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

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[Music] crime Bakersfield California is a city of 38,000 about 100 miles north of Los
Angeles Bakersfield is the county seat of karna County and the ninth largest city in California it's considered to be
a pretty wholesome family values type of of town but in the late 1970s and early
80s something strange was going on a 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 echelons of
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 route was pedophilia this is true
crime garage and this is the story of the Lords of [Music] Bakersfield Bakersfield California
1978 the city was described by CNN as clean safe Conservative Republican and religious yet over a span of 7 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 Lois Henry many of the facts stated here by us come from this lengthy and scandalous column on January
4th 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 T Harver yeah Tommy was in his 40s but he's pretty well known in the community he was also doing
pretty well financially mhm 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 divorce 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 5 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 canvased 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 that 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 it's rightful owner was Tommy Tarver mhm
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 mind 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 mistell 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 to 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 sidy 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 that 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 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 Manley decided to leave
but not before pocketing about $1,000 worth of silverware and jewelry from the home on his way out because of the
witness this is the couple that identified manly as the man who stopped stopped and asked to call a cab he was
arrested and charged with the murder of Tommy Tarver Robert mistra 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 mistra 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 6 months in the San Filipe boy home A Kar 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 Glenn Fitz was well at least according to one article this article described him as quote a pillar of the
law enforcement Community end quote he was the former director of the kar 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 well that's not creepy at all no come on over come hey I'm
going to just hang out at the park and stare at kids all day back then they didn't even have cable 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 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 ELO's 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 only attended this very party it wasn't until 3 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 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 lie of
yet to be developed DNA the police searched Fitz's home and just as suspected they found blood
matching Dana 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 inexplicably declined to ask for an
indictment for murder against Glenn 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 Glenn Fitz as the 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 200 people it's about 200 people that participated in these picketing uh
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 mm but it sounds to me like basically the local
law enforcement was threatening the da 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 going to 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 hand was was forced because
eventually the da pressed charges against Fitz but not for the murder of a 14-year-old but instead for suspicion of
Furnishing drugs to a minor so of course this is an extremely lean charge based off of the general facts and evidence of
the case but wouldn't they be able to like charge him 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 in Fitz being arrested on May 21st apparently no indictment was ever
handed down a Pulitzer Prize winning expose many years later on on the corruption in baker's field stated that
quote senior prosecutors withheld key evidence from the panel meaning the grand jury right I just wonder what his
connection is to this prosecutor well he was retired law enforcement he 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 field college no right right 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 of their jobs it really
really makes you wonder right uh 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 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 or dog we
got pubes man on the body right right we got pubes well and 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 the 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 duh
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 what Plumbing fixtures was he replacing you know we've talked about some cases where the where
law enforcement will go in with their texts and remove drains and drain pipes 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 like you said replacing the carpet's not a big
deal pipes you got to have some kind of knowledge about that that but then you're going to leave pubes and dog hair
on the victim seems to not make sense right um I mean a lot of this case is not going to make sense no but you I
mean like that you you would do all these necessary steps you know to to your house but you
wouldn't 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 and most important thing to do at the fastest point 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 Dana's so do you know where they found
that at I don't know it seemed like a lot of the 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 well from from what little we can
see and observe in this case again 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 screwup 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 uh so they 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 H your your 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 whether 56-year-old Glenn 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 well you know we we know that he was
working out daily at the park within days of all of this mess here Glenn 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 11:39 and
12:30 I on the morning of April 9 was home waiting for and there the note ends the the
death of Glenn 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 neighbors and
second a neighbor reported hearing two gunshots on that day now the murder of Dana Butler remains unsolved Glenn Fitz
may have killed her or she may have been killed by someone else it does seem however ever 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 praying on teens for [Music] sex this show is sponsored by better
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and check out our weekly bonus show called off the record you can do so at true Crim
garage.com awesome welcome back to you Captain welcome now the next case we have here takes place in
1981 so we have 55-year-old Edwin Buck Edwin was the Personnel director for Kar County he was associated with a name we
have heard before this is Young Robert mistr at this time Robert is about 17 years old and he told police that he met
Buck at beach 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 times about sexual activity and sexual activity with minor
boys Robert hung out with buck on a few occasions Buck caught Robert stealing money and tools from him on one of these
occasions and threatened to have Robert arrested for the theft 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 so
always a good idea to throw blackmail and child pornography into the blender of totally effed up situations right
yeah but you can 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 [ __ ] you know what I mean yeah yeah and I think I I
don't want to get into that too much because I think there's there's a lot of there's more weightu to
before we before we get into some of that stuff but what we have here is Robert doesn't tell you know old nasty
Uncle Buck to go to the police yeah instead he recruits a friend and this is 18-year-old Roy
Carmines 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 bu for a Moonlight Drive once they got out into a nice spot Buck pulled the
vehicle over and parked the car MH 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 Roy was high on LSD at the time and
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 Buck's body into the trunk of Buck's car they drove the car back to Buck's home and parked it in the
garage once there they robbed the house and set it on fire later investigators found Buck's
body in the trunk of his burned out car this was 3 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 Robert's 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 Robert's 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 right 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 prom 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 they
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 2,000 page exhibit to 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 Lord's Legend it has its name MH the
2003 Californian expose about the Lords of Bakersville describes it as formerly the province of conspiracy theorists
except that now it seemed there was some truth to the legend yeah it seemed like
there was 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 uh for everybody
listening and primarily for those that are already famili amiliar with this case mhm this is this is one of those
weird situations where the tentacles of the 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 MH 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 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 and to not include right so the ones that we're going to go
over here are the ones that that I could find were were for the most part believed or reported to be believed as
part of this whole legend of the Lords of Bakers field so let's go back to that murder trial right we have Robert Mell
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 Bakerfield 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 for me
Captain little 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 Glenn Fitz the ex
policeman or um police officer who was suspected in Dana's Dana Butler's murder M the another interesting person that he
names is Ted Fritz okay let's the 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 right
we're kind of seeing this in the media right now with with the arrest and that the suicide of Epstein and having these
black books and and all these people connected you know you can't um I think it's irresponsible to just make the leap
that some Creo has your contact information and therefore that you're associated with every wrongdoing he he
did I I think it's uh irresponsible 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 I don't wouldn'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
associated with an individual is guilty of all the same things that that individ
idual 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 the 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 uh 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 mist'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
weight staff almost you know weight on the guest dress up in a tank top and shorts and be he said he was told to be
accommodating of the male guest so Robert says in turn like check their coats and give them hand jobs
uh sorry let me check your coat stop saying jokes cuz I don't want to I don't want to laugh this is a this is a very
it's I mean 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 um Robert says for whatever his job was at these parties right and we also got a we also
got to mention these are his claims right we have to then determine this is a guy this guy's a thief aown thief
right yeah he has some problems we we don't want to assume that all all of his allegations are false though either I
mean or truthful I think I think there's a weird we're waiting in weird Waters here right he 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 California the paper stayed away from
coverage of the Lords of Bakersfield so Fritz's bigger connection seems to be that of a close connection to Robert
mistell according to Robert mistell and the fact that he is pretty much running the California 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 like I said I mean just a fine different sources about this case
was really difficult well one thing that is super interesting to me and I I I'm going to go out on the ledge here and
say that it's probably I think you're supposed to say out on a limb right not out on the ledge no I think you can do I
think you you can go on out you can go on you want go ahead and jump we don't care my people say go out on a plank go
out on a bridge um so th this is where I think I'm I'm starting to see some really strong evidence or at least
people that are willing to take their suspicions to the to the to the furthest out right so this man who's in charge of
the californi 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 Lords even though it would point the finger at the paper that she was now in charge of and her own
brother yeah but if you know it's I 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 a wrong you know and correcting their missteps through through over the years
um but one of the most disturbing things that Robert attested to during this trial was the wink and Nod Arrangement
that allowed certain men to check out Court supervised juveniles like library books from the boy home and return them
a few hours later right yeah well this was I took this from uh Robert Price's article now mistr 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 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 in porn before being returned to the boy's home
as if nothing happened yeah it's that's awful so further Robert claims that he was used as a scout to recruit other
boys for Pary thrown by these older men where young men were desired to be amendable to their
advances but Robert's 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 leakage and then at 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 plad
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 well this is difficult
to because you you do want to believe somebody that is accusing somebody of of these heinous crimes you don't want to
think that somebody would U go through 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 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'd 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 make any sense makes total sense number one but then let's add in the fact that there doesn't seem to be
any investigation into his claims so where you go all right well are these allegation 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 and
saying you know this this was a jury trial um he's technically under the age of 18 even though he's going to be tried
as an adult mhm you look look what you have here in the end you have an 18-year-old Roy who plad
guilty and gets first-degree murder uh well plad 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 plad guilty and received no you know leniency leniency for him
pleading guilty to where we have to go through the trial and convict Robert of first-degree murder and he's actually
shown some leniency 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 being 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 right whereas Roy showed up and and really carried out this brutal brutal murder so
I I I get that there is a difference there re right but you're the reason that the vicious murder is there though
right correct I mean Edwin Buck may have never been murdered at all let alone murdered by Roy yeah you had this Robert
not set it up if I took Jeffrey dmer and and Ted budney to a party and it didn't
end well that's that's on me right mhm 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 150 men in both Bakersfield and Los
Angeles that he slept with before he was the age of 18 I'm not saying that Robert's 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 and then on top of that you go every one of these people that he's naming is involved in some
they have they're in some you know line of power they they they have their men of influence and you start to wonder you
can't at some point it can't be everybody it's not everybody that's involved in this well right and and I
was I struggled with this a little bit this week because again you know I don't want to vict blame at all you know if
that's the case if these horrible acts happened to this kid or this kid was put into these awful situations you don't
want to 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 um a part of like a boy's 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 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 um uh disdain for um Authority that he just goes look uh This One Cop he arrested me a long time ago
his name was uh Jack whatever right well he was in on it too he was having sex with boys oh this this this teacher that
was mean to me oh yeah they were having sex with boys too you know it's not that
farfetched to 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 injustices but that is one of the big
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Lords of Bakersfield /// Part 1 /// 328

Part 1 of 2

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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

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Brief Summary

Bakersfield's unsolved murders reveal a dark network of corruption and pedophilia among powerful individuals in the community.

Key points

The Dark Side of Bakersfield. A series of murders in Bakersfield reveals a hidden network of power and corruption.
The Shocking Murder of Tommy Tarver. Tommy Tarver, a well-known figure, is brutally attacked and left in a coma.
Glenn Fitz: A Pillar of the Community?. Glenn Fitz, a respected law enforcement figure, becomes embroiled in a child murder case.
The Murder of Dana Butler. Dana Butler's murder remains unsolved, with evidence suggesting a prolonged torture.
Edwin Buck's Shocking Murder. The brutal murder of Edwin Buck involved blackmail and a violent attack by two teenagers.
Robert's Disturbing Testimony. Robert testified about his sexual encounters with powerful men, revealing a dark underbelly.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Bakersfield is a pretty wholesome family values type of town.

Describing Bakersfield's reputation before the murders began.

4:57WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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