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Sex Fame and Murder: The Bob Crane Story · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:39
  Speaker 1: The nineteen sixties, every channel on the TV had some
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: sort of cheesy comedy ripe with ill timed laugh tracks
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and poorly executed jokes. But there was one comedy series
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that dared to stand out from the rest Hogan's heroes.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: There was a CBS series loosely based on popular World
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: War Two movies like The Great Escape, during which a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: colorful cast of American prisoners of war would constantly outsmart
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the leaders of the Third Reich. It may sound like
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: there wouldn't be that far a series like this could go,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: but the writers and producers managed to string this concept
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: out for a whopping six seasons, making almost everyone involved
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in the show a huge success, But very few of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: them were quite as successful as the show's top dog,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Bob Crane. Bob played Colonel Robert Hogan, the leader of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: this ragtag team of inmates, who was always popular with
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the ladies, and for Bob Crane, playing Colonel Robert Hogan
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: was the highlight of his career. Bob had first started
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: out in the military and then as a radio host
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: on The Bob Crane Show. There he mingled with celebrities
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and rubbed shoulders with producers, which got him interviews with
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: some of the top names in the industry at the time.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe, Bob Hope, Charlieton Heston all appeared on Bob's show,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: but it was when he interviewed TV writer Carl Reiner
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that his luck really turned around. Carl Reiner offered Bob
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Crane a part on The Dick van Dijk Show. It
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: was only a one off deal where Bob would play
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the role of a cheating husband, but he did get
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Bob a foot in the door. After proving that he
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: had acting skills to do the job, Bob was offered
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: a permanent role playing a dentist on The Donna Reed Show.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It was then, with his fame building and his star rising,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: that Bob's agent came across the script for Hogan's Heroes
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and passed it along to Bob. He initially hated the script.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Up until then, he'd strictly been involved in comedic acting roles,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and he had no intentions of acting in a serious
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: drama based on sirious world history events like the World
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Wars and the Third Reich. Bob's son Roberts, later writing
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: about his father, said that his agent then managed to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: turn Bob's perception of the series around quote, Bob, what
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? This is a comedy. These are
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the funny Nazis. Many would forgive Bob for being confused
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: about the tone of the series. World War II had
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: only ended twenty years before he was sitting there reading
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the manuscripts for Hogan's Heroes. For most people, the war
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and the hardships that came with it were still within
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: living memory, and that was definitely true for the cast.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Many of them were Jewish, some of them had lost
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: friends and loved ones during the war and the prison camps.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Some of them had been real prisoners of war themselves
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and still had the tattoos to prove it. It was
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a real concern that making a lighthearted comedic series about
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: such a tragic and difficult time was too much too soon,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: But Bob and his other cast mates took a huge
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: leap of faith and had paid off. Hogan's Heroes was
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: an overnight sensation, and Bob Crane became a bonafide Hollywood star. Money, fame,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: and notoriety gave Bob everything he wanted right at his fingertips,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and it allowed him to indulge in his biggest vice women.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Bob absolutely loved women, so much so that, looking at
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it from today's twenty twenty four perspective, you could assume
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: that Bob was a sex addict. He collected pictures of women,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: especially the ones he had sexual relationships with. He was
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: already married to his high school sweetheart and Tersian, and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: had three children with her, but that did not stop him.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: With his new found fame and success, women began throwing
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: themselves at Bob, and Bob found that he couldn't say no.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: He stored his growing pile of nude pictures and pornography
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: in his home, in his car, and in his changing
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: room at work, where he was known to take them
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: out and show them to his co stars. There were
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: no drugs, no coercion, none like that. His son Robert explained,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: women just liked him, or found him handsome, or whatever
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: it was they would hook up. But the truth was
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that Bob and these women were doing a bit more
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: than just that. Along the way, Bob made friends with
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: John Henry Carpenter. John was a video equipment salesman who
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: worked at Sony, and he opened Bob's eyes to the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: world of homemade pornography. After that, Bob was hooked. He
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: purchased anything and everything that he would need to start
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: making his own videos to add to his growing collection.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Bob and John often worked together. They would go out
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: on the town, using Bob's new fame to attract beautiful women,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and then they would take them back to a room
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: where they would film themselves in the act long into
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the night. Bob kept all of these videos and paraded
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: his conquests to those around him, But they were those
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: who claimed that making porno films was not actually Bob's
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: main goal in all of this. Carol Ford later wrote
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: in a biography about Bob, quote, as far as the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: amateur pornography, that was a small part of the bigger pie.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: You might say. Bob was chronicling and writing down and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: filming every single thing in his life. So when you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: look at it in the grand scheme of things, it's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: just a small slice. But collecting pornography and sharing pictures
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of women that he'd slept with was about to catch
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: up with Bob. He made some bad moves. Robert later explained,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: he collected photographs of women and put together these books.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Oh here's Sally from Jacksonville, Florida, and then he started
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: showing them off to people. He was doing a very
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: bad Disney movie called super Dad, playing an all American
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: character who cares about his daughter running off with some
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: unsavory type. But at Disney Studios in Burbank, he's on
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the set showing photos of women that he's been with
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to people on the crew. That hurt him because the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: executives found out. People talk, and it started getting in
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: publications like The National Inquirer. At that point, the cat
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: was out of the bag and Bob Starr began to diminish,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: But far from realizing what was happening to him, Bob
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: was enjoying himself. He even took his then twenty one
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: year old son, Robert, to the nineteen seventy two premiere
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of Deep Throat. He just loved it because he was
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: meeting all these porn stars, Robert later wrote. But Bob
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Crane now had a sullied reputation, and Hogan's Heroes, the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: very showed that had brought him fame in the first place,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: had just aired its final episode. Bob was officially now
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: out of work, and instead of landing another gig in Hollywood,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: he found himself working the Dinner theater, circuit cameras and
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: big studio buildings with hundreds of cast and crew had
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: been replaced with live performances and restaurants for the average citizen.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: He then moved to Phoenix, where he bought the rites
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and performed a romantic comedy play called Beginner's Luck and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: places like the Windmill. His marriage with Anne was long
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: dead and buried, and now his second marriage with Patricia
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Olsen looked like it too was about to come crashing down.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: He'd been a huge star, he'd been rich and famous,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and he'd had it all, but somehow it all slipped
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: through his fingers. Ahead of him laid a life of
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: grinding and clamoring to get back to the heights he'd
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: once flown, and Bob knew that in order to do that,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: he needed to reevaluate his life. Just before his birthday,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Bob called his son and told him his plan. Quote.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: He was two weeks shy of fifty. He says, I'm
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: making changes. I'm divorcing Patty. He wanted to lose those
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: people like John Carpenter, who had become a pain in
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the butt. He wanted a clean slate. They had a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: breakup of sorts Carpenter lost it. He was being rejected,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he was being spurned like a lover. There are eyewitnesses
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that night at the club in Scottsdale that said they
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: had an argument John and my dad end quote. What
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Robert was referring to was an incident that happened right
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: before tragedy would strike. In June nineteen seventy eight, Bob's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: co star Victoria and Barry walked into Bob's apartment after
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: he'd failed to show up for a lunch meeting. There,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: she found him beaten, his face an unrecognizable mess, and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: his bed sheets sodden with blood. Bob was dead, and
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: within hours, his son Robert was being escorted onto the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: scene of his father's murder to help with the investigation.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: The Scottsdale Police Department didn't actually have a homicide unit
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: at the time, a fact that Robert would later say
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: greatly hindered the investigation. Vaughn, Bob's business manager, Goldstein, his lawyer,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and I walked through the apartment, examining, touching, handling items
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: in plain view of Vassal, the lead detective on the case.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: We added our fingerprints, footprints, and hair samples to an
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: already contaminated, lackadaisically investigated, casually considered murder scene. Detective Barry
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Vassal or Vassal would later deny that Bob's crime scene
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: had been handled incorrectly, especially because he believed that they
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: had their man, John Carpenter. The two of them had
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: noticeably fault in the days before the murder, and there
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: had been no signs of forced jury at the scene,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: suggesting that Bob had known his attacker. We found blood
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in Carpenter's rental car and on the passenger door. Barry
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: later said it was Crane's blood type. Nobody else who
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: handled the car had the same type as Crane. DNA
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: technology was severely lacking at that time, so blood typing
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: was as far as the investigators could go in terms
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of collecting forensic evidence, but it wasn't enough to persuade
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the county attorney to prosecute John. It wasn't until twelve
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: years later that John was charged with the murder of
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Bob Crane, and by then most of the physical evidence
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: had already been destroyed. The last of the forensic samples
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: taken from the scene had also been destroyed in the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: attempt to get a more conclusive DNA profile, and those
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: attempts had been made in vain. The prosecution had very
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: little evidence to prove that John Carpenter had killed Bob Crane,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and he was acquitted. He actually died four years later
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and took anything that he knew with him to the grave. Robert,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: who initially believed that John was his father's killer, has
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: since pointed the finger elsewhere at his stepmother, Patricia Olsen. Quote.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: She was in the middle of a divorce with my dad.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: If there's no divorce, she keeps what she gets, and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: if there's no husband, she gets the whole thing. Robert
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: claims that Patricia was never properly investigated and now she
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: never will be. She died of lung cancer in two
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven, also taking any secrets that she was
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: keeping with her. I don't know what else to do,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Robert said. Carpenter's dead Patty's dead time is just taking
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: people away. That is ten minutes for today Brief and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: binge Able True Crime. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and
• 12:05
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• 12:07
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• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And this one is from Casey N. Austin. Joe, what
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: is a conspiracy theory that you do believe? And what
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: is one that you do not believe? Okay, this is
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a good question. The first part is going to be,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you know whatever, But the second part you may think
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: is a little controversial. I don't, but I mean it
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: could be interpreted that way. I believe that Lee Harvey
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Oswald had help in his assassination of John F. Kennedy.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I do think he was heavily involved and definitely did
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: fire shots, but he had help in some way. In
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: what way, I'm not sure, but I think he had help.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So that's the one that I do believe. The one
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that I do not believe. The conspiracy theory that I
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: do not believe is that Venezuelan street gangs have taken
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado. That one's way
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: more recent. I read where people think that the Hells
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Angels motorcycle club was en route to handle it because
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the police couldn't handle it. This isn't true. It's a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: situation of a deadbeat property management group with a laundry
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: list of code violations making the property unsafe, mixed with
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: some xenophobia. The local news there is reported on this.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: If you see her friends posting on instaface about this,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: trying to drum up hate and fear of immigrants just
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: trying to live their lives, please don't believe that because
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that is not true. There's definitely some stuff happening there,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: but it's not the thing you think it is. If
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you think it's a Venezuelan street gang and there's a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: motorbike club headed to handle the situation, it's not that,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: all right, That's it. That is your episode for today.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to ten minute Murder