Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller x Docu: Trick or Terror: When Halloween Turns Deadly
Transcript
- 0:06Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host,
- 0:10Speaker 1: Alisa Donovan.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. I am Jen Fessler from Killer Thriller Docu Edition.
- 0:18Speaker 2: And today I am joined by the lovely Alisa Donovan
- 0:22Speaker 2: for a special Halloween episode of Killer Thriller. Hey, lady.
- 0:26Speaker 1: Hello, hello.
- 0:28Speaker 2: Lady in orange.
- 0:29Speaker 1: I'm wearing my Halloween sweater.
- 0:31Speaker 2: Right? I remember like when the kids were little having
- 0:34Speaker 2: like little earrings that were skeletons and actually doing these things. Yeah.
- 0:38Speaker 2: It was like a million years ago. So guys, Halloween
- 0:43Speaker 2: is supposed to be about all costumes and candy and
- 0:48Speaker 2: fun and jokes. But today we are talking about some
- 0:51Speaker 2: real life crimes that are much scarier than anything you'd
- 0:55Speaker 2: see in a haunted house.
- 0:58Speaker 1: That is right.
- 0:59Speaker 3: We are.
- 1:00Speaker 4: Are going to look at three true crime cases connected
- 1:03Speaker 4: to Halloween, including a murder involving a Halloween disguise, a
- 1:09Speaker 4: devastating family massacre, and the infamous case of a father
- 1:13Speaker 4: who poisoned his own child's Halloween candy, which I had
- 1:18Speaker 4: forgotten about and now I am remembering. These are the
- 1:22Speaker 4: kinds of stories that make you realize that the scariest
- 1:24Speaker 4: things are just not, they're not always fictional.
- 1:27Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:27Speaker 2: I mean, we're telling them, we're going to talk about
- 1:29Speaker 2: them today. And it's like sitting around the campfire talking about,
- 1:33Speaker 2: you know, ghost stories and people love hot, but this, this,
- 1:36Speaker 2: these are real actual, yeah. Upsetting real things that, um,
- 1:40Speaker 2: happened on or around Halloween, starting with a night in 1957,
- 1:47Speaker 2: when 35 year old Peter Fabiano, who was a beauty
- 1:51Speaker 2: salon owner and was getting ready for bed with his wife, Betty,
- 1:55Speaker 2: at their home in Sun Valley, California. So around 11.30 p.m.,
- 1:59Speaker 2: the doorbell rings. Peter puts on his robe and answers it,
- 2:03Speaker 2: expecting one last trick-or-treater, and instead he found a masked
- 2:07Speaker 2: figure carrying a paper bag. The visitor pulled a revolver
- 2:11Speaker 2: from the bag and shot him in the chest, and
- 2:13Speaker 2: he died from his injuries. Okay, so this is back
- 2:16Speaker 2: in 1957, and this story is... whack-a-doodle right it was.
- 2:25Speaker 4: So first of all why do these things always happen
- 2:26Speaker 4: in california okay we'll talk about that later but the
- 2:30Speaker 4: uh the investigation eventually led detectives to joan rabel a
- 2:37Speaker 4: former employee of the beauty salon and a close friend
- 2:40Speaker 4: of betty's his wife and betty and joan had been close.
- 2:43Speaker 2: Betty separates from her husband and lives with joan but
- 2:45Speaker 2: then goes back to the husband Got it.
- 2:48Speaker 4: And so then when they reconcile, Peter reportedly wanted Betty
- 2:53Speaker 4: to end her relationship with Joan. So investigators came to
- 2:58Speaker 4: believe that Joan recruited 42-year-old Goldine Pizer to kill Peter.
- 3:06Speaker 4: So according to Pizer's confession, Joan had spent weeks telling
- 3:12Speaker 4: her how terrible Peter was, and Pizer said she'd never
- 3:15Speaker 4: even met him. but agreed to carry out the murder.
- 3:19Speaker 4: This is insanity. It also sounds like, so the husband,
- 3:25Speaker 4: Peter was clearly sleeping with Joan, right?
- 3:29Speaker 2: No. I think that maybe they think that Betty was
- 3:31Speaker 2: sleeping with Joan. Unless I'm reading something wrong.
- 3:38Speaker 1: Oh, and that's why he wanted to end the relationship.
- 3:40Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm saying that because they said that
- 3:42Speaker 2: no one really understood the nature of Betty and Joan's relationship.
- 3:46Speaker 2: They think that it was a lesbian relationship.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Oh, got it.
- 3:50Speaker 2: It wasn't ever for sure established. So, but the thing is,
- 3:55Speaker 2: it wasn't just Joan and Betty. So how did Joan
- 3:59Speaker 2: recruit Goldeen Kaiser to kill Peter? So who was this
- 4:04Speaker 2: woman who was pulled in and said, okay, you know what?
- 4:06Speaker 2: I'll do that. And they show up at the door
- 4:10Speaker 2: on Halloween and they shoot him. The whole thing is
- 4:14Speaker 2: so awful and creepy. It's Halloween. He thought it was
- 4:17Speaker 2: a trick-or-treater, right? Like none of it sort of makes sense.
- 4:24Speaker 4: So, I mean, this is crazy. So if she, Pizer
- 4:28Speaker 4: had never even met Peter.
- 4:30Speaker 2: Joan convinced Pizer what an awful man Peter was.
- 4:34Speaker 1: Right.
- 4:34Speaker 2: Okay.
- 4:35Speaker 4: So how do you get someone to the point of
- 4:37Speaker 4: being willing to kill a complete stranger is my question.
- 4:40Speaker 2: It's a really good question. I don't know. It feels
- 4:43Speaker 2: to me like these are crimes of passion. Like, I
- 4:45Speaker 2: don't know what the relationship was between Betty to Joan,
- 4:51Speaker 2: Joan to Goldine, Goldine to, you know, I don't Peter.
- 4:55Speaker 4: But it says that they reportedly considered several ways to
- 4:59Speaker 4: kill Peter before settling on a gun. And then they
- 5:03Speaker 4: waited outside until the lights went out. I mean, that's
- 5:06Speaker 4: kind of a lot of planning for a crime of passion,
- 5:09Speaker 4: isn't it?
- 5:10Speaker 2: I just don't, I mean, I can only think that
- 5:11Speaker 2: why did Joan want Peter dead? Unless she was, maybe
- 5:15Speaker 2: she was in love with Betty.
- 5:17Speaker 1: And it was Pizer in love with Joan.
- 5:19Speaker 2: Right. Now it's Pizer and Joan that got sentenced five
- 5:23Speaker 2: years to life, which is weird also because why only
- 5:27Speaker 2: five years to life?
- 5:28Speaker 1: Only five years.
- 5:30Speaker 2: But Betty wasn't charged. So the wife was not charged.
- 5:33Speaker 2: So it feels to me like this would make it,
- 5:36Speaker 2: seemed to be a crime of passion, right? Joan was
- 5:38Speaker 2: madly in love with Betty. Maybe this, you know, Heiser
- 5:42Speaker 2: person was in love with Joan. Anyway, awful Halloween. So
- 5:47Speaker 2: speaking of weird, creepy Halloween murders. So our next case
- 5:53Speaker 2: is totally disturbing in a whole different way, right? So
- 5:56Speaker 2: a teenager comes home on Halloween and goes inside his
- 6:01Speaker 2: home and thinks that Frank was pulled because And it's
- 6:06Speaker 2: just awful. It's so awful. So 16-year-old Devin Griffin, that
- 6:11Speaker 2: was his name, returns to his family's home in Martin,
- 6:14Speaker 2: Ohio after attending church and discovers the bodies of his mother, Susan,
- 6:19Speaker 2: his 23-year-old brother, Derek, and his stepfather, William Liskey Sr.,
- 6:25Speaker 2: discovers their bodies. They'd been murdered. And Devin was so
- 6:29Speaker 2: shocked by what he sees, he thinks it's some kind
- 6:31Speaker 2: of a Halloween prank, realized that it was real, called
- 6:35Speaker 2: his aunt. And the investigators focus on a 24 year
- 6:41Speaker 2: old William BJ Liskey Jr. Who was the son of
- 6:46Speaker 2: William Liskey senior.
- 6:47Speaker 3: Okay.
- 6:48Speaker 2: So he was the one that was arrested and for
- 6:53Speaker 2: going home, killing his father, his stepmother and his stepbrother. So,
- 6:59Speaker 2: and then it's the other brother that finds the three
- 7:02Speaker 2: of them. It's just awful.
- 7:03Speaker 1: This is, and this happened in 2010.
- 7:04Speaker 4: So not, that long ago and the investigators determined that
- 7:10Speaker 4: all three victims had suffered fatal head injuries and the
- 7:15Speaker 4: evidence eventually linked to linked bj to the killings and
- 7:19Speaker 4: in 2011 bj pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated
- 7:24Speaker 4: murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the
- 7:27Speaker 4: possibility of parole feels appropriate During sentencing, he expressed remorse
- 7:33Speaker 4: for his actions. And in March of 2015, he was
- 7:37Speaker 4: found dead in his prison cell from a self-inflicted wound.
- 7:42Speaker 2: Well, this, so, so apparently BJ Jr. was, had been
- 7:50Speaker 2: in trouble. It wasn't just, this didn't come out of nowhere.
- 7:53Speaker 2: I think he'd actually once threw a cup at his
- 7:56Speaker 2: stepmother's head. I remember Susan said he faced assault and
- 7:59Speaker 2: robbery charges stemming from like an earlier incident that did
- 8:04Speaker 2: involve his stepmother. Those charges were later dropped, but he
- 8:07Speaker 2: did have a history of, I guess, of assault. Yeah.
- 8:12Speaker 1: It sounds like some violence.
- 8:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 8:14Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 8:15Speaker 4: Do we know what was up with, so what I'm
- 8:18Speaker 4: always obviously curious about the family dynamics, like where is
- 8:23Speaker 4: his birth mother?
- 8:24Speaker 1: Is she a part of his life?
- 8:27Speaker 4: Did he feel like these people sort of, his dad's
- 8:31Speaker 4: got a new.
- 8:31Speaker 1: Family now, you know?
- 8:34Speaker 3: Maybe.
- 8:34Speaker 2: I mean, that's what it sounded like to me, but
- 8:38Speaker 2: I don't have, we don't have that much information. But this,
- 8:42Speaker 2: I just, the whole thing, the Devin of it all, right?
- 8:45Speaker 2: Devin Griffin, who, where is he now? And wherever he is,
- 8:48Speaker 2: we are praying for him. He lost his mom. And
- 8:51Speaker 2: his brother and his stepfather walking in after church. So
- 8:55Speaker 2: not a happy story, you guys. Very, very awful. It's really,
- 8:58Speaker 2: how is this person?
- 9:00Speaker 1: I don't know how you continue after something like that.
- 9:22Speaker 2: This one, I think the shockwaves of this one are
- 9:26Speaker 2: still rolling in.
- 9:27Speaker 1: This one is infamous for sure.
- 9:29Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. So final case, our final case we're talking
- 9:32Speaker 2: about is a Halloween crime that changed the way generations
- 9:37Speaker 2: of parents thought about trick-or-treating and candy. So Halloween night, 1974,
- 9:44Speaker 2: eight-year-old Timothy O'Brien went trick-or-treating with his father, Ronald, his
- 9:48Speaker 2: younger sister, and other kids in their Houston area neighborhood.
- 9:52Speaker 2: So Ronald was an optician and a church deacon, but
- 9:55Speaker 2: he was also facing serious financial problems. And he reportedly had...
- 10:00Speaker 2: about $ 100, 000, was $ 100, 000 in debt. So months before Halloween,
- 10:05Speaker 2: he takes out life insurance policies on both of his children. Oh.
- 10:09Speaker 1: This is already going the wrong way.
- 10:11Speaker 2: This is going to a bad place, yes.
- 10:12Speaker 4: So during trick-or-treating, Ronald told the children that someone at
- 10:17Speaker 4: a dark house had given him several large pixie sticks
- 10:21Speaker 4: to hand out. But investigators later determined that Ronald had
- 10:25Speaker 4: put potassium cyanide, which is a very deadly poison, inside
- 10:31Speaker 4: the candy tubes and resealed them with staples.
- 10:36Speaker 1: And then back at home.
- 10:38Speaker 4: Timothy chose one of the pixie sticks, and after tasting it,
- 10:41Speaker 4: he complained that it was bitter. His father gave him
- 10:44Speaker 4: a drink to wash it down, but Timothy soon became
- 10:46Speaker 4: violently ill, vomiting and convulsing. This is too much. And
- 10:52Speaker 4: he died less than an hour later. And the other
- 10:55Speaker 4: children who received the poison candy were spared because they
- 10:59Speaker 4: hadn't consumed it before it was recovered.
- 11:01Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. This happened in what, 1974? I mean,
- 11:03Speaker 2: people have been doing.
- 11:08Speaker 2: God-awful, gruesome, horrific, unspeakable things.
- 11:12Speaker 4: Well, don't you remember, this is the case that this then,
- 11:16Speaker 4: there were like copycat people, I think, because I remember
- 11:21Speaker 4: I was born in 1974, so I was three when
- 11:23Speaker 4: this happened. I can't believe that I could remember at
- 11:27Speaker 4: three this, but I have a distinct memory of being
- 11:30Speaker 4: afraid of trick-or-treating.
- 11:32Speaker 2: There was a year.
- 11:33Speaker 4: Where this was happening again. I feel like it was
- 11:37Speaker 4: something in, in, um, M & Ms or there was
- 11:40Speaker 4: another candy that was specifically targeted. And, and I, this,
- 11:45Speaker 4: I was living on Long Island. I grew up on
- 11:47Speaker 4: Long Island in New York. So maybe it was specific
- 11:50Speaker 4: to that area, but it was like all over the news.
- 11:53Speaker 4: Like are people, can we not, um, trick or treat
- 11:56Speaker 4: this year? And there was like a huge fear.
- 12:00Speaker 2: I was, I was young when I was young. I
- 12:02Speaker 2: lived on Long Island as well. We moved when I
- 12:03Speaker 2: was nine. And I was born in 68, but I
- 12:06Speaker 2: definitely remember, you know, my mother being very careful about.
- 12:12Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 12:12Speaker 4: Because you had been like prime age then prime early
- 12:17Speaker 4: trick or treater. Yeah.
- 12:19Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I don't remember the real specifics, but
- 12:24Speaker 2: the thing is a father, a deacon of a church
- 12:29Speaker 2: does this to his young son.
- 12:31Speaker 4: Yeah, well, they learned once they started to suspect the dad,
- 12:37Speaker 4: they learned about the life insurance policies, and they searched
- 12:40Speaker 4: his home, obviously.
- 12:41Speaker 1: And he kept maintaining his innocence.
- 12:44Speaker 4: And he claimed that an unknown person had poisoned the candy,
- 12:49Speaker 4: but he was found guilty of capital murder. After the
- 12:52Speaker 4: jury deliberated for 46 minutes, that seems pretty.
- 12:58Speaker 1: And then also, what about those kids?
- 13:01Speaker 3: Right.
- 13:02Speaker 1: The ones who.
- 13:02Speaker 2: Right. You know, and this dumbass, besides being a vicious
- 13:06Speaker 2: murderer killer, calls the insurance company the morning after Timothy dies.
- 13:11Speaker 2: Don't you think that's going to raise some suspicions?
- 13:12Speaker 3: Right.
- 13:13Speaker 4: Like that's not going to be if my.
- 13:15Speaker 1: No, I can't. It's unspeakable.
- 13:16Speaker 4: But I don't think that would be a normal, an
- 13:20Speaker 4: innocent person's first thought. Oh, let me get the insurance
- 13:26Speaker 4: policy after my child has just died.
- 13:29Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 13:30Speaker 2: Let's talk about some sick people here. You guys, this
- 13:32Speaker 2: is really happy Halloween.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Happy Halloween.
- 13:36Speaker 2: I mean, so funny is now, do you guys do
- 13:38Speaker 2: this over there? So I happily am out of this
- 13:40Speaker 2: phase of life where I take my children. Yeah. I mean,
- 13:44Speaker 2: now I have two.
- 13:46Speaker 3: Yes.
- 13:47Speaker 4: Well, she goes on her own with her friends, which
- 13:48Speaker 4: is scary enough because they're 14.
- 13:51Speaker 3: Right.
- 13:51Speaker 2: So, but they do, they started doing by me. What
- 13:55Speaker 2: is it called? Trunk, trunk or treat. No. What's that?
- 14:00Speaker 2: All the cars pull up in some parking lot. No,
- 14:04Speaker 2: it's actually like a safety thing. And they open their trunks.
- 14:07Speaker 2: And especially for the little kids, they go around car
- 14:09Speaker 2: to car.
- 14:10Speaker 3: No way.
- 14:10Speaker 1: It's like tailgating.
- 14:12Speaker 2: Yes, to get treats in their costumes and whatever. Oh,
- 14:16Speaker 2: you're kidding. Yeah, because parents didn't want their kids.
- 14:20Speaker 1: Not going to walk around anymore.
- 14:21Speaker 2: Wandering around the neighborhood. Yeah. I mean, they still do it. Wow.
- 14:25Speaker 4: We have in our neighborhood in San Francisco, and the
- 14:29Speaker 4: same as our old, there are kind of three different spots,
- 14:32Speaker 4: three different neighborhoods in the north part of the city
- 14:35Speaker 4: where we live that are like total hot spot for trick-or-treating.
- 14:41Speaker 1: So in the one in the marina, there's one.
- 14:44Speaker 4: Street that's closed off. Like the police close it off.
- 14:48Speaker 4: And so everybody kind of opens their homes and gets trick-or-treated.
- 14:51Speaker 4: It's like mayhem. That's more for like little kids. Then
- 14:54Speaker 4: there's another area in Pack Heights that's, I mean, it's
- 14:59Speaker 4: very elaborate, the sugar treating.
- 15:02Speaker 1: And then our neighborhood is the same.
- 15:04Speaker 4: It's a very, you know, like a lot of kids
- 15:07Speaker 4: and a lot of, but teenagers too.
- 15:10Speaker 1: And they're like real neighborhoods. So it feels safe-ish.
- 15:16Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I remember when they were little loving Halloween
- 15:19Speaker 2: and I wanted my house to be the one and
- 15:21Speaker 2: the cupcakes of it all and the decorations and everything.
- 15:24Speaker 2: All the kids should come for all the parties. And
- 15:26Speaker 2: that's when they were really little. And the trick-or-treating was
- 15:27Speaker 2: a big Norman Rockwell painting. And then as they got older,
- 15:31Speaker 2: it was this one crying because this one didn't invite
- 15:33Speaker 2: them to go trick-or-treating with them. And this one's meeting
- 15:37Speaker 2: up with this one. Where are you going to meet them?
- 15:38Speaker 2: I'm not just letting you go became the whole thing
- 15:40Speaker 2: just became Ajita. Yeah.
- 15:42Speaker 1: Well, I'm on the cusp of that.
- 15:44Speaker 4: We're still, there's a little crew, my daughter's friend's like
- 15:50Speaker 4: one of whom lives really the two of them, they
- 15:52Speaker 4: live in our neighborhood and then there's a sort of
- 15:54Speaker 4: bigger group and they are traipsing around together, but it's
- 16:00Speaker 4: already like this person's going there and who's, you know,
- 16:03Speaker 4: it's getting into that area for us.
- 16:06Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I do not envy that, but hopefully Halloween
- 16:09Speaker 2: will be better for everyone than it was for these poor, poor,
- 16:16Speaker 2: victims and awful Halloween stories. But listen, you guys are
- 16:20Speaker 2: listening to true crime. So this is on you.
- 16:22Speaker 1: So this is on you.
- 16:23Speaker 4: Yes. But anytime something happens on a major holiday or
- 16:29Speaker 4: it definitely just gives it more weight. I mean, I
- 16:32Speaker 4: can say my father passed away on January 1st, a
- 16:36Speaker 4: new year's day.
- 16:38Speaker 1: So that is like, you know, that just never changes.
- 16:42Speaker 1: It forever changes.
- 16:44Speaker 4: Impacts how I feel about New Year's Day, you know,
- 16:48Speaker 4: but like you turn it into something, you know, I have,
- 16:51Speaker 4: that's a whole other podcast, but I feel very, you know,
- 16:56Speaker 4: it just is, it gives it a little bit more
- 16:59Speaker 4: weight in a different way, you know? Yeah.
- 17:03Speaker 2: Well, listen, guys, I mean, if you're a true crime listeners, fans,
- 17:08Speaker 2: then Halloween is your night.
- 17:12Speaker 3: I don't know.
- 17:12Speaker 1: It's truly right.
- 17:16Speaker 2: So, you know, happy, happy.
- 17:17Speaker 1: Yeah. So we hope that everybody has a safe Halloween.
- 17:22Speaker 2: Yes, please. And a fun Halloween. I'm actually, I am
- 17:25Speaker 2: actually going to a party this year and I am
- 17:27Speaker 2: dressing up as Beth Dutton from Yellowstone.
- 17:31Speaker 1: Oh, I love it.
- 17:32Speaker 2: And I love it.
- 17:34Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 17:34Speaker 4: Love it.
- 17:35Speaker 2: Dressed up in a long time.
- 17:36Speaker 4: You haven't, we go to this annual party that a
- 17:40Speaker 4: friend of mine, throws at his winery in um Healdsburg
- 17:45Speaker 4: and it is epic and so fun but we can't
- 17:49Speaker 4: go and there's always a theme so and this year
- 17:52Speaker 4: it's the French Revolution but we we can't go this
- 17:56Speaker 4: year unfortunately on tour.
- 17:58Speaker 3: Yes so it's a bummer but yeah I we love
- 18:04Speaker 3: so I love like looking at all the photos from
- 18:07Speaker 3: the past years of our costumes and especially like when
- 18:11Speaker 3: Scarlett was little, oh my God, those little costumes are
- 18:14Speaker 3: too much.
- 18:14Speaker 4: Like I think about her in this kitty cat costume
- 18:16Speaker 4: that was like, she's like toppling over, like walking around,
- 18:19Speaker 4: you know, that's just adorable.
- 18:21Speaker 2: It's like the cutest.
- 18:22Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay.
- 18:24Speaker 2: So that's the good news.
- 18:25Speaker 1: That's the good news.
- 18:25Speaker 2: Enjoy your Snickers and your M & Ms and Halloween.
- 18:30Speaker 2: Happy Halloween.
- 18:31Speaker 1: I also remember being pregnant over Halloween, little sidebar.
- 18:35Speaker 4: And I was like static about all the little mini
- 18:38Speaker 4: candy bars.
- 18:39Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 18:41Speaker 2: Yeah, I was too actually. And we have, we've been
- 18:45Speaker 2: at times like no trick or treaters come for whatever reason.
- 18:48Speaker 2: Like if we were traveling, whatever it was, but Jeff
- 18:52Speaker 2: Kessler will never have a Halloween week. He doesn't kind of,
- 18:55Speaker 2: doesn't come home with bags and bags of chocolate that
- 18:58Speaker 2: of course, like we are then left with. Right. Right.
- 19:01Speaker 1: He's like, just in case I had to get this.
- 19:03Speaker 2: Just in case. Yeah.
- 19:07Speaker 3: Okay.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Friends.
- 19:08Speaker 2: All right. Until next time.
- 19:11Speaker 1: Until next time.
- 19:11Speaker 2: Okay. Bye guys. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.