#551 - The Hammer Hands Killer - Yankton, South Dakota

#551 - The Hammer Hands Killer - Yankton, South Dakota

December 12, 2024 2h 39m Episode 551 Explicit

This week, in Yankton, South Dakota, the discovery of a headless, handless, footless woman, on top of the ice, in a small river ends a massive search for a woman who vanished. She was last seen by her boyfriend, who has a lot of brain damage, and literally hammers nails into wood, with his bare hands. He also went on a 600 mile adventure, to the same place where the woman's body was found, while she was missing! Coincidence, or horribly cold blooded murder??


Along the way, we find out that frat boys maybe shouldn't write country songs, that it's actually physically possible to hammer nails with your hands, and that you don't cut the head off of a person that you didn't kill!!


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Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. This week in Yankton, South Dakota, a woman's disappearance raises red flags, especially when her boyfriend shows up to talk to police with a broken hand and a story

that doesn't quite add up. Welcome to Small Town Murder.
hello everybody and welcome back to small town murder yay oh yay indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petrogallo i'm here with my co-host i'm jim Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another crazy edition

of Small Town Murder. We got some more weirdness

here. We're going to the, I guess, the

Upper Plains there. We're going to South Dakota

for some weirdness up there.

Well, you know we don't go to the Dakotas very

often because there's not a lot of people and

not a ton of murders. So when we are there, you

know it's a crazy one, and it is today.

I'll tell you that much for sure.

Definitely head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com

if you're listening here.

Definitely get your tickets

Thank you. it's a crazy one and it is today i'll tell you that much for sure uh definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com if you're listening here uh definitely get your tickets last minute tickets here to the live shows in tarrytown and in boston get those right now because they're just about gone so get in there and uh you know be a part of a giant shut up and give me murder tarrytown we're filming as well so that's why get your voice get in there.
And we will be, I believe it's a week or sometime in the next week, week and a half, we will be coming out with the 2025 tour dates. And you can buy the tickets and everything like that.
So we can't wait for that. Lots of new cities that we didn't get to this year.
So can't wait for that. Patreon is something else you need.
Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus episodes. You say, why is it crime in sports? That's our other podcast that you should listen to.
But either way, anybody $5 a month or above, you get hundreds of back episodes, hundreds of ones you've never heard before released to you immediately upon subscription with new ones every other week. One crime in sports and one small town murder.
And you have it all. Just take it.
You do. You take it.
We don't want to talk about it anymore. Just take it.
We don't want to parse about it. Five dollars.
Just have it all. We don't care.
Have the whole thing. This week, what we have for crime in sports, we're going to talk about a United Kingdom soccer sex abuse scandal.
Yeah. Yeah.
Think Penn State on the other side of the ocean. Gross stuff.
Yeah. gross stop then for small town murder we're going to talk about a little bit of the lifestyles involved in the cult baby murder trial participants here polygamy pee drinking it's bizarre it's wild it's the most bizarre thing you're ever going to hear about so we'll talk weird choices he talks the guy keeps He talks, the guy keeps talking about physics, physics, pee drinking.
It's too much. Polygamy.
All the peas are here. It's going to be wild stuff.
Talk all about it. That is a shot.
Patreon.com slash crime and sports. That's a disclaimer time.
It's a comedy show. First and foremost, we are comedians.
So there's going to be jokes here. Now, that doesn't mean that the story is less real or anything like that.
Unfortunately, every last detail of these stories is real. That's the scary part.
But there is so much murder in the world, you know, however you want to look at that, sadly. Happens a lot.
Happens a lot that once in a while they're insane and we talk about those. So that's how that works here.
And what we do is we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why, James? Because we're assholes.
Yes, but. But we're not scumbags.
That's how that goes. See? That's nice stuff.
So if you think true crime and comedy, though, never ever should go together, maybe we're not for you. I don't know.
That's why we're warning you ahead of time. Either way, no complaining.
You've been warned. What are you doing here? But for the rest of you that want to hear just an unbelievably weird story, as always, I think it's time to sit back, everybody.
Let's all clear the lungs, let's say, and arms to the sky, and let's all shout, Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.
Here we go. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Yeah.
Oh, boy. We are going on up to South Dakota today.
Right. Going to Yankton.
Yeah. Which, if you've watched Deadwood, you've heard the name of that town about seven trillion times.
Because everything, it was the center of the kind of territorial Dakota where all all the political power was so everybody had to always go to yankton to get stuff done always worried about what was happening in yankton always oh what are they doing in yankton what are they talking about we can't we can't get word back to yankton about what we're doing over here that son of a bitch in yankton's trying to screw me over that's all it ever was so uh this this is in South Extreme. Now the Pinkertons are coming from Yankton to bother us.
Great. Watch Deadwood if you haven't, everybody.
Fuck, it's good. So this is in extreme southeastern South Dakota, way over in the southeast part of the state.
It is the closest city here really is about two and a half hours to Omaha, which is Nebraska. Yeah, no, Omaha up there.
It's about six and a half hours to Lemon, South Dakota, which is our last South Dakota episode, which was twin marrying madness. That was crazy.
That's where the guy married one twin, got divorced, married her again, then got divorced, then married her twin sister. And somehow that ended up with murder.
Shocking, right? Very surprising. That was a crazy story.
This is in Yankton County. It is area code 605.
And the motto of this town, they have a motto, or a nickname, I should say. Mother City of the Dakotas.
Oh. Yeah.
That's a claim. That's quite the claim.
It all comes forth from me just from here. According to Deadwood, though, like we've discussed, it sounds like it was it was right.
So it's yeah, it's the place that started everything or at least was in charge of everything. Yeah.
Yankton is commonly referred to as the River City due to its proximity to the Missouri River and kind of the importance of the river in the whole area. Because as we know, everybody settled near water first pretty much because they needed to be able to get other places and buy water, send their goods away.
They call it the mother city of the Dakotas due to the early important role it played in the creation and development of the territory, which the Dakota territory, which then became the 39th and 48th states of North and South Dakota here. They started apparently the early exploration of this place was of Fort Hayes limestone.
They made cement there, I guess. It was cement manufacturing, and they would ship cement to the construction of the Panama Canal at one point.
They made so much cement there. Did you know, James, that that's the largest construction project ever that had the most casualties? Oh, I know so many people died so many people there was no yeah that made the hoover dam look like nothing there was nothing no that was international shit people just who do you have that we can who do you have that we can throw in a deep hole and no one will miss is what it was crazy that shit was wild so uh yeah the yankton at one point not only was it the mother city of the dakotas it had the nickname of cement city yeah doesn't sound attractive at all for a like a picturesque place up there so in 1861 the territorial government was established with the city of yankton designated as the first capital of dakota territory so it was the capital during, until it became an actual state, it was the capital.
That's why all that shit and deadwood was going through there. What's the capital now? South Dakota Pierre.
Pierre, yeah. Yeah, Pierre, yeah, because Bismarck is North Dakota.
They published their first newspaper, the Weekly Dakotan, there as well. And the steamboat trade flourished there until 1873 when the railroad line connected shit.

And then they were like, why are we using steamboats?

This is so inefficient here.

They also have the NFAA, the National Field Archery Association,

moved its headquarters from Redlands, Redland, California, to Yankton, South Dakota.

And they have some very weird Ted Nugent kids archery weekend there every year. Send your kid to hang out with Ted Nugent for a weekend.
A weird thing to do. In the Dakotas? In the Dakotas.
Is that even from there? Nope. But this is where archery is.
So reviews of this town, they range. Let's just say that.
Here's five stars.

It is fantastic, exclamation point.

Yeah.

Even though there isn't much to do in the winter times, you can always look forward to having the river nearly in your back door.

Not at your back door.

You don't want that.

It's in your back door.

A whole river.

A whole river right up your ass.

Right up your ass and in your back door.

Next one is four stars. It's long, but this person's person's i love their first sentence so we have to use it four stars quote i have no social life but still feel content here i think that sums up a lot of what you know not a lot to hang out and do there's a combination of old and young people.
The sky is blue during the day. This person is just being alive right there.
Where is there not a combination of old and young people? It is a very calm, easy-going place where anyone and everyone is usually helpful. It's hard to get lost as it's a small, well-connected community.
There is diversity in shopping centers right meeting different strip malls that you can get one has a panera bread while the other has a target you know like it sounds great sounds like there's a little something for everybody like apparently that's what this person's trying to say choices for dining out or in are innumerable just too many to to even count. The roads are well-maintained.
Houses are kept up. The town is expanding at a steady pace.
There is natural parks and lakes for all sorts of activities outside. The weather is nice almost all the time.
There are miles of empty roads waiting to be explored. The Wi-Fi is usually good.
The whole town is not responsible for your Wi-Fi, dude. Nothing to do with it.
No frequent outages. Residents are usually calm and don't riot.
It's a small town in South Dakota. What were you expecting? I'm going to spoiler alert.
There's about 15,000 people in this town. How many 15,000 person towns have riots? There's barely enough people for a riot.
You need more than that for a riot, don't you? Holy shit. If the internet goes down, you better watch out, James.
All 15,000. Oh, that's why the Wi-Fi's strong.
Keep them occupied so they don't riot all the time. Keep them distracted.
Wow. local stores are nice and usually kept well inside and

out all sorts of personality a minimum security jail for petty crimes is nearby holidays sparkle with life residents love to decorate and celebrate the holidays with neighbors the local swimming pool was recently renovated and can now accommodate all all of them as opposed to what who was allowed there before. We even

take

Jews and minorities and such all all of them as opposed to what who was allowed there before we even take we even take uh jews and

minorities and such now what are you talking about i understand it's probably uh handicap

access now is what they're getting at nerds ropes and shit everything people who like you know

licorice it doesn't matter even black licorice people they can come too

which i don't mind black licorice i know that that's controversial. A lot of people hate it.
Yeah, I don't mind it. Not bad.
Two stars here. There isn't much around here.
The town of Yankton has around 17,000 people. There's a Walmart, a Kmart, and a Walgreens, and that's about it.'s not good no we have a mall but there are probably

nine stores in it there are more fast food restaurants than our sit-down restaurants so this is very different from what that other person told us and when was that posted because i thought all the last kmart just closed down uh that was posted in 2018 so okay they could have You know what, though?

That might have been the one.

Who knows where the K-Marts ended up.

The last K-marts were probably in places like this, like in the middle of nowhere. Finally, one star, Yankton has a serious, all caps, drug problem.
Does it? It is nicknamed Cranktown. Okay.
Or Crankton would probably be better, but they needed to put that W in there.

Employers used to have a zero tolerance on drugs.

Now the policy is one positive test and you get a slap on the wrist.

This site listing for housing and rent prices is ridiculous and way too low.

We use a different site.

Don't worry.

Wages stink and turnover is over 35%.

People move here thinking it's a great place and move back to where they came from after six months. There's nowhere to shop.
Kmart closed, as did Pennies. It did.
Yeah, it did. It closed.
Kmart and the Pennies are both closed. Damn it.
Gas prices are usually at least a dime higher than surrounding communities. Oh, no.
Not a dime. Geez, next thing you know, let's not talk about the price of stamps going up.
This guy's head's going to blow up. Some houses have junkyards in front of the house, and the city does nothing.
Drive down Broadway, the main highway through Cranktown, and look at the dilapidated houses lining the street. Utility bills are outrageous.
He's just picking up just angry shit out of the air. This is a man that doesn't want to or a woman that doesn't want to spend a dime on anything.
There's no congruity to any of these complaints. It's just as they come.
Everything should be free. Yep.
They always list household income, not saying it is at least three different jobs to exist in Cranktown. Though the drugs flow freely in the paper arrest reports always include arrests for drugs and probation violations.
OK, I don't know. I don't get that guy at all.
OK, population of this town, people, 15,332 people, few more males than females. It's like the opposite of what's normally.
It's over 51 percent male. I think there's a lot of like outdoor jobs going on here.
Median age is 40. It's a little older than 38, which is the average.
Few less married people here than usual. Everything else is pretty on the money, though.
Divorce rate, widow rate, everything is pretty normal. Race of this town, 85.2% white, 1.8% black, 0.2% Asian, 3.9% Native American, which that's a lot, actually, of Native American.
In the whole country, it's 0.6% Native American. It's like almost seven times that.
Yeah. And then 6% Hispanic here.
68.2% of the people here are religious, which very it's approaching like small town mississippi

numbers here uh and the most the highest there's a lot of lutherans first of all as this area yeah minnesota's a lot of lutherans that sort of thing uh 33.3 percent are catholic didn't know that that's high i don't understand that apparently catholics are the baptists of the mid northern Plains region. I don't fucking know.

That is wild.

Grain Baptist. 0.0% Jewish, though.
That we do know. Cost of living here, overall here, 100 is regular average.
Here, it is 82.7. So healthcare is really expensive here.
Housing is actually cheaper, though. Median home cost here, $238,800.

It's still pretty steep.

For what you get, yeah, when I tell you about this.

And you know what?

Maybe you're going to move here.

You're going to reopen that Kmart.

You can do it.

There's a market open.

There is a big place for a spirit Halloween store to go to.

We have for you the Yankton, South Dakota Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here, very much cheaper than the rest of the country.
$830. So, yeah, about two-thirds of the rest of the country.
Here is, this is crazy. It's a one-bedroom, one-bath, so I guess T-ball for each and every b-hole, I suppose.
For just your one b-hole. 418 square feet.
Okay, it's a dream. It's not.
It's a house. That's a house? That's an actual, and it's not like a newfangled fucking tiny house, like from HGTV.
This was built in 1920. So they were making tiny houses in 1920, and it's this one.
It's this little tiny box, and then it's got a little one-car garage that looks like it's the same fucking size as the house. It's crazy.
It's like you just have two houses. It's kind of a dream, you know what I mean? Like where you have nobody and have nothing.
Yeah, that's not a dream. It's a very simple life.
To have nobody or anything? Yeah, that's a very simple life. Have nobody and nothing, just you and your truck.
You might as well live in a truck. It's nearly the same size.
It says, welcome to your new haven. This quaint, well-maintained home is perfect.
Quaint means extremely tiny. Well-maintained home is perfect for first-time buyers or those looking to downsize.
I would say downsize a lot. Just get out of prison looking to downsize? We have something for you.
Then they say it's featuring a cozy layout. There's no other way to make that but cozy.
It's 400 square feet. Your bed's on top of your stove.
Scrawling and stretch out are not

things you can do.

No. 93,000 bucks

for that, though. It is yours for

under 100,000, so you can do that.

Any land at all? No, no, no.

Real tiny little lot that

it barely fits on.

Here is a five-bedroom, two-bath, 2,204

square foot house here

on 0.36 acres, so a decent-sized lot. Built in 1917.
A lot of these houses are old. Old.
Old, old. It says there's plenty of room to play catch or fetch.
That's how they describe the yard. Front porch is perfect for relaxing with a friend and enjoying the weather.
Not your kids, not your relatives, only a friend. What a weird real estate listing.
So strange. I was like, what is that? Relaxing with a friend.
It needs some serious updating on the inside. It's old in there.
It's not quite that, but 1989 maybe. It doesn't look great in there.
$229,000 for that though. That's not bad.
Not bad for a decent sized, four-bedroom, five-bath, T-Ball for all your B-Hulls, each and every B-Hull, 6,227 square feet. Huge.
It backs right up to Lewis and Clark Lake. They must have been there, huh? Apparently so.
It's on 1.50 acres. Yeah, definitely when they came up there, because I remember all their stories of the natives in that area.
1.5 acres. So nice.
Really nice inside, too. It's pretty.
It's done really. It's not done cheesy or it's done like rustic with like nice beams.
Big giant stone fireplace in the living room that looks like it's in a lodge or something.'s really nice big giant circular driveway around it one million six hundred forty nine thousand bucks so but it's a little pricey seven thousand square feet of house it's a lot of house it's a lot of house and a lake and there's nothing around it there's like no next door neighbor on top of you it's you're by yourself it's pretty nice pretty nice. Get after it.
Things to do in this town. This is the thing.
Every review almost had talked about this event. That's why I had to get rid of those because we were going to talk about it.
The Yankton Riverboat Days and Summer Arts Festival. They got a riverboat.
They got a riverboat. They're all about the river there.
And one of the things they have on the website is these two just middle-aged people standing there with captain's hats on.

And they're a man and a woman.

And they're the 2024 Captain and Bell.

Captain and his bell there.

It says congratulations to our new Captain and Bell, Tom and Kelly Holstrom.

Congratulations.

Let's all do it together, everybody. Congratulations, Tom and Kelly Holstrom.
This year's Riverboat Days theme is a journey through history, the magnificent meridian, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Yankton's Meridian Bridge. Now, in this, there is a kitty centipede train, which I don't like that at all.
That makes kitty human centipede does not sound good at all. I think that's going to be bad.
The Dakota Dance Association can can. Yeah.
All right. And then let's get to the entertainment here.
We have Elizabeth Jo. What does she do? What do you think she does? She sings? What do you think she sings? Elizabeth Jo J.O.
It says she grew up on a farm right outside of Tabor, South Dakota, and attended Bonham High School. She was influenced by country music at a young age.
With influences such as? What do you think, Joe? Miranda Lambert boom that's one she has three listed no no no

the other chick

from American Idol the blonde Carrie Underwood

yep that's two two out of three

Miranda Lambert Carrie Underwood one more

you can do it Jim

Taylor Swift no no no

these are

Martina McBride

really?

how are you going with Martina?

maybe her mom listened to her I don't know

I don't know she started playing guitar and writing music around the age of 12 now she's ready to go here while in nashville she's played at such bars as tootsies honky tonk central wow kid rocks on rippies on and rippies on broadway yeah she's played at all the bigs. And she even recorded and released her first single, Ride Away, Cowboy.
It was streaming on all platforms. Take a hike, asshole.
Then there is Clayton Mullen will be there. Yeah.
West Coast born and East Coast raised, it says. It wasn't until Clayton found himself in the heart of the Texas music scene that his musical journey began.
Started writing songs in his college frat house. This sounds very country, doesn't it? Yeah.
West Coast, East Coast frat house. Holy shit.
Opening for artists like Chris Lane, Corey Kent, Warren Zeters, Randall King, Adam Doliak, and the Josh Abbott Band. Very nice.
Okay. Sounds great.
They're headliners now. He's done it.
That's who he opened for. I would hope they were fucking headliners.
So, yeah, he's doing all of that. There's also Randy Hauser.
Oh, yeah, he's the worst. Who'sed up over a half a dozen hits in a billion streams yeah his how country feels album top the charts with the title track running out of moonlight and good night kiss and he earned those are enormous songs james and it's hilarious to hear because i've never heard of them i might as well be reading in swahili right now i have no fucking idea what i'm talking about to me this is just sounds like i love hearing you say how country feels i don't know i don't know any of this i've never been more out of my element this is like we took you to my relative's house and everybody was talking in italian you'd go what's happening right now what are they saying is it about me that's how i feel i don't get it and running because there's no g on that running out of moonlight yeah running out of moonlight that i know it's on there run out of moonlight that's why i made sure of running because it's written like that.
I heard it. It's written like that.
He even was a nominated CMA Song of the Year, Like a Cowboy. Yeah, that's his best song, truly.
Like a rhinestone. Not that one.
No, not that one. It's the only one I know.
I don't know. He's going to ride in, James, like a cowboy.
I'm sure he is. I'm sure he's just like a cowboy.
This is Christ. Yeah.
Get the fuck out of here. Also, what is this? Lit will be headlining Saturday night.
Yeah. Along with Diamante.
I don't know who the fuck that is either here. I think that's a big one, though.
They're talking about Lit a lot. Hard-charging hits like...
We know they are, actually. Yeah, you know lit.
You know lit. Diamante spent her teenage years cutting her teeth at local gigs on the Sunset Strip.
Okay. Oh, poor thing.
Yeah, no shit. She's been groped, probably.
That's not good. Yeah, poor thing.
She's heard some awful things. Awful stories.
Awful stories. That said, crime rate in this town here we go well we are interested here property crime is a little bit above average actually which is it's a 17 000 people it seems like there shouldn't be that much property crime and then violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault the mount rushmore of crime is right at the national average.
Oh.

I don't know what's going on up here or why these people are doing so much crime,

but it seems like a lot for a small town that's, like, in the middle of nowhere.

This isn't, like, outside Memphis or something.

That's true.

Shit's about to pop off.

Shit, like a cowboy.

They're going to tear this place apart.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

That said, let's talk about some murder. Here we all right um this story man holy shit uh this story begins with a mother that can't find her daughter her adult daughter her 45 year old daughter as a matter of fact very much adult daughter can't find her um it is in 2019 march the 5th 2019 this mother calls the cops because she has not talked to her daughter since march 1st 2019 which is four days yeah and they usually talk constantly so there's the mother doesn't like that she can't get a hold of her um and she's even they've looked for her um this woman's the mother's the daughter who's missing or she thinks is missing, this woman's even, they've looked for her.
This woman's, the mother's, the daughter who's missing, or she thinks is missing, this woman's son has a key to her apartment so she goes over and he goes over twice a day to check and see if she came back or if she's there. You know, the mother is calling and texting all of her daughter's friends trying to find anything out.
So it's not like she just disappeared and people

were like oh i'm worried for no reason like no one had seen her and her mother is in new mexico at the time oh she can't even in albuquerque no she's doing all this by phone trying to find her daughter here um she said that she last time she heard from her daughter her daughter called her from work at Wilson Trailer Company, where she does machine work there. And, yeah, her daughter had called her, and she said hasn't heard from her since.
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Now back to the show. And they said, well, you know, anybody to talk to here for us? Any leads? And she said, well, I mean, she's had kind of a turbulent relationship with her boyfriend, but nothing crazy.
And, you know, he says he doesn't know where she is either. So I don't know what to do here.
So the cops have to try to find her. And they're looking all over the place because there are when we talk about her lifestyle, her daughter kind of could be anywhere type of thing.
It's one of those deals. So we'll talk about it right now.
And her daughter that's missing is Tamara, who I don't know how to say this. La Framboise, I'm going to say.
L-A-F-R-A-M-B-O-I-S-E. I know that's like Boise, but La Framboise, I don't know if that's what it is.

Or if it's Laframboise, I don't fucking know.

Tamara is what we're going to call Tamara here.

We'll go with that, yeah.

We'll go with Tamara.

She's born, and the mother tells the cops, giving her the rundown of who she is.

She's born December 7th, 1972.

And she was born in Mo Bridge, South Dakota.

Or Ma Bridge, I don't know.

M-O Bridge, South Dakota. She's the only child of her mother, too.
So that's it. Her mother's getting up there in age as well.
So she'd like to know where her daughter is, obviously. So she's the only child of Mary, who is her mother.
She grew up kind of mainly in Aberdeen South Dakota here. Um, we did an episode there.
Yeah, we did an episode there. We're like, why are you naming it after that? So, um, now Tammy and her mother, uh, Mary moved to Albuquerque when she was a month old.
When Tamara was a month old, her and her mom moved there, uh, to Albuquerque where her mother was going to school. Her mother was going to college there.
So then her and her mother returned to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation while Tamara was still a preschooler and she started going to elementary school at Standing Rock, the school there. So they're also Catholic.
They take her communion and and do all that stuff. The family then moved to Aberdeen where Tammy continued to go to school.
She went to a Catholic school there, the Roncalli Catholic School, and then transferred to Aberdeen Public Schools. And she attended Central High her sophomore and junior year and Roncalli High in her freshman year.
So she moved around a lot. And then in her senior year, she's somewhere else.
She's in Wisconsin that we'll talk about. She transfers to Washburn High in Washburn, Wisconsin, where she graduates.
So three different high schools is a lot. Yeah, four years, you're only there for a little bit.
It's a blank. Why are you moving so much? You you don't really two's understandable if a parent gets relocated yeah yeah there's a lot that's getting to be a lot for a kid and another state too in wisconsin socially it's that's hard to get your footing i would imagine she's real outgoing though there's no like no worry about her from anybody about you know she's gonna go to a new school She'll have no friends.
Nobody thinks that about her. She's like outgoing, bubbly, making friends.
She shows up somewhere the next night. She's got 20 friends.
That's kind of how she is. Friendly.
She attended college, Tamara did, at the University of Minnesota for her freshman year. But then she moved to California.
She left the University of Minnesota, went to California, where she had a bunch of different jobs to make ends meet. Well, she was figuring out what to do for school, as a lot of kids do.
You think you're going to do a certain thing, and then they go to school for the freshman year, and they go, I don't want to do this anymore.

What the hell am I doing?

And some people just say, well, I guess this is what I'm doing now, and they proceed, and then they just hate whatever they're doing for the next 40 years.

But some people go, hold on, hard stop.

I'm going to figure this out.

I don't know what I'm doing here.

So she ends up being ready to return to college at some point, and she goes to the American River College in Sacramento. That's a college that teaches about nothing but rivers.
That's all it's about. River talk.
That's all they have there. Exactly.
Now, she eventually transfers to the University of California at Davis. So UC Davis, she goes to, to pursue a degree in environmental biology.
Oh. Yeah.
So she's smart, too. That's the other thing.
She's not a dumb young lady here by any stretch. She graduated from UC Davis in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science degree.
Okay. So there you go.
Got a BS from there. Both of her children were born while she was attending college.
Because she, I think, yeah, she's like 29 when she graduates. So she's fun.
So, yeah, she's having a good time in college. And doing the work.
No kidding. A good enough time to spit kids out but still graduates.
Not bad. That's fun.
She has two children, Ron Jrr and sydney or is her other kid here and um she everybody is a friend to tammy she like i said she can walk into a room and make friends with everybody immediately she's always oh i mean i got new friends i'm going here i'm going there um she they said too you could like fuck her over and she'd. She never, she's just had a lot of friends and didn't lose any cause she could manage to keep them like that.
Um, she's big into the underdog always, always trying to fight, find a cause to fight for, which would piss her mother off. Her mother, will you just concentrate on yourself? So, uh, her mother describes her as such.
She was a very bubbly, intelligent, happy-go-lucky, friendly person.

I don't think there were many people that she met that didn't like her, meaning when she was younger.

She just got along with people.

She also volunteered at the Humane Society and really liked animals and all the people at the Humane Society. And she liked people adopting animals and shit like that.
She's really nice. Now, when she was a college student, this is wild.
She had her college schedule. She also has a kid at the time than another kid.
She still managed to train for marathons. Wow.
I don't know how you can have two babies and college and train for a marathon. That seems- And take care of dogs and shit.
And do dog stuff too. Yeah.
She eventually ran seven marathons and even qualified for the Boston Marathon. Oh, is that right? So yeah, she's not even bad at it.
She's pretty decent at it. Yeah.
So not too shabby. She even taught boot camp at a local athletic club like a you know workout boot camp she's athletic she's petite you know real outgoing shape yeah and the the the chick who runs that you know what you know that lady you know what i mean she talks and she's got boundless energy and you show up at 5 30 and she's already like fucking doing jumping fucking doing jumping jacks, and you're like, oh, God, kill me.
Half shirt, her abs are out, and I'm not having that cough. Fucking kill me.
Jesus Christ. Kill me, you please kill me.
This is terrible. She served as vice president of her son's football league as well.
Okay. So she gets around to doing things, and she's responsible.
She started, got a job, started with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Sacramento, California.
I did not know we had a Bureau of Reclamation, but we do apparently. Reclamation water, that kind of shit.
I assume so. Yeah, because it's all about water shit, because I found in a lot of newspaper searches, I found her name attached to articles about water rights and water things.
it would say you know to voice your opinion contact her and it would have her for more here it is for more info um email her t laframboise at mp.usbr gov and tell her what you think so reclamation water is a terrific project too because i mean it's not good

it's not not potable water so yeah i don't know potable potable i don't know how it's said i don't know i just know that they they take the chunks out of it and send it on down so it's like it's it's really great for like fertilization took your poop out yeah poop paper and ponds are gone That's it.

That's it, and that's all.

So, yeah, so we got that.

She's doing all this. There you go.
Paper and pawns are gone. That's it.
That's it.

And that's all.

So, yeah.

So we got that.

She's doing all this shit. So she probably had, you know, that's the type of thing where some people have very strong opinions about something and don't.
So I'm sure she got tons of emails that were not friendly to have to deal with. so she ends up moving from northern californ California and taking her kids back to Albuquerque where her mom lives.
So she's going there while she's in Albuquerque. I don't understand what went wrong.
Something had to go wrong because she's living in the Sacramento area. She's got a good job.
and then she moves to Albuquerque, which is not a move that you make on purpose generally, unless you're going there for employment or something. Oh, I got a job offer in Albuquerque.
She goes there and works as like a waitress. Oh.
Which makes no sense why somebody with a college degree and was using that college degree in the career she had would then be like, I'm moving to Albuquerque with my mom and I'm going to just wait tables. Like something had to happen.
She worked as a waitress, also an apprentice electrician and like a phone rep, a customer service rep on the phone and even a laborer. She even just did labor work.
and i think i figure out i think it's easy to figure out what happened is she has starts to have real problems with meth that's the issue yes and this is not the person you would expect to get into meth this isn't somebody who's you know 18 and hanging out with their friends this is choice yeah this is a an adult woman with a with children and a and like a college degree and a good job and all this and the next thing you know there's meth and she's life just imploded and she's waiting tables in albuquerque living with her mom so that's how fast meth can fucking shit up and uh she has some struggles as a matter of fact in uh she's arrested quite a few times for not just meth and drug possession,

but the things that come from that. Oh, boy.
Being crazy out in public, doing wild things, loitering, things like that. She's always having problems here.
She gets arrested on, what is this, November 12, 2012 here for an attempt to commit a felony possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine. So that's a problem there.
That's one of her arrests. She has many to a point where she's on probation and she's got that over her head now too.
So that's tough. That's a tough one here.
In the summer of 2000, now this is, there is, I believe, I'm going to think it was 2015 is when she came here. Because there's some, just some.
Is that Albuquerque? No, no, came to Yankton. She came to Yankton.
I believe it's 2015. Because there's definitely some, like, contrasting facts here, whether it was 2015 or 16.
But I'm going to think it was 2015. She decided to visit a friend in Yankton is what the official story is.
She ended up staying in Yankton and getting a job and she made friends as she always does and does, you know, all that kind of thing. Now there is different stories.
Like I said, one story says she came to Yankton to visit a friend and liked it and stayed. Got a job and stayed.
Of the other narrative, and I believe this is from her mom, is that she came to try to make a fresh start after struggling with meth addiction in New Mexico. Which New Mexico has a lot of meth.
And if you've ever been to New Mexico, you go, man, I could use some meth to hang out here. This place sucks.
Makes you want to do meth, Albuquerque. So she then moves there.
And apparently, at first, she's pretty successful in Yankton here. She works at a few different businesses, makes a lot of friends, and she actually buys a Harley, which was her lifelong dream.
Lifelong dream? She's always wanted a Harley. Wow.
She's a tiny, she's real petite too. So, yeah, she's getting a Harley and that's what she loves.
Her mom said she thought she was a biker chick. She wasn't, but she thought she was and wanted to be.
And she got a job at Wilson Trailer, as we all try to do. Everybody wants a job at Wilson Trailer here.
She began her job there in late 2015, lived in an apartment on Deer Boulevard in Yankton County. And Tamara's daughter here said that she had stayed with her mom for months,

leaving to go home to Albuquerque in early 2019.

So she came later on, stayed with her mother for a while.

She said that she noticed while she was there that her mother was definitely struggling with the meth addiction here.

So this is going on for years now.

And your 40s is just too late to do meth.

That's not the time.

It's a...

Meth is a young man's drug.

You know what I mean?

Your body's not as resilient as it used to be.

Dude, I can't imagine doing, like, recovering from, like, two days of a meth jag right now.

My body would be fucked up.

No good.

Your 40s is not your time for meth. So she said no.
Her daughter said, though, she never in front of her displayed violence or any changes in her demeanor. She wouldn't smoke meth and then pull a knife on you until you hand over your wallet or anything.
She wasn't like that. She's chill.
She just wants to do her meth and be a decent person. Be left alone.
Yeah, a lot of people say that. She's nice on meth, off meth, whatever it is.
She's a nice person. You gotta like her.
So, very happy to be around others and all that kind of thing. Now, her son Ron noted that, yes, his mother did struggle with meth use, but he said the biggest change he noticed about her wasn't a change in behavior when she was on meth.
Her voice would change. Oh, she becomes a different person.
Her voice, but she was the same, but her voice would sound different after she did meth. So that's real weird.
Deeper? I think so. I don't know if it constricted vocal cords or whatever the fucking deal is but she he said or like helium for yeah hey guys that's how meth should make your voice sound i mean you should the pick marks on your face really give it away but if you got pick marks and the high voice that's it right there but you should absolutely do just a big old smoke and then just be like whoa that shit was crazy man damn whoa what are you gonna do all right all right let's take apart the television and put it back together again what do you say okay great Christopher Lloyd and yes exactly oh my god what do you say let's just walk you know what we do we'll walk to New Jersey and then come right back what do Good.
Let's do it. Okay? I want to go.
I want to find out what it looks like. Maybe the road's fun.
Let's go. Ah.
That would be awesome. We need fucking voice changing meth.
Put helium. Anybody out there manufacturing meth, find a way to infuse it with helium, please.
It's helium in there, yeah. You just want to see someone go, woo-wee, that was a good hit.
So she's still very warm, and she made a friend while she is up here. She makes a boyfriend, as a matter of fact.
And this guy is an interesting cat. He's a contradiction in many ways here.
How so? Well, he's got, like, a girlfriend. He has an ex-wife.
We know about that. Sure.
Then he's got a girlfriend that he stopped seeing when he's seeing tamara but then he's also got a fiance oh so i don't understand it like while he's seeing tamara he's also got a fiance at the same time but like he's this is his girlfriend he goes around with her i don't know what's in the field and stuff apparently he is. Yeah.
This is falkenberg f-a-l-k-e-n-b-e-r-g falkenberg he's born in 1974 falkenberg is he's like a year younger in age than her she's born in late 72 he grew up in menominee michigan menominee um that's you You can't, yeah. As soon as I said that out loud, Sarah did that too yesterday.
It's like, Dr. Pepper commercial.
It's everybody, yeah. That's the first thing I thought of and then it was gone and then she said it.
I was like, God damn it. Anytime anybody writes that on a return address, you gotta say that out loud.
I think they probably do. I think they probably do if I'm being honest here.
Is that the whole town? Just people with high meth voices going, The postman just sings it all day. All day long.
Every fucking time he looks at an envelope. So that's where he grew up.
Now, he has two kids by the time he meets Tamara. He's got Sebastian.
And Marissa is, I guess, technically his stepdaughter from a previous marriage, but I think that he was around when they're young because later on she's just referred to as his daughter always. And she's around him long.
I mean, him and his and her mother have been long divorced and she's still hanging around him. So must be something to that here.
Now, Stephen had a severe traumatic brain injury from a car accident in 1993. He was a teenager here.
He was 19 years old. He recovered from the accident, though.
You can tell looking at him that he was in a fucking accident. He's got sloth from Goonie's eyes.
He wears it on his face. He's got sloth from Goonie's eyes.
wears it on his face he's got sloth from goonie's eyes you know that's oh my god you know where one's a little higher than the other one yeah and looks like it's looking in another direction too like if the eyes aren't not only are they not even like yeah you know across but they're also not he needs the same depth in his fucking skull either i don't know if they're not plum or flush or whatever fuck the term is, but I think it's both. I think he's not plumb or flush.
I think he's all sorts of problems going on there. He's sloth from Goonies mixed with sloth from Ice Age.
Yeah, two of the different ones. He's got kind of wild blonde hair, and he's an interesting guy, man.
He's a very interesting guy the way he's described and he doesn't do drugs i think his brain injury is enough drugs for him he's like i see colors anyway i don't need to fucking deal with any of that shit so he recovered from the accident and became he got into the construction business yeah and one of the few places that'll hire sloth from the Goonies is a construction site.

They don't care.

Yeah.

Long as you can.

This big guy.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

And he's a pretty big guy, too.

He's six foot tall and stocky and big.

And the strength of his that he has is incredible that his son describes from him.

OK.

His son, Sebastian, said that, you know, he could be, you know, he's kind of a wild guy sometimes and stuff like that. But he said he's also very non-confrontational.
And he said that he never spanked the kids or anything like that. He's not an angry, rage, raging type individual in the house, which is good for a guy with a head injury.
You know, he said that he never showed any signs of violence toward him, anybody else in the family or anybody that he's ever known. really there's a injury you know yeah yeah he said that he never showed any signs of violence toward him anybody else in the family or anybody that he's ever known really there's a never you know heard of a story of his dad coming in the door pissed off because he had to knock a guy out at the local bar or some shit never any of that stuff marissa said the same thing she said that he always made it known he was very proud of me and he was a good father he said She said that he wasn't abusive and never witnessed him getting into an argument with anybody or even an argument.
She never saw him get into with anybody. She said, if anything, he was like non-confrontational.
If you tried to start an argument with him, he would kind of diffuse it and go a different direction. He would diffuse it with calmness.
That was the way he did things. He is described and this is funny as shit he's described as a very physically powerful man yeah very physically powerful and i'll give you a and a construction worker and i'll give you an example of the powerfulness that we're talking about here his son sebastian describes that he quote uses his hands for everything all the time yeah which makes him sounds like he's just hitting people that's what that sounds like but it's not he no no no he means for the purposes when he does his general contracting you you know jobs and shit pounding ham pounding fucking nails his son said quote instead of using hammers he would just pound the nail in with his hand no he wouldn't several people said this from work he was famous for it he would pound nails it with his fucking hands with his hands i can't believe it What the fuck is that? Can you imagine? No.
With his hands. You would have holes in your hand.
That's a fucking... Imagine how calloused your skin would have to be to be able to pound.
And you got to do it with, I assume, the heel of your hand. The heel.
Yeah, you can. Or the side with a fist.
The side. You one of those.
Or you punch it. With a Hulk pounding nail.
You can't do that. He's doing this in the 2010s famous YouTube if there's a video of a fucking guy imagine a video series of a guy going I'm going to build this whole house without a hammer who the fuck wouldn't watch that he would be so famous you know that guy on YouTube that pounds in fucking nails with his hands and just builds a whole house? It's crazy.
You got to see that shit. He'd be a millionaire.
He's made a ton of money. He can afford a hammer.
He just doesn't do it. He fucking owns his own contracting company.
Wow. But he does it because people, it's a trick that he does.
And he says it's more convenient to just use his hand than to pick up a hammer and have to deal with that. Wow.
I really would wish this guy would be a YouTube sensation. Imagine on TikTok, this guy would crush.
Oh, he'd make so much money. Imagine the views a guy would get.
Just one nail. Just pow, pow, pow.
And be like, holy shit. There's a man that builds his own place in the desert.
He's just super tattooed. Does it with all tools.
And people watch that shit. He's got a half pussy.
Yeah. Using hammers and shit like a pussy.
I don't think he's using a hammer. Fuck out of here.
Nail gun. This guy laughs if you throw a nail gun out.
This guy is a nail gun. He is a human nail gun.
So that is insane. He just pounded in with his hands.
That's who we're dealing with here. Yeah.
Now, he doesn't do drugs. He never really gets in trouble either.
The only... He does that sober? Sober.
He doesn't do drugs, doesn't really drink much. He's got a head injury that apparently makes it easier for him to do these things.
I don't know, man. The only thing I could see him find him getting in any trouble for was in 2007, he exceeded the speed limit by 20 miles an hour or more so he got in trouble for that and he pled guilty for that that was about it so that's all we got places to be he's got places to be so that this is our couple yeah the human hammer and like a social meth butterfly together it's a very odd couple two fascinating people they're both extremely fascinating that's i mean both these people it's like i want to know so much more more more fascinating couple doesn't exist it really doesn't here there is some turbulence in their relationship okay now a lot of people like i said everybody, everybody that knows Stephen Robert Falkenberg says that he's laid back and nonviolent.

And there is apparently he's like like fucking Bam Bam from the Flintstones.

Like he doesn't know his own strength sometimes, apparently, because like there's a video of in this video.

Tamara is shown rubbing her right hip and saying it it still hurts, but kind of laughy. And says, Steve, you've got to stop pushing me, she says.
So apparently, he'll just joke around, shove you, and you'll fly through the drywall. It's one of those things.
Doesn't know his own strength, man. He's like, that's all right, I'll hammer a new piece in right now.
Don't worry about it. Yeah.
Give me a piece of drywall and five nails. Wow.
So, it's very interesting. Now, Stephen's daughter, Marissa, said that her initial impressions of Tammy were positive, but they kind of changed after that.
She said that Tammy displayed strange behavior to the point that her father was occasionally afraid of her. which is just meth.
That's all it is here. Now, Sebastian, the son, Ross, Stephen's son, said that he never personally observed Tammy using meth, but that he knew that she could be prone to violence when she was intoxicated as well.
So one guy here, Travis Peterson, who's a friend of Stephen's,

said that Tamara

had a reputation in the whole community.

She's only been there a couple years, but

she had a reputation for being

very violent and irrational

when

she's obviously on drugs.

She's not rational, which

again, it's meth.

I've never heard of anybody go, you know, the guy's kind kind of wild but you get him on some meth and he becomes very rational after that figures it all really just take brings it all together so and uh once this man said he observed an argument between the two at falconberg's shop you know his construction deal there where tamara quote, wore herself hitting steven while he just smiled and laughed at her a little he's like he's this giant guy so she can't really hurt him physically with her fists basically he's pounding nails in he's adorable he's a giant callus this man his whole body is a callus even his fucking head is all you can't even make him uglier. There's no way to hurt this man.
He's got nothing to lose. June 7th, 2016.
Okay. Tamara has some problems here.
According to Brandon Frey, who is a Yankton police officer, this is what went down. Tamara was, quote, intoxicated and out of control, he put in his report.

And this was, yeah, I don't know if it was alcohol.

I believe it was alcohol and meth, possibly, together.

He was called, the cop was called to the Rounding Third Bar, which is a really, you're just saying it.

What is that?

Come here and get laid, is what that says.

That's exactly what that says.

Rounding Third, that's like.

About to get your dick in there, is what that means. I's exactly what that says.
Rounding third. About to get your dick in there is what that means.

Dick out.

Yeah.

What is third base?

Is that fingering or is that like oral?

I think nowadays it's oral.

I think with the kids now it's oral.

When we were teenagers, anything that resulted in you coming was considered a home run.

That was home base.

You won. If you came, yeah.
That's a point. Everything up to that.
Put one on the board. In any fashion, it didn't matter how it happened.
That wasn't the concern here. So rounding third sounds terrifying.
It sounds like everyone's running out of there, like, taking their clothes off. Honestly.
When the cop arrived, Tamara was being restrained by two people.

Wow.

They were trying to, like, hold her down here.

She made death threats against the officers who showed up.

They were just trying to get her to leave,

and then she started making I'll fucking kill all of you type shit to the cops.

So they went, okay, well, now we have to arrest her.

She just threatened to kill cops. Shit, yeah's getting arrested.
Yeah, come on, Randy. Let's go.
Let's go, Billy Joel. Get on over here.
She then tried, once they got her in the squad car and in the back and they're outside talking to people and getting statements. She tried to kick the glass out of the squad car as well.

She was laying there fucking kicking glass out.

They had to hog tire and all that kind of shit.

So she is having a day, let's just say here.

She refused to give a urine analysis.

And according to the report, they had to arrange the urinalysis.

They had to get it without her cooperation via catheter at the hospital oh jesus she was so uncooperative to the point where she would rather get catheterized than just pee in the cup and tell them what's in there oh boy and a reason for that is because she's on probation so she doesn't want want to give her pee and show that she's got meth in her system.

So the cop said that she was intoxicated and out of control the entire time, not just at the bar, not just in the car, at the hospital, at the jail, everywhere. She just was losing her shit.
It took four officers to hold her down. four large people it took to hold down one petite woman because she had met strength going on here

for for them to do the catheterization here. So she was arrested on drug charges and assault related charges also because she was just racking them up the whole time because she's kicking it cops.
She's acting nuts and trying to headbutt people. So later on apparently the assault charges were dropped though.
Also a needle was found in her possession that tested positive for methamphetamine. This isn't even smoking or sniffing.
This is she's, she's shooting it. Once you're shooting something that is way beyond the pale, man.
That's, that's the last step to being really fucking out there. So there's another incident here when she was arrested shortly after that for attacking a man's truck with a garden hoe and smashing his windshield.

What?

She attacked the guy.

Apparently the guy was in the truck.

She was upset with him for whatever reason.

And she attacked his truck with a garden hoe and smashed out his windshield that's a fascinating choice that that is literally whatever's closest is what that is i'm great what's that yep that looks harder than my fist she's mad yep hey everybody just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about our stylish and fashionable friends over at Quince. Elevating your style.
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So after she'd been arrested here, Stephen Falkenberg visited her in jail to try to help her secure a lawyer. He was trying to help her.
During the visit, he became frustrated with her because she wouldn't focus and wouldn't pay attention. So he was seen as saying, fucking listen to her yelling, fucking listen at one point and then yelling that he was, quote, fucking sick of her.

Yeah.

So that's a lot. But that's the most anybody's ever seen him yell at her,

and that was literally while trying to get her a lawyer for her fucking violence

for attacking a guy with a garden hose.

So it makes sense here.

So she was convicted of ingestion of methamphetamine in 2016 and placed on probation in South Dakota. She was required as a condition of her supervision to submit to regular and random urinalysis to ensure her ongoing sobriety.
Her probation required her to check in daily with her probation officer. Oh, she's a problem.
She had to call every day and see if the probation officer wanted her drug tested that day. She had to call and go, hi, I'm here.
Yeah, I need to pee for you. Still fine.
And he would do that. And Tamara, by the way, for like a while here, it seems like, she does not have a working phone.
Okay. She'll have like a phone that's not hooked up, her bill's not paid, that sort of thing here.
So because she didn't have a working phone, Stephen would make the calls for her to the call-in number to determine if she'd been selected to test that day. You call, you enter your inmate, and they tell you whether you won the lottery or not that day.
You call, you enter your inmate. Yeah.
And they, they tell you whether you won the lottery or not that day. So, um, 2017 now, like I said, everybody, you know, uh, has, uh, all these stories of him being nonviolent and her attacking him, even Tamara attacking Steven.
The only time ever anybody ever saw anything was a 2017 brief encounter with his ex-wife, Jennifer Becker, which there was no physical problems. There was no punches thrown or anything, but it was enough of a heated exchange that cops were called to physically separate them.
No one was arrested or anything like that, but they were told to go their separate ways.

And that was, they're divorced already.

Who knows what the hell they were arguing about or what happened.

No idea.

So March 1st, 2019.

This is the day that the last time that Mary talks to Tamara here.

2019.

Did I say 15?

No, 19. Okay, 19.

All right.

So Tamara was scheduled to finish her shift at work as a machine operator at the trailer place there. That is so fascinating.
Her shift ends at 2 a.m. Oh, boy.
Second shift, which is the worst. Third, man.
Isn't it? I think third is overnight. I don't know.
I think 2 a.m. they close.
I think it's a 24-hour place. Oh, you might you might be right somebody might be working two to ten when my dad worked third shift it was like 10 a.m to six in the morning or 10 p.m to six in the morning or some shit i remember back in the day when i was a little kid so i think it's different i'll bet somebody's working two to ten someone yeah uh ten to six six to two probably or they have them overlap a little maybe who knows whatever so now Now now just before midnight, while she's still at work, Tamara gave her debit card to Javier Gonzalez, a co-worker who was getting off of his shift.
So, yeah, they probably overlap them. So they're not everybody doesn't come on and get off at the same time.
Sure. She said, hey, before you go home, do me a solid, take my debit card, and go grab beer for me from Walmart before their liquor sales end for the evening.
So I'm going to get out too late to get me a taste. Or too early.
Yeah. So he ran to the store.
He did. He ran to the Walmart.
He put the beer and the receipt and her debit card in a male co-worker's pickup truck. Sure.
So he could the parking lot not have to go in so now because she has no phone still for years uh she borrowed a friend's phone at work around 1 30 a.m to call her mother in new mexico she's really getting a lot done no kidding buy beer call my mom fucking make some trailers. What are you doing here?

Put the hitch together.

What's happening?

So Tamara and her mother were very close, and they spoke on the phone just about every day. So this is an expected thing, and it's earlier in New Mexico, so this is normal.
Now, Stephen picks her up from work at about 2 a.m. his Ford F-250 pickup picks her up there and,

um,

to take her to her apartment because her vehicle was in the shop at the time. Anyway, first though, Falkenberg drives to Walmart at her request so she could get an alarm clock.
Apparently she doesn't have an alarm clock. Yeah, I think.
So her phone isn't just not hooked up. I think it's broken probably.
I don't think it exists. Yeah.
I think she threw it off a cliff. She got mad and threw it through someone's windshield or something.
So she was seen at 2.17 a.m. coming out of the Yankton Walmart with an alarm clock and two bags of chips.
Okay. Walmart surveillance video shows her exiting the store and getting into Stephen's pickup truck with an open bed, mind you.
Nothing covering the pickup truck. No cat, no anything.
And driving by. So there we go.
That's where we see them. They drive off.
And the video at Walmart is just before she entered the store. You see his pickup and you see her get out.
And then she gets into the pickup when she leaves. And surveillance, that's all surveillance footage here.
The plant manager where she works said that she left work at 2 a.m., never returned. He also got surveillance footage from the plant that shows Tamara getting into a pickup truck, which was Falkenberg's at the end of her shift.
Now, later on that day, because this is Friday, March 1st, is, you know, 2 a.m. on March 1st.
Later on that day, she's supposed to be at the Humane Society and working a shift. And she never shows up at the Humane Society, which is odd for her.
So mom is looking for her now. She can't find her.
She tried to call Tamara on March 2nd and couldn't get a hold of her, which is the next day. So after that, she started texting Stephen to try to contact her daughter because she's like, you know, and you never know.
That's the thing. If your kid has a drug problem, you never know if they're just what they're doing.
They could be they could be in trouble or they could be just off on a drug jag and they don't want to talk or there's a lot of different things. So she contacts Stephen to, you know, fucking figure it out because she knows they're dating.
Stephen said that he doesn't have any idea where she is, Tamara meaning, but said that he and Tamara had a verbal disagreement at her apartment on the morning of March 1st after he went to her apartment to tell her that she didn't have to test today. Because he called up and showed up and was like, hey, you don't have to do your test today.
She told him to leave, is what Stephen said. Now, he said, listen, I think she was just like that because of lack of sleep.
I don't think she hadn't slept all night. So she was just tired, I think.
But, you know, her mom, Mary, still can't contact her. So she texted Falkenberg again on March 4th to say any update.
Here, have you seen Tamara? He said he hadn't seen her, but he said, but I've got my own shit going on, so I haven't been looking for been looking for i'm busy he said he's been dealing with doctors all day oh um he said he he he feel the other day meaning fell the other day feel the other day and my finger hurt feel that makes it sound like he felt something in his finger that's a weird statement it gots yeah maybe that's all that what it is. His fingers were in heavy use at that point.
He said, it got swollen, the hand, so bad I had to go to the doctor. End up breaking two fingers, so now I dealt with not a surgeon, but bone doctor today.
That's his response. I don't think she cares about any of that shit.
That's the kind of guy that slaps fucking nails through boards yeah he's just telling you all the shit and he's like she's like I just asked where my daughter was I don't give a shit so Mary said she understood feel to mean fell and she subsequently asked is she alive to Steven is she alive and he replied she was when i left and said she was she was when i left her what is the appropriate answer for is that person alive if you haven't talked to her i hope so why would you ask that okay that must be it because my response was i fucking hope so i would hope so but then I thought maybe that would be considered, why would you have to hope so?

You know what I mean? I don't know.

But my immediate response would be, I fucking hope she's alive.

Yeah, I don't know.

I haven't talked to her, but I hope that didn't kill her, me not talking to her for a couple days.

All the best.

Jesus.

And so he said that, yes, she was when I left and then asked Mary to keep him informed if Mary comes up with Tamara somewhere. Let me know if she's alive and well.
Okay. So she's got to keep looking.
So she does. She contacts Tamara's son, Ron, to check in on Tamara as, you know, Mary's becoming worried and she can't do shit from Albuquerque, which has really got to be frustrating.
Ron like we said earlier had his spare key to his mother's apartment and searched

for her there but could not find her there at all. So he continued to check her apartment twice per day.
And the one thing he always saw that he didn't like seeing was that there's a bag that she always carried with her when she was out. And that was still in her apartment.
Oh, she's got her going out bag. It's still home.
And it's still in the apartment. She's gone home.
She's gone out. She's gone.
And the problem is she has no goddamn phone, so the cops can't do location checks. They can't see when it was last active, social.
There's nothing you can do to find her. This is like she went missing in 1982 at this point, which is so rare.
That's why I have to love some apps on the phones. I can just look at where my kids are.
Absolutely. We've really gone a long way with that.
Police work now is half check the cell phone company first. Find out where they were, who they talked to, when.
We'll look through all that and then figure out what to investigate because you can get kind of an outline of an outline of what's going on here up to and including what apps are on their phones and what what's linked to their bank account we can see where where the fuck they are where they are what they're spending yeah it's incredible now what you can do oh they they fucking put a facebook post up from omaha you know what i mean you can tell yeah you know they got an uber from this place to this place. I know where they're at.
But she's basically like she's living in the 1982. Like she's paying with cash and no phone and living in another universe here.
So he couldn't find her. He continued to check though, Ron, and that's all he found was the bag.
So March 5th at 2.53 p.m. is when Mary finally reports her missing to the police.
I feel like I know what it's a little late, but I get it. I get it for Mary.
Think about it. She's got a daughter who has had a drug problem for a good amount of time now.
Yeah, but she's not unreliable with the drug problem drug problem no but i think over the course of the last 15 to 20 years or so when this probably 15 years this drug problem has been a thing tamra has disappeared for a couple days now and then i think i think she's disappeared and then come home you know a few days later probably often i would dare to say yeah just because of the drugs that's what happens give her three four days 72 hours yeah we'll start calling around we'll start calling so march 5th is like okay that's about enough now where you know all of that and especially with the son finding the bag there and she didn't like that so um yeah she tells the cops haven't talked to her since i talked to her at work four days ago and um that's when she said the only thing i can tell you is that she is in a relationship, because they were like, does she have a boyfriend? Because that's the first thing you look for, or an ex-boyfriend, even better. And she said she has kind of a turbulent relationship with Steven Falkenberg.
So, obviously, he's the first person they want to talk to, because they go to her work, too, and they said, well, the video shows this guy picking her up. So there you go.
So deputy Darren Moser interviews him and Falkenberg said he had just got back from Michigan. Oh, here on the fifth when they talked to him and, uh, he was working in his shop and, um, yeah, they, they show up at a shop and he's like yeah just got back from

michigan and they said when's the last time you talked to her and she said he said the morning of the first uh the deputy noticed he had a soft cast on his right hand yeah which that's a big nail it must have been yeah he also noticed a big one he was trying he was like he's laying track that's the problem. Working on the railroad all the long day.
All the long day. Look at this hand.
He's like a cartoon character, this guy. Fascinating.
This is Blutus. Yeah.
Brutus? Blutus? Whatever the fuck it was. Yeah, Bluto.
Bluto? Yeah. Bluto and Brutus.
Who's Brutus? Who's Brutus? I don't know. Is he from Popeye? I thought that was Bluto.
I thought that was Bluto was Popeye. I think Brutus was Mickey Mouse bad guy.
Beefcake maybe? Yeah, I think it was. So he's got a soft cast on his right hand.
The officer also notices several baseball bats located in the corner of the shop that are covered in dust, cobwebs and shit on them. So this cop leaves the shop and with the other officers, they go to Tamara's apartment, which is only a block away from the shop, by the way.
Small town, very convenient. He looked around.
They did a general look around and there's nothing out of place. There's no doesn't look like it it's been rifled through.
Drawers aren't open with shit strewn. Okay.
Not seeing any noticeable, anything broken, knocked over. There's not a pool of blood on the living room carpet.
Okay. It just looks like somebody left their apartment.
So they have nothing, no suspicious anything right now. But later on, he said he reviewed the photos of the apartment because when you're in a strange place you've never been before, it is impossible to notice everything.
You don't know what's missing because it's not there. Yeah.
And you're just taking in everything. So there's a lot of stuff you might miss because you're, I think that's why they have those like escape rooms because you're in an uncomfortable environment that's not yours.
So your brain't working right because later on when he reviewed the photos that he took he showed he noticed an overturned lamp in one of the rooms that he didn't see when he was walking that he took a picture of it but didn't see it when it happened later on he saw it on the on the photo so a special agent with the dakota south dakota department of criminaligation said that his department recovered five baseball bats from Falkenberg shop and that he does observe them in an undisturbed state covered with dust.

And later on, this will make sense.

But no bats, no baseball bats are found in Tamara's apartment.

OK.

Now, they said the police do when they first approached Stephen the day after she was reported missing. He said he last saw her around 8.15 a.m.
on March 1st when they had coffee in her apartment and she told him to, quote, get the fuck out. So I did.
He's like, so I haven't been since. You know, get.
It's pretty strong. He later said that, though later on he says, I actually picked her up that morning.
I had picked her up earlier. He said I dropped her off at her apartment during the early morning hours.
And that's when he later on was like, oh, I did go back, though. I did go back.
Several times, by the way. Really? Yeah, before the coffee.
He said on his first trip, he arrived about 6 a.m., and he told the cops that he knocked on the door and heard an alarm clock ringing as he was knocking. Oh.
She had it going off. She hooked it up and got it going.
He received no answer, so he just left because he doesn't have a key and she doesn't have a phone. So if you knock and she doesn't come to the door, it's like, well, that's all I got.
So he said he returned a second time at approximately 815. That time she answered the door, had coffee with him and told him to get the fuck out, obviously.
So he said that she became angry at him and demanded he leave, told him to get the fuck out. And he said that he did.
He just threw his hands up and said, fine. And he said that was the last time he had any contact with her was that morning.
Okay. Now, Steven's fiance enters the picture here.
Yeah. I don't know who she is here, but this is, uh, yeah.
Steven's fiance's coworker says that for the last few days, because they're talking to her on like March 6th, she said for a few days she babysat his dogs while he traveled back from Michigan around the same time that Tamara had gone missing. So he's been out of town.
That's that we know. So where the fuck was he after this? Where? Okay.
Well, Cindy Roberts, who is a convenience store clerk who knows Tamara and Stephen, said that Stephen filled his truck with fuel at the store on March 1st in the early afternoon. She noticed the truck bed was covered.
Oh. Which she had never seen his truck bed covered before because normally he had his dogs in the back of his truck his dogs ride in the truck bed so today the truck bed is covered up and she was like that's weird enough for her to notice it that's you know interesting so she also noticed that he had a swollen right hand at the time so this person asked steven about his hand he told her he injured it by what do you think uh slapping nails i don't know punching an icicle okay which is how you're supposed to get rid of them i believe right that's what they tell you get the icicles off your house just punch them which is fucking interesting and this is all it's not the wrong time he was there it's definitely early afternoon on the first because they have surveillance video and everything of him in the store so he left yankton yankton and started driving in the direction of michigan where he used to live here now his half brother paul still lived Paul, still lived in the area in Menominee County and owned a farm nearby, and Falkenberg's mother also lived in Menominee.
He's headed that direction. But later that evening on the 1st, Falkenberg checks into a hotel in Tomah, Wisconsin, which we've done an episode about Tomah, Wisconsin, which is directly along the route from Yankton to Menominee.

All right.

OK.

This night, there's a reason why probably he stopped.

It's very icy, snowy and windy outside.

Not a good night for driving.

So it's a great night to be punching icicles.

It's perfect.

Yeah, this is there's going to be so many to punch.

Icicle punching weather right there.

The hotel clerk that checked him in noticed that he used his left hand to sign paperwork because of his swollen right hand. Right.
So he could tell he wasn't left handed. You know, he was right and fucking goofy.
So he ends up, even though it's cold and icy and snowy out, he goes and sits in the hot tub and chills, does Steven, and he has food delivered to him to the hot tub. So Domino's or something has some food delivered to his hot tub where he sat like a king and ate his food sick day so then he continued from Tomah toward Michigan later that day he arrived in Michigan on the 2nd that's when he sought medical assistance for his hand injury.
It's like, this isn't getting better. Fuck.
During his first visit, medical records indicate that Falkenberg attributed his injury to punching an icicle. All right.
Then he saw a second medical provider on March 4th. During the second appointment, he reported he injured his hand when he braced for a fall on ice with a clenched fist.
So he fell on his fist, basically. Big, big icicle.
It's all over the ground. Yeah.
Boom, bow everywhere. Yeah.
So he was seen by two physicians and an occupational therapist and had several x-rays taken on his hand before it was placed in a cast. And that's where we found him later on.
Now, here's something interesting that happened in Menominee. Michael Leverich, who's a manager for an automotive sales and repair business in Menominee, said that on March 4th, the same day where he was seeing those other doctors and saying he fell on the ice instead of punched it, Falkenberg showed up at this guy's job and this guy knew Falkenberg because he saw him a couple times a year and and talk to him you know when he did he knew the family it's a small town so Falkenberg said he was driving his mother's car at the time this guy said that Steven seemed real nervous and then asked to use the business's dumpster oh which if someone's real nervous and then asks you to use their dumpster, maybe no.
Or go look in that dumpster after they leave. See what they did.
Because that's weird. He said he had a small amount of garbage in his mother's car because they'd been driving around for a few days and he wanted to jump it all out before he.
Now, it's also odd. If you had some McDonaldcdonald's wrappers and like a you know a fucking large fucking pepsi cup or some shit in your car would you ask someone if you could use their dumpster for that or would you just throw it in there just throw it in there it's just paper products yeah i would say can i throw out this fucking 73 el camino engine can i use your dumpster for that because otherwise that's going to take up some space.
Can I use it for my love seat that I'm not using anymore? So he does that and the guy said he reluctantly allowed it. He said, I guess you can use my dumpster.
I mean, shit, really? This guy's a real fucking dumpster Nazi here. Let me use your dumpster.
What the hell? But he said he didn't observe what Stephen placed in the dumpster and didn't check up on it either. Okay.
Later on, though, he'll contact the sheriff's department about it. Now, Stephen continues to not know anything about where Tamara is, according to him.
He says he has no idea what's going on. So that's when a deputy obtained surveillance footage from the Walmart and photographs of several people.
But the footage doesn't really do much because he said that

they did that.

Right.

That wasn't really disputed.

He didn't say, I didn't pick her up from work.

He said, I picked her up from work, took her to Walmart, dropped her off, came at six,

came at eight.

So that doesn't help that much, but it's still, it's a timeline you're building now.

Then the deputy returned to Falkenberg's shop and asked Falkenberg about a photograph of

an individual named Javier who had used Tamara's debit card to purchase beer. Do you know this guy? Because at this point, she's just missing, and some guy has her debit card.
That's a suspect. Certainly, yeah.
For sure. So, yeah, Falkenberg tells the deputy that he did not know this guy, but he said he was suspicious that Tamara could be involved with another man besides him and that, quote, maybe that's the male that she's going to see.
Like maybe that's where she is. Maybe she's off, you know, hanging out with that guy.
So Sebastian, Stephen's son, asked his dad if he'd seen Tamara, to which he replied that he had, quote, no idea what happened to her. I have no idea what happened to her I don't know Marissa his daughter same thing uh sent him a text message after hearing that Tamora was missing to see if he knew where she might be staying and he responded that he quote couldn't think about it right now it's just too much to even consider I'm overwhelmed it's just difficult yeah couldn't think about it so this keeps going on for another 10 days where's tamra i don't know where do you think i don't know where's she has this one seen her nobody's too much it's too much for me yeah my hand's throbbing it's too much i can't even pound nails with my right hand now yeah this is crazy so march 16th 2019 This is off the number five road in menominee township number five road tells you that's rural is what that is yeah not enough people live around there to even bother naming it after one of them it's it's there's so few roads out here it's numbered and single digits yeah that's the other the other thing, too.
Yeah, single-digit road here.

This is right over the Little River in Menominee Township.

And when I say the Little River, it is a little fucking river.

Like, you picture a river, you picture something big.

I picture, like, the Hudson, you know what I mean? The Mississippi, the Missouri, the Idaho, the Snake.

Yes, this river, at least in this area, is smaller, is less wide than the creek behind my house. Oh.
Yeah, which is a pretty good-sized creek, don't get me wrong. It's a river.
It's not a river. You know what I mean? It's not a river.
This is a river, though. This is called the Little River in Menominee Township.
There's two boys walking a dog. How American is that? Two boys with a dog walking down the number five road.
They're going to throw a stick. He's going to catch it and run it back to them.
It's just, you can see it. They got cut off shorts and carrying an apple and chewing on a thing of hay.
It's a Norman Rockwell picture. Throwing a stick.
You gotcha. Baseball gloves on their hands.
Ready to go catch a sandlot game there. Some shit like that.
So anyway, that's what they're doing. They're walking, having an all-American day when they look over the bridge into the river.
Uh-oh. And they see what looks like a person in the river.
The river's frozen, by the way. Oh, boy.
So this is sitting on top of the ice. It looks like a face-down human being with tattoos on their torso.
So these kids take the dogs and run back home to get an adult, luckily here, and they go get one of the dads here, Gregory Thorsten Westby.

He found, he goes over and finds what he says is a nude tattooed torso of a small woman lying on top of the ice in the Little River near his home.

So this area is very wooded and really nobody lives there.

It's unpopulated as shit.

So this guy went to the spot the boys identified, saw the body on the ice right below the bridge here, and called the cops, obviously, here. So a detective from the Menominee County Sheriff's Office responds and saw that the body is not only decapitated, but also missing its hands and feet.
What? Yes. Like the Russian guy from The Wire killed them.
Yeah. You know what I mean? This is wild.
That's, yeah, that's like a mob hit. In the Dakotas.
That's not a place that that happens. No, especially at the Little River in Menominee off the No.
5 Road. That's fucking crazy.
So the detective had received a bulletin from South Dakota mentioning a missing person with tattoos. Yeah.
So he said, I wonder if this is that person that's missing from South Dakota. Right.
So they recover the body out here. This body, by the way, is located 1.4 miles from Stevens Half Brothers property, which is a little too close, I would say.
If you were at her apartment in South Dakota and then her body ends up a mile from your brother's house in Michigan, which is a 10-hour drive, by the way, a little too coincidental, I think, at that point, I would say. So they're, number one, trying to find her hands and feet and head.
That's a big priority here. Her hands, feet, and head are never recovered.
Is that right? Never, never, never recovered. They never find them.
That's horrible. So, yeah.
During this time, the Yankton County Sheriff's Sergeant here was looking for Tamara, knowing that Tamara had a romantic relationship with Falkenberg, who had family in Michigan. That's why he sent this missing person report to the Menominee law enforcement on the chance that maybe she went there because he has connections there.
And he sent basically missing person reports to Albuquerque, to Menominee, to anywhere where she might have connections, Sacramento,

anything like that, friends, anywhere she might have visited.

So an investigator who responded called a nationwide, recalled a nationwide law enforcement bulletin about a missing person.

So they said that as well and said, yeah, that led to people contacting the officials

in Yankton.

They said that the divers also searched the river for several hundred yards downstream

to determine if there were any other evidence

that might be in the river,

and they didn't find anything.

So they photographed the body

after it was removed from the frozen creek bed

and testified that they observed tool markings

and horizontal striations on the bones

where the head, hands, and feet had been cut off. Oh, my God.
Somebody used power tools on this. Yeah.
Somebody put a circular saw on this bitch. I don't mean this bitch there.
I meant, like, use a circular saw for this shit. That's fucked this poor girl.
Oh, my God. A poor woman.
Jesus Christ. So the doctor, when they get him in, confirmed that there were tool markings on Tamara's body evident around the cut surfaces on the neck and forearms and feet.
So at this point, they have no facial recognition here. They have no fingerprints to run.
So luckily, tattoos are a really good form of kind of identification at this point. A lot of people are being identified by tattoos, and this helps a lot.
They found tattoos on different areas of the body. The right forearm was a deck of playing cards.
Left shoulder across. Left forearm, a puma.
The upper left part of the back, an eagle on a branch. The upper right part of the back, three hearts with wings.

And left ankle area, a spider web.

And right calf, a banner.

I don't know what the banner said, but a banner of some kind.

So that's her general tattoo.

So people, if they knew what her tattoos are, it's probably nobody else with that combination of tattoos.

You know what I mean?

So, yeah, it's less than a mile and a half from the farm um which is very interesting so falkenberg hears that the she's been found he drove to meet with his son and daughter sebastian and marissa after that and um he to tell her tell them a story that he has basically he talks that. He says that she was cheating on him, and then it goes from there.
So we'll get to that. The autopsy performed.
The chief medical examiner for Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, this guy performed the autopsy. He said his examination revealed that Tamara's body was frozen no more than two days after her death and dismemberment.
Oh, I'm sorry. Was frozen no more than two days after her death and dismembered after she was frozen.
Oh, wow. She was ice.
She was frozen, then dismembered, then dumped in the creek. Oh, boy.
And frozen. We kind of stayed frozen out there.
Yeah. So he said he formed this conclusion because the body, despite its missing parts, still contained blood in the vessels.
Oh, boy. Which shows she didn't lose a lot of blood when she was killed.
Right, she didn't bleed, yeah. But she still had all of her blood in her body.
So that means that she was frozen in there. Yeah., so an external exam was conducted.
The body was allowed to thaw. And 24 hours later, he performed an internal exam.
They had to Frankie Carbone him. They had to let the body thaw.
Blood oozing from the stumps left behind from her dismemberment indicated she'd been dismembered after being frozen. The fact that there was so much blood still in the body indicated that she'd not lost very much blood at the time of her death.
There was also no evidence of trauma to her remains, and her heart and organs were all in excellent health, even though she did meth a lot, which is crazy. Yeah, that's just not fair.
That's not fair. That's just not fair.
Later on, they call her heart remarkably healthy. And I'm like, oh, fuck you.
47 years old doing meth all the time. Your heart's remarkably healthy.
I'm going to see a specialist tomorrow. Jesus Christ.
Every time I eat a cheeseburger, I'm grabbing for my fucking, I'm grabbing for my chest later on that night just in case. Am I going to get pains? What's going on? I'm going to die tonight.
I can't believe this. It's just unbelievable.
Fucking unbelievable, right? God damn it. Maybe we should have done meth.
There's no justice in the world, man. We should do meth, maybe.
Maybe that'll help. Shit, man.
So the fact that she was dismembered and dumped required the doctor to determine the cause of death as homicide by unspecified means. I have no idea how she died must have been something to done to her head because i don't have that and everything else is fine that's the only other place uh they also showed that she had 350 nanograms per milliliter of methamphetamine in her blood as well so she's she was on meth when she was killed um so she probably heard she didn't have to test that day, and that was that.
Got after her, sure. So the same day that the body was found, that's when Falkenberg called his son Sebastian to arrange a meeting with Sebastian and Marissa at Marissa's house around 10 p.m.
During the meeting, he explained he needed to go to Michigan and talk to the cops, but I wanted to talk to you first, he says. Listen, you're the kids.
Wanted to talk to you first. So Sebastian said that Stephen told them that he confronted Tamara at her apartment on the morning of March 1st.
He said when he arrived, she was dressed up, as he put it. She was dressed dressed up and there were empty beer cans in the trash okay now so she went out last night his thing is he asked her if she was cheating on him now meanwhile she had a she had beer right for her so i mean that could have been that he stated that he they had argued during this about her him accusing her of cheating and she got upset about that.
So, I mean, that could have been that. He stated that they had argued during this about him accusing her of cheating, and she got upset about that.
So he says that she grabbed a bat and came at him. That's why there was no bats found in her apartment, we found out.
So she grabbed a bat, and then he explained how he had to defend himself. so Sebastian said that Stephen told him that Stephen said he pushed Tamara away

just shoved her away and, quote, she hit the wall and that was it. That's what that was his quote that Stephen said.
She hit the wall and that was it, which is a real hard into the wall. That's like a nail.
Nothing we could do. There was nothing we could do.
So he said he admitted he pushed her and knowing right away that she was dead. You know how hard you have to push somebody to kill them? Yeah.
An adult healthy person. You got to hear their body break and then crumple to the ground.
Fucking meth won't kill her, but a one shove does. Wow.
Marissa asked, was it self-defense or what the fuck? Um, and he said, yeah, it was self-defense. Tamara got a bat that I was afraid of.
I don't want to get hit by a bat. So I shoved her and that's what happened.
Now, Marissa acknowledges that she will tell different stories to the, to the cops at a grand jury. And then at a trial later that she will say that, uh, she didn't tell the grand jury that her stepfather said that he was hit with a bat the first time.
She said that later. So knowing that the body was found in Michigan and was dismembered, Marissa was like, okay, that doesn't, shoving her doesn't tell me how, you know, her head would fall off and she'd end up 10 hour drive from here.
How does that work? She hit the drywall so hard, her head and hands and feet popped off. Popped off.
You've seen people's shoes fall off when they're hit real hard. Sometimes their feet will just come right off.
Wow. So when asked here, she said, quote, this is what she asked her stepfather, what's with the cutting situation? Which is maybe the weirdest way you could ask that question i mean it's a way to minimize the shit out of it what's a stranger way to ask that than the cutting situation and that's fucking weird i guess your inventory you're trying to be like yeah you're trying to be likee around it.
And that would be just, how do I ask this? What's with the cutting situation happening to body on ice? What's the river woman? Like you just start saying words. It's a trimming schedule.
Yeah. What are you doing there? And Marissa said that Stephen said it involved her identity.
so he admitted to her that he dismembered her for to try to try to hide her identity keep that away from me marissa said well what did you do with the tools you used like you did you what's going on with that and he said that um basically just told her that they're gone gone just gone there's nothing they could do Nothing we could do um so i like joe pesci his answers are just as bizarre as the question it's what i mean they're weird questions weird answers um so yeah so marissa said that falkenberg did not know what to do so he drove around on county roads and then decided to drive to michigan he's leaving out freezing someone then fucking dismembering them. So much.
Which is so calculated. Frozen, then dismembered.
So, wow. She says that he advised that he had Tamara's body near their farm in Michigan.
Marissa states her brother Sebastian had somehow learned that Tamara's body was dismembered. So that's when she brought up the dismemberment.
And, you know, she said that she didn't know how Sebastian knew that Tamara had been dismembered, but he knew. So Marissa advised Falkenberg told her that he got rid of the tools and that he wore gloves when he dismembered Tamara.
So he's just spilling it all. it all tools are gone well yeah it's like i don't want you to hear this on the news so check this out i killed my girlfriend and fucking cut her up so there's that accident though sorry wow march 18th 2019 here uh they do a full search warrant of Tamara's apartment and find a...
This is

when they find... The initial search,

they didn't do this, but when they go through it with Luminol

and shit, they find what is later

determined to be Tamara's blood on

the west wall of the entryway of

the apartment. Oh, boy.
They find

some blood spatter. So,

that's not great, obviously.

So, they're going to go ahead and arrest Stephen

here. Doesn't matter what he says he did.
He cut a woman up after he killed her. And there's a splash in your place.
Not great. So the chief assistant prosecutor in Monemonee County said that the charges against him have not been filed in Michigan because they were like, oh, here? He's like, no, no, no.
We sent him away. He said it's believed that the murder occurred in South Dakota.
So that's where the prosecution for the crime will take place. He said we're still conducting a very thorough and elaborate investigation here.
And if at some point additional charges are warranted here, those will be evaluated and pursued. And that's the other thing, because, like, disposal of a corpse is another charge.
But can you charge that in South Dakota if it's a continuation of that crime, or do you have to charge that in Michigan?

Yeah, because he crossed the state line with a dead body.

Yeah, which should be illegal anyway.

No bringing corpses in your trunk in our state. That would probably help.

States do that.

You can be able to get a guy.

I don't even like when somebody dies in a state and all the family plot is in another and they fly it back home.

That gives me the heebie-jeebies, i know that they do that shit with uh commercial flights so sometimes james when we're flying places there's a dead body on board oh yeah no my grandmother flew all the way from arizona to here i don't like it what's the other option be buried in fucking arizona god damn it please put her ass on a train i don't know i don't i'm saying this publicly i don't really care what you do with me when i die but do not bury me in arizona that's all i ask i'll be so miserable i hate it so much the fucking dry and the dirt i can't do it termites getting into me no can't do it i don't know i don't know what the answer is but i don't like traveling they should just put on like a train. You know what I mean? But that would take like days.
That's the problem. By the time it gets there, it might be no good anymore.
Grandma's a bit gamey. Sorry about that.
Jesus. It's weird, though.
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, man.
They should pick up the pace. Wisman didn't want her on the Delta flight.
That's what it is. Wisman didn't want her on the 215 to fucking, on the 215 to Detroit.
So guess what? Sorry. Sorry.
So, yeah, the officials encouraged Menominee area citizens to be on the lookout for anything suspicious, you know, like a head or a random foot or anything like that.

Body parts, yeah.

Holy shit.

Yeah, they said that they're vigilant right now, but the whole body has not been recovered. Falkenberg is arrested and charged with a complaint of second-degree murder here right away.
South Dakota Highway Patrol Trooper here who was also a volunteer cadaver dog handler with the Brookings County

Canine Search and Rescue Team,

had his certified dog Ninja,

that's the dog's name,

perform a free air sniff of Falkenberg's truck,

which just sounds like a fun time for a dog.

Just parade around and get some sniffs in.

Get in there and huff that truck, buddy.

Come on.

You can just see the dog sniffing in the air.

Yeah, get it in.

Sniff all that air.

Free air snip.

The dog indicated positively to the presence of human remains near the driver's door at the seam of the truck where the cab and better joined.

Okay.

Not good.

What does that tell you?

She was in there.

She was in his cab. It was drunk or right right in the back, pushed up toward the front of the bed.
Yeah. Right.
So they then want to search the dump in Menominee because once the body's found, the guy at the shop who let Steven use his dumpster starts going, oh shit, and calls the cops and went, the guy who murdered people with a missing head and hands and all that, he used my dumpster. Yeah.
Let's hope the head wasn't in there. He said he had a little bit of litter.
Yes. Yeah.
More than a little bit. So the detectives and other law enforcement officers conduct a two-day search of the local landfill in Menominee.
Oh, gross. Two days.
Huh. They end up recovering.
They actually find this shit. Can you believe that? That grid system that they have set up at Jumps.
It's pretty incredible. It's really amazing.
It's wild. So they recover several pieces of clothing, including a yellow and gray Columbia coat that belonged to her, a black sequined hat, white pants, and a Harley Davidson shirt.
Her head's in there, too. It's, we don't know.
Tamara's friend, Jennifer, said that she occasionally sold Tamara clothing, and that was her stuff. She identified the Columbia coat and the Harley shirt as items she sold to Tamara.
Wow. Tamara's daughter as well, Sydney, said that she was with her mother when she bought the

black sequined hat from a thrift store and that the white pants were similar to a pair

her mother wore.

This woman leads the most fucking impossible life to track.

She's buying shit from friends.

Thrift stores.

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Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring, mixed. Stephen's chiropractor, Larry Jones, who's popped his neck in and out, said, first of all, you can't believe that somebody that you know that well would do something like this.
So I've known him for more than 20 years, this guy. He said, he's such a good guy.
I had a fire in my office. You know who came and helped me rebuild? Steven.
Steven did. That's what a good guy said.
He didn't even need tools. I was going out to the truck to get tools.
He had two by fours already in place. Literally slapped it together.
Slapped it. He said he was always a friend of mine.
I still consider, I don't know if this happened or not, but I feel sorry for him and especially for her. Which is, I just, yeah, what do you say at that point? Holy shit.
The officials here, who is this? This is one of the prosecutors said, quote, there have been some frankly gory details that have been released in this case, and I think it's important to remember that there's a human aspect to this case too. And that is that Mrs.
LaFramboise was the daughter of a woman, her mother, who still lives in New Mexico.

She's the mother of two young adult children.

They said, if you're a praying person, I'd urge you to consider keeping their family in mind over the next difficult days and weeks and months. They not only have to deal with the loss of their loved one, but the progress of the criminal case.
Sure. Yeah, dealing with both a lot.
So an old friend here of Tamara's's here uh dennis pasica pasica said she always had such a bright face and was always smiling she was the last person you would expect to get caught up in something like this i haven't actually seen her in over 30 years but to me i haven't seen her since the ninth grade but i you know back then i said she's the last person who's going to be on meth and murdered in South Dakota and thrown in a creek in Menominee, right? That's a wild thing to say. He said, but to me, that would all probably hold true that she's still like that.
Right. Okay.
Another woman here who kept in touch through Facebook. So apparently she had a Facebook account at one point.
Said this is just horrible. She was a lot of fun.
So upbeat and happy always bubbly and outgoing and not shy by any means. And she said, I'm just devastated by the news and frankly, everything that's come out.
She said, I heard the name and it caught my attention. My stomach just went upside down and I said, oh my God.
And then they said it looked like foul play and they were right. Obviously.
Tamara's mom here, finally, I mean, she was the one who started the whole search, said she, you know, Mary, she wishes that something would have, she at least wants some answers from Stephen, basically. She said, I think we could truly move forward, more quickly if he would just tell us where he put her hands and feet and her head so we can rest.
Yeah, help us out, man. He said, she is not at peace.
We had a memorial service, but in our way, you're not at peace unless your whole body is there. Yeah.
Because they're native also. So that's part of it.
That's a certain, there's a certain way that has to go. Yeah.
And without the parts, it doesn't work like that. Then there's some jail conversations here.
Two jail conversations between Stephen and his visitors at the county jail. During a visit with his ex-girlfriend, Terry Thurman, first of all, okay, let's say your ex- girlfriend, not the mother of your children or the father of your children or whatever the fuck your ex is arrested for this murder yeah murdering their current partner and beheading them and dumping them in a creek 10 hours away are you going to visit that motherfucker in jail I don.
I'm going, dodged a bullet there, never talking to that guy again. And I'm telling everybody I know about that shit.
Remember that guy? He fucking killed it. I remember I told you.
I told you he was a nut, remember? He killed the lady, his fucking girlfriend there. So he mentioned that weird stuff happened in Michigan the other day.
This was on April 9th, 2019.

He said this.

He said, not good, not good at all, huh?

Not good at all for me.

So that's what he said.

He said that the following day he told two friends during a jail visit that they're doing

some weird stuff in Michigan.

Oh, we don't talk about it, but it's not good.

That's when they were doing autopsies and finding the causes of death and all that kind

of shit.

It's not good because they were finding evidence against him.

Yeah, it's terrible.

Fucking awful.

So it's wild.

One person said here, a person who came to get a look at this guy in court, because they

bring Stephen in to be arraigned and everything.

So people want to just go in and catch a gander at him.

Who would do this?

And one guy here, Francis Zephyr, who set up a prayer vigil outside the courthouse to support Tamara's family,

said, what I seen today was a man that has no remorse.

What I seen.

Said, I always think when you walk into a courtroom, you'll see what a monster looks like. He said, it's, that's fucking wild.
He said, it's difficult as a man and a father when you can't do anything. Right now, I'm holding back because I don't want to cry.
But in my heart, it hurts real bad. That's another friend of the family.
The prayer vigil person said her mother deserves to bury her daughter whole.

And her head, I mean, as a woman, as a mother, I just couldn't imagine.

You know, her head's missing.

So he said what that guy did there, that did nothing for humanity.

Nothing for humanity.

What that guy did there.

What that guy did there.

Beheading a woman did nothing for humanity.

Like he expected it to.

Like he's like, society's ills will be over now right shit damn it so they end up seeding they bring in over 200 prospective jurors they have to interview to try to get a jury that's not tainted because this is a big deal around here this doesn't happen often around here 200 yeah so they ended up getting finally 13 jurors out of the 200 that they could live with. So that's only one alternate, though.
That's rough. So they're going to proceed, though, with 13 jurors.
They said, fuck it. Trial comes up here.
Okay. The prosecution is going to call 26 witnesses to the stand, including forensic pathologists, orthopedic hand surgeons, talking about what happened to his hand, possibly cops, everything else.
They present evidence showing that Falkenberg was the last person to have contact with him and with her and that evidence regarding his actions after his or her disappearance going to fucking Menominee, which is where the body was found. All that good shit there.
Sure. So during the opening, the prosecutor, Douglas Barnett, he talks to the jury and he says that the night she was killed, there were two people present.
One is dead and the other has engaged in a pattern of lying and deceit. Not good for him.
Says that, you know, he thinks that he placed the body in the bed of his Ford F-250, covered the bed, and drove to his brother's house in Menominee. On the way, he spent a night at the American Inn in Tomah, where he lounged in a hot tub and ordered dinner while she was in the back of his truck, freezing.
Frozen. Frozen, and that's probably what froze her.
I don't think he put her in a freezer. I think he kept her in the back of a truck in Michigan and fucking Wisconsin in the winter.
When was it? Was it March? March. Yeah.
It's fucking cold there in March. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. For sure.
It still snows like a bitch there in March. And there was like an ice storm that night, a snowing ice storm that night.
So the defense opening, that's a tough defense. Howdy.
Yeah. Yeah.'s one thing if if the cops came and she was laying on the floor next to the wall and he said i pushed her and she died yeah that's you could work with that you could say she came at me you could say we were playing there's a lot of lies you can tell that at least would minimize it to maybe where people might believe it her fucking head is gone bro yeah that's not good and you have lots of power tools and her head and hands were removed that's not good you're a construction guy not fucking good this guy says that the state has to prove that he ended her life in a depraved and cruel state of mind when in a while in a state of passion because it's a second degree murder the bummer is you don't know how she died.
That's the problem. We don't have a proof that he killed her.
We just have proof that, I mean, certainly we got proof that he desecrated the body, right? Yeah, well, they're going to try to link this with some other stuff and make it and try to piece together what he did. Also, why would you desecrate and destroy a body if you didn't do it? Yeah, why would you? Anybody who just finds a body would call the cops or call 911 or whoever.
If you had nothing to do with this, then I better dispose of this. No, it's not somebody's fucking hamburger they left behind.
Somebody left half a bag of Skittles on my counter. I don't know how long they've been there, but it's awesome.
I'm too close to it. I got to get rid of it now.
That's so weird. Yeah.
Nobody disposes of someone who just dies by accident or has a heart attack. Stumbled upon the body.
Yeah. That's ridiculous.
So the defense here, though, says that, listen, the real villain in this case, it's not Tamara, of course, the dead person. She's a victim.
It's not Steven. He's not the real villain here.
The real villain in this case is methamphetamine. That's the real villain.
Meth dead. He said that chronic use increases the chances of death and violence.
He said meth can cause untraceable cardiac arrhythmia, strokes, and aneurys well can it i don't fucking know it can't be good for you i mean it's just battery acid and poison and fucking fertilizer and shit it can't be good for you yeah it can't be good battery acid and it's all it's in there fucking chinese newspapers i'm sure some weird substance to hold it together The autopsy, he said, found no evidence of a violent struggle here. But forensic testing did show that she was high on meth that night that she died.
So just saying. The defense attorney goes on to say that Tammy became violent and irrational when on meth, which can't be disputed, actually.
I mean, there's the whole police department witnessed that shit and the whole bar, the whole rounding third crew fucking figured that out, ruined their whole slide in the home that night. Not good, yeah.
So he says that, listen, she becomes irrational and violent. My client was trying to help her.
Yeah. He's not a villain.
He's a hero here. That's that's right good guy he said that she not only didn't want to be helped she started threatening him and his family and the fam the whole family i'll kill everybody god damn it i'll take my little fucking petite self over and kill your whole family yeah then he said she attacked strangers she's threatened to kill law enforcement officers before.
She's dangerous. He says, my client, he doesn't do drugs.
He doesn't do drugs. He just wanted to help her get clean.
He said, this man stood by Tammy and made her probation calls for her to see when she had urine screenings. He has no history of violence, nothing.
But he instead would let Tammy hit him until she calmed down. That's how this would work.
And even you're going to hear from his ex-wife and his girlfriends, all of which who are going to say he's just a gentle soul, never laid a hand on him. Which might be true, but he did something here.
Not 100% of the time, obviously. So the attorney for Falkenberg here argues that the evidence might prejudice a jury if you show them these photos of the autopsy of a headless, handless, footless woman oozing blood.
It's certainly not gonna help any favors it's it's it establishes that she's dead and establishes what happened and that's one of those every fucking court case the defense tries to get the autopsy pictures thrown out or the crime scene pictures and it never works out never works and most the judge will say you can't show you know five pictures of the genitals cut off, five pictures of the genitals cut off. Only two pictures of the genitals cut off.
Not five. That's gratuitous.
So, yeah, the defense attorney argued that dismemberment, this is what he said, you don't need to show the pictures because the dismemberment was performed days after the murder. And it does not serve to show intent.
And that's really what we're looking for here is intent. Okay.
And the judge was like, get the fuck out of here. He cut a chick's head off.
We're showing the jury that shit, bro. Like, you got to be kidding me.
We have to. We have to.
So the state argued that the evidence was relevant to prove that Falkenberg's attempts to conceal the murder and prevent identification of the body. They said as to the manner of death and Falkenberg's intent, the state argues that the evidence would be relevant to show that Falkenberg struck Tamara, instantly killing her, and it would show Falkenberg's motive for removing her head and concealing the crime.
Further, the state argued that any prejudicial effect of the evidence would not be by illegitimate means.

In other words, if they are prejudiced by this, they should be.

Look at what the fuck he did.

Basically, he deserves to be prejudiced by what he did.

Here's his work.

Let's show it.

You don't want them to show his handiwork?

Yeah, here's his long division.

Watch. Yeah.

You just want to get the end of the algebra problem?

You don't want to see the X and this and times three and four.

You can't see how he gets there.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

We're going to see how he got there.

In the third day of the trial, it starts with a Sioux Falls orthopedic surgeon named Richard

Blake Curd.

Dickie Curd, his name is.

Yeah.

Dick Curd.

C-U-R-D.

Dick Curd.

That's gross. That's gross.
As I say, when curds come out of your dick, you got problems. Go by Blake, man.
Come on. He used his expertise to analyze x-rays of Stephen's right hand because several witnesses had seen his right hand was swollen enough that he had to use his left hand.
According to this doctor, Falkenberg told the medical personnel on one occasion he injured his hand punching an icicle. Another visit, he said it was a fall.
So the prosecutors asked this guy if punching an icicle or a fall would explain the injury. Could you get that injury from either of those? He said it would certainly depend on the icicle.
It'd have to be a hell of an icicle. It might fight back.
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. So he's going to further testify that the metacarpals on his middle and ring fingers were fractured.
That's what was broken. He explained this injury is very common in physical sports injuries and is known as a boxer's fracture or a fighter's fracture.

That's where you punch and that's where it breaks.

He also said the metacarpal bones make up the skeletal structure for the palm of the hand with the top of the metacarpal bone being referred to as the knuckle. Let's just give everybody a little roadmap of the hand.
so he says when describing how the two middle metacarpals could fracture this way he explained

that the injury was consistent with a fist impacting a stationary solid object such as a jaw, cheekbone, chin or forehead, you know, or a wall or a pole or a car, you know, tree. It should be called the house boys fracture.
The drunken frat boy fracture the my girlfriend won't text me back two in the morning frat boy fracture that's the one that's the one right there he said in his opinion the injury was not likely caused by a strike of a bat so in case he says in case they try to say later she hit me that the bat broke my hand she said that would result in a larger area of injury this is very acute where you can shatter fingers yeah that could break your whole hand yeah so when asked if the injury could be caused by punching an icicle he said it was possible that but that the icicle would have to be a very narrow one one-dimensional and robust to break his hand in that way it would have to be frozen so solid that didn't give when it right you know when he hits it has to be an iceberg a huge but also very narrow enough to only break those two right the most sturdy but the most narrow as well which is obviously doesn't really exist in frozen science at all so he said that he agreed that it was possible to break the hands by falling as well on ice when bracing with a clenched fist. He said that could happen.
That could happen exactly like that. When cross-examined, he said that the two different recorded causes could have been the result in error in the records and did not necessarily mean that he told two different stories.
Meanwhile, tons of witnesses say he told two different fucking stories. Now, meth is part of the defense here as well.
They were particularly interested in the levels of methamphetamine in her blood at the time of her death. She had struggled with substance abuse and particularly meth abuse here, and a toxicology report showed the 350 nanograms per milliliter of meth in her blood.
The doctor said that amount could cause an overdose. They said that specifically it could cause cardiac arrhythmia, which could not be traced, a stroke or an aneurysm, one or the other.
However, that amount of meth typically would only kill a person weakened by heart or blood pressure issues. Your heart would have to be ready to go over, and this could kick it over the side, but it's not going to cause a healthy person for their heart to explode.
They said most overdoses of methamphetamine are from between 1,000 and 7,000 nanograms per milliliter of meth in the bloodstream. Boy, oh boy.
Which is 20 times. That's a lot.
Fucked 200 times what she had. Is it that? I think it's 200 times.
No, it would be 20 times. 20 times, 350.
So 7,000 would be 20 times what she had in her bloodstream. That's a lot.
That's a lot. So they said the autopsy did not discover the cause of death with the body, with the part of the body I got to examine, is what he said.
Nothing came up in what I got. So when asked if methamphetamine in her system could result in death, he said levels this low generally are not fatal unless they have a vulnerable heart.
And her heart was, quote, incredibly healthy. I'm fucking distraught that god damn it i mean not that i want her heart to be shitty but i want to have a better heart than someone who smokes meth all the time or shoots meth all the time that's all is that a lot to ask consistent intravenous methamphetamine use and the lifestyle that comes along with that and the lifestyle that comes along with that you know what i mean that's it's not fair that is a lot um asked if having the head or other missing body parts would have aided in determining if a stroke or aneurysm had caused her death he said would have helped yeah can't hurt you give me the head you can't hurt like i can figure out a lot more if I have a head.
The defense continued with witnesses who showed that he was, Stephen was on, or I'm sorry, that Tammy was on probation for her drug use and had violated that probation more than once as well. They're trying to say she's wild and capable of anything because she's on meth.
Sure, yeah. Which is kind of like the West Memphis Three.
As long as they're satanic, they're capable of anything because she's on meth sure yeah which is kind of like the west memphis three as long as they're satanic they're capable of anything like the eccles and baldwin trial they had no evidence they're just like they're satanic they could have done this those are the type of people that would do this they're like okay this is kind of the same thing she's on meth anything's possible yeah let's see if that muddies the water they also sent send in both sets of kids, his kids, her kids. Okay.
All four were asked about the mention or presence of a baseball bat, which she had claimed that she attacked with. Both of her kids, Tammy's kids, said that there was no bat in her apartment.
Okay. Not one.
She didn't own a bat. Yeah, and Sebastian said his father didn't mention a baseball bat during the time they met with him on March 16th.
And Marissa said she couldn't recall if her father said anything about being hit with a bat, but that self-defense was brought up. They're trying to not put him in worse, basically.
Now, the defense case here, he's not going to testify. No? No.
He's got brain damage and a fucked up head. you're not sending him up there on the fucking stand you get a guy in a nice suit to speak for him you know yeah well but then again you might want to put him up there just so he doesn't sound like a monster so he looks like a person yeah yeah but then again they're going to go through his whole thing well when did you cut her up when did you decide to cut her up when is this yeah they'll they'll probably let him go on the default self-defense okay okay then get real deep into so as you're sawing her head off what's happening then right so um the they uh a doctor a forensic pathologist testified he thinks tamara died while in the beginning phase of acute methamphetamine intoxication and was under the influence at the time of her death.
It's medical testimony. Because Tamara had meth in her system, he could not rule out a cardiac arrhythmia stroke or brain aneurysm as cause of death.
However, this doctor ultimately agreed with the first doctor's conclusion that the cause of death was likely homicide by an unknown case, but pointed out that not all homicides were criminal acts, such as in the case of a killing that occurs when a person acts in self-defense. This doctor is worth every cent of his hourly wage.
He's not just defending the shit that he's supposed to be defending. He's jumping to other shit.
I mean, not all homicides are murder, you know what I mean? It could be a fine one. Wow.
They bring in a defense psychiatrist who advances the theory that Falkenberg panicked after the death and because of his prior brain injury was unable to consider options to summon aid and instead threw her car in a truck, covered the truck bed, drove her to Michigan, dismembered her and disposed of her. He could put that together in his head.
But he couldn't put together 911 or even go outside and yell help. None of that shit.
Or somebody, a friend's number, anything. Nothing.

Didn't think, post it on Facebook, something. Just fucking say something.
He instead, they said, couldn't put those things together in his head and make a plan, but he could make a plan to do all the other shit, which is wild here. This guy said he interviewed Falkenberg, performed a number of neuropsychological tests, and spoke with those who knew him, including family members, and reviewed his medical records from the treatment he received after his car wreck as well.
He testified that the 1993 brain injury caused massive trauma to his frontal lobe, which impaired his ability to, quote, multitask, think of alternatives, anticipate consequences, and his ability to problem solve. So although he was capable of managing his own construction company, the doctor also said that his impairment would worsen with age and would be more pronounced when under stressful situations.
How bad was this brain injury is when you see his face it's fucking bad really you can see it his eye is over here it had to be bad if a fucking injury your face if an injury relocates your eyeball to a place it shouldn't be that's got to be bad i would think right looks like his skull was broken frontal lobe damage, man. Look on our social media.
It is wild. So the court instructs the jury.
Now we're at jury instructions. This is kind of important in a case like this because what the jury is instructed on is very, you know, that matters a lot because if they're instructed to ignore this or put particular emphasis on this or this doesn't count as that.

That's what it is.

So the judge says the concealment by the defendant does not create a presumption of guilt.

Basically saying just because he dismembered her and threw her away doesn't mean you can say he's guilty of murder. He said, if you find that the defendant dismembered the body of Tamara or disposed of the tools and Tamara's clothing, this evidence may be considered by you as a circumstance tending to prove his consciousness of guilt.
So you can use that, but just not directly. It has to be in a roundabout way.
His consciousness of guilt, which would mean that's his mindset, his depraved manner of thinking and all that shit. He said, you're not required to do so.
You should consider this evidence in connection with all the other evidence in the case and give it as much weight as your judgment, as is in your judgment. It's fairly entitled to receive, which is fair.
Now, verdict comes in. He is found guilty of second degree murder and first degree manslaughter.
Both. OK, which is odd because they sound like they would both be kind of the same.
It should be one or the other. I would imagine so.
But he got both. Now, at the sentencing hearing, not only is he going to get a lot of time here, but the state sought to recover costs of prosecution, restitution for expenses submitted by Tamara's family to the Crime Victims Compensation Commission, and even $2,191.65 to Sydney, the daughter, for medical costs stemming from her attempts at self-harm as a result of losing her mother.
Wow. Yeah.
So this is a lot. They're seeking $29,678.86 for prosecution and restitution here.
And then the other $2,500 for her, or $2,100. So in support of these requests, the state provided the court with receipts for prosecution costs and documentation from the commission reflecting that it had awarded compensation for expenses of $4,856.14 for funeral costs and $720 for transportation costs for Ron contingent on submission of mileage compensation forms for her son and approval for 18 mental health sessions for Sydney contingent upon receipt of documentation from the provider with a set deadline of January 13th, 2021.
She gets 18 mental health. That's what they're going to give her out of this.
Hope you can fix it in 18 sessions, my darling. Once a month for a year and a half, and then you're on your own.
Better be all fixed up by then. The state also submitted a document detailing a total restitution request for the Crime Victims Compensation Fund of $7,625.10, which included the $4,866.14 and the $720 amounts awarded by the commission, as well as $1,480.96 request for a headstone and $586 counseling bill for Sydney.

The state did not provide receipts or documentation supporting these two latter amounts. Just said that's what it cost.
We need it. The court then denied the objections of Falkenberg and awarded costs of prosecution and $2,195 to Sydney.
Although not requested by the state, the court also ordered Falkenberg to reimburse the Crime Victims Compensation Fund up to $15,000 for expenses awarded on claims submitted by the family and an additional restitution of up to $40,000 directly to Tamara's children or mother if they incurred counseling or medical expenses attributable to her death. So the state didn't even ask for that.
The judge has just given that. They're just throwing money all over the place and telling him to pay it.
Tell him to pay it, which when you hear a sentence, I don't know how he's supposed to figure that out. Regarding the amounts ordered, the court said if there's any dispute, Mr.
Falkenberg will have the right to a hearing after review of any documentation submitted in support of those requests. Okay.
They said the defendant, Stephen Robert Falkenberg, shall pay restitution to the Yankton County Clerk of Courts Office in the total amount of $29,678.86. Wow.
And then they break down the reimbursements here. It's not subject.
They said the twenty nine thousand six seventy eight eighty six is and the twenty one hundred for Sydney is not subject to further hearings as the court ordered those amounts to be paid. You can't appeal that.
You can appeal the other shit, but not that. And they also bring his kids up there to say he's a nice guy.

All the people that he knows to say he's a nonviolent man. He's a nice man.
He's calm. Tamara would freak out and he would calm her down.
All that kind of shit. Okay.
The judge says you, sir, may fuck off life in prison without parole. Don't give a fuck how much you found people down.
Don't give a fuck how nice you are. You were very not nice on this one day.
Found a day you were not. He's like, but every other day I'm a good guy.
Yeah. What's up with that, man? You should let me go.
So reactions here. The prosecutor said this was a horrific crime.
I'm glad we could get justice for the family and keep South Dakota safe by taking this violent killer off the streets. You fucking asshole.
You couldn't.

See what I mean?

That shit annoys me.

That shit annoys me.

It's one thing to say it was a horrible crime.

He's a fucking monster for what he did to him.

I'm glad he's going to go away now because you can't kill people like that.

This guy made it sound like he was walking the streets drooling looking for your children.

Swobbering, yeah.

Yeah, unless your children got on meth and got in an argument with him when he accused them of cheating on her. I don't think he was going to fucking do anything to anybody else probably.
But you can't do this to anybody is the point. Tammy's mom said somewhat of a relief but at the same time it was bittersweet and it didn't bring my daughter back.
I hope you didn't expect it to because it's not going to. It didn't bring back bring my grandchildren's mother back and it left his children without a dad even though they're adults there were so many victims in this case and that's the sad part she um wishes there would be some answers she said again yeah i could be a little bit more at peace if she had all of her pieces you know what i mean yes that's huge that's the problem That's the problem.
Peace equals peace is what that is. So she does say, I appreciate all the work that the prosecutors did and all the investigators and all the people from Michigan.
I appreciate it. And the jury, they did an outstanding job.
So that's good. At least they're happy with that.
Now, January, by the way, that was in the end of that trial was the end of January 2020. Oh, wow.
So, yeah, this guy's whole life was definitely going to be way different. No shit.
He's doing jail COVID lockdown also. January 2021, he appeals.
He wants a new trial. Why? That's the problem.
He got screwed over. He said, yeah.
Oh, lawyer fucked me. He said the circuit court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal.
Because before they sent the jury out, in every single trial, they just do, Your Honor, I don't think we even need to go to the jury. I'd like to do a motion for an acquittal from here where the judge can just go, yes, the prosecutor did not present adequate evidence, dismissed.
Everybody asked for that. Sarah Boone asked for that.
Well, there's video of her killing a man that she made herself. So everybody asked for that.
Whether the circuit court abused its discretion by denying Falkenberg's motion to exclude evidence and testimony regarding dismemberment. He tried to get the photos and also them to not.
Let's not mention that she didn't have hands or feet or a head let's just keep that out of this they found the body let's just leave it at that has nothing to do with this man that's the thing has nothing to fucking do with it they said whether the court's restitution order violated falkenberg's due process rights and separation of powers doctrine now i don't think it did that But speaking of Sarah Boone, one of the things I found very interesting when they sentenced her to life in prison, by the way, the state actually, because there's automatically all these restitution charges, the judge said, I'm going to go ahead and probably think the prosecution agrees with this and I'm going to go ahead and get rid of all of those. she's going to prison forever she can't pay anything back there's nothing to do right so yeah rather than take her ramen noodles or something like that they usually in an apartment usually when you get life in prison they will wipe the restitution away because unless you're like a person who has a big war chest of money which how many murderers have that so not as long so yeah exactly they usually fucking OJ would have had some cash they could have dealt with but other than that it wouldn't have worked so he says that the prosecutor at trial focused on the dismemberment even though it occurred in a different state and after the victim was dead so what I don't give a fuck if it happened on mars a year from now you cut a lady's head off that's why to cut your girlfriend's head off is a certain the only reason it was in another state was because it was a place he was familiar with otherwise if it would if that boundary that geography geographical boundary had been in visible line it would have been there anyway Yeah, it's.
He drove her over there. It's different.
Everybody would just kill someone and go do something somewhere else then. That's not how you do that shit.
He said that they kept using the words cut, chop, sever, amputate, decapitate, dismember. Yeah.
Good vocabulary. They got the thesaurus out and fucking went to town.
Those are the things that happened. Yep.
Went through the thesaurus and really worked it out. So they said that this catches the attention of people when it's being used throughout the trial.
It's all they think about. He said words that by their very utterance elicit a visceral emotional reaction in a listener.
Sure. Sure.
You know how he could have avoided that was not dismember a human being you could just leave her head attached to her those things happening to anybody makes us fearful yeah nobody wants that to happen to them he's like can you believe they're calling me out on this shit what the fuck she was dead she didn't feel it wow his lawyer admits that falkenberg caused his girlfriend's death in Yankton County and that he took her body to his family's farm in Michigan, where he then cut off her head, hands, and feet before dumping her in a creek. Okay.
So we don't know. There's pigs on that farm.
Those head, hands, and feet could be long gone. You know what I mean? Oh, boy.
But this guy also, the lawyer also said that Falkenberg pushed the victim during an argument and she hit the wall and died. These circumstances might add up to manslaughter, but not second degree murder.
He said that the state emphasized the dismemberment that occurred days later in a different jurisdiction. And by doing so, indicated Falkenberg had a depraved mind, an element of second degree murder.
You'd have to have some kind of depraved something to dismember your girlfriend that's a lot yeah after there was there was blood spilled in the apartment they found a splash so he he hit her he hit her head really fucking hard with the theory is he punched her so fucking hard he killed her in one shot he fucking punched her because that's the one punch thing so he said it's probably one shot hit her so fucking hard i mean he can pound nails in with his hands yeah hit her so hard she's a little petite woman probably broke her skull probably wow fucking killed her very easy to kill someone with a punch if you're if you're big and someone small you know yeah i saw a brain smasher there you go clay, didn't it? Yes. I do.
That scene of the little Asian man with the fist imprint in his eyes. Oh, God, yeah.
That was funny. So prosecutors say that Falkenberg did give his victim more than a shove.
The attorney general says the defendant shoved Tammy against the wall and punched her in the face so hard he fractured his hand in two places. He also says Falkenberg later told some people he had punched an icicle and others he fell on ice, but the prosecutor says that his broken fingers resembled a boxer's fracture.
His injury was most consistent with a strike to the chin, cheekbone, or eye socket, is what the doctor said, quote quote unquote they said later in the same day he

loaded up the body into a truck and drove 600 miles part of the time in a blizzard to get to michigan that's what happened that's how she froze that's how she froze yeah in a blizzard god damn he only stopped at the hotel because it was so shitty out it was icy and shitty so he's like i'll just have a hot tub soak.

I'll have a hot tub and some dominoes.

Wow.

They... and shitty.
So he's like, I'll just have a hot tub soak. I'll have a hot tub and a domino.
And some dominoes. Wow.
They say that his actions were a continuous course of conduct and his attempt to conceal his crimes indicates he had a guilty conscience. Now, the depraved mind thing, he's charged with the second degree murder.
The statute is this. Homicide is murder in the second degree if perpetrated by an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind without regard for human life, although without any predetermined design or premeditated design to affect the death of any particular person, including an unborn child.
They say in order to successfully prosecute a suspect for murder under this statute, the prosecution must prove that the defendant's conduct established that he was acting with a depraved mind. This means involves less culpability than the element of premeditation required for first degree murder.
Falkenberg intends that there's insufficient evidence exists to support the jury's verdict that he killed Tamara with a depraved mind. Yeah, he said that he asserts that the post-mortem acts such as dismemberment were used to retroactively establish an act evincing a depraved mind and therefore the state's theory has no support in the record.
He's like, if I cut her head off with a power saw to kill her, that would be problem that's what he thinks later on it was just dumping her man yeah that's not a depraved mind but they're saying just because he waited a couple days doesn't mean it's not one continuous act yeah he did it as soon as he could he just could he had to get there first to go back to the body and do worse is worse it's, worse. It's fucking worse.
Absolutely. It's way worse to do that.
To do more? God damn, man. Holy fucking shit.
That's crazy. In Falkenberg's view, his conviction hinged on exploiting the dismemberment.
You don't really have to exploit dismemberment. It's right there.
It's dumb. And the jury was encouraged to conclude that anyone who could dismember a body despite such an act indisputably occurring post-mortem days later without any connection to the cause of death must have had a depraved mind.
Further, Falkenberg argues that the state's theory that Falkenberg struck Tamar in the head hard enough to kill her in one blow did not rise to the act of evincing a depraved mind. Or the level of that.
So, yeah, that wouldn't. But then when you add in dismemberment, I think that's pretty depraved.
I don't know what else to fucking call it. Super fucked up.
Yeah, they said if a person is able to act with a lack of regard for the life of another, then that person can be convicted of second-degree murder. They said that the court instructed the jury in this other case, that's precedent, that dangerous to others as often as used in the crime of second-degree murder meant as an act which was inherently dangerous that puts the lives of others in jeopardy, you know, like punching a small woman in the face.
The jury was further informed that in evaluating the evidence of depravity, it could consider not only the conduct itself, but the circumstances

of its commission.

They said the state relies on the direct and circumstantial evidence that Falkenberg

struck the fatal blow to Tamara's body without regard for her life.

Falkenberg was six feet tall, physically powerful construction worker with hands so strong

he used them as a hammer.

So it says in the fucking thing, literally.

Tamara was a small, petite woman. Falkenberg admitted to his children that he pushed her and knew right away she was dead he's he lennyed her totally this is like that's what his story is i i threw a lenny at her like that's crazy we previously observed in another case here cited by falconberg that a father's blows to the body or shaking that eventually of it purportedly to conceal her identity, the state argued that he did so to hide the evidence of his crime and the exact mechanism of the fatal blow.

They're saying you he could have beaten her head repeatedly till it was fucking jelly and then cut the head off.

So we didn't know that.

And that doesn't mean that that's not what happened, though.

You know what I mean?

He he cut.

You can't hide evidence and then use that as an excuse why there's no evidence because you hit it.

So they said the state presented abundant evidence regarding the nature and timing of the hand injury that should link those things together. You know, the convenience store owner, everybody, him signing shit and everything like that.
Also, his truck, having his truck bed covered when it was usually uncovered at that exact moment. So they said that they talk about the doctor saying that the jury could also consider Falkenberg's inconsistent explanations for his hand injury as possibly a lie and that he might have done it punching somebody.
although Falkenberg contends the state used his post-mortem acts to retroactively establish

he killed Tamara with a depraved mind his actions in dismembering her body and disposing of her head

were relevant not only to show how he killed her but how also his resulting consciousness of guilt after the fatal blow talking about a 600 fucking mile journey and all that kind of shit um they said they were you know talking about uh the photographs of everything like that then they talk about him talking about weird stuff happening happening in Michigan that was not good for him at all. And all that kind of shit.
Telling his kids that the cutting tools were gone. You know, all this murder cover-up shit.
The evidence of Falkenberg's efforts to conceal Tamara's identity and to permanently dispose of her head, hands, and feet were highly relevant.

Her missing body parts could have provided valuable clues to the cause of her death

and Falkenberg's role in causing it.

Because neither doctors could determine

the exact manner in which she was killed,

the dismemberment evidence was relevant

to prove the state's theory

that Tamara was killed on March 1st

by a blow to her now missing head,

which is just a funny line.

Sad, but funny, just for some reason. That's in a court document somewhere.
That's to her now missing head. So they said that, you know, he's got all this physical prowess.
The dismemberment evidence was also relevant to show how the perpetrator of the crime attempted to conceal the identity of Tamara's body before disposing of it when he admitted to his daughter after she said, what's with the cutting situation? Which is still the strangest thing anyone's ever fucking asked their father. The evidence was relevant here about the tool marks to show that it could have been someone familiar with power tools.
That's why they, as he said, it was superfluous to show them these closeups of striations and shit. Like it was a power tool, but they said it's someone that knows power tools and has power tools you're a contractor yeah you know and have power tools yeah you don't just i mean i know you can pound nails in with your hands but that's not how you cut wood you don't just karate chop it and it fucking breaks into the exact measurement you want it to be i don't think so they said that a contractor with his experience, ability, and strength could make such cuts.

And they also used the frozen body thing that they talked about. They said in one area, in one photograph the doctor referenced, he testified the skin on the body had a purplish area, which is known as marbling or liver mortis.
and he explained that this depicted,

that this which is depicted in the photo

is evidence of early decomposition,

which is helpful in determining time of death. And it also shows that lividity set in before he moved her.
Okay, yeah. Because she wasn't frozen.
Plus, I think it would have taken longer to freeze a human body than it takes for lividity to start to happen. So you'd have to put them in, I don't even know how cold.
Liquid hydrogen. I would have to be.
Yeah. Seven other photographs involved images of the different tattoos used to identify her body.
So they said that providing an overview of the location of the identifying tattoos in the straight lines where her head, feet and hands were severed. Justices will consider the arguments here and find out if he gets a new trial.
Now, his new trial is denied, but the state Supreme Court found that a restitution order covering future costs for the victim's family was not appropriate. Restitution means I'm paying you back, not I'm paying in the forward that's what they're saying they said there's a reason why it's called restitution and in the law you have to look up legal definitions and that is not i'll pay you later for some shit you haven't done yet there's no child support to be paid exactly yeah so the justices demanded that that decision for a restitution hearing in a new order, they said, well, compensation for prospective counseling and medical costs may be appropriate and necessary in cases involving significant harm to victims and their families.

The state's request for reimbursement for certain identified expenses submitted to and awarded by the commission board no relationship to the circuit court's award of up to $15,000 in reimbursement to the fund.

So you don't have to pay that shit back. They gave him a gift card to run up a bill on this guy.
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. So he doesn't have to pay restitution beyond the regular restitution, which unless he's got an estate or something like that, I don't know how the hell you pay $15,000 ever in jail.
They make like 12 cents an hour in there, literally. You work days to make a Snickers bar.
So it's not... I don't know how they expect any money out of these people, but like I said, Sarah Boone, they waived it.
They said, obviously, you're not going to pay that. If you did have that money, you'd just buy all the Woodbridge in the world.
So what's the point here? So anyway, that is Yankton, South Dakota. Golly.
Just a fucked up weird situation with strange. Everything's gross.
Yeah, it's so weird because going into the story, like you would imagine that, oh, Tamarook might end up being a murderer here. She's erratic.
She's this, she's you're like oh mr nice guy murdered her that's weird what the fuck here yeah and he's the violence death threats face yeah yeah it's his face is fucked up man golly i've seen it it's not good man no he's he looks like he looks like if sloth fucked sammy hagar that's the kid they'd have his wild hair is hilarious it's crazy he's got crazy hair he's all fucked up or he's like a sloth version of cody from sister wives one of the two fucking weird as shit hair that's fucking incredible his hair is great yeah he's it's so funny it looks like the hair It looks like the hair that goes with the visor wig. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
The visor and the hair. But there's no visor.
It's just the hair. No visor.
Just the hair. He's a wild-looking cat.
People are going to want to see that picture on social media. It's amazing.
So definitely follow us on social media. You can do that at Small Town Murder on Instagram, Small Town Pod on Facebook.
You should do that as well as head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com, and you should get your tickets for live shows that are not only the last two of this year in Boston and Tarrytown, New York, which Tarrytown we're filming. Get your Shut Up and Give Me Murder herd, everybody.
Get in there and buy those last few tickets. Not only there, but when the new tickets come out within this month, month as they're going to new tickets for 2025 all cities we couldn't get to this year so places everybody's been asking us to go that we're like we're going to be there next year we will be there next year in a couple places we've never been before that i'm kind of excited about so that's going to be a lot of fun can't wait shut up and give me murder.com um yeah that's it to sell us tickets and also merchandise on there you definitely want to get patreon yeah there it is you need patreon is what you need first of all listen to crime and sports and listen to your stupid opinions and when you're done with all that get patreon too patreon.com slash crime in sports and i gotta i guess i should spell it out every once in a while p-a-t-r-O-N dot com slash crime in sports.
Not on sports, not and sports. Crime in sports.
And you can get anybody $5 a month or above can get a giant ass load of bonus episodes back catalog. Hundreds and hundreds that you're going to get immediately.
And then also new ones every other week. One crime in sports and one small town murder.

And you get it all for one low price.

This week we're going to talk about for crime in sports.

We're going to talk about a United Kingdom soccer sexual abuse scandal that is pretty gross.

Think, you know, Penn State, Sandusky overseas.

Vile.

Yeah, vile English Sanduskys.

And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about the lifestyle involved in the cult baby murder trial. We're talking about finding young ladies who ran away from home at bus stops and recruiting them to marry you and other women so you can have polygamist relationships and you can drink your own pee every day.
It's fucking weird. I'm not even even kidding they explain why you should drink your own pee and use weird medical devices and shit like that it's goddamn weird we'll talk all about that patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get that i didn't get a shout out at the end of the show which by the way happens right now jimmy hit me with the names of the people who would never accidentally kill us and then dismember us they would be nice enough to just leave us where we lay hit me with the names of the people who would never accidentally kill us and then dismember us.

They would be nice enough to just leave us where we lay.

Hit me with the names of those people right fucking now. This week's executive producers are Nikki Aus, Elena Zemel, and her pup Sammy.

She lost Sammy, the poor pup.

17, that's a good run.

Damn good run.

Oh, that's a good run.

Gary Howard, Amy Barton, Amber Drewsnup, Deusnup.

Annette Hollywood, Eleanor Consolo, Adam Brewer's brother-in-law, Lucas. Happy birthday, Lucas.
And also Stella. You guys are amazing.
We can't do this without you. Polish your balls.
I love you to death. You're the best.
Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, Liz Vasquez, Rachel Trevathan, Janice Hill, Don and Deanna in Minnesota. Melissa with no last name.
Justinian Wilsonian 420. Tracy with no last name.
Eric Wright, Glennie Redd, Todd Usher, Quentin Binkley, Cameron Hughes, Tasha Yarborough, Nick Frickano. Frickano.
Frickano. Not going to work here.
Emily would know last name. Les Mosillo.
Mosillo. Morselo.
Christine Schultz. Anthony Cicillone.
Cicillone. Cicillone.
Cicillone, right? I don't know. Casey Rath.
Christopher Nicholas. Quaid Palm.
M. West.
Maxine Kroll, Jacob Petretta, Maria Cook, Tiffany Gonzalez, Learning DD7767YU. Why would you do that to me? Taylor Stansberry, Bradley Egler, Tyler Wilmoth, Mandy Lowe, BB, the letters B and B, Sarah Rucci, Mariela with no last name, Christopher Sullivan, Dawn with no last name, Michelle Jackson, Chris Elliott, Meg with no last name, Leslie Lawless, Lori Bailey, W.E.
Nobles, We Nobles, I don't know, Lexi with no last name, Jackie with no last name, Claire with no last name, Jennifer Mills, Christian, Dutchman would know a last name. It's Betty Bish.
Oh, Betty Bish, whoever that is. E.S.
Showjumping. Perhaps S.
Showjumping. Is showjumping in Espanol.
I don't know. Karen.
Oh, maybe. Karen Thomas.
Let's listen to different Spanish programs. Jared Parnell.
Gay Ass Ben. Jabriel Monk, Jabriel? Yabriel, maybe.
Ray Trevathan, Tommy Silcox, Kate Davis, Skip Hayford, Kiana Jackson, Cynthia R., Jeremy Clotier, Kristen Sanchez, Emily Ranger, Jason Cohen, Chelsea Shoemaker, Lamarwin, Lamarwin Critey, Crit, maybe? Lamarwin, that's a cool name. Lamarwin, I've never heard that.
That's a mash. All right.
Nadia Richards, Ontic, O-N-T-I-C. Ontic, I don't know.
The Pipe-Wielding Dude, 86. The Science Walrus, Bethany LaFontaine, Wendy Dee, Sarah Coville, Rusty with no last name, Susan Wheeler, Jillian Arena, Jacqueline Yulfertz.
That's a fascinating way to speak Jacqueline. Heather Rush, Catherine.
Oh, it's Karen. Karen Hamrock.
Courtney. All right.
Courtney Sullivan. This is really difficult.
Ellis. Ellis McNeil.
I swear it's hard. Eric Seifert.
Rodolfo Flores. Cody would know the last name.
Isabel Francini. Daniel Lindsay.
Rebecca Reardon. Laura would know the last name.
Dina Sanders. Oh, boy.
RJ. A-H-R-J.
Elena Toml Emily, Emily Foles, Ruben Kessler, the Cuban wrestler, Kenneth Dobney, Jeggen, Jeggen. Is this Jen? J E G H N.
Is that, that's Jen Starwitz, right? Uh, Audra Colston, who knows? Uh, Pam Bennett, KB Stallings, uh, Jenna Lewis, Daryl Berry, uh, Nick, Scott Berryman, Michael Walutz, Alicia with no last name, Jace with no last name, Janae Fraley, perhaps Ace's daughter, Darren Jenkins, John Roberts, Scott with no last name, Aaron Schaefer, Dylan Nielsen, Douglas Woodson, Laura Ann Tim, Michelle O'Donnell, Erica Moreno, Cheyenne Hobbs, Me S., I think, Lauren Archer, Todd Horse Cochran. Yep.
Todd Horse Cochran? Horse Cochran. Got it.
Immediately. Hold on, Todd, you son of a bitch.
Gina Miller, the Duff, Rebecca Boullier, Danielle W., Warren McDonald, Jamie Becker, Benedict Cartson, Angela Connor, Kelsey with no last name, Joe Becerra, Cynthia Pasquale, the Bedola family, Brenda Wegner, Jenny Jones, Krista Leslie. Nope.
Krista Lalee, like Ashley that played for the Broncos. Owen Eads.
Emily Betts. Brooke Horn.
Adam Wright. Donna Sweeney.
Paula Thomas. Lucy with no last name.
TJ Mooney. Monty White.
Candice Donahue. Donahue, maybe.
Jesse Alicio, Shaley Brooke, and Amber Blakely and all of our patrons. You guys are the best.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much, everybody.
Thank you so much. We appreciate all that you do for us on a goddamn daily basis.
You guys are the fucking best and you're always there for us. Thank you so much.
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Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan.
This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world.
And the suspect. He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione.
Became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was targeted, premeditated, and meant to sow terror.
I'm Jesse Weber, host of Luigi, produced by Law and Crime and Twist. This is more than a true crime investigation.
We explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue.
Finally, maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our health care system. Listen to Law and Crimes Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus.

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