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An Untimely Death In a Funeral Home (Pt1) · DEADBUG SAYS

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: The following podcast has been condensed from trial transcripts.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: The story is a recreation of an actual criminal case.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is at that bug podcast and may not be suited for those of a sensitive nature.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So please proceed with caution.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's get down to business.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: would drive someone to commit murder the most heinous of crimes, to take away all that a person has and all that they're ever going to have, the ultimate no silences.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, there's not always an obvious answer.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can study murderers, see what they did, try to understand their life, that childhood, their experiences.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can hope that it will lead us to a greater understanding of why a person might kill.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we still can't stop it from happening.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: When an individual's death clock starts ticking,
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't mind, let's get down to business.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hudson is a city in St. Clark County, Wisconsin, U.S.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And with the population of about 12,000, and I guess you could say that it's closer to being a town.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I guess if there's one short thing you can say about Hudson's St. Croix, is that everyone in the small town will greet you with a smile.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The type of place where a fresh part of coffee is always brewing in the man's office.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to pop in and say, I, oh, maybe voice a concern.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by 2002, I was the closest you were going to get to Mayberry from the Andy Griffith show without owning a time machine, reportedly built on several ancient Indian burial grounds.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The town was settled in 1840, originally called Willow River.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then one of Easter, and then in 1852, the mayor changed his name to Hudson, because he reminded him of New York's Hudson River.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And most people born in Hudson stayed in Hudson, and died in Hudson, and it allows counting the world population at just over 10,000.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's pretty safe to stay, that's statistically.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hudson's ain't crying.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the safest towns in America.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was on a freeze and cold afternoon.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: February of 5th, 2002.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The type of cold where you walk around with your hands down your pants.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because your ball sack is as inviting as your grandparents via place.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where the only thing you can't do is roast marshmallows on it.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I guess you could, but no one's gonna want to eat them.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was around 140 p.m.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: When local police received the phone call from Marty Shanklin, a fat, balding man, minis mid-30s.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: who works for the St. Croix County Medical Examiner, who seems to sweat no matter how cold it is, and prefers bare crawlers that he buys by the dozen, from chulies do not join to any piece of tale he's ever had.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or trap the half in Shanklin, had stopped the Afroconals funeral all at 520 11th Street.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: He'd usually pop by once a week, have a couple of cups of coffee, shoot the shit, and gossip about who died that week in that little town.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And collect the routine signatures on that desertificance that he'd brought with him.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what Shankland stumbled across would cause with some would consider inconceivable, Shankland would lose his appetite for his beloved bear crawlers.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: because when he walked into that office to see Dan O'Connell his old Amigo, the only person in the world who knew his biggest secret, which involved him getting so drunk at Martin Campbell's stag do that he shit his pants.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, May was about to mess his drawers in front of his friend again, because when he walked into that office, lying dead on the floor,
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: For the bulletin, his forehead was his old amigo, Dan O'Connell.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Lyme beside him for the bulletin all to march, was his intern, James Ellison, which made shankling shit his pants for the second time in his ad-art life, and fearing that he may be next, he dropped this briefcase and bag of barricross and ran out of the office
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It took about 10 minutes to arrive, but 30 minutes before they'd enter the building.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all, this small town cops, and they were scared, shitless.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most they have had to contend with was an occasional trunk on a Friday night, and shoplift is at the local supermarket.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was a big city crime, two men killed execution style,
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when Cobb's finally entered the building, they confirmed that due at all males had been killed, executions style, the gunshot to the head, that had been no struggle, and it certainly didn't seem to be a robbery.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to all funeral homes want known to handle cash, and as far as I know when this is...
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a goddamn funeral home.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were people laying around, but they weren't in the position to be telling tales.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So cops called the mewagon, cleaned up the brains, and withheld the names, until the next akin could be notified.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was that evening that the police released the names, the two victims, to the public.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Daniel Connell,
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: was 39 years old when he died.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was a 1981 graduate at Hudson High School, born and bred.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was active in numerous community organizations.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hell, even helped raise money for the firefighters after 9.11.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was a regular goddamn boy scout.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: In turn, James Ellison, on the other hand, was 22 years old, was pursuing the degree of Marchary Science at the University of Minnesota.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: He'd also attended the same high school as Dan.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while accounts, both of them were as clean as the soil on a cripples boot, and didn't have an enemy in the world.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Hudson's adaptive's new, then nobody knows nobody that well, and everybody's got a secret.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was it some sort of sick fuck-fag thing?
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: To love his quarrel, joined suicide.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then the bearded bee was something didn't smell right, and it certainly wasn't the shit's gross, the chanclin' had left on the floor, leading out of the building, after discovering the bodies running the coal of calves.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dan's brother Mike, who also worked in the family run funeral home, was one of the first to have heard the commotion.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: and brought the family priest.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was devastated when he found out that it's all the brother.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been murdered.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had no idea I would want to do such a thing.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dan's parents were floored up visiting a relative when they received the phone call that they're shunned.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And another employee I've been murdered.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: They too found it inconceivable that some of them want to hurt their son.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The family being deeply religious only mixed within a social circle that all attended the church.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: that canceled that trip immediately, to drive back home.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Daniel O'Connell's funeral was held on the night of February, as St. Patrick's Church.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Under this day, it has still considered the largest funeral ever held in Hudson.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: with 1,300 mourners attending the service.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The service was resided over by Father Ryan Erickson, who read one of Dan's favorite passages from the Bible.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he consoled the old Colonel family the best he could, but they were devastated.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The faith was shaken.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: They wanted answers.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: How could someone so good, so caring, meet such a brutal and...
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: the people of Hudson, needed to know what happened to Dan and James.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in fact, the Giddys had very few clues to go on.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: They knew that the through-man evolved short, close range, executions to hell.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The weapon was a nine-millimeter handgun, and we were pulled to trigger.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Neither were around the weapon.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dan was shot once in the head, and James twice.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was it a love triangle?
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Both men appeared to be straight, but Dan happily married.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But who can say?
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it definitely seemed like a hit.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: My marksman who had no problem with making things messy.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Investigators interviewed over 2,000 people in both the murder, but seemed no closer to figuring out who had done it.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: At this point, they figured it was a robbery guy wrong.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: although there was nothing missing.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was drug users who broke into the building to get them bomb and fluid to boost their eye when they were spotted by Dan, who knew everybody in the town.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They panicked and then they capped him in his young in time.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although all this and brought daylight on a main street, it didn't make sense and investigate his knew it.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: When they finally hit a brick wall, they contacted the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, for advice.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were told the FBI categorizes double motors in a commercial business where no cash is on hand into three primary profiles.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, targeted personal execution.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Homicide stemming from ventadas, extortion, romantic triangles, or business rivalries rather than random acquisitive crimes.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever the fuck that means.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: but it could tie into the theory that there were a homosexual love triangle.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number two, killing the witness.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: During a property crime, homicides when a perpetrator attempts to break in or a burglary for supplies and equipment, rather than money, and murders the occupants to eliminate the witnesses, which could tie into the theory that a bunch of dopeers broke in to try to steal some bombardment fluid.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dan and his understudy must have walked in, pop, pop, pop, messy, but effective.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And number three, enraged frustration homicides.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Situations were an event that acts with extreme violence because the expected cash, or in this case, narcotics were absent, escalating a routine assault or robbery into a fatal encounter.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Considering it was a Tuesday and new orders of embalming fluid weren't until Wednesday, and the cobbets were essentially bad.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is how I'm my list, and what makes this theory even more viable, orders usually came on Tuesday, but because of a sick driver, they knocked it back to Wednesday.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: The investigators went through all the advice they have behind, given them to know of hell.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever direction the investigators tried to throw it in, it kept coming back like a boomerang, a homo boomerang.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: relationship gone bad, a love triangle, who knows maybe even some homo love club involved in stiffs.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can never tell, and maybe the investigators weren't far off, but then an interest and bit of information came to the investigators' attention, a cult that was named Rest of Jesus that operated out of the nearby township of Augusta.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: and sent out over 400 letters to funeral homes.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The cult was against embarming, and threatened any funeral home that took part in it that profitiers of death will pay the ultimate price.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now the cops had their first solid lead, but when they investigated who wrote the letters and trapped them down, they found out that each of them had a solid alibi.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in the end, they were all cleaner than the soul on a cripple's boat.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: A mile a cuck and no balls, closing down the only real lead and first a kid has had.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: They then turned their attention to Dan and James' family.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: was there any reason for them to knock off their kin and ensure it's policy, revenge, but in the end nothing.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And unless someone came forward with a guilty conscience, the case where Resca gold colded and retards tongue like in ice cream off of his own belt buckle.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Investigators were now getting desperate.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Daniel Conno's family were one of Hudson's most prominent, and they wanted to know what happened to this son.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the investigators once again reached out to the FBI for advice.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Telling them the only witness they had was a woman who saw a man in a white baseball hat in a shirt leaving the funeral home between 12.31-30pm.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Based on the information from the witness, the FBI were able to put together a photo
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But no one in Hudson recognized the person of interest and they were back this way long.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: They also put up $100,000 reward for any information if someone had come forward with any leads.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: For six months afterwards, they started nothing.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: not even a phone call.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They even had some of their agents hang out on the cover at the local gay bar.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: To see if any freaks got their rocks off from putting holes in funeral directors and their interns' heads.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And although a few of the agents ended up getting blow jobs and finding their true selves, they were no closer to solving the crime.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was at this stage with only a few scraps of information, the case went colder than the stiffs who watched Dan and his boy,
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I talked to anybody in Hudson, and I'll tell you, at the time of the double murders, the faith was challenged, and why not, if two of the downs most beloved characters could get whacked.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And not much hope for any of them, no matter how much church you go to, after all, I guess many people believe that if you follow all the gods' rules, even the ones that contradict each other, you won't end up with a bullet in your head.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of those people that expected you to follow all of God's rules were Father Ryan Ericsson and although relatively young, he was only 27, I guess you could say he were a fire and brimstone preacher.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was against homos, against premarital sex, pretty well didn't like anything that was fun, although I'm not saying being a homo was fun.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it is for some people.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, you get my drift, he was a real life of the party.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And although he'd only moved to the down three years earlier, and it's that of preaching at St. Patrick's Church.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: While accounts, he was a well-liked, steadfast member of their community.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all, Mesa Managot for Christ 6.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: and he certainly let his presence in the church be known, taking to performing half the service in Latin.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it would regularly name and shame the teenage girls who showed up at his service, dressed what he deemed as too slutty.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He says no such thing in my opinion.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Proclaiming them as the devil's temptresses, which raised more than a few eyebrows, but in the traditional quarters, many felt that he was doing God's bidding within the remits of a society that had gone at a control, and that he was the kick-up of the ass that the church needed.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Witnesses say that it would become so passionate during his sermons that he would often cry.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, I was inappropriate of me.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the youth passed them, he also taught sex education at St. Patrick's School.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And instead of just the basic introduction to sex, he went all hardcore.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everything that was sex was immortal sin, even thinking about it, meant that you could be damned for eternity, preached about mystipation, abortion, and told the teens that they must confess all their impure thoughts to him and him alone.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because he was a man of God, he was the only one who could absolve them of their sins.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many of the teens went through keen on visiting the father, but he insisted on hearing that filthy thoughts.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the ultra-conservatives of the church mount, they love their oxen, known as young, energetic, the charismatic, hastal pack and priest, yeah, he had over 16 guns, and was seen as a bit of a novelty to the congregation at that eye shot.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was often seen down at the firing range, practice, and what he preached.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although some of the more liberal Catholics didn't agree, which caused a split in the congregation.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: After two years, the case went colder than the lifeless chicken-textured legs on a pair of bellie chicken, and the alas and families had the face of facts that the murder of their loved ones may never be solved, but it was an April of 2004 that detective Jeff Knob's and Sean Penny were assigned to the cold case.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the first task was to reinforce several people that they thought would be important to the investigation, including an officer who had been an argument with the funeral home and feeling he'd been overcharged for the burial of his mother.
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sure it was a long shot, but isn't everything a long shot until it becomes the shot.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But either way, the former carp had nullified tighter than the Velcro straps on the cripples boot.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the investigators were back to where they started.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was exactly three weeks later that the two investigators were in the office, cool in their heels, watch the ball get, once someone will walk in, and blow the case wide open.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The scene of the crime clearly suggested that Dan O'Connell had been the target of the hit.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had been shot the death where he was sitting behind his desk.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ellison had risen from his chair and had been bolting towards the door when he was shot in the back.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Investigators theorized that an argument between O'Connell and the perpetrator had erupted into sudden violence.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Allison was murdered because he was there.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Collateral damage, a thorough investigation had concluded that neither men had any enemies.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: More or less enemies enough to put a bullet in her head.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, nobody knows nobody that well.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we'll get safe for sure.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's someone in God's enemy.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dan O'Connell was shot point blank in the forehead, up close and real personal.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like someone wanted to see those eyes roll to the back of his head.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the corner said he had a surprise look on his face.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Meaning he didn't say it coming.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it had to be someone he wore for a while you would.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Someone he'd had dealings with before.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And who it was?
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, cops were moving a few steps closer.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're getting there, answer.
• 22:00
  [UNKNOWN]: Oh, and...
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: This has been power one to an untimely death in a funeral home.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that bug says, partcast, and I've been your host or dormant to the abyss, if you will, to the seedlings proceedings.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll return in the not so distant future to deliver to you the conclusion.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Until then, keep your door locked, your loved ones close, and your finger on the trigger.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now if you've enjoyed this here, Paul Gast, go on over and sign up to my patron.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Link is in the description.
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for as low as a buck, you get hundreds more like this here, Paul Gast, as well as early releases, and over 300 of my films.
• 22:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll see you all over there.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Until then,
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That bottle on your night is dead Your name is dead in the glass You keep saying you'll quit tomorrow But tomorrow is side right Path, your passion and your miracle For one more crooked day
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I ain't just how
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You open, let's a cold, a wind and sight You're dancing with the shadows while your soul sits outside When the devil comes, it's gonna be a price to pay All those little choices stacked up like a grave
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: When the devil comes, it's gonna be your last day You can't buy bad, will you give away He don't run He whispered
• 25:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You just use your own voices You ain't really falling Just making one more choice
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you can't buy back What you gave away
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be a price to pay