Lords of Bakersfield /// Part 1 /// 328 | Forensic Files

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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] Bakersfield California is a city of
380,000 about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles Bakersfield is the county seat of Kern County in the ninth largest
city in California it's considered to be a pretty wholesome Family Values type of
town but in the late 1970's and early 80's something strange was going on the series of murders began these murders
had just enough similarities and just enough linking them to make people wonder are they connected now no one
shared suspicions that an undetected serial killer was at work this was something totally different something
very strange and something very rare what we have here is a faint pattern to the killings suggesting an underlying
darkness something deep down at their root what would emerge was an old boys network a dirty Club with members
scattered amongst the upper echelon 'he's a Bakersfield's power elite a ring populated by public officials and
trusted city leaders but this network wasn't just about cronyism or corruption at its root was pedophilia this is true
crime garage and this is the story the Lords of Bakersfield [Music] Bakersfield California 1978 the city was
described by CNN as clean safe conservative Republican and religious yet over a span of seven years from 1978
to 1985 there were five unusual murders the cases are explored in a sensational 2003 expose that ran in the local paper
the Californian written by Robert price a columnist for the paper and was assisted by assistant managing editor
Louis Henry many of the facts stated here by us come from this lengthy and scandalous column On January 4 1978 a
gardener working on a property for a house on Beach Street in Bakersfield could not help but notice blood seeping
out from under the back door of the house this alarming sight caused the gardener to call the police officers
rushed to the house and after making their way into the home they found a man lying on the floor covered in blood the
man was naked and it appeared he had been beaten and stabbed but somehow he was still alive he was unresponsive
paramedics arrived on the scene almost as soon as police when they found the man who was barely still clinging to
life they went to work applying life-saving efforts and then they rushed him to the hospital now the gardener
told police that the home belonged to a man named Tommy Tarver the badly beaten man was quickly identified to be in fact
Tommy Tarver yeah Tommy was in his 40s but he's pretty well known in the community he was also doing pretty well
financially Tommy owned a popular hair salon called mr. t Worchester located on F Street in
Bakersfield this salon was frequented by many of the rich and powerful in town it appears Tommy lived alone he had been
married twice before both ending in separation or and Tommy was living an openly gay
lifestyle now we said he was unresponsive in fact he was in a coma and remained so for about five days
until he died from his injuries that he suffered during this heinous attack police were looking for a suspect and
the neighborhood was in shock police canvassed the area talking to anyone in close proximity wanting to know did
anyone see or hear anything strange leading up to their gruesome findings inside the house on Beach Street a
couple that lived nearby told police that the night before a man in his early to mid-20s knocked on their door asking
if they could call him a cab to which they agreed to help according to the papers they did not notice anything
strange about his appearance however while the man remained at the doorway while they were placing the call for the
cab something fell from one of the man's pockets it was a silver spoon after calling for the cab this was the last
did the couple saw of this man the spoon was later found by police now that same
day police got a big lead in what would later turn out to be a homicide investigation this lead came by way of a
traffic stop when an officer pulled a vehicle over the officer very quickly discovered two things way out of the
ordinary first the car was stolen and its rightful owner was Tommy Tarver mm-hmm the man they found
attacked in his home who is now in a coma lying in a hospital bed just a couple days away from death find you the
second thing that they noticed was that the vehicle was being operated by a 13 year old boy this is 13 year old Robert
Glenn mistral he was caught behind the wheel of a soon-to-be dead man's stolen vehicle so we have 13 year-old Robert
that's driving this guy's car that was viciously attacked but he also has some of his items in the car with him
so of course police wanted to know everything and young Robert did seem have quite a bit to tell them Robert
admitted to knowing the much older Tommy Tarver and in fact admitted to going to
his home Robert told the police he had been living in seedy hotels with his alcoholic mother Robert said he got by
on selling sexual favors to men for money and had been doing so since he was just 11 years old so Robert and his
mother were living or staying however you choose to look at it at the Rancho Bakersfield motel now according to
Robert this is where he met Tommy Tarver this was some time before the actual attack Tommy offers to pay Robert to mow
his lawn and Robert agrees but according to Robert as soon as he gets to Tommy's
house Tommy starts putting the moves on him now Robert looks like a good suspect so far right
he's caught driving Tommy's car with items belonging to Tommy but here's where the timeline for the night of the
attack this is where it gets a little wonky a taxi driver told police then on that night the night of what would turn
out to be a murder he drove Tommy a man in his 40s and 13 year old Robert to Rancho Bakersfield
Motel coffee shop around 11:30 p.m. this Motel was apparently a meeting place for
men in town many of whom were living secret double lives hmm the cabbie said he later drove Tommy and a different
escort home this was 24 year old William Kenneth Manley a university student from
Santa Rosa William Manley was also staying at the Rancho Bakersfield motel and there he said he met Tommy at the
bar the two decided to go clubbing but Tommy wanted to stop at his house first to change his clothes while there Manley
witnessed two other men arrive then argue with Tommy and then one of them began engaging in sex with Tommy manly
decided to leave but not before pocketing about $1,000 worth of silverware and jewelry from the home on
his way out cuz of the witness this is the couple that identified Manley as the man who
stopped and asked to call a cab he was arrested and charged with the murder of Tommy Tarver Robert Mistral the 13-year
old was charged only with burglarizing Tommy's home and Tommy's hair salon as well apparently the salon was an easy
target for Robert because he had a key to get into the place now it's unclear if Tommy ever gave him the key or my
guess is that Robert got the key when he burglarized and then had the keys to Tommy's car at the trial
Manley's defense tried to claim that Robert mistral had been with Tommy earlier that night and was possibly a
suspect but the deputy da convinced the judge not to let Robert be questioned in
the end Manley was acquitted of the murder of Tommy Tarver and Robert got six months in the San Felipe boys home a
Kern County youth facility for the burglary charges the murder of Tommy Tarver remains unsolved at the time of
course this was a shocking murder but no one realized that this would be the first in a series of killings involving
what later would appear to be an underground community in Bakersfield Glen Fitz was well at least according to
one article this article described him as quote a pillar of the law-enforcement community
and quote he was the former director of the Kern County Police Academy a member of the Bakersfield Police Commission and
recently retired police science instructor from Bakersfield College unfortunately Glenn's wife passed away
so by April 1979 he was 56 years old retired and living single around this time he started hanging out in a nearby
park where he was interacting with the teenagers there he would routinely invite local teens back to his place
that's not creepy at all no come on over come hey I'm gonna just hang out at the
park and stare at kids all day back then they didn't even have cable hmm he started hosting parties with teenagers
and this is what was expected well the short of it is he was trading things like beer alcoholic drinks and pot for
sex or sex acts with both teenage boys and possibly teenage girls as well on April 10th 1979 Glenn threw a birthday
party for one of his teen friends attending this party was about 20 teens some of them as young as 14 years old
yeah come over let's have a party for my teenager friend where's the party at oak
repose House well at the party was a 14-year old named Dana Charlene Butler Dana went missing
and it seems like the last time anyone remembers interacting with the young girl well Dana was alive and well and
wanting Leigh attended this very party it wasn't until three days later that she was found dead dumped in a park
reports were that she was found with 30 to 40 shallow knife wounds and two deep fatal wounds it appeared she was
tortured before being killed and the body contained more evidence investigators found one of Fitz's pubic
hairs as well as dog hairs from both of his dogs on the body this was the 70s and hair evidence was standard in lieu
of yet to be developed DNA the police searched Fitz's home and just as suspected they found blood matching
Dana's witnesses told police investigators that Fitz replaced the plumbing fixtures in some carpeting
inside the home just the day after Dana went missing with mounting evidence a grand jury was convened and they
interviewed everyone this including Fitz and the plumber but just as this was really picking up speed it came to a
screeching halt this is when the DA's office and explicably declined to ask for an
indictment for murder against Glen Fitz the head of the Bakersfield Police Department detectives unit told the
Californian the newspaper that he was baffled as to why charges weren't brought as in his opinion there was
ample evidence in all of the files that he had seen now meanwhile the Californian reported that there was a
suspect but never named Glen Fitz as a suspect and they say this because he had not been named by police but
nevertheless it appears that the whole town seemed to know who the suspect was parents knew that Fitz was the suspect
and they started picketing around his house the County Administration's building and right outside of the
courthouse building as well again if you know this guy is a creep then why are you letting him why are you
letting kids go to his house for a party it's ridiculous likely the if you're talking about the parents it's likely
they were unaware that their children were going over to his house to get drunk and do drugs anyway these people
these two hundred people it's about two hundred people that participated in these picketing events outside of the
the two buildings and his home obviously they wanted an arrest made in this case
they were calling themselves the mothers of Bakersfield examples of the mobs picketing signs well some of them read
quote who is blocking the investigation question mark and DA office what are you
afraid of question mark now the other thing here is the local sheriff's department they were very confident that
Fitz was good for this crime and the DA's office and then the grand jury failed to bring an indictment so local
law enforcement and I'm guessing that this was not public knowledge at the time likely this was probably more of a
behind closed-doors type of thing but it sounds to me like basically the local law enforcement was
threatening the DEA okay so if you don't charge this man for the murder of this girl then we are going to push to charge
the same man with any kind of lesser charge so at the very least we can make an arrest right right we're gonna get
this jackass no matter what it's basically what they're saying well I don't know if it was the mob of people
or the behind-the-scenes activity that we just explained or if it was a combination of both but whatever it was
it seems like the DA his hand was was forced because eventually the DA press charges against Fitz but not for the
murder of a 14 year old but instead for suspicion of furnishing drugs to a minor
mm-hmm so of course this is an extremely lenient charge based off of the general
facts and evidence of the case but when they be able to like charge them with multiple counts of this for like the
parties and stuff that he was throwing I believe there were five charges that were pushed forth and three of them were
felony charges now this did result and Fitz being arrested on May 21st apparently no indictment was ever handed
down a Pulitzer prize-winning expose many years later on the corruption in Bakersfield
stated that quote senior prosecutors withheld key evidence from the panel meaning the grand jury hmm right I just
wonder what his connection is to this prosecutor well he was retired law enforcement
he held all three of those different positions throughout his career being the former director of Kern County
police academy member of the Bakersfield Police Commission and retired police science instructor from Bakersfield
College no right rag I get that part but you just wonder how close these individuals are or if they're you know a
part of some group outside of their jobs it really really makes you wonder right
because what you're talking about is why the hell who cares if they had some kind
of connection on a professional basis we're talking about murder here the murder of a child
and we're also talking about evidence to point to him as being the very likely suspect right in this case now I
understand that her body is found out in the park somewhere and but we have evidence of of him or where he got the
huge man on the body right we got pubes well here's the other thing too this is one thing that I found very interesting
okay so his his previous job of the police science instructor and then we have the neighbors claiming that he they
were aware that he was replacing plumbing and carpeting inside his home yeah then the day after it's believed
that she went missing that seems like somebody with one okay look yeah if you got large blood stains everywhere
no Doug you you you get rid of the carpet and try to replace that but on top of that factor in the the the job
that he had a police science instructor he is aware of certain things that the general public would not be aware of and
it makes you really wonder what what plumbing fixtures was he replacing you know we've talked about some cases where
the where law enforcement will go in with their Tech's and remove drains and drain pipes right because they know that
they're going to find evidence down there and that's something that a lot of people don't consider when they're
trying to cover up a homicide right so on you got that on the one hand you go okay well what you said replacing the
carpets not a big deal pipes you got to have some kind of knowledge about that but then you're gonna leave pubes and
dog hair on the victim seems to not make sense right I mean a lot of this case is
not going to make sense so nobody I mean like that you you would do all these necessary steps you don't -
to your house but you want to do that to the to the actual crime scene I feel like what we have here is a man that
panicked and thought that the first thing a most important thing to do at the fat
this point mm-hmm was to get the body out of his house yeah and then went back in and tried to do damage control to his
house now mind you he went to all this effort and and what did police find inside of his home blood that matched
the same blood type as Danis so do you know where they found that I don't know it seemed like a lot of the work that he
was doing appeared to be taking place in the in the bathroom or the bathroom area
of the home I couldn't find where they said specifically where the blood was in fact found but look I I believe 100%
that she was probably killed in that bathroom or moved to the bathroom shortly after some kind of attack took
place we're talking about possibly a prolonged torture that went on in this case as well from from what little we
can see and observe in this case again is sometimes when there are those points of evidence they don't actually report
on them now one thing that does go in the way of a defense for why maybe the DA did not press charges or did not get
that indictment that the public was so very eagerly seeking apparently there was some kind of quote screw-up that's
that's how it's been reported as a screw-up at the coroner's office now apparently for some reason and I'm
uncertain of their exact protocol back there and then but they failed to do a time of death test on Dana Butler so
they never established a time of death now this this only really becomes difficult once you do get to trial
because with her missing for several days before her body's found yeah you're you're you know alibi or need for an
alibi all that gets pretty dicey when you've not really honed in or even created a window of time for the
possible time of death so there was also some doubts out there as to they're 56 year-old Glen Fitz who many
say was in poor health with a heart condition if he could have in fact killed the girl and then disposed of her
on his own mmm well you know we we know that he was working out daily at the park
within days of all of this mess here Glen Fitz died of a gunshot to the head leaving behind a strange note which read
Dana Butler was last seen in front of a church between 11:30 nine and 12:30 I on
the morning of April 9 was home waiting for and there the note ends the death of
Glen Fitz was officially ruled a suicide which we should point out some weird things with this as well because first
Fitz's body was found outdoors between his home and his neighbor's and second a neighbor reported hearing two gunshots
on that day now the murder of Dana Butler remains unsolved Glen Fitz may have killed her or she may have been
killed by someone else it does seem however whoever killed her did so inside Fitz's home this was the
second case where an older man associated with teenage boys ended up dead and here again this man could have
been preying on teens for sex [Music] they seem like a friend or even family you trust them with your life but behind
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bonus show called off the record you can do so at true crime garage com awesome welcome back to you captain welcome now
the next case we have here takes place in 1981 hmm so we have 55 year-old edwin buck edwin was the personnel director
for kern county he was associated with a name we have heard before this is young
Robert Mistral at this time robber is about 17 years old and he told police that he met buck at
each Park in 1979 when he was 15 police were aware of activity at this park and actually warned Edwin buck and other men
there numerous times about sexual activity and sexual activity with minor boys Robert hung out with buck on a few
occasions a buck caught Robert stealing money and tools from him on one of these occasions and threatened
to have robber arrested for the theft a buck told Robert that he would not involve the police
if Robert agreed to participate in making a porno movie with another young boy so always a good idea to throw
blackmail and child pornography into the blender of totally effed up situations right you have a key imagine I mean
you're 17 years old you stole some stuff the guy goes I'm going to the cops right
or you can have sex with this kid like go to the cops [ __ ] good I mean yeah yeah and I think I don't want to get
into that too much because I think there's there's a lot of there's more weight stuff to sift through before we
before we get into some of that stuff but what we have here is Robert doesn't tell you no old nasty Uncle Buck to go
to the police yeah instead he recruits a friend and this is 18 year old Roy Carmen ish but Roy
wasn't recruited for the purpose of starring in a homemade movie he had an entirely different role to play so one
night Robert invited Edwin buck for a moonlight drive once they got out into a nice spot buck pulled the vehicle over
and parked the car mm-hmm Roy who was unbeknownst to buck following them this is all a part of
Robert's plan Roy pulled up in front of them Robert apparently knew what was going to go down because later he said
he retreated to Roy's car this is where he sat so he would not have to see anything
ROI was high on LSD at the time an attacked buck Roy stabbed buck several times he hit him in the head with a
hammer and he slit his throat the two boys then stuffed a bucks body into the trunk of bucks car they drove
the car back to Bucks home and parked it in the garage once there they robbed the house and set
it on fire later investigators found bucks body in the trunk of his burned-out car this was
three days later Robert and Roy were soon arrested and one of the bits of evidence that they found in this whole
scenario was they found a microwave oven from bucks home they found this at Roberts
mother's place now this case was a media sensation for just about as many reasons
as all of us could imagine Robert would be tried as an adult it seemed that he was suspected in the
unsolved murder of Tommy Tarver as well this is because a hammer was also thought to have been used in that murder
now at trial Robert and Roy they turned on each other Robert blamed Roy stating that Roy was
the one that killed Edwin buck Roy's defense presented Roberts involvement not only in the
Tommy Tarver murder that was still unsolved as but presented that as evidence that he was guilty of Edwin
bucks murder as well what came out of Robert's trial rather than just the facts surrounding the murder of Edwin
buck is why this case is famous Brian Robert had all sorts of firsthand stories to tell about secret
homosexuality including sex with minors and all of the corruption among the elite in Bakersfield what he called the
Lords of Bakersfield all right we need to provide some background information here
so until these cases broke in the late 70s and early 80s Bakersfield's dirty little secret was just that it was a
secret whispers and rumors existed as far back as the 1950s of a loose network of powerful prominent white men who used
their power and influence to protect each other and they harbored a dark secret they were into homosexual
pedophilia in some cases and just sex with very young men and others stories about a so-called White Orchid Society
were told in town for years but no one could really substantiate these tales which were of a group of older male
predators victimizing young men and boys so then in 1985 there's a lawsuit by a former police officer which alleged a
network of corruption favoritism and cronyism in Kern County a 2000 page exhibit - this lawsuit addressed a
pedophile ring among the power elite using the term the Lords of Bakersfield the lawsuit was dismissed but the
moniker stuck and the lords legend it has its name the 2003 Californian expose about the Lords of Bakersfield describes
it as formally the province of conspiracy theorists except that now it seemed there was some truth to the
legend yeah it seemed like there's some validity to these stories but this this was a really hard case to research
there's not a lot out there well and I want to go ahead and throw this out there for everybody listening and
primarily for those that are already familiar with this case this is this is one of those weird situations where the
tentacles of this story kind of spread far and wide and through a lot of different people a lot of different
buildings organizations and such and it's also a story that may span not only a couple of decades but several decades
I mean we have rumors going back to the 1950s so anybody listening to our presentation of this story please
keep in mind that there may be things that that could be connected to this things that might not be connected to
this when you really look at this story and you you realize that you have to present it in some form and in some
light it gets difficult along the way to decide which portions to include and not
to include the connections here are not always clear so if in our review of this
case if you believe that we miss something we may have just it may just not have been presented us to have a
clear connection or we had to pick and choose some of these to include in to not include right so the ones that we're
going to go over here are the ones that that I could find were for the most part
believed or reported to be believed as part of this whole legend of the Lords of Bakersfield so let's go back to that
murder trial right we have Robert Mistral the the the the one that was involved in the first case
that we talked about and now involved in being on trial for the murder of Edwin buck he testified to some bombshell
information that's clear now although he was under 18 he claims that he slept with as many as 150 men in
both Bakersfield and in Los Angeles he says many of these men were people of prominence in the community men who held
positions of power and influence these men were politicians media judges attorneys County executives and more and
Robert took this a step further he named names now one of the names that he named
was Edwin buck and Tommy Tarver of course here's where things get a little a little dicey here form of Hampton go
Harry I have a longer list of individuals that he named and I don't know that I don't know that
they're all that they all should be named by by me I don't know that I feel comfortable naming all of them I will
say that one of the other names that he mentioned was Glen Fitz the ex policeman
or police officer who was suspected in Dana's Dana butler's murder the another interesting person that he names is Ted
Fritz okay let's different people Ted Fritz was the editor and co-owner of the Californian the the local newspaper that
we've referenced more than once Fritz was notorious in town for his legendary parties with the wealthy elite and here
again there are a lot of names that are thrown out as having attended these parties and I will I refuse to name them
here because because of just this I don't want anybody to be under the assumption that any of these individuals
are guilty of anything at all just because they attended some party all right we're kind of seeing this in the
media right now with with the arrests and that the suicide of Epstein and having these black books and and all
these people connected you know you can't I think it's irresponsible you just make the leap that some Creepo has
your contact information and therefore that you're associated with every long doing he did I think it's a you're
responsible leap and we we need to look for more evidence correct and what what I will say here is look I'm not foolish
enough to believe that nobody that attended one of Ted Fritz's parties is not guilty has never done a bad thing in
their life right you know I don't believe that for one bit but as you pointed out I believe it's irresponsible
to throw out the suggestion that just because somebody attended a party that they had a there's a deeper relationship
there that they that whoever you know it's it's just downright wrong to to imply that anybody
ciated with an individual is guilty of all the same things that that individual is likely guilty of right okay so his
whole part in this story is he more so than these these parties is that he's the editor and the co-owner of the
California of that newspaper and I mean just browsing this list these are names of people that are still alive and
people that you would know by name I want to I want to say this though as well the the list I'm looking at nobody
on this list has ever been convicted of anything you know heinous anything weird
and to my knowledge has never even been suspected of anything like that but of course because Ted Fritz is a
powerful individual in this area many of these attendees would be politicians law
enforcement local government officials and so on now Robert Mistral's role at these parties I guess he worked at these
parties he says along with other boys his age and sometimes younger his job was part of like the waitstaff almost
you know wait on the guest dress up in a tank top and shorts and be he said he was told to be accommodating of the male
guests so Robert says and don't like check their coats and give them hand jobs we should I let me check your coat
stop saying jokes cuz they don't want to I don't want to laugh this is a is a very it's so disturbing though it's
disturbing it's and it's a difficult it's a difficult thing to discuss a little bit here Robert says for whatever
his job was at these parties right and we also have got a we also got to mention these are his claims right we
have to then determine this is this guy's a thief a known thief right yeah he has some problems we we don't want to
assume that all of all of his allegations are false though either I mean or truthful I think I think there's
a weird that will we're waiting in weird waters here right well so Robert says in turn for his role
at these parties he was provided with money temporary residence at Fritz's mansion and he was also allowed to drive
luxury cars now while Fritz remained the editor of the Californian the paper stayed away
from coverage of the Lords of Bakersfield so Frances bigger connection seems to be that of a close connection
to Robert Mistral according to Robert Mistral and the fact that he is pretty much running the California in the
newspaper and many people suspect all these years later that that's why that newspaper stayed away from you know
thorough coverage of anything that could possibly involve any of these Lords of Bakersfield or naming names or throwing
people under the bus and then like I said I mean just to find different sources about this case was really
difficult well one thing that is super interesting to me and I'm gonna go out on a Ledge here and say that it's
probably I think you're supposed to say out on a limb right not at all of the ledge I think I think you can go on out
you go out on anything you want go ahead and jump we don't care my people say go
out on a plank go out on a bridge so this is where I think I'm starting to see some really strong evidence or at
least people they are willing to take their suspicions to the to the to the furthest out right so this man who's in
charge of the californian of the newspaper he ends up dying of AIDS in 1997 his sister his flesh and blood his
sister took over as managing editor in 2003 she is the one that gave Robert price the go-ahead to write the expose
on the Lord's even though it would point the finger at the paper that she was now
in charge and her own brother yeah but if you know it's I would think being related to him
if she knew that something wrong happened that at some point you have to allow that information to come out well
and I want to give her plenty of credit as well as the newspaper itself for writing or wrong you know in correcting
their missteps through through over the years but one of the most disturbing things that Robert attested to during
this trial was the wink and nod arrangement that allowed certain man to check out court supervised juveniles
like library books from the boys home and returned them a few hours later hmm yeah well this was I took this from
Robert prices article now mistral alleged in the trial testimony and later in his own failed lawsuit against the
state that he and other boys were taken from the boy's home under the excuse that they were going to be given jobs
but he says instead they were drugged sexually abused and forced to participate and porn before being
returned to the boys home as if nothing happened yeah so that's awful so further Robert claims that he was
used as a scout to recruit other boys for parties thrown by these older men where young men were desired to be
amendable to their advances but Roberts trial testimony seems to have been shoved under the rug in other words none
of this scandal really leaked out until much much later so at first we have no Lee kids and then then we have a lot of
leakage well no investigation into his claims of abuse and statutory rape ever ensued
after the trial in the end 18 year old Roy pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced
to life without parole and Robert was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury receiving a sentence of 31 years to
life while this is difficult - because you do want to believe somebody that is accusing somebody of these heinous
crimes you want to think that somebody would go through this endure this suffering and and just be making this
stuff up right but then it becomes this this double-edged sword for me where it's like you go well he's basically
creating this giant conspiracy and then it's like well where's your evidence of it well because it's such a giant
conspiracy you go well that's why there's no evidence they don't want this stuff to get out out there does it make
does that making sense makes total sense number one but then let's add in to the
fact that there doesn't seem to be any investigation into his claims yeah so where you go all right well are these
allegations is this just a man that's on trial for first-degree murder who's coming up with with excuses excuses and
maybe playing to the the crowd a bit in saying you know this this was a jury trial he's technically under the age of
18 even though he's going to be tried as an adult you look look what you have here in the
end you have an 18 year old Roy who pled guilty and gets first-degree murder well plead guilty to first-degree murder
and was sentenced to life without parole and then you have 17-year old Robert who
is convicted of first-degree murder by a jury receiving a sentence of 31 years to
life think about those two scenarios real quick all right we have an adult who pled guilty and received no you know
leniency for him pleading guilty to where we have to go through the trial and convict Robert a first-degree murder
and he's actually shown some for a couple of reasons one probably because the jury even though he's being
tried as an adult he's viewed as a child being 17 years old and on top of that the jury's probably viewing him as some
some type of victim right so he gets 31 years to life now keep in mind I do understand that the story bidding being
put forth is that Robert simply was involved in the plan that created this plan of murder and then sat by while it
happened and then helped dispose of the body brain whereas Roy showed up and really carried out this brutal brutal
murder so I can I get there's a difference there right but you're the reason that the vicious murders there
though right correct I mean Edwin buck may have never been murdered at all let alone murder by Roy yeah you
have had this Robert not set it up if I took Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy to a party and it didn't end well that's
that's on me right mm-hmm that's all I'm saying so yeah this this is where it gets very
difficult and the other thing I want to point out too while we're on this whole thought is you heard that number that
that we pushed forward there was that he claimed Robert claimed like a hundred and fifty men in both Bakersfield and
Los Angeles that he slept with before he was the age of 18 I'm not saying that Roberts lying I'm just saying that's a
very high number that's a very high number and there were a lot of people along the way that he named that we
didn't name and a lot of these people are involved in law enforcement and prosecuting criminals and things of that
nature and at some point you start to go like you said you want to believe him you want to say hey let's investigate
these allegations and that's where I think this whole thing went wrong that his allegations don't seem to have been
investigated but then at some point you go 150 men how can that be well the and then on top
of that you go every one of these people that he's naming is involved in some they have their in some you know line of
power they break they they have their men of fluency might start to wonder you can at some point it can't be everybody
it's not everybody that's involved in this bull right and is I was I started with this a little bit this week because
again you know I don't want a victim blame at all you know if that's the case of these horrible acts happened to this
kid or this kid was put into these awful situations I want a victim blame but I think it's it's also a little different
you're you're not just coming forward and saying look this is what happened to me and here's the evidence we have
somebody that is you know a part of like a bullies home a part of a community where he's in and out of trouble so he's
around these law enforcement officers he's around people of power so when you end up getting caught with something you
get and you end up getting busted with something it's not that out of line to think maybe this kid is so messed up and
has so much disdain for authority that he just goes look this one cop he arrested me a long time ago his name was
Jack whatever ain't well he was in on it too he was having sex with boys all this
this this teacher that was mean to me oh yeah they were having sex with boys too
you know it's not that far-fetched to think that that that story could be created by a troubled youth and that's
why these allegations really should have been looked into further well they weren't investigated at all it seems
like so they should have been investigated look this is a story with with so many in justices but that is one
of the big ones [Music] one of these you guys for listening things for telling a friend and sharing
on social media much love in Sears and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't live
[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-46zva-bc53f6

Lords of Bakersfield /// Part 1 /// 328 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com In a span of just over seven years there were five strange murders in Bakersfield, California. Could there be something even more sinister at the root of these crimes? This exploration is filled with drugs, illegal sex, corruption, abuse and murder. Step in the garage for the story of the Lords of Bakersfield. Blackback Honey Rye Whiskey - Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps Be sure to check out the Con Artists Podcast on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit www.Parcast.com/ConArtist to listen now.

The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Bakersfield's dark history of unsolved murders linked to a pedophile ring among local elites is examined.

Key points

The Lords of Bakersfield. A chilling exploration of a series of murders in Bakersfield, California, linked to a dark network.
Tommy Tarver's Attack. Tommy Tarver, a well-known hair salon owner, is found brutally attacked in his home.
The Unsolved Murder. The murder of Tommy Tarver remains a haunting mystery in Bakersfield's history.
Glenn Fitz's Dark Secrets. Retired police officer Glenn Fitz is implicated in the murder of a young girl.
The Mystery of Glen Fitz. Glen Fitz's death raises questions about his involvement in Dana Butler's murder.
Robert Mistral's Shocking Testimony. Robert Mistral's trial reveals disturbing claims about powerful men in Bakersfield.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What we have here is a faint pattern to the killings suggesting an underlying darkness.

Introduction to the Bakersfield murders

4:26WatchAug 21, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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