1
00:00:00,760 --> 00:00:05,960
Hey everyone, I recently wrapped my
other show, Unsafe Spaces. It's an

2
00:00:05,960 --> 00:00:12,960
investigative, serialized true crime podcast that
looks into Stephen Lorenzo and Scott Schweikert,

3
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:18,600
two gay men who were targeting and
murdering other gay men in the Tampa Bay

4
00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:23,239
area of Florida. Season one is
complete and bingeable now, So while you're

5
00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:27,600
waiting for the next season of true
crime bullshit coming next month, I'll be

6
00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:32,840
sharing the first four episodes of Unsafe
Spaces with you here. Listen and then

7
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:37,920
head on over to Unsafe Spaces and
Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening now and

8
00:00:38,039 --> 00:00:51,399
binge the rest of the season.
This is a studio both and production.

9
00:01:03,039 --> 00:01:07,239
By the time forty five year old
Stephen Lorenzo came on to Tampa Peede's radar

10
00:01:07,359 --> 00:01:12,680
for the disappearance of Jason Galehouse in
the investigation into the death of Michael Wockolets,

11
00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:19,120
he had already developed a bad reputation
for himself amongst both the Tampa gay

12
00:01:19,159 --> 00:01:26,640
community and local and federal law enforcement. On January thirtieth of two thousand four,

13
00:01:26,159 --> 00:01:32,680
Tampa Pede investigators to Bloc in Columbia
met with Agent Scott Albrecht from the

14
00:01:32,719 --> 00:01:38,519
DEEA and learned that the DEEA had
arrested Stephen Lorenzo in September of two thousand

15
00:01:38,599 --> 00:01:46,280
two after they intercepted a package for
him from a company called Pelchit Labs based

16
00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:52,000
out of Canada. According to a
September twentieth, two thousand two article in

17
00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:57,680
the Albuquerque Journal, one hundred fifteen
people were arrested as part of an international

18
00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:07,079
crackdown on Internet sales of date rape
drugs. Operation Webslinger targeted customers of Pelchet

19
00:02:07,159 --> 00:02:13,919
Labs, which sold chemicals used to
make GHB, as well as GHB kits,

20
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:22,039
which included both the instructions and ingredients
to make GHB. Now, as

21
00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:27,560
a point of clarification, GHB was
and continues to be used as a party

22
00:02:27,639 --> 00:02:32,639
drug, although its most commonly known
as the date rape drug, and as

23
00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:38,000
I'm sure you can imagine, that
can muddy the lines of investigations and consent,

24
00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:46,199
particularly for law enforcement outside of the
gay community looking into allegations of drug

25
00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:53,879
induced rape. Upon Lorenzo's arrest during
Operation Webslinger in September of two thousand and

26
00:02:53,879 --> 00:02:59,280
two, he told authorities that the
package he received contained a solvent for cleaning

27
00:02:59,319 --> 00:03:04,400
glue, which he used as part
of his home inspection business that he operated

28
00:03:04,439 --> 00:03:08,520
out of his home on West Powaton
Avenue. When the DA asked if he

29
00:03:08,599 --> 00:03:13,759
was going to use the solvent for
any other purposes, he told them that

30
00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:17,759
he'd actually purchased it for a friend, and that he purchased the same product

31
00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:23,879
from Pelchit Labs in early two thousand
one for the same reason. He then

32
00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:30,840
inexplicably admitted that he had used GHB
before, but that he didn't know that

33
00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:38,120
the product he ordered contained g h
B. Throughout his interview, he repeatedly

34
00:03:38,199 --> 00:03:49,080
muttered to himself, I'm gay,
I'm fucked, and notwithstanding what you now

35
00:03:49,199 --> 00:03:54,360
know and will learn about Stephen Lorenzo, he was right. According to a

36
00:03:54,439 --> 00:04:01,280
report by Amnesty International titled Stonewaald police
abuse some misconduct against lesbian, gay,

37
00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:09,520
bisexual, and transgender people in the
us IE, the vagueness of morals regulations

38
00:04:09,599 --> 00:04:15,639
led to arbitrary arrest and detention of
gay men because of discretion granted to officers

39
00:04:15,639 --> 00:04:21,240
in determining what is considered offensive,
rendering the enforcement of such regulations prone to

40
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:29,199
homophobia, racism, and sexism.
Reports indicate a pattern of officers engaging in

41
00:04:29,439 --> 00:04:36,360
unlawful entrapment techniques, soliciting and inviting
prohibited conduct as part of undercover operations.

42
00:04:36,399 --> 00:04:43,800
Amnesty International received reports of verbal and
physical abuse by officers. Advocates in some

43
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:48,720
cities have also raised concerns that police
enforce moral statutes based on complaints from the

44
00:04:48,759 --> 00:04:56,519
public that are kept open indefinitely.
Amnesty International received reports of targeted enforcement of

45
00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:02,639
morals regulations disproportionately against gay in all
four cities studied, as well as in

46
00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:08,319
several other cities across the US,
including Detroit, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio,

47
00:05:08,399 --> 00:05:12,560
and Denver, Colorado. In San
Antonio, it is reported that over

48
00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:17,319
nine hundred gay men were arrested in
targeted sting operations from nineteen ninety nine to

49
00:05:17,399 --> 00:05:25,519
two thousand one. The same report
cited testimony from a San Antonio park ranger

50
00:05:25,959 --> 00:05:30,120
wherein he openly told the court that
he had arrested at least five hundred gay

51
00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:35,959
men and no women or straight men, and that he wanted to rid the

52
00:05:36,079 --> 00:05:45,800
park of gays. Many of these
arrests led to prolonged investigations and generally the

53
00:05:45,839 --> 00:05:50,319
outing of these gay men if they
were in the closet. Now, obviously,

54
00:05:50,639 --> 00:05:58,000
Lorenzo's dea arrest was much clearer than
morals regulations. He broke a clear

55
00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:03,959
and enforceable law, but his concern
was valid and highlighted in the Amnesty International

56
00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:10,319
Reports overview that in the late nineties
and early oughts, police stings were a

57
00:06:10,439 --> 00:06:15,680
means to target and arrest specifically gay
men, largely due to homophobia within law

58
00:06:15,759 --> 00:06:27,759
enforcement and politics and nimbiism within the
general populace. Hello, this is Jason

59
00:06:27,839 --> 00:06:31,319
Leroy with the Benjo Movie podcast.
This is my friend Jason. We're both

60
00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:35,800
in our early to mid forties.
Depending on who was asking and who you

61
00:06:35,839 --> 00:06:41,399
ask, we're around the same ages
Jason Galehouse and Michael Walcholtz would be.

62
00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:44,639
Now. Jason and I have been
friends for more than a decade, and

63
00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:49,639
we've never extensively talked about being gay
or our gay experiences growing up and coming

64
00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:55,319
out. I wanted to chat with
him about his and about how moral regulations

65
00:06:55,360 --> 00:07:00,480
and homophobia can shape gay men in
the pivotal ages of their late teens and

66
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:09,920
early twenties. Tell me about growing
up gay and like seeing the perception of

67
00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:17,079
homosexuality, the response to homosexuality,
and how that impacted your I guess identity

68
00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:21,959
and reconciling that you were gay well
growing up, you know, sort of

69
00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:27,120
coming of age as a teenager in
the nineties was such a was such like

70
00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:32,680
a mixed bag in terms of that
that sort of trajectory for gay visibility,

71
00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:35,879
because on the one hand, it
was I mean clearly a much much,

72
00:07:35,959 --> 00:07:40,480
much, much much better time to
come of age than like any age before

73
00:07:40,519 --> 00:07:45,199
it, But it was also sort
of like the last decade or so,

74
00:07:45,319 --> 00:07:51,519
where like rampant, open, unapologiic
homophobia was like fully pardoned. So on

75
00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:54,680
the one hand, like yes,
I could be like yes I did,

76
00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:58,360
I did I get to be a
child will not child, but a teenager

77
00:07:58,519 --> 00:08:03,279
watching Ellen coming out on TV?
Like yes, yes I did. Did

78
00:08:03,319 --> 00:08:07,000
I have a bully come to my
house that exact same night with a letter

79
00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:13,639
threatening to violently attack me? Yes, yes I did. So I feel

80
00:08:13,639 --> 00:08:18,319
like that night kind of captures the
duality of what it meant to be like

81
00:08:18,399 --> 00:08:20,959
growing up gay in the nineties.
You know, I didn't really have a

82
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:26,079
lot of representation to look to in
terms of gay men. But funny is

83
00:08:26,079 --> 00:08:28,680
that in the nineties there was a
lot more gay women who were coming out

84
00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:31,720
like Katie Lang, Melissa Ethridge and
Ellen, you know, all of whom

85
00:08:31,799 --> 00:08:37,200
were at the top of their fame
when they came out, and then coming

86
00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:41,879
out seemed to, for the singers
at least, really help make them even

87
00:08:41,879 --> 00:08:48,919
more famous. I don't know that
I had enough knowledge to have a vision

88
00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:52,440
of what it would mean to be
gay. I certainly tirelessly sought out like

89
00:08:52,559 --> 00:08:56,480
any movies I could rent that would
reflect any idea of the gay life to

90
00:08:56,519 --> 00:09:01,320
me. But you know, this
was also the era of movies like Philadelphia.

91
00:09:01,399 --> 00:09:05,320
But in terms of in person especially, I had so little to go

92
00:09:05,399 --> 00:09:11,200
off of. I never met like
there was just no one who was just

93
00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:15,960
out and gay anywhere in my in
my sphere. I'll never forget one time

94
00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,840
I went to a concert with my
mom and it was this sort of like

95
00:09:20,039 --> 00:09:24,559
seventies grayst Hits type show, and
I believe, I think the Village People

96
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:28,919
were playing hilariously enough, and I
remember there was like some some group of

97
00:09:28,919 --> 00:09:31,000
gay men next to us that were
like kind of like dancing and being kind

98
00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:35,279
of queenie and because I mean,
admittedly Village People's show, if not there,

99
00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:39,639
then where, And I remember they
kind of bumped into my mom,

100
00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:46,039
and I remember she gave them like
the just nastiest, most murderous look and

101
00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:48,600
they kind of like were like,
oh good, and they kind of like

102
00:09:48,639 --> 00:09:54,120
backed away, and I just internalized
that moment so much. I was like,

103
00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:56,879
Wow, here I am with actual
gay men next to me, and

104
00:09:56,919 --> 00:10:01,159
my mom is like about to murder
them because she's I like disgusted with them

105
00:10:01,159 --> 00:10:05,440
that like their mere touch you know, made her recoil so and then Matthew

106
00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:09,159
Shepherd. Matthew Shepherd's murder happened when
I was I want to say, a

107
00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:13,000
junior in high school and so so
to have to have the only gay male

108
00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:16,799
names that most people know in the
country, be like Pedro's and Mora because

109
00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:18,840
he was in a real world,
and then die of AIDS, and then

110
00:10:18,879 --> 00:10:24,440
Matthew Shepherd because he was brutally beaten
to death. You know, it's not

111
00:10:24,559 --> 00:10:28,519
like, oh, this is like
things are looking bright, looking forward to

112
00:10:28,519 --> 00:10:33,240
this adult life ahead of me.
How does that shape how you feel about

113
00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:37,480
yourself? Yeah, I mean I
feel like, you know, it's a

114
00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:43,480
great question. I think that that's
where it's so important that you have those

115
00:10:43,559 --> 00:10:46,960
kinds of hormones are pumping away because
you know, hormones know no fear,

116
00:10:48,399 --> 00:10:52,720
so so at least, you know, you definitely still have that sense of

117
00:10:52,799 --> 00:10:58,720
your own attraction that is very strong
and very clear, and you're like,

118
00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,519
well, I got to do something
about this. So there is that component

119
00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:07,960
of it. But you know,
my vision of myself, Yeah, it's

120
00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:09,799
hard to say because this is something
that I know that you know, but

121
00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:15,759
when I was right after I came
up to my mother, I actually became

122
00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:20,919
a born again Christian. And then, you know, I spent the next

123
00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:28,159
four to five years of my life
very much believing that like being gay was

124
00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,879
wrong and that I couldn't act on
it and that it was just like just

125
00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:37,279
you know, wrong from a God
level perspective. So some might say that

126
00:11:37,399 --> 00:11:43,639
I internalized those cultural messages about you
know, the horror of being a gay

127
00:11:43,679 --> 00:11:46,200
man and you know, and took
them and bundled them up into a religious

128
00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:54,480
conversion. And and they might not
be totally wrong about that. You know,

129
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:56,120
later in life, I was able
to find a way to balance my

130
00:11:56,600 --> 00:12:00,799
faith with my sexuality in a way
that didn't make me feel like I was

131
00:12:00,799 --> 00:12:05,200
being torn apart straight down the middle. But it took some time. So

132
00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:09,559
I guess that is one way that
I responded to you know, those messages

133
00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:11,919
and what they meant about who I
am. Well, it's almost like,

134
00:12:11,159 --> 00:12:15,960
you know, we didn't even for
relationships, have any guidance, and so

135
00:12:16,039 --> 00:12:20,159
our I guess libidos were guiding us
because there was no other example for how

136
00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:24,320
to be in a gay relationship.
Absolutely, absolutely, all you're left with

137
00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:28,000
this is the sort of most like
primal base kind of instinct or impulse because

138
00:12:28,039 --> 00:12:33,240
yeah, to your point, we're
not socialized to imagine what the arc of

139
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:39,320
romantic or romantic relationship would look like. So I was going through a super

140
00:12:39,639 --> 00:12:46,759
super delayed adolescence in that sense I
came into the gay dating world. I

141
00:12:46,759 --> 00:12:50,519
mean I went straight from a small
town Ohio or went to college to San

142
00:12:50,519 --> 00:12:54,440
Francisco, and I was like,
Oh, they're going to love this.

143
00:12:54,519 --> 00:12:56,200
I'm just like, I'm so like, I'm fresh off the boat from Ohio.

144
00:12:56,320 --> 00:13:00,279
I'm like a lapsed Christian, I'm
a good boy. I don't know

145
00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:03,799
anything is but yeah, no,
absolutely, it's all this just delayed adolescence,

146
00:13:03,799 --> 00:13:07,360
which is also why a game in
their twenties act like high school girls.

147
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:13,279
It's interesting the way that you phrase
that. It's almost as though there

148
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:18,159
was an expectation that game in We're
going to be predatory. Hmm, well,

149
00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:20,360
yeah, I mean because I think
I was projecting my own sense of

150
00:13:20,399 --> 00:13:26,600
sexual predation onto them. I was
like, if I was you, I

151
00:13:26,639 --> 00:13:33,159
would take advantage of this, because
again, you know, my sexuality had

152
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:37,200
been boiled down to just that kind
of like basist, sort of sexual primal

153
00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:41,000
element for all those years, because
it was not allowed to kind of flourish

154
00:13:41,039 --> 00:13:43,799
or connect holistically to any other part
of my sort of emotional intellectual being.

155
00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:50,200
So it was just like predation.
That was it. Correct me if I'm

156
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:54,879
wrong, But I do feel like
the first like actually famous man who came

157
00:13:54,919 --> 00:14:00,919
out was George Michael, and he
was outed for having sex a bathroom or

158
00:14:01,039 --> 00:14:05,799
trying to. So even they're like
our first gay role model, all we

159
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:09,159
knew about him was sex, right, right, Yeah, I mean,

160
00:14:09,279 --> 00:14:15,080
George Michael being outed was certainly one
of the you know, one of the

161
00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:20,320
first major male celebrities to sort of
be you know, to be known as

162
00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:24,480
being gay publicly and openly. I
think, like I think Elton John came

163
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:28,879
as bisexual maybe in the eighties,
but it's like okay, bisexual, you

164
00:14:28,879 --> 00:14:33,200
know. I don't know by that
not the bisexuality is not valid, to

165
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:37,159
be clear. But yeah, George
Michael, you know that's actually you know,

166
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:41,080
I live in La now and the
park where he got busted is here,

167
00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:43,480
and I keep wanting to go and
just like pay my respects, uh,

168
00:14:46,399 --> 00:14:50,200
because you know like that and he
and he of course like famously sent

169
00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:52,919
it up in his music video for
his next album for the song like was

170
00:14:52,919 --> 00:14:56,639
it called fast love? Hilariously fast
love? But yeah, no, it's

171
00:14:56,679 --> 00:15:01,799
true he was sort of forced out, I mean somewhat on a somewhat similar

172
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:07,519
note, Paul Rubins pee wee Herman. You know, he was busted for

173
00:15:07,759 --> 00:15:11,039
being a you know, an adult
movie theater that was I think we all

174
00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:15,960
know by now was like a gay
theater and uh and just like that,

175
00:15:16,039 --> 00:15:18,320
it was like, oh, pervert, pervert, pervert, you know.

176
00:15:18,399 --> 00:15:22,879
I mean, like we could debate
the morality and ethics of these like sting

177
00:15:22,919 --> 00:15:26,679
operations where they target you know,
these sort of cruising spots for hours,

178
00:15:28,919 --> 00:15:31,440
but frequently like that is. Yeah, that's a great point. That is.

179
00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:35,440
How these these men tend to get
outed is because there's some sort of

180
00:15:37,159 --> 00:15:41,639
scandal, some starlet letter that brands
them as a pervert because they've been caught

181
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:56,120
in a legally compromised situation. Fortunately
for Stephen Lorenzo, he avoided the long

182
00:15:56,279 --> 00:16:02,440
and harassing post arrest tactics many gay
men at the time could not. The

183
00:16:02,519 --> 00:16:11,120
DEA interviewed him and then released him. Our records indicate that following his initial

184
00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:17,159
arrest, they didn't look into Lorenzo's
GHB use, despite his arrest being part

185
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:22,600
of a sting focused on date rape
drug sales and purchases. Perhaps if they

186
00:16:22,639 --> 00:16:26,440
had, they would have found the
men who had already accused Lorenzo of drugging

187
00:16:26,519 --> 00:16:34,919
them and raping them, and then
could have prevented what followed. Lorenzo would

188
00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:45,840
eventually go on to testify in the
grand jury for Operation Web Slinger. Following

189
00:16:45,879 --> 00:16:52,440
their meeting with the DEA, de
Bloc and Columbia started looking further into Lorenzo's

190
00:16:52,519 --> 00:16:56,600
drug use and criminal history, which
led them first to two business partners in

191
00:16:56,679 --> 00:17:03,240
Tampa who we'll call j L and
t R. The pair had filed a

192
00:17:03,279 --> 00:17:10,119
stalking complaint against Lorenzo and a friend
of his. J L reported that Stephen

193
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:15,519
Lorenzo and a man named Jason Snelling, Lorenzo's former roommate had been stalking him

194
00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:21,640
and harassing him at his place of
work. J L told investigators that he

195
00:17:21,759 --> 00:17:26,000
and Snelling were ex boyfriends and former
business partners, and that Snelling left him

196
00:17:26,039 --> 00:17:32,960
in October of two thousand three in
pursuit of a romantic relationship with Stephen Lorenzo.

197
00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:40,079
He described Lorenzo and Snelling as dangerous
to the gay community. He told

198
00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:48,640
them that Lorenzo enjoyed torturing and physically
and sexually abusing men, especially unknowing men.

199
00:17:51,319 --> 00:17:55,599
He went on to say that Lorenzo
also liked to pay street hustlers to

200
00:17:55,759 --> 00:18:00,799
engage in violent activities with him,
and that Lorenzo's applied the street hustlers with

201
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:11,039
party drugs including GHB, ecstasy,
cocaine, and ketamine. And most importantly,

202
00:18:11,559 --> 00:18:18,559
he told debloc in Colombia that Lorenzo
often used GHB to incapacitate men.

203
00:18:22,079 --> 00:18:29,400
And so de Bloc and Columbia met
with the DEA agent again and one of

204
00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:38,319
his criminal informants to set up a
new sting operation targeting Stephen Lorenzo. On

205
00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:45,119
May twelfth of two thousand four,
the DEA's criminal informant was wired and then

206
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:51,480
sent to Stephen Lorenzo's house. The
CI spent just eight minutes inside the house,

207
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:57,200
and in that time he watched both
Lorenzo and Snelling snorten eight ball of

208
00:18:57,319 --> 00:19:03,079
crystal meth. Then, Lorenzo gave
the CI the phone number for his home

209
00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:08,119
inspection company, Cobblestone Home Inspection,
and told him to use that number if

210
00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:15,720
he ever needed drugs. An hour
later, the deeagent Columbia and a bloc

211
00:19:15,839 --> 00:19:21,920
gave the CI money and instructed him
to initiate a crystal methamphetamine purchase from Lorenzo,

212
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:30,480
but Lorenzo would not engage in any
financial transactions. However, Lorenzo did

213
00:19:30,519 --> 00:19:36,759
give the CI a sample of ketamine
to take home and told him he could

214
00:19:36,839 --> 00:19:41,920
get more from his source and that
he himself used, distributed, and manufactured

215
00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:53,079
ketymine often. Six days later,
the CI returned to Lorenzo's once again in

216
00:19:53,119 --> 00:20:00,920
an attempt to buy crystal meth,
and again Lorenzo wouldn't engage in any financial

217
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:15,400
transaction, and thereafter Lorenzo never communicated
with the CI again. On June second,

218
00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:21,000
the DEA and Tampa ped executed a
federal search warrant at Lorenzo's house on

219
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:29,119
West Powaton avenue using forced entry.
Lorenzo was inside and arrested on spot for

220
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:34,200
possession and intent to sell. During
the search, Tampa PDE recovered the following

221
00:20:37,599 --> 00:20:42,240
a ring baggye containing a white powdery
substance which was later determined to be GHB

222
00:20:42,559 --> 00:20:49,839
and MDMA. A black bag containing
an assortment of adult sex toys, restraints,

223
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:59,480
ropes, duct tape, torture devices, serial killer information sheets, a

224
00:20:59,559 --> 00:21:07,240
printed instant message conversation which was hidden
under Lorenzo's mattress, other printed instant message

225
00:21:07,279 --> 00:21:15,359
conversations, numerous photographs, home videos
recorded on eight millimeter vhs and digital cassettes,

226
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:23,079
a computer CPU which contained thousands of
digital images on two separate hard drives,

227
00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:30,799
many of which were of a violent
or bondage type nature, and an

228
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:41,759
envelope labeled missing Guy articles. Lorenzo
had downloaded and or printed more than eight

229
00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:48,440
hundred AOL instant message chats, where
he used multiple different AOL screen names.

230
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:56,079
The chats included talk of bondage,
humiliation, restraining, foot fetishes, gangbangs,

231
00:21:56,359 --> 00:22:03,200
caging, slavery, kidnapping, disappearances, and murder. Included in the

232
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:07,799
case files were twenty four pages of
the AOL chats recovered from Lorenzo's house.

233
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:15,720
I'm going to read several snippets of
those conversations as a content warning, these

234
00:22:15,759 --> 00:22:22,640
are incredibly detailed accounts, some fantasy, some allegedly real, involving rape,

235
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:29,880
kidnapping, HIV contraction through rape,
torture, and drugging man against their will.

236
00:22:30,759 --> 00:22:36,079
They also include the suggestion of murder. Listen with care or forward the

237
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:51,519
episode exactly three minutes. In a
conversation dated March sixteenth, two thousand one,

238
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:57,519
Stephen Lorenzo, using the screen name
Construction Man, said the following maybe

239
00:22:57,559 --> 00:23:02,680
you can help me bring a boy
down sometime. We can meet him out,

240
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,799
bring him back, and drop him. We will be up all night

241
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:11,480
working him over. When asked how
they would drug the boy, Stephen said

242
00:23:11,519 --> 00:23:18,640
they would slip GHB and do his
drink. He then said he will drop

243
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:23,480
We take him back, strip him, tie him, and use him as

244
00:23:23,519 --> 00:23:32,519
we please. Another conversation with the
same person included the following, him,

245
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:37,519
would really like to put guys under
with you would be awesome. Could do

246
00:23:37,599 --> 00:23:42,000
whatever the hell we want with them
after we get them down. Lorenzo,

247
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:47,839
Yep, that is why I love
it so much. Can even kill them

248
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:53,160
and they would never know it or
even fight you. Him can tie them

249
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,559
up, rape them, torture them. Would be hot to snuff them out

250
00:23:57,559 --> 00:24:03,359
with you and party with him for
a day or two. First, Lorenzo,

251
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:07,839
he has no idea once tied and
submitted, he will be used for

252
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:14,559
a couple of days than disappear forever. In a conversation with a different user

253
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:19,359
dated February fifteenth, two thousand two, Lorenzo stated the following, I have

254
00:24:19,519 --> 00:24:25,839
kept guys over weekends in the past. I've lost track over the years of

255
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:30,480
how many I have done, probably
well over sixty to seventy. The long

256
00:24:30,599 --> 00:24:34,880
term ones were the ones not missed
right away and nothing to trace them to

257
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:41,319
me, like young hustlers or young
homeless, watching their eyes as they come

258
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:47,440
in and out of conscience, me
looking right into theirs. It's amazing the

259
00:24:47,599 --> 00:24:52,880
energy you feel from it. At
this point, the guy he's chatting with

260
00:24:53,000 --> 00:25:00,680
says that he's used clear plastic bags
pulled tight over guy's faces. Lorenzo responds,

261
00:25:02,599 --> 00:25:06,319
I have a gas mask that also
allows me to control their breathing.

262
00:25:06,799 --> 00:25:10,319
Oh man, you got me going
on that one. The look on their

263
00:25:10,319 --> 00:25:17,400
faces as they are gasping for air
and still seeing You. In another conversation,

264
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:22,480
Lorenzo discusses drugging men inviting other men
over to gang rape them, including

265
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:37,680
intentionally transmitting HIV to their victims.
In addition to the chats were photos,

266
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,720
and some of the photos recovered included
unknown men in various stages of undress,

267
00:25:42,279 --> 00:25:51,359
bound seemingly unconscious, wearing gas masks, and engaged in varying types of sadomasochism.

268
00:25:53,640 --> 00:26:00,160
And then there were the videos home
videos which included bondage sex act including

269
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:10,240
with some men who appeared to be
in comatose like states. And finally was

270
00:26:10,279 --> 00:26:18,880
the envelope labeled Missing Guy Articles,
which contained newspaper articles covering the disappearances of

271
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:34,079
Jason Galehouse, Michael Wakole's and other
missing or dead men. Following the search

272
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:40,400
and seizure done at Lorenzo's house,
Tampa, Pede began going through the chat

273
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:47,160
logs and trying to identify people who
had been communicating with Stephen Lorenzo on AOL.

274
00:26:48,319 --> 00:26:53,880
Through analysis of these chats, detectives
found that Stephen was using more than

275
00:26:55,039 --> 00:27:00,799
five different screen names to communicate with
dozens of men. They were able to

276
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:15,400
identify additional assault victims and possible co
conspirators. Detectives determined that more than twenty

277
00:27:15,599 --> 00:27:22,039
of Lorenzo's chats and emails between October
fifteenth, two thousand three and May second,

278
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:30,400
two thousand four were with someone using
the screen name Master Scott. In

279
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:38,240
those chats, Lorenzo was using the
screen name dom Dude for sub in all

280
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:45,000
caps. According to court documents,
he and Master Scott discussed a variety of

281
00:27:45,079 --> 00:27:53,640
torture and bondage related topics, and
further discussed using drugs to make victims submissive

282
00:27:55,759 --> 00:28:06,599
and making victims disappear. Throughout the
chats, both Lorenzo and Master Scott referred

283
00:28:06,599 --> 00:28:14,240
to themselves as doms or dominance within
the gay BDSM community. They specifically referred

284
00:28:14,279 --> 00:28:21,200
to themselves as being doms within an
underground sadomasochistic sex and drug use culture.

285
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,000
The chats also reveal that Master Scott
moved from the Chicago area to Orlando,

286
00:28:27,079 --> 00:28:33,880
Florida in October of two thousand three, just two months before Jason Galehouse and

287
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:44,440
Michael Wacholtz disappeared ninety miles away in
Tampa. Detectives were quickly able to retrieve

288
00:28:44,519 --> 00:28:52,119
information from AOL which identified Master Scott
as Scott Paul Schweikert with a billing address

289
00:28:52,279 --> 00:28:59,839
of five twenty five West Aldan Avenue
in Chicago, Illinois, which is just

290
00:29:00,319 --> 00:29:03,599
four blocks from where a gay man
was found stabbed to death in his own

291
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:10,400
apartment in March of two thousand and
four, which is shortly after Scott Schweiker

292
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:17,319
abruptly left Orlando and moved back to
the Chicago area, and upon further investigation

293
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:22,559
into Scott Schweikert, Tampa Peedee found
that he too had a violent criminal history.

294
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:34,880
On February fourteenth, Valentine's Day of
nineteen ninety eight, a then twenty

295
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:41,079
two year old Scott Schweikert hired an
Illinois State University student to come to his

296
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:48,160
apartment in Bloomington, Illinois, to
repair his broken computer, and, according

297
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:52,720
to the Tampa Bay Times, as
the man worked on his computer, Schweikert

298
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:59,920
confronted him with a pair of black
handcuffs and a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson

299
00:30:00,119 --> 00:30:04,400
handgun. The man tried to flee, and Schweikert pistol whipped him in the

300
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:11,839
back of the head. The student
was fortunately able to escape that day,

301
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:19,039
and Scott was charged with and pleaded
guilty to felony aggravated battery. Scott served

302
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:26,480
just six months in jail and thirty
months of probation. He was, also,

303
00:30:26,599 --> 00:30:32,119
however, ordered to undergo a mental
health evaluation. We don't have access

304
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:37,960
to its results, but according to
the Tampa Bay Times, the evaluator strongly

305
00:30:37,039 --> 00:30:45,599
recommended that Scott seek out psychotherapy,
and their record show that Scott saw no

306
00:30:45,839 --> 00:30:56,200
need for counseling. Following his release
from jail, Scott moved to South Carolina

307
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:03,799
and then bounced around a lot,
racking out at least fifteen violations while living

308
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:11,720
in multiple cities in South Carolina,
Illinois, Georgia, and possibly Pennsylvania and

309
00:31:11,759 --> 00:31:21,039
Wisconsin, before finally meeting Stephen Lorenzo
online in October of two thousand and three,

310
00:31:21,799 --> 00:31:29,839
and then promptly moving to Florida.
And in the two months following Scott's

311
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:37,480
arrival in Florida, Jason Galehouse disappeared, Michael Walcoltz was found dead, and

312
00:31:37,519 --> 00:31:48,079
a man was brutally raped by two
men he met online, and then a

313
00:31:48,160 --> 00:32:02,559
third man disappeared. Look out to
band, mm hmm, look got the

314
00:32:02,599 --> 00:32:28,400
babble, cor don't wnly, don't
honestly the god the bad I got mind

315
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:45,880
and this spy, I got mind, and the spy too late turn back

316
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:59,000
the sticky red hands. So I
got my hand and this PA. This

317
00:32:59,119 --> 00:33:04,160
episode was and researched, edited and
produced by Me Your Host Josh Hallmark.

318
00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:09,880
Resources included The Charlie Project, Namous
Newspapers dot Com, The Albuquerque Journal,

319
00:33:10,319 --> 00:33:15,680
Amnesty International, and The Tampa Bay
Times. This episode featured Jason Leroy and

320
00:33:15,759 --> 00:33:22,079
it was made possible by the following
Patreon producers Adrian I Yellow, Amelia Hancock,

321
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,559
Amy Basel and Nette El, Benjamin
Choppa, Fong, Casey, Jensen

322
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:29,400
Richardson, Dana Keith, doctor Jill
Cooper, Drew Vipond, Hallie Reed,

323
00:33:29,519 --> 00:33:34,799
Jessica Alahodsig, Gillian Natale, John
O'Leary, Kendall c Kimberly k Lauren f

324
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,240
Linley, tuscoff Manolas Bullicus, Megan
cap c l Mike Sherman, Nicole and

325
00:33:38,279 --> 00:33:44,440
Dennis Henry, Sarah King, sc
Shannon Foster, Shelley Brewer, Tuesday Woodworth,

326
00:33:44,559 --> 00:33:47,160
Zach Ignottowitz, Warren, Beth McNally, John Comery, Jordan Taylor,

327
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:52,200
Carly McNutt, Lona Sarah Cee,
and Lydia Fiedler. Thank you to True

328
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:58,480
Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters ash F, Michael G, Vicky v M,

329
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,599
S Striter, H Summon, l
R, Alyssa, L Lori, s

330
00:34:01,759 --> 00:34:07,160
JdE, Melanie G, and Maureen
C. To support the investigation, go

331
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:14,199
to patreon dot com slash studio both
and. This episode included music by j

332
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:20,119
haskel Res Theater of Delays, Benjamin
A Stairless Grizzly Bill, and Yotama gomb

333
00:34:20,400 --> 00:35:07,400
with featured music by Jacob Fossom.
The Count. The bad Ball has called

334
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:22,599
the Count. The bad Ball has
called a water love eybody just wants to

335
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:37,960
drug is look out. The bad
Ball has call a film ride of bonus

336
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:52,079
pale horss with all, with all
the Raven's brains, a film des smile

337
00:35:52,800 --> 00:36:06,880
and sidcles with claws, with Paul
all that saving Gady. He's gonna make

338
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:17,679
us. Please look out. The
badby has gone