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3 Serial Killers That Disappeared · The conspiracy

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Speaker 1: Crime, conspiracy, serial killers, and murder. All things that I
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Speaker 1: love to consume, and I know you do too, you sick-minded, beautiful,
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Speaker 1: intellectual freak. And today, we're doing just that. But we're
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Speaker 1: not just talking about one serial killer. No. We're not
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Speaker 1: talking about two serial killers. No, no, no. Nay, nay.
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Speaker 2: Nay, nay.
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Speaker 1: We're talking about... thrice serial killers, okay, three serial killers
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Speaker 1: that were active for years and years and not caught
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Speaker 1: until decades later. And the way they were caught is
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Speaker 1: absolutely insane. So let's unbuckle your seat belts, go Mach
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Speaker 1: 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes and bust
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Speaker 1: through this windshield into these three serial killer cases together.
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Speaker 1: So just imagine you're living in a neighborhood where, for decades,
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Speaker 1: the most terrifying secrets are buried just beneath the surface.
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Speaker 1: Ordinary people going about their lives, completely unaware that among
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Speaker 1: them lurks a predator, a killer who slips through the cracks,
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Speaker 1: evading justice for years. And then one day, A knock
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Speaker 1: at the door shatters the illusion. This is the story
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Speaker 1: of three serial killers who believed they got away with murder.
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Speaker 1: Until decades later, they were finally caught. And we're gonna
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Speaker 1: be starting off with the Bear Brooks murders. It was
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Speaker 1: November 1985, and it was a cold and quiet morning
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Speaker 1: in Allentown, New Hampshire. The forest floor was blanketed with
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Speaker 1: a mix of fallen leaves and frost. And the only
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Speaker 1: sound a hunter in the forest could hear was the
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Speaker 1: crunch of his boots as he walked deeper and deeper
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Speaker 1: into the Bear Brook State Park. And he was a
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Speaker 1: seasoned hunter who knew these woods extremely well. But as
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Speaker 1: he ventured more into a remote area of the park,
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Speaker 1: something very unusual caught his attention. A rusted 55 gallon
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Speaker 1: metal barrel lying on its side, partially hidden by overgrown brush.
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Speaker 1: And at first, Jim just thought it was discarded junk
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Speaker 1: because he did come across that in the forest before.
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Speaker 1: But curiosity would tug at him and he would go
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Speaker 1: look and see what it was. And as he walked
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Speaker 1: up to the barrel, a extremely foul smell hit him
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Speaker 1: in the face. He described it as sharp and acrid.
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Speaker 1: His heart would start pounding pounding in his chest as
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Speaker 1: he moved closer and closer to the barrel. And as
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Speaker 1: soon as he got over to the barrel, he would
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Speaker 1: peer over into it and inside he would see the
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Speaker 1: remains of a woman. The woman was possibly in her
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Speaker 1: mid-20s and there would also be the remains of a
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Speaker 1: young girl as well, likely between the ages of 9
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Speaker 1: and 10. Their bodies were severely decomposed, reduced to little
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Speaker 1: more than just bones, and they would also be wrapped
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Speaker 1: up in plastic. Jim would stumble back with his mind
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Speaker 1: completely racing, not believing what he just came across. But
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Speaker 1: this was fortunately and unfortunately a tragic mishap. Bones don't
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Speaker 1: just put themselves in random barrels, so this was clearly
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Speaker 1: a murder. Or should I say... So completely shaken, the
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Speaker 1: hunter scrambled out of the woods and raced to report
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Speaker 1: his gruesome discovery to the authorities. And the small town
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Speaker 1: of Allentown was soon buzzing with the shocking news. Local
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Speaker 1: law enforcement led by the Allentown Police Department arrived at
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Speaker 1: the scene soon after. coordinating off the area as investigators
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Speaker 1: started to comb through the site, hoping that they'd find
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Speaker 1: a clue that might lead them to the identities of
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Speaker 1: the victims or the persons responsible for this extremely heinous act.
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Speaker 1: But the bodies had been in those barrels for an
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Speaker 1: extremely long time, years even, they assumed, given the fact
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Speaker 1: that they were bones by the time that they found them.
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Speaker 1: And they estimated the times of death between 1977 and 1985,
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Speaker 1: which was the year the barrel was discovered. And with
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Speaker 1: the bodies in the barrel was no personal belongings, so
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Speaker 1: they basically had no clues to indicate who they were.
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Speaker 1: So the initial investigation hit a wall almost immediately.
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Speaker 2: Having at that time two victims and just the manner
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Speaker 2: in which they were killed, the blunt trauma side of it,
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Speaker 2: it just, yeah, it was very.
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Speaker 1: Abnormal for New Hampshire. And investigative capabilities were drastically different
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Speaker 1: during these days. Fingerprint comparisons and the beginnings of DNA
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Speaker 1: testing started in the mid 1980s, but it was nowhere
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Speaker 1: near what would develop in the coming decades. So they
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Speaker 1: were very limited at this time in terms of getting DNA.
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Speaker 1: And without names, there was no missing persons reports to
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Speaker 1: match them to, so there was no leads to follow.
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Speaker 1: So the victims were nameless and the killer was obviously
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Speaker 1: nowhere to be found. And the case would soon grew
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Speaker 1: completely cold and it would be a haunting mystery that
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Speaker 1: lingered in the back of detectives' minds. This discovery would
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Speaker 1: remain an open wound for 15 years to come. The
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Speaker 1: bodies would be buried in St. John Baptist Cemetery with
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Speaker 1: a donated headstone reading, Here lies the mortal remains known
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Speaker 1: only to God of women age 22 to 33 and
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Speaker 1: girl child age 8 to 10. Their slain bodies were
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Speaker 1: found on November 10th, 1985 in Bear Brook State Park.
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Speaker 1: May their souls find peace in God's loving care. It's
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Speaker 1: so heartbreaking, but it's okay. We're gonna get to the
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Speaker 1: bottom of it. So years and years would go on
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Speaker 1: and this case would remain cold, but... In 2000, something
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Speaker 1: else would happen. So in May 2000, Detective John Cody,
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Speaker 1: a seasoned officer with the New Hampshire State Police, found
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Speaker 1: himself drawn back to Bear Brook State Park. Cody had
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Speaker 1: joined the force years after the first barrel was discovered,
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Speaker 1: and the case had always troubled him after the case
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Speaker 1: went cold. Something about it felt extremely unfinished, and he
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Speaker 1: couldn't really shake that feeling that there was something more
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Speaker 1: to find. After all, who murders two people and leaves
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Speaker 1: them in a barrel in the middle of the... State Park.
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Speaker 1: A piece of shit, that's who. So on that spring day,
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Speaker 1: Cody returned to the park, retracing the steps of the
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Speaker 1: original investigation. And the park was just as dense and
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Speaker 1: foreboding as it was 15 years prior. And as he
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Speaker 1: was walking through the park, he kind of moved through
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Speaker 1: the underbrush and he spotted something. A second... barrel, eerily
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Speaker 1: similar to the first, hidden in the same isolated area
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Speaker 1: as the first one. So Cody's breath would catch in
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Speaker 1: his throat as he approached the second barrel, his instincts
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Speaker 1: telling him this is what he had been looking for.
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Speaker 1: And with a sense of dread, he would walk up
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Speaker 1: to the barrel and he would find exactly what he feared,
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Speaker 1: two more sets of remains, both young girls and both
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Speaker 1: in similar state of decomposition as the first victims. And
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Speaker 1: Cody would know pretty much instantly that these murders were connected.
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Speaker 1: So the same person had done this, so now there
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Speaker 1: were four victims and not two, making it a serial killing.
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Speaker 1: And the discovery of finding the second barrel obviously reignited
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Speaker 1: the investigation, finding this killer, but obviously the sense of
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Speaker 1: frustration remained, because they didn't know who these girls were either,
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Speaker 1: because they weren't found with any items either, and they
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Speaker 1: were in the same decomposition, so they were basically just
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Speaker 1: skeletal remains. Although it was 2000, so technology had improved some.
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Speaker 1: So Cody and his colleagues worked tirelessly re-examining old leads,
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Speaker 1: interviewing potential witnesses, and cross-referencing missing persons reports from across
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Speaker 1: the country. But nothing matched. And with frustrations climbing due
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Speaker 1: to no answers being found, perhaps the most frustrating thing
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Speaker 1: is that the second barrel which was so close to
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Speaker 1: the first one, wasn't found in the 1985 investigation, which
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Speaker 1: is just like, walk 10 feet that way. There's a
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Speaker 1: whole barrel over there. Like I just, it didn't really make,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. It just didn't really make any sense
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Speaker 1: to me. We're not done with this obviously yet, but
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Speaker 1: it's just like, how the fuck? And like I said,
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Speaker 1: quite literally, this was very close to Bear Brook Gardens,
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Speaker 1: a mobile home park. And judging between the length of
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Speaker 1: the trailers, the distance between the barrels was literally five
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Speaker 1: to six trailers long, which is about four to 500
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Speaker 1: feet by estimates, which isn't that much, okay? I grew
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Speaker 1: up in a trailer, not in a trailer, but like,
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Speaker 1: We went camping in a trailer, and I don't know
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Speaker 1: how long that should, it's not long, okay? Takes about
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Speaker 1: 10 seconds to walk the length of a trailer. Not
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Speaker 1: 10 seconds, five seconds maybe. I don't know, either way,
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Speaker 1: I'm just frustrated. So as the investigation stagnated, a shadowy
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Speaker 1: figure moved in and out of law enforcement's periphery. A
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Speaker 1: man who went by many names, but none of them
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Speaker 1: his own. Terry Petter Rasmussen. I don't know if I'm
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Speaker 1: saying that right, but honestly, don't really give a shit
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Speaker 1: because he is the piece of shit we're talking about today,
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Speaker 1: was born in 1943 in Denver, Colorado. And by the 1970s,
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Speaker 1: he had become a drifter, using a string of aliases
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Speaker 1: to avoid detection, such as Bob Evans, Curtis Mayo Kimball,
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Speaker 1: Gordon Jensen, and Larry Vanner. What the, if you can
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Speaker 1: make up your own names, why are you coming up
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Speaker 1: with these lame ass, like, I guess, I don't know,
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Speaker 1: maybe that's the point, is that they're not very memorable,
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Speaker 1: but they're stupid, like you. Not you, not you, I'm
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Speaker 1: talking about Russ... or whatever the his name is. But alas,
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Speaker 1: he was a chameleon, able to slip through the cracks
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Speaker 1: of society, leaving devastation in his wake. And in the
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Speaker 1: late 1970s, Rasmussen began a relationship with Marlies Elizabeth Honeychurch.
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Speaker 1: I love the name Honeychurch, that's so cute. a young
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Speaker 1: mother from California. And Marlise had two daughters, Marie Elizabeth
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Speaker 1: Vaughan and Sarah Lynn McWatters. And in November, 1978, Marlise
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Speaker 1: and her daughters vanished without a trace after spending Thanksgiving
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Speaker 1: with her family. And unbeknownst to them, this would be
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Speaker 1: the last time they ever saw her alive. Rasmussen had
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Speaker 1: taken Marlise and her daughters to New Hampshire, and no
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Speaker 1: one knows precisely what happened during this time, but what
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Speaker 1: was very clear was that Rasmussen murdered all three of them,
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Speaker 1: stuffing their bodies into barrels and leaving them in the
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Speaker 1: woods in Bear Brook State Park. But Rasmussen wouldn't stop there.
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Speaker 1: That just wasn't enough for this garbage piece of shit. It's...
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Speaker 1: He would move on, drifting across the country, leaving a
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Speaker 1: trail of absolute destruction. And by 1981, he was living
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Speaker 1: in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he started dating another woman,
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Speaker 1: Denise Bowden, who also had a young daughter named Dawn.
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Speaker 1: And shortly after Thanksgiving that year, Denise disappeared. This guy's
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Speaker 1: got a weird... thing for Thanksgiving, I don't f *
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Speaker 1: * * ing know. But Rasmussen would keep her daughter,
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Speaker 1: raising her under yet another alias, which was Gordon Jensen.
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Speaker 1: And in 1986, Rasmussen abandoned Dawn at a trailer park.
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Speaker 1: But this guy's just- biggest piece of shit, in California,
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Speaker 1: telling the neighbors that he couldn't care for her anymore.
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Speaker 1: Though he was later arrested for child abandonment in 1989.
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Speaker 1: But he would get on parole in 1990, less than
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Speaker 1: a year later, and he would be on the run again,
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Speaker 1: again changing his name and alias. And by 2022, Rasmussen
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Speaker 1: had found another woman, Yun-Soon Jeon. And I'm sorry if
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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that correctly. I think I am. I've
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Speaker 1: said it a few times, and if I'm saying that Wrong,
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Speaker 1: I'm really, really sorry. And Yun-Soon would go missing later
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Speaker 1: that year. And he would be arrested for the murder
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Speaker 1: of Yun-Soon Jun in 2003 after her body was found
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Speaker 1: dismembered and buried in their home in Richmond, California. And
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Speaker 1: this is the first time that one of his heinous
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Speaker 1: crimes would actually be connected to him. Rasmussen, now known
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Speaker 1: as Larry Vanner, was sentenced to 15 years to life
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Speaker 1: in prison in 2003. And he would never confess to
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Speaker 1: any other crimes and took many of his dark, dark
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Speaker 1: secrets to his stupid grave when he died of natural
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Speaker 1: causes in prison in 2010. Which brings us to 2010's
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Speaker 1: DNA breakthrough. So for decades, the Bear Brook murders remained unsolved.
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Speaker 1: The victims unidentified. And it wasn't until the 2010s that
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Speaker 1: forensic genealogy began to emerge as a powerful new tool
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Speaker 1: in criminal investigations, that the case finally started to crack.
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Speaker 1: So authorities would obviously revisit the Baerbock case using DNA
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Speaker 1: technology to try and identify the victims. And the results
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Speaker 1: were shocking to say the least. The DNA testing would
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Speaker 1: link the women and two girls to be Marlise Honeychurch
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Speaker 1: and her two daughters, Marie, who was eight years old,
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Speaker 1: and Sarah, who was 11 months old. And in 2016,
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Speaker 1: they were also able to identify a family member for
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Speaker 1: the fourth body, the middle child. And Terry Rasmussen is
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Speaker 1: actually this little girl's biological father. So her biological father
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Speaker 1: murdered her and then stuck her in a barrel. I
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Speaker 1: just can't, I just don't understand how people are this evil.
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Speaker 1: I just, I don't know. But investigators now had a name,
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Speaker 1: and with it, its horrific history began to emerge. 2016,
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Speaker 1: in addition to being the year that the middle child
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Speaker 1: was identified as Terry's daughter, strangely was also the year
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Speaker 1: that the police revealed that Russ Musson's former girlfriend, Denise Bowden,
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Speaker 1: is considered missing. A staggering 35 years later after she
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Speaker 1: was last seen. What? And she hasn't been seen since,
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Speaker 1: and authorities naturally believe that she was likely killed between
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Speaker 1: New Hampshire and California by Terry. So luckily, they found
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Speaker 1: that Terry was the person that was behind these murders,
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Speaker 1: and I guarantee several more knowing his backstory. It's kind
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Speaker 1: of shameful and sucks that it took them so long
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Speaker 1: to find that second barrel as well, but what a
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Speaker 1: horrific story. horrific way to go and what an actual
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Speaker 1: piece of shit. But yeah, who's to say how many
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Speaker 1: other victims that are out there and what other secrets
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Speaker 1: did he bring to his grave? So the case may
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Speaker 1: be solved now, but the world may never know the
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Speaker 1: full scope of Rasmussen's dark past. But that concludes our
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Speaker 1: Bear Brook murder case, so let's go on to the
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Speaker 1: Golden State Killer. In a quiet suburban sprawl in Sacramento,
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Speaker 1: California in 1976, the residents of Rancho Cordova were blissfully
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Speaker 1: unaware that a predator was lurking in their midst. And
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Speaker 1: the area was a picture of middle-class serenity. Tidy lawns,
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Speaker 1: friendly neighbors, and a sense of security that was to
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Speaker 1: be shattered by a series of crimes so brutal. and
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Speaker 1: so chilling that they would forever change this community. And
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Speaker 1: things would begin relatively tame compared to what they would
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Speaker 1: eventually become. In 1973, burglaries and thefts began to become
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Speaker 1: relatively common occurrences in Visalia. I don't know if I'm
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Speaker 1: saying that right. Homes were broken into with startling frequency,
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Speaker 1: leading to the person perpetrating these crimes being dubbed the
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Speaker 1: Vesela Ransacker, but this wasn't your average burglar because things
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Speaker 1: of value weren't necessarily the target. He would rather target
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Speaker 1: empty homes and rather than plunder them for valuables, he
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Speaker 1: would gather women's underwear and scatter it around on beds
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Speaker 1: and on the floor and even meticulously arrange it into
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Speaker 1: creating patterns. Sounds like my ex. I'm just kidding. That's
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Speaker 1: a joke. So he would steal items that didn't necessarily
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Speaker 1: have monetary value, but they obviously had sentimental value to
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Speaker 1: the victims, such as class rings, wedding rings, or other
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Speaker 1: personal items. And his calling card was to steal one
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Speaker 1: earring of a pair of the victims to discover later,
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Speaker 1: which is so psychologically fucked up. And these crimes would
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Speaker 1: escalate over time with also firearms and ammunition being stolen,
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Speaker 1: sparking the worry that this individual may become violent over time.
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Speaker 1: And these fears would be realized when the ransacker, otherwise
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Speaker 1: a creep or a peeping Tom, would commit crimes that
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Speaker 1: would earn him a new nickname. And meticulous planning would
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Speaker 1: become a key element in the serial burglar's crimes. He
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Speaker 1: would know the layout of the houses and exactly where
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Speaker 1: the victims slept. And the first break-ins were mere burglaries,
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Speaker 1: but then the crimes escalated. As these crimes seemed motivated
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Speaker 1: in nature, from the raiding of women's underwear would become
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Speaker 1: So on June 18th, 1976 in Rancho Cordova, a woman
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Speaker 1: was awakened in the dead of night by a masked
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Speaker 1: man standing over her bed. Terrifying. He was holding a
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Speaker 1: flashlight in one hand and the beam completely blinded her
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Speaker 1: and he would be holding a knife in the other.
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Speaker 1: And the intruder later dubbed the East Area... bound the
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Speaker 1: woman and her husband with shoelaces, ransacked the house for valuables,
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Speaker 1: and then, in his most terrifying act, he the woman
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Speaker 1: repeatedly while her husband lay helplessly nearby. And this would
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Speaker 1: become his modus operandi, or MO. The East Area was meticulous,
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Speaker 1: often breaking into homes days before his attack to prepare
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Speaker 1: for removing screens from windows, leaving ligatures under cushions, or
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Speaker 1: unlocking doors to ensure easy entry when he did want
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Speaker 1: to attack. And he would even call his victims before
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Speaker 1: and after attacks to taunt them with chilling words that
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Speaker 1: would haunt them for the rest of their lives. It
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Speaker 1: was like a horror movie. So for over two years,
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Speaker 1: the East Area terrorized the suburbs of Sacramento, striking complete
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Speaker 1: fear into the hearts of residents. And he was ruthless,
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Speaker 1: often targeting couples and forcing the men to lie face
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Speaker 1: down while he was brutalizing the women. And something extremely
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Speaker 1: strange was that he would stack plates on top of
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Speaker 1: the men's backs that were lying down so he could
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Speaker 1: hear them if they started to move. And he would
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Speaker 1: tell the men that he would kill them both if
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Speaker 1: he did. His attacks were calculated and cold, and his
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Speaker 1: identity was a shadow that slipped through the fingers of
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Speaker 1: law enforcement time and time again. And by 1979, the
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Speaker 1: East Air Force seemed to vanish out of thin air,
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Speaker 1: leaving Sacramento in a state of uneasy relief. basically. But
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Speaker 1: he hadn't stopped. He simply just moved south. And in
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Speaker 1: Southern California, a new reign of terror would begin yet again,
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Speaker 1: but with a different name. On October 1st, 1979, Dr.
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Speaker 1: Robert Offerman and Dr. Deborah Manning were found brutally murdered
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Speaker 1: in home in Goleta near Santa Barbara. They had been
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Speaker 1: bound with ligatures, just like the other victims from the
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Speaker 1: East Area. but this time he had escalated. He actually
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Speaker 1: shot both of them this time. And the killer's methodical
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Speaker 1: nature was evident in this crime. There was no sign
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Speaker 1: of a struggle and he had taken his time just
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Speaker 1: as he did during the in Sacramento. And this would
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Speaker 1: mark the beginning of the original Night Stalker, a moniker
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Speaker 1: later replaced by a more infamous name, the Golden State Killer.
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Speaker 1: And the attacks were no longer just grapes. They were murders.
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Speaker 1: So between 1979 and 1981, the original Night Stalker committed
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Speaker 1: 10 known murders across Southern California. One of the most
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Speaker 1: horrific cases happening on March 13th, 1980 in Ventura. Lyman
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Speaker 1: and Charlene Smith would be found bludgeoned in their home.
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Speaker 1: The killer would use a log from the fireplace as
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Speaker 1: the murder weapon. And like his previous victims, they would
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Speaker 1: also be bound. The crime was completely shocking in its brutality,
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Speaker 1: and the police were completely at a loss. The pattern
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Speaker 1: was familiar, but the escalation of the murder was something
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Speaker 1: that they weren't prepared for. And in July 1981, the
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Speaker 1: final known victims of the original Night Stalker were Keith
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Speaker 1: and Patrice Harrington, a young couple living in Dana Point.
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Speaker 1: And their bodies would be discovered by Keith's father, who
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Speaker 1: had come to check on them after they missed a
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Speaker 1: family event. And they too had been bludgeoned to death
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Speaker 1: in their bed. The killer would leave behind no fingerprints,
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Speaker 1: no clues, just a trail of terror. And throughout the
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Speaker 1: 1980s to 1990s, the crimes of the East Area and
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Speaker 1: the original Night Stalker would haunt law enforcement because it
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Speaker 1: started to basically go cold. Detectives in Northern and Southern
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Speaker 1: California would struggle to find leads. They had composite sketches,
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Speaker 1: descriptions from survivors, and even a few recordings of the
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Speaker 1: taunting phone calls, but nothing led to assessment. The killer
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Speaker 1: at this point was basically a ghost. But in 2016,
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Speaker 1: a new hope would emerge. So 40 years after the
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Speaker 1: first attack, the investigation took a groundbreaking turn. The advent
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Speaker 1: of DNA technology linked the crimes across California, proving that
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Speaker 1: the East Area and the original Night Stalker were one
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Speaker 1: and the same person. A serial killer, a burglar who
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Speaker 1: had evaded capture for decades. But while the DNA linked
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Speaker 1: to the crimes, the killer still remained unknown until a
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Speaker 1: novel idea was proposed. Investigators would turn to forensic genealogy,
20:24
Speaker 1: a method that uses DNA to track down family members
20:27
Speaker 1: and eventually identify a suspect. So they would upload the
20:30
Speaker 1: killer's DNA to an open source genealogy website, hoping for
20:35
Speaker 1: a match. So it was a long shot, but it
20:36
Speaker 1: was the only shot they had at the time. And
20:38
Speaker 1: on April 21st, 2018, after months of investigation, law enforcement
20:44
Speaker 1: descended onto a quiet suburban neighborhood in Citrus Heights, California.
20:49
Speaker 1: Their target was a 72 year old man named Joseph
20:52
Speaker 1: James D'Angelo, a former police officer who had lived a
20:56
Speaker 1: seemingly normal life. But the DNA didn't lie. Joseph D'Angelo
21:00
Speaker 1: was the Golden State Killer. And D'Angelo had lived in
21:04
Speaker 1: the shadows, hiding in plain sight for decades. He had
21:07
Speaker 1: been a police officer during the time of the East
21:09
Speaker 1: Area Attacks using his knowledge of law enforcement to evade capture,
21:13
Speaker 1: which totally makes sense. And after being fired from the
21:16
Speaker 1: force in 1979 for shoplifting, what? You could evade capture
21:21
Speaker 1: from graping people, but not from stealing sunglasses from Walmart?
21:25
Speaker 1: What kind of criminal are you? He continued his reign
21:27
Speaker 1: of terror in Southern California. He was meticulous, cunning, and patient.
21:31
Speaker 1: And when the killing stopped in the mid-1980s, he just
21:34
Speaker 1: faded into obscurity, living out his days as a family man,
21:38
Speaker 1: a father, even a grandfather. But the monster within clearly
21:43
Speaker 1: never went away. When investigators closed in on D'Angelo, he
21:47
Speaker 1: offered no resistance. He was quickly taken into custody and
21:50
Speaker 1: the man who had terrorized Southern and Northern California for
21:54
Speaker 1: so many years was finally unmasked. And in the following
21:57
Speaker 1: days after his arrest, the public would learn of his
22:00
Speaker 1: dual life that he lived. A life filled with unspeakable
22:04
Speaker 1: violence hidden beneath the facade of normalcy. And in June 2020,
22:08
Speaker 1: Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer, appeared in court
22:11
Speaker 1: to face charges against him. He would plead guilty to
22:14
Speaker 1: 13 counts of murder and numerous other crimes, sparing him
22:18
Speaker 1: from the death penalty, but ensuring that he would spend
22:20
Speaker 1: the rest of his life in prison without the possibility
22:23
Speaker 1: of parole.
22:24
Speaker 3: At the time of judgment and sentence, you'll receive 11
22:27
Speaker 3: consecutive life without the possibility of parole sentences with 15
22:31
Speaker 3: concurrent life sentences. Additional time, as stated, for the weapon
22:36
Speaker 3: enhancements will be imposed as mandated by law. You will
22:38
Speaker 3: not be considered for any other sentence. Do you understand, sir?
22:43
Speaker 1: Yes. rotting in there.
22:46
Speaker 3: Bitch. Alright.
22:47
Speaker 1: And during sentencing, survivors and family members of the victim
22:51
Speaker 1: were able to confront the man who had brought such
22:53
Speaker 1: suffering into their lives. D'Angelo once feared a predator, and
22:57
Speaker 1: now just an old, rotting, disgusting man sat silently as
23:02
Speaker 1: they recounted their stories. And throughout the statements, he would
23:05
Speaker 1: just remain silent. No apologies or explanations. Just sitting there. staring,
23:10
Speaker 1: just 30 yards staring at these people like an idiot.
23:14
Speaker 1: And in August 2020, he would be sentenced to life
23:17
Speaker 1: in prison without the possibility of parole. He would die
23:20
Speaker 1: behind bars, the same fate he had sentenced so many
23:23
Speaker 1: of his victims to in their final moments. And Joseph
23:25
Speaker 1: had a whole ass family during all of these crimes.
23:28
Speaker 1: He would have a wife named Sharon Marie Huddle. He
23:31
Speaker 1: would have three daughters, all born after his murder spree.
23:34
Speaker 1: It was honestly... Crazy that after committing all of these crimes,
23:38
Speaker 1: he was just ready to settle down and have a
23:40
Speaker 1: family like he did nothing wrong. But luckily the capture
23:43
Speaker 1: of Joseph DeAngelo brought a sense of closure to those
23:48
Speaker 1: in Southern and Northern California, and especially to the families
23:52
Speaker 1: of the victims. And that brings us to our third
23:54
Speaker 1: and final serial killer, which is the Grim Sleeper. Los
24:02
Speaker 1: Angeles in the 1980s was a city caught in a
24:05
Speaker 1: storm of violence. The streets of South Central were rife
24:09
Speaker 1: with crime and poverty and the devastating effects of the
24:12
Speaker 1: crack cocaine epidemic. And in this chaotic environment, a predator emerged.
24:17
Speaker 1: One who would come to be known as the Grim Sleeper.
24:20
Speaker 1: He was a killer who stalked the most vulnerable, striking
24:22
Speaker 1: with a terrifying regularity before disappearing into the shadows. Only
24:26
Speaker 1: to return years later to continue his brutal spree. And
24:30
Speaker 1: this story begins on August 10th, 1985. Everything bad happens
24:34
Speaker 1: in the 80s. Everything bad, everything terrible happens. Well, 60s, 70s, 80s.
24:39
Speaker 1: Bad time to be alive, all right? Bad time. The
24:42
Speaker 1: summer heat would bore down on South Central Los Angeles,
24:45
Speaker 1: and the city's underbelly was just teeming with danger. And
24:49
Speaker 1: on that night, Deborah Jackson, a 29-year-old cocktail waitress, was
24:52
Speaker 1: walking home from work when she encountered a man who
24:55
Speaker 1: offered her a ride. Never take that ride. Do not.
24:59
Speaker 1: Do not take that ride with a stranger, okay? No hitchhiking.
25:02
Speaker 2: Got it?
25:03
Speaker 1: Got it. No hitchhiking. And Debra would obviously not know
25:06
Speaker 1: that this would be her last night alive. Her body
25:09
Speaker 1: would be found the next day in an alley in
25:11
Speaker 1: South Central, discarded like trash. And the photo is like
25:15
Speaker 1: absolutely heartbreaking. I'm not going to show it. Um, but
25:18
Speaker 1: it's just awful. She had been shot three times in
25:21
Speaker 1: the chest by a 25 caliber gun, a small but
25:24
Speaker 1: very deadly weapon. And the killer would wrap her body
25:27
Speaker 1: in a trash bag before dumping her, quite literally treating
25:31
Speaker 1: her like trash. And at the time her murder was
25:33
Speaker 1: just one more tragedy in the city plagued by violence.
25:37
Speaker 1: And it didn't really receive much attention at all from authorities.
25:40
Speaker 1: But for the man who would become known as the
25:42
Speaker 1: Grim Sleeper, this was just the beginning of his killing
25:45
Speaker 1: sprees and would continue his sick and twisted killings. And
25:48
Speaker 1: the next few years saw a chilling pattern start to emerge.
25:52
Speaker 1: The Grim Sleeper hunted his victims with a cold and
25:54
Speaker 1: calculated precision. He targeted women, many of whom were sex
25:58
Speaker 1: workers or women that were struggling with addiction. Women society
26:01
Speaker 1: had largely forgotten about or didn't really even care about,
26:04
Speaker 1: which is awful. He would lure them into his car,
26:07
Speaker 1: often under the guise of offering them a small amount
26:10
Speaker 1: of money for services or just in general to help
26:13
Speaker 1: them out. And once they were inside, he would strike,
26:16
Speaker 1: shooting them with the. 25 caliber handgun before dumping their
26:19
Speaker 1: bodies in alleyways and behind buildings, wrapped up in trash
26:23
Speaker 1: bags and discarded like objects. But one of the most
26:26
Speaker 1: haunting aspects of his killings was that he didn't actually
26:29
Speaker 1: kill them immediately. He would take his time, oftentimes sedulously
26:33
Speaker 1: assaulting them before delivering the fatal shots. And as if
26:36
Speaker 1: he were mocking authorities, he would take photographs of the victims,
26:41
Speaker 1: capturing their last moments alive. It would be a sick
26:44
Speaker 1: trophy for his crimes. And by 1988, eight women would
26:48
Speaker 1: be murdered by the Grim Sleeper at this point. And
26:50
Speaker 1: the LAPD, the Los Angeles Police Department, had started to
26:54
Speaker 1: notice a pattern. Finally, only eight? It took you eight
26:56
Speaker 1: to notice a pattern?
26:57
Speaker 2: Wow.
26:59
Speaker 1: Great job. But resources would be stretched thin because the
27:02
Speaker 1: city was in a gripe of the crack epidemic at
27:05
Speaker 1: this point and murders were rampant. So, you know, I'll
27:08
Speaker 1: give them that. There was a lot of murdering going
27:10
Speaker 1: on at this point. But the Grim Sleeper had a
27:12
Speaker 1: specific MO that seems pretty f- obvious to me. So
27:15
Speaker 1: tensions between the community and law enforcement grew rampantly, with
27:19
Speaker 1: many members in the community feeling that the LAPD didn't
27:22
Speaker 1: really care because the victims were black women living in poverty.
27:26
Speaker 1: And then in 1988, just as suddenly as the murders
27:29
Speaker 1: had started, the murders had stopped and the killer had
27:32
Speaker 1: completely vanished, just leaving behind a trail of unsolved murders
27:36
Speaker 1: and a community living in complete fear. And for over
27:39
Speaker 1: a decade, the Grim Sleepers seemed to disappear. The murders
27:42
Speaker 1: completely stopped and the case went completely cold. The LAPD
27:45
Speaker 1: basically had nothing to go off of, no witnesses, no fingerprints,
27:49
Speaker 1: no evidence basically, just a handful of bullets and a
27:53
Speaker 1: pattern of violence. But the LAPD hadn't forgotten about the
27:56
Speaker 1: groomed sleeper. They continued to investigate it, quietly piecing together
28:00
Speaker 1: what little evidence that they had. Meanwhile, the killer, lived
28:03
Speaker 1: a seemingly ordinary life. Lonnie David Franklin Jr., the man
28:08
Speaker 1: who had later been unmasked as the Grim Sleeper, blended
28:11
Speaker 1: in perfectly with the South Central neighborhood. He was a
28:14
Speaker 1: former sanitation worker and mechanic for the LAPD. It's always
28:19
Speaker 1: in the cops. It's always, you know, they always know
28:21
Speaker 1: the cops. They love knowing the cops. Known in the
28:23
Speaker 1: community as friendly, helpful man that helped fix cars and
28:27
Speaker 1: socialized with his neighbors. He was a husband, a father,
28:31
Speaker 1: a man who hosted barbecues and helped friends with their vehicles.
28:36
Speaker 1: No one would have suspected that this ordinary man was
28:39
Speaker 1: hiding a monstrous And in 2002, after a 14-year hiatus,
28:45
Speaker 1: the Grim Sleeper would return to the streets of Los Angeles.
28:48
Speaker 1: His first known victim during the spree was Princess Bertholmew,
28:52
Speaker 1: an 18-year-old girl whose body was found in an alley
28:55
Speaker 1: on March 19th, 2002. And she had been strangled, which
28:59
Speaker 1: was a departure from his usual method of shooting his victims.
29:03
Speaker 1: But the signature of the trash bag and the location
29:06
Speaker 1: indicated that the killer had returned. And over the next
29:09
Speaker 1: five years, the Grim Sleeper would claim at least three
29:12
Speaker 1: more victims, each of them killed in a very similar fashion. Strangled,
29:16
Speaker 1: shot and discarded in a garbage bag. And the police
29:19
Speaker 1: were aware that the killer had possibly returned, but again,
29:22
Speaker 1: they had very little evidence to go off of. And
29:24
Speaker 1: the murders were happening so sporadically and the killer was careful,
29:28
Speaker 1: leaving behind almost no trace. So it was very hard
29:31
Speaker 1: for the police to piece this together. But in 2007,
29:34
Speaker 1: the LAPD got a break in the case. A survivor
29:37
Speaker 1: would come forward, Anitra Washington. a woman who had been
29:41
Speaker 1: attacked by the Grim Sleeper back in 1988, but had
29:44
Speaker 1: miraculously survived.
29:46
Speaker 2: I'm looking out the window everywhere else.
29:47
Speaker 1: I was not paying him a bit of attention. He
29:51
Speaker 1: says something and I realized, I said, oh, he's talking
29:54
Speaker 1: to me. As soon as I turned, it went off.
29:59
Speaker 1: And I said, you shot me? Washington had been walking
30:02
Speaker 1: to a friend's house when she accepted a ride from
30:04
Speaker 1: a man in a rust-colored Ford Pinto. The man would
30:07
Speaker 1: shoot her in the chest and sedulously assault her and
30:10
Speaker 1: would also take pictures of her before pushing her out
30:14
Speaker 1: of the car, assuming that she was dead. But no,
30:17
Speaker 1: she's a f * * *. badass and she lived.
30:19
Speaker 1: And now she could provide a description to police of
30:23
Speaker 1: who the attacker was and the vehicle. Armed with this
30:26
Speaker 1: new information, the LAPD would launch and renew this investigation.
30:30
Speaker 1: They would revisit old evidence, re-examine the murders, and begin
30:34
Speaker 1: to consider the possibility that the Grim Sleeper was not
30:37
Speaker 1: a new killer, but the same one from the 1980s.
30:40
Speaker 1: And one of the key breakthroughs was when the LAPD
30:43
Speaker 1: used familial DNA, a technique that compares DNA from crime
30:46
Speaker 1: scenes to DNA from a relative of the suspect. And
30:51
Speaker 1: in 2010, investigators would match DNA from the crime scenes
30:54
Speaker 1: to a man named Christopher Franklin, who had been arrested
30:56
Speaker 1: for unrelated crimes. And Christopher obviously wasn't the grim sleeper,
31:00
Speaker 1: but his DNA was close enough to suggest that a
31:03
Speaker 1: male relative was. So the police would quickly zero in
31:07
Speaker 1: on Christopher's father, which was Lonnie Franklin Jr., who lived
31:11
Speaker 1: in South Central, right where the murders had taken place.
31:14
Speaker 1: And they would begin to surveil Franklin, gathering evidence that
31:17
Speaker 1: would eventually link him to the crimes. Detectives would retrieve
31:20
Speaker 1: a discarded pizza crust from Franklin's trash and would test
31:24
Speaker 1: that for DNA, which I think is really ironic and
31:28
Speaker 1: hilarious that he was arrested for something that he put
31:31
Speaker 1: in the trash like he treated those poor innocent women
31:35
Speaker 1: because he is a piece of trash he is a
31:37
Speaker 1: piece of trash you're a piece of trash franklin you're
31:40
Speaker 1: a Anyway, and on July 7th of 2010, the LAPD
31:46
Speaker 1: finally moved in on Franklin, and he would be arrested
31:49
Speaker 1: in his home, where investigators would find a trove of evidence. Hundreds,
31:54
Speaker 1: hundreds of photos of women, some of whom were never identified, unfortunately,
31:59
Speaker 1: and items belonging to the victims. Franklin had kept these
32:03
Speaker 1: macabre souvenirs in his home, trophies of his brutal crimes.
32:08
Speaker 1: So when he was doing barbecues and fixing people's vehicles,
32:11
Speaker 1: these trophies would just be sitting in his house. And
32:14
Speaker 1: that is so disgusting to me. So the LAPD would
32:18
Speaker 1: then interrogate Lonnie Franklin Jr. where he continued to act
32:22
Speaker 1: ignorant to the entire process, unsure why he was there.
32:26
Speaker 1: He didn't know any of the victims and he even
32:29
Speaker 1: played dumb to the nickname they gave him, the Reaper.
32:33
Speaker 1: And he continues to play dumb through the whole interview
32:36
Speaker 1: process where he begins to get silent and detectives realize
32:39
Speaker 1: he's beginning to understand that he's been caught. Give me
32:42
Speaker 1: an explanation. I have no explanation to give you for
32:45
Speaker 1: something I didn't do. So you're just saying you just
32:48
Speaker 1: got to run a bad luck? No, I'm not saying
32:52
Speaker 1: I had to run a bad nothing. I don't know
32:53
Speaker 1: these people. You know what the news calls you? You
32:55
Speaker 1: tell me what the news calls you.
32:57
Speaker 3: I know damn well you know.
33:01
Speaker 1: I mean, you watch the news at night.
33:03
Speaker 2: You watch TV on occasion.
33:04
Speaker 1: I don't talk about some guy on the news. What
33:06
Speaker 1: do they call him? What was it? The Reaper?
33:10
Speaker 3: The what?
33:10
Speaker 1: The Reaper. The Reaper? Grand Reaper, something like that.
33:14
Speaker 3: The Grim Sleeper.
33:15
Speaker 1: Oh, okay. I know something like that. Yeah, I saw
33:18
Speaker 1: it on TV. I look at TV. Well, of course
33:20
Speaker 1: you do. I got TV in every room.
33:22
Speaker 2: Well, there you go. There it is.
33:25
Speaker 1: I don't know what else to say.
33:27
Speaker 3: It's all going through his head right now, man. He's
33:29
Speaker 3: just looking at his future. Thinking of his past and
33:33
Speaker 3: what has he done. Well, he guesses he wants an
33:39
Speaker 3: attorney now, so.
33:41
Speaker 1: So Lonnie Franklin Jr. would be charged with 10 counts
33:45
Speaker 1: of murder and one count of attempted murder. And during
33:48
Speaker 1: the trial, the prosecution painted a chilling picture of a
33:52
Speaker 1: man who preyed on vulnerable women for decades, only to
33:55
Speaker 1: disappear into the fabric of everyday life. And the evidence
33:58
Speaker 1: was absolutely overwhelming. The DNA, the photographs, the testimonies of survivors,
34:04
Speaker 1: And the jury found Franklin guilty on all counts, thank God.
34:08
Speaker 1: And on June 16th, Lonnie Franklin Jr. was sentenced to
34:11
Speaker 1: death for his crimes. The man who eluded justice for
34:14
Speaker 1: so long, who had brought so much pain and fear
34:17
Speaker 1: to the streets of South Central, was finally held accountable.
34:21
Speaker 1: And the news of the death of Lonnie Franklin Jr.
34:23
Speaker 1: could hopefully give the victims of the families closure for
34:26
Speaker 1: the passing of their killer.
34:27
Speaker 2: Franklin died on what was California's death row at San
34:31
Speaker 2: Quentin State Prison, cause unknown, though there were no signs
34:35
Speaker 2: of trauma. With a moratorium on executions in California, it
34:40
Speaker 2: was unclear if the death sentence would ever have been
34:42
Speaker 2: carried out.
34:43
Speaker 1: In conclusion, for decades, these killers led double lives, maintaining
34:48
Speaker 1: their veneer of normalcy while their heinous crimes remained unsolved.
34:53
Speaker 1: Take Joseph James D'Angelo, the Golden State Killer, for example.
34:56
Speaker 1: After his brutal reign of terror, he quietly lived out
34:59
Speaker 1: his life as a husband, father, and grandfather, even working
35:03
Speaker 1: as a mechanic. His ability to evade capture for so
35:06
Speaker 1: long allowed him to settle down into a routine, almost
35:09
Speaker 1: as if his crimes were another phase of his life.
35:12
Speaker 1: It was just a phase. Similar to Terry Rasmussen. Rasmussen?
35:16
Speaker 1: I don't give a- The man behind the Bearbrick murders
35:18
Speaker 1: managed to drift across the country with various aliases, starting
35:22
Speaker 1: new relationships, and the decades he spent undetected allowed him
35:26
Speaker 1: to continue his crimes, moving from state to state and
35:29
Speaker 1: leaving destruction in his wake. And Lonnie Franklin Jr., The
35:32
Speaker 1: Grim Sleeper almost exemplifies this disturbing truth. After his initial
35:36
Speaker 1: spree in the 1980s, he went dormant for over a decade,
35:40
Speaker 1: living as a trusted neighbor and father. During this time,
35:43
Speaker 1: continuing to blend in and hiding behind the guise of
35:46
Speaker 1: an ordinary life, all while knowing that he had taken
35:48
Speaker 1: the lives of so many innocent women. These men show
35:51
Speaker 1: that getting away with murder for decades can often mean
35:55
Speaker 1: living out the rest of one's life relatively innocently. undisturbed.
35:58
Speaker 1: While they may have looked over their shoulders, the lack
36:00
Speaker 1: of immediate consequences allowed them to integrate back into society
36:04
Speaker 1: and their monstrous acts hidden behind the facade of normalcy.
36:08
Speaker 1: It was only when modern forensic techniques finally caught up
36:11
Speaker 1: with them that their hidden lives became exposed. But by then,
36:14
Speaker 1: they had lived years, even decades, with the freedom their
36:18
Speaker 1: victims never had. And we recently covered the Zodiac Killer.
36:20
Speaker 1: If you haven't watched that video, go check it out here.
36:22
Speaker 1: It was a really interesting case, obviously not completely solved
36:25
Speaker 1: at this point, but I feel like we're really closing
36:28
Speaker 1: in on that. I say we as in it's me.
36:30
Speaker 1: It's not. But, you know, I'm interested to see where
36:33
Speaker 1: that goes. But these killers, including the Zodiac Killer, illustrate
36:37
Speaker 1: how someone can commit horrific acts and seemingly just blend
36:41
Speaker 1: back into society. escaping justice for years. And their stories
36:46
Speaker 1: highlight the disturbing reality of that. Until caught, these individuals
36:50
Speaker 1: might live among us. And it's a haunting reminder that
36:52
Speaker 1: evil can lurk in plain sight, even in our neighborhoods
36:55
Speaker 1: where we call home. So be safe out there, all right? Again,
36:59
Speaker 1: I do these videos because I just wanna put in
37:02
Speaker 1: that little paranoia in the back of your head, all right?
37:04
Speaker 1: I don't want you to be scared all the time.
37:05
Speaker 1: But there's freaks out there, man. There's freaks. Keep safe,
37:10
Speaker 1: keep you safe, keep your kids safe. If you have kids,
37:13
Speaker 1: keep your family safe, all that, you know? But I
37:16
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this three-part series. I know it was
37:18
Speaker 1: a bit longer, but I really enjoy deep diving on
37:21
Speaker 1: these cases. I love the fact that these guys got
37:24
Speaker 1: caught and that, are they all dead? I can't remember now.
37:26
Speaker 1: Pretty sure they're all dead, pretty much. Either way, they're
37:28
Speaker 1: gonna die behind bars and they're rotting, which is awesome.
37:31
Speaker 1: But until then, I will see your beautiful face in
37:34
Speaker 1: the next video, all right? Bye.