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Berdella_s Hidden Confession_ What the Files Finally Revealed- Part 2 · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Previously, on our investigation into Bizarre Bob Burdella, we followed
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the escape of Christopher Bryson, the man who escaped Bob's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: house wearing nothing but a dog collar.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I got a call from the dispatcher at that time.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: The victim, Chris Bryson, had told us that he had
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: been hitchhiking and had been picked up by a male.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: The guy's name was Bob.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: This sparks the police response that uncovered a hidden trove
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of polaroids, stacks of handwritten notes, and evidence investigators had
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: never seen before. Then, in nineteen eighty four, a young
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: man named Jerry Howell went into Bob's house and never left.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Authorities missed warning signs, witnesses voice concerns that went unaddressed,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and Bob himself continued living openly in Kansas City, running
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: his shop, breeding dogs, chatting with neighbors, all the while
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: keeping detailed records.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: In his notebooks.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: This wasn't a sit down and planned scientific experiment by
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: any means, but just to have some record or reference
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: to it in the future.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Those discoveries, Bob's notes, his photos became a roadmap to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: understanding Bob's pattern. They reveal a man who tracked every decision,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: every action, every shift in control inside that house. And
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Jerry Howell was only the beginning. Now, in Part two,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: we go deeper into Bob's world, into the years after
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: his first victim, into the ones that followed, and into
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the system that repeatedly missed chances.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: To stop him.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Because Bob didn't slow down, he refined his methods, he
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: expanded his journals, and with each new victim, his confidence grew.
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: Bob Radella he is personification of evil.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: This is Part two of the Bob Ridella story and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: it's here right here that his pattern becomes undeniable.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: I'm James Buddy Day. This is unmarked.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It's nearly a year before Bob acts again. His second
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: victim is a man named Robert Sheldon, a young drifter
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: who stays with Bob in April of nineteen eighty five
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and never leaves.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Bob he had known Sheldon often known for a couple
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: of years. They'd been acquaintances. Sheldon had spent time in
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and out of his house, and that was victim number two.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: In his confession, Bob admits that he doesn't know much
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: about Robert's background, only that he was from California. He
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: claims to have given Robert small jobs and various ventures
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and let him stay at his house. When I ask
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Cole, he tells me it took the months to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: track down Sheldon's family and they declined.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: To take part in the investigation.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: They offer no details about Robert's life. Family tragedies are
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: best dealt with privately, according to Bob. On April tenth,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: he invites Sheldon over to his home. Sheldon has a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: fever and requests antibiotics from Bob, but instead Bridella administers
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a sedative. His journals begin at eight pm and continue
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: until twelve forty five am. As Bob documents difficulty keeping
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: his victim asleep.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: The sound of the polaroid camera was enough to kind
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: of rouse him, just enough to open his eyes a little.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: When we went to Kansas City, we spent an entire
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: day going through boxes of photos and digitizing all the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: files for.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: The first time. Now.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of disturbing crime scene photos in
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: my day, but nothing like Bob's polaroids. And it shows
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: how devoid of empathy a serial killer truly can become.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: This is not someone who's ignoring the suffering of others.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: This is someone who truly cannot fathom it.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Because they're so consumed by their own ego.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: For the next six days, Bob keeps meticulous records.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: In fact, on.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: One page I found he has continuous notations beginning at
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: eleven forty five pm and continuing for a full twenty
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: four hours without a break. But by Monday morning, April fifteenth,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Bob faces an unexpected crisis. His former roommate Paul Cooper
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: is still doing handyman work for Bob, and on that
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: morning he arrives at the house unannounced to fix the roof.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Sheldon is being held directly below where Cooper is working.
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: I was getting down off the ladder, just finishing up,
• 4:39
  Speaker 6: get down walk this side of the house. There was Bob.
• 4:42
  Speaker 6: He was running to his car. And if you knew Bobby,
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: he didn't run anywhere. He was never in a hurry
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: to go anywhere. And he was a very slow moving fellow.
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: And he's a bigger guy, very out of shape. Wouldn't
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: have done a day's exercise in his life. I found
• 4:58
  Speaker 6: out in the police depart much later, months months later,
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: that he had he freaked when he saw me on
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: the other side of that window, because that's where he
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: had the second victim tied up to the bed on
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: the other side of that window.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: In his confession, Bob tells police that he kills Robert
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Sheldon with Paul working outside.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: I talked to him briefly and told him I had
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: to run into the house and take care of something,
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: and I'd be right back out.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: This is one of the rare moments where Bob openly
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: acknowledges that he caused a victim's death himself. Psychologically, this
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: is striking for a psychopath. The concept of guilt does
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: not register the way it does for the rest of us.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't integrate into their emotional world, and Bob is
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: no exception. He constantly externalizes the blame, pointing to circumstances, substances,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: or the victim's own condition, anything to avoid recking the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: simple reality that he was responsible.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: At that point, I then went downstairs, and knowing he
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: was dead, I kept the one door shut to that
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: room and then went down and dealt with Cooper. Came
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: in for a while and got some water or something
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: to drink. We talked for a while.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: In his confession, Bob confirms for detectives that it was
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Sheldon's skull they found in Bob's upstairs closet.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: I at one point thought that I might get around
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: to reconstructing the jaw of the skull, possibly using it
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: or selling it.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Bob's next act is only sixty days later, but unlike
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: the others, it's not premeditated. In another bizarre turn, a
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: victim walks right into Bob's backyard during a storm on
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: June twenty second, nineteen eighty five. Bob's dogs begin to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: bark furiously. Bob investigates, and he discovers a young man
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: named Mark Wallace.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: He had been doing yards in the neighborhood for several years,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: and I just started using him to take care of
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: my yard.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Caught in the storm, Mark Wallace had remembered Bob's shed
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and he ducked inside.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: I found him out in my back tool shed, hiding
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: from the rain. I invited him in the house to
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: dry out and get warm. We talked for about an hour.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: For the most part he talked, he was very drunk
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: and very depressed. I drugged him and then further drugged
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: him to make him captive.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: He begins writing in his diary at eleven thirty PM,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: writing toolshed followed by the notation six or seven beers.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Bob invites Mark inside and offers him pills. He says
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: they're for anxiety.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: They're not.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Wallace is held for two days, during which Bob documents everything.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Bob notes his frustration the substances he's giving aren't having
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the effect they usually do. Mark keeps waking up and
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: trying to free himself.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: He was saying that the notation I have here is
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: please Untie, as I remember. He was also saying, to
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: let him lose.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: After forty eight hours, Bob claims he steps away for
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: about thirty minutes. When he returns, Wallace has passed. After
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Bob sets to work, he tells investigators it was garbage day.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: The next day, June twenty fourth, four months later, Bob
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: targets a customer who frequents Bob's bizarre bizarre. His name
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is James Ferris. Bob later tells police he'd known Ferris
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: for about a year and a half. James, like several
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: of Bob's victims, struggled with addiction and periods of homelessness.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: He stayed at Bob's house before, and they had remained
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in loose contact.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: He presented himself basically as somebody that nobody would really
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: miss or look for.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Unlike his previous victims, Bob plans the abduction in advance.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: On September twenty sixth, nineteen eighty five, Bob arranges to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: meet Ferris at a local bar on Independence Avenue.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: He came into my house upon his own was at
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: the time very drunk, took some valumes on top of that,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: and then I drugged him in the food that I
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: gave him for supper.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Burdella holds Ferris for two days, continuing the same pattern
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: he's used before. At eleven thirty PM of the final day,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: he records giving Ferris a dose of a dissociate of drug.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: His next note reads gag loosened no resistance to retiring.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Thirty minutes later, Ferris is unresponsive. Bob records the of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: death at twelve am with a chilling notation that reads
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: eighty six. Bob's fifth victim, a man named Todd Stoops,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: is remarkable because, just like Bob's first victim, Jerry Howell,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: police conducted an investigation. They identified Bob as the prime suspect,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: but did live.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Like the others.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Todd struggles with addiction, but was not a strange from
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: his family.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: He had known Todd often known for a couple of years.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Todd and his wife Lisa had lived with Burdella for
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: a period of time. In exchange for living there, he
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: would do favors for Burdella. He would do errands, cut
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: the yard, whatever Burdella needed done.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: When we recovered the files for Todd Stoops and Jerry Howell,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the only two victims who were investigated, we found something remarkable.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Todd Stoops was interviewed by police during the investigation into
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the disappearance of Jerry Howell, and incredibly, the interview took
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: place inside Bob's home. In the report, Stoops openly shares
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: his suspicions about Bob. He accuses him of killing Howell
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and drugging other men. He even mentions the locked room
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: filled with quote bizarre sexual paraphernalia. It's the very same
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: room detectives would later identify as the room. If the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: investigator had simply walked upstairs in nineteen eighty four, he may.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Have stopped Bob altogether. Instead.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: On June seventeenth, nineteen eighty six, Stoops is seen for
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the last time in Liberty Park, Bob picks up Stoops
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and takes him home. Bob detains Todd Stoops the same
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: way he's done several times before. He lures him to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the house, gives him substances without consent, and keeps him
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: inside for a full two weeks. By this point, Bob
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: has developed his perverse system. Over time, the victim health declines.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Bob claims that he tries to nurse him back to health.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: I gave him three ccs of penicillin in the buttocks
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: with a light reaction to keep him from getting worse
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: or possibly dying.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: During a routine check, Bob discovers that Stoops has died.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: I went up and started packing him to set out
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: in the trash.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: After the murder, Bob returns to work at Bob's Bizarre Bizarre,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: where he encounters his final victim, a Wichita man named
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Larry Pearson. Pearson's skull would later be found by police
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: buried in a bucket in Bob's backyard. Like the others,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Larry Battle's homelessness and addiction a strange from his family,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: but has some contact.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: What he told me about his family was that they
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: were mostly foster brothers and sisters. He did have a
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: couple of real brothers or sisters that he didn't really
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: keep up on or know where they were at.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Bridella had known Larry for a period of time, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Larry he had been put in jail for some mister
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: manor offense. I don't remember what it was, but Bob
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: had posted bail, put up bond, and gotten him out
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: and agreed to let him live at the house with
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: him for a period of time until he could get
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: back on his feet.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Bob's relationship with Larry Pearson is perhaps the strangest chapter
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: of all. Before killing him, Bob takes Larry to Ohio
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to visit Bob's mother and stepfather.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Larry's the only one that I took up to see
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: my family.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: During the trip, Bob, his parents, and his victim go
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to see a movie.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: I think on a Tuesday, my mother, Larry, and myself
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: went to a movie. He went up and sat in
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: the front, and that point my mother asked me, who
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: is this person? Apparently the night before he had sat
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: up with my mother and stepfather and told them a
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: story about when he was out in California.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: When questioned by his mother, Bob says, that Larry is
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: simply a friend who's helping out, and according to Bob,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: she accepted that explanation.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: My parents long ago stopped trying to figure out their
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: relationships within these people.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Were after they returned to Kansas City. Larry sleeps on
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Bob's couch for about two weeks.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: Larry Pearson had been saying at my house the summer
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: of eighty seven, and after a couple of weeks, I
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: then drugged his food one night.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: By the sixth week of captivity, Bob describes Pearson as
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: becoming quiet and subdued. It's later speculated that Pearson may
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: have developed Stockholm syndrome.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Disagrees.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Bob believes that Larry is lying about being compliant. That
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: belief comes to a head during a confrontation in which
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Pearson suddenly fights back, injuring Bob severely. The injury is
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: personal in nature and cannot be described on this platform.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: I was admitted into the emergency room that the first
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: doctor gave me something for pain. Later and internest came
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: in and explained they were going to have to keep
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: me for a couple of days.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: This presents a major problem for Bob.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Larry is still restrained at the house. This is an
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: interview we conducted with al devalcnair. He was the only
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: other cop alongside Sergeant Troy Cole, who is sitting in
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the room when.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: Bob confessed, who's hurt more than worse than he thought,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: and they wanted him to stay, and he told him
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: I got these puppies and there's nobody can come take
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: care of him.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: I need to go home.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: Ultimately, he talked them into putting him in a Tashi cab.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: The Tash cab drove him home.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: He goes inside, feeds the dogs, then goes upstairs and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: kills Pearson, all while the meter is running.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: They didn't want me to drive myself, and I just
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: got back in the cab, went into the hospital and
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: they operated on me.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I think he was hospitalized for about three days, as
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I recall. After being released from the hospital, he goes,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: takes the body, puts it into bathtub, puts it out
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: for the garbage, as he had all the rest.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Of It's more than a year later when Bob picks
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: up the hitchhiker Christopher Bryson and holds him captive before
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Bryson's escape leads to Bob's arrest On July twenty second,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, Bob Burdella is arigned for the murder
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: of his final victim, Larry Pearson. It marks the first
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: official homicide charge against him, and atary hearing, Bob does something.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: No one expects.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: He offers to plead guilty. Here is Detective Troy Cole,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: who explains what happened next.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Bardella's lawyers had contacted him and they wanted to work
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: out a plead agreement, and that Burdella would plead guilty
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: to murder and if we didn't go for the death penalty,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: and that he would tell us about all the victims
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: and what happened to the what happened to the victims,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: how they were disposed of. Give us all the details
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: in return.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: But Bob has conditions. He'll only confess if the tapes
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: are destroyed. The confession is transcribed, and the documents are
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: sealed in the prosecutor's office. After discussion with the victims families,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: authorities accept Bob's terms. Here again is al de valcnair
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: describing what the confession was like by Bardella.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: He is he is personification of evil, but I was
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: not afraid of anything.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: If he was afraid of anything. He was afraid of
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: getting caught.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: When he was going through the logs, and we're at
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: this point where probably midway through the second day, and
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: we would try to move him on, you know, we
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: would try to try to get to Okay, we know
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: what that means, let's talk about this, and he would stop.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: He was very polite, and he would stop and he
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: would answer your question, and then he would go right
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: back to where he left off there. There's just absolutely
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: no doubt in my mind that he was getting gratification
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: by reliving these events, by reading those logs and relating
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: those stories.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Ironically, detectives say that the DA quietly planned to go
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: back on the deal by entering the entire confession into evidence,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: making a public This would have allowed reporters to gain
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: access as soon as Bob's plea was entered.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: But that's not what happens.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Like so many parts of Bob's story, his plea deal
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: is bizarre. On the night of November twenty ninth, nineteen
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, days before Bob's court date, Kansas City experiences
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: one of the most devastating disasters in its history. A
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: construction storage shed containing twenty five thousand pounds of ammonium
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: nitrate explodes. A massive blast shakes the city. Moments later,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a second, even larger explosion detonates. It destroys a responding
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: fire truck and kills six firefighters. The tragedy triggers a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: citywide emergency response. A full investigation launches immediately, and the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: task force sifting through the mountain of evidence at Bob's
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: house is dissolved overnight. Sergeant Troy Cole is reassigned immediately.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: The result, the city's attention shifts entirely to this new disaster.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: The Bridela case, once the biggest story in Kansas City,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: vanishes from the headlines, and when Bob finally appears in court,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the hearing is quick and quiet, with the media focused elsewhere.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Almost no reporters show up. Bob pleads guilty and is
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: DA submits the confession as evidence in Bob's guilty plea.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: It's now officially part of the public record, but it
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: goes almost entirely unreported.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: This again is.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Tom Jackman, one of the few Kansas City reporters who
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: actually stuck with the case.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Later writing a book about it.
• 20:33
  Speaker 7: Probably at that time the transcript had probably hadn't been made.
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: I think that his plea was shortly after the confession,
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: and at that same time Sergeant Cole was leading the
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: investigation into the next big case. These are the two
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: biggest criminal cases that ever happened in Kansas City. Both
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: happened in nineteen eighty eight, within eight months of each other.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: In restoring Bob's confession, in looking through his journals, through
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: his logs, through the case files, I kept coming back
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: to one.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Question, why why did he do it?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And detectives actually ask him this during the confession. What
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: was going on in your mind when you carried all
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: this out?
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: It will always be a question on my mind. I
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: think at this point I was insulating myself from my
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: own emotions. I just didn't deal with it. It's like
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: it didn't happen.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: A non explanation about a man who cataloged everything except
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the truth about himself. But that's the thing about Burdella.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: To us, these.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Crimes are unthinkable to him.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Their names in a log I'm not going to say
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: Jarrow with my finger to my chin and say nobody
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: understands me.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: In a final irony.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Shortly after his conviction, Bob Ardella dies in prison, and
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: we've uncovered another shocking revelation from sources who are close
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: to the situation. They claim Bob endured constant harassment from
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the other inmates and even guards. They allege that during
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: his final year, his medication was tampered with and withheld,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: contributing to the health crisis that ended his life. Ironically,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the circumstances surrounding Bob's death echo the same patterns of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: control and neglect that define the crimes he committed in life.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: If you go to our social channels YouTube, TikTok, Facebook,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and Instagram, you'll see additional content about this episode, more
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: phone calls, insights, and interviews, and we'll be posting daily
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: from the last.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Decade of our true crime reporting.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: This season on Unmarked, you'll hear exclusive audio and interviews,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: calls and content, including the last interview with Charles Manson.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: We're opening our archives one case at a time. Subscribe
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to Unmarked so you don't miss what we reveal next.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: This episode of Unmarked is produced by John, edited by
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Dave Alderson, and our additional producers are Jesse Demurray and
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Steve McClellan,