139 - A Hundred Feelings | Forensic Files

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with code IHEART. Hi. Hi. Welcome to the Choose Your Own Adventure podcast, my favorite murder.
This is a true crime comedy podcast that you tune into week after week. to find a good time, good feelings, fun, friendship.
That's what we're here for. Yes. Yeah. That's what's happening. That's what's happening.
What's going on with you? Well, I guess I should start off with a humongous corrections corner.
Haven't had one in a while. This corrections corner is so big that I actually had to start it
during the mini-sode that has already come out. It's that important. It's that big.
It's going to change a lot of the policies around here. I made a terrible mistake during Georgia's murder the last time we recorded in-house,
not the live show from Vegas last week, but the week before. Georgia was talking about British pedophiles.
I'm not sure what was happening, but she was trying to think of the name of someone,
and I jumped in knowing full well what the name was, And I said that the name of a British pedophile, a famous British pedophile, was Jimmy Somerville.
That is not correct. You got the name I was looking for. And I said, OK, and we moved on.
You know, the only wrong part was that there was about five letters too many in the middle of that name.
So close. Jimmy Saville is the terrible BBC presenter, maybe not even BBC, presenter who was also a horrifying pedophile.
Jimmy Somerville, on the other hand, was the lead singer in the Bronski Beat, in the Communards, in Bronski Beat.
There's no the in front of Bronski Beat. And he is an incredibly talented musician and by all accounts, a wonderful human being.
By all hundreds and hundreds of accounts that people tweeted at us. Tweeted accounts.
Tweeted accounts of the British. They caught wind very quickly of a correction corner that had to happen.
So my apologies to the Somerville family and estate. To both Bronski Beat and the Communards, I apologize.
It was a terrible mistake. And in the future, Stephen, if we're having a conversation about...
Now, I don't want to blame Stephen, but I'm going to. Great. If we're having a conversation about pedophiles, will you please double check any name I say?
I guess when we guess a name of someone who is a terrible human being and it's not like written down on a piece of paper.
Just go ahead and throw it in Google. I've got the red pen. Thank you. Underline the name.
And then throw it at us. Throw the red pen at us. And say stop improvising crime facts.
Yeah. It's important. Yeah. I was positive when I said Jimmy Somerville that I was right.
I was positive by the way you said Jimmy Somerville that you were right. You know why?
Because I had a B-side of a Communard single in college where Jimmy Somerville sings
Zing went the strings of my heart so beautifully. I used to play it over and over in my dorm room, my short-lived dorm room.
And I just felt such a connection that I wanted to call him a pedophile. You've been waiting to yell out his name with joy for so long and finally had an opportunity.
It was just my chance. It was just your chance. You took it. It just happened to not be the right moment to yell it.
It happened to be the worst chance that I could take. Yeah. It happened to just ruin Everybody You were yelling his name out again in your life Or name really um here a fun thing to talk about
we still have lots of subgroups that are um unsung and unheralded so um in case you have interests
um that are aside from just this true crime podcast um there are other subgroups that you
could join we'll just name a couple for you right now um you're in a cult call your corgi
is one um parsley sage rosemary and crime i don't know if that's i'm hoping that's like a food
cooking one is that what it is even i love it that's amazing um there's drag arenas which is
mfm meets rupaul's drag race that's pretty awesome that's good there's queer eye for the
Ritterino and I of course am obsessed with Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye so I love that. That's a good
crossover. Of course there's the What If Something Bad Happens Anxiety Support Group. Who doesn't need that?
Not me. I'm good. I'm all good. Don't worry about it. I'm fine. My favorite cucumber.
What on earth could that be? Is that like vegans? Oh. It's just cucumbers. Steven are you
joining these? It doesn't make No, I didn't join that one. It was just in the description.
It just said cucumbers. You just love cucumbers of any sort. We were actually watching videos the other day at work of, remember, they got popular for a little while,
the videos where you put a cucumber behind a cat, and then when it turns around and sees it,
it just jumps straight the fuck up in the air. Well, it turns out I'm the only one at work that thinks that's funny,
and everybody else was bummed out that it was mean to cats. Oh, please. I was like, but it's their instincts.
They can't control it. They think it's a snake. And that makes their feet shoot them directly into the air.
I don't think it's a snake. I think they think it's a snake. They do have bananas, too.
Oh, really? Elvis is scared of bananas. He's terrified of bananas. Like, when you're at Christmas, when we have a Christmas tree, we surround it with bananas.
Because otherwise, he'll go eat the Christmas tree. Wow. And he'll just stay away.
So like bananas are our new Christmas decoration. I wonder if he thinks that's like a really poisonous snake from the inner jungle.
I think the smell of it is like really, really repulsive to him somehow. Like maybe it smells poisonous.
I don't know. It's just personal preference. He's a cat. There's not a lot of explaining to do when it comes to cats.
Or ways to figure it out. No. Here comes. But here comes a tweet about cat bananas.
Get ready to have it explained to you. I want that explained to me. I know. And then, of course, there's Murderino Beauty basket lotion.
which is just like it's like what's a fun way we could say something let's make that into a group
i like it i mean because that could be it could be about beauty and keeping moisturized
and loving silence of the land exactly it's there's so many look we all are so complex yeah
we can contain multitudes we have we like two things not just one thing um i have listened
this is a little bit off topic, but I listened to a podcast this week that upset me so much.
Have you listened to Dr. Death? Oh, no, everyone loves it. Okay. It is everything.
This isn't even a recommendation because it's huge. It's like every time I open my podcast app,
it's the thing that's on there. It's like if we were like, you guys should try the podcast cereal.
Yes, everyone fucking knows it. But it's so good. It's from Wondery. It's really well made. It's
very journalistic and but it is about i never knew that i had any kind of a fear or phobia about
botch surgery and it's about a spinal surgeon who botches surgery after surgery and it is about
these two these two other they're neurosurgeons because when you work on the spine who go after
him because he they keep getting called in to fix his shit holy shit and it is i listened to i was
like Georgia, I binged like three episodes and then realized I was literally holding on to the
kitchen table. Cause you're just standing there listening to a podcast and sweating and like
freaking out. How does this keep like that? When we get murder stories like that, I just can't
handle it. It's like, why doesn't someone stop this person from doing all these things? Well,
and the scary thing. So I would say this too, if you're going to listen to Dr. Death,
make sure you don't have claustrophobia issues like fear of surgery do not listen to this podcast
make sure you're about to get surgery yeah if you're getting spinal surgery the next day don't
try to go to sleep no no listening to this podcast don't fall asleep to this podcast like truly it's
a warning but if you if all that is clear for you it is the best i mean i can't believe this story
and these doctors that are in it it's what time period is it like old enough it just fucking
happened in the 2000s i want it to be like the 80s taking like yeah they fucked up shit like that
all the time exactly what uh we recorded with chris fairbanks yesterday do you need a ride and
that's exactly what chris said he said when did it happen i said the 2000s and he goes i needed it
to be the 80s yeah i needed to be like well they fucked everything up in the 80s look at us but
here's the thing and this is kind of what's compelling about it it's about how when the
the health care system is all for profit right and everybody's worried about money making money and
getting sued and that's all anyone cares about how much it fucks the the patient and it's like
the red and it's like the red tape that's there so that you can't just uh you know call out some
other doctor like he fucks everything up but it's there for the good but then when it's when it's
it can't be used to get someone who should not be fucking doing these things yeah out of town
that's exactly right that's that's what they talk about is no hospital would quote-unquote fire this
doctor because then he could turn around and sue them for wrongful termination and and for ruining
their career so he just keeps getting let go and given like we we think you great letters and he gets keeps getting sent to worse and worse neighborhoods where people can fight where there no money to fight doctors like that
Right. And it is like, it is as scary as any serial killer story we've ever told.
Jesus. It's fucking so intense. I was sweating like through my shirt where I was like, I'm so unhappy and uncomfortable.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, this podcast is freaking the shit out of me. I don't know if I can listen to it right now.
I don't know if I'm going to play. I want to. I don't know if I can. Do you need a more uplifting?
Yeah, is there a good uplifting one? Do you have one? Well, Jonathan Vaness is getting curious.
He's just such a lovely man. He's amazing. God, I love that person. And such a good host.
Yeah, and like truly curious. I mean, it's called getting curious. But truly, he just sounds like he has his curiosity.
And it's, oh, how about the podcast Everything is Alive, where this person interviews people, interviews objects as if they're people.
There's like a bar of soap one I listened to recently that I was like, I'll put this on as I'm like laying in bed and I just was laughing so hard.
I couldn't fall asleep. So I had to turn it off. That's it. What else do you have?
Oh, I listened to Dave Chang's podcast. He is the amazing chef from Mama Fuku, who also is the host of Ugly Delicious and a bunch of stuff.
He has a podcast now, and he interviews his friends because he wants to talk about, or
from what I can gather, I've listened to two, but he likes talking about people who are
successful kind of in the face of adversity or like that no one believes in. It's kind of like an underdog, how did you get, how did you get to where you got type
of podcast. Nice. And he's such a good interviewer. He's such a like passionate person.
I just really like that guy. Yeah, he's taken his career so far. He is. It's crazy.
Truly so admirable, admirable, admirable, admirable, not admirable. He also is admirable.
Oh, wait, there's one more, but it's not light. Good. I don't like love light. Okay.
It is the comprehensive story. It's CBC's uncover escaping NXIVM. And you love it.
Here's the thing. The host guy runs into a girl he went to high school with in a park.
and he goes, what have you been up to? She goes, I just escaped a cult. So he then, the whole thing is
he already had this relationship with her. He's known her since she was a teenager
and she tells him the story of how she got involved in NXIVM which is that cult that that actress from Smallville
just got arrested and is being like, there's charges against her for sex trafficking
and all this crazy shit. And they branded themselves and shit too? They were branded and she has a brand on her.
This girl. it is someone was explaining to me that I listened to the podcast how they got branded and how they
did it with like a laser pointer yeah not like something normal like a fucking safety pin yeah
well not all at once like a brand yeah where it hurts once and then you're done it took half an
hour and you could smell the flesh burning yes and it's huge and it's really you have to listen
to it because because it's one thing for people to tell you about that cult but this is a person
from the inside being like and then and then this and then that and the whole thing is based on like
pyramid schemes yeah on the on um what the salesmanship thing so it starts out as like
don't you want to improve your life and your career yeah which of course everyone does and
that's normal and then they basically blend you into suddenly you're you're a slave and the person
your mentor is your master people to come to come to the cult and join it and like
if you get five pyramids you win you win the pyramid prize the pyramid game yeah exactly
it's so intense it's really another one that's really well done okay i'll listen to that but
that one i can do it yeah that one is and she's she got out yeah and her husband got out like
the family was in it was crazy that's bananas i know i'll listen to that um those ones are good
there's been a lot of good stuff lately yeah anything else right now i've just been back at
work so i don't that's right i just have been a little bit i listen to things on the way to and
from work yeah and that's about it well we have one more episode left of uh fucking the sinner
which i'm sorry this last season episode was so good it was so good kid the actor is so good i
love him the little boy yeah julian julian julian and of course carrie coon oh my god who started
following us on facebook i mean on where are we twitter on twitter oh my god that's right it's
really heard it's like her cool assistant who's like it's her cool assistant she doesn't follow
people she doesn't have time she's in every tv show every show she like hasn't looked at twitter
she's killing it she's like michelle my assistant who's cool do stuff on twitter right you're naming
her assistant michelle uh-huh oh okay yeah there was that was such a natural piece of dialogue that
i thought you had an assistant named michelle no my assistant name michelle is dvr-ing carrie
raccoons's tv show for me um no i love it it's so good i know i'm gonna that's one i'm gonna be
sad when it's over me too yeah maybe there'll be another season though yeah i hope so and i figured
out we were looking it up um i think it worked because it was we were talking about it one of
the guys that directs the sinner was a producer on that independent movie martha marcy may marlene
which was is elizabeth um oh thank you steven olsen elizabeth olsen the child oh no no no no
the great actress elizabeth olsen who um in that independent movie is herself in a cult and gets
out it's one of the best movies if you haven't seen that i haven't it is so fucking creepy
martha marcy may marlene okay is the name of the movie okay and it's similar in terms
terms of the look and the feel to the center. Okay. And so I just love when things connect like that We were like I like this and I like that I made that Okay that fun Yeah I dig that Who doesn love warm carby comfort Satisfying sandwiches loaded bagels rich mac and cheese
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meaningful beauty confidence is beautiful learn more at meaningfulbeauty.com who goes first this week i think it's me no it's uh oh because vegas was last week oh right yeah
yeah ted binion well sure ted binion i'll go ahead and go first well then sure why not i'll try it
this is one of those murders that normally wouldn't have even probably looked twice at but it's in
so many of those weird small town murder lists every time you see one of those lists this
murder comes up in it okay so I just saw it so many times and I was finally like okay I'm gonna
look into this a little bit and it's it's weird for sure and it also like kind of it's it deviates
so this is uh the Coons family murders KUNZ this is it takes place in a small town in wisconsin and it's on every one of those like small town murders
you haven't heard about that fucking rock this small town that and you also haven't heard of the
small town okay you know what i mean yes um is it wisconsin remember when we drove we were separate
but we drove from like somewhere to somewhere else in wisconsin for the madison show probably maybe
i was with michelle balloon and you and vince drove together and we stopped didn't we stop at um
at that big barn the ozark land maybe oh that was the way home okay but anyway i've just immediately
my mind is like when you're in in like small town wisconsin you're far away yeah from things yeah
yeah and people and this is this this is here okay so i got a lot of information from uh this
website called mysteriousheartland.com and it's an article written by a guy named scott whitman
and i think i've used this website a few times because it's kind of like you can't find a lot
of details about these murders it's like you know number 10 on this list so you don't it's just two
paragraphs but this is actually a long article and then there's a couple of really good comments
that like list theories and shit too okay so it's cool you love that small town gossip dude i mean
that's the best way to fill in any story it's all true it's all true yeah you know um so this is a
town called Athens in um it's a it's a quaint rural town in north central Wisconsin and the
population is a little under a thousand people so it's fucking small town for sure it's like a
post office it's a post office it's less than uh two and a half square miles in size like oh that's
fucking it the like little town the where the post office is the teenagers just drive around
the outside of town every Friday night. Right. Donuts in the fields. Cows tipping.
I don't know what people do. Cows tipping teenagers over. Yeah. Cows tipping cars over.
You know, mayhem. It's got that small town atmosphere. There's, of course, a close sense of community, which is why on the night of the 4th of July
1987, the whole town of under a thousand people is shocked when five members of a family are
all murdered all shot in the head in their uh home with a 22 caliber rifle fucking execution
style everyone's just like wait what this is insane like shit like that doesn't happen here
so the coonses i'll tell you about them they're reclusive super reclusive kind of like the town
like these are the this is the weird town don't go to their house people oh they're like weird and
creepy um they live together in a dilapidated old farmhouse in the outskirts of athens on 108 acre
farm. And the family's made up of four elderly siblings who live in this farmhouse. Irene is 81,
Clarence is 76, Maria 72. And the youngest sibling is Helen, who's 70. They all live together
in this dilapidated farmhouse brothers and sisters in their 80s and 70s. It just you just took it into
creep zone five. Well, okay, so there's this episode of that was only aired once of X files
that they everyone says it's based on this family and it's creepy and weird and they took it and
it's like it's not creepy in like alien ways it's creepy in like what yes it's called home is jack
black in it do you remember is this the one where they the boys are playing baseball and they step
on something and blood comes out of the ground it's it's i know that's the episode of giovanni
ribisi where there's like lightning okay but home yeah i just got chills when you mentioned
Here, let me read. It's so scary. Let me read the description of it. Do you remember?
Because it's really hard to find. You can't. It's hard to find online. They like...
As soon as it aired, they got so many complaints because it was so creepy that they took it down.
Was there something under a dresser? Yeah, there was like a, they kept the mom under the...
Yes. Yes. Okay, okay. I saw that one. Let me read you the description of it. And I couldn't even find it.
I wanted to watch it and I couldn't find it. Home is the second episode of the fourth season of X-Files, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
aired in 1996. It's a monster of the week story, a standalone plot, unconnected.
the initial broadcast, it was the only first episode of the X-Files to receive a viewer
discretion warning for graphic content and they only have carried a TVMA rating. So yeah, it's just
essentially just a creepy family story. But it's not, it sounds similar, but it's not, it wasn't apparently
based on this story. Okay. But everyone thinks it is. So the four elderly siblings live there
and they also live there with Helen, who's the youngest sibling, her two adult sons. Randy is 30 and he lives in the farmhouse with his aunts and uncle's uncle and mom. And
then Kenneth is 55. He lives on a trailer on the property. He's like, I'm not fucking staying with
these people. So their ramshackle farmhouse has no running water and no indoor plumbing at all,
where they all live together. They use an outhouse and all the food is cooked on an old
wood-burning stove, which also is used to heat the house. This is in the 80s. Uh-huh.
Okay. The family keeps to themselves. They don't like party with her friends and shit.
They don't party? Uh-uh. Then fuck them, man. Yeah, they don't like to hang and party and, you know, have, I don't know, socials and
Tupperware parties and... Go to fish fries near town. Yeah, they make a hot dish.
Got it. You know. And they're known to be hoarders, which includes a large collection of pornography.
they're like super and i hate to talk ill and the dead because i'm not like they were gross
and this and that it's like these were the rumors and they were actually like confirmed to be true
once the family died and they went through the house not common though to have family collections
of pornography that's different than the usual yeah because it's like everyone likes something
else it's you can't how you agree on what movie to watch that's right you know it's hard enough to
just with a standard movie right action drama right romance porn porn um so the fan they
have a huge collection of porn including mail order vhs tapes because that's how you had to
get porn back then probably especially in fucking rural rural wisconsin that's right right and
magazines and they're but they're hoarders so it's like everywhere and then uh the family would
watch the tapes together no and then there's rumors also that there was incestuous happenings
well that one would beget the other right one would think that's right yeah yeah i mean you
can stop now and this is one of the creepier stories that we've ever yeah it's it's definitely
got some things uh it's also rumored and found to be true after the murders that there are large
amounts of cash like hidden around the house they're hidden in drawers in boxes under floor
boards and it's just like huge like like 20 grand is talked about being like found wow in one place
and but it's weird because there's only one member of the family one of the sons
is Kenneth, who actually has a job. No one else has a job because they're fucking 81 years old and shit.
And they don't have running water, but they have all this cash everywhere. God. Is someone selling porn out of like a back window?
That's a great question. You can walk by, hold up a $5 bill. Right. But they don't want anyone to get that close, do they?
I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they have one of those grabbers from the store.
Oh, great. I love those. A high shelf grabber. I need one of those. as someone with a tall husband, it's like, I need to make a video of me trying to get
something down from the fucking cupboard when Vince is like, I'm putting the crackers here.
And it's like three feet taller than me. Oh, and speaking of crackers, Kenneth, who the only one who had a job, worked at a cheese
factory, which I'm like, sign me up. That sounds fun. It smells bad, though. I bet.
You're right. Yeah. Okay. So none of the siblings had ever, none of the older siblings had ever married, but Helen
had these two sons. She had given birth to her first son, Kenneth, when she was 15.
And she said that the pregnancy was a result of their the family's neighbor, a dude who's 40 years old named Frank Gumbs.
He's a convicted bootlegger. And she said he raped her and she got pregnant with Kenneth, who she had at 15.
Frank was tried and convicted shortly after Helen gave birth and he was sent to prison and he died after he served 18 months.
He had denied that he had ever had sex or raped either way with Helen. Wow. Years later, Helen gave birth to her other younger son, Randy, wouldn't name who the father was. Hey, let's related. Let's talk about sleeping arrangements at the farmhouse.
Oh, no. They're weird. Helen and her youngest son slept in the same bed together. And Clarence, who's the 81 year old uncle dude, he sleeps in the living room with his other two sisters.
Irene and Marie they all sleep like it's kind of like um uh Willy Wonka everyone in the bed together
yeah that's what it sounds like yeah and I actually looked trying to find a photos of
I can't find any photos of the family but I could find photos of the farmhouse and you look at it
and you're like if someone told me that that was like a quaint villa in Italy I'd be like oh my
god it's so cute but then you're like no no that's like a farmhouse that's falling apart
it's like weird so it kind of looks almost maybe historic or something it looks very old and very
like quaintly you know dilapidated and then it's like not quaintly dilapidated it's just
dilapidated and there's just people spooning each other all over the inappropriate place inside and
that's not quaint either no it isn't you can put the word quaint in front of a lot of shit and it
makes it okay does it that not one of them no yeah um so kenneth who the one who like absolutely not living uh in the house he lives on his own trailer he ends up spoiler alert being the only surviving member of the family he doesn
uh die in those executions oh shit so he's still alive and he later claims that his father was not
the rapey neighbor but the his own uncle clarence oh no he's like she that was my fucking dad he also
thinks that it was his younger brother's dad too. And he also said that he had seen Helen and
his uncle Clarence engage in sexual activity when he was a kid. So he's the one who's
saying that there's incest stuff going on. Yeah, he would know. I wrote it's like if the grandparents from Willy Wonka moved
into the psycho house. Oh no! And everyone just kind of lost their lost it. Yeah. No more fun
songs and pajama stuff. Nothing cute about it. No. So the murders occurred on the 4th of July, as I said, in 1987.
The town had their big fireworks show celebration. I don't know what to call it.
And then what do they call it? So it sounds good. So fireworks display. A show makes me think of people kind of doing like line kicks.
Right. Which they absolutely could have up in Athens. Yeah, they could have had the like guy plays Abe Lincoln.
Yeah. For some reason. Abe Lincoln would be there for sure. That doesn't make sense.
You know, like a, yeah, like a 4th of July parade with a big tall ape Lincoln. Yeah.
Oh, and then there are pets that have, like, that get dressed up too. Yeah. There's probably a town queen gets crowned.
The probably, maybe the cheese factory queen. Yeah. The princess, the cheese factory princess.
The Wisconsin cheese factory Athens princess. And she rides on a rolling wheel of cheese right down the main street.
She throws cheese curds to the audience. And they're not the spectators. Yeah, the spectators who love cheese curds.
Well, who doesn't? This is one of the greatest holidays in this country. Let's go this year to Athens.
To a thing we made up. Yes. I'm like, where is it? Why don't they have it? Where's fucking Abe Lincoln, you asshole?
It was never a thing, you fucking idiots, with your stupid podcast, who just believe in shit.
Just showed up here. In the movie, there's going to be a 4th of July parade. Absolutely.
With a giant Abe Lincoln. And we'll be there. And we'll be there writing it. So Helen and her younger son, Randy, had been last seen leaving this parade.
This non-existent parade. This non-existent parade. The Fourth of July show. Yes.
Okay. It is corroborated that they were last seen leaving this made-up thing. And sorry, it's the youngest son and the mother?
The youngest son and the mother. Yeah. And so they're last seen leaving that. I already said that.
Okay, so sometime that night after they get home from the parade, someone broke into their decrepit home and shoots the family execution style.
They're not discovered until the next morning when the other son, Kenneth, who has the job, when he comes home at around 5 a.m. and discovers the body of his aunt, uncle, and brother.
Okay. So Aunt Marie is 72. She's found on the steps just going into the house, like maybe running into the house.
His Kenneth's brother, Randy, is 30. He's laying on the kitchen floor, dead. Irene is sitting in a chair in the living room, having been shot.
And Clarence, his maybe uncle, maybe dad, is discovered in his bedshot. They had all been shot twice in the head with a .22 caliber rifle.
And his mother, Helen, is fucking nowhere to be found. Whoa. Yeah. and she's gone where is she and when i get to that part i you know when i hadn't known about
the story i'm like oh she killed them all like what's gonna happen she didn't but listen so
suspicion initially falls on kenneth the son who found them but police rule him out quickly
because he has an insane like extremely low iq and he has trouble answering questions from the
detectives and is painfully shy i don't know how that would rule you out from murdering someone but
I'm hoping that they they figured it out. Shyness. Shyness would just rule you out entirely.
Being really stupid and shy. You'd be too shy to approach anyone with a gun. Yeah, and I'm too, my IQ is too low
to figure out how to shoot a gun. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe the cops, it's also the thing of like small town police
where they're like, we know these, we know this guy. He could never do it because we've seen him.
We've known him. It's Buckingham Kenneth. He works at the cheese place. Yeah. He goes to, you know, he, everyone knows it's not him.
the community is shocked at the grissa murders of course and they're like we got to find helen
like maybe she was kidnapped and she's still alive we need to find her they create t-shirts
and buttons with where's helen on them that to help find her um and they believe it leave a
massive search the police uh search the fields forest swampland on the 108 acre farm of the
coons family as well as the property and wetlands surrounding it so i think it's just all real
shit and they're just like trying to find this body or this person yeah especially equipped fbi
airplane also scans the area wells abandoned shacks are inspected gardens dug up on the farm
land uh neighbors are interrogated but everyone was kind of like they they kept to themselves
nobody knew them no one was like pretty much nobody ever went to that house or was allowed
in the house you know they were like very secretive uh and reclusive so they have no friends at all
either to speak of but uh helen's their only friend was porn oh which we know is a fickle
fickle friend she's a fickle lady that porn that's right uh her disappearance becomes a nationwide
search and over the next couple months because like they feel like finding her is going to find
out what happened that's like the only way because they can't figure out why anyone want to kill this
reclusive family who had anything against them but and so residents are like speculating that she
she did it or that you know she on the run or she kidnapped Everyone of course like trying to figure out what happened And they do find out too that the week before the murder
she had purchased a .22 caliber bullets, which are the same type of ammo used for the murders,
from the local hardware store, and that she had had a conversation with the clerk who was like,
what are these for? Which I guess is a question that's okay to ask when someone's buying bullets.
Might as well. I mean, you should probably. Yeah. And she said that they were for her son, Randy, who was going to kill some blackbirds that were on the property.
But speculation then comes to a halt because nine months after the night of the murders, Helen's skeletal remains are found near a creek about 19 miles from the home in Medford, Wisconsin.
Just as her siblings and son, she had been shot in the head. And it only complicates this baffling case.
But the murder investigation then starts to focus on a 22 year old local car thief and like fucking like nefarious ne'er do well kid named Chris Jacobs.
So he's kind of this troublemaker, you know. So, of course, the cops turn to him and are like, did you know, did you do it?
And they find out that he's one of the few non-family members to ever interact with the Coonses at their home.
Whoa. So he had been in their home before, apparently. And it makes him the prime suspect.
He was there because he had purchased some old cars from the Coonses in the recent past.
And when questioned by police, he had no alibi for the time, what they suspected was the time of the murders, which was 1030.
But like, who knows if that's correct. He was in his car the night of the murders and then he went home.
His mother's like, he was totally home with me. And I remember that night because he helped his mother give birth to a calf.
The mother didn't give birth to the calf, but the calf was birthed. Thank you. I don't know how to say that.
And they lived about eight miles from the home. And he's like, it wasn't me. And then they found tire tracks left on the Coons' property that matched one of the tire
or car that he had on his property. But he was like, yeah, I fucking fix old cars up.
So there's a reason that, of course, you're going to find a tire like that. And then it comes out that the tires are pretty common under different names, but they still are like, nope, we think it's you.
And they arrest him and take him to trial for the murders. So the prosecution's argument is that when Chris had gone to buy the car, he had noticed that there was money everywhere,
even though the defense was like, well, the money was hidden everywhere, but maybe he knew it was there.
and he told a witness that he intended to get his hands on it um but investigators found that like
20 fucking grand in cash after the murders at the crime scene and the defense said that it was
like laying out but prosecution said it or no wait prosecution you know but maybe it was laying out
maybe it wasn't we don't really know um the defense has a theory that randy and his family
were shot as a result of a drug deal gone bad. So it was known around town that Randy, the son who
was killed, was dealing drugs in the area. And at the trial, the defense brought a witness who
claims that he had purchased cocaine from Randy in the past. And it was also well, it was the area
was in a drug crisis at the time as fucking every area was in the 80s. A local woman testified that
the night of the murder, so she's going through this, she's driving through an intersection about
100 meters 100 feet close to the uh close to the crime scene and the 100 arms length yeah 100
baby steps yeah 100 paper clips 100 feelings 100 feelings 100 blinks got it um from the crime scene
so the so she's driving through this intersection it's like a rural area and so she's driving through
and she sees that there's a car just a truck parked by the side of the road facing in the area
where Kenny would have had to drive up the direction he would have been coming from
after Cheese Factory work if he were coming home. And it looked like they were waiting for a car to come home.
And so she sees the car going through the intersection. She looks to see who's in the car, but the car shines a light in her face,
so she can't see anything, who's in the car, anything like that. And that by itself is scary.
I know, I know. Like if that happened to you where you were like, I wonder what this is already,
and then the person's already, ugh. Yeah, they're like, we don't want you to know.
And then as she's driving past the Coombs farm, the fucking truck turns around and starts to follow her.
And she's like, oh, shit. But as soon as she passes the farm, the car goes back and sits back in the road.
It's like clearly they're waiting to see who's coming by. It's not just someone pulled over, like making out or whatever, like taking a nap.
And the car doesn't match the description of the dude on trial, his car. So the defense theory is that Randy had planned to meet his suppliers that night and pay them the money that he owed them for the drugs that he had been selling.
and Randy, the kid, the son who was dead, they think that Kenny, the brother who was alive,
who had the cheese factory job, who wasn't very smart, that he had given Kenny some drugs to sell at the cheese factory.
And so that Kenny had, and then it's also known that Kenny had large amounts of cash on him that night,
the night of the 4th of July, and he bought a huge amount of fireworks. I mean, what would you do?
clearly a huge amount of cash on 4th of July. Absolutely. Piccolo pizza for everybody. Right.
But he never set them off. And then he went to a bar and bought more fireworks and like bought
alcohol that night and was like hanging out and drinking. So like, why does he have this huge
amount of money on him? Maybe he spent the drug money that he was supposed to go give to his
brother, not knowing that the brother like owed a debt to these drug dealers and the drug dealers
like we're going to fucking wait here till your brother gets home. Don't lie to us. Like we're
going to get this cash. And meanwhile, he's out just just binging fireworks, binging fireworks and
alcohol And then maybe he was like Oh shit if I go home right now my brother gonna know I spent all this money I just gonna sleep it off in the car And so he sleeps in his car that night which is why he didn get home till 5 a to find his family dead
Oh no. So they think that maybe what happened was the drug dealers were like, this is taking forever.
Like, let's go in. We know you have money hidden in the house. Let's go in there.
They go in there. Maybe they take Helen in the car to wait with them, like kind of hostage.
Oh, right. and when they didn't show up, maybe they took Randy and his mother hostage
and then wait at the intersection. They don't show up. They go in the house. There's maybe a fight that breaks out,
and then the suppliers kill everyone in the house, so there's no witnesses. They come back to their car,
where the mother is hanging out, doesn't know what's going on. They drive away, and they kill her
in this remote swamp, and they kill her and leave her body there. So that's how...
Because why would she not have been in the house is always this weird question. You know, right.
Like why take the one person somewhere off campus and kill them? Right. But leave all these other bodies just out.
Yeah, that's super weird. And so that's a good way to explain why she was found in a different location.
Yeah. And the only one who was. Right. Yeah. So there's no fingerprints or footprints at the scene, which is weird because there was tire prints.
And Chris's car had no bloodstain. The guy who's on trial has no bloodstain or any evidence that Helen or Randy had ever been in the car.
and because of all of this, the trial is super brief and because of the circumstantial case against him,
he's acquitted for lack of evidence. Oh, good. He's like, great, but hold on. Oh, wait, there's more.
Okay. After trial, the case grows cold and the police aren't able to find more promising suspects.
They still think it's this kid, this dude, Chris. But that is until 1993, five years after the killing,
this dude, Chris Jacobs' ex-girlfriend, Stacy Weiss, comes forward and she's like oh i forgot to tell you guys this uh my ex-boyfriend jacob chris jacobs
admitted to shooting the family he said he did it oh no he told me that she um but she had been
recently caught in minnesota as an accessory to robbery and she had threatened when chris broke
up with her to get back at uh him so she basically had this bargaining chip yeah okay he told me he
killed them all right um and they're like well you're like well wait like that doesn't that
doesn't sound right and he had already gotten acquitted from this case so we can't try him
again there's double jeopardy well they arrest him again oh and they're like well we're not
arresting him and prosecuting him for the murders it's uh one day before the statute of limitations
runs out on kidnapping that they they arrest him for kellen's kidnapping and take him to trial for
the kidnapping oh shit one day before the statute of limitations and she and he's charged with her
abduction and his trial this time for a different crime um he is convicted oh god based primarily
on the same tire track evidence but they had they said it had been quote enhanced by the fbi
so somehow like looking at the tire treads closer where they were able to match it to the
tire this time okay don't worry about it um and uh then after he gets uh he gets convicted
his ex-girlfriend is never brought to her charges are never brought up on robbery
so it's like okay so the defense said that um the defense's only argument in this trial is that it
was helen that killed her family and then later date into a swamp and committed suicide so clearly
his defense wasn't, didn't try. He didn't have the money to get anybody good for that second trial.
Yeah, that second trial. He had spent all his money on that first one. He had like the
lawyer with the flask in his pocket. He was like, I'm going to think of some good
day of... Your Honor. Your Honor. Can I talk to you privately? Your Honor, I have a secret. I just took a secret
really quick. Cyborg, Cyborg. Cyborg secrets. The drunk lawyer, everybody. The drunk lawyer.
So he's found guilty he receives a 31 year sentence yeah and he is scheduled to be released in february of 2020
so he's just been serving i mean like that's just like that's it for he got served
fuck and so he was like 27 when that was 20 yeah so he was 21 when the murders took place
yeah horrifying um and like the whole like all the rumors like the there's all these people who
were like everyone knows it wasn't this everyone knows it's like either the in town like the cops
were corrupt or that everyone knows it was these drug dealers and it was more than one person
every which sounds like if you're going to kill four people or five people yeah you're gonna
fucking it's got to be more than one person one would think yes because it'd be really hard to
just walk through and kill everybody also and farms like that they all have guns they have
shotguns in the house very common yes it's that's like a it's a a necessary tool yeah on a big old
ranch well it just makes sense that there's one person who's you know uh keeping everyone where
they are with one gun and the other person shooting them. Yeah. I mean, or like two people,
whatever. At least two people. I mean, that's, that's the theory that I think makes sense,
but who knows? Okay. So that's, what's going on with this guy, Chris Jacobs. And it turns out looking back into the Kunz's family and this tragic fucking
thing that happened to them. And it's like, no matter how insane and incestuous they were,
they didn't deserve to be fucking killed execution style. No, you know, in their own home and not have anyone really ever get brought to justice
for it. It sucks. and it turns out that this isn't the first time that there's a murder tragedy in the fucking
Koons's family so let's go way back to 1905 when these siblings these five siblings their uh parents
uh are living the parents are named Ignaz and Anna and they live with Ignaz's mother
Mary in her home in Manitowoc Wisconsin okay and that's making a murderer that's right
so Anna the wife comes home one day and finds her mother-in-law her husband's mother
fucking dead in her bed she had been bludgeoned to death by her by her husband's brother
whoa so that the son that son is sent to live who also lived in the home with the family
that son's lived sent to a fucking insane asylum where he lives out his days alongside his other
another brother who had already fucking been institutional lives before the murder of his mother occurred.
Oh, no. So, his two brothers are hanging out in this fucking institution. One of the brothers had bludgeoned his mother to death.
Whoa. So, Ignatz and Anna are like, shit, man, this sucks. They moved to Marathon County, which is where I think where Athens is.
He works for a logging company. They have these children. They're raised in an 18 by 20 crudely built log cabin.
They're poor as fuck. They don't go to school. They only have each other to rely on.
And they stay that way, living together in a farmhouse until 1987, when they're all killed together.
Whoa. And that's the fucking creepy, weird small town murder story of the Coons family.
God. I know. Now let's all go track down the X-Files home episode and watch it. If someone has it, please send it to us on DVD or some shit.
I don't know. I'll tell you that the just the one scene I remember from that, there are things that scuttle on the ground under from like under a bed to under a dresser.
People say it's very Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is another one of those. This like they say it's similar to this story, too.
It's just like this weird family of people who might be inbred and it's all creepy.
They live together. And there's no reason to not have electricity and running water.
There's no reason. Especially 20 grand in cash. Yeah, no, it's there's something about that.
That's very like something's happening. The dynamic in that family is happening where it's like they refuse to go to be like, we're
too poor for running water. It's like, great. That sucks. We totally get it. But like you have fucking cash hidden around your house and you don't have a toilet.
Do you think they forgot about the money because there was so much porn? They would just get distracted every time they'd be like, we can get up.
Oh, no, look at this, man. Look at this filthy thing. Yeah. Or like we don't want the electrician to come out here because he'll see all our porn.
There's nowhere to put the porn. Yeah. We can't move the porn to put in pipes. The hoarding situation alone is like, you can't expect normal shit from people who are hoarders.
It sounds like untreated mental illness was the song this family liked to sing. From way back in the day.
So it's almost like the stigma of it where it's like, keep it all in. Don't let anybody see.
And that's how terrible, weird, you know, households full of no lights and no running water start happening.
That's right. Oh, it's so crazy. One big bed in the living room and that's it. And here's young Georgia and young Karen driving in a car and we are out of gas.
Oh, no. I guess we have to walk over to that farmhouse over there. We were on our way to the parade.
Whoops. We ran out of gas. We were going to be in the big show, but now we ran out of gas.
That's right. walk over there in the snow. Karen was going to get crowned fucking cheese factory princess. I was
finally going to make it happen. That's right. That was horrifying. Thank you. Good job. Thanks.
I mean, that's what we do. That's what we like. That's what we've decided to do. It's like,
and it's hard to not think of, now I will think of that story every time I drive by any house
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This is my murder as I was finishing it up before I came over here. I started thinking about a time in your old apartment where I was like,
has Georgia done this one? The details started coming together but I don't think it is.
We've just talked about it maybe? No. I think there's so many stories like this that it's very similar
but you please red flag me the second you think it's the same. I'm not going to because then what?
When the episode's over? No. Then we just talk about other stuff. I don't think it is though.
it's just another one of these stories who will know if i'll even remember i mean let's just see
let's see what's the truth this is the murder of joan dolly d-a-w-l-e-y let's start okay it
happens in silmar california 1991 i don't think i did this one okay because it's silmar is in the
northern part of the san fernando valley so it's near where we are right now i've never thought
about silmar in my life so i don't think i've done this murder okay good i'll just keep on
checking in with you the entire time okay great um all right so it's easter season 1991 and 55
year old wife and mother joan dolly uh she's working part-time at the uh crown hallmark store
in silmar california okay remember when there were hallmark stores i loved hallmarks any
whatever the occasion they'd have a card tchotchkes galore i mean they had like hummel type figures
They had, it was like little glass animals that were mounted on a little card. I loved those.
I like calling them gifts for people you don't know that well. Or gifts for grandma.
Gifts for grandma. Do you think grandma would like this bell made out of China? It's the thing where one time you said you like penguins and now every fucking gift you
get from your kids is a penguin. And I'm saying that because my fucking own mother gets a fucking penguin from us.
That's like my mom who she said she liked chickens. Oh yeah. And four years later, she opened up like a chicken cookie thing.
She was like, if I see one more fucking chicken, I'm going to kill somebody. Well, it makes it easier.
My mom is penguins. My grandma is monkeys. My sister is black cats. I'm Siamese cats.
Yep. Stop. My friend Patty Riley in high school, at some point in grammar school, told somebody she
liked frogs. It was all she ever got. It makes life easier. Yeah, it really does.
Me, I like money. Okay. My favorite animal is a gift card. Oh, I like to pet them and spend them.
Love them. Okay, so she's working at the Crown Hallmark, dusting those china bells.
Get it. Get after it. And she lives in that town with her husband of 32 years, Dennis Dolly.
Okay. Dennis, because it's Easter season, Dennis has volunteered to come down to the Hallmark store
and dress up as the Easter Bunny so kids can come in and take pictures with him.
That's so sweet. Isn't that nice? Yeah. And Joan's coworkers describe Dennis as the kind of guy who'd do anything for a laugh.
It seemed like they had the perfect marriage. And, of course, anytime they say that, oh, sorry, this from, I got this from a Wikipedia page, but also, of course, the show Deadly Women on the ID channel.
Oh, fun. I mean, not fun, but, you know. Oh, wait, well, now I know what's going to happen.
He didn't kill her. Well, you'll see. because anytime on a true crime show if they say they seem like the perfect couple
you know some fucked up shit is about to start happening because no one's the perfect couple
thank god Vince and I don't seem like the perfect couple but we kind of do that you do, one's tall and one's short
and you really seem to like each other that's how we know fucked up shit is happening
when Steven and I leave this apartment he's putting crackers so high up you can't get them
I can't reach the chicken and a biscuit give me that club cracker you son of a bitch okay so um dennis has been retired for 15 years
and um he decides he's going to get a part-time job at the local golf course um to supplement his pension because he's good at golf although his real passion is fishing he
likes to go on lots of fishing trips he dreams of owning his own fishing boat you can't get a job at
the fishing course no you sure can't no one will hire you to fish why don't they do that
they just don't need it okay it's not um got it it's not financially point feasible it's not the
point of fishing not the point of fishing golfing so he always goes on these fishing trips by himself
which is fine with joan because she hates the water and so because she hates him in love she
hates his fucking house okay after 32 years of marriage i'm sure she's like sounds great
it's around this same time um 1991 uh joan inherits 70 grand from her mother who dies
70 grand and a house yes and dennis tells joan you should put the house in the deed of that house
in my name um why let's because he wants to sell it he wants to go sell it and then they can take
that money and spend it he wants a fishing boat he's got a bunch of plans but joan says no she
keeps telling him she's keeping all that money and the deed of the house as a nest egg,
quote unquote, in case something happens. Nothing, nothing worth $70,000 happens.
Right. Like something overnight. Yeah. I mean, what is she planning? Well, here's,
here's what it is. Okay. Um, she finally confides to her friend who also owns the Hallmark store.
Okay. Um, she keeps it real tight in that Hallmark store. Is it, is it a franchise?
it is that woman franchise oh good for her she is a small business owner and happy for her And a good friend to Joan Yeah So Joan confides in her and is like I think Dennis is having an affair
And so that's why she's like, I'm not giving him any money because he's been spending money like crazy lately.
Oh. When he goes on these quote unquote fishing trips. Sure. But she doesn't know on what.
Fishing trips should be cheap. Everyone knows that. What do you need? Worms? Worms?
You eat food out of a can. Yeah. you got your you got your hobo on your bill i don't know why i'm suddenly he's a hobo
he's he has he jumps the train to get to the pond he jumps train to get back there's no you eat the
fish oh that's what you eat yeah that's right you don't need food you don't need anything in a can
no save your 89 cents um so she is suspicious okay so basically she's preparing to get a divorce
oh shit and dennis when she won't give him any money or let him play or really do anything he's
starting to suspect that she might want to get a divorce. And if that happens, she will get half
his pension. And that means he will be financially ruined. So don't fuck around that kid. Right? So
let's go back to the early years. Joan and Dennis Dolly were childhood sweethearts. They got married
in 1956. He was in the Air Force at the time. He was a missile technician. Shit, you gotta be smart
as fuck right he knows the shit i mean one would hope you gotta hope i mean if you're tinkering
around with people be smart you don't just put any old it's a guy that keeps turning the
instructions over and over what does this blueprint say um it's just ikea instructions
with that little dude it's a guy next to a missile oh no scratching his head um they get shipped to
london um fun right after they get married joan loves it she loves the idea that she gets to be
this military wife that travels the world with her missile technician husband. While overseas, she gives birth to their first daughter, Debbie.
Baby named Deborah. There we go. Right? Five years later, in 1961, they move back to the U.S.
Joan has another baby girl named Lori. There's lots of family home movies where Dennis is playing the devoted father,
dressing as Santa every year at Christmas, And of course, as the Easter Bunny every year at Easter 1968, they the Dallies have transferred once again to the military base in Lompoc, California, which is north of here.
There the girls are 12 and seven. And by all appearances, they're the perfect American military family.
It's the height of the Cold War, though. So Dennis keeps having to leave on missions and not explaining where he's going.
And Joan, by this point, is tired of moving all the time. They've moved a ton of times.
She hates uprooting the family every time. And as the girls get older, they don't like it either.
So it's all becoming a little problematic. 1974, the family's stationed in Omaha, Nebraska.
Debbie graduates college. A year later, Dennis retires from the Air Force. And the whole family moves back to California.
And they settle down in Sylmar, in the northern San Fernando Valley. Is that, like, super suburb-y, cute?
Do you know it? Super suburbia, not that nice. Oh. A little bit, a little bit. I mean, like, I'm sure it's fine in general, but there's a little crime up there.
Okay. It's not the regular San Fernando Valley that we know of, like Encino or whatever.
It's a little further toward the foot hills. Yeah. Yeah, which has got some crime happening.
It gets a little risky out there. Yeah. Okay. So just a few weeks after Easter, on April 17th, 1991, Joan doesn't show up for work at the Hallmark store.
and it's very unlike her. She doesn't call. She just doesn't show. And her good friend and the owner,
that woman's name is Marilyn Rush. She knows how weird this is for Joan. So she immediately drives over to Joan's house.
She lets herself into the house with the extra key that she knows where it's hidden.
And the whole house is in a shambles. There's clearly been a robbery. She walks into the master bedroom
and she finds Joan bludgeoned to death in her bed. Oh no, I was hoping she'd be a deadly woman.
She's not a deadly woman. So she's been murdered. So she's been severely beaten around the head.
She has a broken finger and she has other defensive wounds on her arms and hands.
The forensics team, luckily, so it's 1991. The forensics team scrapes the, because they see that there's tissue underneath her fingernails.
She fought back, yeah. Yeah, she fought. So they scrape it and they save it. And they know that DNA is now a possibility, but it's the very early stages.
Potholes is just a baby. That's little Paul Holes with the, this is when he had puffy cheeks.
He had puffy baby cheeks, but he was a, he was into forensics. He was the, yeah.
Okay. That's how he started. So Paul Holes isn't even part of the story. Anyways.
He's across the bay. Yes. North, he's north and west. Yeah. So the police determined that the point of entry was a break-in in the back of the house.
So they just put it together. It's with all the, I was going to say ramshackledness, with all the rummaging that's clearly gone on.
It's a break in a run. Ransacking. A ransacking. Not ramshackled. No. That's not my story.
That's from your, I'm borrowing from your story and putting it into my story. I mean, it sounds like Golden State Killer style.
Right. That's right. The bludgeoning. Yeah. So, when the family finds out Dennis and his daughters are distraught, obviously,
their total disbelief that they're, that Joan is gone and at such a young age, Dennis can barely function.
How old is she? 56. Okay. 55 or 56. That's awesome. So yeah, you know, like living this kind of
like retiree life. Yeah, like finally. Yeah. Trying to put it together. Sure. Dennis can barely function and he tells his daughters he can stay in the house Obviously that where his wife is murdered um and that he just needs to go away on a fishing trip um his daughter debbie doesn think it a good idea for him to be alone so she says if you want to go i go with
you and he says no i really need to be by myself i just i have to be by myself and so he goes on
his trip we don't trust him now no um the police don't trust him either when they talk to dennis
they feel like he's giving no, absolutely no signs that he is even upset that his wife has been bludgeoned to death in her bed.
They're getting real weird vibes. That's a police thing. We know that sometimes people don't act like they're in grief.
But you can tell vibes. Yes. I mean, I think that's the thing, too, is that like so much police work is like, are you a sensitive investigator that's feeling vibes?
Or are you a police monster? Right. who like you're not crying your brains out yes so you don't care you did it i am now going to find
the evidence to put you in jail no matter what i guess it's probably the thing of like we know no
one uh reacts the same but you can be like this person is clearly in shock right now not this
person isn't crying because they killed someone it's like this person in a week is going to
fucking lose their shit or like in a month whatever i can tell by the with their pupils
that they're in shock or whatever it's like with all these things are in you know it like
it's context. It's just what is the actual situation here? And they all were like, this guy doesn't
feel right. And then they find out their hunch is right because it turns out Dennis did not
go on a fishing trip to grieve the sudden loss of his wife of 30 years because he's caught on
casino surveillance tape in Las Vegas. Two days. He's just in a canoe fishing in the middle of Binion's
casino. We'll pull Ted Binion back in binion's back binion's back baby he goes casino thing instead he was gambling at a table
with an unknown woman laughing it up and having a time of his life on casino surveillance footage
stupid idiot you fucking dipshit you're i mean listen i hate you you're a killer go to prison
forever but like why are you so stupid people are really stupid they're really stupid but this guy's
especially stupid yeah because also there are a lot of places you could go that don't have
going to a casino in las vegas is like i want to be on film it's also like you got to assume maybe
you're being tailed they don't know what who the murderer is yeah like the first person that cops
always look at is the husband there's gonna be one like rookie who's like gets sent to follow
you that day right you know also this was two days after the funeral that he went to vegas
like you can't hold for two weeks yeah you can't just let the feelings die down a hint i'm like
maybe like help your daughters grieve their mother's fucking death guess not monster so
the woman that he's with gets identified and her name is brandita taliano that's not a real name
that is brandita's real name she is a sex worker from the san fernando valley which the idea of
that makes me laugh because to me the san fernando valley is a series of strip malls yeah and starbucks
Yeah. So in a courthouse or two. Yeah, exactly. So there's somewhere there's there's a there's a strip that some sex workers like to walk.
I guess that happens everywhere. Yeah. So Dennis had been spending a lot of time with Brandita.
They call her Brandy and lots of money on her. And that's Joan. So he wasn't fucking around like he wasn't didn't meet some chick at the Hallmark on the other side of town.
No. And start dating her. No. he he started paying for sex with brandy um so when joan suspected that her husband was having
an affair she was right but what she didn't know was that he was having an affair with the sex
worker that he was sleeping with and he also began to pay her rent he bought her a car he basically
became her sugar daddy how did he have his money like oh my god well he had his pension yeah and
separate he thought he was going to have money with jones inheritance shit um and when jone was
like you aren't getting any of this money he realized that this lifestyle he was kind of
secretly living this other life was going to get cut off and that if jone divorced him and he lost
all that money that brandy would never see him again yeah because that's not how it works um
that love would dry up right quick. So in the winter of 1993, Brandy is arrested on a drug charge.
And when they search her, they find Joan Dolly's jewelry in the bottom of her purse.
So this gives, there's a detective that's, that was the first on the scene and his,
his name is detective Tippin. I want to say Dave Tippin, but that's just me. I don't think it is.
is it dave tipping i bet it's dave hold please hold hold for dave check hold for dave we do we
are thorough now we don't call people tipping unless we do a thorough check that's right
because because we ain't tipping out because that ain't we ain't count this isn't count tip
you know here's a quick tip don't just call people dave um seems like i didn't write anything
down about dave tippen hold on mr tippen god damn it tippen call me mr tippen yeah that's what
he always says so oh stephen's got it stephen's got it paul tippen mother fucker um okay paul tips
so then you get the last name wrong okay so detective Paul Tippin realizes when he when this uh jewelry is matched
to Joan Dolly's jewelry he's like here's what we're gonna do this is this going to get me the warrant so that I can take her DNA and test it against the fingernail
scrapings that I kept from under Joan Dolly's fingernails. Is she the deadly woman?
Oh my God, I got it. Oh, I actually did this one. Did you? No. No, I didn't. So he sends Brandy's DNA to the evidence lab.
I did not think that twist was coming, even though it's called Deadly Women, the TV show.
Right? You thought the one woman was dead. And that's why. That was your only choice.
Shit. It's the early 90s. It takes one year for the results to come back on this DNA.
DNA, get your shit together. Guys, you don't even understand how important you are.
But in the meantime, Detective Paul Tippin starts looking into Brand Italiano's life.
So he's not surprised to find, and I'm sure the other policemen that work with him, maybe
he didn't do all this work. Sure, sure, sure. But they find that she's been in and out of jail for the past 10 years for drug charges.
She's a heroin addict. So a lot of the stuff she's doing is purely just to get drugs.
What does surprise them is they find that while she has been in jail in the more recently, Dennis Dolly has visited her in jail 14 times.
This guy has no chill. He's really not smart when it comes to like basically thinking any of this shit through.
He's like, okay, hear me out. If he goes to visit her in jail all the time and just to fucking see her, because he's like
in love with her. Yes. Because like he's not having sex with her in jail. No, they can't have sex in jail.
You would be surprised that they are not allowed to have sex in jail. So he's visiting her because he fucking misses her and is in love with her.
Yes. And also, second only to a Las Vegas casino, where is the one other place you're going
to get recorded and filmed and taped on security cameras more than in fucking jail.
Great point. So they're having conversations about things that are being recorded.
He is apparently smuggling heroin into her and keeping her commissary account filled
with money so that she's like gets what she needs in jail. I got to get that top ramen.
I need that one color of lipstick. The only one that's available. Right. Wet and wild.
I need that. It's the 90s. So I need my brown lip liner. I don't need lipstick. I just need my brown lip liner.
Just brown lip liner and then maybe a light white gloss. Right. So basically, immediately they're like, oh, holy shit, we've got the husband connected here.
And in one of these conversations, he tells Brandy that he needs her help. He needs her to find him someone that can take care of what he calls a big job.
And so this is before the murder. This is before. Okay. So Brandy introduces him.
I bet I know what that big job is. That it's not fishing. It's not fishing. Or what was his job?
Explosives. I don't remember what he did. He was a missile technician. Right. So Brandy introduces him to a career criminal named Gary Ware.
And Gary's felon associate who will not be named. For privacy reasons. I don't have it.
Sure. I thought you were serious. No. I don't have it. Just don't have it. I thought felon associate would be a good stand-in.
Great. So I guess Dennis brings him back to his house when Joan's at work. This guy sucks so bad.
He really sucks shit. And he tells these two fucking felons that he wants them to kill his wife.
And he says he doesn't care what they do to her while they do that. He says you can rape her if you want to as long as she ends up dead.
Yeah. his childhood sweetheart the mother of his two daughters yeah his fucking lifelong wife
not lifelong you know up until this long what a monster monster in fact one of his nicknames
later on is american monster oh my god so they make this plan that these two guys uh
Gary Ware and the associate and associate are going to kill Joan. But soon after, Ware is arrested on an unrelated charge.
So the plan falls apart. Yeah. And the problem with career criminals is you just can't rely on them.
You can't because they're so ambitious in their career of criminality. So Dennis knows that Joan at this point, he's like, she's going to divorce me.
And if the divorce happens, I will lose half of I will lose. She needs to die before she files for divorce.
Exactly right. So he's in a big rush. Luckily for him, that's right when Brandy finally gets out of jail and he says to Brandy, you have to help me kill her.
So on the night of April 16th 1991 while Joan Dolly is asleep in the master bedroom Dennis Dolly lets Brandy Taliano in the back door of the house where they where the cops thought it was was a break They sneak into the master bedroom together Dennis is carrying a golf club and he begins beating Joan with it
Joan wakes up, tries to fight him off, and that's when Brandy starts to hold her down
so that Dennis can beat her to death with his golf club. And when she struggles, that's when she gets Brandy's skin underneath her fingernails.
Oh my God. And then they go once she's once Joan is dead in bed, they go around the house and try to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.
Yeah. But as we know, then that's around the time that the cops find the Las Vegas footage of him two days after his wife's funeral in Las Vegas with Brandy at the fucking craps table living his best life.
they had actually taken Joan's money, gone to Las Vegas they had shopped, they had gambled
it's all on security cameras, they took home movie footage of like they went on all these trips
together, Dennis Dolly was so stupid he claimed Brandy as a dependent on his taxes
he bought new cars and put the titles in her name and her name was also on the deed
when he bought a vacation home in Big Bear what the fucking but so he basically went out of his way to tie her to him yeah um i mean as awful as this sounds
it's like i'm glad that that it wasn't like the rape part to me is so horrific it's the whole thing
is awful but like you know thank god that one guy went to fucking prison it's the whole thing sucks
but like wow yes and like the cold no thought of like the girls are going to find out how their
mother died and what happened to them yes and he's like i don't care what you do because well
that's what narcissism is and that's like this kind of extreme you know whatever he was is an
extreme narcissist or a psychopath yeah where they don't think about they don't care about other
people i mean i get him not caring it's like about his wife but like i don't get it but like
his daughters he must have loved them and not wanted them to maybe maybe but clearly he was
he may have been on drugs too but he was obsessed with brandy yeah and he was like interested in
keeping her around more than anything or just he what he was interested in really i think ultimately
was just getting what he wanted all the time so he killed he he bludgeons his wife to death
so he can buy himself a boat a jacuzzi a waterbed and a gazebo at the end of the day
if i can more than trifecta of tacky ass shit yeah it's tacky as hell um i mean that gazebo
So a year later, the DNA test comes back. The evidence under Jones fingernail is a match to Brandy Italiano's DNA.
When Detective Tippin puts all of this evidence together, he basically has an open and shut case.
And then at the trial, it's a three-month trial in 1997, and they bring um uh uh gary ware the the guy who dennis dolly tried to make a deal with who had an
associate he with the mysterious associate gary ware has testimony where he tells them that that
dennis dolly said you can rape her if you want to and they that's like that's when it was like
great over and done career criminal makes good yeah and also the daughters testified against him
too. So both Dennis Dolly and Brandy Taliano were found guilty of first degree murder
and sentenced to life in prison. Dennis Dolly got life in prison without the possibility of parole and he died
in prison in 2003. And Brandy Taliano also sentenced to life in prison is still in prison today although
there's a rumor that she is being considered for parole. And that's the murder of Joan Dolly.
holy shit, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a twisty, turny mindfuck. It's also just another one of these bummers.
These ones come up a lot. And, you know, people recommend murders to us a lot. I get so bummed out because there's just so many of these fucking husbands
that just kill their wives for money. We don't do a lot of them because it seems like it's so simple.
And, like, this one clearly is not, which makes it fucking fascinating. But yeah, it's just like there are so many and it's just sad and shitty and awful.
And like you're saying, it's baffling that they don't think past what they're doing to go.
You're going to get caught. Modern technology is going to get you caught. Yeah. Also, you're a monster.
Just like break up like you're a monster. You're a monster. And if I feel like it that thing of if you starting to have an affair that you then obsessed with this person like yes the divorce is like i gonna he his mentality is like fuck her because she gonna ruin me because i gonna lose
half my pension in the divorce it's like yes but this is the woman yeah who raised your children
who moved to every single city right you had to move to you don't deserve the money she doesn't
it's like right it's this it's the intense narcissism and selfishness it's just so crazy
and also they were in their 50s it's not like he couldn't have gotten another job or like
made some kind of adjustment it was just like i got to keep my money i got to keep my girlfriend
totally psycho so psycho shit that was a good one such a bummer yeah i'm glad i'm glad it wasn't
the one you did because i remember you doing one and it was something but i think yours was about
a lawyer who killed his wife. Do you remember that one? Bigly. Tell me more. But it was like, I honestly think it was like within the first three to six months of us
doing this show. It was really early. I just remember being in your old apartment and listening to you tell me about it.
And that's, I started getting these pictures at the end of like finishing the story up
and I started getting these pictures. I was like, God damn it. I hope not. If I did that.
Oh, you're good. It doesn't seem like it. It doesn't seem like it. I guarantee you I didn't do that one.
Okay. Shit. Great job. Thank you. You too. Um, fucking hooray. Oh, how, how was your yoga challenge?
Oh, I've failed my yoga challenge this week. Um, I, although I will say I did a lot of meditation.
Oh, good for you. Yeah. Because I feel like we're, there's some stressful things going on right now.
We're about to start our fall tour. You started in the, right before we started our fall tour, you're, you started a new writing
job at basket or went back to baskets. Yes. So you're just like, you know what I want to do?
Double down. Double, triple down as well as and we're simultaneously working on our network.
And so podcast network, I wake up at five thirty in the morning and then answer emails, drink coffee and answer emails like a lunatic.
And then I'm like worked up alone in my house. And then I'm like, I think it's good work.
Yeah, exactly. So I've been doing really nice. It's just 10 minutes, but it's just that thing of like, I get upset because I think all these
things are happening at once and they're not. I have these reactions where it's just like, I just need to come back to reality and to
real life and just be like, we're in the present. Everything's fine. Everything feels like a cacophony.
And then you need to realize that they're not. Yes. And that we're like the luckiest people in the world having the best time.
And we're doing pretty fucking good. We're doing good at all of it. It's difficult to keep that in mind now.
It's just whatever. So I would say my fucking hurry for this week. Also in the room.
My friend Teresa who works at Baskets with me also has plantar fasciitis. So we get up three times a day and just start stretching.
What a great thing to have a buddy at work with. Yes. Who gets it. And she's like done all the research.
So we do lots of stretching during the day like fucking weirdos. That's yoga. I mean, it doesn't count as a full class.
But I feel like my two part thing of trying to like, it's just that thing of when I'm by myself, my mind goes fucking crazy.
Yeah, of course. Especially when you pour coffee all over it. Yeah. Which I understand.
Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I didn't. I have a caveat yoga. I didn't go to a yoga class.
However, I started working with this girl names woman named Sarah Olive. of she's a personal trainer a while back after a friend recommended her because I just can't work
out on my own. She is the most lovely person ever. And Reese and I stopped I did the thing where I
just stopped doing it and never emailed her again. Yeah. And she'd be like, Hey, checking in. Hey,
checking in. Even though like she wasn't trying to get money. Like I had classes that I already
paid her for. And she was like, we should do this. And then I posted some like obviously depressing
thing on Instagram a couple like months back and she was like, I'm coming over and we're going to
go for a walk today like straight up like didn't need to be there and was there and so since then
every week we've been hanging out and like hiking and shit together and so and she didn't listen to
the podcast before when i was working out with her but she does now and so every time we go to
hike or do something she's like i asked me questions from the episode and she's really
fucking sweet and lovely and so this time around she was we went for a hike and then she was like
okay we're gonna do five minutes of yoga so you can say that you did yoga nice because i know you
didn't go to yoga she's a mastermind she's great her uh her instagram is this underscore fit
underscore mom this fit mom she's got like two adorable kids so she did that for me and it was
really like she's just i'm gonna cry talking about her so it's she's lovely so that's like
that's my yoga and my fucking hooray that's great is that like she's really gotten me and it's true
like depression is so much better when i like working out and doing things and I sore and I happy and yes it much better Yeah we can we can generate our own dopamine if we actually just do it
And fight, fight those bad feelings. I say as I've, the stretching I described is the only
movement I've done. But but I like here's the thing. I'm not giving up on this yoga challenge
because I like that something's hanging over my head. And it makes me think about it every week.
And it makes me go, OK, if you're not going to do it, what are you going to do or do something?
Well, yeah, we'll keep it. We'll keep it going. And I think since we're about to leave for the fall tour, which is this really stressful thing, it's weekends, but it's like we have to be in a different city every day and we have to leave a day early, come back a day.
But, you know, it's a lot of hotel rooms, a lot of eating like shit. And so it's a good thing to have in our head as we start this process, I think, of like, just do something.
I mean, you can. you better not say anything to me about it oh i'm not gonna talk i'm not gonna call your hotel room
oh my god did you order broccoli lobby yoga no but you know what's really funny is the uh we've
tried to be good on the road it's not impossible but it's just that thing of when you come back
like to your hotel room at night you're just like well the late night menu you're like i'm not gonna
eat a salad at 11 o'clock at night and i also want to know like what is this i love regional food so
fucking much that it makes me crazy like that is my all-time favorite thing so i want to know what
your fucking weird thing is and i guarantee you it's not a fucking steamed broccoli it's not your
regional fucking food it's not fun like yeah the best times we have is like when we go to a place
and then it's like oh my god look at this place around the corner georgia always like looks up a
restaurant like we have to try this thing there it's a good thing there we're starting in the
Carolina's. You know how much I love barbecue? It's one of my favorite things in the
fucking world. So it's going to get ugly this weekend. It's going to, you know, we're
just going to stay, what we're going to do is stay in the moment. We're going to be, stay conscious.
Yeah. And then if macaroni and cheese happens, it happens. Yeah. And it's going to happen.
And it's going to happen. That's right. So we'll see you guys this weekend who's coming
out. And thank you guys for listening. And, you know, you guys are the best. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered.
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Karen and Georgia cover the Kunz Family Murders and the murder of Joan Dawley. See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

Brief Summary

Joan Dolly was murdered by her husband Dennis, who conspired with his mistress to kill her for financial gain.

Key points

Corrections Corner. A major correction about a British pedophile name mix-up leads to an apology.
Dr. Death Podcast Review. A gripping review of the podcast 'Dr. Death' about a botched spinal surgeon.
The Coons Family Murders. In a small Wisconsin town, five family members are brutally murdered, shocking the community.
Theories of Incest and Crime. Speculations arise about the family's dark secrets and possible motives for the murders.
Helen's Mysterious Disappearance. After the murders, Helen Coons goes missing, leading to a nationwide search.
The Hostage Situation. The drug dealers take hostages, leading to a shocking and violent climax.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's as scary as any serial killer story we've ever told.

12:10WatchSep 20, 2018

Tension

75/ 100High tension

139 - A Hundred Feelings

Brief Summary

Key points

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Tension

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Brief Summary

Key points

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Tension

More from My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

543 - Live at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (Portland Early Show)

Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 107: Live At The Revolving Stage at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix

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542 - Dracula Ambitions

Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 106: Courage Shoulders

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