Hey everyone, I recently wrapped my other show, Unsafe Spaces. It's an
investigative, serialized true crime podcast that looks into Stephen Lorenzo and Scott Schweikert,
two gay men who were targeting and murdering other gay men in the Tampa Bay
area of Florida. Season one is complete and bingeable now, So while you're
waiting for the next season of true crime bullshit coming next month, I'll be
sharing the first four episodes of Unsafe Spaces with you here. Listen and then
head on over to Unsafe Spaces and Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening now and
binge the rest of the season. This is a studio both and production.
By the time forty five year old Stephen Lorenzo came on to Tampa Peede's radar
for the disappearance of Jason Galehouse in the investigation into the death of Michael Wockolets,
he had already developed a bad reputation for himself amongst both the Tampa gay
community and local and federal law enforcement. On January thirtieth of two thousand four,
Tampa Pede investigators to Bloc in Columbia met with Agent Scott Albrecht from the
DEEA and learned that the DEEA had arrested Stephen Lorenzo in September of two thousand
two after they intercepted a package for him from a company called Pelchit Labs based
out of Canada. According to a September twentieth, two thousand two article in
the Albuquerque Journal, one hundred fifteen people were arrested as part of an international
crackdown on Internet sales of date rape drugs. Operation Webslinger targeted customers of Pelchet
Labs, which sold chemicals used to make GHB, as well as GHB kits,
which included both the instructions and ingredients to make GHB. Now, as
a point of clarification, GHB was and continues to be used as a party
drug, although its most commonly known as the date rape drug, and as
I'm sure you can imagine, that can muddy the lines of investigations and consent,
particularly for law enforcement outside of the gay community looking into allegations of drug
induced rape. Upon Lorenzo's arrest during Operation Webslinger in September of two thousand and
two, he told authorities that the package he received contained a solvent for cleaning
glue, which he used as part of his home inspection business that he operated
out of his home on West Powaton Avenue. When the DA asked if he
was going to use the solvent for any other purposes, he told them that
he'd actually purchased it for a friend, and that he purchased the same product
from Pelchit Labs in early two thousand one for the same reason. He then
inexplicably admitted that he had used GHB before, but that he didn't know that
the product he ordered contained g h B. Throughout his interview, he repeatedly
muttered to himself, I'm gay, I'm fucked, and notwithstanding what you now
know and will learn about Stephen Lorenzo, he was right. According to a
report by Amnesty International titled Stonewaald police abuse some misconduct against lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender people in the us IE, the vagueness of morals regulations
led to arbitrary arrest and detention of gay men because of discretion granted to officers
in determining what is considered offensive, rendering the enforcement of such regulations prone to
homophobia, racism, and sexism. Reports indicate a pattern of officers engaging in
unlawful entrapment techniques, soliciting and inviting prohibited conduct as part of undercover operations.
Amnesty International received reports of verbal and physical abuse by officers. Advocates in some
cities have also raised concerns that police enforce moral statutes based on complaints from the
public that are kept open indefinitely. Amnesty International received reports of targeted enforcement of
morals regulations disproportionately against gay in all four cities studied, as well as in
several other cities across the US, including Detroit, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio,
and Denver, Colorado. In San Antonio, it is reported that over
nine hundred gay men were arrested in targeted sting operations from nineteen ninety nine to
two thousand one. The same report cited testimony from a San Antonio park ranger
wherein he openly told the court that he had arrested at least five hundred gay
men and no women or straight men, and that he wanted to rid the
park of gays. Many of these arrests led to prolonged investigations and generally the
outing of these gay men if they were in the closet. Now, obviously,
Lorenzo's dea arrest was much clearer than morals regulations. He broke a clear
and enforceable law, but his concern was valid and highlighted in the Amnesty International
Reports overview that in the late nineties and early oughts, police stings were a
means to target and arrest specifically gay men, largely due to homophobia within law
enforcement and politics and nimbiism within the general populace. Hello, this is Jason
Leroy with the Benjo Movie podcast. This is my friend Jason. We're both
in our early to mid forties. Depending on who was asking and who you
ask, we're around the same ages Jason Galehouse and Michael Walcholtz would be.
Now. Jason and I have been friends for more than a decade, and
we've never extensively talked about being gay or our gay experiences growing up and coming
out. I wanted to chat with him about his and about how moral regulations
and homophobia can shape gay men in the pivotal ages of their late teens and
early twenties. Tell me about growing up gay and like seeing the perception of
homosexuality, the response to homosexuality, and how that impacted your I guess identity
and reconciling that you were gay well growing up, you know, sort of
coming of age as a teenager in the nineties was such a was such like
a mixed bag in terms of that that sort of trajectory for gay visibility,
because on the one hand, it was I mean clearly a much much,
much, much much better time to come of age than like any age before
it, But it was also sort of like the last decade or so,
where like rampant, open, unapologiic homophobia was like fully pardoned. So on
the one hand, like yes, I could be like yes I did,
I did I get to be a child will not child, but a teenager
watching Ellen coming out on TV? Like yes, yes I did. Did
I have a bully come to my house that exact same night with a letter
threatening to violently attack me? Yes, yes I did. So I feel
like that night kind of captures the duality of what it meant to be like
growing up gay in the nineties. You know, I didn't really have a
lot of representation to look to in terms of gay men. But funny is
that in the nineties there was a lot more gay women who were coming out
like Katie Lang, Melissa Ethridge and Ellen, you know, all of whom
were at the top of their fame when they came out, and then coming
out seemed to, for the singers at least, really help make them even
more famous. I don't know that I had enough knowledge to have a vision
of what it would mean to be gay. I certainly tirelessly sought out like
any movies I could rent that would reflect any idea of the gay life to
me. But you know, this was also the era of movies like Philadelphia.
But in terms of in person especially, I had so little to go
off of. I never met like there was just no one who was just
out and gay anywhere in my in my sphere. I'll never forget one time
I went to a concert with my mom and it was this sort of like
seventies grayst Hits type show, and I believe, I think the Village People
were playing hilariously enough, and I remember there was like some some group of
gay men next to us that were like kind of like dancing and being kind
of queenie and because I mean, admittedly Village People's show, if not there,
then where, And I remember they kind of bumped into my mom,
and I remember she gave them like the just nastiest, most murderous look and
they kind of like were like, oh good, and they kind of like
backed away, and I just internalized that moment so much. I was like,
Wow, here I am with actual gay men next to me, and
my mom is like about to murder them because she's I like disgusted with them
that like their mere touch you know, made her recoil so and then Matthew
Shepherd. Matthew Shepherd's murder happened when I was I want to say, a
junior in high school and so so to have to have the only gay male
names that most people know in the country, be like Pedro's and Mora because
he was in a real world, and then die of AIDS, and then
Matthew Shepherd because he was brutally beaten to death. You know, it's not
like, oh, this is like things are looking bright, looking forward to
this adult life ahead of me. How does that shape how you feel about
yourself? Yeah, I mean I feel like, you know, it's a
great question. I think that that's where it's so important that you have those
kinds of hormones are pumping away because you know, hormones know no fear,
so so at least, you know, you definitely still have that sense of
your own attraction that is very strong and very clear, and you're like,
well, I got to do something about this. So there is that component
of it. But you know, my vision of myself, Yeah, it's
hard to say because this is something that I know that you know, but
when I was right after I came up to my mother, I actually became
a born again Christian. And then, you know, I spent the next
four to five years of my life very much believing that like being gay was
wrong and that I couldn't act on it and that it was just like just
you know, wrong from a God level perspective. So some might say that
I internalized those cultural messages about you know, the horror of being a gay
man and you know, and took them and bundled them up into a religious
conversion. And and they might not be totally wrong about that. You know,
later in life, I was able to find a way to balance my
faith with my sexuality in a way that didn't make me feel like I was
being torn apart straight down the middle. But it took some time. So
I guess that is one way that I responded to you know, those messages
and what they meant about who I am. Well, it's almost like,
you know, we didn't even for relationships, have any guidance, and so
our I guess libidos were guiding us because there was no other example for how
to be in a gay relationship. Absolutely, absolutely, all you're left with
this is the sort of most like primal base kind of instinct or impulse because
yeah, to your point, we're not socialized to imagine what the arc of
romantic or romantic relationship would look like. So I was going through a super
super delayed adolescence in that sense I came into the gay dating world. I
mean I went straight from a small town Ohio or went to college to San
Francisco, and I was like, Oh, they're going to love this.
I'm just like, I'm so like, I'm fresh off the boat from Ohio.
I'm like a lapsed Christian, I'm a good boy. I don't know
anything is but yeah, no, absolutely, it's all this just delayed adolescence,
which is also why a game in their twenties act like high school girls.
It's interesting the way that you phrase that. It's almost as though there
was an expectation that game in We're going to be predatory. Hmm, well,
yeah, I mean because I think I was projecting my own sense of
sexual predation onto them. I was like, if I was you, I
would take advantage of this, because again, you know, my sexuality had
been boiled down to just that kind of like basist, sort of sexual primal
element for all those years, because it was not allowed to kind of flourish
or connect holistically to any other part of my sort of emotional intellectual being.
So it was just like predation. That was it. Correct me if I'm
wrong, But I do feel like the first like actually famous man who came
out was George Michael, and he was outed for having sex a bathroom or
trying to. So even they're like our first gay role model, all we
knew about him was sex, right, right, Yeah, I mean,
George Michael being outed was certainly one of the you know, one of the
first major male celebrities to sort of be you know, to be known as
being gay publicly and openly. I think, like I think Elton John came
as bisexual maybe in the eighties, but it's like okay, bisexual, you
know. I don't know by that not the bisexuality is not valid, to
be clear. But yeah, George Michael, you know that's actually you know,
I live in La now and the park where he got busted is here,
and I keep wanting to go and just like pay my respects, uh,
because you know like that and he and he of course like famously sent
it up in his music video for his next album for the song like was
it called fast love? Hilariously fast love? But yeah, no, it's
true he was sort of forced out, I mean somewhat on a somewhat similar
note, Paul Rubins pee wee Herman. You know, he was busted for
being a you know, an adult movie theater that was I think we all
know by now was like a gay theater and uh and just like that,
it was like, oh, pervert, pervert, pervert, you know.
I mean, like we could debate the morality and ethics of these like sting
operations where they target you know, these sort of cruising spots for hours,
but frequently like that is. Yeah, that's a great point. That is.
How these these men tend to get outed is because there's some sort of
scandal, some starlet letter that brands them as a pervert because they've been caught
in a legally compromised situation. Fortunately for Stephen Lorenzo, he avoided the long
and harassing post arrest tactics many gay men at the time could not. The
DEA interviewed him and then released him. Our records indicate that following his initial
arrest, they didn't look into Lorenzo's GHB use, despite his arrest being part
of a sting focused on date rape drug sales and purchases. Perhaps if they
had, they would have found the men who had already accused Lorenzo of drugging
them and raping them, and then could have prevented what followed. Lorenzo would
eventually go on to testify in the grand jury for Operation Web Slinger. Following
their meeting with the DEA, de Bloc and Columbia started looking further into Lorenzo's
drug use and criminal history, which led them first to two business partners in
Tampa who we'll call j L and t R. The pair had filed a
stalking complaint against Lorenzo and a friend of his. J L reported that Stephen
Lorenzo and a man named Jason Snelling, Lorenzo's former roommate had been stalking him
and harassing him at his place of work. J L told investigators that he
and Snelling were ex boyfriends and former business partners, and that Snelling left him
in October of two thousand three in pursuit of a romantic relationship with Stephen Lorenzo.
He described Lorenzo and Snelling as dangerous to the gay community. He told
them that Lorenzo enjoyed torturing and physically and sexually abusing men, especially unknowing men.
He went on to say that Lorenzo also liked to pay street hustlers to
engage in violent activities with him, and that Lorenzo's applied the street hustlers with
party drugs including GHB, ecstasy, cocaine, and ketamine. And most importantly,
he told debloc in Colombia that Lorenzo often used GHB to incapacitate men.
And so de Bloc and Columbia met with the DEA agent again and one of
his criminal informants to set up a new sting operation targeting Stephen Lorenzo. On
May twelfth of two thousand four, the DEA's criminal informant was wired and then
sent to Stephen Lorenzo's house. The CI spent just eight minutes inside the house,
and in that time he watched both Lorenzo and Snelling snorten eight ball of
crystal meth. Then, Lorenzo gave the CI the phone number for his home
inspection company, Cobblestone Home Inspection, and told him to use that number if
he ever needed drugs. An hour later, the deeagent Columbia and a bloc
gave the CI money and instructed him to initiate a crystal methamphetamine purchase from Lorenzo,
but Lorenzo would not engage in any financial transactions. However, Lorenzo did
give the CI a sample of ketamine to take home and told him he could
get more from his source and that he himself used, distributed, and manufactured
ketymine often. Six days later, the CI returned to Lorenzo's once again in
an attempt to buy crystal meth, and again Lorenzo wouldn't engage in any financial
transaction, and thereafter Lorenzo never communicated with the CI again. On June second,
the DEA and Tampa ped executed a federal search warrant at Lorenzo's house on
West Powaton avenue using forced entry. Lorenzo was inside and arrested on spot for
possession and intent to sell. During the search, Tampa PDE recovered the following
a ring baggye containing a white powdery substance which was later determined to be GHB
and MDMA. A black bag containing an assortment of adult sex toys, restraints,
ropes, duct tape, torture devices, serial killer information sheets, a
printed instant message conversation which was hidden under Lorenzo's mattress, other printed instant message
conversations, numerous photographs, home videos recorded on eight millimeter vhs and digital cassettes,
a computer CPU which contained thousands of digital images on two separate hard drives,
many of which were of a violent or bondage type nature, and an
envelope labeled missing Guy articles. Lorenzo had downloaded and or printed more than eight
hundred AOL instant message chats, where he used multiple different AOL screen names.
The chats included talk of bondage, humiliation, restraining, foot fetishes, gangbangs,
caging, slavery, kidnapping, disappearances, and murder. Included in the
case files were twenty four pages of the AOL chats recovered from Lorenzo's house.
I'm going to read several snippets of those conversations as a content warning, these
are incredibly detailed accounts, some fantasy, some allegedly real, involving rape,
kidnapping, HIV contraction through rape, torture, and drugging man against their will.
They also include the suggestion of murder. Listen with care or forward the
episode exactly three minutes. In a conversation dated March sixteenth, two thousand one,
Stephen Lorenzo, using the screen name Construction Man, said the following maybe
you can help me bring a boy down sometime. We can meet him out,
bring him back, and drop him. We will be up all night
working him over. When asked how they would drug the boy, Stephen said
they would slip GHB and do his drink. He then said he will drop
We take him back, strip him, tie him, and use him as
we please. Another conversation with the same person included the following, him,
would really like to put guys under with you would be awesome. Could do
whatever the hell we want with them after we get them down. Lorenzo,
Yep, that is why I love it so much. Can even kill them
and they would never know it or even fight you. Him can tie them
up, rape them, torture them. Would be hot to snuff them out
with you and party with him for a day or two. First, Lorenzo,
he has no idea once tied and submitted, he will be used for
a couple of days than disappear forever. In a conversation with a different user
dated February fifteenth, two thousand two, Lorenzo stated the following, I have
kept guys over weekends in the past. I've lost track over the years of
how many I have done, probably well over sixty to seventy. The long
term ones were the ones not missed right away and nothing to trace them to
me, like young hustlers or young homeless, watching their eyes as they come
in and out of conscience, me looking right into theirs. It's amazing the
energy you feel from it. At this point, the guy he's chatting with
says that he's used clear plastic bags pulled tight over guy's faces. Lorenzo responds,
I have a gas mask that also allows me to control their breathing.
Oh man, you got me going on that one. The look on their
faces as they are gasping for air and still seeing You. In another conversation,
Lorenzo discusses drugging men inviting other men over to gang rape them, including
intentionally transmitting HIV to their victims. In addition to the chats were photos,
and some of the photos recovered included unknown men in various stages of undress,
bound seemingly unconscious, wearing gas masks, and engaged in varying types of sadomasochism.
And then there were the videos home videos which included bondage sex act including
with some men who appeared to be in comatose like states. And finally was
the envelope labeled Missing Guy Articles, which contained newspaper articles covering the disappearances of
Jason Galehouse, Michael Wakole's and other missing or dead men. Following the search
and seizure done at Lorenzo's house, Tampa, Pede began going through the chat
logs and trying to identify people who had been communicating with Stephen Lorenzo on AOL.
Through analysis of these chats, detectives found that Stephen was using more than
five different screen names to communicate with dozens of men. They were able to
identify additional assault victims and possible co conspirators. Detectives determined that more than twenty
of Lorenzo's chats and emails between October fifteenth, two thousand three and May second,
two thousand four were with someone using the screen name Master Scott. In
those chats, Lorenzo was using the screen name dom Dude for sub in all
caps. According to court documents, he and Master Scott discussed a variety of
torture and bondage related topics, and further discussed using drugs to make victims submissive
and making victims disappear. Throughout the chats, both Lorenzo and Master Scott referred
to themselves as doms or dominance within the gay BDSM community. They specifically referred
to themselves as being doms within an underground sadomasochistic sex and drug use culture.
The chats also reveal that Master Scott moved from the Chicago area to Orlando,
Florida in October of two thousand three, just two months before Jason Galehouse and
Michael Wacholtz disappeared ninety miles away in Tampa. Detectives were quickly able to retrieve
information from AOL which identified Master Scott as Scott Paul Schweikert with a billing address
of five twenty five West Aldan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, which is just
four blocks from where a gay man was found stabbed to death in his own
apartment in March of two thousand and four, which is shortly after Scott Schweiker
abruptly left Orlando and moved back to the Chicago area, and upon further investigation
into Scott Schweikert, Tampa Peedee found that he too had a violent criminal history.
On February fourteenth, Valentine's Day of nineteen ninety eight, a then twenty
two year old Scott Schweikert hired an Illinois State University student to come to his
apartment in Bloomington, Illinois, to repair his broken computer, and, according
to the Tampa Bay Times, as the man worked on his computer, Schweikert
confronted him with a pair of black handcuffs and a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson
handgun. The man tried to flee, and Schweikert pistol whipped him in the
back of the head. The student was fortunately able to escape that day,
and Scott was charged with and pleaded guilty to felony aggravated battery. Scott served
just six months in jail and thirty months of probation. He was, also,
however, ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation. We don't have access
to its results, but according to the Tampa Bay Times, the evaluator strongly
recommended that Scott seek out psychotherapy, and their record show that Scott saw no
need for counseling. Following his release from jail, Scott moved to South Carolina
and then bounced around a lot, racking out at least fifteen violations while living
in multiple cities in South Carolina, Illinois, Georgia, and possibly Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin, before finally meeting Stephen Lorenzo online in October of two thousand and three,
and then promptly moving to Florida. And in the two months following Scott's
arrival in Florida, Jason Galehouse disappeared, Michael Walcoltz was found dead, and
a man was brutally raped by two men he met online, and then a
third man disappeared. Look out to band, mm hmm, look got the
babble, cor don't wnly, don't honestly the god the bad I got mind
and this spy, I got mind, and the spy too late turn back
the sticky red hands. So I got my hand and this PA. This
episode was and researched, edited and produced by Me Your Host Josh Hallmark.
Resources included The Charlie Project, Namous Newspapers dot Com, The Albuquerque Journal,
Amnesty International, and The Tampa Bay Times. This episode featured Jason Leroy and
it was made possible by the following Patreon producers Adrian I Yellow, Amelia Hancock,
Amy Basel and Nette El, Benjamin Choppa, Fong, Casey, Jensen
Richardson, Dana Keith, doctor Jill Cooper, Drew Vipond, Hallie Reed,
Jessica Alahodsig, Gillian Natale, John O'Leary, Kendall c Kimberly k Lauren f
Linley, tuscoff Manolas Bullicus, Megan cap c l Mike Sherman, Nicole and
Dennis Henry, Sarah King, sc Shannon Foster, Shelley Brewer, Tuesday Woodworth,
Zach Ignottowitz, Warren, Beth McNally, John Comery, Jordan Taylor,
Carly McNutt, Lona Sarah Cee, and Lydia Fiedler. Thank you to True
Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters ash F, Michael G, Vicky v M,
S Striter, H Summon, l R, Alyssa, L Lori, s
JdE, Melanie G, and Maureen C. To support the investigation, go
to patreon dot com slash studio both and. This episode included music by j
haskel Res Theater of Delays, Benjamin A Stairless Grizzly Bill, and Yotama gomb
with featured music by Jacob Fossom. The Count. The bad Ball has called
the Count. The bad Ball has called a water love eybody just wants to
drug is look out. The bad Ball has call a film ride of bonus
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and sidcles with claws, with Paul all that saving Gady. He's gonna make
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