The Cowboy & The Con Man - Olancha, California

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

Yay!

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.

Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petrogallo.

I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

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That said, I think it's time everybody to sit back.

What do you say here?

Let's all clear the lungs.

And here we go.

Arms to the sky.

Let's all shout.

Shut up

and give me murder.

Let's do this.

All right.

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

We are going to California, which is

we are.

We're leaving very soon.

We're recording this like right before we go to San Diego for that show.

So this is Olancha, California.

Oh.

O-L-A-N-C-H-A, California.

It is.

Never heard of it, right?

No.

It's, yeah, it's not one of those that you drive through on the way from Phoenix to L.A.

or San Diego.

No, this is East Central California in kind of the no man's land of California out there.

Near Bakersfield?

It's close in mileage to Bakersfield, but you have to go around a giant mountain to get there.

So it's like, it's real weird.

Like

to get to a place that's closer takes twice as long than it is to go the other direction because of the mountains.

So it's about three and a half hours to L.A.

from here, about three hours and 45 minutes to Vegas.

So kind of in between

those two places.

About four hours to Sunnyside, California, which was our last California episode.

Millions to murder.

That was crazy with that kid who has idolized the billionaire boys club people.

God, that was a wild one.

This is in Inyo County,

area code 760.

This place, by the way, is almost 3,700 feet elevation.

Wow, up in the mountains.

Yeah, this isn't like Death Valley type shit.

This is up there.

Population here, 158.

People.

People.

There's way more cattle there, but not

way more cattle than people in this area.

Fascinating.

There's giant ranches like one that we'll talk about in this episode.

Median household income here, about $61,964, which is beneath the national average by about $8,000.

And then the median home price here is $235,500, which is well below the national average as well.

This is in the middle of nowhere, as you might imagine.

This is a place you drive through while going to another place, unless you own a giant ranch.

It was established by Minard Farley.

That's the guy who came in 1860 and discovered silver ore.

So obviously people...

Silver here.

The name Awancha is believed to be derived from the nearby

Yodanchi tribe.

Yodanchi tribe.

Now this place is famous kind of a little bit because on August 11th, 1969,

that's when Charles Tex Watson and Diane Lake, the two Manson family members, went and hung out there and basically hid out after the Sharon Tate murders.

This is where they went to hide out.

There's nobody here.

Three hours away.

All the way to Olancha.

In the mountains.

Yep.

Tex bought a newspaper in Olancha, and

it said that they still didn't know who did the murders.

He found out that they weren't looking for them at that point.

And that's when he turned to Diane Lake and said, I killed her.

Charlie told me to do it, and it was fun.

So this is where all this happened.

And then Diane Lake was actually taken into custody after complaints from Olancha residents that she was swimming nude.

So

this place helped take down the Madsen family, sort of.

So they hung out here for weeks, though.

And then they went to Death Valley, and that's when they got caught taken in.

So reviews of this.

Now, there are no reviews for the town.

There's nobody here.

But we do have a review of the county for Inyo County.

Four stars.

Great scenic views.

Inyo County has great fishing, horseback riding, boating, camping, hiking, swimming, mountain biking, golf, off-road adventures for the whole family to enjoy.

Wow.

Fresh air does the body good in our little valley.

I love it.

That sounds nice.

But I found there's a restaurant in town, the Olantcha Cafe.

And that's it.

That's all there is.

And so we're going to look at a couple reviews of that.

How the fuck do these people get food?

I don't know.

People, no clue.

I mean, middle of nowhere, you got to have these rest stop basic places.

So it's 4.3 stars out of 252 reviews.

A lot of people saying just extremely overpriced because you're in the middle of nowhere.

It's like, well, don't buy it here.

Wait two more hours then.

That's it.

Here's five stars.

Now that the 395 doesn't pass by here, it was a bit hard to find.

Make sure to try the Olancha burger.

Plenty of adult beverages available in a refrigerated cooler behind the counter.

Cool motif and plenty of outside seating.

Glad I stopped to sample this cafe.

Well worth the stop.

Fucking place is Radiator Springs.

That's what it sounds like.

And then here's a one star.

Not a nice place.

Oh.

We arrived for dinner at 5.45 p.m.

According to Google, open.

The owner came out.

He said the cook would be an additional hour and 45 minutes.

What are you going to do?

There's nobody there.

Well, sometimes it happened.

I asked if he could sell us a glass of hot water then because our three-year-old son is very hungry and we have ready-made ready-made porridge, which just porridge.

Wow.

What are you looking for?

A fucking cabin with bears in it?

What are you talking about?

Porridge.

Which just means MREs in the car.

Yeah, what is he doing?

Warm water.

Of course he can't.

They don't have boiling water, only in the coffee machine, or maybe a microwave stove.

I'm asking.

We do not have, he says, thank you for such treatment.

A hungry child and no update on Google.

I will definitely not be back.

Be a a better parent.

Don't go back.

Prepare.

Bring a goddamn sandwich with you.

How's that?

They have just a packet of porridge ready to give this kid.

Like he's a 19th century, like

tiny Tim over here.

He's going to limp in with his crutch.

Can I have some porridge, please?

Please, sir.

Please, sir.

More porridge.

Things to do.

Well, first of all, all the shit mentioned in that one with you, Lake Olancha shit.

There's also the Golden Cactus Ghost Ghost Town and Old West Museum,

which is temporarily closed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I found there's people talking about it under the under this post about it.

And one guy says, I spent a lot of time there training with my old SAR team on the cliffs.

Beware, there's a landowner nearby who will point his gun at you if you get too close to his property line.

We never even saw any markings to indicate we were leaving public lands.

It's all a goddamn desert.

It's not like they have a fence up.

There's no like like white picket fence across his property.

Who the hell knows where your property starts and any other property ends?

Then somebody said, My dad and I found a body at one of the picnic areas here.

It was a suicide.

It's a good place to off yourself, everybody.

Enjoy.

It was a suicide.

Then there's the Olancha Sculpture Garden,

which is here is the

peak of the artwork here.

It's just

terrible.

big metal shit sitting in the desert with mountains and

circles welded to it.

All right.

That's it.

And they call, they say it's about a dozen or so large and often darkly humorous metal sculptures.

They're not darkly humorous.

The garden is the work of Jail Hoffman.

I think we talked about this during a Patreon episode.

Really?

Or either that, or there's another one of these somewhere else because we talk about like small town, bad shit to do.

So this is a small town, bad shit to do.

This one of a

like a metal t-rex says uh t-rex says private property trespassers will be devoured and it's got the t-rex with a guy dangling from his yeah there you go that said let's talk about a murder here we go so now we have the setting i think middle of goddamn nowhere is where you can set it let's talk about a man here yeah uh this is william clarence thornberg

bill he goes by Bill's born in the 1920s here, and he's

a rugged sort, basically.

He's a rugged guy.

He's a real old-time cowboy.

That's what he is.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's it.

I mean, he grew up on a ranch.

His father ran a ranch.

His father died when he was 16, forcing him to take over the ranch.

Oh.

At 16.

Good lord.

That's what you had to do.

This is during the Great Depression and shit.

Take over that ranch, or we're all going to die.

That's it.

You start taking care of those horses or

dead horses.

I have dead people.

We're fucked otherwise.

So he did did that.

Really

a big horseman known to be able to break a wild Mustang.

No problem.

I mean, that's just, he's been doing it since he was a little kid out here.

It's just how he does things.

He's also good at business of ranching as well, which is a totally different thing.

You can be great with cows and horses and shit, but if you don't know the business part, you're screwed.

But he does that.

He's a big guy too, 6'1, which is big for back then.

It's a big guy when they're born in the 20s there.

And like the typical cowboy, he's described as lean and weathered from decades of ranch work.

You bet.

I mean, he's a real cowboy for real.

Those guys are not to be trifled with.

Nope.

Permanent sun damage, that leather skin, calloused hands.

He's got a slight limp from an old horse injury.

Hell yeah.

You couldn't draw a cowboy like this.

Like if you did a movie and this was your character, they'd go, all right, take it down a notch.

Jesus Christ.

You know, come on.

What are we doing here?

This is, this is ridiculous.

So

he builds this cabin bar ranch into a giant thing.

His dad had 100,000 acres.

That's the ranch they had at first.

He built it over 30 years into 900,000 acres.

What is that?

How do you even quantify that?

That is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

He owns more land than the state of Rhode Island.

Granted, there's no water nearby or anything like that, but it's still still a shitload of land, 900,000 acres.

It's huge.

I mean, it's a giant, giant place here.

He's known as being like kind of a legend in horse circles in California.

Everybody knows him, and he's that old real cowboy guy that everybody knows here that owns the giant ranch.

He's a nationally recognized horse breeder.

He's also was at the forefront of desert water management techniques and shit like that.

He's always been much into that.

Like I saw an old newspaper article where they're looking for the windbreak trees.

What are they?

Like

to keep shit from blowing.

And it was like you could just call the town and that you could get free ones.

Oh.

Free trees because they needed it for the town.

And it said he was one of the people you could call and get trees from.

So like he's like kind of, you know, the town basically.

And he's gotten just Olancha?

Olancha.

That's where his land is.

That's where it is all around there.

His wife's name is Margaret.

They're going to have a couple of kids here.

They're going to have a daughter in 1956 named Callie,

C-A-L-L-I-E, like Callie, except with an A.

And then 1960, they have a daughter named Tracy as well.

So he has no sons

to drag out.

He's got to go to the ranch unless these gals want to get rugged.

Callie, she's the one.

Since she can walk, he's got her out on the ranch, just raised her just like he was raised.

Out on there, she can break a horse.

She's just as badass as anybody.

Yeah, Callie can do it.

1968, Margaret dies.

Mom.

Mom.

So leaving this old rugged cowboy with two with a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old.

Oh, boy.

Wow, that's tough.

But so he's a single father, and he just basically takes his daughters out on the ranch and teaches them cattle.

That's it.

That's what he does.

Good lord.

Callie works alongside her dad, learns the business from the ground up.

He teaches her everything what to do, and it's a lot.

Taught her to ride before she could walk, homeschooled her until high school, which I think that's right when the mom died.

So probably she would go to high school then.

She wanted to attend college, but chose the ranch instead.

It's like, what are you going to go to college for?

You're going to come back and work the ranch anyway, so just stay at the ranch.

Yeah, if you already have a giant business to go into and you know how to run it.

Right.

You've got a plan for the rest of your life.

This shit needs you.

Not like you need a job.

So

she's about five, six, real athletic.

You know, she's a horse chick, you know, that kind of thing.

She went to Alwancha High School, did a little bit of community college, and then just came back to the ranch here.

But she's known to be able to operate every piece of ranch equipment that there is by 15 years old.

Dang.

The biggest things that she can deal with, cows and bulls.

She won a junior rodeo championship in barrel racing.

But she also,

you know, as a teenage girl, was kind of isolated here

and wanted to do do things outside of here too, like every teenager does.

Yeah, she wants to.

Now, Bill has very specific habits that are going to come into play here.

What do you mean?

He wakes up at 5.30 a.m.

every day.

That's a lifestyle right there.

That's a lifestyle.

Has black coffee, three cups.

He got a tin cup in 1955, and that's his coffee.

Drinks out of it every day, three cups of black coffee in the morning.

There are dents in it?

Three of them.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Those are, I remember that.

That's when the horse kicked it.

Yeah, that's a good day that day.

So never misses a day of work, even if he's hurt, because he can't.

Got to do that.

He also is a big reader.

He reads everything.

He's a real smart guy, Bill.

I mean, he knows about water management and things like that.

He's not a...

He's not just a guy.

It's like, all I know is horses.

That's not him at all.

He reads.

He definitely tries to better his mind a little bit here, too.

And he also would secretly fund college scholarships for local kids, but he did it anonymously.

Oh, which is pretty interesting.

He was an INEO Board of County Board of Supervisors member from 1970 on.

He's a Lutheran church deacon.

He donates large sums of money to the local hospital anonymously

as well.

Helps neighbors during droughts by giving them his water and never wants repayment.

Sure.

Just a good guy, known for hiring ex-convicts to try to give him a second chance.

Hell yeah.

I mean, the guy's a good guy.

Just a nice good guy.

He's the coolest there is.

He's a goddamn cool dude, man.

Yeah.

He's like,

like I said,

he's what a guy like John Wayne wanted to play, was a guy like that.

You know what I mean?

If you're an old cowboy actor, you'd want to play a guy like that, you know?

I like when cowboys and ranch guys, they pick their ranch hands based on that because what else opportunity those people have?

And they also deliver unbelievable work because they're just grateful to be able to do this.

Yeah, or sometimes they'll steal something and run away, but you never know.

It's just like a kitchen.

A kitchen's the same thing.

It's hard work that nobody else wants to fucking do.

These people need an opportunity.

You're willing to give it.

And the ones that are trying to make something of themselves will do something with it.

So 1976 comes along, and there's a guy named Stephen Leslie Wilson.

He goes by Steve.

Steve Wilson.

He's about 30 years old, and he rolls into Alancha.

Now, he's a good-looking guy and a rugged good looks people say.

He is a charming son of bitch, man.

I mean, he can charm the pants off anybody immediately.

Everybody he

ingratiates himself all over.

Oh, he is.

He said he's from San Diego, and that's all he'll say.

So he just shows up in the desert and he's just like, I'm from San Diego.

And they're like, what else?

And he's like, what else?

And he just looks and turns the other direction, stares out into the horizon.

It's that way.

Just don't answer anything.

And nobody questioned it.

It's a small town, but they're mainly like, kind of mind your own business then.

Yeah.

What you see is what you get.

If this guy seems like a nice guy right now, great.

If he turns out to be a piece of shit, great.

But what do we know?

So

the thing is, he's so charming that nobody cares.

He's a blonde-haired guy described as having a round baby face, short but extremely powerful and extraordinarily strong.

He's a weightlifter.

Oh.

So he's a stocky, short, stocky guy.

Also, a guy who can kind of get a job and work anywhere because he's a jack of all trades.

He's a licensed pilot.

He's a certified electrician.

He can weld.

He can fix engines.

He frames houses.

He's a great guy to have on the ranch.

That's what I mean.

He's also was in the military.

He was in the Air Force for a while.

And

everybody says he has some military police training as well.

He's a real organized kind of cat.

He's a real physical fitness fanatic, and people say he's a martial arts expert as well.

Don't know how true that is.

A lot of people say that about themselves.

He does possess a pilot's license, also speaks fluent Spanish,

and is known for having a bit of a temper as well.

Apart from that, the only thing that he tells anybody is that he's from San Diego.

He got divorced before he came to Owancha, and that sometimes his small child comes and stays with him for a little bit.

That's all people know about him at this point.

He gets involved with the local college because they have a weightlifting program, so he wants to be involved in that.

And yeah, everybody says, nice guy,

helps you with stuff around the yard there.

Nice to the ladies.

They all like him too.

Just a short temper.

Charming guy here.

He gets a job making industrial talc.

Which sounds horrifying.

What's industrial talc?

I don't know.

Something for...

All that shit seems industrial.

Oh, it seems like not shit you want to breathe in constantly, probably.

Something that really sucks moisture out of your skin.

No, shit.

Yeah.

This is, I guess, the Owens Valley was known for talc at the time.

So

he gets a job managing the Alancha mill, which produces industrial talc.

A guy that works with him, Terry McRoberts, who worked under him, Steve was his boss, said that his boss was real easy to get along with.

He said he also liked to demonstrate his strength by picking up fellow workers with one hand.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's like in the crotch, like always sunny when he picked D up like that or what.

I don't know how he's the nap.

I'm not sure how he does you like a cat if he picks you up by the scruff.

I'm not sure.

So

he's very likable.

And one guy close to to them, him, said he can make you think he's the nicest guy in the world.

And Steve starts picking up odd jobs at the ranch, at the Cabin Bar Ranch under Bill.

And he meets Callie there, who's 22 at the time, or 20-ish at the time.

And she is, you know, looking for someone to talk to, really.

I mean, that's it.

So immediately they start kind of talking to each other and getting close to each other.

Say his age again?

30.

Yeah.

30 and 20.

That's fine.

That's fine.

He took an immediate interest in Callie, though.

He was all about her.

They

get together in their boyfriend and girlfriend.

And, you know, Steve's a gentleman.

Bill gives his blessing.

Yeah.

Says, if you want to be with this guy, that's fine.

You guys get married and do whatever you want to do.

So they're together for about nine months.

When in 1978, she's 22,

he's about 32, they head to Reno, a five-hour drive to get married.

Wow.

They took a longer way to Reno when you could have gone to Vegas

from there.

That's weird.

Now, on the ride to Reno, Callie started to have some second thoughts, she said.

She was hoping that

something would happen and they wouldn't get there.

She didn't want to do it.

But she said her father approved of the marriage.

And, you know,

everybody was approving.

And you know, it's like, well, it's kind of hard to back out now.

So she just got married.

Now, at this time, too, Bill does very well for himself.

This is in 1979, he was making an annual revenue of between $2 and $3 million.

A year?

A year in 1979.

Howard as fuck?

Massive.

That's like $15 million now.

He must be renting some of that land for agriculture.

There's probably

crops.

He's got it's 900,000 acres for fuck's sake.

I mean, he's got things going.

So two months later, after this whirlwind Reno marriage here,

you know, Steve and Callie break up.

Uh-oh.

She takes off and heads back to the ranch and doesn't want anything to do with him anymore.

Okay.

Now she says, behind closed doors, he turned into a different man.

Just a

different cat.

She said this was physical violence began on the wedding night.

Oh my.

On the wedding night.

Puts a ring on her finger and then

gives her a ring around her eye, too.

One of those for you.

Isolated her from friends and family.

Wanted financial control of all her shit.

Meanwhile, she had all of this.

She's a financial slave, too.

Yeah, all this inheritance stuff coming.

He would threaten violence against her horses

because he knew she cared about them.

He would like wake her up in the middle of the night to deprive her of sleep just to do it.

Weird shit.

And then there's a rumor.

No one knows if this is true, but there's a rumor that he killed her dog as well.

Okay.

Now,

eight weeks of marriage, she's had enough.

That's fast.

That's real fast.

Because Callie is a sane person whose dad didn't fucking abuse her.

So she's not putting up with that for very long.

You know what I mean?

She's no part of that shit.

It's not going to happen.

So it makes sense.

So she heads back to her father's ranch.

And at this point, after Bill, think about this old cowboy.

He didn't want to hear anybody roughing his daughter up, any of that shit.

Oh, you better watch yourself.

Steve is no longer welcome at the ranch, put it that way.

No longer.

He is persona non grata.

And that is when he started calling constantly, Steve.

Started really bothering.

Here are some of the quoted threats that he made.

One is, quote, I will hurt you worse than you've ever been hurt before.

I'll take everything you love away from you.

You will pay.

This is my favorite.

You will learn to love me.

Really?

Okay.

This is my affection.

Then he clarifies it in another one that makes more sense.

You will learn that loving me is easier than being away from me.

That's more like it.

You'll learn that if you just love me, it's easier than me harassing you constantly.

That torture is so much easier than this torture.

Jesus.

So this goes on for about three weeks after the breakup.

He's not allowed.

He's calling her constantly, making nasty threats.

Then one day, about three weeks after the breakup, he shows up at the ranch.

Oh, boy.

And it's on now because he's showing up saying, I love you.

I want her back.

Bill comes out and says, the fuck out of here.

Go.

You're not welcome on my property.

She doesn't want you, and I'm not going to let you be here.

Get off of Rhode Island, California.

That's get off of it.

She said, He said, My daughter doesn't love you anymore, and she doesn't want you.

So Steve grabs a crowbar

and doesn't attack Bill, attacks Bill's truck, just starts destroying it in front of him.

You don't fuck with a cow.

Just

smashing in his windows, denting it, just completely going batch.

I mean, like crazy, where they were like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

So Bill went and grabbed his gun.

Atta boy.

Well, I mean, if he's doing that to the truck, you don't know if you're next.

Yeah, right.

So

you fuck a stranger in the ass, James.

Come on.

That's a good crawfish.

Now,

he gets the gun.

He comes back.

Callie stops him, though.

Really?

From shooting Steve.

She says it's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

And if you hurt him, because she was thinking if you shoot him and you don't kill him, then he's going to come back for revenge.

And you're going to escalate the whole thing by shooting him, essentially.

Or you could just kill him.

But, I mean, it's your ranch.

You could say anything happened.

A lot of cowboys, too.

I mean,

900,000.

They say 900,000 acres.

You probably could just put them out there somewhere and no one will ever find him.

That's going to be hard for the sheriff to search that much room.

Here's what ladies I wouldn't fuck with.

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That's a guy to avoid.

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Yeah.

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That'd be the big deal.

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Now back to the show.

So May 29th, 1979, the divorce is set to be final this day.

So this marriage did not last long at all.

Over already.

Yep.

So at 6 a.m.,

Bill leaves the ranch house like he always does.

He, you know, has a couple cups of coffee in the house, leaves with his extra, with his last cup of coffee,

you know, heading out.

So that's what he does.

Same thing he always does for 40, 50 years.

Callie arrived at the ranch at 6.15.

Her dad was always punctual and he was supposed to be waiting for her, but he wasn't there.

So she waited 15 minutes and then she couldn't find him.

He didn't show up at the part of the ranch they were supposed to meet.

So she walked out to the water lines where her father usually started his morning rounds, checking all the water lines, making sure they're good.

She found his truck out there.

Good sign.

There he is.

Driver's door is open.

His morning coffee's on the dashboard with steam still coming out of it.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's just, he's just been here a second ago, so she figures he'll come right back.

She waits at the truck for him.

He never shows back up.

He never comes back.

Ever.

He never shows back up.

Wow.

She waits there for hours.

He never comes.

She searches around, talks to all the employees.

Nobody's talked to him.

Nobody's seen him.

He just disappeared.

Like aliens beamed him up from his truck in the middle of the ranch.

It's insane.

At the same time, nobody can find Steve Wilson either.

Yeah.

Not a soul can find him.

So that was May 29th, 1979.

Right.

So

it's insane.

So a week later in the newspaper, it says still missing.

The search continues for him saying that, you know,

he's the...

Him and his son-in-law are both gone, basically, was what the newspaper said.

And the investigators are saying in the newspaper, though, that they suspect he may have been murdered, and they've actually issued a warrant for Steve Wilson because they'd like to talk to him about it.

Already.

They don't even know he's dead, but whatever.

So they said there's an extensive search being conducted.

Divers from all around are searching the reservoir

on speculation that Bill's body may have been thrown into the aqueduct and floated into the reservoir.

So the power and Department of Power and Water lowered the flow of water so they could search.

I mean,

they're looking for him.

July 12th, 1979, a month and a half later here,

they issue an official warrant for Steve here.

It's been issued by the NEO Justice Court for his arrest, and his bail was increased from $50,000 on the original warrant, just to hang out with him for a minute, to $250,000.

Shit, five times.

That's it.

Now,

they have discovered one thing about where Steve might be.

One clue clue is they found his pickup truck in the San Diego area.

Okay.

So they found his truck.

That's it, though, but they don't find him.

Seven months pass.

What?

From the time Bill disappeared.

We're talking Christmas 1979 comes along.

Callie's running the ranch now.

She's running the ranch.

She had no idea where dad is.

Dad's gone.

Steve's gone.

No sign of anything from either of them.

Oh, boy.

Did they have a duel and both lose?

Right.

I mean, what happened?

Murder suicide?

What's going on?

So Christmas Eve, 1979, a teenager riding a dirt bike, might have been just got it for Christmas or something.

He's tearing ass

through the desert.

He's in the Sand Canyon area,

and he sees something sticking out of the sand there.

Oh, shit.

It's about 45 miles south of the ranch house, this is.

What he found was human skeletal remains.

Bones.

Bones.

Now, he's a teenager.

And you know how your parents don't believe you a lot when when you're a teenager?

They think you're lying.

No, he didn't.

He said, my parents aren't going to believe me that I found a body out here.

There's no way I'm going to get dad to walk out here with me.

So he picked up the skull and brought it back with him.

How about a finger?

How about a finger?

A skull is what you pick?

That's what you fucking ride back holding in your while you're riding your dirt bike is a human skull.

It's dumb to

recognize a metatarpal.

Yeah.

What the fuck?

He brought a whole ass skull.

Skull.

On Christmas Eve, he walked into the house holding a human skull.

Hey, dad, I found this.

What?

There's a whole bunch more of this back there.

Holy shit.

That is terrifying.

The parents call the sheriff's department who go out to the spot.

They believed him once they saw the skull.

And they found clothes that matched what Bill was wearing at the time on the ranch.

They found personal effects identified as Bill's.

And they found evidence that this was just a pure execution-style killing.

They think that he had been forced to dig his own grave, is what it looks like.

What?

Forced to dig his own grave and then just shot and fell in the hole, basically, like a Vietnamese prisoner.

Right.

Fucking horrifying.

Head?

Probably head, horror.

Head, headshot, headshot, yeah.

So this kid brought a

skull in the hole.

Jesus Christ, kid.

So,

1980, there's a memorial ski race, a ski race to honor Bill Thornburg.

The first annual Bill Thornburg Memorial Invitational Ski Race will be held on Mammoth Mountain.

It'll be for students of, it's to raise money for students of small schools in Inyo and Mono counties.

That's nice.

That's nice.

The school that

wins will hold the Thornburg Cup for a year.

It's like the Stanley Cup.

They're going to trade it back and forth.

So 1981, where the fuck is Steve?

Two years have gone.

Two and a half years have gone by.

Nothing.

He could be anywhere, really.

I mean, who the hell knows where he is, but can't stay hidden forever.

And that's how it happens in 1981.

Of all places, a game warden in

Kodiak, Alaska.

Wow.

Dude, you couldn't make this up.

You couldn't make Bill up.

It would seem, you know, too cliched, and you couldn't make this up either.

He ran away like Dexter, for Christ's sake.

Yeah, he's running.

He's doing nothing for the stereotype of Alaskans being just criminals.

Going there to run.

Yeah.

To run from your problems.

So a game warden spotted him there and had seen his picture and thought he looked familiar and went back and rechecked it and went, that's the son of a bitch we're all looking for.

Look at that.

So

after that, the cops track him back down into the States and they arrest him in Las Vegas in the next couple of weeks.

So that's where he goes back to.

Now, Tracy Thornberg, the younger sister of Callie, says that, you know, she said she's terrified because he was gone.

She said all of her relatives and friends, everybody's been arming themselves, waiting for Steve to come after them.

Jesus.

They said they're, you know, afraid, basically.

So Steve gets in.

They sit him down.

And you'd think a guy like this, who seems pretty slippery and smart,

would have an excuse or have an alibi that he made up and worked on.

He just confesses.

Really?

He says, yep, I did it.

He said, I ambushed him when he came out of his house.

I had a gun and I ambushed his ass and said, you get in your truck and forced him at gunpoint to drive out to the desert.

And he said, yep, I forced him to dig his own grave and then shot him in the fucking head two times.

Wow.

Made him dig his own grave, then shot him twice.

That's what happened.

Then I left him there.

Really?

That's it.

That's what he said.

So they're like, okay, well, you're a murderer.

We're going to charge you with murder and all that.

You're not going to Juno.

No, this is wild.

So he pleads guilty.

Wow.

Pleads guilty to murder.

I mean, once they got him, he's like, nope, you got me.

That's it.

I did it.

I'll take my fucking medicine.

Oh, it's coming.

Don't you worry.

Yeah.

You're like, hey, this is too early for this.

Get the fuck out of my life with this dumb story.

So sentencing comes around.

You said they fuck off.

25 to life for Steve Wilson.

So

that should be the end of the story, right?

Should be.

It's not, by any stretch of the imagination, the end of this fucking story.

Okay.

He's sent to Folsom Prison.

Yeah.

Which, if you've heard any Johnny Cash songs, you know, is not a place you really want to be.

Of the place that Johnny's never been except for the sing.

Yep.

Not a good place here.

But Steve figures some shit out.

Okay.

And I've heard this a lot if you read books from the people who wrote that were in prison and shit like that.

And just knowing people have been to prison.

Basically,

a lot of people in prison act like fucking animals.

Sure.

They do.

They act like crazy people.

They act like animals.

They act like

I want people to be scared of me.

They have that kind of thing.

Now, the staff tends to look at those people as crazies.

Those are a bunch of crazies that we have to keep in.

But there's a few prisoners that are

have charm and have outside skills and things like that.

And they tend to get extra, extra shit from the staff of the prison because they are people that don't give them trouble and are actually act like human beings and talk to them.

So

those people are very easy to

basically manipulate when it comes to that.

Now, the other prisoners don't like it, but there's a balance to be played there.

So he figured out, be nice to the guards, be nice to the administrator, show them you're an educated guy who's willing to follow the rules, and they'll let you do shit and give you privileges.

And that's exactly what it was.

That's exactly what happened.

He joined the in-house work program where he's very smart, knows how to fix shit, welds, does all this shit they need in prisons.

Within two years,

he worked his way up to the clerk in charge of shipping, which is like the most sought-after position in the jail.

Yeah, because then you get to shift yourself out.

Yes.

Well, there's a lot of freedom to this, minimal supervision and that sort of thing.

No.

A lot of freedom of movement throughout the warehouse.

You're trusted, basically.

You're like a trustee.

So

he has access to the loading dock, knows all the delivery schedules, has contact with all the outside truck drivers.

He's the point of contact for the outside world.

I hate this warehouse.

He's so much.

He's so dangerous.

Within two years, he got this.

So

anyway, he becomes the first inmate in 15 years to escape from Folsom Prison that way.

God damn it.

First one.

This is insane, dude.

It's absolutely insane.

I guess he was last seen at 8.30 a.m.

in the prison's industrial shops.

About 9.10 a.m., a System 99, I think that's the company, System 99 tractor trailer truck pulled into the industrial area, picked up a load of prison-made items, and left the compound at 9.30.

So the guard suspected that Wilson hid inside the truck trailer, and correctional officers then called the System 99 Depot in West Sacramento.

They said the rig that stopped at Folsom had been parked at the company dock for about an hour before they got the call.

Yep.

So he said plenty of time.

And they said, we got a call from prison officials.

They asked if the trailer had been opened and I said no.

They said not to open it because they thought one of the prisoners was in there.

They told us to call the YOLO.

There's a YOLO County.

Amazing.

Wow.

I had no idea there was a YOLO County.

Wow.

Okay.

Call up the Yolo County Sheriff's Department who just comes with like, they don't give a fuck these people.

You only live once, James.

God damn it.

That's it.

And they said, luckily, nobody was in there when they got there.

Luckily.

Seems like they would want to find this guy.

Right.

Unluckily.

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

What are you talking about?

It's a prisoner, a murderer you're looking for.

Bad man.

Very bad man.

Apparently, he had a pair of tin snips that he smuggled out from one of the shops, and he cut a one-foot by two-foot hole in the trailer's roof and escaped out that way.

So he didn't have to open it.

Yeah.

Somewhere along the 25-mile route from Folsom to West Sacramento.

Oh, he got out before it was parked.

Before it was parked.

Yeah, he got out, and then they probably stopped at a light.

He jumped off.

That was that.

That must have been weird in traffic.

What the fuck is that guy doing?

Holy shit, did that guy just jump off a tractor trailer and run away?

Did he have numbers on his shirt?

Like, I'm just gonna go to the house.

What the hell?

No, he didn't because they said he left behind a drenching, wet

prison Levi type shirt.

He left his denim shirt with his numbers on it in there.

That was found near the rig,

near the rig, and a piece of steel that had been cut out of the roof of the truck.

Now, the truck's driver was out

on a delivery when prison officials called, and he offered the theory that Wilson probably made his getaway when they stopped at a coffee shop in Folsom.

You think?

Yeah.

He was like, we've been stopped for a while.

This doesn't seem like a red light.

He said the prison officials wanted to know if I had made any stops between the prison and the company.

I had stopped at the bowling alley in Folsom to have a cup of coffee on my break.

Then I went straight to our terminal.

He said he was at the bowling alley for about 20 minutes, never noticed anything unusual.

He said it was weird.

I'm thankful I stopped and had coffee.

If I had brought the trailer to the dock and they had opened it, it could have been some bloodshed, I guess.

I guess I should thank our union for giving us a coffee break.

What are you talking about?

All he had was 10 snips.

10 snips.

Yeah, he would have ran away, by the way, is what what he would have hid from you and then ran away.

So, yeah, they said two to four times a day, the tractors use the prison's north gate to make deliveries and to pick up mattresses, metal desks, and other items made by the inmates.

They said the warehouse supervisor watches the truck being loaded, then places a seal on the trailer doors.

By the way, he's the warehouse supervisor.

That's a problem.

If the seal is broken, the truck's not allowed to pass through the gate.

The seal on this truck seemed to be intact, and it was allowed to leave.

However, they said as it was being loaded, the guard's attention was diverted for less than a minute by a nearby collision of three forklifts.

I wonder what happened.

I've worked in warehouses before.

I have never, ever, ever seen forklifts run into each other.

Have you?

I could see how two?

Two?

Around a block.

Three.

Three.

Okay.

Three.

Three of them.

Yeah.

Exactly.

That's exactly it.

So that's what they suspect as well.

They suspect that he had that happen.

They said the warehouse supervisor started to look for wilson who was the clerk in the industry area and when he couldn't be found that's when the alarm sounded when the truck was already gone they said it was sounded three times and inmates began uh filing back to their cells where an emergency count was taken and uh there's 3500 fucking inmates they had to count quick and they couldn't find wilson

So they said prison breaks from the maximum security area are pretty rare.

Normally, the escapes are generally walkaways from the honor farms located outside the prison walls.

Most of the escapes aren't because of a breach in security.

It's just trusted people do shit that they were not supposed to do.

So they said they're trying to find out what went wrong, obviously.

The three inmates driving the forklift are being interviewed, all the forklift drivers there.

They've determined that the collision was deliberate, although they haven't charged them yet because they can't really prove that it was deliberate.

How do you prove you ran into somebody there?

How do you prove that three of them got in a little thunderbolt?

They also said this escape is a carbon copy of the last prison break from Folsom in 1969 when two

convicts also fled in a delivery truck.

The truck was found in Broderick with a two-foot hole cut out of the roof.

Wow.

The escapees were caught within a month and returned to custody, though.

Wilson, still missing at the end of the day, he escaped here, but there was reports that he had been seen on Walnut Avenue in Orangevale, which is adjacent to the city of Folsom.

Four days after this escape, prison authorities have called off a search for him.

Can't find him.

Lost him.

Fuck it.

Fuck it.

We'll get a new one.

Looking?

They said, screw it.

We'll get a new one.

That's what they did.

Like it was like your phone charger in a hotel room.

I can't find it.

Fuck it.

I'll get a new one.

At the airport.

Oh, yeah, I don't care.

Whatever.

I'll pay an extra $8.

Whatever.

It's fine.

For an off-brand.

Yeah, for the off-brand one that'll say weird accessory attached or some shit on it when you plug it in.

Accessory does not.

recognize or whatever.

Yeah.

The lieutenant, a prison spokesman, said, We made what we believe was the maximum effort to saturate the community, and unfortunately we were unable to apprehend him.

So, murderer out there, careful, everybody.

Real casual ass approach to escaped murderer on the loose.

It gets worse if you're a person sitting around in this town, you know, just scared of a murderer.

He said, We don't have any idea where he could be.

I'll tell you where he's not.

He's not at Folsom Prison.

He's a real character, that guy.

Wow.

40 officers have patrolled a 10-mile radius of the prison, hoping to find him.

Wow.

They said that Wilson was very intelligent and had been planning the escape for several months, they found since then.

So now the

State Department of Corrections and the FBI are going to look for him.

He's not our responsibility anymore.

December 19th, 1984.

He escaped earlier in the year.

A A Folsom prison guard gets a telephone call at his home.

It's Steve Wilson.

Yeah.

Yes.

Steve Wilson calls him.

He said, you know, where the fuck are you?

He said, well, I can't tell you that, obviously.

He said, I just want to call and say Merry Christmas.

Kentucky Case.

Called the guard.

Then this guard said, he just said that he was in the country to the north of us.

That could mean anything from the foothills to the Canadian border.

I'm in country north of you.

Great.

This is

Central California.

That could be anything.

So, yeah, the prison official said that Wilson's call was to wish him a Merry Christmas.

And that's the first time anybody's heard of him.

They said, quote, he also gave the guard a list of people he would like to pass on holiday salutations to.

Hey, make sure to.

Make sure to tell me, give him a card for me.

Yeah, I don't have cards.

I got a list.

Yeah.

When asked if that was weird, they said, well, we've never gotten it from escaped people.

That's weird.

He goes, when people get paroled, he said they frequently get Christmas cards from inmates who they were, you know, nice to or whatever.

But this man is so intelligent and so cunning and fluent in Spanish.

I'd be in Mexico looking for him.

Fuck yeah.

Well, I'd be in Mexico hiding from them.

Right.

That's my point.

He's telling us he's going north.

He's fluent in Spanish.

I'm going to Mexico.

I'm looking all over that goddamn place.

Especially if he said, I'm north of you.

He's south of us.

Yeah.

He's not up there at all.

He also told the guard that he'll never be taken alive as well.

No boy.

He goes, oh, they'll never take me alive.

Don't you worry about that.

Yeah, they said that it's not that unusual, as you might think.

When some of them come in, they establish a rapport with some of the personnel.

March 1986 now.

Where the fuck is Steve?

Where'd he go?

Yeah.

Well, he's living under an assumed name, Glenn Charles Moyer.

He's going by.

Glenn with two N's.

He obtained fake driver's licenses, passports, and social security numbers.

He just turned into another cat.

This guy's genius.

And this is before all the interconnected databases and the internet and everything.

This is the 80s.

So you could just, if you could get the documents, you could be anybody back then.

You're on the road, yeah.

He moved to Oklahoma.

Then he moved to Austin, Texas.

That makes sense.

In Austin, Texas, he met a woman named Lori Ann Fitch, who's about 10 years younger than him here.

She was a widow with a young son.

Her husband had just died of cancer or some shit at a young age, in his 20s.

She didn't know who the hell he was.

She's a dental hygienist who's a 23-year-old widowed dental hygienist with an infant son.

Jesus.

She also has an insurance settlement of $500,000 from her husband's death.

And she met Steve

at a country western bar in Austin in 1984.

In March of 86, they moved, the whole family moved to a

place near Orlando, then to a subdivision about five miles east of St.

Cloud, Florida.

He built his own house

in Florida,

gave his occupation as a construction worker also to people that asked.

He knew how to do plumbing, roofing, framing, house painting, carpentry.

He did literally built the entire house by himself.

Wow.

You know, with his wife helping too, like the two of them together.

He did most of the work himself.

He's the perfect neighbor.

Also,

they love him.

Now, at the same time, the FBI is still looking for him.

They have not forgotten about him.

He is being profiled, actually, by the FBI, and they say they're looking at several key personality traits.

And during this profile, they said extreme narcissism.

Crazy narcissism.

Christmas calls to the guards and everything else.

He's got a lot of of technical skills as well, successful long-term planning and ability to obtain false identity, so he's got to be very smart.

Superficial charm.

Neighbors will love him.

Police officials will

trust him.

He'll be able to attract romantic partners.

No empathy.

Forcing a victim to dig his own grave and traumatizing everybody is not good.

And also...

The need for control about all the threats to Callie.

That's obviously when he loses control of somebody, that's when he spins out.

So,

psychological profile, they say his IQ is estimated at over 130 based on problem-solving abilities.

Narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial features, obsessive-compulsive tendencies regarding planning, pathological need for control, inability to accept rejection, superficial charm masking deep rage.

Yes.

So, um,

they also,

the guy, Dr.

James Gilligan, studies prison escapees and identified a particular mindset in the successful ones.

What is that?

They don't see prison as a punishment.

They see it as a puzzle you have to solve of how to get out of here.

It's not, I'm in here for a while.

How do I make my way?

It's okay, now how do I get out of here?

That's all they're thinking about from the second they get there.

Wow.

They said every wall, every guard, every routine,

they're clocking it, trying to figure out how to get around it.

Dangerous man.

They said he spent two years doing this, basically.

After his escape, there's a bunch of prison reforms in the the California correctional system as well.

Enhanced screening for work program assignments.

You can just start with that and not put a murderer

who's got 25 to life, by the way.

A lot of reasons.

It's not like he's getting paroled next year and so he doesn't want to fuck up.

Get a guy who's about to get paroled.

That's the guy who's going to do a great job because he doesn't want to stay.

Not this guy.

Increased supervision in warehouse and loading areas.

Probably should have had that to begin with.

Regular security audits to prevent complacency.

Better tracking of tools and materials.

Again, that should have been from the start.

And construction of new Super Max facilities like Pelican Bay.

He caused shit like that to happen because the politicians, when they run for office

and say we need more prisons, they reference a murderer escaped from Folsom Prison and still missing.

If we had these Super Max prisons that I've been paid so much money from lobbyists to try to get past, then we'll be fine.

So

February 18th, 1990, he's on America's Most Wanted.

Now, he's been on America's Most Wanted a few times.

I think twice on there and twice on Unsolved Mysteries he's been on.

So February 1990, he's getting ready to sell his house in Florida and build another one.

He's just sitting around trying to see what's going to be on TV in the next few days.

Oh, boy.

People used to get a TV guide and they look a couple days ahead and they'd see what might happen, hey, that's on in a couple days and whatever he saw that the two days from now there's an America's Most Wanted on and he's going to be on it

they show what who they're it's what the program is going to be escape murderer from California he knows that's him you know what I mean so he said shit so he disappears from St.

Cloud

they were like

his wife didn't she's there with the baby I don't know what's going on all the neighbors are like why did Glenn disappear he helped me with helped me build my deck why'd he take off?

What's going on here?

So an agent in the FBI, Agent Barkley, said he was in Washington, D.C.

watching the show and remembered the first call that he got was from

one of Wilson's neighbors who recognized him.

Oh, shit.

One of his neighbors gave him up, but he knew that was going to happen and fucking took off.

The FBI then went to Florida.

And found that Wilson took off the night before the show aired because they went to go get him because they said, oh, I know where he lives.

They were like, oh, they had the whole team outside.

They go in.

It's just some dental hygienist holding her baby.

Nobody, nowhere to be found.

So he was profiled four times on America's Most Wanted and twice on Unsolved Mysteries, four times on America's Most Wanted.

How wanted are you?

Yeah.

Now, the neighbors, the neighbors here, his one neighbor, Kevin Washick, said, I'm stunned.

The whole thing is beyond belief.

He was such a nice man.

He would always do anything he could to help someone.

He didn't piss them off.

Yeah, he didn't want you to, yeah.

He didn't want you to turn turn him in.

Yeah.

One of his other neighbors said he was very likable, always helping people with their houses.

He helped a lot of the neighbors build their homes.

Another guy, neighbor, said he was the nicest guy you ever want to meet.

He was never violent toward anyone, and he always waved as you passed by the house.

Oh, well, he can't be.

You know what?

Never mind.

Let him go.

He's a waiver, everybody.

Murderers don't wave, you guys.

Guys, there's no way he fugitives don't wave.

That's a rule.

It's fascinating.

He kept zero low profile.

No, he just blended in in plain sight.

I have a different name.

I don't know.

If I look like that guy, who cares?

But I guess.

Then another neighbor said, now when residents move into the neighborhood, people wonder if they're criminals on the run.

That's the big joke around here.

So still missing, six, seven years later,

the prison warden, Robert Borg, said, quote, it's a matter of pride.

We want him back.

We lost him and we can't find him and we don't like it.

So he said, it sounded, they talked about getting him on Unsolved Mysteries and all that.

And William Barkley, the FBI agent, said it sounded fine to me.

And he said, just the other day, we got another sheet from America's Most Wanted.

Somebody called in and said they saw him.

We get them all the time.

For a while, we get 50 to 60 tips a week, but they never planned out.

It was never actually him.

He says he's a round-faced guy.

He looks like a lot of other guys.

Yeah, they said we've put a lot of pressure on his family to the point where he is telling us through them to leave his family alone.

We told him, as long as your family might know where you are, we're going to stay on them.

So January 30th, 1991 is another Unsolved Mysteries.

By the way, he did a videotaped interview with Inside Edition.

What?

He did.

He sent a fucking, he did a videotaped interview with Inside Edition.

Think about how cocky that is because that's saying, this is what I look like now.

Yeah, this is me.

Yeah.

And he said that he justified the murder,

said he needed to do that.

It was self-defense or whatever.

And he said he's too smart to be caught, so stop trying.

You'll never find me.

He said, I work every day at not being caught.

That's what he does.

Now the FBI thinks he could possibly be overseas.

Really?

Because he's got the documentation.

He's got fake passports.

They don't know how many names he's got.

Now, they've kept the heat on his parents in Southern California and his brother in Texas and

Fitch, the woman he's Lori, the woman that he was living with, his wife or whatever.

Apparently, at times, Wilson would complain to the news media and the FBI about the interviews and surveillance on his relatives.

They said he kept telling us his family didn't know where he was.

If we had backed off,

we would have been playing right into his hands.

1992, April of 1992.

What the fuck is going on?

Still saying what's up with this shitty story or what?

This story is bullshit.

Where's the twist now, motherfucker?

The FBI figured they just have to watch.

They thought it would be through either Wilson's brother or Fitch, the woman, either one.

So they began following Fitch as she went from Orlando to Newark, New Jersey to go to the airport.

Okay.

Why would you do that?

Exactly.

She flew to London, England.

He went to England.

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They followed her.

FBI agents got on the flight too.

Followed her over there.

Scotland Yard, the Surrey

Constabulary.

You don't want them on your ass.

I'll tell you that right now.

Everybody is behind her.

She literally has three different law enforcement agencies from multiple continents on her, and she does not notice.

Wow.

Doesn't notice at all.

I mean, you're in a foreign country.

You're probably looking at everything.

Your head's on a swivel.

You're not going to notice people like that.

So

anyway, she keeps going.

She went to a West London hostel at one point,

goes in there.

They see that.

She reappears five minutes later with Steve Wilson standing right fucking next to her on the outside of the hostel.

He tried to run.

Really?

He tried to run when they caught him.

He took off.

He tried to run and they tackled him in a little scuffle and then they brought him in.

And that's that.

So he kept up going with his longtime girlfriend, Laurie Fitch.

That was the problem.

Needed pussy.

It's a man's break.

That's his downfall.

And he's loyal.

He wanted her.

So, yeah, they had followed her all the way from her house to the plane to London.

And Robert Borg said, we take any escape personal.

That's the...

The warden, any escape personal.

We're grateful and thankful to get Wilson back in custody.

So then Barkley, the FBI special agent who's been following him this whole fucking time.

Sure.

He's been in the force or in the FBI for 27 years, said, quote, I guess I can finally retire now.

It's fantastic.

He said he wasn't going to retire till he found this guy.

I'm not going home until we get him.

He said it's been almost eight years since he got out.

I never doubted that we would catch him.

Wow.

Another guy, FBI agent, Joe Judge is his name that was on him.

Joe Judge, known as the hunter.

He worked the case from 90 to 92.

He also had worked the Oklahoma City Bomber Associates and a bunch of drug cartels.

That's his main bag.

He said about Wilson, this guy by far is one of the most difficult fugitives we've ever apprehended.

He wasn't just running, he was performing.

Yeah.

Yep.

So they maintained constant surveillance on Lori Fitch for two years.

Can you imagine what that cost us as taxpayers to follow this broad for two fucking years?

Yeah.

Tracked 14 false Wilson sightings across eight states and,

you know, did all of this shit.

So, and by the way, the profile that they got when he was first out predicted taunting behavior.

They said, he'll taunt you.

He's going to taunt you.

Lori

claims complete ignorance of his true identity, has no idea what's going on.

Okay.

But maintained contact with him after it was obvious who he was and what was going on.

They documented 47 phone calls between the two of them, the FBI.

And she had flown to London using her maiden name, not her Fitch was her first married name.

So that's the other reason why they didn't like it.

And she's never charged with aiding a fugitive due to lack of evidence that she actually knew anything about anything.

They thought about her that this was probably some kind of trauma bonding situation with her,

financial dependence, despite the fact that it's her money.

She thinks that he knows better.

And also,

her dead husband and her had this baby that Steve's been raising as his own.

So it's like her son's father at this point.

That's a great guy.

Yeah.

And she said to Inside Edition, quote, the Glenn I knew wouldn't hurt anyone.

Okay.

Now there's an extradition battle.

This is interesting.

Okay.

He's extradited, but under the treaty between the two countries, when California tried to prosecute him for the escape attempt, the UK refused to waive the rule of specialty.

Escape is not an extraditable offense under the treaty, so you can't charge him.

If you want to extradite him, you can't charge him with escape.

Escape?

No, you can put him back in for the rest of his sentence and whatever else, but you can't.

So he could not be criminally prosecuted for the escape, but he could face prison disciplinary proceedings, loss of commissary, and you got to go stay over here for a while.

So he's found guilty back in prison, loses his privileges, has his classification score increased, which means extra security and all that kind of thing.

Yeah, he argued that this violated the extradition treaty and took it all the way to court.

Really?

He also wants to get married and they won't let him.

No.

No.

Fuck you.

They won't let him do it.

They said that

it prohibits family visits for several categories of inmates, including people who are

to life without a parole date.

So he has no parole date, and so he can't do that.

He was allowed contact visits after his return.

In 1998, though, he was transferred to Pelican Bay.

Uh-oh.

Why was he transferred to Pelican Bay?

Because

he got a package in the fucking mail that had escape paraphernalia in it.

He had people sending him shit to escape with again.

Again.

So they sent him to the Supermax.

Wow.

He got denied conjugal visits as well.

He writes his transfer to Pelican Bay is an adverse consequence because it's notorious for its harsh conditions.

So that's what they said.

He said

he also asked to remain at Pelican Bay after a while due to his susceptibility to skin cancer and wanting to live in a northern, cooler climate.

Oh, okay.

It's

northern California.

It's nice up here.

It's nice.

It's not bad.

He was eventually transferred

to there.

So he's...

Now, Callie, by the way,

she said she's lived in fear for decades now.

Yeah.

She said, I can never really relax.

I don't like being alone.

I'm constantly looking over my shoulder in fear that he will come back for me.

She sold the ranch to developers in 1982 for a fraction of its value just because she couldn't be around it anymore.

She moved to Sacramento, got married twice, both ended in divorce.

She never had any children.

She said she's too afraid to bring kids into a world with Steve Wilson.

This destroyed her poor life.

Destroyed her fucking life.

She did start a Families of the Escaped support group in 85,

testified before the California legislature on victim notification laws, campaigned for GPS monitoring of violent offenders, and published a memoir called The Desert Took Everything

in 1995, but it's out of print now.

We looked for it.

We couldn't find it.

Damn it.

2003, all of his appeals are exhausted.

Steve's fucked.

But he's not that fucked because 2010-ish, he's released from prison.

Bye, Steve.

Have a nice life.

Fuck.

Lori Fitch moved from Florida immediately after this all came out.

Son Shane changed his name so they wouldn't know who he was.

She disappeared into the ether and never gave another interview after 8092.

I think she was embarrassed of her stupidity.

And then Callie lives under an assumed name for safety.

Yeah.

Undisclosed location, still in therapy for PTSD now in 2025.

She said, people ask why I still fear him.

They don't understand.

He promised to come back.

That's Elantra, California, everybody.

Holy shit.

What was that you said in the middle of the story?

Where the fuck is the twist?

Good little bit.

They're coming.

Don't worry.

We're going to get out of here early.

Yeah, this is done.

So there you go.

Holy shit.

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