Open Door Policy (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

In the fall of 2009, a very anxious college student was sitting inside of a crowded lecture hall in Southern California, listening to his professor give a talk, when suddenly, the doors to the building opened up and in walked three campus police, along with a man in a suit. And so everybody goes quiet, the professor as well, and these men, they walk down to the front and they whisper something to the professor. At which point, the professor, who looks confused himself, he goes to the podium and he leans into the mic and he looks up at the anxious college student. And the professor just says, "They want to talk to you." But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to come with you on a fun, long road trip. And at some point, when you're out on the road, when the follow button has to use the bathroom, pull over to a rest stop and let them out, but then before they come back, out again, just leave. Okay? Let's get into today's story. On the morning of Thursday, October 22nd, 2009, a forty-one year old man, named James, named Damon Nicholson, opened the double doors to a hotel ballroom in Laguna Beach, California. Damon was an event planner at the hotel, and today, he was giving a tour to a recently engaged couple who wanted to use the space for their wedding. So event planning was like the perfect job for Damon, because he loved a good party, and he'd always been great with people. And in fact, by the time he'd shown this couple the ballroom and then led them out onto the veranda to show off the hotel's amazing beachfront views. They were all chatting and laughing like they were longtime friends. And the couple was now dead set on using this space. Just then, Damon felt a cell phone buzz in his pocket. So he politely excused himself, he stepped away, and when he pulled his phone out, he saw he had gotten a text message from a college student who he had just recently begun dating. The guy's name was Alan Caulfield. And Alan was texting Damon just to make sure they were still on for their date that night. After reading this message, Damon found himself not really sure how to respond. After all, I mean, right now he was feeling really tired because the night before he had been out late, having a good time, and actually the night before that as well, he'd been out late. So he's like really tired from all the partying he was doing. Laguna Beach was known for having this really big gay community, and Damon liked to date around quite a bit. He'd grown up in a much more conservative family, and his sexual orientation had always been a source of a lot of pain in his life, but here in Laguna Beach, he felt fully accepted and free. And he was really enjoying his life. But his lifestyle could also get kind of wild sometimes, with partying so hard, and like he even got involved in some of these anonymous group sex parties. I mean, he really was just living it up. And in fact, this week, in addition to being tired from all the partying he had been doing, also all this staying out late and partying had gotten him behind on his work. And so in seeing this text from Alan, he's thinking, "You know what? I don't really feel up for another night of that, but also like I really need to be responsible and like do my work tonight." But he really liked Alan. He didn't want to give off the impression that, you know, he wasn't interested. And so he ultimately was like, "You know what? I'll go out with him." So Damon just sent a text confirming the date back to Alan, and then he put the phone back in his pocket and walked over and continued the tour. Later that same night. Around 10:00 PM, Damon stood on the porch of his first floor apartment, watching Alan's car pull away from the curb. They'd spent a few fun hours together, but Damon had actually cut the night short. He had really enjoyed, you know, having his time with Alan, but even though it was late, he did need to get some work done. And so he figured that's what he would do before going to bed. So Damon watched Alan's car disappear around the corner, and he turned and went back inside of his apartment, leaving the sliding glass door open just a few inches. He walked over and sat down on the couch. He opened up his laptop and it took him a minute to sort of get focused again. But once he did, he got in the zone and he sort of lost track of time. And he'd been working for a while when he heard footsteps out on the porch outside. And he looked up just as the door slid open. At 2:30 PM the next day, a woman named Lindsay Scott got out of her car and walked over to Damon's apartment. Lindsay worked with Damon at the hotel. And she was worried because he hadn't shown up to work that morning. So now, after calling him multiple times with no response, Lindsay had decided to just go over to Damon's place and just check on him during her break. As she stepped onto the porch, Lindsay saw the sliding glass door leading into Damon's apartment was open. But Lindsay actually was not that surprised because she had been to parties at Damon's place and she knew he had this kind of open door policy where his friends would just drop by unannounced. So Lindsay just. poked her head through the open door and called out for Damon. When he didn't answer, she stepped inside, but immediately frozen shock at what she saw. Then right away she turned, ran out of the apartment, she grabbed her phone, and she called 911. About 30 minutes later, Detective Larry Bammer of the Laguna Beach Police Department parked his car outside of Damon's apartment building - it was a small building and it was located about a block away from the beach. This was a pretty quiet area - in fact, in Bammer's experience, this area really didn't see much crime at all. And a homicide, like the one Bammer had been brought in here to investigate, was basically unheard of. Bammer made his way over to the building, he ultimately climbed up the steps to the wooden porch, he ducked under the yellow crime scene tape that was blocking the doorway, and he stepped inside of Damon's apartment. The small apartment was already crowded with crime scene techs who were taking photos and dusting everything for prints. The body of a man was slumped over right on the couch, fully dressed and also partially covered in pillows. Bammer walked over to get a better look, and when he did, he realized he actually recognized the victim. It was Damon Nicholson, the event planner who for years had coordinated the police department's annual Christmas party. Bammer shook his head because, you know, in his experience, Damon had always seemed like a really nice guy, you know, he couldn't think of, you know, how he could get wrapped up in something that would. turn into him getting murdered. But, you know, Bammer was here to do a job, and so despite the personal connection, he leaned in and got to work. And right away, he noticed that the back of Damon's head was covered with blood, like he'd been struck with a blunt instrument. But there were no obvious contenders for the murder weapon anywhere in sight, like nobody had brought anything up that could have been used to kill him. Additionally, Bammer didn't see any blood anywhere else in the room he was in, aside from obviously the blood on the victim. And also on the couch. So that likely meant Damon likely died where he was right now. Next, Bammer looked at the throw pillows that had been piled up on Damon's legs. From how they were positioned, it was obvious that Damon had not put them there himself. Bammer knew that killers sometimes covered up the victims' bodies. It was usually a sign of shame or remorse after the fact. So that could mean that the killer knew Damon personally, and after killing him, they felt bad. They thought it was a good thing that Damon covered him up or something, but the pillows were definitely not definitive by any means. Once he'd seen enough of the body, Bammer walked around the rest of the apartment before ultimately making his way over to the forensic team lead. And she confirmed that there were no signs of forced entry, and that according to the woman who had called 911, Lindsay Scott, the door had been open when she arrived. Lindsay had also said that Damon had a habit of leaving the door open whenever he was home, but she didn't want to do that. She didn't want to do it. She wanted to get out of the apartment. street. It was like either one really could have happened here. Either way, if the killer had taken Damon's cell phone, they had made a huge mistake because Damon's phone could be tracked. And if the killer still had it, it would lead Bammer right to them. On October 25th, 2009, so two days after Damon Nicholson was found bludgeoned to death in his apartment, Detective Larry Bammer climbed into a dumpster right outside of an apartment building about 20 minutes north of Damon's home in Laguna Beach. Once inside, he crouched down and began sorting through the garbage. Bammer had tracked Damon's missing cell phone to this apartment building, so he knew it had to be somewhere nearby. But this building was enormous, and searching it unit by unit would take days. And on top of that, it just seemed unlikely that the killer had tracked Damon's cell phone to this apartment building. It was a chance that they had realized the phone could be tracked and had dumped it somewhere. So now, Bammer and a dozen other officers were checking all the dumpsters before they resorted to going inside and canvassing the building unit by unit. By this point, for context, Bammer had reviewed the autopsy report for Damon Nicholson, and it confirmed that Damon had died from multiple blows from a blunt instrument, probably sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 AM on October 23rd. The forensic team had found fingerprints inside of Damon's apartment. But they had found so many different fingerprints from so many people that, in essence, the fingerprints became useless. There was just too many of them. However, they had found DNA inside the lid of Damon's garbage can, which Bammer knew, or assumed, the killer had very likely touched when they dumped out the trash and took the trash liner. Now, Damon and his team had already seen the fingerprints on the trash can, and they had already sent that DNA sample to the crime lab for analysis. But those results would take a few weeks at least to come back. So in the meantime, finding Damon's missing phone was the best lead. And so now, Bammer was still knee-deep in trash, sifting through the dumpster, when he heard a door open nearby. He stood up, and he turned to see this bearded man step out of the apartment building, and he's looking over at Bammer inquisitively. Bammer showed the man his badge and explained the whole situation. And when he mentioned that they were specifically looking for a cell phone that they had tracked to this building, the bearded man replied that he knew exactly where they could find that phone, because he had it. Minutes later, Detective Bammer followed the bearded man into a cluttered office on the first floor of the apartment building. The man, who gave his name as Rick Larson, explained that he was the building custodian, and that he actually regularly checked the dumpsters to see if tenants had thrown out anything good. Then, he opened up the top drawer of his desk, and he took out a cell phone that he had found. And Bammer, when he saw it, he took out his own phone, and he called Damon's phone number. And sure enough, a moment later, the trash can phone, the one that had been in Rick's desk, began to ring. So this was definitely Damon's phone. But now Bammer had to wonder if Rick's dumpster diving story was true, or if it was just an excuse to explain why he was in possession of a murdered man's missing phone. So, Bammer was pretty direct, and just asked Rick point-blank where he'd been between 1 and 3 a.m. on the morning of October 23rd. And Rick, when he heard this question, looked genuinely surprised, and then sort of worried. And then he said he'd been here, asleep in his own apartment. But when Bammer pressed him on this, you know, asked him, "Is there anybody else out there who could verify that you really were here?" Rick just shook his head and said, "No, he'd been alone." Just a little while later, Bammer left the apartment building, but now carrying two bags. One bag contained Damon's cell phone, and the other bag contained the DNA kit with Rick Larson's sample in it. Now, it would take time for the crime lab to compare Rick, the apartment building custodian, his sample that they had just gotten to the DNA from the crime scene. But in the meantime, Bammer did now have Damon's phone to go through. He still wasn't sure if Damon had been killed by a random burglar, or just a random stranger period, or if maybe there was a personal component to the murder. And so now, he wanted to try to dig into Damon's personal life and find out who he'd been spending time with before he was killed. And a way to do that was going to hopefully be through his phone. A few days later, just after lunch, Bammer sat inside of an interview room, across from a professionally dressed man with a big gauze bandage wrapped around one of his hands. Bammer had spent the last few days reviewing Damon's phone records, and also his online dating profile. And by now, he knew that Damon had been seeing a number of men before his murder. So, Bammer was working through that list of men and bringing them in, one by one. The man with the bandaged hand that he was interviewing right now was a guy named Ethan Cooper. And from Damon's phone activity, Bammer knew that Ethan had gone on a date with Damon just two nights before the murder. Bammer did not need to tell Ethan that Damon was dead, because clearly, Ethan already knew. I mean, as it was, the murder was all over the news. And it was an especially big deal for Laguna Beach's gay community. So by this point, it was like everybody knew, Ethan included. According to Ethan, his date with Damon a couple of days before the murder had been pretty straightforward. They'd gone out for drinks before heading back to Damon's place to watch a movie, and Ethan had wound up spending the night there. At some point, Bammer asked Ethan about the bandage on his hand, and Ethan explained that it was actually a spider bite. Bammer was surprised to hear this. I mean, spider bites, especially spider bites that require huge bandaging, are pretty rare. And so he just asked to see it. And Ethan clearly hesitated. But then he did unwrap the bandage, and he held out his hand. And there definitely was a big wound on Ethan's hand. It was right in the center of his palm. But to Bammer, it did not look like a spider bite, or not like any spider bite he had ever seen. It didn't even look like a puncture of any kind. It looked more like a cut, like a laceration, the kind of wound that someone might get during a life-and-death struggle with somebody else. Ethan must have read Bammer's face, because he quickly added that he had gotten this bite before Damon was murdered, and that he'd actually shown the bite to his boss at work, who could vouch for him. Bammer said he'd take down the number for Ethan's boss, as well as contact info for anyone who could verify Ethan's whereabouts on the night of the murder. And while he had Ethan there, he said he'd like to get a DNA sample too. The next morning, Bammer was back inside the interview room with the next person on his list. This time, it was a middle-aged man in glasses named Todd Daniels. From reading all their messages to each other in Damon's cell phone, Bammer could tell that Todd and Damon had been friends for years, and that they had seen each other the night after Damon's date with Ethan, which was one night before Damon was killed. When Bammer asked Todd what he and Damon had done that night, so again, the night before Damon was killed, Todd seemed really uncomfortable. Todd explained that what he had to say about that night was extremely personal, but he was willing to share it with the police on the off chance that it could be relevant. Bammer told him he really couldn't make any promises in terms of what he did with the information he was going to get, but he would try to be discreet. So Todd, somewhat reluctantly, explained that he and Damon had not just been friends. They had actually been sexually involved. They'd been hooking up casually for years, and that their visits always tended to go the exact same way. Todd would show up at Damon's apartment and just let himself in through the sliding door that was often just left open. Todd said that inside, the lights would all be off in the apartment, and Damon would be waiting, wearing nothing but a ski cap pulled all the way down to cover his face. Sometimes, Todd said it wouldn't just be him who was showing up to meet up with Damon. Todd would bring other partners to join in. Basically, it was, you know, anonymous sex. And Todd said he was pretty sure he was not the only one with this kind of arrangement with Damon. Damon clearly did this with other men, too. Bammer, after hearing this, just sort of sat there in silence for a moment. If Todd was right here, it meant that Damon had, you know, potentially for years, been letting an unknown number of strangers into his home. And that meant Bammer's pool of suspects had just gotten a whole lot bigger. On the morning of October 29th, so one week after the murder, Bammer was at his desk, still working tirelessly to get through all of Damon's contacts, to figure out, like, who's even in this suspect pool. And so he leaned closer to his computer screen, and he's reading all this information, and he's just so frustrated because it just felt like this was an overwhelming amount of work. Since his interview with Todd, the man who brought up that Damon allowed strangers to come in and have sex with him, since that meeting, Bammer had spoken to more than a dozen men who had had casual sexual relationships with Damon, including some with arrangements that were in fact similar to the one that Todd had described. Now, Bammer had already collected DNA samples from most of these men he had spoken to, and he had sent those samples off to the lab, along with the ones he'd gotten from Rick and Ethan and Todd. But again, it's like, it's just a waiting game. You gotta wait for the results to come back, and it's like, the likelihood of. you're going to find a match is kind of low because there's just so many people now that comprise this pool. But Bammer now had another lead that did seem really promising. He finally had more details on a phone number that had called and texted Damon multiple times on the night he died. The number belonged to a man named Alan Caulfield, and it looked like Alan and Damon had been planning to see each other on the night that Damon died. And so if that date had happened, if these two got together, it would make Alan very likely the last person to have seen Damon alive. So after reviewing his notes, Bammer picked up his phone and he called Alan's number. When Alan picked up, Bammer explained that he was a detective with the Laguna Beach police and he really needed to speak with Alan about a homicide. And Alan, without asking for any clarification about who had been killed or really anything at all, he just stammered that he didn't think he needed any information about anything like that. It was very obvious to Bammer that Alan did not want to be on this phone call. So before he could allow Alan to hang up, Bammer just got right to the point and asked if Alan had been to Damon Nicholson's apartment on the night of October 22nd. Alan was silent for a long moment, and then when he finally did reply, he just said that he was not willing to answer that question. One morning in early November of 2009, so just over a week after Damon Nicholson was murdered at his apartment in Laguna Beach, Detective Larry Bammer stood in an empty college classroom in San Diego, California. A young man named Alan Caulfield sat in a chair in front of him, very nervously tapping his foot on the floor. Alan had not been willing to admit anything over the phone with Bammer, but Bammer believed that he had been with Damon on the night he was killed. And so that fact, combined with Alan's reluctance to talk to the police, had pushed Alan to the top of Bammer's suspect list. Bammer thought scaring Alan with a public scene might rattle him and get him to open up. So Bammer had made the 80-minute drive to Alan's college and asked the campus police to pull Alan out of class and bring him to an empty classroom to conduct the interview. Basically rip him out of his life and force him to confront a homicide detective. And so now, when Bammer asked the very rattled Alan if he had been to Damon's apartment on the night of October 22nd, Alan, this time, did not try to put up a fight. Instead, he just shut his eyes and he nodded and said yes. He said that he had met Damon sometime around 8:00 PM that night, and they'd hung out for a little bit, and then Alan had left sometime around 10:00 PM, and he had just driven back home. That was it. Bammer jotted the info down in his notepad, but inside he's thinking to himself, okay, you know, if Alan's telling me the truth, that meant he left Damon's apartment a few hours before Damon was killed because the autopsy said that Damon was killed sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 AM, Alan saying he was gone by 10:00 PM. However, Alan had been really cagey with Bammer on the phone. He wouldn't give him any information. He was so quick to dismiss even talking to Bammer, and now Bammer had to drive all the way here and cause a scene just to get him to what, admit to spending a couple of hours with Damon? If he had nothing to do with it, this should have been revealed very quickly. And so at this point, Bammer was not totally sold that what Alan had just told him was true. So he asked Alan to just give them a DNA sample. It would be the cleanest way to rule him out. And Alan, he paused and just stared at the floor for a second. And then he said, okay, whatever the police wanted, he would do. About two weeks later on November 17th, so just under a month after Damon was murdered, detective Bammer was back at his desk reviewing the case files. And as he did, he found himself constantly looking over at his phone because the crime lab had told him to expect the long awaited DNA results any day now. And so he's anxiously waiting to see those results. Bammer really hoped the crime lab had found something useful because his best lead in this case had just completely fallen apart. Alan Caulfield, the cagey college student, had ultimately provided a fast food receipt that placed him a good distance from Damon's apartment around the time the police believed Damon was killed. Now, this was not an airtight alibi because the autopsy only gave the police a rough estimate for the murder time, which was 1:00 to 3:00 AM. So there was still a chance that maybe Alan had doubled back later to kill Damon. But for now, this fast food receipt was enough to push Alan a little bit down the suspect list. Meanwhile, Todd Daniels, the middle aged man who'd been hooking up with Damon for years, who described the anonymous group sex settings, well, he was looking even more suspicious. Now, Todd had seemed really cooperative in his interview, but Bammer had recently learned something potentially quite significant. Todd just so happened to live in the exact same apartment building where Damon's stolen phone had turned up. To Bammer, it just felt like there was no way this could be a coincidence. However, Bammer, in addition to being suspicious of Todd Daniels here, he was also really suspicious of Ethan Cooper, the man who had that strange wound on his hand that he said was a spider bite. Because following the interview where Bammer met Ethan and saw the spider bite, he had contacted Ethan's boss. And the boss had said that Ethan told him about that injury before Damon's murder, that was true. But the boss said he didn't call it a spider bite. He said it was a work injury. So to Bammer, it felt like the fact that Ethan seemed to have changed the story about the injury felt off. And in the context of what was being investigated, it felt very suspicious. And then of course, there was also Rick Larson, the sort of forgotten about building custodian who just so happened to have Damon's phone in his possession when the police tracked it down. And although he claimed he had been alone in his apartment at the time of the murder, he still didn't have anybody who could actually vouch for him. So it was just sort of like his word against the timeline. Thinking about all this stuff just made Bammer's head hurt. And it just reminded him how contradictory all the evidence in this case had been from the start. The phone being missing from the apartment and then somehow found over at this apartment building suggested it had been stolen, which points to this being a robbery. But the pillows piled up on Damon's body hinted at a personal motive. So not a random burglary, but a grudge maybe. Now, the unlocked door suggested crime of opportunity slash stranger committing this crime. But all the people who used that door or who knew about there being an open door to Damon's place, they all had a personal connection with Damon. They had a sexual history with him. So it didn't feel random. It felt like, you know, again, personal. It was like every time a lead took Bammer in one direction, another one appeared to send him back the other way. And so now he was weeks into this investigation and felt like he had no idea who did it or why. It was like, was it personal? Was it random? Was it a robbery? Was it a grudge? Nobody seems to know. And so Bammer was grappling with all this in his head when his phone finally rang. Bammer grabbed it and he answered it. And he had this jolt of excitement when the caller said they were with the crime lab. And they told him that they have finished analyzing the DNA samples that he had submitted. And they had a match. As soon as Bammer was given the results of this test, he was given the information of the person it matched. He hung up and he ran a search on his computer. And as he began to read, the frustration that had been sitting on his chest just lifted because he could see it now. Every contradiction, every loose thread, every piece of evidence that had seemed to point in different directions, they had all, in fact, been pointing at the same person. He just hadn't known it yet. Based on evidence collected at the crime scene, witness testimony, and a partial confession, this is what police believe happened to Damon Nicholson between the night of October 22nd and the early morning hours of October 23rd, 2009. The killer climbed the steps of the porch outside of Damon's apartment and found that the sliding glass door was open, just like last time. So they turned back and sort of gestured to their accomplice, saying like, "Hey, the plan's on." The killer then slid the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside the apartment. And immediately, they spotted Damon on the couch. He was sitting up. He was typing on his laptop on the coffee table. But as the killer entered the apartment, Damon stopped and turned around and looked right at them. And when Damon looked at the killer, Damon smiled. But then, a second later, the killer's accomplice also slipped through the door, at which point Damon's smile vanished. And then, before Damon could call out for help or really do anything, the killer walked over to the couch and lifted up the metal baseball bat they'd brought along. Damon saw the bat and threw his arms over his head to defend himself, but the killer took one step to the side and swung the bat and struck Damon's skull. And then from there, the killer wound up and struck Damon again and again until Damon wasn't moving. He stood no shot. For a moment, the killer just stood there staring down at what they'd done. Damon at this point was either dead or actively dying, but he was just slumped over on the couch and there was blood pouring out the back of his head. So the killer's in a daze. And then at some point, the accomplice, who was actually still in the apartment, but they had stayed near the door, they were not close to the actual scene, they hadn't really seen what was going on and they called out to the killer like, hey, what's going on in there? And they kind of snapped the killer out of their shock they were in, at which point the killer grabbed some throw pillows and put them on top of Damon's body to try to obscure him from view. Then at that point, the two of them, the killer and the accomplice, made their way through the apartment, grabbing Damon's laptop, his cell phone, and some other electronics. In the kitchen, the killer spotted that trash can and got an idea. They walked over and they dumped the trash can out so all the contents are all over the kitchen floor. But now with this empty trash can liner, they wrapped up their bloody baseball bat to keep it from dripping all over the apartment on the way out. And then a few minutes later, the killer, who now has this bloody bat in the bag in hand, and the accomplice, left through the sliding glass door, completely oblivious to all the mistakes they'd made. Like, for example, leaving DNA on the trash can and also taking a cell phone that could be tracked. When Detective Vammer got the name of the person whose DNA matched the DNA on the trash can, he immediately headed out to make an arrest. And where did he go? He went straight to the apartment building where Damon's cell phone had been found. But he didn't go to the apartment, of Damon's longtime casual romantic partner, Todd Daniels. Nor did he go to see Rick Larson, the building's custodian, who claimed to have found the phone in the dumpster. It would turn out both Todd and Rick were completely innocent. And so Vammer, he went to the apartment of this woman, whose son was a guy named Matthew Dragna. He was 19 years old, and his DNA was already in the police database from a previous burglary. Matthew and Damon's longtime casual romantic partner, Todd, they had started hooking up a few weeks before Damon's murder. And when Todd went to see Damon on October 21st, two days before the murder, he brought Matthew with him for a threesome as part of that anonymous sex routine that Damon was known for. And while he was there participating in this, Matthew, the 19-year-old, took note of Damon's very open lifestyle and the fact that he literally left his door open. Matthew, the 19-year-old, took note of Damon's very open lifestyle and the fact that he literally left his door open. And Matthew saw an opportunity. And so Matthew recruited a friend to help him rob the place, and the next night, they came back. And this time, when Matthew walked through the sliding glass door of Damon's apartment, he found Damon on the couch. And immediately, he decided to beat him to death, so he would not interfere with the robbery. Matthew Dragna was arrested on November 18th, 2009 and charged with Damon's murder. After a very drawn-out legal battle, he eventually pled guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and burglary and got a final sentence of just over 28 years in prison. As for Matthew's accomplice, who was a man named Jacob Quintanilla, he was also convicted of manslaughter, but sentenced to just over seven years in prison. A quick note about our stories: they are all based on true events. But, we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin Podcast: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacascio. This episode was written by Andrew Kelleher. Story editing by Luke Baratz. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Lehan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasciano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacascio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Minata and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner. Theme song, Something Wicked, by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, you won't be disappointed if you subscribe to our channel. Trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/PodcastsPlus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. Subtitles by the Amara.org community