A Strangely Murderous Grudge - Fayette, Maine

hello everybody and welcome back to small town murder express yay choo-choo yay indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petrogallo i'm here with my co-host i'm jimmy wissman thank you folks so much for joining us this week again for another insane edition of small town murder express as you know 10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag is the way we like to put it it's some wild stuff and we have a crazy episode for you this week that just it's one of those where we when we do the disclaimer in the regular show we talk about you know we'll make fun of a bumbling police force that lets somebody yeah this is the perfect example of that of just a complete and utter screw up we'll get to that and more first though head over to shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets for live shows they are all there laid out for you here uh if you are listening right when this comes out still time to get your denver tickets that would be you better hurt saturday may 2nd so get in there and get those 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love maine maine is great stuff here we're going to fayette maine um fayette f-a-y-e-t-t-e maine uh it's in southern it's just fayette yeah just fayette uh it's in southern maine uh it's near augusta kind of which is capital to the west it's west of augusta yeah inland from augusta it's about an hour 15 to portland uh about three hours to boston so it puts it out of the commutable time zone so the prices go way down but weekendable but weekendable yeah yeah that's the thing and about an hour 22 carmel maine or carmel i can't remember which one it was uh which is our carmel carmel our last main episode episode 653 the surprising serial killer which was about a surprising serial killer it's not pretty self-explanatory surprise surprise uh this is in kennebec county area code 207 uh population here it's a small place 1274 i love it it's a cool little town this place just i mean reeks of stephen king like it's fuck yeah it's just uh there had to be a story but here probably um had to be median household income here a little below the national average actually it's 54 375 which is well about 15 000 under doesn't pay well no it doesn't and then median home cost here though isn't too much less than the national average three hundred thousand dollars oh boy so that's a little bit high for that money but yeah it's uh yeah so there's a lot of money there's a lot of money there's a lot of money there it is a little bit of history of this town it was first settled as either sterling or starling there's different things those mean two different things yeah starling because there's probably the starling bird up there right well there was the starling plantation that was up there in 1779 on 7 000 acres so i think that's part of where it started from um so we're not sure but fayette was named for the marquis de la fayette the french nobleman who offered his services to the americans during the revolution that's where fayette comes from he said he said fuck england is what i i don't care but you guys you don't even have like a government that's fine fuck england because it's france and they hate england and england hates france and that's just the way it works they have a yeah they have like a friendly like a like a yankees red socks rivalry they're very close they're right now they're just across the channel from each other they're both been around forever and they just you know like to snipe stand on the shore and tell them to go fuck themselves that's it hey fuck you uh we got uh a lot of ponds and lakes in this town like a ton and right around here there's nine of them that are pretty big there's a shitload of water up there tons there's an 11 there's a 1610 acre pond acre pond 1610 acre pond there's an 1185 acre lake so i don't know what the difference between a lake and a pond is if a pond can be bigger than a fucking lake i don't understand it at all i'm completely that's what i always thought right you thought There's a town, then there's a city, then there's a pond, there's a lake, there's a creek, and then there's a stream and a creek and a river and a pond and a lake and an ocean. That's what I always thought. Apparently not. Only one review of this town that I could find. It's pretty quiet here. It's a three-star review, and I said it's pretty quiet here, and they concur. Quote, quiet is the first. They got it. They nailed it. They spelled it right, though, too, didn't they? They did. They did. They're quiet. Not quite like we see so often. Has a general store, 15 minutes from groceries, coffee, and restaurants. So they don't have anything really in this town proper. Has a private school and private summer camps for whatever that's worth. Now, things to do here. Okay. This is so funny. It sounds like it's like the title. You know how like Borat's thing is like, you know, film for use of blah, blah, blah. He'll use different things. Yeah. Yeah. That's what this sounds like. It's called Fayette Heritage Days, a practical celebration of community and nature in Maine. For benefit Kazakhstan. To benefit Kazakhstan. It's so funny. And a practical celebration. Look, we're not going to go crazy. Very practical. Real. Yeah. Very practical. Close to the chest. They say they open their arms to locals and visitors alike for Fayette Heritage Days, a festival that stitches together the rugged spirit of outdoor adventure with the genuine celebration. of small town life. That is Maine. That's you just described living in Maine for the family, for the families. Festivals, children's activities include deer watching. That should be the only thing you do with them. Yeah. By the way, if you've ever had little kids, see how long that they will, you know, go along with deer watching as an activity. They don't. That's not going to let me have two seconds. Oh, wow. Hello. Look at that. They go, can I ride it or touch it? Now what do they do? Do they do anything? No, they're just going to eat and stand there. Okay. That's it. That's it. Are they going to take a sleigh up in the air? What are we looking at here? Also, watching and storytelling by local elders. Nothing kids like more than hearing stories from old farts. That's what they love. Tell me about when you had a leather strap around your books. While they stared at deer. Yeah. Nuzzling a pile of corn. That's what. Oh, my God. Shit that it doesn't eat. What the fuck? It's pushing food around. Oh, my God. And then it says, for seasoned adventurers, the surrounding lakes beg for kayaking and fishing. They're asking for it. You betcha. That's the problem. Yeah. While dirt roads and hidden paths challenge the eye to find new perspectives. Okay. There we go. So that said, let's talk about a murder, everybody. What do you say here? This is a. It's an idyllic place, it sounds. idyllic place and what happens here is awful so it's a oh boy it it ruined this town for a while i mean these people were it turned it from a from a you know don't lock your doors yeah anyone who comes over as a neighbor and a friend to who's there go away get get away from the window like it turned into that shit like it's really fast um so you just hear you knock on the door and you hear a shotgun rack um for a while if my ring doorbell alerts one more time i'm letting loose with both these barrels right through the door i'm not even opening it i'll get a new door so let's start on january 6th 1983 this is when this town kind of has a little broken piece here uh new year new us new year post holidays it's cold up in maine yeah snowing january 6th is a punishing day oh yeah um it's southern maine so it's not that bad it's when you get northern maine that's what's real bad this is pretty bad it's like the temperatures here are like three degrees colder than where i am it's not that bad yeah until you get north of like banger then it gets fucking cold that's when it gets ugly then you're in trouble yeah that's when you're in some deep shit over there i watched that seawall in in portsmouth the wave waves coming over water with the the waves were freezing oh that's awesome i love it i love that shooting ice at the cars oh that's awesome that's so cool so on january 6 1983 it's 11 p.m okay theodore d flag flag is with two g's by the way uh he goes by ted ted d flag teddy flag over here teddy flag the old teddy flag um amazing he returns from work at about 11 p.m he worked a double shift at the james river paper mill in chisholm oh boy that's a brutal day and that's hey what do you do with the paper mill does that turn in i mean you're turning trees into paper yeah i'm not sure this at this point that's kind of where a lot of the guys still worked in town was at the mills basically and he's a young guy here he's about 25 years old and he's got a young wife and a young baby that he's trying to support and so he's he's taking whatever shifts he can he's doing double shifts here um now he says he worked a double shift at the james river paper mill and then he came in through the james river paper mill and then he came in through the cellar door as usual which is a big east coast thing to come in as not to wake anybody as not to wake anybody and if you come from a dirty job it's to change okay they have the the pittsburgh toilet look that up right yeah we've talked about it before it's like and they have like a drain in the floor where you can wash the soot off of you if you worked in a mine basically uh so he comes through the cellar door and he sees that all the lights were off except for the light from the stereo when he gets upstairs so you could you know that faint 83 glow that 83 stereo light you don't see much oh you know what that is that's that's the backlight of the turn dial where the little needles there that and maybe the radio station maybe bar that kind of lights up usually too but not digital it's just a light that glows yeah it just glows so you can see it but it's just all the band of radio stations across yeah that little red line that goes through that you turn that's i remember my dad's stereo had one just just like that and if it was on that's what would glow that and behind the fuck yeah so he sees that he turns the lights on at the top of the cellar stairs and he sees his wife uh judith here who was you know young too this is crazy she is 23 years old yeah sees her lying on the floor in the living room and she looks dead and she's got the telephone clutched in her hand next to her and their one-year-old baby chad is also there so he's freaking out chad is laying on top of her chest okay he's got blood all over him as does she jesus but chad looks fine he's alert and he pops up he seems fine he's just covered in blood yeah just looks terrible yeah looks bad now he sees that judith's face is bruised and there's a blood stain on her chest and the telephone's kind of beneath her body where she was holding it um and she has been stabbed multiple times in the chest lock that bitch it's horrible yeah this baby is aggressive he's dangerous he's a dangerous young man so the baby has blood on his clothes yeah and um so ted picks up the baby and goes down back down the cellar stairs he said right to get away from that scene and calls picks up the phone yeah and calls relatives what doesn't call the police he calls relatives so unless they're the police unless you are a homicide detective i don't know what the hell you're doing here so and an ambulance driver yeah so well she's well beyond an ambulance at this point i mean it's the blood's dried already it's bad so somebody we're talking dozens of people come over tons of people like his whole family comes over to support him no somebody in this mix called the police luckily okay someone said hey did anyone call the cops at all we should probably do that and someone called the there's all of us here and no red and blues and i guess that would be a confusing scene to walk into to walk in and find your wife dead and your baby covered in blood and you go downstairs you call your mom or your somebody oh my god what the fuck's going on i don't know if your brain would work right at that point but not sure it's also a small town thing where towns tend to they're so knit together they're like i need help i call my family that's possible only us big city folk are like get the police here fast well yeah they can probably get there faster than the cops too if it's right that's probably true too yeah so she dies of judith dies of multiple stab wounds to the back and chest now the police tentatively set her time of death at about 11 a.m 12 hours earlier oh now he's been gone 16 hours but 12 hours earlier um also she has defensive wounds on her uh hands her fingers and her left wrist okay and we find out she's also been uh raped orally as well so and this poor baby's been there for 12 hours with a dead mom crawling around oh in the blood basically and just decided to crawl up on his mom and go to sleep i mean that's wow just doesn't know i mean it's a one-year-old so there's no idea now obviously first question where was ted yeah we want to know where ted is um but the problem is they find out ted was at the local paper mill the entire whole day double shift everybody saw him he punched in he punched out there's no i mean his his machine would have just been running without him if he wasn't there so he had he had to be there so um he's definitely not the guy immediately they clear ted as a suspect so that's good here um they know that judith is a stay-at-home mom she stayed at home with their 13 month old son chad all day and uh let's find out a little more about judith here uh she's born judith l dion d-i-o-n and um that's january 3rd 1960 so she just had her 23rd birthday and she's her birthday three days ago very young uh parents are pauline and alex dion and she's got siblings doreen and david as well here um she's been in the area of fayette her whole life this is she's a local girl um you know she uh went to j high school in the area graduated in 78 she was into um she had a bunch of athletic stuff she was doing she was on the field hockey team the ski team she was a cheerleader oh so she's very active and stuff everything yeah um in her yearbook she said she wanted to work in the data processing field in the future which is i don't know data i guess entered data not data entry data process i'm not sure 1983 data processing means something much different than it means now it's the tech industry of today yeah in 78 when she graduated that probably sounded like high-tech shit like oh the data processing industry she wanted a 10 key calculator is what she wanted yeah uh she married ted flag uh about a year after she graduated from high school so it's a and he's from the area too it's a small town you know small town love and get married early and they have a baby and he's working double shifts at the mill like sure you know it's a bruce springsteen song it's beautiful it's crazy um she was also associated at one point with the mounts with the spruce mountain ski school and also coached the ski and water skiing for a number of years as well in her teen years she's athletic yeah freeze it i'll ski on it yeah it's on i'll ski i'll ski on it no matter what she's uh very athletic and very she's not a meek little thing she can do things and she's kind of strong too so um capable i mean like a small framed and not a big person but athletic and and and you know kind of uh spunky we'll say so july 7th 1979 is when she married ted flag and she married ted flag and she married ted and like i said ted is also from the fayette area and they met and fell in love when they were teenagers they've been going out for a few years and they get married here um they have a son chad alex right after that when if they get married she gets pregnant they have a son i mean they're doing yeah um john cougar mellencamp is taking notes he's like what are you guys doing over there okay all right well if i just put that on a farm i got something just take that story and sure enough move it to indiana i really got something here Now, 1980, they buy a new home. is the home that they live in when she is killed okay uh it is uh in on watson heights road and they bought it from a the estate of a man named thomas mitchell who had recently died got it he's an older guy they bought the house for 48 000 according to property records i mean that's 1980 it's expensive that's a pretty that's a decent priced house like a pretty uh yeah you know not expensive exorbitant but no not a cheap cheap house high middle class in a small town yeah that's that's not bad um at this point judith is just a she's a housewife and a mother she's she's raising the baby the baby's a year old so i mean she's been raising this infant for the last year and he's been working double shifts and that's how they've been doing it um so what was the day like on january 6 1983 they're trying to piece together what happened here um they know ted came home at 11 they talked to him he said he saw chad huddled against his mother's body he said i quote i came into the house and found my little boy curled up on my wife cuddling her he'd been crying and he looked like he'd been asleep so he's probably starving too um yeah he said he was covered in blood he had nothing to eat all day the fire was out the house was getting cold oh jesus yeah this is horrible um he said i turned on the light and he came running to me jibber-jabbering and just dug his little fingernails in into me hugging and squeezing he's probably been terrified all day poor kid he doesn't know what's going on um god that poor kid he said when he found his wife quote she was cold rigor mortis had set in her body was stiff so ted's also pretty smart if he knows those things pre you know investigation discovery and all this shit being on all the time if you knew that in 1983 you're reasonable intelligence and you know things or you've lived in the woods where safety or where where emergency services aren't necessarily rendered fast and you've probably seen a dead body no no i just meant he knows the word rigor mortis that's what i mean rather than probably she got stiff yeah my point is he probably saw a dead body when he when he was younger and they were like oh rigor's already set in yeah yeah yeah yeah but i mean there are a lot of dumb people that wouldn't know that in 1980 they'd know that now back then i don't know how much much the term rigor was thrown around casually in conversation now it is but it's not and they probably the rigor like all casual like the problem yeah rigor mortis exactly yeah so for someone a layman to know that who's like 25 years old and works at a paper mill he must read a book or two or see something and see a movie so um yeah he said that you know the lights were off he's the baby was crying came to him somebody called the car he called his relatives somebody called the cops now when the police arrived there were footprints in the snow leading to the kitchen door that they found to the kitchen door from outside so that's a good thing that they none of the relatives went that way okay and ted didn't go that way so those are yeah they went to the basement right those are something to look at here and blood stains on the floor in the baby's room so they're like okay this didn't just happen here this had to go in multiple rooms um so they they uh they made casts of the footprints in the snow and they took photos and all of that they removed and bagged all the clothing they bagged the child's clothing uh they placed the bags oh bags over her hands and you know did the whole crime scene thing so they did all that correct which you might go yeah yeah who cares that's crime scene stuff but in 1983 in a town with which at the time had about 600 people in it you're not guaranteed to get a half decent crime scene we've done shows like this where the mayor comes over and like you know mayor comes over brings the kids they're like dropping Cheerios on the floor like it's insanity so a game warden's showing up counting elk pelts yeah yeah how many elk pelts you got in here there's a body that's a problem yeah I'm about to find somebody I'm about to hold on let me get my fine book out so the deputy chief medical examiner performed the autopsy took a blood sample of the fingernails and swabs of all orifices on on Judith here he put everything in separate containers and gave them to the main state police crime laboratory so that's how they did all of the crime scene now what did Judith do that day there she she spoke to a lot of people so we get uh we can get a timeline so that's good she's social yeah oh yeah well she's got talks with her family a lot too about 10 30 a.m she spoke with her sister on the phone she told her sister that a man had called earlier that morning asking for Ted and uh he said that or Judith said she told him this man that her husband was working and wouldn't be home until 11 p.m uh-huh so she just told the stranger that I'm all alone in the house till 11 p.m uh you know I'll even be here after dark don't worry yeah quite a long time several hours after dark because it gets dark at four here right now oh yeah January that is yeah 350 it is dark outside in in Maine so he she said that man didn't leave his name and that he he just said he was an old friend of Ted's and he wanted to surprise him so don't tell him I called basically uh during the phone conversation with her sister she put down the phone because somebody was at the door Judith does when Judith gets back on the phone she tells her sister that her husband's friend was there and that she'll call her back I'll call you back the guy who called earlier he's here now which why would you want you know what I mean why would you want to talk to this guy I already told you he's not here right he works at the mill go down there maybe you can catch him at lunch or something so maybe he thought 11 o'clock is just in a few minutes I'll just beat him there yeah she said 11 tonight though so anyway um she didn't call back and her sister got busy signals every time she tried to call back that day her sister kept trying to call her back about 10 45 a.m Judith called her brother she said that a man who claimed to be a friend of her husband's was at the house complaining of car trouble and her brother's a mechanic that's why she called him can you come over and help this guy get the out of my driveway essentially so this guy from yeah he offered to come over and help but the man said never mind I'll stop somewhere and fey it so the guy so Judith's brother didn't go over to the house I was like all right well never mind then about noon a male person here was on her route uh carrying uh you know driving uphill toward the house with the mail and the road is slippery because it had been snowing all day long so the day of the murder it's a big snow day she saw an oncoming uh car uh here on uh she saw a car crest the hill and swerve into a ditch and then back onto the road so that it almost struck her car but then the writer the driver got her shit together and ended up driving past her which if you've seen snowy environments that happens all the time you'll see cars do a slip out do that whoop whoop correct and then get their shit together and go and you get a good giggle yeah but she noticed the car because it did that and she said the car had a maroon body and a tan top she said that the driver was a clean shaven male in his early 20s with light brown hair wearing a tan coat a gray wool scarf and no glasses she got a good look real specific look and that's because when you're driving and especially on a back road like this not a highway and it's been snowing you're driving seven miles an hour and you see somebody do something dumb and you go who did that piece of shit yeah look at this fucking idiot but you don't even think that in the snow when someone slides you're just like oh shit don't slide into me once they get past you you're like okay i'm safe that's good um so she saw the cars everything and the guy in it she said the driver looked straight ahead without making eye contact with her but she certainly was yeah doing there she was definitely looking at him now between two and three minutes later she looked at him and she was like oh shit i'm gonna get out of here i'm gonna get out of here i'm gonna get out of here i'm gonna get out of here i'm gonna get out of here i'm gonna get out of here uh judith's brother-in-law so ted's brother i believe or judith's sister's husband i'm not sure somebody comes over to the house to install a new starter in a truck that they have at the house oh a lot of mechanical work going in the snow you're gonna put a new starter in we need that truck we need that truck we need it so judith's car was in the driveway but he said she didn't come to the window when her brother-in-law drove in and he assumed that she didn't hear him arrive or maybe went out with relatives or something okay so he said he installed the the starter and left after being at the house for 45 minutes to an hour attaboy so that's good and right away the cops are like okay so you were at the house during the day we're gonna have a chat with you then uh but it's all it all lines up he was only gone for 45 minutes yeah and uh the car had a new starter in it so that's yeah that's an hour job you know what i mean yeah he would have been real fast if he could go in there murder her then change a starter and that would be pretty impressive i gotta say that's a really that's a really thoughtful murder good news and bad news good news that starter that thing runs like a top bad news had to kill your wife as a payment sorry that's 75 chevys running running like a top yeah it's running like a top so um they said like i said set the uh time of death at about 11 p.m 11 a.m um basically there's blood and there's other blood and there's some hair and stuff like that but this is 1983 so that really doesn't mean that much blood is blood type essentially which means you know if you have a common blood type okay you and half the population could have been there. Yeah, there's very little you can learn from the blood apart from direction, how long it's been, what color it is, the right color. Yeah, that's about it. And is it dry or wet? That helps too, yeah, for the length of everything. They did find sperm in her mouth as well, which is maybe the grossest sentence I've ever said on this show. I hate that you did. There's no other way to put it. It's too. Substance and its location, that's all. I have to say some terrible shit on this show that I don't want to say and people, please know that I'm not taking in joy in saying they found sperm in her mouth. I think that's the most horrible thing I could think of. That's just bad. That's the last place you want to find that after this happens. That's no good. There's not a word, scientific or otherwise, for it that is not vile. That's it. That's what they found. So they asked Ted, does Ted have any idea who or why this could possibly happen? Are you guys in a fight with somebody or anything? And Ted said, quote, I have no idea why. We had no enemies. I'm easygoing. She's easygoing. She couldn't kill a fly or a spider. I've never even stepped on anybody's toes. Like, we're just take it as it comes, easygoing, small town people. Nobody should want to kill us. There's no reason for it. Trying to raise a kid. Trying to raise a baby here. Yeah. Um, now, the day after the murder, the mail carrier was again delivering mail on her regular route and saw the police were at the flag's home and she stopped to tell the officers what she had seen the day before. The guy with the maroon car tan top. Um, now, he, she worked with a detective to develop a composite picture of the driver she saw in the two-tone car. Because, I mean, it's just a guy on the road but they have nothing else. So, this'll help, maybe. The mail carrier was never able to identify a particular individual as the driver and could not identify a specific car. So, she turns out to be kind of useless. Sort of. But, in a way, Yeah, maroon cars with tan tops back then were so common. Yeah, but there's some specific things about this car that we'll talk about. Oh, that make it less common. That kind of, at least, give you an idea of, okay, here's a guy who had a car like that. It doesn't mean he did anything but at least kind of takes him in a direction that we're gonna go in here. So, that same day, the state police enter the investigation. They don't trust. The small town police force is not set up to do a giant investigation. They're just not. They don't have the resources, the officers, they don't have it. So, they need the state police. So, the state police moved in and set up a command post. And the commander of the state police criminal division said, what we get from the public is generally the most important information. And they said they don't want to be more than a local telephone call away. Right. They said they don't want to have someone have to make a long-distance call. They said if some people have to pay more than 10 cents, they won't call. Meaning at a pay phone. Yeah. They tell you to put an extra dime in and you're like, listen, I'm not doing an LD here. This is crazy. Not happening. So, they did that. Now, the town is fucking freaked as we said earlier. The town is, it's wild. Here is the owner of the Fayette Country store. She's got her finger on the pulse of the town here. Jean Hewitt. She said, everybody's scared to death. All the women that are home, you're bound to be when something like this happens. And then another woman here who was there at the time and lived there said, what ensued with the town was remarkable. By a year later, nobody was a stay-at-home mom. Everyone had jobs outside the house. It scared these people into, the workforce. Careers. They didn't want to sit in there. Now, at the same time, the economy was terrible at that time too. So, they might have needed to get jobs, but people apparently didn't want to be home alone all day based on this. So, they check out some leads here and they say that they did a door-to-door investigation in the area. It was basically the whole town. They went door-to-door. You know anything? You know anything? They don't really have much on it, though. They also have some evidence problems. This is the problem when you have 50 people come to a crime scene. They said the home was sealed for a week and a 12-man command center operated in the Fayette area for about a month to track down leads. The investigation began in the home and expanded to the neighborhood, but the people who visited the flag home complicated the investigation and may have cost police a lot of information. One officer here estimates that 50 people trod through the flag house before police even got there. What? Before they even got there, 50 people were in the house. No one said, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yeah. Outside will hang out. Unbelievable. They said potential evidence may have been destroyed, trampled. Other evidence might have now something we think is evidence is not evidence, really. Yeah. Somebody could have picked up a knife and been like, ew, this is gross. Wash it. Yeah. They said there were bloody fingerprints all over the house. We had to fingerprint everybody who, who responded that night. They said there were so many people walking around outside, it would really help us a lot if they stayed away. And I don't know if this is, in this case, if they destroyed any evidence or not. So we have no idea. And this is a problem here. Now, Ted, to the media, he said that he would, they asked Ted, you know, just how are you doing? And he said that he would like to thank God that whoever stabbed his wife repeatedly had not harmed his child, at least. So at least there's that. That's, that's a pretty good thing. Grim. Thanking God. Wow. So they have a whole command post set up here and they're asking, their questions are, did you see anything unusual? Any strange vehicles? Strange faces? What did you know about the victim? What else do you know? And if everyone said, I don't know, then they moved on. Oh boy. That's how they did it. They said they have a lot of tips coming over the phone and into the door. And, you know, but he said it's, they've talked to more than 150 people. In the first week. But they said much of what they heard is just unattributed rumors. No, it's small town rumors. They don't know shit. They got nothing. Nothing of substance. They said, we need to find out how these rumors start. A rumor might contain information only per, only the perpetrator and the police would know when the police find out who started it, they may have the killer right there. So that's an interesting thing here, but they might not. That's the other thing. It might've just heard something at the old general store. I mean, who the hell knows here? They said a lot of people think the investigation stops. It doesn't. It continues to and through the first day of trial. We're always looking for additional evidence. They said oftentimes people decide who had withheld information may talk to us now that the cat's out of the bag. So yeah, and they say too, there's a, some of these tips just don't really help. And by the way, the confidence in whether they can solve this or not is a little bit low because there is a whole article here from early 1980 for about the stats of how much they solve. And it's not, it is not confidence inducing at all. Very bad. They said during 1983, 24 murders occurred in Maine while 21 murder cases in one from including one from the prior year were cleared for a clearance rate of 87.5%. Not bad. I'd like to see how many people were convicted actually, but clearance rate has to do with arrest. You can arrest somebody related to police in the next day. That's still a clear case. Wow. Yeah, that's how the stats work. That's why they do that a lot, by the way, because they go by clearance rate. Forcible rapes, they get at 79.8% and aggravated assaults at 80.2%. Motor vehicle thefts all the way down at 39% and burglaries 26.2%. Wow. Yeah. And this is kind of a break-in thing. So it's, they're not good at solving based on evidence, it seems like. What if you combine all of those all of them together except for that car theft one? That's a good. You know what I mean? Because that's what this is. This is bad. During 1982, though, I have that. During 1982, the national crime clearance rate stood at, take a guess. Nationally? National crime clearance rate. 85? 20.1%. Oh, my God. Yeah. Unless you're a moron, you could pretty much get away with things. Oh, yeah, yeah, no. The crime rate was five times higher than it is now. Not five, but it's way higher than it was now. And clearance, sub 30. And that doesn't even mean convicted. Like I said, that means you could have arrested someone, let them go, because you don't have information, you don't have enough evidence, and that's still a clearance. Oh, boy. Which is pretty wild here. Now, 1984, not a lot of suspects. A year has gone by, but they have a suspect. Okay. They have one that they were kind of interested in. Thomas H. Mitchell Jr., born 1954. He's the guy, remember, does that name sound familiar? Thomas Mitchell. No. Thomas Mitchell Sr. is his dead father whose estate sold the house to the Flags. Right. He's Thomas Mitchell Jr. And apparently, when his dad died, the house was left to his stepmother and he was fucking furious about that. He thought it should have went to him. God. So, Judith and her husband purchased the house from the stepmother. Soon thereafter, Thomas Mitchell arranged for with the flags to collect personal items that he had left behind in the home. It was his dad's house. The first time Mitchell came to the house to get his shit, nobody was home. So he left a note basically saying, thanks for nothing. I drove all the way here for nothing. What the fuck? You're not even here. After getting the note, Ted, rather than have a confrontation about it, just gathered up all his shit and took it to the realtor who did the house. Who sold the house, yeah. There you go. You be the middleman. And then in 1981, Thomas Mitchell came to Flagg's home again and when Ted answered the door, you know, Flagg was standing there. Yeah. When Ted told Thomas Mitchell that the items he wanted were at the realtor, he said he looked like he was pissed and he was like, all right, fine, and he left. Which, that's not really a, he must be the murderer type of thing, you know what I mean? But he's somebody that might be mad at them. That's literally all they had. That's all we have at this point. Everybody else? Yeah. Everybody loves them. That's it. Now, the same thing, though. On January 6th, 1983, a South Portland police detective saw Thomas Mitchell, whom he knew personally, at about 7 a.m. driving a two-tone 73 Ford Thunderbird in Portland, headed north on the I-295. Portland's about 70 miles south of Fayette by car. He said he was heading that direction, but he's 70 miles away. Just because you're headed north, he couldn't see you. He could have been going to Montreal, you know what I mean? It's an hour and a half away. Who knows? Now, a little bit on his background, which made him a little bit more interesting to the police. He, while on furlough from the main state prison for a 1978 kidnapping conviction, here we'll talk about, he got furloughed there. He was released from prison in 1980, December. In 1979, that's why his shit was still there. He couldn't get it when they moved out because he was in prison. He was in jail. In 1979, he was convicted of kidnapping a 16-year-old girl in Portland. For what? Oh, for, what do you think? He served four years in prison. The jury did not convict him on a related rape charge somehow. But he kidnapped her, but for no reason, apparently. In 1981, he was indicted and found innocent on charges of gross sexual misconduct and threatening with a dangerous weapon. What's his deal? I don't know. And the county sheriff's department investigators said they found a list of women's names and addresses in his possession when he was arrested, but they didn't give any other details. He was going to do it a lot? That was apparently his thing here. They had like a Rex Uerman file going on in his computer or something. So there's a search warrant obtained to seize a pair of shoes of his from his South Portland residence to compare them to the casts of the snow footprints. They also obtained a sample of his blood and noted his possession of a car that was olive green, with a tan roof and maroon primer paint on the driver's door. So that's what the postal worker would have seen. So he has a car like that. Maroon primer ain't a thing. That's an old door from a different car. Yeah, I don't know why. That's what it says in the court document, but I understand. But the door is just maroon, though. The door is maroon, yeah. So they interview his aunt, who he lives with, okay? Eleanor Foley. And she says that she has a handwritten account of his activities, on the date of the murder. My aunt likes to keep track of, imagine your aunt keeping track of your activities when you're 27 years old and keeping it written all down and everything. Moreover, imagine calling the cops and saying, I have a handwritten description of everything that happened. They're gonna go, so the fuck what? Yeah, big deal. What does that mean? So they also ask him about it, and he refers investigators to his daily diary, which ran from 1982 to June 85, by the way, later on, we'll talk about what happens to him in June 85. What the hell? I'll give it away now. In June 85, he's charged with raping and attempting to murder a woman in Cumberland County. So. So it stops there because he doesn't have the book anymore because he's in jail? Well, that's when he stopped writing. Yeah, they wouldn't let him take it in there. He said he kept meticulous track of his movements at the request of his family members who believed police were harassing and hassling him. So they said, keep meticulous notes of where you are. Like, writing it down means you were there. It doesn't mean shit. So his diary for the day is, and this is his aunt Eleanor who made his diary entries because apparently he doesn't write too well. She detailed. He's got a stenographer. Yeah. She detailed. He told his aunt that he got out of bed at 8.15. She's his biographer. She's going to note everything. Showered and got coffee before going to town with his aunt. They stopped at Bentley's for breakfast then went to Headhunter's for a haircut while she ran an errand. At 11.45, he met up with his aunt, exchanged a shirt he got for Christmas and had a snack when he got home at 12.30. He said he went to a friend's house, returned home at 2 p.m., napped until 4.30 p.m. This guy's got quite the fucking life. I would love to live this guy's life. Ate supper, then went to another friend's home and got home at about 11.45 p.m. Midnight. Midnight. Had a snack and went to bed. Good Lord. So there's nothing they can do to poke any holes in this. He's. has his time accounted for better than most people do when you ask him where were you a year and a half ago. He goes, I'll tell you exactly where I am. We do also have it in pencil. True. But that was in the Adnan Syed case. That was one of the big things that they thought was a big smoking gun is he couldn't remember where he was because who the fuck. A random Tuesday a year ago. Where were you, Jimmy? Who the hell knows? I don't know. Tuesday. Shit. But you have a diary. They can't say anything. So February 84, the reward is up to $4,300, which doesn't seem like a lot. Seems like there should probably be more. One of the. The guy leading the investigation says, we're confident it won't go unsolved. If it takes another six months or whatever, we're determined to solve it. We are going to solve it. He said that. He said that they were working it real hard, but then they. The police, quote, got clobbered with a series of murders and sex crimes that demanded their immediate attention. People are just raping all over the place. We got to tend to it. Interesting choice of words. I'm real clobbered with all this rape and murder. Just clobbered by it. Tell you what. I mean, I'm just like penetrated by it. If that makes sense to you. Actually gobsmacked. Yeah. So June 20th, 1985, that's member Thomas Mitchell. This is when he's convicted of kidnapping and attempting to murder a 17-year-old girl in Standish. Wow. Yes. That is horrifying. He is sentenced to, you, sir, may fuck off 35 years in prison for that. So. That's a long. He's put away for a while. So if they ever consider him a suspect. We've got him. You know where he is. He was arraigned on charges of kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder. He was arrested about 9 p.m. at his home. A teenager who was found walking in Standish Monday afternoon after suffering from a severe neck wound named him as her assailant. Oh, God. Wow. Now, they talk. They go back to the. The press goes back to the flag investigation cops and they go, hey, are you going to go talk to him again? And the one cop said, there's no plans to interview Mitchell. They said that they've talked to him. They said. And they wouldn't call. They go, is his arrest a break in the case? And they said, not at all. They said, we interviewed him about a year ago. His name came up because his father owned the residence where the flags live. That was the only connection to it. That was it. They said that, you know, he was a suspect. They said he was going there to get some furniture that had been left by his father and that's why he was at the house two years earlier. But other than that. So just like a trophy from Little League. This is big ticket items. Yeah, he had like some furniture and shit. So 1985, or 1995, November 1995, there's a new suspect. 12 years have gone by. We have a new suspect. We have Lloyd Frank Millett, double L, double T. He admitted to multiple murders. Oh, really? Yes, admitted to it. So now the cops are looking at six unsolved homicide or missing person cases over the last 12 years to see if either have a tangible link to him. So they're looking into that. He's the son of a truck driver. He grew up in the area, you know, sort of in the area here. He had a falling out with his mother as a teenager and got kicked out of his house and became a carny. Nice. I'm saying guilty right away. He's a carny? Whatever you accuse him of. And a multiple murderer. Yeah. Where is that? A multiple murderer. What is that? Oh, it's a Frasier episode. Never mind. Okay. He lived around Fayette in his mid-20s and became a friend of Ted and Judith Flagg when he lived near their home. Oh. So he knows them. So they said that Millett was a pallbearer at the funeral of Judith. Yeah. So they said, what are the odds in a small town like this that your wife. The guy that did it carried her? No, no, no. That there's another murderer who happened to be friends with her, but he didn't murder her. He just carried the gun. Right. What are the fucking odds of that? Was he already a murderer prior to that? Did that kick him over the edge? Carrying a body like that? That's what they're trying to figure out. He's had tons of problems in the courts. He was arrested in four years between 87 and 91. He was arrested at least 14 times. Wow. Was convicted of rape, assault, mischief, drunk driving, writing bad checks. He's a renaissance man, really. Yeah. Does it all. The former district attorney called him, quote, a frequent flyer. You bet. That's the guy here. A former boss said he was gentle with farm animals, though he was once convicted for cruelty to his dog. After the murder is when he left this area and drifted from town to town working as a logger and a farmhand. Shit. Then he got married in 87. He got arrested a whole bunch of times. He was also, I guess, the the one of the people he's accused of killing was a 17 year old girl that lived right by them. So that's not great. He threatened to blow his wife's head off. She divorced him and she she said she regretted that she divorced him because he became a constant pain in the ass. So that's their main suspect in ninety five. Nineteen ninety six. Maine State's crime lab finally begins possessing the technology and training to test DNA specimens. That's great. Ninety six. OK. Two thousand three. So ninety six to two thousand three. Nothing happened. Seven years of nothing. Seven years. They did nothing. Millett does not turn out to be the guy they think to. I think he had an alibi that day. Yeah. So there's a total new investigation. Police detective Jason Richards is assigned to take over the case. Basically, fresh eyes. Look this over. See what we did wrong. See what we missed. Because now it's 20 years later. So all the people that were in charge that don't want to be embarrassed aren't in charge anymore. So now it's go back and tell us what we did wrong. Twenty five years ago. Yeah. So he does that. The footprint cast. They have, you know, that they're. He gets them out of evidence. They still have them. But they were broken. A crime lab technician. You are specializing in imprint evidence. Put them back together piece by piece like a puzzle. She said the prints allowed her to tell the size, tread design and manufacturers mold used to make the shoes worn by whoever made the footprints. Nice. OK. Now, of all the stuff they have, they say the lab person says they have matched the shoes to Thomas Mitchell shoes that were taken in 1984. Is that right? Yes. They said they match these shoes. OK. Then they. They do DNA tests. The swab taken from the mouth that detect the presence of sperm cells. They tested both Judith and Chad's clothing. The sleeve of Chad's clothing also contains traces of semen. There was semen on a baby. I don't think we've ever had an episode where there's semen on a baby, but there's semen on a baby. And I'm so bad. The crime lab ran test on the specimens. This is a procedure which screens out X chromosome genetic material. Which typically exists in females. And a YSTR test can exclude individuals, but it can't match samples to people. Now, the tests excluded 13-year-old Chad. He didn't rape his mother orally. 13-month-old Chad. A one-year-old is not the source of the semen. That's a. We can scientifically say that. OK. Now, they tested it to Mitchell's and they said the result was that Thomas Mitchell could not be excluded as the source of the male DNA. So then you go from there and you do a more, you know. In-depth one, yeah. We go down the funnel here. And they said that they detected two matches here when they did the next test, the PCR test. And one was Judith Flagg and the other DNA is Thomas Mitchell. Yep. They said the chance that a random person could have left the sample would have been about 300 billion to one. However, in this case, the random match probability. Was estimated at 69 quadrillion to one. Uh-oh. There's billion and then there's trillion and there's quadrillion. So that's a lot. That means they've got almost all of his alleles. Yeah. There hasn't been 69 quadrillion people who've lived on the earth since the earth has been a thing like there hasn't been September 8th, 2006. They indict him on murder charges. Thomas Mitchell. Now, pretrial stuff. There's some there's some fun stuff here. He says that he tries to suppress all the forensic evidence on the grounds that it would violate his sixth amendment confrontation rights because the guy who performed the autopsy 26 years ago is retired to Canada and he's lives up in the middle of nowhere and he's old and he says, I'm not coming here for a trial. I'm not doing it. I'm not coming to the, I'm not going to the States. I'm not doing it. So he said, well, you should have to throw out all the physical evidence then, which now that didn't work. Then he has an alternate suspect. And part of the pretrial thing is whether he's allowed to introduce an alternate suspect. Mitchell does. Mitchell does. And it's, it's not bad. I got to tell you. I'm convincing. He offers proof that included the following facts regarding a nail male neighbor of the victim, who I believe is probably millet. Okay. Uh, they don't say, uh, he wore a size 10 shoe, same size shoe as Mitchell. The neighbor lived down the street. A woman who knew the neighbor was prepared to testify that he owned a pair of shoes similar to the shoes obtained for Mitchell. Mitchell's residents and that the sole design may have resembled the design of the soles on those shoes because this isn't, this is a common shoe. It's not like Richard Ramirez in the Avia where they had one pair of black Avia sold in the entire Western United States. Yeah. You know, that's, that's a different story. Um, this is kind of a, this is a Wolverine. It's a, it's a, it's a shields shoe that fucking the Northeast wears. That's they have like seven types of shoes. Everybody. There's no shoes and he said shoes you wear in the rain. Um, she also saw the neighbor wearing the shoes only once on a date near the murder. The neighbor had a beige jacket with a wool collar and sometimes wore a scarf. Remember the postal worker saw that a woman saw the neighbor in a suede camel colored coat that she never saw again after the murder. Uh, a woman had been beaten up by the neighbor in the past and this woman thought he was very violent. The neighbor owned a two tone green automobile. The neighbor met Judith. At a store where he once worked and said she was quote, nothing but a slut. What? So young married mother with a baby. It was just a huge, just cat and all around town. Ridiculous choice of words, right? Uh, then Judith saw a man or I'm sorry, Thomas, uh, the husband, Ted, he saw a man working on his car outside her window two days before the murder and told a guest who was visiting her that the man was a friend of her husband's who lived down the road. The neighbor's alibi. Uh, alibi that he was at the unemployment office and at a restaurant didn't check out. The neighbor went to the restaurant after an employee was interviewed by the police and said, you saw me here that day, didn't you? Okay. After the murder, the neighbor was nervous and fidgety. He frequently spoke about the murder. The neighbor was having trouble with his car around the time of the murder and some damage to the front of the car was observed five days after the murder. The mail carrier, uh, carrier who observed a car driven into the ditch that morning, um, did not testify. To having observed whether the car was damaged in any way, though, the neighbor's features were similar to those depicted in the composite drawing. The mail carrier also stated when viewing a photograph of the neighbor, uh, number seven seems to have an unusually mean look. I would like to see him in a lineup with a camel coat. Oh, I'd like to see him in that. You know what? I'd like to see him in a nice pair of brown loafers. When he put those on, I like to see him in black lace. Can you do that to him? I'd like to see how he looks. He looks in a little negligee. Just a little black lacy number. What do you think? Put it on him. Uh, the neighbor had a fight with some underwire. Yeah. The neighbor had a fight with a girlfriend who was Judith's best friend and Judith took her friend's side in the dispute. Um, and, uh, by the way, in the 2006 report, the latent fingerprint examiner was not able to rule out the neighbor as a source of certain fingerprints. Oh no. After considering this, the judge excludes all of this. Not allowed. Wow. Not allowed. Um, it's just confusing. They say now June, 2009 is the trial. It has moved to Franklin County. Okay. Because of publicity, obviously. Um, there's a Sergeant here who testified about seeing the olive green 73 Thunderbird with the tan top chrome grill maroon primer along one side operated by Mitchell heading North out of Portland that morning. Uh, the mail carrier talk, they bring her in there and the, you know, they're talking about that, talking about the. Thunderbird maroon Thunderbird with a tan top and grown Chromeville, uh, grill. Um, the prosecutor says that she, you know, the description matches Mitchell's appearance. Uh, Mitchell was not unknown to the flags. Um, you know, he had come over before he'd been kind of pissy, a little bit upset, but being a little annoyed two years earlier is tough to say motive. It's pretty well fair again. Yeah. It's just, he knew where a woman was in the house alone basically is what it was. So they said at that point, he was in the house alone. Uh, they said, despite the main state police detectives, early interest in the, in Thomas Mitchell, which culminated in a search of his home, the case went cold in 84 and the prosecutor said at that point, the investigation into the death of Judy flag basically stopped. They said the evidence will show that Judith flag fought for her life and her baby's life, which she did cause she had defensive wounds on her. She was fighting and she's a field hockey chick. She's going to fight. She's capable. Yeah, she's capable. Uh, if you give her a little stick, you're fucked. She'd have beat your ass with that thing, probably. Now, the defense here, they gave the opening statement. They said there's no dispute to the timeline of the murder. However, the evidence used by the state, they said it's been stored for decades. And this was taken prior to modern-day evidentiary procedures. So who knows what they did with it? They could have stuck it up their ass, you know, twirled it around, brought it out. We don't know. He said there's no eyewitnesses to this crime. Because of that, the state's case is entirely made up of circumstantial evidence. Oh, and DNA, stupid. Well, there is that, yeah, but also conjecture. A lot of conjecture. He pointed out that there's as many as 15 people had been inside and outside the Flagg residence before the police had arrived. The police said 50. I don't know if somebody misheard 15 for 50 or what. But as Ted Flagg called his family first, they said the footprints were broken. They were reconstructed. They're not perfect. The fingerprints taken inside the home, none of them are ever proven to come from Mitchell. And they say some to this day are unidentifiable. Unidentified. Could be anybody. So they said his client, who intended to testify, had stayed at his father's home years earlier in the baby's room where police would later determine a struggle had occurred. Now, they say Mitchell suffered an injury which resulted in him bleeding profusely years earlier in that room. So that's where his blood came from. He said, you heard me say earlier that justice delayed is justice denied. He said, and that's true when one considers what the Flagg family's. Gone through. But Mr. Mitchell has been inconvenienced by this delay. Poor guy's been he's been in prison since 1985. The guy's having a tough go. That's the thing. When they indicted him, by the way, he was five days from being released from prison. They're like, no, my God. No, pass all your back. And he was in there for 20 years. And he was five days from being released. They said Mr. Mitchell has been inconvenienced. This is the people he was living with his mother. The aunt are now deceased. And they said, so they can't, you know, they can't testify for him and tell him that tell you where he was. They say three pubic hairs were found on the outside of her clothing. Those hairs examined at a microscopic level in 83 were determined not to have come from either of the flags. However, they were also to be shown to be incompatible with Mitchell. Well, let's run those some DNA on those and we'll find out. What do you say? Give that a run. Yeah. So he testifies. Really? He does. He does it. He took the stand. He said, I was nowhere near Fayette that morning. Didn't happen. Spent the day with my aunt in South Portland. They said, well, how'd your blood get in there? He said he injured himself and bled on the carpet in the house when his father owned it. He said that his father had cleaned the bloodstain with bleach. I was there for a very long time before my my DNA is all over that house. It's all over. Now, the problem is Ted and the realtor who listed the house, who looks it over meticulously, said that there was no stain or bleach. Mark on the carpet when the flags bought the house. So that didn't happen. Mitchell's stepmother testified that she had no recollection of him injuring himself in the house when she owned it. Also, in closing, the prosecutor said that man, this defendant, him committed a crime so horrible that it must be every woman's nightmare. Yeah, I would say being alone in your house with your baby and having somebody come in and rape and murder you. That's a nightmare. Yeah. And leaving my corpse for my kid to jungle. Gym on the crawl on. That's nice. He said that Judith Flagg fought for her life as she was stabbed in the chest, stomach and back. And he said now more than 26 years later, the evidence speaks for Judy and Chad Flagg through the application of modern DNA technology. The evidence speaks for them and it speaks to you. OK, the defense. Totally different thing. They said, quote, In this case, the long search for truth has simply been subordinated by the pressure to solve this cold case. Now, as 20 years go by, there's less pressure, actually, to solve the cold case. That's the thing. There was a lot of pressure in 1983 and 4. At the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is there's not. So this is just they found evidence that matched. There's a box in a room somewhere. That's the case. Yeah. They said that the state failed to identify or investigate Tom's alibi. And they said that his aunt could have been interviewed in 1983 about his alibi, which she was. They said, but she can't testify. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because she's dead. She died in like 2000, I think. Oh, no. So this goes to the jury. And this is 2009. The trial takes place. So people are six years later and they're well aware of DNA by now. This isn't like this isn't like the OJ jury where they was kind of new or whatever. This is this is a, you know, they expect it. They know they've seen CSI has been on for 10 fucking years. So they get it. An hour and a half of deliberations. And they. They find him guilty of intentional and knowing murder. Wow. After the verdict, two dozen relatives of the flags. When the prosecutor walked out, they gave him like a standing ovation in the courtroom for doing it outside the court. Judith Flag's mother, Pauline, said the community is safe again. That's good. That's nice. And they said they've never let they were thankful to the investigators. They, quote, never let this go, which even according to the prosecutor. They stopped investigating it in 1984. They're being very nice. We'll put it that way. This is a very nice group of people. This family. They're trying to be polite. They also said that they were told long ago that Mitchell was a suspect. They said, Mr. Mitchell's been in jail for a number of years. So we know where he's been. Now he's facing much more. This is not so much closure for us. If he were out of jail, it would happen again. During sentencing, they bring up that. This is the third time he's been convicted of writing a woman. And he had stuff and he's been acquitted and, you know, charges dropped before. So this is not good. And with all that being said, judge says, you, sir, may fuck off life without parole. Eat dicks. Dick eating lines that way. Asshole. No loss. Freedom. No moss. You're here forever. Betting 85. You never thought you were never getting out. But here we are. Got him. Fuck off. In 2010, he appeals. Based on the alternate suspect. Should the alternate suspect have been excluded? That's a big deal. It's a lot of rule 701 shit that I don't have time to get into that. But I'd love to get into that because I love legal shit like that. It's very interesting. But anyway, there is a dissenting opinion in it that says that they should have allowed in the alternate suspect evidence. Basically, what the what they're the main fucking thrust of this is, hey. You could have allowed in all the alternate suspects you want. None of their fucking DNA was in there. And his was. His sperm was in on a one year old sleeve. That's a problem. Explain that, asshole. It's a big problem. Did you leave a whole sperm vat behind when you moved out to? I bled on the carpet once. Oh, and that's my sperm vat in the garage. Also, I have. It's about 12 gallons. I keep here. It stays spreadable. It's it's always it stays very. I keep a lid on it. So it's. It stays, you know, how it goes there. So that's how that goes. That appeal is denied, though. 2018. He appeals again. Lost a bid to start a process that could have gotten him a new trial based on errors in the FBI data used for DNA calculations. So he's saying it's not actually one in sixty nine quadrillion. The calculations were off. OK. But you're the DNA still matches you. It's just maybe. Yeah. Maybe it's one in twenty billion instead of. One in sixty nine quadrillion. Much less. Much less. Imposing number. Yeah. And they say, no, you're good. Fuck off. Hang in there. He's still in prison. He's a bad guy and he's still there. So there you go, everybody. That is Fayette, Maine. And just a goddamn mess of a case. Just does he still have appeals left? Is he still trying? From what I saw, the last one I saw was 2018. I don't know if he's content now. I don't know if he's loading up for another one or if he if he has nothing to appeal on. Anymore? I'm not sure what it is, but he's going through the motions here. So, wow, crazy fucking story. And I get a lot of credit, by the way, to the to the family there. The flags, you know, and then the Deons and all those people, they were Christ. They were patient and then they weren't even shitty about it. They were like, they never stopped working hard rather than going. We're all lucky this happened because you guys have dropped the fucking ball completely. Yeah, which and we ran through the crime scene a lot. So we apologize for that's us. Yeah. But we didn't know. We hadn't seen CSI yet. We didn't know. If you like that show or like any of the shows we put out, do us a favor. Head to whatever app you are listening on or Netflix or anything and give five stars or thumbs up or whatever the fuck it is, wherever it is. It helps a lot. We don't know why. Head over to shut up and give me murder dot com where you get tickets for live shows. It's tons of merchandise there as well. Everything from skateboards to coffee cups. 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