This is exactly right. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the Minnesota, where we read your stuff, but you've written us congratulations. You wrote it it thanks. You got it. Doing our work for us. You did the work. Now we get the rewards. We literally couldn't do it without you, literally. Thank you so, so much.

Do want me to go for sure. OK, also, we're recording this the week before it's airing. Anything's possible in our culture, in our world right now. Yeah, but we hope you're safe and strong and fighting the good fight. That's right. And in the meantime, let me tell you about one. Clare's great grandfather stayed sexy and was subsequently murdered because of this great.

I went ahead and labeled this as geographically accurate as possible in case you do DC hometowns. Well, I was home in the suburbs of DC for Thanksgiving. I was finally able to get the story of how my mom's grandfather was murdered. For years she was she never spoke about it and would always change the subject. When I asked, after a few glasses of wine and light prying, I finally got the story that I simply had to share it with you all.

My grandfather was the youngest of nine children and his father, my great grandfather, John, was a butcher. My family jokes that my great grandmother married him to make sure she always had enough food for her kids.

My grandma the of a hell yes. A great grandfather, John worked in Virginia as a butcher during the Great Depression, a time where, as you can imagine, no one could afford to buy meat. It is important to note that this was pre civil rights era and Virginia was deeply segregated. This meant the people of color could only purchase meat from butchers through this side or back doors and could not go through the front door. Fuck that shit. Am I right?

This is my great grandfather. John thought the rules were stupid and wanted anyone who could afford meat to feel welcome in his store. Apparently one day John was seen by some local Klansmen, quote unquote, letting people of color come through the front door to buy meat from him.

That night, the local chapter of the KKK murdered my great grandfather outside his store while he was locking up. In a weird way, I'm extremely proud that he was murdered for being ahead of his time by not being a racist piece of shit. So while he was indeed murdered, I would also argue that he stayed sexy by not being a discriminating asshole. Oh, and don't worry about my grandfather and his eight siblings. My great grandmother married another butcher after John's murder.

I love you guys.

Can't wait to see all in DC, Claire.

Wow. I mean, yeah, you sacrifice your life for the greater good and this and not being a piece of shit.

Like what more work do you wish for? It's, you know, a lot more makes you it makes you think that maybe we should all donate fifty bucks to Black Lives Matter if we can. That's why not. Or any of the credit associated jail fund or bail funds out there. There's lots of things you can find on social media to be an active participant in helping this movement and the people that are that are on the front line.

The ACLU is a great place to do it. OK, a lot of a lot of great ones.

So I thought we'd get real dark and deep inside and do someone wrote in the hometown murder of Matthew Shepard, which somehow we've never done. It's an important story. So let's get to it. I'm from the good state of Wyoming. And for those who don't know because I get the question a lot, Wyoming is located in the Midwest, United States above Colorado. Thank you. Total. The total population for the state is fifty thousand, which is fucking crazy.

It's tiny and it's overall a laid back state. My story is about the murder of Matthew Shepard. Matthew Shepard was born in Casper, Wyoming, in 1976. He was strongly present in the theater community attending the American school in Switzerland, Catawba College, Casper College, and became the first year, a first year political science major at the University of Wyoming in Laramie with a minor in languages in nineteen ninety five. Shepard was beaten and raped during a high school trip to Morocco.

According to his mom, this caused him to suffer from extreme depression and anxiety, ultimately believed to be the reason that he returned to go to school back home not long after his return home on the night of October six. Nineteen ninety eight and I was eighteen. I remember this fucking clearly. Matthew was approached by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson at the Fireside Lodge in Laramie. All three of them were in their early 20s. McKinney and Henderson offered to give Matthew a ride home.

They drove to a remote area in Laramie where they robbed, pistol whipped and tortured Matthew and then tied him to a fence and left him to die. Matthew was found eighteen hours later in a coma by a biker and died six days later at the age of twenty one and McKennis, November nineteen ninety eight. Pre-trial hearing. McKinney had stated in an interview on October 9th that he and Henderson had identified Shepard. A robbery target and pretended to be gay to lure him out to their truck and that McKinney at Attack Shepherd after Shepherd put his hand on McKinney's knee, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were charged with first degree murder following Shepard's death.

Both McKinney and Henderson were convicted of the murder and each received two consecutive life sentences. Matthew's murder brought national and international attention to hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels. In October 2009, the United States Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, commonly known as the Matthew Shepard Act. And October 28th, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the establish, signed and established the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Shepard's death inspired films, novels, plays and songs, most commonly American Triangle by Elton John and The Laramie Project, which I performed when I was in high school as my theater teacher was best friends with Matthew.

The play is all one hundred interviews compiled together by Moises Kaufman. All of those were around the area of those who around the area during the time who knew Matthew, the protesters, both good and bad officers on the scene and even some transcripts from trial. His dad described him as an optimistic and accepting young man who had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person who was very approachable and always look to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people's differences.

I know this story is heavy, but with Pride Month and current events of the world I think is important to share as things are changing but not changing enough. I attached a link to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which is an LGBT nonprofit organization headquartered in Casper, Wyoming, by Dennis and Judy Shepard in the memory of Matthew. The foundation runs education, outreach and advocacy programs. Should anyone want to donate, stay sexy and be the voice for the voiceless?

ASHETON Amazing job. Asheton I was great.

I remember so well. I mean, so it's such a horrible, horrible story. But also I think that's, you know, they make a great point in an email, which is kind of like it's Pride Month. And that's that's the reason that that there is Pride Month. It's like it's it's parties, it's parades. I mean, not this.

They're not quarantine. What will they do in quarantine? But I mean, there's there's the fun aspect, which is the which is basically living your life and celebrating your life. But then there also is like what people have had to come through in this country because they were gay. And it's important to talk about it and it's important to talk about those struggles.

This subject of this email is baby Jessica's predecessor, who now this happens a lot.

When we do a story or talk about one specific thing, it happens more with recommendations where you'll recommend one show and then there will be all these people that come to me on Twitter going, oh, have you ever watched this?

And it's like, yes, I was talking about the other thing that person did. But that doesn't mean that I don't know about every other thing they've done. You would maybe want to assume I would know it. It's really hilarious to me.

But so these got brought up a lot. But I actually read about all of these because this story of somebody caught trapped in a place and capturing the imagination of America has happened. Well, there were two big ones before baby Jessica, OK? And so this is one. When I saw this, I was like, oh, great, because now someone's done the work for me, OK? And it won't look like I'm a we are trapped in a, well, obsessive, which we all know you are.

Which we. I am, yes.

Now imagine if there was a pervert trapped in a well, but I can crawl inside of a well and he's a pervert but he's perverted for treasure. Just like me, baby. Jessica's predecessor, he cleans. I just finished your May 7th episode, Symbolic Violence, and I and I was struck by the similarities between Baby Jessica story and something that happened back in nineteen twenty five. Have you read about Floyd Collins? Yes, I have fair warning.

It's not a happy ending. Yeah. This I don't think I know this one.

It's pretty amazing. In the early 20th century, Kentucky went through a period known as the Cave Wars, where explorers were constantly competing to commercialize the biggest and best cave system underground, which is hilarious. Do you remember the mystery spot up in Northern California?

I know the sticker is, I don't know the spot. Yeah, bumper stickers, you see. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're so cool. They're the original ones from the fifties because my there's a classic picture of my dad's family.

They lived in the district in San Francisco, nine Irish kids and apparently their kitchen table or their dining room table where they all eight had bedrooms bordering the room. I'm sure it was just a tiny. Yeah. So like so there's one picture my dad showed me. He goes, hey, that was my bedroom and it's them sitting at the dinner table, but. Behind them is a bedroom door with a mystery spot bumper sticker on the door. Oh, my God.

So, yeah, I know it's like literally from like nineteen fifty eight.

OK. Anyway, that was just a personal brag and I knew about the mystery spot, but I just love this idea.

This is like this was early entertainment for like early America.

Totally cave caves. No we have a better cave like a cave.

OK, ok. OK, I'm into it ok.

Floyd had already had some moderate success with his crystal cave, but it was remote and he was super ambitious. He wanted to open a cave closer to the public and make a pretty penny.

So he made an agreement to open up a new option called Sand Cave on his neighbor's property and share the profits while he was working parentheses, crawling through a all caps literal hole in the ground in order to widen the passages, passageways and parenthesis.

Close parenthesis of falling rock pinned his left leg and trapped him 150 feet underground, stuck in a freaking crawl space with his lamp extinguished and no food or water. He was found the next day by his family and friends, who sent him crackers to eat and an electric lamp for light and warmth. He managed to survive underground for more than a week, while the folks above organized rescue options.

A local journalist, Skeets Miller Skeet's Skeets Miller, reported daily on the rescue efforts. He was a smallish dude, so he was able to crawl down into the hole for an interview with Floyd in parentheses, all caps an underground interview. Come on, journalism.

I hope they give him fuckin opium, too, because, I mean, what a lemur for real. That's such a that's such a nice idea here. Floyd, put this in your cheek and just let it dissolve.

When he was even he was even able to dig a lot of the earth away from Floyd's body in an attempt to aid rescuers. His reports were distributed and printed in papers all across the country, which led to a national interest in Floyd situation. Radio broadcasts and news bulletins drew unimaginable crowds to the scene, and the grounds above the cave were covered with vendors, reporters and thousands of tourists. It was the third biggest media event of its time. It was a goddamn circus, complete with popcorn.

Why? Unfortunately, the cave passage suffered a collapse in two places during rescue because all the fucking popcorn makers and tourists are above him.

I think this was back before people understood that you could absolutely set a perimeter and people will stand wherever you say. You don't have to let him come right up to the mouth of the hole. Right.

Which is the same thing as the mouth and the hole.

Leaders tried to dig a lateral tunnel above Floyd, but by the time his body was reached, he had already died of exposure. They left his body there and filled the shaft with debris while the whole mass of media and tourists quickly dispersed. Two months later, Floyd's brother Homer ended up digging a new tunnel on the opposite side of the cave passage to retrieve his body and give him a proper burial. That's.

And if that wasn't enough, in nineteen twenty seven, Floyd's father sold the homestead and the cave and the new owner. All caps displayed Floyd's body in a glass topped coffin inside Crystal Cave two years later. Yeah, his fucking body was stolen when it was recovered. The injured left leg was missing. Jesus just let the dude rest in peace.

The reason I know so much about a man dying in a Kentucky cave, it's a musical.

It's called Floyd Collins. And it was the first show I did with Syracuse University's musical theater program. I won't force feed you any of the videos of me in the show.

I wish you would love that. We're an apology. I won't force you to do any videos of me on the show, but I will share with you this Spotify link to one of the most beautifully heartbreaking songs I've ever heard. It's called How Glory Goes. This is Floyd stuck in the cave, contemplating what heaven will be like when he gets there. Oh, my gosh.

Well, anyway, I live in Manhattan, which means I've barely left my apartment since mid-March. I've taken to climbing all the stairs in my building for exercise. And the the only thing that gets me through this torture is your podcast. Thank you for all the incredible philanthropic work you do and for always making me laugh out loud.

Love, Victoria. Philanthropic. Philanthropic. That's so nice. That is nice. Thank you. Like we're in the Philharmonic. I always.

George, I didn't know you played the oboe.

Great. That's a great one. Like if you are like Karen, do you know this one, just send the hometown instead of like you describe it. I like the like hello. You like. Oh well actually my mother in law was there.

The thing you're telling and here's her experience and here's a story you didn't know about that it's like it's like a telephone game through the podcast where it's like, you know, you mentioned Floyd being stuck in the cave with the result. So it's the best, right?

Those are great. In 2012, a 72 year old man named Samuel Little was charged with three Los Angeles murders dating back to the 1980s.

So we finally got to where we were going. The crowd at Liverpool roar after only one appeal.

But since then, it's become clear he is the most prolific serial killer in the United States has ever seen, 93 victims, 19 states. Samuel Little has become infamous, but his victims, some of whom remain unidentified, are stuck in the shadows. It's time for that to change.

My experience in working with some of the victims families is that he was dead wrong. They were missed. They were very loved and their families were hurting.

The fall line presents a special limited series. The victims of Samuel Little will cover both solved and unsolved Southeastern cases and tell you how you can help the victims. Still waiting for justice, featuring rare interrogation tape, FBI interviews and in depth detail. This is a series you won't want to miss. Episodes begin on September 16th from Exactly Right Network. Find us on Stitcher Apple podcast or wherever you listen. OK, I'm not going to read the subject line.

OK. Hey there, ladies, and happy almost birthday to my birthday twin Georgia. It's me. Oh, OK.

Here goes. We're a little early with almost birthday.

Well, this is for next week, though, so that's fine. Wait, today is my birthday considering this is coming up next Monday. So today's our birthday man. Kendall, really? Are you sure know your birthday, June eight? Yes. And next week, Jenny, next Monday is. Yeah, next month is Janine.

He canceled this year. I'm donating your birthday to anyone who needs. Damn it, I didn't even think to do the forward time math of being the one that says happy birthday to you at the top of the show next year in Paris.

Oh, we're going to have a birthday bash from the Eiffel Tower, OK. Happy birthday. We love you, Georgia. Thank you. Happy birthday. Candle to. Oh, yes, OK. Here in the early 2000s, a couple in my town, we'll call them Rich and Diane. We're going through a bitter divorce. And there were disputes over the rock quarry that they owned together. Which quarries in any fucking disappearance story. Right. Bad news.

Yeah, not good. Not good.

As well as custody of their two daughters who are splitting time between each parent's house. One evening, Rick brought his daughters to Diane's house to stay for the week. But when they get there, they realized she was gone, like Dunn disappeared, gone, no sign of her and no indication that she took anything with her, which was, of course, very suspicious. Fast forward two years and she's still missing. And rumors are swirling around our small town because it's always the husband.

Right? Right. But Rich has an alibi and been cleared and have been cleared by the cops due to Diane's disappearance. Rich got all rights to the rock quarry and was still running it like before. One day, he and his business partner were digging near a damaged well and they hit a large chunk of concrete which shouldn't have been there, which they thought was really curious. They kept digging and uncovered a dead dog. OK, that's even weirder, they thought.

And then they pulled up a chunk of concrete with a human hand sticking out of it. Yep, they accidentally dug up Diane's discarded body. It took the police a while to unravel the mystery. But it turns out that Diane was seeing a much younger man that worked at the quarry at the time of her disappearance. And they went on a date to go sit in some rifles in this small town. It turns out the guy ended up accidentally shooting her in the head in his truck as they were getting out.

And he freaked out and didn't think anyone would believe him. So he dismembered and hid her body on the very quarry that she owned. Oh, unfortunately, he wasn't a prime spot picker and ended up getting caught in his recklessness. And it turned out to be Diane's pet dog that was buried above her. Just throw off anyone digging. He must have gotten this idea by watching really bad true crime TV shows like my sister and I used to, because this is how I found out my sister was a murderer.

You know, when we were kids, when she casually told me, quote, If you want to hide a body desperate, standing up and put a dead dog above it to throw off whoever is digging, what the fuck can I see? Your nine oh oh oh. I see this story. I see you can come into my room because you're cool, although I think this story disproves that theory and shows that anything can happen to solve a cold case when you least expect it.

SDM Kendall. Wow.

Yeah. And also that the husband had to find his own missing. Yeah. And was of course a suspect. Right. I'm sure.

I'm sure some people still think he had something to do with it because it's so suspicious but. Right.

All right. So I'm going to turn I'm going to now take another left turn for us. Let's do it.

And the subject line of this email is a classic MFM perv.

Hi, everybody. We love those guys. Hi, everybody.

For your consideration, I am submitting this entry for inclusion in the lengthy canon of MFM pervs. He didn't jerk off the cheese that I know of, but I think he's still worthy.

OK. Oh my God, I love it.

This guy, we should have done a perv trigger warning before for anybody doing it. We don't know. Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's true. This could be really not that big of a deal.

This guy terrorized my hometown of Newark, Delaware, so it might not be pronounced Newark because you know how they do the state to state name change.

Yeah, I'd love to do that. They let do what I'm going to do. The New Jersey pronunciation, New York, Newark, Delaware. When I was a student at the university there in August of 2010, he started breaking into the houses of female students and making his way to their bedrooms where he would proceed to get under the covers and start spooning.

Oh, God, yeah. When the girls woke up to the random stranger cuddling them, he would flee into the night. Naturally, the town was quickly ablaze with rumor and suspicion about a man who became known as the Newark napper. Fortunately, one day a police officer saw the napper walking down the street and recognized his face from a composite sketch made from victim account. Oh my God. Working all the time. He was arrested and charged with burglary, unlawful sexual contact and offensive touching.

As far as I know, he was convicted because the attacks stopped as quickly as they began.

When the Nappers identity was revealed, I was shocked to discover that I had once hung out with him town.

I didn't see that coming. I love small towns.

He played in the university jazz ensemble. Of course you get your trombone, child. What do you think is half?

Take your oboe and shove. And get the hell out of my bed. He played in the university jazz ensemble with a good friend of mine. One night my roommates and I had a party and that friend brought a few of his jazz band mates. I have a vivid memory of being in my living room, and the person I would later learn was the Newark napper bursting into song, singing several a cappella verses of some Brazilian bossa nova to me.

I remember thinking, huh, this guy seems a little off and how this is one of the most beautifully written gowns we've gotten ever good shit.

Such a good job. OK, anyway, thanks for reading and for creating something as reliably entertaining as this podcast. You guys are hilarious. Also shout out to my wife Kate, who's been listening to MFM for years and told me several times that I needed to start. She was right per usual. Good job. Stay sexy. And if someone starts singing Brazilian a cappella at your college party, call the fucking FBI.

Mike Nice. It's not an overreaction. Just do it. It's the real deal. Any time acappella comes up in a non cappella festival situation, it is your right.

And if you're if you're going to go to asphalt on the green or whatever and go to the acappella fucking concert, fine, sing it. But not at a fucking college party if it's a voluntary thing you bought tickets for because you just love Pitch Perfect so much to film and that's on. You know, if someone brings a cappella into your natural environment, you get you get to absolutely have unprompted a cappella.

Is it fucking a crime? Sorry. OK, here's my last one. It's OK. Sorry, sorry that we're right.

I'm sorry about your party. OK, this one's a meet. Cute. OK, this one. I'm not going to the title but the beginning starts spooky quarantine which I guess would go spooky quarantine.

Yeah. Yeah.

I just heard you lovely ladies discussing all the reasons never to go on a balcony at a party. But I have but I have one. Oh I was living in Baltimore in my early 20s in a cute little row home when my roommates and I decided to host a Fourth of July barbecue. We each invited people and threw a crazy series of serendipitous events. A man from Alabama who was living in my home city of Philly ended up at the party with a friend, neither of them really knowing anyone.

When we all went up to the roof deck to watch the fireworks, we sat on the deck railing and struck up a conversation about how much we love Philadelphia. With that, he fell backwards off the railing, falling flat off. He's fine, falling flat on the roof next door, about a ten foot drop. Oh, shit. I immediately burst into tears, convinced I would be charged in the death of a complete stranger at my house. But he popped up, dusted himself off and asked me out to the bar.

Oh, the rest is history. We've been married for two years and had our first child a few months ago.

So moral of the story, if you're going to go to the deck at a party, it better be to meet your spouse. Oh, SDM and stay the fuck home, Anna.

You know, so I hope that they got married on both of those routes. He stood on the lower end.

The boats in the lower know if you listen, remember remember when we went through the hardest thing in your life and not that big of a deal to me.

Let's make it about that. I fell for you.

I've fallen in love with you, and I can't get up out of love with you. So we can't get out of love with you because I'm an old 78 year old woman in my own kitchen. Send me emotionally, emotionally for you. Yes. Sendhil, get a strong neighbor to come by and pick up my body. That's how hard I thought for you. That was great.

It's you know, it's funny after we talked about those Porche like things because we were going, oh, was it this one? No, it was that way. It was. There's been so much. Yes, there's been so many over the years.

It's there's and I'm sure in every single city, every horrible like every part party city that you can think of. There's been a balcony collapse.

I bet you add a two story party city. There's been one as well.

That's right.

And every party supply store from all over the across this fine land, I feel like this Pontin team, I've missed party city out of everything I've missed.

I can do one thing. I would go to party city and lick all the balloons.

Krikor just press Korona.

I wish I could go to the poorly named Souplantation and just stick my hands in those garbanzo bean tubs. Squish them around. I love doing that. I love. I wish that I could get take a couple pieces of pizza with my bare hands and then change my mind and put them back with a with the other bare hand.

That's right. In case I touch all the toothpicks before I. Figure out which did the guy want to use on my team? That was the first in this quarantine. The first time I went grocery shopping, I would stand there and look at everything because I do want to kind of like touch things or at least check exploration's data. And I would just stand there staring and then grab something really fast and I can't touch it. You can't touch things like you used to and then just put them back.

And one time I actually found a bunch of apples and picked four of them out and then realized that the better apples were over right behind me. So I went over to the produce guy and I was like, hey, I just picked these and I don't want to put them back.

And a guy goes, It's fine, put them back.

So over it, he's just like, Lady, lady, just put them back there. If you're like that conscientious, then you're probably you probably wash your hands regularly. He knew that I had wash my hands at my home. I did the old Purell spread misinformation, but yeah.

But still stay home, stay safe, stay strong, cool and strong.

Stay cool for sure and stay in school conceptually. But we know that most of you are out of school in the fall if you can. But otherwise from online. At home. Yeah, there's great great courses on Amazon Prime but mostly stay set.

Don't get murdered by Elvis. Do you want a cookie?