Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Kansas City Butcher - Robert Berdella - Part 2

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The Kansas City Butcher - Robert Berdella - Part 2 · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: In the last episode, we began the story of Robert Burdella.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: It is the infamous story of a serial killer who
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: became known as the Kansas City Butcher. If you haven't yet,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we recommend you listen to part one before continuing with
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: us here in part two. But with that being said,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: if you are ready, let's continue the story where we
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: left off.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised myself. One of our dogs, Ripley,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: just sneezed in tandem. It was pretty awesome, at least
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: that's what she thought.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, she had to get up off her bed
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: to come and see you because she thought it was
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: a cool way to start today.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I guess, I guess. So one, what else is a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: cool way to start the day? A second part of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a part two coming out. That's what's happening today, the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: story of Robert Berdella. Were continuing with part two.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Do you know that I sat down forgetting that?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Did you really? How could you forget a second part?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. Now I'm quite excited
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: to get this story finished. But yeah, I don't know.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I was just in my own little world and completely.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Forgot to be fair. You did sleep in this morning.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: You've been a little bit like zombie like, I guess
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: you could say today, so maybe.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Wow, thank you. I realized that.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Not zombie like. I'm not meaning as an insult. I'm
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: just meaning as like, you know, like the groggy sleeping,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: like the good feeling like, uh yeah, that sort of
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: zombie state.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Well, the last two days I've gotten up at a
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: decent time and gone to the gym in the morning
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: and that felt really good, which is good. And today
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I did not, and I don't feel as good. So
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: what does that tell you?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Hey, yeah, zombie state, that's what it tells you.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: It's a good way to get up early and start
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: the day at the gym, I guess.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So it's also a really good way to start your
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: day when you sign up over on Patreon, just like
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: these amazing people did this week, actually this week and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: last week since we did some pre recorded episodes because
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: we were on a little bit of a mini vacation.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So shout out to Lindsey jacksh Tammy Horst Don Reiner, Amy,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Heather Torno, Cody Ferrero, Kaylo Wilson, and Marlene A. Brew
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: who made sure to make a note there that they
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: are a True Crime fan all the way over from Spain.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So shout out to all you amazing people. Thank you
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: very much for signing up. You're getting that exclusive content
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes, and not to mention ads free, which
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: we have recently implemented, that is a huge perk over there.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: It is huge. Yeah, it's very awesome. I'm actually a patron.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: You are a PA so that I get to see
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: like notifications and stuff. And yeah, every so often I'll
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: throw on an episode and there's no ads and I'm like, dope.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, we have our MP three files
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever the files, the WAB files. We can listen there,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: but it's a little inconvenient, don't have it on the app.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So it's nice to be a patron of our own
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: show to listen to our own episodes sometimes.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. There you go.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: But I think the formalities, I think with that all
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: being done, are you ready for the second part of
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this story?
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I think so we've probably made people wait long enough.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, I think so, do you want to go down
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a rabbit hole of a bit of a reminder, Please
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: hurt one. Please, since you don't even remember that we're
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: doing a part, it's probably a good thing.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Come back to me obviously, but I would love I
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: love the little recaps.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, In part one, we traced Robert Burdella's life
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: from a troubled childhood to being bullied in Ohio to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: seemingly ordinary life he built as a chef and a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: business owner, an active member in his Kansas City neighborhood.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Now behind closed doors of his home on four three
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: one five Charlotte Street, However, Robert began abducting young men,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: holding them captive, and subjecting them to increasingly prolonged and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: brutal abuse before killing and dismembering their remains. Between nineteen
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: eighty four and nineteen eighty six, Jerry Howell, Robert Sheldon,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Mark Wallace, James Ferris, and Todd Stoops all disappeared after
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: crossing paths with Robert, and although his name repeatedly surfaced
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: during the investigations, police were never able to gather enough
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: evidence to search his home. With every victim, Robert became
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: more confident and even more methodical. He was carefully documenting
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: his crimes while developing increasingly disturbing ways to keep his
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: captives alive for longer periods of time, all while sexually assaulting, raping,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and torturing them, that is, of course, until he butchered them,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: then drain their blood and disposed of the remains in
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the public garbage system. Now, when we left off, five
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: young men were missing, Investigators were still searching for answers,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and Robert Purdella had every reason to believe that whatever
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: happened behind his front door would continue to remain hidden.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And that's where we left off.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Oh this guy, Oh this guy, Yes, skuy.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: He is a piece of work, to say the least.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And we aren't done yet.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And okay, wasn't he using draino in a terrible way
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: as well? That was rain or something he was.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Drain cleaner, and he injected it in one of his
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: victim's eyeballs with a syringe. He injected it into their eyes.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So he was not only torturing his victims, but he
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was quite literally experimenting with them how to induce pain,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: how to prolonged, how to get certain reactions out of him?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: What caused what affect all these sort of things, and
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it was sick.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Huh yeah, that is disgusting that yeah, okay, okay, well,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Nichole's literally squirming in her chair already uncomfortable. Again. It's
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: just coming back full circle here. So let's hear how
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: this guy, I guess eventually gets caught, which will be
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: very nice.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well. By the summer of nineteen eighty seven, Robert
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Burdella had been abducting and murdering young men for three
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: years without facing any sort of criminal charges for any
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: of the disappearances. Although detectives had interviewed him during several
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: missing persons investigations, nothing had ever provided the legal grounds
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to even search his house. To Robert, each investigation ended
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the exact same way. Police asked questions, they followed leeds,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and eventually moved on. With every victim, his confidence grew,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and so did the amount of control he believed he
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: had over people he imprisoned, and that confidence shaped the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: way he approached his six victim. Larry Wayne Pearson, was
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: twenty years old when he met Robert for the final time.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Like several of his earlier victims, Larry had struggled to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: find stability in his life, He'd spent time in jail,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: drifted between temporary places to live, and knew Robert well
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: enough to trust him. The relationship had developed over time,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: rather than beginning with a chance encounter, and Robert had
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: gradually positioned himself as someone willing to help. Earlier, in
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, Robert posted Larry's bail after he had
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: just been arrested. It was a very significant gesture and
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: one that naturally strengthened Larry's trust in him. Now. Around
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: that same time, the two traveled to Ohio together, where
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Robert introduced Larry to members of his family. During that trip,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Larry even met Robert's mother, And looking back, it's one
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of those more unsettling details in this case because it
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: really demonstrated just how normal the relationship appeared to be
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: on the surface between these two. Robert wasn't hiding Larry
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: from the world, or he wasn't hiding his life from Larry.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: He was presenting Robert as a friend to family no less.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Now when they returned to Kansas City, that friendship continued. Then,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: on July ninth, nineteen eighty seven, everything changed. With all
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: this trust being built, Robert invited Larry inside his home
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: for one reason or another, though it's not exactly clear.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And once he was inside, Larry was drugged, restrained, and
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: deprived of any realistic opportunity to escape, just like the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: victims before him.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, but how messed up is this? So he was
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: befriending and had kind of a longer relationship I suppose
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: with this guy.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Well, he had a bit of a longer relationship with
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: many of his victims. That's how he established that trust.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: True. Okay, yeah, but the whole time, the intention is
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: just that he's going to kill him most likely.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that was his intention this whole time.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I did try and find that throughout my research, and
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I could not clarify that. And I, as far as
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I'm aware, I don't think that was always his intention.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was always looking for opportunities. So maybe
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: even if he wasn't doing it intentionally, it was subliminal
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: in his mind.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was just inevitable that this was going
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: to happen, but he didn't think in his brain it
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: was going to happen until something switched, and maybe this
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: need or some ridiculous thing. I don't know.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I think the likely scenario is he was being kind
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to this general demographic in hopes that eventually he would
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: have the opportunities present themselves, if that makes sense. So
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's targeting these guys individually to be
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: nice to them, thinking in a few months I'll have
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the relationship I need and I can target them. I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: think it's just he's casting a wide net and he'll
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: catch a few fish on the way.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I think that just makes it so much worse, though
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: in a.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Way it does. It really does, because how many other
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: people out there, potential victims were there? How many people
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: was he befriending in hopes that more of them would
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: come in.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like that.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: It's honestly, like a spider and a web situation. It's
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: just waiting for the right insect to come close enough
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: exactly now. By this time, Robert refined nearly years of
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: every aspect of his routine. He understood which sedatives kept
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: his victims compliant, how frequently he needed to be administering them,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and how to secure someone in a way that made
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: resistance almost impossible. And he had become extremely meticulous in
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: documenting everything he did too. The handwritten notes investigators would
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: later recover showed that Larry remained alive for nearly four weeks,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: which makes him the longest surviving captive that Robert had
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: ever held.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Holy shit.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Throughout that time, Robert continued to record medications, injuries, physical deterioration,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and his own observations. The notes revealed a level of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: detail that was striking even to experienced investigators. Drug doses
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: were recorded alongside descriptions of Larry's condition, and entries frequently
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: noted how he responded to particular assaults or whether additional
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: medication had to be administered. The records no longer resembled
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: scattered notes. They reflected a routine that Robert had repeated
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: often enough to become almost procedural at this point. Now,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I do want to clarify these notes were on loosely
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: paper sort of thing. It wasn't a book, but Larry
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: endured repeated physical assaults and raping during his entire time here.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Robert also continued to use electrical shocks and blunt force violence,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: documenting the effects in much the same manner he had
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: with Todd Stoops. For example, By this stage, investigators believed
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that he'd become increasingly interested in observing how prolonged can
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: activity affected the human body, treating his handwritten records less
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: like a diary and more like an ongoing experiment. Now,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: as the weeks passed, Larry appeared to have realized that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: survival depended, at least on part in convincing Robert that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: he had become compliant. According to Robert's later account, Larry
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: occasionally cooperated with instructions and attempted to gain his captor's trust. Now,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: whether those actions were genuine or simply acts of desperation,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: it's really impossible to know. But what they allowed him
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to do is remain alive longer than many of Robert's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: previous victims, in fact, any of them. But the fragile
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: balance of this trust, if you will, collapsed during one
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of the repeated assaults. At some point in early August
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, Larry bit Robert's penis with enough force
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to cause a serious injury. And there isn't much that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I could regarding this injury itself, but I do know
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: that Robert was forced to actually seek medical treatment as
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: a result, and hospital staff determined that the wound was
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: severe enough to require surgery. It was one of the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: few occasions in this entire series of murders when a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: victim managed to actually inflict significant injury on him. But
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: even though Robert remained focused on avoiding discovery, see, rather
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: than being admitted to the hospital immediately for this surgery,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: he told the medical staff that he needed to return
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: home first. He was going to go feed his dogs.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: If he's going to be in surgery for a while,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: he needs to make sure they're taken care of before
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: he does this. So a taxi drove him back to
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: his Charlotte Street house, where Larry was still restrained and
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: still alive. Now, Robert actually did this because he believed
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: he could not leave Larry unattended while undergoing that surgery.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: If he remained alive for several hours or even several days,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: there was a very real possibility that he might be
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: able to escape or even be discovered by someone else.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: So face with that risk, Robert made the decision to
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: take care of the situation to kill him before returning
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to the hospital for surgery, and so once he returned home,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: he used a plastic bag, pressed it over his face,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and suffocated Larry. On August fifth, nineteen eighty seven, Dang.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I have mixed emotions about that because I'm almost kind
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: of like, yeah, Larry, like you go, Larry.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's fighting back, which is good.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: But then I guess it also kind of killed him.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: But he probably it probably would have happened either way.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: He was going to die. Yeah, he tried something to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: potentially get away, to inflict pain back to who knows
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: what to fight and which is what everyone should try
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and do is try and fight back, and he did that.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately it didn't lead to the result he was hoping,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: but he was going to die remaining in Robert's custody anyways,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: at least he fought.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: It's interesting, yeah, because if Robert, it's if he just
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: went for that surgery, Larry might have had a chance
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: to get away. So I don't know. That's so. Yeah,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: this guy is so messed up. I'm trying to like
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: kind of understand him.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, you won't be able to understand him.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like even the fact that he must be in
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: like ridiculous pain, but he's still thinking about, you know,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: at home and hiding this situation, and he go has
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: to go home and kill him and then go back
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: for his surgery.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Like Holy frig well, and not only that, he has
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the wits about him still to create a believable story
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: to go back home before his surgery.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: It's just wild, huh now.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: After that, he resumed the routine that he had carried
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: out five times before. The body was then drained of blood, dismembered,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and prepared for disposal. As with Robert Sheldon, however, Robert
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: chose to keep Larry's head rather than dispose of it.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: He cut his head off and buried it in the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: backyard of his house. The remaining poors of Larry's body
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: were disposed of gradually through the municipal garbage collection, once
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: again leaving investigators with very little physical evidence. At the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: time of his disappearance outside the house, another family began
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: searching for answers. Larry Pearson's disappearance was reported, and detectives
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: again attempted to reconstruct his final movements as they had
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in previous cases. Investigators interviewed people who knew him and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: explored every lead they could develop. Robert's name, while it
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: once more surfaced during the investigation because of his close
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: relationship with Larry, so officers knew that the two had
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: spent considerable time together and confirmed even that Robert had
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: posted Larry's bail only weeks earlier. But despite those connections,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the investigation reached the same frustrating conclusion. Detectives had suspicions, sure,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: but suspicions were not enough for Robert. He had officially
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: successfully concealed six murders. Now in less than eight months later,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: he would invite another young man through that very same
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: front door. On March twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight, Robert
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: encountered Christopher Bryson, a twenty one year old male sex
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: worker who he had already met before. Like several of
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Robert's earlier victims, Bryson was living a difficult and unstable life,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and there was already a degree of familiarity between them,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: making it far easier for Robert. And just like the others,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: once he was inside Robert's home, the pattern just repeated itself.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Bryson was given drugs that left him unable to resist
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: before Robert restrained him inside the upstairs bedroom. By this point,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Robert had his routine down. Victims were drugged, secured to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the bed using ropes and restraints, and a leather dog
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: collar was even fastened around their neck, with sedatives being
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: administered at the documented regular intervals to keep them weak
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and compliant. Unlike several earlier victims, however, Bryson was able
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to study the man holding him prisoner see. Over the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: next four days, he managed to pay attention even through
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: all these drugs, and he learned Robert's daly routine. Each morning,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Robert left the house to open Bob's Bizarre Bizarre his
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: business right, and returning later in the afternoon, he would
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: continue the assault through the evening and night. Now, during
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: those hours alone inside the house, Bryson remained restrained and
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: unable to escape. He had paid close attention, though, to
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: every detail that might provide an opportunity for him. Anything
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he could see he made note. The abuse was of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: course physical and sexual, but it was also accompanied by
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: psychological manipulation. According to Bryson's later statement, Robert attempted to
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: convince him that restraint would only make his situation worse.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: At one point, he explained to him the rules under
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: which Bryson was expected to live, telling him that although
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: he had not chosen to be there, he now had
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: own only two options. Option number one cooperate. Robert claimed
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that he would be rewarded with small privileges such as
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: cigarettes or maybe a rented movie after work if he cooperated.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Option number two was resistance, which would simply result in
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: more punishment. It was a reward system that was designed
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: to convince Bryson that survival depended on obedience rather than
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: even thinking about escape. But Bryson understood that the promises
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: meant very little. By then, he had already seen enough
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to recognize that he was unlikely to leave the house
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: alive if he simply just waited and cooperated as Robert said,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: so instead of openly resisting, he began doing the opposite.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: He did cooperate when instructed. He answered Robert's questions and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: gave every appearance of accepting the situation. Now, whether Robert
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: genuinely believed he had gained Bryson's trust or simply became
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: less vigil over time, it's impossible to know, but the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: strategy had its effect. Bryson later explained that he deliberately
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: tried to make Robert lower his guard because he knew
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that once he had his window to make an attempt
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of an escape, there would probably never be a second opportunity.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: One shot. That's it. And on the morning of April second,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, Robert prepared for work, as he had
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: done countless times before then. Before leaving, he checked the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: restraint securing Bryson to the bed, then locked the house
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: behind him. But sometime after he left, Bryson, with his
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: wits about him, noticed something that Robert had overlooked. See.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: There was a small book of matches that was left
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: within his reach. So Bryson carefully worked his way towards them,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: despite still being restrained to the bed, and once he
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: managed to reach out and wrap his finger around that
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: match book, he took them one by one and began
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: using the flames to burn through the ropes binding his wrists.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It was an agonizingly slow process. He had to avoid
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: setting the bed on fire while also preventing the flames
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: from burning his own hands, all still while maximizing the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: burn effect from these matches. As he progressed very slowly,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: every few moments he would pause and listen. He was
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: terrified that Robert might return unexpectedly and catch him in
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the act, But once he confirmed that he was alone,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: he kept going, and eventually the ropes on one hand
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: gave way, and with that one hen free, Bryson was
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: able to loosen the remaining restraints and remove them entirely.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It was the first time in four days that he'd
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: been able to move freely. But escaping the bed was
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: only part of the problem. He was still bill locked
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: inside a secured house. He was completely nude except for
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the dog collar still around his neck, and he had
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: no idea of how much time he had left before
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Robert would return home. As far as he knew, he
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: could walk through that door any second, so, moving as
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: quickly as he could in his weakened condition, Bryson made
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: his way through the upstairs bedroom and towards a second
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: story window, and despite the height, he climbed through the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: window and jumped.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I am so impressed with this guy.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Badass of the day right here, one hundred and ten percent.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Bryson is the badass of the day.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Because he's also very sedated, right he is, so how
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the hell is he able to do this?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: He's been sedated, he's been beaten. He's like on his
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: last limb essentially figure of speech wise, like he's at
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the end of his rope, but he's still managing to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: keep his wits about him to still push his body
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: to do this, and even still jumping out the second
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: story window. When he struck the he broke his foot.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, let alone too. He probably burnt himself
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: in the process of this.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he probably did. Yeah. Now, it even hurt
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for him to just stand up off the ground, but
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: he forced himself up and he began making his way
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: away from the house. Then, not far away from Charlotte Street,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Bryson saw an employee from the Kansas City Power and
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Light Company. They were outreading utility meters and the worker
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: saw Brian approaching him. He was injured, exhausted, nude except
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: for the leather dog collar around his neck, and he
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: was visibly terrified. Bryson explained to them that he had
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: been held captive inside a house nearby for several days.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: He was assaulted, raped, and escaped only after his captor
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: left for work, and so the utility worker immediately contacted police.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: No kidding, What a day for that guy. He probably
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: was not expecting that when he woke up.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: No kidding. Officers arrived within minutes and found Bryson still
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: in obvious distroys. After arranging medical treatment, detectives began interviewing
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: him about what had happened inside the house where he
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: was held. Bryson described the room where he was held captive,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the restraints that had been used, and identified the men
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: responsible as Robert Burdella. He also provided investigators with the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: exact address that he had just escaped from. Several detectives
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: immediately recognized that name too. It was the name that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: had appeared repeatedly in previous missing person's investigations, and now
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: investigators had something they hadn't before. They had a living
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: witness who gave them cause to dig deeper into Robert.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: They needed this.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: They did now. Rather than rushing through the front door,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: detectives followed the legal process very carefully. Officers secured the
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: area around the property while investigators prepared an application for
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: a search warrant based largely on Bryson's statement and the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: physical evidence visible on his body. They understood that whatever
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: might be inside the house would be central for prosecution,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and they wanted every piece of evidence to be collected lawfully.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: As they were doing this, Robert Burdella eventually returned home
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: from work, but instead of finding the quiet neighborhood that
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: he had left that morning, he found police officers waiting
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: for him, and he was taken into custody without incident. Now,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: when detectives executed the search warrant, they approached the residence systematically,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: before anything was touched. Every room was photographed exactly as
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: it had been found. Detectives knew that the condition of
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the house itself would become evidence, and they were very
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: careful to preserve the scene before beginning a thorough search.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Officers worked slowly from room to room, documenting each discovery
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: before moving to the next, and at first glance, the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: interior looked remarkably ordinary. Like many visitors before them, investigators
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: found themselves surrounded by a collection that made Bob's Bizarre
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: bizarre so well known. Shelves were crowded with anti furniture
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and artifacts and taxidermy, and books and things on mythology
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and the occult. There was tribal masks, antique medical equipment,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and countless unusual collectibles. The house was cluttered, but nothing
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: about the collection itself suggested that they had entered a
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: home of a serial killer. But when detectives made their
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: way up to the upstairs bedroom that Bryson had described
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: during his interview, almost immediately they began finding details that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: confirmed his account. There In the upstairs bedroom, the bed
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: still contained restraints, with ropes remaining secure to the bed frame,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: while additional bindings and restraints were recovered. Nearby. Investigators also
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: noticed numerous dark stains on the mattress, the bedding, and
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the surrounding floor too. They were unsure of what they were,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: so crime scene technicians treated each stain as potential blood
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and biological evidence. Every location was photographed before samples were
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: collected for laboratory analysis. The sheer amount of staining suggested
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that whatever had occurred inside the room had happened repeatedly
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: over an extended period of time. Nearby investigators located an
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: electrical transformer fitted with wires ending in alligator clips. Now,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Bryson had described being subject to electrical shocks during his captivity,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and this equipment appeared to be capable of doing just that.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: They also recovered syringes, medications, and numerous pharmaceutical bottles, consistent
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: with Byron's descriptions of being repeatedly drugged while held captive.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: As the search continued, officers began noticing the same biological
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: blood stains outside the bedroom, as well small dark stains
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: appeared in other areas of the house, suggesting that violence
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: had not been confined to a single room. Each stain
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: was photographed, measured, and sampled, but the most significant discoveries, however,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: were still to come see. While searching one of the closets,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: detectives found a human skull. The discovery of the human
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: remains instantly transformed the investigation into a potential multiple homicide inquiry,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: But little did they know, the skull was only the beginning.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: As detectives expanded their search, they located additional human bones,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: including vertebrae that bore obvious saw marks, and nearby officers
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: recovered envelopes containing numerous human teeth as well. Then, as
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: investigators continued examining the residents, another collection of evidence emerged.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Stacked together amongst Robert's belongings were hundreds of polaroid photographs.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: The photos documented multiple young men at different stages of captivity.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Some were restrained to the same bed investigators had just examined.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Others showed visible injuries that became progressively more severe across
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: multiple photographs, indicating that images had been taken over a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: period of days rather than during a single assault. Victims
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: appeared conscious in earlier photos and visibly weaker in later ones.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Detectives immediately understood that these were a visual record of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: prolonged captivity. In total, they counted three hundred and thirty
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: four polaroid photographs.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: How fascinating would it be to just be an investigator
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: in this house?
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Han, No kidding it dark but fascinating for sure.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, suit for sketchy and dark for sure, But it
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: would just be like your mind would just be blown well.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Thinking, how can someone do this? Like the extent? What
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: state of mind is he in to be documenting these
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: things while he's doing them? Because for me, if I'm like, oh,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I want to like go capture my weekend trip camping
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: or something, I forget to take photos all the time.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: But he's got the wits about him to be doing
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: this thing and then documenting it so meticulously.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's awesome for them too because of
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: the evidence.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Right, Oh, it is huge. Now I do have to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: clarify though, Even though there was three hundred and thirty
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: four polaroids found, not every individual picture proved to be
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: a homicide victim, though some were men that were later
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: identified to have been willingly participating in consensual BDSM type
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: sexual activities with Robert. Okay, but that distinction became important
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: because detectives needed to determine exactly which photographs documented crimes
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and which ones did not.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Honestly, they were probably just the lucky ones though that
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: got away.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Honestly yeah. Now. While continuing their search, detectives recovered numerous
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: loose sheets of handwritten notes hidden among Robert's belongings. These
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: were often called his quote torture diaries, especially by media,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: but investigators recognized they were something slightly different. Rather than
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: formal journals. They consisted primarily of individual pages covered with dates,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: medication names, dosages, observations, and detailed descriptions of victim's physical conditions. Too.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Many entries were actually difficult to interpret at first. Drug
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: names had been abbreviated, times were recorded inconsistently, and many
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: observations appeared to make sense only to the person who
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: had actually written them. But even so, detectives immediately recognized
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that this was this was pure evidence, this was documentation.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Then the search eventually extended into the basement. Although many
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: of the bodies had been removed years earlier, investigators found
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: additional evidence of dismemberment of the bodies and then disposal
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: as well. Tools recovered from the house included kitchen knives
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and a chainsaw bearing stains that investigators believed warranted forensic examination. Nearby,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: additional blood and biological evidence was documented and collected too. Then,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: once the interior search had been completed, investigators turned their
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: attention to the outside of the house. Several areas of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the backyard appeared to have been disturbed at different times
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: over the years, and rather than digging into scrimin, forensic
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: specialists carefully removed the soil layer by layer, photographing each
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: stage of the excavation, and soon they found a decomposing
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: human head. Additional bone fragments were recovered nearby, with each
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: being carefully mapped before being removed from the scene. No
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: one walking into the house that afternoon had expected to
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: find evidence of one of the most extensive serial murder
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: investigations in Missouri's history, and what they did not know
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: yet was exactly how many victims were represented by the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: evidence scattered throughout the property, and solving that puzzle would
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: require weeks of painstaking forensic work, countless interviews, and the
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: careful reconstruction of events that had unfolded. Over nearly four years,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: detectives worked alongside forensic anthropologists, odentologists, medical examiners, crime laboratory analysis,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and prosecutors, each responsible for answering a very different piece
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: of the larger question, and during which as photographs were
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: being analyzed, people were being identified. Detectives began comparing the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: photographs with missing persons reports that had accumulated over the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: previous four years. Faces that once appeared only on bulletin
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: boards and family photographs were now appearing inside Robert's home.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Jerry Howell, Robert Shelton, Mark Wallace, James Ferris, Todd Stoops,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Larry Wayne Pearson. They were all connected. The images provided
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: investigators with a literal, visual, chronological, chronological order of events,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: honestly created by the offender himself. They could watch injuries
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: develop over time, compare photos taken days apart, and match
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: physical changes to the written observations as well that Robert
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: had recorded during their captivity. Now, contrary to many many
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: earlier media reports, detectives did not recover neatly organized journals.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I've already alluded to this a few times. These were
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: dozens of loose sheets of paper tucked among Robert's belongings,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: many of them hidden between the mattress and box spring
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of his bed, so not journals, it was just loose
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: pieces of paper. Now, at first glance, the documents were
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: almost impossible to interpret, as Robert developed his own shorthand
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: form of writing, often abbreviating things, but eventually it was
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: all worked out. Detectives could read everything, and with that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: there was basically a map of everything that occurred, matching
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the photos to those documents. An entry documenting a tranquilizer injection,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: for example, would correspond with photos showing a victim becoming
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: progressively less responsive. A note describing damage to a particular
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: eye would match photos taken later that day. References to
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: antibiotics helped explain why certain victims had survived for unusually
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: long periods of time despite the severity of their injuries. Now,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the forensic examination of the human remains found that the
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: skull that was recovered inside the house was identified as
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: belonging to Robert Sheldon, while the partially decomposed one was
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: identified as Larry Wayne Pearson. Those identifications relied heavily on
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: forensic dental comparisons. Detectives obtained dental records from families and tentists,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: allowing forensic odentologists to compare fillings or extractions tooth alignments,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: all those sort of things different characteristics to make them unique.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Now I do need to make a statement and redact
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: something I said in Part one. I said a second head,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Jerry Howell's head had also been buried in the backyard.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: That statement, as far as I can find, is false.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: The source I used for that jump to a conclusion
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: that is an inaccurate statement. His head was cut off
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: during his disposal, but it was not buried on the property.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It was sent out with the trash with the rest
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: of his remains.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, so he didn't keep every head.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: No, there was one bury in the backyard, and there
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: was one kept in the house. The one in the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: house was that of Robert Shelton, and the one burying
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: in the backyard was that of Larry Wayne Pearson. Okay, Now,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I believe that the source I use that said Jerry
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Howell's head was buried in the backyard either mixed up
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the names between Jerry and Larry, or they jumped to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that conclusion due to there being other various small bones
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: being found in the back of the house as well.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Now we don't have all I'm gonna get give a
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: bit of a spoiler alert here. This does not go
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: to trial. There's basically too much evidence. A plea deal
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: is struck is struck eventually.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, yeah, his freaking house is like, yeah, gold mine.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: But there is a potential that some of these other
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: bits of bone that were recovered were thought to have
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: been Jerry's, but we do not know because DNA testing
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: and stuff was never released to public, So there is
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a possibility that that's also why that they thought this. Yeah,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: but I do not know. Now, many of these little
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: bones also bore like clear tool marks and stuff like that,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: showing that it was you know, chopped up and remember,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: disambered afterwards for disposals. So I think jumping to conclusion
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: is likely what happened. So my apologies for that error,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: but I am glad that I went down that rabbit
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: hole and figured it out. For clarification. Now, with these
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: tool marks and the bones, vertebrae, for example, displayed parallel
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: cuts consistent with a hack saw, while other bones showed
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: evidence of deliberate dismemberment, and unfortunately, much of the physical
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: evidence had disappeared years earlier, and because Robert had disposed
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: of much of the bodies through ordinary municipal garbage collection,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: investigators understood that large portions of the victim's remains would
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: almost certainly never be recovered. Landfills serving Kansas City had
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: received countless tons of trash since the murders occurred, making
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: any meaningful search not only unsafe, but basically impossible to conduct,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and detectives had to rely on the remaining evidence to
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: establish exactly what had happened, which, in all honesty, thanks
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to the documentation on Robert's part, was an too hard.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So terrible though for the loved ones, just not to
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: be able to have any some of them they literally
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: had nothing right.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly to bury. Yeah. The investigation also prompted detectives to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: reevaluate every missing person's case connected to Robert, and reviewing
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: those files proved very frustrating, to say the least, because
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: again and again investigators discovered that Robert's name had surfaced
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: during earlier inquiries. They had interviewed Robert on multiple occasions,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and he kept slipping under the radar. Looking back, investigators
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: understood why those efforts failed Before Christopher Bryson escaped. They
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: simply had no probable cause to search his house. They
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: had suspicions, sure, but suspicions alone cannot justify entering a
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: private residence. And if they even did have strong enough
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: suspicions and he did search his property without sufficient legal grounds,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: much of the evidence recovered could have been challenged in court,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: likely making it unusable. Imagine going to court with a
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: stack of photographs, written documentations, human remains, and you say
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: he killed these people, and you can't use it in
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: court because you obtained it illegally. Oh man, he walked
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: free even though you know and have proof.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would not be okay.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Now. As the investigation continued, law enforcement interviewed more than
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty people, exploring every credible lead that
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: might identify additional victims or accomplices. Despite the rumors that
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: were now spreading through news and media, investigators found no
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: evidence that Robert belonged to any organized Satanic group, participated
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: in ritual killings, or acted with anyone else's assistance, and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: by the time the investigation reached its conclusion, detectives had
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: reconstructed one of the most comprehensive documented serial murder cases
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: in all of American history. Between July nineteen eighty four
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and March nineteen eighty eight, Robert Burdella had abducted six
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: young men, held them captive for periods ranging from just
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: over a day to nearly a month, subjected them to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: prolonged physical abuse, sexual assault, and rape, while documenting much
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: of what he did doing through photographs and handwritten notes,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: then dismembered their bodies after death and disposed of most
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: of their remains through ordinary garbage collection. For nearly four years,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: those disappearances had existed as separate investigations with few obvious connections.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Christopher Bryson's escape changed everything. The evidence recovered from four
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: to three one to five Charlotte Street now allowed detectives
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to assemble every piece of the puzzle, and by the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: time prosecutors began preparing for court, Robert Burdella had very
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: few options left. Christopher's testimony alone established that Robert had
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: unlawfully imprisoned and repeatedly assaulted him inside his house. The
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: search warrant then inco a plethora, an entire library of
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: evidence honestly that extended far beyond Christopher's captivity. So unlike
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: many serial murder investigations, prosecutors were not relying primarily on
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence trying to prove things. They had everything they needed.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: The investigation had become so comprehensive that the only significant
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: question remaining was whether the case would actually proceed to trial.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Missouri authorized the death penalty, and prosecutors made it clear
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: that they were prepared to pursue it, and Robert's attorney
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: understood the position that his client was in a conviction
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: was all but inevitable, So negotiations therefore focused on one issue.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: If Robert pleaded guilty, accepted responsibility for the murders, and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: fully cooperated with investigators, prosecutors would remove the death penalty
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: from consideration. In exchange, he would receive life imprisonment without
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the possibility of parole, and, as I already said, Robert
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: accepted the agreement. Over the following months, detectives conducted extensive
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: interviews with Robert as they continued reconstructing the chronology of
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: the murders. Because investigators already possessed the photographs and the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: handwritten notes, they were able to compare nearly every single
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: one of his statements against the independent evidence. If he
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: described administering a particular drug, Detectives would often locate the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: corresponding entry in his notes if he explained how a
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: body had been dismembered or disposed of. Forensic evidence recovered
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: from the house frequently supported those details too. Investigators described
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Robert as calm, composed, and rather a matter of fact
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Throughout this all. He didn't appear emotionally overwhelmed while discussing
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the murders, nor did he attempt to deny what had
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: happened once confronted with the evidence. Instead, he often explained
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: his actions as a detached sort of manner, describing the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: progression of events without displaying the kind of emotional response
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: many detectives had expected, or at least hoped. He also
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: attempted to explained how his fantasies had developed over time too.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: During the interviews, he spoke about seeing the movie The
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Collector as a teenager and acknowledged that the film had
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: remained with him for years. He described becoming increasingly interested
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: in domination and complete control over another person. While this
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: provided insight into how Robert interpreted his own behavior, though
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: they certainly did not lessen his responsibility for what he
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: had done. Television crews and newspaper reporters descended on Kansas City,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: and speculation about the case spread quickly. Even after pleading guilty,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: though Robert continued to try and explain himself, he tried
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: to influence how the public viewed him. In a televised
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: interview that was recorded after his conviction, he complained that
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: newspaper and TV stations had portrayed him as something less
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: than human. He argued that people found it easier to
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: believe stories involving satanic cults or monsters than to accept
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: that someone who appeared to be ordinary had committed such
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: a crime. He said that there was a difference between
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: becoming capable of monstrous acts and literally being a monster,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: but his distinction did little to change the public opinion.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: And if I want to stop here for a moment,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I think I don't do this often, but I agree
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: with this serial killer there is a difference between becoming
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: capable of monstrous acts and literally being a monster, because
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I think being capable of being a being capable of
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: doing a monstrous act without being a monster would mean
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: being put on the defensive end. In my personal perspective,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: if you are someone who is defending yourself and you
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: have to stab someone, and you are in a rage,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and you have adrenaline running and you have to defend
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: yourself and you kill another human being because they're attacking you.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I think that is a monstrous act without being a monster.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: But if you seek out someone else, if you seek pain, torture,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: raping an individual, dismemberment, you are a monster. I agree
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: with his statement, but in a very different manner.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Says he was saying that he wasn't a monster.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Right, He's saying he's not a monster. He just did
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: monstrous things, but he is not a monster.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I'm just kind of pissed off that even got the
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: opportunity to try to explain himself to the public. Why
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: the fuck did he get that?
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Well, that was part of his plea deal, right, was
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: he was going to do his plea deal and he
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: would explain everything. He would work with you know, investigators,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: interviews and all this sort of stuff and explain what
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: had happened. And in that process he's explaining his side.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Now I do want to say too, like a victim
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: of an attack killing someone else is not I'm saying
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: they're not a monster. The result is like if you
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: walk up a scene. You see someone dead and like murdered,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh my god, what kind of monster would
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: do this? You realize the person's not a monster. It
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: was a murderous act based on the person attacking them. Huh,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's still kind of trying to defend himself
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: in a.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Way he is. He's saying he's not a monster, but
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: he one percent is if you seek out this sort
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: of shit, you are one hundred percent fucking monster totally.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: So he was just explaining this to the investigators and
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: it kind of just like got out to the public.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Then, well, there was televised interviews. I'm not I haven't
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: seen many of them myself, but there was interviews with
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: like reporters and journalists as well.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. See that's what I don't love. Like. I don't
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: like that. I don't know that he just has this
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: opportunity to defend himself like this to the public eye.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: I just don't think that's quite right.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: But it happens with with many perpetrators. I guess many
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: people who are convicted, many serial killers, people like psychologists.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Are trying to understand.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only are we trying to you know,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: write the story of what happened with the Kansas City butcher.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: We're trying to understand from the victim's side too. We're
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: trying to tell the story of these victims, and to
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: do so, we kind of need to understand the monster
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: capable of taking their life, and that's what he was.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: He's saying he's not a monster, but in that statement,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: it proves he is a monster. Totally kill someone, you
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: torture someone, multiple people, and you think you're not a monster.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Oh man, see, because I also think it's so bizarre
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: that he could do these acts and not want to
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: just like have the death penalty and die after I know, right,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: because I just don't think I could live with myself
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: being like having known that I did this these terrible
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: things and killed six people, right, And so I don't know,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: it's just they're just very hard for me to understand.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Again, that's a distinction between a monstrous act and being
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a monster.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Now this is also going to piss you off too,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: because Robert spoke about the earlier missing persons investigationations.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: See. Robert argued that police had opportunities to stop him
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: before Christopher Bryson had escaped, pointing to the investigation surrounding
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: several of the missing young men prior to and when
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: he was asked whether he wished detectives had actually intervened sooner,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: he answered that he did, uh, suggesting basically that the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: additional murders might have been prevented if stronger action had
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: been taken, and it was a very clear attempt to
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: shift blame onto law enforcement.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: No shit, this guy's a freaking piece of work. Hey, yeap,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: what the hell is his problem?
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: He's saying, I'm not a monster. In fact, I wish
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the police caught me. They should have done something sooner.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: And saved these other men.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, Wow, he is one hundred percent a monster now.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: The legal proceedings concluded during nineteen eighty eight. On August third,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Robert pleaded guilty to the first degree murder of Larry
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Wayne Pearson, and later that same year, on December nineteenth,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: he pleaded guilty to the first degree murder of Robert
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Shelton and the second deary murders of Jerry Howell, Mark Wallace,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: James Ferris, and Todd Stoops. He also admitted guilt to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: multiple additional charges arising from the investigation, including several counts
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: of sodomy and drug related offenses, and since he struck
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: that plea deal, the court could no longer give him
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: the death penalty and instead imposed a life imprisonment without
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: the possibility of parole, bringing one of Kansas City's most
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: disturbing criminal cases to its legal conclusion. Detectives had reconstructed
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: nearly four years of murders, identified six victims, documented hundreds
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: of pieces of physical evidence, and secured guilty pleas, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: ensured he would never spend another minute outside of a prison. However,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Robert didn't stay behind bars for long, because on October eighth,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, less than four years after being sentenced,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Robert Burdella died of a heart attack at the Missouri
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: State Penitentiary. He was forty three years old. Now. Before
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: his death, Robert had written a letter to his minister
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: claiming that prison officials were refusing to provide medication prescribed
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: for his heart condition. The claim generated some discussion after
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: his death, but no evidence emerged suggesting foul play, and
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the official cause of death remained a heart attack. It
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: was very bittersweet the world had one less monster in it,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: yet he never fully served his life sentence. I mean,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: technically he did, but it was it was short, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: it seems like some people may have taken the law
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: in to their own hands.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: If I'm honest, Yeah, I mean you, honestly, it's hard
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: to blame them, really, I would.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Turn a blind eye to that happening.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I would like it's very hard to blame them,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: but I mean, he did agree to this fricking plea.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: So but yeah, to try to save this freaking monster
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: that doesn't even to be among us, right.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In the years that followed the investigation, the house
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: at four to three to one to five Charlotte Street
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: became permanently associated with one of the most disturbing criminal
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: cases in Missouri's history. Eventually, the property changed hands and
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the house was demolished. Today the lot sits empty. Someone
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: walking through the Hyde Park neighborhood would find little to
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: suggest that it ever existed. But to those who knew
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: the case, they don't need something like a house as
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: a reminder. For detectives and forensic specialists who worked the case,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: the investigation left a very lasting impression on them, and
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: it was a frustrating reality that many of the investigators
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: openly acknowledged after the case was over that their suspicions
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: on Robert had in fact been true, and yet he
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: just kept on killing. Suspicions alone could never replace evidence.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Their hands were tied. They just couldn't do anything. Ultimately, though,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: thanks to Christopher Bryson, Robert was caught his decision to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: escape through a second story window on April second, nineteen
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, despite being injured, exhausted, drugged, and uncertain of
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: whether he would even survive the jump, accomplished what years
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: of investigation was unable to do. And although Robert Burdella
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: became widely known as the Kansas City Butcher, that nickname
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: has always risked shifting the attention away from the people
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: whose lives he destroyed. The investigation was never simply about
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: identifying as serial killer. It was about explaining what had
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: happened to six young men who had disappeared without answers,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: giving their family the truth that they had spent years
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: searching for, and ensuring that those victims would no longer
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: be remembered only as a missing person. Their names deserved
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to be remembered. Jerry Howell, Robert Shelton, Mark Wallace, James Ferris,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Todd Stoops, Larry Wayne Pearson. For years they were simply
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: names in unsolved missing persons files, and because one victim
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: managed to escape, one investigation continued and their stories were
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: finally uncovered more than three decades later. That remains the
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: true legacy of Robert Burdella's case, not the man who
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: committed the crimes, sorry, not the monster who committed the crimes,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: but the six young men whose disappearances were finally explained,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: and the survivor whose courage ensured that they would not
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: remain forgotten. And that's the story of Robert Burdella, aka
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the Kansas City.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Butcher, aka a piece of shit that never deserved to
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: be among us.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Probably gave Bryson zero credit in all of this, hey,
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: of course not, Why would he, because he is actually
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: the one that stopped him.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: He was yea percent. He spent four days keeping his
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: wits about him, complying to whatever Robert said, and looking
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: for his opportunity, knowing it was he only had one.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: And when he saw his opportunity, he had already studied
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: the pattern. He knew he had time, and he took it.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. See in this crazy doozy of a story, I
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: feel like that is the most incredible in there. Like
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: that is just mind blowing to me. That he was
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: able to keep his wits like with him I know
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: and do that. That is just wow.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Christopher Bryson is one hundred and ten percent a badass
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: in our in our podcast Badass of the Day, we
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: need to have more Badass of the days.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, show he saved. He could have saved numerous men.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, honestly, he probably did. Yeah, there probably would have
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: been many more victims after.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Him, because I don't think there was any you know,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: sign that this guy was going to be stopping anytime soon.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Knew and he was just getting more confidence.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: He was he really was. So Okay, So that was
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: a doozy of a story.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: And sorry, how long was he in prison for?
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Then? About four years? Okay, he was killing for about
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: four and he was in prison for about four.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: You pretty much? Oh, I shouldn't laugh. He's pretty much
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: still just called the death penalty in a way.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Kind of yeah, And I think that's kind of what
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: someone out there was basically imposing on him.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: It would be a very very hard for an individual,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: though to give this person medication, right that like, oh, yeah,
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: you know what he's done and stuff. Right, So that
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: has a lot to ask of someone.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Oops, I accidentally forgot your medication. I guess I'll just
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: give it to you another day. Oh I lost the
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: bottle of medication. I'm so sorry. I could imagine that
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: being very easy to do in that situation.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, with that being said, let us know what
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: your thoughts are, not only on administering that medication, but
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on the entirety of the case itself. Shoot
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: us a message or an email or whatever our social
• 55:57
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• 55:59
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• 56:02
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• 56:09
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• 56:11
  Speaker 1: to join. But if not, and you're just here because hey,
• 56:14
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• 56:16
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• 56:19
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• 56:22
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• 56:26
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• 56:30
  Speaker 1: the next episode, stay Wicked thing a b oh oh