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The Boneyard In The California Mountains · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine for a second, just stealing a seventy five dollars
0:03
table vice from a local hardware store.
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Speaker 2: Right, like a totally petty crime.
0:08
Speaker 1: Exactly a minor shoplifting charge. You'd think it's just a
0:11
slap on the risk, yeah, at most. But now I
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want you to imagine that single clumsy, seventy five dollars
0:17
theft triggering a twenty million dollar international manhunt. Oh, exposing
0:24
a literal dungeon hidden in the remote California.
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Speaker 2: Mountains, which is just terrifying, it.
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Speaker 1: Really is, and it all culminates in the longest, most
0:33
expensive murder trial in the history of California. Welcome to
0:37
the deep dive.
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Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
0:38
Speaker 1: So today's mission for you listening is to unpack an
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incredibly dark, just sprawling investigation that kicked off in the
0:45
summer of nineteen eighty four.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're pulling our facts today from a really
0:50
detailed true crime transcript documenting what they call the boneyard
0:53
in the California Mountains.
0:54
Speaker 1: Right, the infamous Leonard Lake and Charles in case. Yeah,
0:57
and look, if you're listening to this right now, you
0:59
really need to pair yourself because the contrast at the
1:02
heart of the story is, well, it's going to give.
1:03
Speaker 2: You whiplash, It absolutely is.
1:05
Speaker 1: We're looking at a masterclass in forensic persistence. But also,
1:09
you know, the madden complexities of international laws.
1:12
Speaker 2: Oh, the legal loopholes are just infuriating.
1:14
Speaker 1: Totally, and ultimately it's about the fatal flaw of criminal hubris.
1:19
Speaker 2: That contrast, though, is exactly what makes this case such
1:23
a landmark study in criminal psychology. Yeah, I mean, it
1:26
isn't merely recounting some shocking crimes. It's an exploration of
1:30
how a massive, horrifying structure of violence can just be
1:35
entirely dismantled by one smallest thing, literally, the absolute smallest,
1:40
most mundane error. It's a study of two men who
1:43
spent years meticulously planning the unthinkable, only to have their
1:48
entire empire undone by well, a complete lack of impulse
1:52
control in a lumber yard.
1:53
Speaker 1: So we have to start right there at that lumberyard,
1:55
just to understand how this whole thing unraveled. So it's
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June second, nineteen eighty five, South San Francisco. That's a Sunday, Yeah,
2:01
a Sunday, and a dispatch operator gets a call about
2:05
a theft in progress at South City Lumber pretty standards
2:09
call super standard. The call goes out to Officer Right, who, uh,
2:13
he only has about a year on the street at
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this point.
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Speaker 2: The rookie basically yeah, and.
2:17
Speaker 1: A witness tells the officer that an Asian male was
2:20
spotted walking out with a seventy five dollars table vice.
2:24
When the witness confronted him, the thief panicked, tossed the
2:28
vice into the trunk of a brown Honda and just
2:31
took off on foot.
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Speaker 2: Which is remarkably sloppy. So sloppy.
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Speaker 1: But Officer Wright does what any good patrolman would do, right.
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He secures the vehicle and looks inside the brown.
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Speaker 2: Honda, and that's where things get.
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Speaker 1: Weird, very weird. He spots this suspicious looking case. Opening it,
2:47
he finds a point two two caliber Ruger handgun.
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Speaker 2: But the critical detail is what's attached to it, right,
2:54
Because there's a cylinder shaped object about I don't know,
2:56
six to nine inches long attached to the barrel.
2:59
Speaker 1: Homemade silence, exactly, a homemade silence that immediately changes the
3:03
temperature of the entire scene.
3:05
Speaker 2: Oh completely.
3:05
Speaker 1: You don't just find illegally modified weapons with silencers abandoned
3:09
after a routine shoplifting call.
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Speaker 2: No, you definitely do not.
3:12
Speaker 1: But before Officer Wright can even process this, this incredibly
3:17
agitated man just bursts out from the lumber store.
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Speaker 2: Right. He rushes the officer Yeah.
3:23
Speaker 1: Tells him to calm down, and claims that he is
3:25
the one who actually paid for the vice. He says
3:28
his friend had just taken it by mistake.
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Speaker 2: And by this time Wright's supervisor, Sergeant Paul Ziemer, has
3:34
actually arrived on the scene. Good timing, very and because
3:37
of that modified silenced weapon just sitting in plain view
3:40
inside the Honda, they aren't going to just you know,
3:42
write a ticket and let this guy.
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Speaker 1: Walk away, right, That's not happening.
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Speaker 2: They tell him he needs to come down to the
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station to give a statement about the firearm. So they
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handcuff him, yep, put him in the cruiser, and they
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impound the Honda.
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Speaker 1: So on the ride to the station, the guy in
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the backseat casually just gives up.
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Speaker 2: His friend just throws him right under the bus. Yeah.
4:00
Speaker 1: He tells Sergeant Zehemer that the shoplifter who ran away
4:03
is named Charles ng Right, so dispatch runs the name
4:06
and the system.
4:07
Speaker 2: Just lights up. Oh, it goes crazy.
4:09
Speaker 1: Charles Ng is a former marine born in Hong Kong
4:12
who had actually been convicted in a military court for
4:16
stealing automatic weapons from a base in Hawaii.
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Speaker 2: And not just that, right, he had previously escaped from
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a military prison at Levenworth.
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Speaker 1: Which is insane. I mean, this isn't a random buddy,
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this is a highly trained fugitive.
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Speaker 2: That revelation shifts the police into high gear immediately, I bet.
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Back at the South San Francisco Police station, they put
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their detainee into his secure holding room and the man
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then tells the officers that his real name is Leonard Lake. Okay,
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he openly admits he's also a fugitive from justice, and
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he offers to make a full written statement.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so wait, he's just volunteering this.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, But before he writes anything, he makes this very specific,
4:56
seemingly totally mundane request.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 2: He asks for a piece of paper, a pencil, and
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a glass of water.
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Speaker 1: Which, I mean, that sounds completely cooperative. If suspect says, hey,
5:07
I'm going to confess, just let me write it down,
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you give him the paper. So Surgeon Zimmer leaves the
5:12
room to grab Gary Hopper, the on call detective for
5:15
that Sunday. But when they returned to the holding room,
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and this is just a few minutes later, Leonard Lake
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isn't writing, No, he is not. He is on the
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floor convulsing violently.
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Speaker 2: Detective Hopper actually described it as the guy flopping around
5:30
like a fish out of water, completely uncontrollable.
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Speaker 1: So the officers call the paramedics right away, assuming you know,
5:36
they're dealing with an epileptic seizure or some severe medical.
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Speaker 2: Event, right, But it was far from a natural biological response.
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Speaker 1: Because by the time the paramedics get him to the
5:44
emergency room, there is zero brain activity. Leonard Lake is
5:49
brain dead.
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Speaker 2: And it wasn't until the autopsy that they discovered the
5:52
actual cause of death. Leonard Lake had ingested a capsule
5:56
containing cyanide. Cyanide, yeah, and the Toxic College your report
6:00
noted something really terrifying. The gelatine capsule he swallowed took
6:04
an estimated twenty to twenty five minutes to dissolve before
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the cyanide hit his bloodstream. So that timeline perfectly matches
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the window from when he was standing by the Honda
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at the lumber yard to when he was left alone
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in the.
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Speaker 1: Holding cell, so he took it at the scene exactly.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's look at the physical mechanism of that choice
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for a second, because it's crucial to understanding Lake's psychology.
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Speaker 1: Okay, lay it on me.
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Speaker 2: Cyanide doesn't just like put you to sleep, right, It
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actively binds to the cytochrome's sacoxidase in your cells. Meaning
6:36
what meaning? It effectively prevents yourselves from using oxygen. Oh god,
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your body is starved of oxygen at a cellular level,
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which leads to violent seizures, cardiac arrest, and brain death.
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It is a brutal, agonizing way to die.
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Speaker 1: Wait, that is fascinating but deeply disturbing. Yeah, because you know,
6:53
we picture serial killers as these meticulous, evil geniuses, always
6:57
in control.
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Speaker 2: Right, the Hollywood myth.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So why would a guy submit himself to an
7:02
agonizing death over covering up a seventy five dollars shoplifting charge.
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Speaker 2: It's a profound paradox, Like, how.
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Speaker 1: Do criminals compartmentalize their petty crimes from their monstrous ones
7:14
to such a degree that a stolen tool leads to
7:17
a cyanide bill?
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Speaker 2: Well, we often assume criminal masterminds are highly disciplined across
7:23
all aspects of their existence. Right, But the reality is
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that compulsion often entirely overrides discipline. The psychological urge to
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steal a minor item, that thrill of the petty theft
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is driven by a fundamentally different part of the brain
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than the calculated, cold blooded planning required for a mass murder.
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Speaker 1: Huh.
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Speaker 2: They lack basic impulse control. But here's the thing. Lake
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didn't kill himself over the shoplifting. He didn't. No, he
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killed himself because the shoplifting shone a spotlight on the brown.
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Speaker 1: Honda h The Hannah was the first domino exactly.
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Speaker 2: He knew what was in that car, and he knew
7:59
that the car would have eventually lead to Wow. Taking
8:01
the cyanine pill was an active extreme paranoia, but also
8:04
a manifestation of this pathological need for absolute control. Right.
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Speaker 1: It was on his terms.
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Speaker 2: Yes, he decided that an agonizing death on his own
8:13
terms was preferable to the state taking away his freedom
8:17
and exposing his secrets, which is.
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Speaker 1: Why, instead of writing a police statement, he used that
8:22
paper and pencil to write a bizarre suicide note to
8:26
his ex wife Lynn. It read, uh, let me find
8:29
it dear Lynn, I love you, I forgive you. Freedom
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is better than all else. I'm sorry, Mom, Taddy and all.
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I'm sorry for all the trouble. Love Leonard. Yeah, he
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knew the police were about to pull a thread that
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would unravel everything.
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Speaker 2: And the meticulous forensic work on that brown Honda reveals
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exactly why Lake preferred death.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
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Speaker 2: So Detective Irene Brun of the San Francisco Police Department
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takes lead on the vehicle, and she is thorough, extremely
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ra The very first thing she does is run the
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serial number on the Honda's engine block. Aw, the car
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didn't belong to Leonard Lie, of course not. It belonged
9:01
to a man named Paul Kosner who had actually been
9:03
missing for seven months.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: Cosner vanished after leaving his house to show a car
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he was selling through a newspaper advertisement.
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Speaker 1: So detective Brenn and her partner start tearing the Honda
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apart literally. They find a driver's license belonging to a
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man named Scott.
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Speaker 2: Stapley, another missing person.
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Speaker 1: Right, They find a stun gun and unspent bullets rolling
9:25
around on the floorboards. But then, and this is where
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it gets crazy. They look at the roof of the interior. Right,
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they find a single bullet hole.
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Speaker 2: And the trajectory of that bullet hole is vital. Tell
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me why, Well, it indicates the weapon was fired from
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the back seat, angled slightly upward, Okay, and that physical
9:44
evidence prompts the detectives to bring in luminol.
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Speaker 1: Right, and for you listening, if you're unaware, luminol is
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a chemical that reacts with the iron present in hema glubin. Exactly,
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it makes even microscopic like heavily cleaned up traces of
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blood fluoress with this bright blue guns low in total darkness.
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Speaker 2: It essentially reveals the ghost of a violent act long
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after the blood is seemingly gone beautifully put.
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Speaker 1: So, when they spray the interior of the Honda and
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turn off the lights, the passenger side of the car
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lights up like a Christmas tree it was covered. They
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discover high velocity blood spatter right next to the front passenger.
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Speaker 2: Seat, and high velocity spatter is almost exclusively associated with
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a close range gunshot wound.
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Speaker 1: Right because of the impact.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that misting effect happens when a bullet strikes tissue
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at high speed.
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Speaker 1: So they know instantly that Paul Kosner was likely executed
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in his own passenger seat. Yes, But alongside the blood,
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the stun gun, and the weapons, they find a single,
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seemingly innocuous piece of paper tucked deep under the passenger.
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Speaker 2: Seat, A very important piece of paper.
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Speaker 1: An electric bill, and it is addressed to a woman
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named CLAARLN. Belaws.
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Speaker 2: And that electric bill provides the geographic anchor for the
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entire case. Yeah, because the Honda was a rolling tomb, right,
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But that piece of paper gives the San Francisco Detectives
11:03
a physical location outside their jurisdiction.
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Speaker 1: It points them toward the mountains.
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Speaker 2: Right, So they track down clar Lyne Blaz.
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Speaker 1: And it turns out she is Leonard Lake's ex wife.
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Speaker 2: Yep, they'd been married for three years and divorced a
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year prior. She explains that the address on the electric
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bill corresponds to an isolated cabin her family owned in
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Calaveras County, which is up in northern California.
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Speaker 1: So Detective Brunn and her partner know they need to
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get eyes on this property immediately one hundred percent, but
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BelAZ starts stalling. Of course, she insists it isn't a
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good time to go up there, claiming she is too busy,
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and she actually suggests they wait until the next day, right,
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and the detectives agree to meet her the following morning,
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but they explicitly instruct her not to visit the property
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in the meantime.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they tell her to stay away.
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Speaker 1: They even call the Calavera Sheriff's department to ask them
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to keep an eye on the place.
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Speaker 2: But wait, hold on, Yeah, the police are investigating a
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man who just swallowed a cyanide pill right right, right,
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They have a car soaked in a high velocity blood
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spatter connected to a missing person. Yep, and they just say, sure,
12:11
we'll wait until tomorrow. Please don't go clean up. I know,
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I know that sounds like catastrophic police incompetence. Why on
12:18
earth would they allow her that window of opportunity? Why
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not just kick the door down? Right? Then?
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Speaker 1: It is incredibly frustrating to hear in hindsight, for sure,
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But it comes down to the strict mechanics of the Fourth.
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Speaker 2: Amendment, the search and seizure rules.
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Speaker 1: Right, the police cannot simply search a property without probable
12:37
cause or a search warrant.
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Speaker 2: But didn't they have probable cause with the car?
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Speaker 1: The electric bill proved Lake had an association with the address. Yeah,
12:46
but it did not legally prove a crime was occurring
12:49
inside the cabin at that exact moment. Ah exigent circumstances
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like you know, hearing someone screaming inside would allow a
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warrantless entry, but.
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Speaker 2: They didn't have that right it was quiet.
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Speaker 1: They needed Blaz's voluntary consent to search the property, or
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they needed a judge to sign a warrant.
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Speaker 2: And getting a warrant takes time.
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Speaker 1: Exactly if they antagonized her, she could refuse consent entirely,
13:10
forcing them to build a complex affidavid for a judge.
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Speaker 2: So what about the Calaveras Sheriff's Department. Why could they
13:16
just sit a squad car in the driveway overnight.
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Speaker 1: Well, that comes down to geography and resources. Caliver's County
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covers over a thousand square miles of incredibly rugged, wild
13:27
mountainous terrain, right, and in nineteen eighty five they had
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a total police force of thirty four officers to protect
13:33
that entire county.
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Speaker 2: Wow, only thirty four.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they simply did not have the manpower to post
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a twenty four hour guard at an isolated cabin on
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the suspicion of San Francisco.
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Speaker 2: Detectives, so they could only agree to make passing patrols.
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Speaker 1: Exactly and predictably. When the detectives meet Belaws outside the
13:52
local post office the next morning, she admits that she
13:55
and Lake's mother had driven up to the cabin the
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night before. Anyway, unbelievable excuses absurd too. She claims Leonard
14:02
was very untidy and they just wanted to tidy up
14:04
the cabin before the police.
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Speaker 2: Saw it, which sends a chill down the spine of
14:08
every investigator involved. Oh, absolutely, because they're now operating under
14:12
the heavy suspicion that vital evidence has been compromised, moved,
14:17
or just completely destroyed.
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Speaker 1: Yep. So they follow Belaws to the property and.
14:22
Speaker 2: As they pull in, they notice this cinder block bunker
14:25
structure bordering the driveway near the main cabin.
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Speaker 1: But Blase claims she doesn't have the key to the
14:31
bunker convenient very and she explicitly denies them permission to
14:36
search it.
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Speaker 2: And because they still don't have a search warrant, they
14:39
only have her limited consent to search the main unlocked house.
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They have to tread very carefully, so Detective Brun walks
14:48
into the main cabin, and the details she notices are
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deeply unsettling.
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Speaker 1: What does she see?
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Speaker 2: Well, she looked at a bed and sees that holes
14:57
have been meticulously drilled into the bedpost and directly into
15:01
the floorboards beneath them. Oh god, Yeah, it's an architectural modification,
15:05
clearly designed to tie a human being down securely.
15:08
Speaker 1: Mechanical evidence of captivity exactly.
15:11
Speaker 2: But the real breakthrough comes from a completely different kind
15:13
of mechanical.
15:14
Speaker 1: Evidence, the video equipment.
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Speaker 2: Right. Detective Brun is standing in the low room, turns
15:18
toward a bookcase and recognizes a specific piece of video equipment.
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Speaker 1: And she recognizes it because on top of investigating Paul
15:26
Kosner's disappearance, Brunn was also the lead investigator on the
15:30
disappearance of an entire family from San Francisco, the Dubbs family. Right.
15:35
Harvey Dubbs, his wife Deborah, and their sixteen month old
15:38
son Sean had vanished from their apartment eleven months earlier,
15:42
just vanish. Yeah, and Harvey Dubbs had placed a newspaper
15:45
ad offering to rent out his expensive video equipment. That
15:48
exact equipment was missing from their apartment when the police investigated.
15:52
Speaker 2: And this is a moment where obsessive, mundane record keeping
15:56
solves a massive crime. It really is Harvey Dubbs kept
15:59
the original physical receipts for everything he owned, including the
16:03
manufacturer serial numbers. Oh yea. So Detective Brun calls her
16:07
office in San Francisco, has another officer read the serial
16:11
number from the dove's case file over the radio woman,
16:14
and it perfectly matches the last three digits of the
16:17
equipment she is staring at in Leonard Lake's cabin.
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Speaker 1: That is the turning point right there.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely the scope of the investigation instantly magnifies.
16:26
Speaker 1: Because it's no longer just Paul Kosner, right.
16:28
Speaker 2: It's entire family, including a baby.
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Speaker 1: And the moment Brunn confirms that serial number allowed, Claralyn
16:34
BelAZ gets visibly nervous, revokes her consent to search, and
16:39
kicks the police out of the house.
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Speaker 2: But her revocation doesn't matter anymore, hope, the confirmed presence
16:45
of stolen property belonging to a missing family provides rock
16:49
solid probable cause, so they lock it down exactly. The
16:53
detectives secure the perimeter and apply for a search warrant.
16:56
Later that afternoon, they returned with a warrant in hand
17:00
led by Ron McFall from the Calveris County Sheriff's office.
17:03
Speaker 1: And their very first target is that cinderblock structure. Blaws
17:07
refuse to open.
17:08
Speaker 2: The laws had described it to the police as a
17:11
fallout shelter.
17:12
Speaker 1: Which you know, Leonard Lake was a known survivalist right
17:16
during the Cold War paranoia of the nineteen eighties. Building
17:19
a bunker against a nuclear holocaust makes a twisted kind
17:22
of sense for his psychological profile.
17:24
Speaker 2: It provided a culturally acceptable cover for building a fortress. Right.
17:27
Speaker 1: But when the police finally get those heavy doors open,
17:30
they don't find cans of beans, water purification tablets, and
17:35
radiation suits. They walk into the first room and see
17:38
twenty one photographs of young women aged eighteen to twenty
17:42
three tacked up on.
17:44
Speaker 2: The walls, and many are in various stages of undress,
17:47
some completely nude.
17:48
Speaker 1: So the initial assumption by law enforcement is that these
17:51
are trophies, which is common.
17:53
Speaker 2: Predatory killers often keep mementos, you know, photos, jewelry, IDs
17:57
to help them relive the psychological high their crimes.
18:00
Speaker 1: Right, But the architecture of this bunker held something far
18:04
more sophisticated and terrifying than a trophy wall.
18:07
Speaker 2: Oh much worse.
18:08
Speaker 1: Investigators notice a shelving unit that looks slightly off. When
18:11
they push on the shelves, a hidden, heavy double door pops.
18:15
Speaker 2: Open, revealing a secret inner chamber.
18:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, measuring just three by six feet a literal purpose
18:21
built bungeon. Inside, they find a homemade wooden caught, a
18:25
crude shelf holding basic toilet trees, a single roll of
18:29
toilet paper, and a tiny insufficient ventilation hole drilled through
18:33
the cinder block. It's horrific, and nail to the wall
18:35
is a neatly piped list of rules.
18:38
Speaker 2: The rules.
18:38
Speaker 1: The rules dictate absolute behavioral control. They read, I must
18:43
always be ready to service my master and must never
18:46
speak unless spoken to. I must always be obedient and
18:49
never look my master in the eye.
18:51
Speaker 2: It is the physical, constructed manifestation of absolute subjugation. Yeah,
18:56
the design of the room confirms this wasn't just a fantasy.
19:00
It was functional. Oh well, there was a two way
19:03
mirror installed in the wall, allowing someone standing in the
19:06
outer room to watch the captive inside without being seen.
19:09
Speaker 1: Oh wow, But.
19:11
Speaker 2: The most haunting physical detail is found on the hidden
19:14
door itself. What was it the heavy metal hinges are
19:17
bent warped outward at both the top and the.
19:19
Speaker 1: Bottom, meaning someone was pushing on it.
19:21
Speaker 2: Yes, this bears the obvious desperate signs of immense physical
19:25
pressure from the inside out. Someone or multiple someone's had
19:29
fought with every ounce of their strength to push that
19:32
door open and escape. Got.
19:33
Speaker 1: The level of planning here is staggering. It really is
19:36
like building a hidden room, pouring concrete, hyping up literal rules.
19:41
Does this imply Lake Inning thought they were creating an
19:43
alternate society where they would just never be caught.
19:46
Speaker 2: It speaks to a massive, deeply ingrained, shared delusion. The
19:51
blueprint for this delusion is actually found in a handwritten
19:54
journal recovered from the bunker.
19:56
Speaker 1: Lake's journal.
19:57
Speaker 2: Yes. In it, Lake outlines what he called the Miranda Project.
20:02
Speaker 1: Okay, what is that?
20:04
Speaker 2: This was a fantasy he had harbored for over twenty years,
20:07
heavily inspired by John Fowl's novel The Collector.
20:10
Speaker 1: Oh I've heard of that book.
20:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about a lonely, obsessive man who kidnaps a
20:14
beautiful young art student named Miranda and keeps her in
20:17
a hidden cellar to be his ultimate prize. Grows Lake
20:21
writes in his journal, how fitting my lovely little prisoner
20:24
of the future. Wow. He weaponized the concept of a
20:26
nuclear fallout shelter. He used the survivalist movement as an
20:30
architectural excuse to build a literal prison for his sexual sadism,
20:35
believing that after a societal collapse he would be a
20:38
king with his captured subjects.
20:40
Speaker 1: The horror inside that cinder block room is suffocating, truly,
20:44
But outside, as investigators begin to search the two acres
20:47
of rugged terrain surrounding the cabin, the true scale of
20:51
the violence becomes apparent.
20:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. The ground search, the.
20:53
Speaker 1: Ground is scarred. They identify seven distinct large burned sights
20:58
scattered across the property.
21:00
Speaker 2: And the implication of multiple large burn pits on a
21:03
property linked to missing persons is instantly grim.
21:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. The police suspect they're looking at disposal sites.
21:09
Speaker 2: But they need scientific conformation.
21:11
Speaker 1: Right, so they bring in specialized cadaver dogs. Almost immediately,
21:16
one of the dogs alerts on a burn site, recovering
21:19
a piece of bone that deputies visually recognize as distinctly
21:23
non animal.
21:23
Speaker 2: Which triggers a massive logistical escalation.
21:26
Speaker 1: Glaver's County realizes they are way out of their depth.
21:29
Speaker 2: It transitions from a missing person's case into a full
21:32
blown multi agency mass homicide excavation.
21:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they bring in the California Conservation Corps. These
21:39
are workers who are literally placed on their hands and knees,
21:41
shoulder to shoulder, using their bare fingers and small hand
21:45
rakes to sift through the dirt across a third of
21:48
an acre.
21:48
Speaker 2: And the forensic science of recovering burned remains in open
21:52
soil is incredibly difficult. Why is that, Well, cadaver dogs
21:57
are trained to detect volatile organic compounds, you know the
22:03
specific chemical off gasing that occurs during human decomposition, right,
22:07
But when a body is burned at extreme temperatures, much
22:11
of that organic material is destroyed.
22:13
Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
22:14
Speaker 2: The fact that the dogs were still hitting on these
22:15
sites indicates that the sheer volume of biological material present.
22:19
Speaker 1: That's horrifying.
22:20
Speaker 2: It is the Conservation core workers slowly, painstakingly uncover ten
22:25
pounds of crushed human bone fragments from the ashes.
22:28
Speaker 1: Ten pounds. Yeah, it is a staggering amount of destruction.
22:32
They weren't just disposing of bodies, they were obliterating them exactly.
22:36
They were crushing the bones after burning them to ash,
22:38
making identification through traditional means nearly impossible.
22:42
Speaker 2: Which was exactly their forensic goal. They understood that no
22:45
body means no crime scene, no cause of death, and
22:47
no victim identification.
22:49
Speaker 1: So the authorities now possess the physical space of the Nightmare.
22:52
They have the horrifying evidence of mass murder in those
22:55
ten pounds of bone fragments, but they face some monumental.
22:59
Speaker 2: Problem making the fragments exactly.
23:01
Speaker 1: They need to connect these anonymous fragments to specific victims,
23:05
and more urgently, they desperately need to locate the accomplice
23:10
who sprinted out of that lumber yard Charles Ing, because.
23:13
Speaker 2: The missing person's list associated with this case is just exploding.
23:17
Speaker 1: It quickly balloons to twenty five potential victims. Fire and
23:21
investigators start looking at the immediate vicinity of the cabin.
23:24
Next door to Leonard Lake lived a family Lonnie Bond,
23:27
his wife Brenda O'Connor, and their eighteen month old baby,
23:31
Lonnie Junior.
23:32
Speaker 2: So the police go over to their neighboring house to
23:34
ask questions yeah and they find the front door unlocked.
23:37
Speaker 1: The smell of deeply decayed food is thick in the air,
23:41
The house looks as though it had been abandoned abruptly
23:43
months ago, but there is no sign of a physical struggle.
23:46
The family just vanished into thin air.
23:48
Speaker 2: And remember Robin Scott Stapley.
23:50
Speaker 1: The guy whose idea was in the Honda, exactly.
23:53
Speaker 2: The man whose driver's license Lake was carrying. It turns
23:57
out he'd been living in that exact same neighboring cabin
24:00
with Bond and O'Connor, and he was gone too. So
24:02
the cadaver dogs prove invaluable once again.
24:05
Speaker 1: What do they find?
24:06
Speaker 2: Not far from Lake's cabin. The dogs alert on a
24:10
patch of disturbed earth. Investigators on Earth two fully intact bodies.
24:15
Speaker 1: Oh wow, not burned.
24:17
Speaker 2: Right, They are wrapped tightly in sleeping bags and buried
24:20
relatively shallowly. Okay, now, due to the severe deterioration of
24:24
the tissue, the local coroner, Terry Parker, cannot even initially
24:28
determine the biological sex of the victims. That's brutal, but
24:31
he can clearly see that both bodies have been gagged
24:34
and handcuffed.
24:34
Speaker 1: So they transport the bodies to the San Francisco Medical
24:37
Examiner's office for a full forensic.
24:39
Speaker 2: Workout and The medical examiner determines they are adult males
24:42
and that both had been.
24:43
Speaker 1: Shot to death right and using forensic dentistry comparing the
24:46
teeth of the victims to known dental records, they positively
24:50
identify the bodies as the neighbors Lonnie Bond and Robin
24:54
Scott Stappley.
24:55
Speaker 2: This confirmation shifts the psychological profile of the killers. How
24:59
so they were just luring strangers from San Francisco with
25:02
newspaper ads for video equipment or cars. They were hunting
25:05
in their own backyard.
25:07
Speaker 1: They were killing their neighbors.
25:09
Speaker 2: Yes, But the most devastating piece of evidence, the singular
25:14
item that elevates this case from a tragic mass murder
25:17
into a documented visual chronicle of pure evil, is found
25:22
buried in a simple five gallon plastic paint container next
25:26
to the cabin's driveway.
25:28
Speaker 1: Right as darkness falls on the second day of the
25:31
massive property search, investigators find a videotape inside that bucket.
25:35
The tape, they take it inside the main tabin, slide
25:38
it into the VCR, and press play. The tape is
25:40
hand labeled the m Lady's Tape, and what.
25:42
Speaker 2: They see on that screen is something that will haunt
25:45
every hardened investigator who viewed it for the rest of
25:47
their lives. What's on the tape shows two women suffering unimaginable,
25:51
prolonged verbal and psychological abuse. They are handcuffed to a chair,
25:56
their tormentors are off camera, initially demanding a salute sexual
26:00
submission of the constant explicit threat of extreme violence.
26:04
Speaker 1: And crucially, the tape finally puts a face to the
26:06
accomplice because we see Leonard Lake enter the frame, but
26:10
we also see an Asian male holding a butterfly knife,
26:13
Charles Ng, using it to aggressively cut the clothes, the
26:17
blouses and brass straps off the terrified women.
26:20
Speaker 2: And one of the women on the tape is Brenda O'Connor,
26:22
the neighbor who live next door the mother Yeah, and
26:26
she is looking directly into the lens, begging them, pleading
26:30
with them just to tell her where her baby is
26:33
and to give her baby back.
26:34
Speaker 1: We really need to pause and examine the immense evidentiary
26:38
weight of this tape.
26:39
Speaker 2: Absolutely, in a.
26:40
Speaker 1: Case where the physical bodies of the majority of the
26:42
victims have been burned and crushed into ten pounds of
26:45
unrecognizable ash, this magnetic tape serves as undeniable chilling.
26:51
Speaker 2: Proof of life is proof of torture. Yeah, and legally,
26:54
it proves the specific power dynamic between Leonard Lake and
26:57
Charles Ng exactly.
26:59
Speaker 1: It obliterates any future defense strategy claiming Ng was just
27:02
a passive, frightened bystander.
27:04
Speaker 2: He is on camera armed with a knife, actively participating
27:08
in the terror and sexual degradation.
27:10
Speaker 1: It is like they filmed a director's cut of their
27:12
own horror movie. They couldn't just commit these unspeakable crimes
27:17
and bury the evidence to stay safe. Their narcissism, their
27:20
complete and utter detachment from human empathy, required them to
27:25
document it.
27:26
Speaker 2: They needed the tapes.
27:27
Speaker 1: Right so they could sit in that cabin, drink a beer,
27:30
and relive the power trip over and over. They were
27:33
producing their own reality TV show from hell.
27:36
Speaker 2: That is a highly accurate assessment of their pathology. The
27:40
documentation became as important as the act itself. Yeah, and
27:43
the documentation did not stop at the cabin. It didn't know.
27:47
When San Francisco homicide inspector ed Erlatz leads a tactical
27:51
search of Charles Ng's apartment in the city, they find
27:54
a stash of additional videotapes. Oh boy, A Sergeant Larry
27:58
Copeland from Calvert's County sits down in an evidence room
28:01
to review them. He puts one tape in the VCR
28:03
and it simply starts playing the end credits of a
28:05
standard commercial movie.
28:07
Speaker 1: So, assuming the tape is just a taped movie, he
28:09
hits rewind right, but he doesn't hit stop first. He
28:12
just hits the rewind button, so the tape zipping backward rapidly,
28:16
playing the footage in reverse on the monitor.
28:18
Speaker 2: And as it is whirring backward right at the very
28:22
end of the magnetic tape, a single hidden image flashes on.
28:26
Speaker 1: The screen, so he stops the machine.
28:28
Speaker 2: He plays it forward at normal speed.
28:30
Speaker 1: And that single accidental frame fundamentally changes the forensic timeline
28:35
of the case.
28:35
Speaker 2: He really does.
28:36
Speaker 1: It is a still silent image of two bodies, heavily bound,
28:40
gagged and wrapped in sleeping bags, lying awkwardly in a wheelbarrow.
28:45
Speaker 2: It is an image of Lonnie Bond and Scott Stapley.
28:48
Speaker 1: So they immediately bring in the medical examiner to look
28:51
at the photograph captured on the tape, and the examiner
28:54
notes a crucial biological detail. The bodies in the wheelbarrow
28:58
are in full rigor.
29:00
Speaker 2: Which is a massive forensic revelation.
29:02
Speaker 1: Break that down for us.
29:03
Speaker 2: Let's explain why rigor mortis is the stiffening of the
29:06
joints and muscles after death. Right. It occurs because the
29:09
body stops producing atp the molecule required for muscle fibers
29:13
to relax. Okay, This chemical locking process begins a few
29:17
hours after death peaks and then only lasts for a
29:20
specific window of time before the tissue begins to decay
29:23
and the muscles become flaccid again.
29:25
Speaker 1: Ah. I see.
29:25
Speaker 2: So the medical examiner concludes that because the bodies in
29:28
the wheelbarrower are stiff and locked in full rigor, that
29:31
photograph had to have been taken immediately after they were murdered,
29:36
before decomposition set in.
29:37
Speaker 1: Okay, let me get this straight. The bodies are stiff,
29:40
meaning they were just killed. Yes, which proves that Lake
29:43
and Ng were holding the camera framing the shot while
29:46
the bodies were fresh.
29:47
Speaker 2: Exactly. It directly ties the filming to the time and
29:51
location of the murders.
29:53
Speaker 1: It's just staggering. The evidence is mounting rapidly. But there's
29:57
another piece of mechanical evidence. Found inside the cabin that
29:59
show it was just how coldly calculating they were. The typewriter, yes,
30:03
a manual Olympia typewriter.
30:05
Speaker 2: The Olympia typewriter is a fascinating and deeply cruel element
30:09
of their methodology. It shows how they managed the post
30:13
crime environment. What do you mean, well, When women like
30:17
Kathleen Allen, one of the victims tortured on the m
30:19
Lady's Tape, went missing, their employers or families would suddenly
30:24
receive a typewritten letter in the mail. Kathleen's boss received
30:28
a neatly typed letter stating she had impulsively taken a
30:31
new job in Lake Tahoe and wasn't coming back to work.
30:34
Speaker 1: It is insidious totally. They weren't just kidnapping and killing people,
30:38
They were actively managing the aftermath. They used that specific
30:42
Olympia typewriter to draft fake letters from the victims to
30:45
explain away their sudden absences.
30:47
Speaker 2: Exactly.
30:48
Speaker 1: This manipulation bought the months of cover, preventing families from
30:52
immediately calling the police and launching missing persons investigations. It
30:56
shows a highly organized predatory intelligence.
31:00
Speaker 2: So thanks to an eyewitness neighbor in San Francisco who
31:03
saw Charles NG leaving the Dubs apartment with a duffel bag. Yeah,
31:06
and the horrifying, undeniable proof of the videotapes, law enforcement
31:11
knows exactly who the Asian male from the lumberyard is.
31:14
Speaker 1: They have him.
31:14
Speaker 2: They immediately secure a massive arrest warrant for Charles NG
31:18
for multiple counts of first degree murder.
31:20
Speaker 1: But Charles Ing is a ghost.
31:22
Speaker 2: He is.
31:23
Speaker 1: He's an experienced, military trained fugitive. He knows exactly how
31:26
to run, and he has already vanished from the state
31:29
and he had help. Remember clare Lynn BelAZ Leonard Lake's
31:32
ex wife, the one who stalled the police.
31:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, the District Attorney's office ends.
31:37
Speaker 1: Up cornering her, and what do they do.
31:39
Speaker 2: They grant her full immunity from prosecution just to get
31:42
her to talk and explain the timeline of the escape.
31:44
Speaker 1: Wow, full immunity.
31:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, under immunity. She admits that after the shoplifting incident
31:49
went wrong, Ing walked from the lumberyard to her house. Okay,
31:54
they drove back to the lumberyard together, saw Lake talking
31:57
to the police next to the Honda, and immediately.
31:59
Speaker 1: Bailed because they knew it was over right.
32:02
Speaker 2: They went back to her house, waited for Lake to call,
32:05
and when he didn't, she drove Charles Ing to his apartment,
32:08
where he hastily packed a bag and announced he was
32:10
heading to Chicago.
32:12
Speaker 1: So the FBI launches a massive nationwide manhunt. They elevate
32:16
Ing to the ten most wanted.
32:17
Speaker 2: List, the big leagues.
32:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. They track his movements to Chicago, where he is
32:21
living under the alias Mike Comoto. They interview his old
32:25
cellmates from military prison. They stake out his sister's apartment
32:28
in Toronto, Canada, but the trail goes freezing cold.
32:32
Speaker 2: He just vanishes.
32:34
Speaker 1: He manages to slip across the international border and disappear
32:37
into the vastness of Canada.
32:39
Speaker 2: But here is where the compulsion we discussed earlier rears
32:41
its ugly head again. The impulse control, the absolute lack
32:45
of impulse control. It is July sixth, nineteen eighty five,
32:50
just over a month after he fled the Lumberyard. A
32:53
young kid playing in a park in Calgary, Canada spots
32:56
a strange man living in a makeshift fort in the woods. Okay,
33:00
the kid recognizes his face from a wanted poster he
33:02
saw at the post office and calls the local police,
33:05
but Ng manages to slip away before they arrive.
33:08
Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
33:09
Speaker 2: Later that exact same day, Ng walks into a major
33:12
Calgary department store and what does he do? Oh, don't
33:15
tell me, he's shopless.
33:16
Speaker 1: The very same petty crime that brought down the entire
33:19
Miranda project exactly. He is arguably the most wanted man
33:23
in North America, with a massive FBI dragnet looking for him,
33:27
and he risks his freedom, his life to steal minor
33:30
merchandise and stuff it in his knapsack.
33:33
Speaker 2: And a store security guard spots him concealing the items
33:36
and confronts him near the exit. What happens a violent
33:39
physical struggle ensues. Ing pulls a handgun from his jacket
33:44
and actually shoots the security guard directly in the hand.
33:47
Oh my god, But the guard is incredibly brave, fights
33:50
through the pain, manages to wrestle the weapon away, and
33:54
with the help of several store patrons, physically subdues Ing
33:58
on the floor until the Calgary Charles Zing is finally captured.
34:02
Speaker 1: It should be a moment of massive triumph for the
34:05
California Investigators. Inspector ed Erlatz flies up to the maximum
34:09
security prison in Calgary to interrogate him face to face,
34:13
but in gives them absolutely nothing. He sits there offering
34:16
mostly one or two word answers, complete denial of the
34:19
rapes and murders, and blames every single crime entirely on.
34:23
Speaker 2: Leonard Lake, though critically he does admit to helping dispose
34:27
of the bodies of Bond and Stampley.
34:28
Speaker 1: So, armed with that admission and the physical evidence, the
34:31
Calaveras County District Attorney Pete Smith formally indicts Charles ng
34:36
on twelve counts.
34:37
Speaker 2: A first degree murder twelve counts.
34:39
Speaker 1: The sheer volume and cruelty of the crimes mean they
34:42
can and will seek the death penalty. But the moment
34:45
they file those charges, they hit a massive legal brick wall.
34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, an international loophole that halts the case in its tracks.
34:53
Speaker 1: Now you might be thinking, how does an international border
34:55
protect a serial killer you cross into Canada? They don't
34:59
just forgive.
35:00
Speaker 2: For a dozen murders, No, they don't.
35:02
Speaker 1: So this is where the geopolitical legal maneuvering becomes maddening.
35:06
The United States and Canada have a long standing extradition treaty, right,
35:10
but that treaty contains a very specific, ironclad clause, and.
35:14
Speaker 2: That clause is that Canada, which abolished capital punishment, will
35:18
not extradite a prisoner back to the United States if
35:21
that prisoner faces the death penalty.
35:23
Speaker 1: It is a profound clash of legal philosophies.
35:26
Speaker 2: It is Canada is not shielding a killer. They are
35:28
upholding their national human rights charter against state sanctioned execution.
35:33
And Charles ng, who has spent his entire time in
35:36
solitary confinement rigorously studying the Canadian legal system, knows exactly
35:41
how to weaponize this philosophical stance.
35:44
Speaker 1: How does he do it?
35:45
Speaker 2: Well? Before the extradition hearing can even legally begin, he
35:49
must stand trial in Canada for the local charges of
35:52
shoplifting and the armed assault on the security guard. Okay,
35:55
to intentionally delay his return to California, he executes a
35:59
brilliant legal manuvers. He waives his constitutional right to a
36:02
jury trial in Canada. Wait why he explicitly asks for
36:05
a speedy bench trial where a judge alone decides the
36:09
verdict and rapidly secures a four and a half year
36:12
prison sence.
36:13
Speaker 1: I just have to express your disbelief on behalf of
36:15
anyone listening to this.
36:17
Speaker 2: It's wild.
36:18
Speaker 1: How does a man responsible for a literal bone yard,
36:22
a guy who built a cinderblock dungeon to enslave women,
36:26
managed to use a petty Canadian shoplifting charge and a
36:29
bench trial as a get out of jail free card
36:31
for half a decade.
36:32
Speaker 2: By securing a definitive multi year prison sentence in Canada,
36:36
he guarantees legally that he cannot be extradited until that
36:39
specific sentence is fully served. Oh I see, he buys
36:42
himself nearly half a decade of absolute safety from the
36:45
California death chamber.
36:46
Speaker 1: That is maddening.
36:47
Speaker 2: The Canadian justice system is operating exactly as it was
36:50
designed to, processing local crimes efficiently, but Ing is exploiting
36:54
its foundational principles to build a fortress of time around himself, and.
36:59
Speaker 1: He uses that time and the Canadian prison to prepare
37:02
for absolute war.
37:03
Speaker 2: Yes he does.
37:04
Speaker 1: There is an incredible, chilling anecdote from a Canadian prison guard.
37:09
The guard overheard Ng talking to a fellow inmate in
37:12
the yard laying out his master plan for when he
37:14
finally gets sent back to California.
37:16
Speaker 2: What did he say?
37:17
Speaker 1: Ing tells the guy. If you want to delay the system,
37:20
you just have to fire your lawyers.
37:22
Speaker 2: And that single sentence becomes the blueprint for the next
37:25
decade of judicial chaos. A decade. Yes. Ing fights the
37:29
extradition through the Canadian courts for six agonizing years, utilizing
37:33
every appeal process, taking it all the way to the
37:36
Canadian Supreme Court.
37:37
Speaker 1: Wow.
37:38
Speaker 2: When his final appeal is denied in nineteen ninety one,
37:40
he is finally put on an airplane in shackles and
37:43
flown back to California.
37:44
Speaker 1: But capturing him physically was nothing compared to the judicial
37:48
circus he was about to unleave.
37:50
Speaker 2: Oh, not even close.
37:51
Speaker 1: September twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, Charles ng Lands in California.
37:56
The Calaveras County Sheriff's Department is terrified someone is going
37:59
to try to assassinate him in a vigilante attack, so
38:02
they actually deploy SWAT teams on the roof of the
38:05
tiny county courthouse.
38:07
Speaker 2: And remember the logistics we discussed earlier, right, calvers Calibert's
38:10
County is a small, rural, deeply underfunded jurisdiction. Their historic
38:16
courthouse is absolutely not equipped to handle a high profile
38:20
maximum security prisoner facing a potential death penalty for twelve
38:24
brutal murders.
38:24
Speaker 1: So what do they do.
38:25
Speaker 2: They literally have to spend tax payer money to build
38:29
a special, secure metal cage inside the courtroom just to
38:32
hold him safely during the preliminary proceedings.
38:35
Speaker 1: And from the very second he steps into that metal cage,
38:38
ing executes his Canadian delay strategy perfectly flawlessly. He starts
38:42
filing an avalanche of frivolous handwritten legal motions. He complains
38:47
about the jail food. He files a motion demanding a
38:50
shorter commute from the holding cell to.
38:51
Speaker 2: The courthouse, just wasting time.
38:53
Speaker 1: He even demands that the special cage be dismantled because
38:56
it prejudices the judge, and, true to his word in
38:59
the Canade in prison yard, he starts sequentially firing his
39:02
court appointed attorneys, claiming they are incompetent, which forces the
39:06
court to halt proceedings to find new council.
39:09
Speaker 2: In every single one of these motions, no matter how
39:13
legally absurd or strategically ridiculous, has to be formally legally
39:17
addressed by the prosecution in writing. That's exhausting, and the
39:20
District Attorney's office in Calaveras is essentially a small town
39:24
law firm. They have five attorneys total on staff for
39:27
the entire county.
39:29
Speaker 1: Wow.
39:29
Speaker 2: They're completely physically overwhelmed by the sheer volume of paperwork
39:33
and delayed tactics Ing is generating from his cell.
39:36
Speaker 1: He manages to delay just the preliminary hearing for a
39:39
full year, a whole year, and then the defense pulls
39:42
out a massive, structurally altering trump card. They argue that
39:47
because of the intense media scrutiny, remember the horrifying news
39:50
cameras showing the bone fragments being raked from the dirt,
39:54
Ing cannot possibly get a fair and impartial jury in
39:57
Calaveras County.
39:58
Speaker 2: Which legally is a fair argument.
40:00
Speaker 1: And the judge agrees. The judge grants a change of venue,
40:04
moving the entire trial four hundred miles south to Orange County, California.
40:08
Speaker 2: The logistics and the financial burden of this moves are staggering.
40:12
I can imagine the investigation has spanned eight years at
40:15
this point. The physical case file is massive. They have
40:19
to rent a thirty six foot commercial truck just to
40:23
load two tons of evidence files, medical reports, type transcripts,
40:27
and police logs. To transport it down to the new
40:30
defense team in Orange County. Two tons two tons of paperwork.
40:34
Speaker 1: So the new defense attorney assigned to him is a
40:36
seasoned public defender named William Kelly, and Kelly looks at
40:40
this two ton mountain of evidence, looks at the timeline
40:43
and asks the judge for two and a half years
40:45
to prepare his defense case, and he gets it. Meanwhile,
40:48
the prostitution, led by District Attorney Peter Smith and Deputy
40:51
Attorney General Charlene Honka, is helplessly watching the clock tick.
40:55
Speaker 2: Which is terrible for a case. In criminal law, time
40:58
is the enemy of truth. As years pass, physical evidence
41:02
to grades, witnesses, memories fade into ambiguity, and tragically, crucial
41:06
witnesses simply die, which.
41:08
Speaker 1: Brings us to the most devastating blow. The prosecution faces
41:12
Maurice Lebert. Right. During Ing's time in the Canadian prison,
41:16
he shared a cell with a man named Maurice Labert. Ing,
41:19
perhaps driven by his narcissism, used to entertain Labert by
41:22
drawing him crude, grotesque cartoons of his crimes in California, sickening.
41:28
One cartoon literally depicted Ng killing a baby and Ing
41:33
vocally confessed all the horrific details of the Calaveras cabin
41:36
to him in the dark, and to.
41:37
Speaker 2: Gain favor with his own Canadian parole board, Labert turned
41:40
those drawings over to the authorities and testified against Ng
41:44
at the extradition hearings in Canada.
41:46
Speaker 1: He was the key.
41:47
Speaker 2: He was the only person alive on earth to whom
41:49
Ing had fully confessed the scope of the murders. He
41:52
was the prosecution's absolute star witness.
41:55
Speaker 1: But before the trial in Orange County can even begin,
41:58
Maurice Labert is killed in a fatal car crash while
42:00
out on parole.
42:01
Speaker 2: Just terrible luck and just.
42:03
Speaker 1: To add a layer of dark mystery to it. When
42:05
the police find his wrecked car, there is twenty thousand
42:08
dollars in cash sitting inside it.
42:10
Speaker 2: The loss of Labert's catastrophic for the state of it.
42:13
Without his live testimony, the prosecution's case is almost entirely circumstantial.
42:18
Wait really, yes, despite the horror of the scene, they
42:22
have no physical fingerprints or DNA directly linking in to
42:26
the murders themselves. Just the tapes, exactly, only the videotapes
42:30
showing him assisting in torture and the stolen property found
42:33
at his San Francisco apartment. They have to rely on
42:37
hearsay exceptions to read his past testimony into the record,
42:41
which is never as powerful for a jury as a
42:43
live witness.
42:45
Speaker 1: So thirteen grueling years after the bodies were pulled from
42:48
the dirt, the trial finally begins in October nineteen ninety eight.
42:52
They had to screen over two thousand potential jurors just
42:55
to find twelve citizens who could commit to a trial
42:58
scheduled to last nearly a year. It's massive, and even
43:01
as jury selection is happening, Inng throws a massive violent
43:04
fit in court, shouting obscenities, trying to halt the trial
43:08
by claiming his rights are being violated, and.
43:10
Speaker 2: The judge takes extreme measures.
43:11
Speaker 1: Right The judge actually orders him to wear a remote
43:14
controlled electric stun belt strapped under his clothes. If he
43:17
acts up or threatens anyone, the bailiff can shock him
43:20
with fifty thousand volts via a remote control.
43:22
Speaker 2: It sets an incredibly tense, volatile stage for the proceedings.
43:27
Well kidding in opening statements, the prosecution leans heavily on
43:30
the horrific m lady's tape warning the jury, they will
43:34
see Charles Zang actively torturing victim.
43:36
Speaker 1: But the defense's strategy, orchestrated by William Kelly, is fascinating
43:40
from a pure legal standpoint.
43:42
Speaker 2: It really is.
43:43
Speaker 1: Kelly's goal is not to prove Charles Ing as a saint.
43:45
His goal is to put Leonard Lake on trial.
43:48
Speaker 2: It's like a squid inking the water exactly. The defense
43:51
is just pumping out all this horrifying evidence about the
43:54
dead Leonard Lake to cloud the jury's vision so Charles
43:58
z Ang can slip away unseen in.
43:59
Speaker 1: The murky Look at the dead monster Leonard Lake, look
44:03
at his sick, twisted journals, look at the shady ex
44:06
wife who helped him. But whatever you do, don't look
44:09
at my client.
44:10
Speaker 2: Exactly. Kelly calls a string of women to the stand
44:13
who had passed consensual relationships with Leonard Lake. They testify
44:17
about Lake's deep obsession with bondage, his chilling belief in
44:21
human sacrifice, and his terrifying fantasies of sex and death.
44:26
Speaker 1: Okay, building up the monster.
44:27
Speaker 2: And crucially, Kelly establishes, through cross examination of these witnesses
44:32
that none of them had ever even met Charles ying.
44:34
Speaker 1: Oh that's smart.
44:36
Speaker 2: He paints a vivid, terrifying picture of Lake as the sole,
44:40
autonomous mastermind who controlled everyone around him.
44:43
Speaker 1: And then Kelly does something incredibly bold, almost theatrical. He
44:48
calls Clara Lyn Bella's Lake's ex wife to the witness stand.
44:52
Speaker 2: This is wild.
44:53
Speaker 1: Remember she had a full immunity deal from the prosecution
44:56
in exchange for her timeline of the escape. Right, So
44:59
she sits down on the witch box and Kelly simply
45:01
reads her written immunity agreement out loud to the jury,
45:04
just reads it.
45:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
45:05
Speaker 1: The agreement explicitly says the state promises her immunity for
45:09
crimes including murder, conspiracy, and aiding in a bedding. He
45:13
finishes reading it, looks at the jury, looks at Bellaws
45:16
and says no questions.
45:17
Speaker 2: It is a brilliant, devastating tactical move. Else By not
45:20
asking her a single direct question about the events, he
45:24
legally prevents the prosecution from cross examining her and letting
45:27
her explain herself. Oh, but he leaves the jury with
45:30
the heavy lingering implication that the state gave a free
45:33
pass to Lake, the real active accomplice his ex wife,
45:37
while unfairly targeting ng who Kelly claims was merely a
45:41
subservient terrified bystander caught in Lake's orbit.
45:44
Speaker 1: The defense's misdirection is working flawlessly. They play audio tapes
45:48
of Lake talking alone about his desire for an off
45:51
the shelf sex partner that he can just put away
45:53
in a box when he's bored. The jury is looking
45:56
at a dead monster who clearly built the bunker, and
45:59
they are looking at mostly circumstantial evidence against a living
46:03
defendant who claims he was just following orders. Charles NG
46:06
might actually beat the system.
46:07
Speaker 2: He very well might have. But this is where the
46:10
fatal flaw of criminal hubris enters the narrative and destroys everything.
46:13
Of course, after the defense rests its primary case, Charles Ng,
46:18
against the desperate pleading advice of his own seasoned attorneys,
46:21
files a handwritten motion demanding to testify on his own behalf.
46:25
Speaker 1: He just couldn't help himself.
46:27
Speaker 2: He even threatens to fire William Kelly again mid trial
46:30
if he isn't allowed to take the witness stand and
46:32
speak to the jury directly.
46:33
Speaker 1: Why, I mean really, why if he had just sat
46:37
there silently and let his lawyer blame the dead guy,
46:40
could he have walked away with a lesser charge, probably
46:43
did his narcissistic need to be the smartest guy in
46:45
the room the star of the show ultimately put him
46:48
on death row.
46:49
Speaker 2: The psychological profile of a killer voluntarily taking the witness
46:53
stand is almost always rooted in extreme, blinding narcissism. Yeah
46:59
Ing had spent over a Dame decade successfully manipulating the
47:02
Canadian legal system and the American judicial bureaucracy. He truly
47:06
believed he was the smartest person in the room.
47:08
Speaker 1: He thought he could outsmart them.
47:10
Speaker 2: He believed he could outsmart the seasoned prosecutors face to
47:13
face on cross examination. That deep seated need for absolute
47:17
control and public validation completely overrode his basic survival instincts.
47:22
He couldn't stand the idea of being portrayed as just
47:24
a dumb lackey.
47:25
Speaker 1: So January twenty seventh, nineteen ninety nine, the accused serial
47:29
killer takes the stand, and he is incredibly arrogantic in
47:33
stream for hours on direct examination, he just denies everything.
47:38
He claims he was a subservient bystander Underlig's total psychological control.
47:43
He claims he never intended to hurt anyone, that he
47:45
was just going along to survive.
47:47
Speaker 2: But Deputy Attorney General Charlene Hanaka is waiting for him.
47:50
Speaker 1: And she sets a brilliant, inescapable linguistic trap.
47:54
Speaker 2: She uses the type transcripts of the m lady's tape
47:57
to corner him.
47:58
Speaker 1: Okay, how does she do it?
47:59
Speaker 2: Remember Maurice Lebert, the dead in formant from Canada, right
48:03
the prosecution had read his old Canadian testimony into the
48:06
trial record. Labert had testified years ago that Ing bragged
48:10
him in their cell about hearing the clicking of handcuffs
48:13
on the video as the women were restrained.
48:15
Speaker 1: Hanaka asks Ing about this detail on the stand. She
48:18
asks him how Labert could possibly know about the distinct
48:21
sound of the handcuff's clicking. She points out to the
48:24
jury that the word clicking isn't anywhere on the official
48:28
printed transcript of the video. The only way Labert could
48:31
have known that highly specific sensory auditory detail is if
48:36
Ing had proudly recounted the memory to him in that
48:38
Canadian cell.
48:39
Speaker 2: It completely destroys Ng's credibility in front of the jury completely.
48:43
It proves he was actively bragging about the sensory details
48:46
of the torture, not hiding from the memory as a frightened,
48:50
traumatized bystander right, and then Hanika goes for the kill shot.
48:55
Regarding his legal culpability, what does she do? She plays
48:59
a specific short piece of audio from the videotape for
49:03
the court room.
49:04
Speaker 1: On the tape, amidst the horror, Charles Ng is clearly
49:07
heard telling Leonard Lake the pieces on the table, meaning
49:10
the handgun. Hanikah asks him why he said that, and Ng,
49:15
scrambling to explain it away, admits on the stand that
49:17
he wanted to let Lake know where the gun was
49:20
so the victim, Kathleen Allen, wouldn't grab it and shoot him, and.
49:23
Speaker 2: Honikah locks the trap shut. She points out to the
49:26
jury that Kathleen Allen is handcuffed, she's wearing heavy leg shackles,
49:30
and it is two armed men against one completely bound,
49:33
terrified woman. By verbally warning Lake about the location of
49:36
the weapon, Ng wasn't a passive observer. He was actively
49:40
directing the scene to assure their absolute physical dominance and
49:44
prevent any chance of the victim escaping.
49:46
Speaker 1: Legally, it establishes him as a willing, active participant in
49:50
the terror, completely destroying his defense of being a subservient bystander.
49:55
Speaker 2: His own massive ego destroyed his multi million dollar defense strategy.
49:59
Speaker 1: It really did so. After a grueling, emotionally draining trial
50:04
and three agonizing weeks of jury deliberation, the verdict finally
50:08
comes in on February twenty fourth, nineteen ninety nine. The
50:11
jury finds Charles ng guilty of eleven counts first degree murder.
50:15
They deadlocked on the matter of Paul Kosner, the man
50:18
who owned the brown Honda, because they just didn't feel
50:20
they had enough direct physical evidence beyond the car itself.
50:23
But eleven counts is more than enough. Charles Ng is
50:26
sentenced to death.
50:27
Speaker 2: District Attorney Peter Smith reflected on the verdict with a
50:30
heavy heart. He called himself the last man standing from
50:33
Calaver's County.
50:34
Speaker 1: Wow.
50:34
Speaker 2: It took thirteen years of relentless, exhausting pursuit to close
50:38
what became the longest and most expensive trial in the
50:41
state's history, costing California tax peers over twenty million dollars.
50:46
Speaker 1: An astonishing, exhausting journey from a clumsy, seventy five dollars
50:50
stolen tool to a cyanide pill dissolving in a holding
50:54
cell to a hidden cinderblock bunker in the mountains, to
50:58
a Canadian prison cell, all culminating in a twenty million
51:01
dollar trial that was ultimately saved by a killer's own
51:04
staggering ego and inability to stay quiet.
51:07
Speaker 2: And it serves as a powerful reminder to you, the listener,
51:10
of the sheer, grueling dedication required by law enforcement. Yeah.
51:14
Think of the Conservation Corps workers on their hands and knees,
51:18
raking the dirt for bone fragments with their bare hands
51:21
in the hot sun. Think of the prosecutor spending thirteen
51:24
years fighting international treaties and endless delay tactics just to
51:28
keep the case alive.
51:28
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
51:29
Speaker 2: It proves that our justice system, though deeply flawed, slow,
51:33
and highly susceptible to manipulation by intelligent predators, can eventually
51:37
grind out the truth if the people driving it refuse
51:40
to give up.
51:41
Speaker 1: But I want to leave you with a chilling concept
51:44
to ponder, a thought that builds on everything we've unpacked today. Okay,
51:48
think about that security guard in the Calgary department store,
51:51
the one who got shot in the hand over some
51:54
stolen merchandise, but held onto the shooter anyway.
51:56
Speaker 2: A true hero.
51:57
Speaker 1: What if he hadn't confronted in What if he had
52:00
just let the shoplift run away? With his proven ability
52:04
to manipulate people and exploit legal systems, would Charles Ing
52:08
have found a new compliant accomplice. Would he have started
52:12
a second Miranda project in the vast Canadian wilderness?
52:16
Speaker 2: That is a terrifying thought.
52:17
Speaker 1: And more broadly, how many other potential monsters are out
52:20
there right now, relying on our daily tendency to brush
52:23
off minor oddities a weird neighbor drilling holes in the floor,
52:27
a stolen tool, a missing car while they build their
52:29
own secret bunkers in plain sight. We want to believe
52:33
the X ray will always show us the broken bone clearly,
52:36
But as we've seen, sometimes the deadliest secrets are hidden
52:40
right behind a false stoor, waiting in the muddy waters
52:43
for a single, tiny loose thread to be pulled