Transcribe your podcast
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Hey, Weirdo's, I'm Olina, I'm Bob. This is morbid. Many, many, many, many, many more dead, many more, but many, many more proud.

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Just kidding.

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It's a and it's a many morbid. But again. But it's not. Those are a thing of the past. We're just using the intro music because some of you like it.

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So if you don't like it, I have a personal qualm with that. So I don't know if you notice, I composed that she did actually. Sure. That one day she composed it. She recorded it. I am so overtired, right? Yeah. It's it's been quite a couple of weeks.

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We've been very, very busy and I'm like slaphappy as fuck right now. Yeah.

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It's just been a lot going on. And then my dog Bailey has been going through a lot of stuff. She's having a couple of procedures done because she's an old lady.

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If she she's going blind and she's gone blind, really. So we're having surgery on one of her eyes soon. So it's just been like back and forth at the vet's a million times.

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You had to take her to the dentist to take her to the dentist far away. It's it's been a time we had to travel in the village to get there. We did. It was a journey. It was a lot. It was. But we got a piece of pizza, a piece of. But yeah.

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So it's just been a lot, you know, personally and a lot professionally has been going on. And it's all good stuff. It's just very busy. Yeah. So that's why we are going to be doing a Lori Barlow update.

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We just we just got to squeeze it in somewhere and it's just it'll it'll get in there and does it. It's like that baby toy where they like the baby has the square and they're just trying to jam it in the triangle place. Like that's not where. No, you're like, where does it fit? And then you find out there is no there is little sprinkles. That's what it is. Yeah. It was so full metaphore so deep. You're welcome.

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Like an ocean. No, I think it's good. It'll come out next week. Yeah. There's a I promise you it's coming out next week. We're not going to commit to a day because when we do that we get in trouble. Yeah.

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Lord knows there's just too much going on for us to commit to a day because you're getting your that's an extra episode. I was going to say you're still getting so you're still getting your two episodes. Don't worry. We're not being like, oh, we're just going to fluff away a second episode. No, you're still getting the scheduled episodes. That one is just kind of just fabulous.

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Pop in and say, howdy, neighbor. It's going to be like, hello, I'm here to ruin your day with terrible details about child deaths. Good day. So we'll be ready for that. And we are finally out part three of the ash centric episode that everyone has been waiting for, including me also.

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Thank you so much to the people that said I got better at my research that made me feel warm and my tummy. It did. It made her feel really good. And it's true. Yeah. You're killing it. Thank you so much. And we're all just hanging at the edge of our seats. So let's just do this, OK? Let's do it. First of all, I'd like to say that I cried doing this last part. Yeah.

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This part is going to be the bad part. It's the bad part.

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And also so I just want to shout it out one more time. The book, Double Jeopardy by Bob Hill actually posted it on the morbid Instagram today, and I'll put it in the show notes. If you haven't read that, like when you're finished listening to this, you gotta go read it because there's like what I say and then there's way more that, like, I just cannot get into everything. But he goes like so deep into, like what actually happened.

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And it's it made me actually cry.

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It's a good thing you didn't go too deep. Yeah. Oh no. I'd cry podcast. And like we all know, I've done that way to the time.

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So so when we left off last time, Maryann was heading to the ice cream shop to meet Michelle and she was going to try to get him to talk about what happened to Brenda. And she was wired, right. She was wired.

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And the FBI was like waiting to hop on Mel and be like, you're arrested, you're a bad guy. You're a real bad guy, a bad do you know what? If I was the FBI guy, I would knock his fucking mint chocolate chip out of his hand so quick. Me, too. And, you know, ice cream is a running theme in this. And we'll get to that later. And I love ice cream. Oh, me too.

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So did Mel. Oh, no.

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Well, so they reminded that, you know, the FBI reminded, you know, Euphorbia, the FSB.

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They reminded Marijan to try to say Brenda's name while she was in the car with Mel and also mentioned the place where Brenda was buried. She was like there. They were like, tell Mel that you're worried because the land where we buried Brenda, she would like they wanted her to tell him that it was purchased and that they were going to be building something over it and Brenda's body was going to be discovered.

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Oh, OK. Now she's supposed to act like, oh, shit, Mel, they're going to find the body. Now, that's not true. Like they weren't planning on building anything, but that's just a good way to trap him, a good way to trap him. And Marion's boyfriend, his name was Butch Enlow. Of course it was. Yeah. I would expect nothing less. Nothing, nothing less. And Butchie Boy was like connected with the town because he was a volunteer fireman at one point and he was just connected.

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He knew everything that. Was happening, so if Mel had asked her, like, how the fuck do you know that they're planning on building something, that she'd be like, Well, Butch, she'd be like, well, bookable. I said, so it was Butch. That's what happened. Now, all she had to do was say Brenda's name and mention the land that they had both buried her and it would have been a slam dunk. The funk great five reference.

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You're welcome. We need to we need to get a slam dunk the funk reference like every other effort. We need to make that like a like a sound board effect. It really needs to be apparently, you know, those kids in class who just like don't follow directions, no matter how many times the teacher is, like, cut along the dotted line. Sure do. And they, like, cut like a snowflake. And you're like, well, cool, but no, but that's not what I asked you to maryanne's that kid except like doesn't do the snowflake.

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She just like fucks the whole thing up. She just murders someone, correct. Yeah. And she, she murdered somebody and she fucks everything up so she gets in the car with Mel and this conversation lasted 13 minutes. She again remember in the first time at the apartment, she never said Brenda's name on a phone call in this 13 minute conversation where all they instructed her to do was say the name and the gravesite. She didn't say Brenda's name once.

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Not one fucking time. Come on.

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And so, OK, so the conversation last 13 minutes, she never says Brenda's name and she never mentions an actual gravesite. She said that she she tells the she I'm like, so she bought so much. She tells Mel, your motion is here. I know I'm I'm OK. She tells Mel that the FBI knew what was going on. They were closing in on her and they asked her to take a lie detector test. And that's when Mel was like, what the fuck?

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Like, no, you can't take any test.

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They can't make you like, no way.

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Little did he know she had already taken it and like, failed with flying colors. Yeah, absolutely. Full of first after. So he's like trying to tell her that she's a fucking idiot. She needs to follow his lead and just outsmart them by being smug as hell like he does just be like Mel to just mess it up. And he was like, you know what, Mary? And this is all a game. And like, you just have to learn how to play the game.

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He didn't really say that. But that's like basically what he was saying. I want to punch him. I want to dick punch him.

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So after Mel's monologue about how good he was at playing the FBI game and how he started, like how Marianne had to start doing it like he did, Marianne moved on to the point of the property being sold. Instead of saying the grave like she was supposed to, she said, well, you know, like the property has been sold. Right. That could be any fucking literally anything like that.

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Could be the Hilliard's down the street or the big guy over there or like Farmer Joe's Hut Stand. That's the most innocuous thing you could ever say. It means nothing, literally nothing. But again, Mel treated her like an idiot and he was like, you know, they're not going to be doing anything right away because bad weather is coming. And even if they did, they probably were just going to put like a parking lot over it and they wouldn't have to clear the land too much.

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So honestly, it would just be, unfortunately, burying Brenda more. Yeah, it would be easier for them. Exactly. I mean, again, they weren't doing anything right now. He then said something along the lines of and I quote that police we dug is not is not shallow, so don't let it get you rattled. Besides that one area by where the safest does not have any trees by it. The trees are down, if you remember.

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So it's not a big deal. If worse comes to worse and something needs to be done, I'll handle it. OK, so go find those downed trees, yup, go find downed trees, and he definitely said, well, so they thought that he said dug. But the issue was the recording wasn't super clear and there would be a big debate on whether he said the place we dug or the place we got because it wasn't clear enough. And then the other debate over whether he said the area by the safe or the area by the site.

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Oh, because it just wasn't clear enough. So now people like we're like a safe like what's safe. So it wasn't a safe.

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So the investigators had been superexcited prior to this. And all Marion had to do, like I said, was just I Bernardo's name and have them confirm that they buried her. And obviously that didn't happen. And now there was going to be this long, ongoing debate about what was actually said in the recording. So either way, there was not enough to arrest Mel right down in there. And they were really bummed because that's what they had originally hoped for.

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Yeah.

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So in the meantime, they were searching the area where Marianne said that she and Mel went out a week or so before killing Brenda to dig Brenda's grave.

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Oh, my God. And then that's where on September 24th, after they tortured and killed her, that's where they placed their her body and the clothing. So they also had people talking to Marianne to get more and more of an idea of what happened to Brenda.

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And she gave them full fucking details. Oh, boy. Now, we've briefly kind of mentioned what happened to Brenda, but I haven't gone into anything in complete detail. So this is a trigger warning. It does involve rape, if that's not something you want to hear about. Fast forward a little bit.

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A little bit. A little bit.

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The Strawberry Peach smoothies. Awesome.

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So on the night that Brenda was murdered, Mel had told her that he wanted to take her to a friend to get some of her jewelry appraised. Now, I don't know if that's the truth, because you would think that if she was going to break up with him, she wouldn't go with him to do that. Yeah, or so who knows what the actual story is?

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Because we're also going we're relying on what Marijana say. Right. But one way or another, he got her to Marion's house, OK? Because that friend was not a jewelry expert at all, but it was Maryann who was waiting as they had already planned. The plan had been set into motion in the weeks and even months prior. Her back door was already locked. And as soon as Brenda and Mel came inside the door behind, Brenda was locked, too.

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So she was completely trapped in there. Now, Mel had a checklist and a camera ready to go. He controlled the list and Marianne controlled the camera. He explained to Brenda that this was a sex therapy class for her to get better at things like this. And obviously, Brenda was mortified and stood up to go home. And he was like, nope, like, you're not going anywhere. We're going to go through the checklist because he literally had a checklist of things that he was going to do to her.

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And he was like, when I get to the end of it, you can go home.

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That is, I can't even know part of my brain can put myself in that position.

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Well, it just doesn't even sound real. It does it like I'm trying to think of how horrible that like how terrifying that would be in my brain. Won't even let me conjure.

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And it's like you go to meet him and this list is in his pocket the whole time. And there's like a camera there and he's like, OK, and then the scary Marion lady.

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And you're like, because if you see Marianne. Yeah. If she was standing in front of me with a camera and this guy is talking about a list of things they're going to do, I'd be like, oh, this is this is brutal and horrific.

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So Mel must have got a hold of her and told her she was she'd be able to go home later, but he was going to get his list of things done. Oh, so first he had her like stand up and he took photos of her while she had her clothes on, straight on, then left, then right. Almost like a mug shot. What the fuck? Then he had her take her clothes off and he also had her remove her jewelry at this point.

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And he took the same photos of her and just her undergarments. He had her pose for one photo with her hands behind your head.

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And then this is where it gets like absolutely horrific. Oh, when you finish taking those pictures, he had her kneel in front of Marianne's glass coffee table, the one that she still had in her apartment when investigators had questioned her.

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And these investigators had even eaten off this table while setting up the sting operation without knowing that this was the fucking table. Oh, so he had her kneel in front of that table and then he tied her arms to the legs of the table on either side.

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Oh, no. And it gets really. Oh, no. He then sodomized her both himself and then with a vibrating massager, which he had that had already been at Marianne's house because he already set it up and like he had like a bag of shit ready, of course.

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And he used k y jelly on that. I know that's a weird detail to include, but it comes back up later. OK, Marianne was taking pictures that Mel wanted the entire time. He was like instructing her what to take pictures of. He wanted close ups of the abuse itself, close ups of Brenda's face. Oh. And he told Brenda that he was going to show these to like her attorneys and like people like high profile people that she knew what the fuck.

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Meanwhile, he knew that. So he was just insinuating fear because it's not at all.

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He knew the whole time he was going, he was like, you're not leaving here. He let Brenda use the bathroom. After forty five minutes of being tied to that coffee table before he moved on to the next phase of the torture, he let her go to the bathroom, but Marianne had to go with her and she imagined being Marianne.

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Can you imagine being that level of a human being that you were like, I'm going to participate in this like one degradation of this innocent woman?

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I have to wonder if she had more involvement than she said she did because she obviously is going to try to paint herself like the least as I'm I was scared.

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And I just want to like you made me do it on this. Honestly, that goes along with what our other case is going to be this week, Dr. Henley and Ian Brady case, because Meira tries to pretend she's like this innocent flower. Yeah. And these kind of people, woman or man, who does that. And it's like I was scared of my partner and that's why I did it. Fuck off. You are participating in that kind of shit.

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Yeah. You're fucked up. No, there's something wrong with. Well, there's people like I think of like the toybox killer. Yeah. Like that girl was fucking terrified for her life, but somehow she managed to escape. Exactly. And it's like she was like completely naked and bound and it's like you were just standing in your kitchen, like waiting for this to be over. You could have walked out the back door and gotten help at any fucking point.

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We're talking about Marianne. Yeah, that's what I mean, Marianne. It's like, are you kidding? Like Mary? And at any point, could have is her house, it's her house, you could run out that back door or and go get help and be like something some shit is going on in my house. I didn't know this was going to happen.

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Somebody get the police and instead you sat there or before anything happened, she could have told anybody that this was going to happen any time. And a sting operation could have been set up way before I had even died.

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Or when she's bringing Brenda into the bathroom, they could have sat there and been like, what are we going to do? You get them from the left, I get them from the right. We're going to take this fucker down together. She could have done that, but she did. She did it because she wants to act. She was part of it. She wants to act like she was so afraid of. Melinde, I'm sure to a degree she was afraid of him.

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The word cool. He's a scary guy.

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Also, she was in love with him when she wanted to be with him. And Brenda was in the way. Yeah. This what she was happy to do this to Brenda. Absolutely. So she sat there wiping her tears like an angel.

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And then after that they went to the bedroom where Mel tied Brenda into multiple positions, raping her, sodomizing her. He forced her to perform fellatio.

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Marianne was apparently involved at one point physically under Mel's instruction, quote unquote. And she also used the paddle that Mel had previously brought over to strike Brenda in the back side with Mike, like over and over again.

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But it was brief, of course, and then she just went back to taking pictures. According to her, that's always the situation.

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It was always I was only I only did it for a minute and then I didn't like it and I really didn't like it at all. It's like, OK, we totally believe that now.

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So then she said that she needed to go to the kitchen at one point to calm down and have a glass of water.

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And also it's like, I'm sorry, you need to calm down and have a glass of water or you need to hydrate. How about Brenda?

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OK, ok, ok. You need to calm down. Can totally take your time. And so she said that when she was having her nice, refreshing glass of water that she heard things quiet down. And Mel finally came into the kitchen and told her that he used chloroform, that he came prepared with days earlier to smother Brenda with.

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He said Brenda didn't suffer. She died peacefully.

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Oh, she didn't suffer. She didn't suffer. Cool. Like, OK.

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Yeah, I saw no I heard no suffering in that. No, nothing at all. Not at all. Then he went back to the bedroom and he tied her. He retired her in a different position.

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That was like almost like the fetal position, her excuse me, her knees were pressed against her face and her feet were touching her bottom and her hands were tied by her ankles.

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So she was essentially like a hog tied almost. Yeah, pretty much.

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And she was like completely like contorted. He wrapped her and multiple trash bags and wraps up around them. And Marianne said he ripped the tape off with his teeth, which I feel like if you picture that for a second, it just adds for some reason to like the horror. It's like animalistic. It is. And you can picture him in a rage, just like ripping it off with his teeth like any left you on that.

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So I didn't leave DNA probably everywhere, but.

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Well, I don't know.

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So then they put her clothing because remember, she had just like strip right away. They put her clothing in a separate set of trash bags and they carried both bags out to the grave that, again, they had pre dug. And when they came back, went out to Brenda's car, he sliced a small cut in that rear tire. He put a nail in there and he told Marion to follow him out to the highway, follow me out to the interstate.

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I'm going to I think he drove it until I get wouldn't drive anymore because it was the tire was getting bad. Yeah. Left it got Marion's car. Marion dropped him off at his mom's house, which was like his house.

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And he was like, man at home. Why? And then he also told Marion, Don't call me until I call you.

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Wow. So it's like, was it worth it, girl? Yeah. He doesn't sound like he's super. He's just not that into you.

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He don't love you. Oh, no.

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And also this I just think this fucking hilarious Mary thought that she was going to get Brenda's jewelry, but Mel took it with him.

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What if I thought I was going to get her jewelry, but I was so scared of him and I didn't want to participate at all. At all. Fuck right off. But that diamond ring and like, called Bruce. But I was going to get that, so I would literally go fuck yourself. That's I. And so not only did Mel take the jewelry with him, but he also took the film from the camera. Of course, there was three rolls of film, 112 photos in total.

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He he wanted to himself in twelve.

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Oh, we're going to talk about that later when we talk about Robert Rhodes. I'm Ben Rhodes.

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Robert Ben Rhodes. Yes. OK, I thought I was like, you were right. So Brenda's body was discovered at 156 pm on January 11th with the help of a cadaver dog named Bingo.

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Bingo. I feel like I wonder what he finds. It's really morbid, but morbid, but I wonder what he finds. Like people who like bingo. Oh, my God, imagine. And then I wrote in my notes and another dog. Named Maryanne Shaw because she was there, too, and I just felt like I needed to be said woof, woof, woof, you nasty, nasty twat lady. George Nichols was the medical examiner who did the autopsy on Brenda's body.

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And actually at the time he was going to start the autopsy, he got a call from his friend, Dr. Larry Lumin, who was the chief medical examiner in Oregon. Oregon.

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Yeah, in Oregon.

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And Larry and George both examined Brenda's body. Isn't that kind of crazy? I love when pathologists will tag team that happens a lot at a school because then you just get more eyes on things, right?

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So because Brenda's body had been buried for almost a year and a half at this point, Wolf, a year and a half, it was obviously very badly decomposed. Her facial features were gone unrecognizable. Her hair was gone. And I meant to look up how to say this, but you'll know at a Pocari, at a pieces.

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At a what now? The wax stuff like like illingworth.

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That case, because it's like adipose tissue that's turned into adipocere adipocere. Yes, you're right. I looked it up at like five o'clock this morning. You're right. You're right. So and that's what happened to Holly Illingworth case remember. Oh yeah. Yeah. So the lady in the lake. Yes, the lady in the lake. Yeah. I was trying to look it up this morning and it was like I was looking at the lady in the water and it was me and I was like really expensive and she looks very cinematic.

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Was like she's like beautiful but terrifying makeup on. I'm I'm confused. So Adipocere had turned her soft tissue into a fatty wax like texture, soap, soap. And that's not fun to to do an autopsy on because.

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No, it's not a lot you can get that meaning there was no DNA left.

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And if there had been, it was Gonzo Sonification Sonification, which now I kind of wonder actually, because I feel like the tape DNA, if he did rip it with his teeth, would that have gone away a year and a half later? I mean, maybe to me that was like, oh, right. Use this state, you know? I mean, he uses teeth.

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Maybe she was embellishing because there was nothing found to link no physical evidence. I mean, it's possible that it was gone by and. Yeah, because it was also a very moist area. Exactly. So it's like maybe you could get something, but maybe not. Yeah, you just never know.

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Anyways, there were a ton of ropes around Brenda's body to untie around her head, knees, wrists and stomach. Everything was tied and all of the ropes that were tied were like tied to each other. So like a rope around her neck was also connected to one on her wrist and one on her abdomen was also on her knee, you know what I mean?

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Yeah. So she wouldn't be able to stretch or move to do anything.

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And George, Nicole said that he had never seen a body tied with that many knots and not the murderer if he was this careful with his knots.

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This package obviously meant a lot to him. Oh.

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Which is like obviously it doesn't mean that, like, he loves Brenda so much. No. It just means like he was taking care to to make sure he did this. Right. Exactly.

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Gross. Brenda's autopsy, obviously, like I said, was so hard to do, they had to cut her hands off to see if they could send them out to a different lab. So that way they could get fingerprints. They had to soak her hands and then inject them with these chemicals and hopes to get a print. And that's a new thing that they that they've perfected now to they were able to get a print. So that helps confirm that it was her.

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But also dental records had to be able to because just she was so badly decomposed a year and a half in like a moist area.

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Yeah. And wrapped in a plastic bag, too. Yeah. And multiple plastic bags like. Horrible. So the cause of death ultimately was ruled a homicide. But like I said, so hard to determine, he couldn't really say what what killed her really. But it was of homicide. Yeah. They could tell homicidal nature. They look at how she was packaged and they're like, yeah, I don't think this was natural. And they did think that asphyxiation had something to do with it.

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So that makes sense during the autopsy.

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Then you wonder, like, are they, you know, she could be bullshitting and it's like, did they put her in that bag when she was still alive?

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It's actually so crazy that you say that because one of the jurors thought the same exact thing because he said he used chloroform.

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She get like that and that doesn't necessarily kill you. What if she woke up?

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She could have. Can you fucking imagine? No, the whole thing is a fucking nightmare.

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It's so crazy that you said that. I just wondered that one of the jurors thought that and he did say that he or Maryanne said that he waited for the police to go away.

[00:26:40]

But, yeah. Can I go away when you're unconscious or am I done? He's not a medical doctor, so he could have slowed. No, he's literally just an asshole. He could it could have slowed and he just didn't feel it. He could have been feeling the wrong spot. A lot of people think they know where the poll where there were a lot of people think they know where the poll was.

[00:26:57]

You know, I didn't have dental work done so. Physicists call them out, they want me to warn me about 20 enjoy, I know a lot of people think they know where the pulses and where to find it, but they're like right next to it.

[00:27:12]

And they'll be like, oh, shit, there's no pulse. And then you think you're dead. You're not and you're alive. Well, that's a horrible thought. Also, this is Bar Nannas and this is just like an unsolved during the autopsy. It was also noted that Brenda had recently had a full hysterectomy.

[00:27:30]

Wow. Strangely enough, her own gynecologist had not operated. Huh.

[00:27:36]

None of her friends and family knew anything about it and she hadn't taken any time off work once. And not a hysterectomy is like an insanely painful thing to recover. Having organs taken out of your ROOPI and tubes, your uterus. Yeah, everything like you're taking literally several organs out of your body.

[00:27:56]

That is a major surgery.

[00:27:57]

Nobody knew anything about it. And you have to have time to recover from that. Isn't that the weirdest thing you've ever heard? That's bizarre. The most bizarre. And he was like, no, like she doesn't have it. And oh, and he could see that the incision was like pretty fresh. So it was pretty recent. And her gynecologist looked like way back in her file in. And he also uses like, no, I know that we didn't do that.

[00:28:19]

I know I did not prepare her file one. No, wow, that's bizarre. And obviously, Mel's not a medical doctor. He did not perform a fucking hysterectomy. But it's just like what? So who did? And like, where did you what did you recover from that?

[00:28:35]

Yeah, that's strange. Just bizarre. Very strange. Well, Mel was arrested just a day before Brenda's body was discovered. And in the days following, he was indicted on charges of murder, kidnapping, sodomy, sexual abuse, robbery and tampering, tampering in, tamping it down and tampering with physical evidence.

[00:28:57]

Good. The state was seeking the death penalty by mail. Now, unfortunately, Marianne, whole face was only indicted on a charge of tampering with evidence because that is bullshit, a whole bunch of bullshit.

[00:29:10]

But she got like a Karla Homolka deal. Of course, she did the deal with the devil. The deal. That's what it's I figured out who said it.

[00:29:17]

I said it last time and I was like, I don't know. I don't said it. It was Ernie jazzmen. He was the prosecutor. And he was like, sometimes you just it was in his closing arguments. He was like, sometimes you just got to make a deal with a small devil to get the big devil.

[00:29:29]

And it's true. But she's not even a small devil. She's not. But I guess in this case, she was she's like a moderate sized devil. I think they're both Satan. So the child kept getting delayed because of things. This is bananas.

[00:29:42]

The tape of the ice cream shop discussion got leaked to the media.

[00:29:48]

How did that doesn't happen by like, that's no accident. So they what happened was, I guess in in trials like this, the prosecution and the defense have to put, like, what they're going to use in their arguments, like they have to, like, show the other person. Yeah, that's like it's called something. There's like discovery. It's just that's what it was. Discovery. It's called science called something. So they have to show them exactly what's going to be in there.

[00:30:16]

You can't you can't like you find somebody and everything has to be approved through the judges. Exactly. But but that's what happened. It got leaked through the discovery. Oh, but it's like the other lawyer didn't like the defense attorney. Obviously, he didn't leak it because why the fuck would he do that? I would not be good for him. And he was pissed. So the trial got delayed because of that.

[00:30:37]

But also people around Louisville or Louisville or no matter how I say, you're going to get mad at me.

[00:30:42]

So we were told we were told about six different ways to say Louisville and like so here you got ready, people around Louisville, Louisville, Louisville, Louisville and that place, Louisville Huvelle. Well, I hope that I hope that I've made you all you've covered. You've covered all the bases. So if I haven't, then I would never do another case from Louisville ever again.

[00:31:04]

Well, anyways, you we've covered all the bases. I think we're good. You all heard high fives. Louisville, we go together like a big mosh pit. We all we can slap everybody every different pronunciation. Hi, five boom. So you people, you people, people the entire thirteen minutes while you were driving around or watching the news and people were sure that Mel was guilty because.

[00:31:27]

Just because. He was because guilty, as guilty as charged? Well, I mean, he technically never implicated himself, but people are not stupid. Yeah. His lawyer, Charlie Ricketts, argued that Mel would never be able to get a fair trial in Louisville, Louisville, Louisville, the Ville. And they needed to they needed a change of venue. He was like, there's no fucking way that this is going to be a fair trial. And they were like Charlie, Rick.

[00:31:56]

And they were like, Charlie, remember when you were a reporter begging us to do this shit to the Charly's right? Charlie is a pain in my ass. He's right. He's a pain in the ass. But he's right. He's not wrong. The venue change was granted and the trial was moved to Kenton County. And I probably said that wrong, too, but I tried my best. It sounded good. Kenton Kenton. I pronounce the T's and everything.

[00:32:16]

I like it. Well, it was about an hour and a half northeast of Louisville, Louisville, the bill.

[00:32:22]

And it was a primarily white community. Now, I only mention the racial demographic because Ernie jazzmen my boy, who I talked about earlier, he was the state's prosecution thought back on the trial later. And he was like, I think my skin color, along with a few other things, obviously might have had something to do with the final verdict on this trial.

[00:32:43]

Oh, yes, Swingler alerts.

[00:32:51]

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I mean, also, I have like a lot more free time than you, but I don't think I don't see you playing on the DL like throughout the day. I see you. Oh yeah. When I bring Bailey to her 4000 vet appointments that we now have to bring her to, it's amazing because there's no wi fi.

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[00:34:55]

So the trial was again delayed when their star witness, Mary Anne Shaw. Are you ready? I'm ready. She developed Bell's Palsy, which is like what? Which actually Bell's palsy can be brought brought on by stress. I was going to say, I wonder why. Yeah, exactly. You have a whole lifetime of guilt holed up inside of you. And I think you have Bell's palsy forever, technically, don't you?

[00:35:18]

I mean, I don't that I think it goes away, but I can come back again, right? I'm sure it can. Yeah. Like you to back back. Back again. I think. I think it does go away though. Yeah. No, you will get like feeling and you know you'll be able to move. Yeah. It only lasts like a few weeks but I think once you have it you're like more susceptible to get it again.

[00:35:37]

That makes sense. Doesn't really matter in this case at all. So she develops Bell's palsy. And if you don't know that's a condition and it swells the muscles and nerves on one side of your face and it basically causes your face to just droop. It mimics a stroke symptoms. It does, and it causes your speech to be somewhat impaired.

[00:35:55]

Yeah, because it's like the muscles on one side of your face. Not completely.

[00:35:59]

You know, you can talk after all for good. Yeah. And people can understand you still. Oh well Marianne seem to be milkin. The symptoms acting as though she was barely able to speak.

[00:36:11]

She was having a hard time walking and she was covering her eye with an eye patch. Huh. Not Bell's palsy. Aske. Yeah, that seems that seems a little much. It seemed a little much. And if you think I'm wrong, I'm not, because a doctor later testified that he had seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of patients who had had Bell's palsy and their speech was never impaired enough to be anything other than perfectly understandable. And also that Bell's palsy would have no effect on your walk at all.

[00:36:40]

I was going to say that I was like, what now? I guess if you can't really see. But yeah, it could make you like. But she was walking like she was in pain, like she was like he was like, no, like it doesn't affect your legs or like anything in your legs at all. So it didn't give you a it was like he basically was like seems like she has something to gain from this. Seems a little shady.

[00:37:01]

Shady a bitch. If you listen to race, what she is a shady, but if you listen to race chaser, they have like this button and they just go to bitch. And it's like, you know what that is? It's Alaska and Willams podcast. OK, like help. Anyways, back to a true crime podcast. The trial did not begin until December 9th, 1991. In the meantime, this is super sad.

[00:37:24]

Both of Brenda's parents had passed away and so had Mel's mother is like everybody was just so stressed out.

[00:37:31]

Mel had left his share of the house to his mom so that he could avoid legal issues later down the road, which is just like all areas, because it actually led to a lot of legal issues. And it's also like your whole life is going to be one big legal issue like LOEL at the foreshadowing there.

[00:37:48]

My dad, my guy, my dad, Mudi. You should Dimel. It's very true. Just wait. Maryan had gotten married to her boyfriend, Butchie Boy Enlow. And somehow again, are you fucking ready for this jelly? No. She went on a fucking Caribbean cruise after she got married. And I don't even care if I just bursted your car speakers. She went on a Caribbean cruise. I have no words and got married like, OK, people get married in jail, whatever.

[00:38:19]

You know what you don't do in jail. Go on a Caribbean cruise. You really don't.

[00:38:23]

And Butch. Come on, Butch. Well, Butch was like Marion. I remember. Like I said, Marion was like this manipulative, scary ass. It's like Catherine Knight. Yeah. Yeah. They get these. She actually kind of looks like she does.

[00:38:36]

That's why I thought of it. Well, maybe she is Catherine the holy fuck.

[00:38:42]

We just crack this wide open. Distant cousins. It happened well but people remember that like and like had control over Butch and actually she was stayed with this lady that was like kind of a friend of hers during the trial. And then later on, the lady was like, we weren't friends.

[00:38:56]

And like once I found out the Truthy, I was like, no, thank you. She was like, bye bye. But she was like, Marion, love to see what she could get Butch to do for her. Like he was like a dog. Wow. So, I mean, it's always those kind of people that can, like, wrap people around there and you're like, wow.

[00:39:10]

Yeah, I know a couple of them.

[00:39:12]

So so she goes she goes on a Caribbean cruise, which is like, again, let that sink in. So much stuff happened before this trial and then the trial starting and the jury was made up of a lot of troublesome characters. Oh, no. There was one woman who already made up her mind that Mel was guilty before she'd even heard the entirety of the trial.

[00:39:34]

That's fine. Like same. But you can't be doing that on a jury and a jury. There was a guy who owed the IRS five grand and had been involved in a lawsuit with the state. Who affected his slip in there? I don't know. But if you're involved in any kind of like legal trouble with the state, you're not allowed on a jury in case you didn't know. You don't. And most of all, this is the biggest thing the jurors who, like, weren't super great were focused on the fact that Christmas was coming up and they wanted to be home for Christmas.

[00:40:04]

So they needed to get this verdict. Speedy, quick. We got a snap. SNAP. A Santa Santa Claus is coming at you. Let's get this guy in the chair and move on. Come on. It doesn't seem like that's what they wanted to do.

[00:40:16]

And I think that's why they rushed their decision. And I think the trial was not ready to go to trial yet. Like there were still things that needed to happen. But people were excited to get Mel behind bars. Yeah, the Christmas season was coming and everything was happening.

[00:40:31]

And actually, Ernie Jasmyn had worked on had worked with like another lawyer. And this lawyer was like off on paternity leave because his wife had just had a baby Jesus. And the and because the trial had been delayed so many times, the judge was like, nope, like, let's go away.

[00:40:48]

So it was just like everything coming together to make this the worst time and situation for a trial to happen. Fairly precise for anybody. For anybody, either side. Exactly. And Charlie Ricketts did a good job of making the state and even the FBI look like they had done a shitty fucking investigation. Charlie. Charlie, the reality was that they had done a bad investigation at all. There just wasn't a lot to go off of. They honestly had done a really great job with the information that they did have.

[00:41:19]

Like in part two, I talked about Mel's ex-wife. She was able to give like I think it was like a 12 page testimonial about what it was like being married to Mel. Oh, yeah. And then the FBI put together an extensive profile on what kind of guy Mel was based on that.

[00:41:33]

And like some other interviews kind of guy with the help of Rob Hazelwood, Hazelwood worked for the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI Academy at Quantico, and he was an expert on criminal sexual sadism.

[00:41:48]

Wow.

[00:41:49]

And look at you, Agent Holden. He had actually studied Robert Ben Rhodes is case there it is.

[00:41:57]

And he helped come up, come up, come up with a list of sexual says you, but it's actually sexual who he helped come up with a list of sexual sadist tendencies. And he came to the conclusion, ah, this is cool.

[00:42:14]

It's not cool, but it's interesting. Interesting. Yeah. That fifty three point three percent of all sexual sadists will record their offense and they use either the picture or the film or what have you to look back on the offense and relive it fifty three point three percent.

[00:42:30]

That makes sense because it's things like BTK didn't record the event, but he would take pictures afterwards. Yeah. With the with the things that he took in, like Ted Bundy would take pictures of the people after Robert Ben Rhodes had those pictures.

[00:42:45]

Crazy. It all adds up again.

[00:42:47]

If you read the book, they have the full list. I think it's twenty two tendencies. And Mel had at least 17 of the 22.

[00:42:55]

Odom, Odom is right. Wow.

[00:42:57]

But this jury wouldn't know that because there was still a lot to be unfolded. Oh man.

[00:43:05]

So the two big things for the prosecution were supposed to be the tape from the ice cream meeting and the testimonial of Marianne Shaw in low ho face herself.

[00:43:15]

Yeah, neither work to benefit them. Why? Because the jury went back and forth on what words were being said.

[00:43:22]

Like I said earlier in the tape, they had said, was it Doug or got and was at sight or safe and nobody could fucking agree on what it was.

[00:43:31]

The site or safe thing doesn't seem like it would make a big deal because it's like there's a safe for this, not a safe either way. It's a site. Well, I mean, it was there and and like what was the dug and got dug and got. Makes a big difference. Dug and got makes a huge. That's the one that would I guess safe and site does too though because it's like because then Charlie Ricketts. OK, so Charlie Ricketts did a good job of putting a safe in the mind of the jurors because when he was cross examining Marianne, he asked her about the safe and he was like, why did you why did you call Mal about this safe and then decide that you didn't need it like you and Butch didn't want it anymore.

[00:44:09]

And on the stand, she was like, what? Like, what are you talking like? She had like she was actually, like, clearly confused.

[00:44:15]

But he's putting it in the mind, like maybe it's a safe he's buried there. Exactly.

[00:44:20]

So she was confused about that. But the jury was like, OK, you know, and at that point she was already and thanks to her fucking self, an unreliable witness to the jury. So she had walked into court wearing a super, super short skirt. And when she sat on then she had she had gained a lot of weight to watch, like, whatever live your life, but.

[00:44:41]

Well, not you. But she not you see, Marion, you can't do anything. Marianne she was sitting, like, way back like like chillin on the witness stand and her legs were crossed.

[00:44:52]

So she was showing a lot of thigh game to everybody. Yes, she wasn't doing the princess set. No, keep your ankles together. And Kenton County was like a very nice place in Kentucky. And they were fucking horrified and they were like you. And also she sat there most of the time with her head rested on her fist because she was bored, like she didn't give a fuck at all. So they were like, yeah, I actually don't believe anything that you say.

[00:45:19]

And then she sat there on the stand, basically just supercold and matter of a fact in her testimony while she's recalling all of the horrific details and just this flat tone.

[00:45:30]

Yeah, she's like Brenda came over and Mel made her do this. And I joined and then I got a glass of water. I was real thirsty then. Hydration is important.

[00:45:40]

And I have an app on my phone, you know, do you guys have that bottle that tells you what times to drink water? I do. It's fun. I have one of those. Keeps me on track. Check out my game. What are we talking about, huh? I'm only getting five years.

[00:45:50]

Right. Ridiculous. So that happened. She and everybody was just like, OK, like, this is disgusting. She also didn't shed one single fucking tear the entire time she was up there. Now you can make the argument that, like, you're too nervous to cry, but like you're talking about a horrific murder that you, quote unquote, didn't want to be involved in and you were so scared. You're not crying.

[00:46:12]

And it's like even if you're too, you know, terrible of a human being and sociopathic to cry for someone else, you're not even crying for your crying for yourself ass. You go to jail. They were like, this woman is fucked up in the man you supposedly love. Yeah. Is going to go away for a long time. A long time, but not at all. Oh, it's just really it's just really aggravating. It makes me really angry.

[00:46:37]

So she didn't get a single tier. And this also worked out for the defense because there was not one single piece of physical evidence linking Mel to Brenda that night. There was one partial print found in the car, but it couldn't be linked to him. And although he had given both public public pubic hair and like head hair samples, they didn't find anything on her.

[00:47:01]

Really? Isn't that crazy?

[00:47:04]

But who's to say that he didn't cleaner? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's he was they said themselves the progress that he was very particular. Yeah. And I don't think they would have been able to tell based on how badly she was doing.

[00:47:15]

You know, he had planned this so meticulously to the tee.

[00:47:19]

I mean, putting the nail in the tyre and driving it until it couldn't drive any more, putting it in a place, it's like that's a very planning, very meticulous. I don't think he would leave any traces of himself.

[00:47:29]

And even if he didn't clean her, like maybe TMI time, but like who's to say he didn't prepare his nether regions?

[00:47:34]

That's very tight. Like, I'm sure murderers do that. Which man? I wish they could be like, drop your pants, smell. You got to show the whole corpse.

[00:47:41]

Well, don't you worry, because we're going to get something like that later. At the end of this, you're just going to clap and, like, cry happy, happy tears. Oh, boy. Happy, happy tears.

[00:47:51]

Happy tears. In closing arguments, Charlie Ricketts decided to drone on for a total of four hours. That's the worst thing you can do up lost people.

[00:48:02]

After four minutes, he listed over 50 reasons why there was a reasonable doubt in the case against him all he listed fifty reasonable doubts that they should have. Wow. And that was enough. He also urged jurors that they might regret their decision to find a man guilty solely on circumstantial evidence right around Christmas time. You might think about this decision while you sit in church and you might be reminded that Jesus himself was prosecuted the same way.

[00:48:30]

Wow, that's not like a direct quote, but that's basically what he was saying.

[00:48:33]

He brought Big Jay into the game, which I didn't even think you could do that.

[00:48:37]

Like, I didn't think that was allowed. I think it's crazy that that's allowed. If it is separation of church and state. Yeah. You got to separate that shit.

[00:48:43]

If I was the judge, I would've been like, overruled. Like, cystine can't bring Jamen into this. I would've just said, shut the fuck up. That's why I'm not a judge and do it. He told them, yeah.

[00:48:53]

He said, you know, you're going to regret this. He also suggested that, Marijan, now this is insane. This is what he thought happened or what he was getting paid to say how he didn't exactly. That he suggested that Marion had acted alone and that she had followed Brenda after she left Mel's home that night, saw that she was having car trouble, saw the chance to get rid of Brenda herself so that she could live happily ever after with Mel.

[00:49:18]

So she did. She kidnapped her and killed her herself. No, that's not even that's not even plausible, plausible or plausible or plausible. It's not possible. It's nothing. Nothing. That's nothing that's done, Charlie.

[00:49:34]

It was so stupid. So Jasmine's closing argument lasted an hour, which is like nice enough. And he was like, I'm not even going to fucking I'm not even going to talk about your points because your points are stupid and like, you're moot. I don't have time to do this. He didn't say I don't have time to do this, but he was like it would be a waste of time to even address most of those. Exactly. He was like, I'm not doing that.

[00:49:55]

What he said was that Mel had preyed on Maryanne's jealous ways and used her knowing that she would have done anything to get him back. He said that the witnesses who testified for the defense all put Brenda in different places around the same time. So that was just bullshit.

[00:50:10]

And he even said, even though there's no physical evidence, there was strong evidence against Mel because a former girlfriend named Barbara had come forward and told investigators a few months before Mel was arrested, he dropped off a bag at her house and asked her to keep it, because if the police found it at his house, it wouldn't look good for him, you know, and she didn't think much of it at the time because it was just like not.

[00:50:37]

And, well, nothing had come out yet about like what Marianne had said, actually. But I'm I'm sorry if an ex-boyfriend shows up at my house and it's like, can you hold this bag for me? Because if the police come, it's going to look bad for.

[00:50:47]

Yeah, I'd be like it was a it was a current boyfriend, like it was our current boyfriend even that I'd be like, no, why would the police be after you?

[00:50:54]

Why would this look bad? No, it's happening definitely no question. That's what happens when you date a fugitive. So she she didn't question this at all. But what was in the bag was a bottle of k y jelly.

[00:51:08]

Oh, the vibrating massager and a box of condoms. Oh. But do you know what though?

[00:51:17]

She threw it in a dumpster because she didn't want it in her house either, so they didn't have that to go off of.

[00:51:23]

Oh so again, just more circumstantial evidence and more people fucking it up. Exactly.

[00:51:29]

All the things that Marianne Shaw had said Mel used during the attack on Brenda were right there in that bag. Oh, my God.

[00:51:36]

And then on top of that, a fraternity fraternity paddle was also seized from Mel's home.

[00:51:43]

That would corroborate Maryann's account of Mel striking and having her strike. Brenda.

[00:51:48]

So they did have that OK, but there was nothing on it because he fucking cleaned it. Of course, the jury was initially split, which is insane to me.

[00:51:57]

And after Jasmine would say that he never saw a jury play detective the way that they had, instead of just listening to the fucking evidence and testimony presented to them during the trial, he didn't say fucking, but I did. Yeah, he thought it.

[00:52:11]

Yeah, they relied on, like, theories that they came up with themselves. And many, again, just wanted to be home in time for Christmas. So they changed their mind at the last second to come to a unanimous decision. Wow.

[00:52:23]

That is beyond so it was eight to four, originally eight people wanting to acquit and for people being like, no, this guy is guilty.

[00:52:31]

And somehow the eight of them got the four to change their minds basically so that they could get out of their. Can you imagine? No. Can you imagine going into something like this, like in a high profile murder?

[00:52:46]

Gruesome, horrific murder and being like, I'd really just like to go home now because it's Christmas. Yeah. So let's let this guy just walk. It's like, what? Oh, it gets worse. So obviously they would regret that decision later.

[00:52:58]

They also had the audacity to be laughing and like talking loudly in the jury room, like passing back phone numbers.

[00:53:06]

They were like feet away from the Schaefer family. What the fuck?

[00:53:10]

And it gets worse. It came out after the trial that they stayed in deliberation longer than necessary so that they would be able to eat the Chinese food that the court had ordered for them.

[00:53:21]

Get the fuck out. Are you kidding me? Yup. And one of them said they don't want to they didn't want to waste the taxpayers money. Oh, yeah, I'm like don't want to do that. You just wanted some chicken fingers and you're a piece of shit and it's like you're still wasting the taxpayers money regardless. You think I want to pay you just as the 30 Chinese food get out of here.

[00:53:40]

It's what made me. So how did they get a group of such shitty individuals all together for this? I don't know. Like they went intentionally to find them? Well, they just they fucked up in jury selection. And the judge was like, shocked when they read the verdict because he was like, if this was a case where I was the decision maker completely and like it wasn't based on a jury, we would have had a quick recess. I would have come back and read the guilty verdict.

[00:54:05]

Oh, my God. And that should tell you everything you need to know. But after six hours and 15 minutes of, quote, deliberation and eaten some Chinese food, they came back with a verdict of not guilty.

[00:54:17]

That's Mel had been acquitted on all charges of rape, murder, sodomy, kidnapping and tampering with evidence.

[00:54:27]

Of course he did. He's fucking Mel. What the fuck? So obviously, Brenda Schaefer's family and friends are shocked. Absolutely. Everyone who works this case, like all the investigators, were shocked. And the people of Louisville, Louisville, the Ville were outraged, of course, because they're like, we know this guy did it. And as far as they were concerned, this murderer's just walking around the streets every day. And investigators did their job here.

[00:54:51]

And that's what they did, what they needed to do. And they still didn't get the the Dubea right. Charlie Ricketts tried to make it look like they did a shitty job, but they did not at all.

[00:54:59]

It sounds like they did what they needed to do. And you have to give them credit because there was four different police jurisdictions working on this case and they still didn't fuck it up.

[00:55:07]

I didn't even think of it exactly. Law enforcement specifically knew something had to be done.

[00:55:13]

They aren't going to be able to get Mulligan on murder of Brenda ever again because of double jeopardy. So if you don't know, double jeopardy is a clause of the Fifth Amendment Amendment. I can't talk. And essentially, it states that the same person cannot be tried more than once for the same crime.

[00:55:31]

But as with anything in law, just ask Ashley Ashley Judd. You know that I'm technically named after Ashley Judd. Wow. Yeah. Good movie, though. God is great, though.

[00:55:43]

But as with anything in law, like I said, there's loopholes. So during the grand jury investigation, Mel had gone on the stand and said he hadn't had any communication with Mary Shaw since April.

[00:55:54]

Now, that was in part two. You remember no communication with her since April. And as Maury says, we determined that was a lie.

[00:56:02]

Not true. They could get him on charges of perjury. Oh, look at.

[00:56:07]

So here we go. Well, we love a loophole.

[00:56:10]

They had a lot to do this time to ensure that Mel would face like a good amount of jail time because they were like, we're not just going to put him in jail for three years like a perjury charge.

[00:56:18]

So they got multiple luckily, but they went over every piece of evidence with a fine tooth comb and they came up with things that were going to be wicked compelling to the jury.

[00:56:30]

First and foremost, they had a mannequin that resembled Brenda and it was able to be moved in the different positions that Mel had forced Brenda in, too, to kind of have an impact on the jury. Like this is what happened. Yeah. And they were able to get Marianne to cooperate a second time and explain everything again so that they could take pictures and be like, these are what the pictures would have looked like when this happened.

[00:56:54]

Oh, so Marianne had actually received the full five years for tampering with evidence, which is not something that happens a lot. You don't normally get the full five years, but obviously she sucks.

[00:57:03]

So she did, obviously. And she was like a little hesitant to help them at first because she really just wanted to serve her sentence. I think I'm a little miffed. And then they were like, yeah, what about the Schaefer family? And she was like, you, right? You. Right.

[00:57:15]

So she helped. Thank God. They also brought in a pocket calendar that Mel had kept on him that was like sees that that he was arrested along with the paddle and some other stuff and everything like leading up to the murder was blacked out, like completely blacked out.

[00:57:31]

But there was this document examiner named Steve Slater. He was an expert in his field and was able to figure out what had been written in Mel's calendar even after it was completely blacked out. Amazing. And he said he was like, normally it's really hard if it's written in one pen, in the same pen is blacked out over it, that makes sense.

[00:57:51]

But he did it.

[00:57:53]

Oh, and it took him hundreds of hours, microscopes and different lights. But he finally got it. The logs leading up to the days of Brenda's murder for almost a month, I would say call me, call B.S., meaning Marion Brenda Shaffer. And then on the twenty third it said AM a Catell shovel supplies. Well, nobody really knows what Katyal's or Cattails was.

[00:58:19]

Cattails isn't there like a isn't there a like a whip thing that's like a cat of nine tails. Look at you, I think. I don't know, just members of the BDM community. Can you tell me if I'm right there? I think it's like there's like a whip that I believe is called like a cat of nine Reanna where you wouldn't let let me know.

[00:58:40]

No, I'm sure I think there is a thing. So maybe that's what it was. So maybe that was part of it. Maybe he used that, maybe. And so that was on the list. And then again, shovel and supply. So like, I think you just cracked the code of a cat, tails or cattails and shovel to dig, a shovel to dig and supplies to clean up to supply. There was also an entry on September 24th that said the words spank and eat later, then beat DataDot Sex Slagheap Bounden House DataDot.

[00:59:10]

Unrealistic idea. Wow. So obviously, he was just brainstorming literally like really terrible brainstorming, like act like like a vent diagram.

[00:59:20]

So he was literally thinking about like OK, I could, I could eat, I could beat her again, and then I could keep her in my house.

[00:59:26]

And then he's like, that's unrealistic. Don't do that. That's one. So I think the eat later was in reference to the chili that he got that night at Skyline Chili. Oh, sorry that I said Skyline Chili. Yes. Sometimes it's hard to read your own handwriting. It is. It's really hard.

[00:59:41]

So I think that's what that was. And he did that, obviously, because. Not fair enough. And he's a smart fucking dude to secure his alibi. So he's like, do this, go eat, go back unrealistic. Do this, go back.

[00:59:52]

Because he's saying, like, he at first he was like, I'll just keep her in the house and I'll leave to go eat so I can put myself somewhere else.

[00:59:59]

Exactly. And then and then he's like, but that's unrealistic. Right. Wow. So obviously everybody super excited about those findings, like, duh, a peek into the mind. Peek into the mind. But little did they know there was an even bigger one on its way.

[01:00:15]

Oh, so when I know what this is, I think you do. When Mel gave up his share of the house to his mom, she had left it to his children. But then it was given to his attorneys at some point because he hadn't paid any of his legal fees. And also, just a side note, neither did what's her face and what had. Oh, they didn't pay them. She wrote bad checks to her guy. Oh, that's shocking.

[01:00:38]

She's never done that before. Jack Vitto, Jack Vict Minuto. He was like, I hate that woman.

[01:00:45]

So the house was eventually sold to a couple named Ronald and Judith Watkins. They bought the house in January of 1991 and they let the investigators search at once. But then they were like, I'm not like they denied any more searches because their house already was a spectacle, because it was the old Mel house, of course.

[01:01:03]

And they were like, if we find anything, we'll call you. But like we would prefer if there's not so much police presence here all the time, because we just like the house and we want to live peacefully, can we just exist? Right.

[01:01:16]

They also decided that they hated the chocolate brown carpet that Mel had going through most of the house and they decided, let's replace the carpet o replace that carpet. As the carpet layers came out on October 1st, almost two weeks before Mel's federal trial was supposed to start. And while they were pulling up the carpet in the hallway off of the kitchen, they realized it was really difficult to pull up. And when they finally did get it up, there was like these big ass staples, like it had been professionally like, fuck in there.

[01:01:48]

And then the guy who pulled up the carpet was like, what the fuck? Why is there a heating duck underneath this carpet? Oh, well, why would that be under a carpet and why would it be in front of a door like this? Oh, no. He looked down into the vent and saw that there was a clear Ziploc bag taped to the side of it. Inside that bag was jewelry and three small black canisters can.

[01:02:13]

Oh, I can't. I can't. I can't. I'd be losing my mind already.

[01:02:18]

He called in to Judith. Do you know that there's a heating duck here? Do you know what this is? And Judith said, Do you know who used to live here? Oh, my God. And then Judith called the FBI.

[01:02:29]

Judith so everyone in Louisville, Louisville divil knew about the Brenda Sue Schaefer case. And they knew that there were supposedly pictures taken of the abuse leading up to the murder. And they knew that there was missing jewelry involved as well. And Judith immediately called the investigators who promptly sent the FBI to the scene. Oh, man, I am excited. The film.

[01:02:47]

Oh, that scared me.

[01:02:53]

Oh, shoot me. Was that you? I accidentally pulled my charger out of the wall. Oh, I was like, I don't know what I thought happened. Well, anyways, they sent the FBI there. You kind of you you threw off my groove. I know. I'm sorry. Let's get hold on. We'll get back. And I honestly thought that there was like a laundry room ghost that was like also really excited. It was like, bitch, say, what the fuck happened?

[01:03:20]

So somebody just goes through the wall. It is like she was like, did you hear what the fuck? I said, just kidding. OK, so the film was developed. It's not funny. No. Ready. Oh, OK.

[01:03:32]

So the film was developed and it showed exactly what Marianne had said it would.

[01:03:36]

In fact, some of the investigators were haunted at how spot on it was because they took the photos that Marianne had described taking in an effort to reenact the crime scene with the the Brenda lookalike maniac.

[01:03:50]

And they took those photos and then they put them side by side and they were like, these are essentially identical.

[01:03:56]

So she, like, committed that to memory, which is like you would think that you would block that out of her memory.

[01:04:02]

If that was something you didn't want to be there for, you would think the only issue was that the man in the photos was photographed so as not to show his.

[01:04:12]

Of course, because he thought of everything, but don't worry, because that was not a problem, good. The investigators requested an order from the judge to have Mel Ignacio, Ignacio, I don't care photographed nude to compare to the photos. They were like, show your balls. Now, the judge was like, hell, yeah.

[01:04:32]

And Mel was arrested on his way to go get ice cream. Fuck that guy. Fuck you, bitch. Lactose love you immediately brought into custody where they photographed him nude and they made him pose in the same poses that he had made.

[01:04:47]

Brenda OK, Brenda pose, including the one with his hands behind his head.

[01:04:54]

This is my favorite part of anything.

[01:04:56]

They made him do it in the nude. Can we make every asshole who does this kind of shit do this once?

[01:05:01]

It was great because Mel was fucking pissed. Oh, I would love it.

[01:05:06]

Especially because he felt humiliated. Oh, yeah. Poor baby.

[01:05:10]

Oh, there was a female investigator in the room, Deirdre Fike, and she had she worked for the FBI and she had been with the case from the very fucking beginning. She was the one she was the one who was there the day Marianne confessed everything down. So she's so Mel was like, I'm not going to strip while there's a female in the room.

[01:05:28]

And it's like, oh, you're so fucking respectable, so modest. But I think you just wanted to be annoying.

[01:05:33]

And she was like, But Mellie, boy, we have this order. So, like, you have to and I'm not going anywhere. So why don't you go ahead and put your elbows to the side. Click, click dandruff. Oh. Oh, I love you. They love it so much. Oh. So it was just great.

[01:05:50]

And the moles on his chest and arms were a perfect match to the man in the photos with Brenda.

[01:05:56]

Oh thank God he's a moli bastard.

[01:05:57]

The better match. He was wearing the exact same watch that he wore that day while he was wearing the same fucking watch that he had worn the day he killed Brenda. Like three some. I don't know how many years it was later.

[01:06:13]

A lot for someone so particular. These dudes always make those kind of stupid, weird Tickie mistake. But it's not I don't even think it was a mistake in his eyes. I think he he had gotten away with the things he did. And he looked at that as like like, fuck all of you. I'm wearing the same watch. But that's why it's a mistake, because it's like if you were really meticulous and really smart, you would get rid of every fucking thing that you had on that day and get rid of it and never be connected to the sexual.

[01:06:40]

But you can't exactly, because they have to look back on it all day, live it. They all do it. Oh, karma, karma. And it brings them down every time it does. So Mel took a deal to avoid going to trial again, of course. And he pled guilty to multiple counts of perjury. His sentence was to be eight years.

[01:06:57]

What's Yats? You don't get a lot from perjury, unfortunately, but don't worry. After pleading guilty, he addressed the court and the Schaefer family and he said, quote, On September 24th, nineteen eighty eight, I did take brightnesses. Schaffer over to Marianne Shaw's house on popular level road. And I did physically and sexually abuse her. And I did murder her. She died from having inhaled chloroform.

[01:07:20]

She died peacefully. He said it again after telling her family that I, like, raped and abused your daughter for hours, but don't worry, she died peacefully. I made her huffins some chemical fumes, so she died peacefully.

[01:07:35]

And you know what? I actually almost wonder if how you said earlier he put her in the bag like before she I wonder if he's like she died peacefully, knowing that she knowing that she was still alive. That's a really good point.

[01:07:46]

I would not be surprised if he because the way he tied her to makes me think that he knew she was waking up. Yeah. And he was going to make sure she didn't climb out of that bag. And somehow because they didn't put her in a box. No, they just it. Right. So I'm not saying it would be easy to climb out of Earth, you know? I mean but like, if you're not in a box, that's one less thing to climb through.

[01:08:07]

He might have tied her like that because he knew he was putting her in there and maybe he just never told anybody and kept that.

[01:08:12]

Yeah. And Marion's an idiot. Wouldn't even think of it. Yeah, that's a really good point. I think you're right, because I think it gave him like some pleasure to look at them and be like she died peacefully. Oh, yeah. And I think he probably he's a sexual sadist. So it probably gave him a thrill to tie her and all those positions and know she's going to wake up. Right. Like he put her in the ground in that bag being like this is like getting me going.

[01:08:35]

Yeah. Yeah.

[01:08:36]

Well, do you want to know what happened to him? I do. So Mel served ten years altogether because the state actually pressed further perjury charges against him. And Kharma got his ass one last time in 2008 when he fell on a glass coffee table and bled out to death. That's amazing. This is not the same glass coffee table, but I wish it was he had done that to Brenda.

[01:08:59]

Oh.

[01:08:59]

And he fell and he cut his arm and whacked his head on a glass coffee table and fucking bled out all over the place. Just lay there and bled.

[01:09:06]

He was 70 and it was just time to get the fuck off of our planet. We won't miss you, Mel. And that was the case of Brenda Sue Schaefer. I feel like so happy that we did that case because I like weirdly feel connected to Brenda because she just looked like the sweetest human alive.

[01:09:28]

That was intense. That gave me all kinds of feelings. The fact. Wow, the fact that he died on a glass coffee table, like some poetic I feel as though like somebody upstairs was doing.

[01:09:39]

Brenda saw the universe was working. It does working overtime, working overtime.

[01:09:44]

Thank you, universe. Oh yeah. So wow, that was amazing things. Terrible all at the same time. Well, if you'd like to see photos of Twatt Face McGeehan, Twatt Face McGoo, you can go on over to Instagram at more of it.

[01:09:57]

Podcast hit us up on Twitter, a morbid podcast. Send us an email. That's where the case suggestions go. Not to my personal DM's Even Though I love you Morphet podcast at Gmail dot com. And the reason that they can't go to Ashes personal DBMS is I can't keep track of them because we have trouble keeping them together. We have we put them in a folder in the gym and we don't want to lose good listener tale's because they're getting like hidden in the system.

[01:10:23]

So just make sure if you're doing a listener, tell, send it to the e-mail in case suggestions because we have folders for everything. Yeah. Love organizational tabs and we don't want to lose like good stuff because they go into several different areas.

[01:10:34]

So just email. Exactly. Thank you. We hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it.

[01:10:40]

We're not sorry that you go to the ice cream store and you're like, oh my God, I'm going to confess to everything, but not confessing to the FBI. It doesn't turn out that well. And then you're like, Marianne, you just have to be as cool as I am. And then you go to trial and you're like, oh, my God, double jeopardy, I'm not even guilty. And then they're like, hold up, hold up, wait.

[01:10:52]

And you go to get some more ice cream and then they arrest you and then they photograph you in the nude because you suck a big toe and then you go to jail forever and ever.

[01:10:58]

And then you fall in a glass coffee table and hit your head and bleed out like the fucking monster that you are. Bimal, don't keep that weird multiplexing where you.