Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller: Fireworks, Freak Accidents and Fourth of July Murders

Transcript

Killer Thriller: Fireworks, Freak Accidents and Fourth of July Murders · Legally Brunette

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Amy Roboc and TJ.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Holmes present Killer Thriller with your Host Alisa Donovan.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Hey everyone, it's Alisa Donovan, host of Killer Thriller, and
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: I am here with my friend Jen Fessler from Killer Thriller.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: Doc you. Hi, my friend Gen love you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: So while most people are celebrating with backyard barbecues, beach days,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: and fireworks, we are doing what we do best, which
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: is diving into some unbelievable true crime stories connected to
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: America's birthday on from shocking murders to mysteries tied to
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: the Fourth of July celebrations. These cases prove that sometimes
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: the most explosive events of the holiday aren't happening in
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: the sky. So whether you're heading to a barbecue, sitting
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: in traffic on a holiday road trip, or way eating
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: for the fireworks to begin, settle in as we explore
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: the darker side of the Fourth of July. Now, before
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: we get into these cases, Jen, what's your favorite Fourth
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: of July tradition?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't really have Fourth of July traditions
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: per se. Like I when I was young, I was
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: always at Sleepway Camp and so that was really fun.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It has to be with friends and fireworks and burgers
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: and hot dogs.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And my daughter's there right now.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: Oh she is okay. Well that's another discussion.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I want to know where she is okay anyway, So yeah,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: so that was always where I was for, you know,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: the Fourth of July. As I got older with my kids,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: they were at camp for a lot of that unless
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: they were babies, but there have been obviously, there's always
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a parade. There's four couples we got together for a
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: few years, a couple friends every Fourth of July. That
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: was fun, barbecue, you know, burgers and hot dogs and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: all of that. But I don't have necessarily traditions, do you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Well, no, this is this kind of leads me into
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: my next question for you, which is going to be
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: has anything ever.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Gone wrong at the Fourth of July? And I'd like
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to share.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: How my my least favorite tradition, which couples with something
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: going terribly awry, is that I broke my radius and
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: ulna bones doing back handsprings on wet grass and Emerald
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Bay after a day of light drinking.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Suh, don't please. This is when you were chop Well,
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: I guess not when you were a child.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: No, I was thirty and I was also wearing flip
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: flops and I wanted to impress my then boyfriend by
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: telling him, did you know I could do back hand springs?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: And he was like, what a nightmare? Embarrassing, horrible, painful.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was sort of the beginning of the end
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: of our relationship. It went on another year, but I
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: loved him dearly.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Anyway.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I said, yeah, I could do back handsprings
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and he was like what, And so he puts the flashlight.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing flip flops and I started.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I did a round off and then I stopped short
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, this doesn't feel right.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: He said, don't be scared. You can do it, can I?
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: So I was like, you're right, and I went to
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: do it and I went up so high instead of
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: going backwards because I had forgotten because I haven't done
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: it in likeank twenty years.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And boy, that crack was heard round the world.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: My screams all the way down the one trying to
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: get to Newport emergency room.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So that's my fourth of July.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: My story is from last year, more recently, where we
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: bunch of friends came. We have a place at the
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: beach and we probably had fifteen people or something, and
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: we went to the beach to watch the fireworks, and
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: we might have been smoking a little something. We might
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: have been drinking a little something, and maybe yeah, maybe
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: maybe maybe allegedly, and we drove bikes there, got back
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: on the bike. Now I'm not a bike rider, as
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: it turns out, there's a whole bunch of stories different,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: not the point I shouldn't have been at that point,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and got on the bike, didn't even begin to pedal
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: when I all completely down and blood everywhere, and all
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: my friends were laughing so hard that it was a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: stranger actually that came to and helped me get up.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Blood everywhere, bruises everywhere.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Well, this is why you and I are doing this
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: instead of celebrating the fourth of July. That's why we're
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: like staying and we're gonna have these conversations.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Favorite holiday, right, It is not the favorite holiday for
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: many of people that were about to discuss exactly all
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, should we start with Marylyn Shepherd? Yes, So
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: this is one of the most infamous American murder cases.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Thirty one year old Marylyn Shepherd, who was four months pregnant,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: was brutally bludgeoned to death in her Bay Village, Ohio
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: home in the early hours of the fourth of July.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Her husband, doctor Sam Shepherd, claimed he was a sleep
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: downstairs when he heard his wife's screams and encountered a
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: quote bushy haired intruder inside their home. So this quickly
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: became a national media sensation, and all the newspapers were
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: implying very heavily that Sam was guilty long before his trial,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: and he was convicted in nineteen fifty four, but years
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: later the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: media coverage had made a fair trial impossible, and then
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: he was later acquitted in nineteen sixty six.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So this is the case that went on to inspire
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the story behind the Fugitive.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: The only thing I think is when you hear those dates, right, like,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: what would it have been like?
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Now? Who knows right?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly right? It's hard to write. Oh, so what does
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: all of this mean? Was Sam Shepherd guilty?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: And would he get a fair trial?
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Like I think about so many people that once the
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: media has made a decision and they've kind of told
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: the public that today it's like you can't recover because
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: it's all encompassing, it's just everywhere. And then, I don't know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: would you think that he would.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Would he get a more fair trial today?
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: I mean I don't know, more fair, less fair, right,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: more information, maybe DNA things that you know, really can
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: can determine proof.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And still the guys still went to prison for twenty years.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So if he didn't do it, it's not like
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: that becomes.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: Erased, right, right.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: So here's the case of Megan Barrasso and so from
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Moore Park, California. This is back in two thousand and one,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: and after spending the evening watching Fourth of July fireworks
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: with friends, twenty year old college student Megan Barrasso was
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: driving home when she became the victim of a violent attack.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Investigators later determined she was pursued and shot from another
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: vehicle in what appeared to be a completely random act
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: of holiday violence. Her abandoned car was found the following day,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: shocking the Ventura County community, and the senseless nature of
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: the crime, combined with its timing after a holiday celebration,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: made the case especially haunting. You know, I think about
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: New Year's Eve and I absolutely hate the hold and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: don't want to be out, and I think crazy things
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: happen on New usually because everyone's wasted.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: And everybody has this feeling like I have to have
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: a good time exactly, this pressure of you need to
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: tell a story about it later and have kind of
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: the most.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Intense joy ever or something.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really that's actually a great way of putting it. Yes,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: that is how it feels. There's a pressure to have
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the best time ever, and I randomly will kill you
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: and I don't on the fourth of July, but like
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: in New Year's but then for her to be so
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: randomly shot.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: This is what's so scary to me is that it's
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: literally it was a random act of violence, which I
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: wonder now is was it gang related? In somewhere like
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: it's I don't know anything about more Park, I don't
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: know how close.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: That's what I thought as soon as you hear that, right, like, yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: like that you think was it was a gang related?
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: You know, like one of those what is it called
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: when someone has to and they're initiated and have to
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: kill someone? Yeah? Right. I mean I don't need a
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: lot to keep me up at night and make me
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: afraid and just thinking about that. I mean, does it
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: make you think like, oh, maybe I shouldn't drive at night?
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe I shouldn't drive it all right?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't drive at night because I can't
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: see anymore.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I can't really either, but I still I do. But
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it's totally scary. I get very afraid if
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I feel like somebody is driving a little too close.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Partie back following me right, and you hear so many
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: stories about, you know, specifically women but getting carjacked. But
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: that always freaks me out. I'm always looking for Okay,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: so if what's the exit route?
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: When I first moved to LA now that you say that,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: I remember that being my one of my biggest fears
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: because coming from I moved from New York City where
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: I never drove, and with this was just like a
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: whole other set of concerns.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: So then at night, if you're at a red light
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: and someone next to you, I remember having this real
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: fear of like, oh.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: My god, I go to get home.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yep, me too. All right, who do we have next?
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: We have?
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Next?
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: We have Irene Silverman and her disappearance. This is an
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: in New York City, July of nineteen ninety eight.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Irene was an eighty.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Two year old socialite and a real estate owner, and
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: she disappeared from her Upper east Side townhouse shortly after
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: a Fourth of July gathering in nineteen ninety eight, and
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: authorities soon focused on two tenants who had recently moved
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: into her building, and they turned out to be notorious
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: con artists, Kenneth Kimes Junior and Sante Kimes, and investigators
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: undercovered this elaborate scheme involving identity theft, financial fraud, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: this alleged plan to take over Silverman's life and property.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: So although her body was never recovered, they were ultimately
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: convicted based on overwhelming circumstantial evidence, and they became the
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Cimes duo became one of the most infamous mother son
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: criminal partnerships in American history.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: We're talking about a violent stranger with a gun and
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: a car and shooting, and then a manipulative con artist that.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Moves into your building.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, right, you know which is more scary, something random
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: or something I know, you know, I mean, who cares.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: They're both terrifying, But they're both terrifying.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I think this idea of someone so directly manipulating you,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: especially an older person who has probably lived in the
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: same environment for many years and feels very safe there, right,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: you know, that is like a particular kind of awfulness
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: that is great, and that's just brutal.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Agreed.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: For listeners that don't know New York that well, or
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: like she lived, they on the Upper east Side, older,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: very nice, very nice, Yeah, very nice neighborhood. Probably, I'm
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: guessing the building itself was very nice. Lots of of
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: people with lots of money. And you know, I don't
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: know if you feel like this, but the planned out,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: you know, doing doing true crime, the ones the most
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: chilling for me are always the ones that were planned out,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: not just the random ones right now they got into
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: a fight and or you know, somebody lost control. It's
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: more the calculation of it all.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, out, I totally agree. I totally agree, because that.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Like the amount of time and energy and use of
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: your mind that it takes to actually methodically plan these
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: things out, is that is the is the creepiest and
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the worst offenses to me.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Also, I agree.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: They freaked me out.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: Well, here's another one, the Koon's family massacre.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I had never heard of this, and I am like
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: wondering why I'd never heard of this.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: I haven't either, but it was.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: It was nineteen eighty seven, so July fourth through the fifth,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: during Fourth of July celebrations in rural Wisconsin, for members
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: of the Kuhn's family were murdered at their farmhouse, creating
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: one of the state's most disturbing homicide cases. The following morning,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: authorities discovered the crime scene, which sparked a complex investigation
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: involving questions of motives, evidence, and ultimately long running debate
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: over whether the correct person was ultimately held responsible. Even
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: years later, this case continues to raise questions and divide opinion.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: You know, with cases like this, don't you have to know?
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, why I don't?
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: We don't.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I don't remember this story either, and I I haven't
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: seen it in a you know, una docu, un adocumentary,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: but ultimately long running debate over whether the correct person
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: was ultimately held responsible. How awful to not you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: is the right person in jail?
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: So I read some more on this case after I
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: knew we might talk about it today. And apparently the
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: guy who was arrested they couldn't prove that he murdered
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: these people, but they could prove that he kidnapped the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: one family member.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And then when he was in.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Prison, he was released after a certain amount of time
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and then went back and said I want to go
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: back to prison, but also said I was not admitting
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: his own guilt.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: So I was like, well, I wouldn't feel so unsettled
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: after that. I mean, oh wait, he wasn't he just
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: enjoyed prison.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, I don't, I don't know.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: So I think this speaks to maybe that what is
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: it called when you have when you're an inmate and
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: you've become sort of indoctrinated in that life.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know what you're saying. I know exactly, but
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: you and.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I they talk about it in the Shashank Redemption right
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: institutionalized kind of, but there's a more specific term. So
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: maybe it was that which also that's about a man
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: wrongly accused of murdering his wife. Movie.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: It's one of my favorites, my absolute one of my
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: absolute favorites as well.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I love that movie.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I know, I just watched it on a plane
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: recently on one of my many we won't get into
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: my travel mishaps.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Art the whole other episodes, the part where they're on the.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Beach and then oh my god, I know, my god.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Sorry guys, if you haven't watched it, you should watch
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: it on fourth of July, and maybe instead of going
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to big parties.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Just exactly just stay home and wasta some.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, beautiful movies movie, but I don't know, you know what,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: there are some communities that just never recover from from
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: crimes and they talk about, you know it, they.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Talk about crimes forever.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: But I always feel badly hearing that there's so many
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: people divided on whether or not somebody's innocent and that
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: person is in jail, and.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Because that right, you never have closure.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: It's just constantly torturing this surviving people. We've talked a
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: lot about things like that. When they happen in small communities, especially,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: you know that it becomes a part of the fabric
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: of the of the talent and the community and the people,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: and not only those closest, but it becomes sort of
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: known for that.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you if something happens in a home and
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: it's well known, it's harder just I would think a lot.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I don't want to buy a house where some groupome
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: murder happens.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Da right right, There are all sorts of things that
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: that are that happened as a result of this, not
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: just the actual crimes, you know.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Listen, have a great fourth that July.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, thanks you too.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: You eat yourself a lot of hot dogs.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna not break any bones, nor am I going
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: to murder anyone.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: My girl. Yeah, I plan on not breaking any bones. Bleeding, hopefully.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I'd rather prefer not to bleed blood. No blood, blood
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: early night in shot redemption situation, same same, all right, Well,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I love you, I love you.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: This is super fun.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: You're happy for alright, honey, talk soon, okay, bye bye
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: mhm