby name?

Probably.

Kaylin Spiker, Spicer.

Maybe another roller derby chick.

Darcy Lenhart.

Todd with no last name.

Tabitha Martin.

Aslin.

Aislin.

Ashlin Smith.

Hey, there we go.

Aslin Smith.

Terry Brewer.

Bruyere.

Bruyere.

Delicious.

Yeah, that's her last name.

Oh, cool.

Isn't that a type of cheese?

That's how it's spelled.

Oh, yeah.

Breere is absolutely a cheese.

Christine Harnette.

If I've ever had her.

Carter Rowe, Amanda Clabow, Nick Cameron.

That Nick Cameron.

Is there an actor or somebody famous named Nick Cameron?

I don't know.

It's possible.

I don't know.

But he says it's that guy.

April with no last name.

Carrie O'Brien, Riley Foster.

Courtney Jones.

Skip with no last name.

Probably not that one.

Anamia.

Anami and Anna Mia.

Anamia Rumley.

Oh, like, all right.

Like Anne-Marie.

Somebody named somebody Anna Mia?

That's crazy.

Anamia.

Well, I guess it's people are named Mia and and people are named Anna.

Right.

That's a fascinating

together.

Megan Boone.

The nature girl, James.

The one.

John with no last name.

Bernie with no last name.

Vaughn Holding, Jessica Armstrong, Jeanette Seely, James Scheidel, Manchester United, and Pintz.

They drank that shit and watched that shit.

Sue, Damadia.

Damasha.

Damadia.

Sandra Usri.

Allison Michaela.

Snana.

What?

That's not her name.

Joan Marie.

Oh, boy, Ernie.

I don't know.

Daniel Barnes, Biff Deadlift, KK's Blogs, Corey Strong, S.

Wolverine.

What is this one?

Mary Wilson.

Very easy.

Cody Lot Valla.

Lot Valla.

Carrie Dixon.

Tim Boner.

Bomer.

So you had Dixon and Boner back to back.

Carrie Dixon and Tim Boner.

Right back to back.

All right.

Elvin.

Carry Dixon, Tim Boner.

Justin with no last name.

Cake with no last name.

Virginia Gibbons.

Homie Titer, James.

Southern Girl, Tyler Foster, Squishy Cthulhu.

What are those things?

Come Quatt McGillicuddy.

That's not enough.

Wow.

Becca with no last name.

Mike O'Neill, Carly Punt,

Poont, maybe.

Brandon Johnson.

Lisa Dominic.

Jen with no last name.

David D.

Christina with no last name.

Big Im T85.

I don't know what that is.

Casey Pearson.

Bybler or Bibler, Moss with no last name.

Cindy Wolf, Morgan Greaves, Monica Schulte, Schultz, Steel Toe Joe, T.

Remy, C.J.

Frisch, Anita Lindsay, Johnny Bravo, probably not.

Kate Heibert, Tiara Admister, Cassandra Tabor, Tabor, maybe.

Molly Tamu, Themu, Timu, Jack Mason, Josie Smith, Elizabeth Stanton, yep.

Drew

Cochran, Corcoran, Bill, Anamada Poopy Pants,

Kylie Trick, Britt with no last name, Laura Robinson, suck Madique, James, Sukh Madique.

That's a person.

Very

nice.

We have a lot of Korean listeners, so that would make sense.

Dwight Shaw, Nicholas Wrigley, Regal, Regal, Matt with no last name, Tara Hellenthal, Helenthal, Joelle, Joelle Rose, Brandy Davis, Monica Trevino, Jacqueline Lemensky, Katie Wood,

Kendra, Kendra Lemon, Shannon, Hoffmeier, Kylie Vogelsang, and all of our patrons.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you so much, everybody.

You fantastic, wonderful people.

God damn it, do we appreciate all you do for us?

We really do.

We can't do this without you.

So thank you for what you do for us.

Thank you, Patreon people, especially.

We owe you everything.

We owe you the freedom to do whatever we want.

So thank you so much.

Thank you for supporting the show in that way.

It really means the world to us.

You want to follow us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com as drop-down menus take you wherever you want to go.

That said, until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Bye.

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