Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Geesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2: Good Evening, Something Big tells the story of the infamous
Speaker 2: Brown's Chicken massacre, a brutal case that captivated Chicago land
Speaker 2: after remaining unsolved for nearly a decade. Customers know Brown's
Speaker 2: Chicken for its crispy, buttermilk fried chicken and flaky biscuits.
Speaker 2: The Illinois based franchise as a reputation for delicious but
Speaker 2: simple comfort food, but through no fault of its own,
Speaker 2: the words Brown's Chicken are also synonymous with One Faithful
Speaker 2: Night in January of nineteen ninety three. A real hometown
Speaker 2: is the trite but apt motto of Palatine, Illinois, a quaint,
Speaker 2: middle class suburb west of Chicago. On a snowy Friday evening,
Speaker 2: the staff and owners of the city's local Brown's Chicken
Speaker 2: franchise were closing up when two final customers arrived just
Speaker 2: past nine p m. As the night drew on and
Speaker 2: the employees hadn't returned home. The family of the owners
Speaker 2: and workers began to worry, prompting police to investigate. When
Speaker 2: they entered the dark building, police were shocked to find
Speaker 2: seven bodies stacked in the restaurant's freezer and fridge. The
Speaker 2: killers of corps were long gone. In the months that followed,
Speaker 2: the horrendous story rock Chicago Land, and the case remained
Speaker 2: unsolved for nine years. The Brown's Chicken Massacre is one
Speaker 2: of the most infamous cases in Illinois history, yet it
Speaker 2: is often misremembered. In Something Big, Patrick Wall gives a
Speaker 2: new account of the story, taking readers behind the scenes
Speaker 2: and sharing the perspective of the people who lived it.
Speaker 2: The book they were featuring this evening is Something Big,
Speaker 2: The true story of the Browns Chicken Massacre, a decade
Speaker 2: long manhunt, and the trials that followed, with my special
Speaker 2: guest author, Patrick Wall. Welcome to the program, and thank
Speaker 2: you very much for this interview. Patrick Wall, Dan, thanks
Speaker 2: for having me. Congratulations on this book Thing Big, Well.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, and I I appreciate you reading and
Speaker 3: the response so far from people, which has been very positive.
Speaker 3: So I'm happy to see people or it's resonating with people,
Speaker 3: so I'm excited to talk to you about it today.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Let's talk about your preface in this book,
Speaker 2: and you talk about that. In nineteen ninety five, the
Speaker 2: Brown's Chicken massacre made national headlines and it was followed
Speaker 2: by people in Chicago Land for years. You did as
Speaker 2: you got older as well followed this case. And you
Speaker 2: were raised not far from where it occurred, and you,
Speaker 2: in fact had been at this restaurant or ate food
Speaker 2: from this restaurant chain. The case always stuck with you,
Speaker 2: but the story was distant, something you had read about
Speaker 2: in the papers and followed on the news as a child.
Speaker 2: Tell us nearly thirty years later, what the empethus were
Speaker 2: where this book was. Why did you choose to write
Speaker 2: this book? Tell us a little bit about the origins
Speaker 2: of something big well.
Speaker 3: As you mentioned, Dan, my connection to this story is
Speaker 3: similar to that of a lot of Chicagoans in that
Speaker 3: I have always known about it. It's always stuck with me,
Speaker 3: and I followed it very closely over the years. I
Speaker 3: was actually born the year after this took place. I
Speaker 3: was born in ninety four. This took place in ninety three,
Speaker 3: but it was around for so long, with various ups
Speaker 3: and downs, with suspects, potential suspects being arrested and then
Speaker 3: let go because they weren't the person, or eventually the
Speaker 3: arrests in two thousand and two, the trials and seven
Speaker 3: and nine, and then it's been in the news for
Speaker 3: various reasons even after that, So it's always stuck with me.
Speaker 3: And I grew up not too far from where this
Speaker 3: took place in sort of a similar suburban setting in
Speaker 3: the northwest side of Chicago, and I also ate at
Speaker 3: the restaurants like a lot of people in Chicago. Brown's
Speaker 3: Chicken used to be a huge chain in the nineties
Speaker 3: and two thousands and many decades before that as well,
Speaker 3: with many many locations, And that's part of the story
Speaker 3: here too, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But I
Speaker 3: was surprised in looking at this how little had been
Speaker 3: written about this case. It's a very very well known
Speaker 3: case in Chicago. There's lots of murders unfortunately that are
Speaker 3: well known. In Chicago, you've got Gacy and Leopolden Lobe,
Speaker 3: and you know in Milwaukee you've got Dall murders. These
Speaker 3: kinds of names that are very prominent in true crime circles,
Speaker 3: and I would say this is a case that people
Speaker 3: talk about too, although for whatever reason, it's maybe just
Speaker 3: not talked about as much nationally. When I started looking
Speaker 3: at this book and looking at podcasts that had been
Speaker 3: done on the case, and there had been a previous
Speaker 3: book or two, actually, I was struck that there was
Speaker 3: not much written about the people involved in this case,
Speaker 3: whether it was the police who investigated it, the defense
Speaker 3: attorneys and prosecutors who worked on these cases which took years,
Speaker 3: or people in the community, and most importantly, the stories
Speaker 3: of the victims and what others had to go through
Speaker 3: after this tragedy had really been left out of the story.
Speaker 3: They were just sort of footnotes in other retellings of this.
Speaker 3: So I tried to really focus on the more human
Speaker 3: element of this tragic tale by giving people a picture
Speaker 3: of what the lives of these people before they were killed,
Speaker 3: and tried to portray them as people rather than just victims,
Speaker 3: as I think some true crime books or podcasts tend
Speaker 3: to do. So each chapter in the book is based
Speaker 3: on a different individual, and roughly the first third is
Speaker 3: focused on a couple of people, but mostly the victims.
Speaker 2: You achieved this by saying that these people you convinced
Speaker 2: them to share some incredibly intimate stories about you, about
Speaker 2: this awful event that profoundly impacted their lives. So, like
Speaker 2: I say, congratulations on being able to get that kind
Speaker 2: of incredible access to write this complete story.
Speaker 3: Well, it was certainly a challenge and I had. This
Speaker 3: is my second book. My first book was about a
Speaker 3: political campaign in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, also in
Speaker 3: the nineties, that got a lot of attention, and it
Speaker 3: was a very different tale. It's obviously not life and death.
Speaker 3: So I had to really learn how to gain people's trust,
Speaker 3: and I certainly didn't. There were so many people I
Speaker 3: could have spoken to for this book. I interviewed more
Speaker 3: than forty people. Unfortunately, some of the family members. Some
Speaker 3: of the victims had family members who were no longer around,
Speaker 3: and so I had to rely on certain other things
Speaker 3: for their stories. But for those who I spoke to,
Speaker 3: what I really tried to convey to them was that
Speaker 3: I was going to write this in a different way,
Speaker 3: focusing on their stories, and of course I talk about
Speaker 3: the crime because you can't tell this story without saying
Speaker 3: what happened on January eighth, nineteen ninety three in Palatine, Illinois.
Speaker 3: But the focus is less on the gore of the
Speaker 3: crime and more on telling that narrative. And it has
Speaker 3: certainly been an interesting process and interesting balance to strike
Speaker 3: because on the one hand, you want people to read
Speaker 3: the book and you want it to be, for lack
Speaker 3: of a better word, entertaining.
Speaker 4: But you also when you're meeting these.
Speaker 3: People, when you're talking to them on the phone or
Speaker 3: getting coffee with them or getting lunch with them, you
Speaker 3: want to be honest with yourself and them and make
Speaker 3: sure that you're not offending them in some way either.
Speaker 3: So I hope I achieved that balance, because that was
Speaker 3: certainly what I was trying to do with this story.
Speaker 2: Yes, let's get to Belva and John Brown and the
Speaker 2: origins of Brown's Chicken, and you take us to Chicago
Speaker 2: or outside Chicago and Bridgeview. He comes to Chicago from
Speaker 2: Indiana in nineteen thirty eight, John Brown and purchase a
Speaker 2: small lot of farmland, and then his girlfriend at that
Speaker 2: time seemed to be his wife, Belva. She had to
Speaker 2: prove her usefulness on the farm by ringing a chicken's neck.
Speaker 2: So just tell us briefly about the origins of this business,
Speaker 2: Brown's Chicken, but also I ate pivotal an important character
Speaker 2: in this story and to the business, Frank Portillo Junior.
Speaker 2: How they met and teamed up together.
Speaker 3: And the Portillo name is named that a lot of
Speaker 3: people will recognize, even who are not from Chicago. But
Speaker 3: the story of Brown's Chicken as a business is an
Speaker 3: interesting book in itself, I think, And so nobody had
Speaker 3: really written about the story of the business how it
Speaker 3: came to be, and I wanted to include that because
Speaker 3: or people who maybe don't know the chain or haven't
Speaker 3: heard of it. It was really, I mean huge in Chicago.
Speaker 3: Their advertising was all over the place. They had a
Speaker 3: very well known slogan. He's better is the was the slogan,
Speaker 3: and people knew it because they had TV ads on
Speaker 3: constantly and radio. They had franchises all across Illinois and
Speaker 3: the greater Midwest. But it's the business started from very
Speaker 3: humble beginnings. The Browns, John and Velvet Round were farmers
Speaker 3: just outside of Chicago, and they put together a trailer
Speaker 3: that they took their chickens from the farm and plucked
Speaker 3: them and fried them up and served that to people
Speaker 3: in the area, and it became very popular, and they
Speaker 3: decided to try to open up a restaurant in suburban Bridgeview, Illinois,
Speaker 3: and so they took the trailer set up, moved into
Speaker 3: a restaurant, and they had sort of a chance encounter
Speaker 3: with a man named Frank Ortillo, who was then a
Speaker 3: young man, a draftsman, who worked on one of the
Speaker 3: early restaurants, helping make some renovations. And it was a
Speaker 3: fortuitist moment because they eventually became business partners, and John
Speaker 3: Brown and Frank Ortillo Junior basically took the restaurant from
Speaker 3: just two locations to over one hundred and fifty and
Speaker 3: grew it into a huge corporation at that time. And
Speaker 3: there's some interesting elements here of different inflection points in
Speaker 3: the business. And I think the story of Belva Brown
Speaker 3: is interesting too. She was certainly one of the founders,
Speaker 3: but it's not always spoken about that way. So I
Speaker 3: talked to her son, who told me about what it
Speaker 3: was like there in those early days building this quite
Speaker 3: essentially Chicago business.
Speaker 4: It coincides this the.
Speaker 3: Story of the business with as you mentioned, a very
Speaker 3: sad and tragic event. Just a couple of days before
Speaker 3: the massacre at Browns Chicken and Palatine in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: John Brown himself committed suicide just before the massacre in Palatine,
Speaker 3: and so it was just a very tough time for
Speaker 3: the business he had, at least as his son explained
Speaker 3: it to me, felt very distant from it and was,
Speaker 3: I'm sure struggling with other issues. But it was a
Speaker 3: horrible event, because you know, the death of anyone is tragic,
Speaker 3: but the founder of the business was gone, and they
Speaker 3: thought it was a horrible moment. But just a few
Speaker 3: days later they would experience something that was even more
Speaker 3: tragic than the death of seven individuals. In case people
Speaker 3: have maybe recognized the name Portillo, it is because Frank
Speaker 3: Portillo is brothers of the founder of Portillo's restaurant Portillo's
Speaker 3: Hot Dogs in Chicago, and they started off with an investment.
Speaker 3: Frank Portillo gave his brother Dick Portello, some money to
Speaker 3: open up a dog excuse me, a hot dog stand.
Speaker 4: It's called the Doghouse.
Speaker 3: It was in Villa Park, Illinois, outside Chicago, and eventually
Speaker 3: that business far exceeded expectations. And the success of Brown's Chicken.
Speaker 3: Now it's a publicly serated company, there's some all across
Speaker 3: the country, but it is the same family. So it
Speaker 3: speaks to just how central of a business and a
Speaker 3: name this was to Chicago in that time and still today.
Speaker 2: You introduced a couple of people that decided to take
Speaker 2: a chance research franchises, Dick ellen Feld and his wife Lynn,
Speaker 2: and they he had always had Dick had always had
Speaker 2: some interest in a restaurants, so they finally researched franchises
Speaker 2: that were available, and one was in Palatin, and so
Speaker 2: Lenn and Dick ellen Felt had one of these franchises.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about this couple.
Speaker 3: Well, Lenn and Dick Youngfeld were really an incredible couple.
Speaker 3: They were very, very charitable. They had worked in all
Speaker 3: different areas of the country, and Lynn was dedicated to
Speaker 3: social services and raising the kids. Dick had been in
Speaker 3: the seminary and then worked in politics for it time,
Speaker 3: and he was out of work in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety two, when he was searching for something
Speaker 3: else to do, he had moved the whole family to
Speaker 3: Arlington Heights, Illinois from Madison Wisconsin, where they were from
Speaker 3: for a previous job, and so they were looking for
Speaker 3: something to do while their kids finished high school and
Speaker 3: to take them in a new direction. So they found
Speaker 3: this franchise opportunity in Palatine and it was a good
Speaker 3: move for them because they had thought about opening a
Speaker 3: restaurant as something that had always interest interested Dicky Elenfeld,
Speaker 3: and they decided a franchise would be great because it's
Speaker 3: a more safe kind of avenue business. There's proof of concept,
Speaker 3: and so they went at it. They bought the franchise
Speaker 3: with basically all the money to their name and money
Speaker 3: from friends and family, and they purchased it and made changes.
Speaker 3: They implemented program and made renovations to the restaurant and
Speaker 3: really poured their heart into it. They were really two
Speaker 3: people who were very dedicated to their community. I'll give
Speaker 3: you one example. There was a story that one of
Speaker 3: his daughters told me that when they were closing up
Speaker 3: one night, none came in and justsed in bowl habit
Speaker 3: and she asked She presented them with thirty It was
Speaker 3: thirty coupons of for free chicken meals and they had
Speaker 3: been given out by the previous owners and they were
Speaker 3: very apologetic, but Dick said, you know, I can't. We
Speaker 3: can't give away thirty free meals. This was from the
Speaker 3: previous owner. But maybe maybe we can work something out
Speaker 3: where we can give you all our leftover chicken at
Speaker 3: the end of the night.
Speaker 4: And so they did, and each.
Speaker 3: Night they would take the chicken from the restaurant and
Speaker 3: bring it to the convent, which they would use to
Speaker 3: feed others.
Speaker 4: So they were just just a small example of and
Speaker 4: how charitable and kind they were.
Speaker 3: But they purchased a restaurant in nineteen ninety two and
Speaker 3: by June had had it I think for only about
Speaker 3: nine months, so that not even not even a year
Speaker 3: at that point.
Speaker 2: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now they were running this restaurant and they
Speaker 2: were very benevolent and helpful. Couple. Tell us about Rico
Speaker 2: Solis and Michael Castro.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: So one of the most unfortunate aspects of this crime
Speaker 3: is that there were seven victims, and two of them
Speaker 3: were young high schoolers. Rico Solis was a seventeen year old.
Speaker 3: He was a recent immigrant from the Philippines. He had
Speaker 3: moved from the Philippines after his father was murdered actually
Speaker 3: in Manila, and his mother had moved out to the
Speaker 3: United States before that.
Speaker 4: They had been.
Speaker 3: Separated, so he was with his grandfather and his two
Speaker 3: sisters in the Philippines when his mother said, why don't
Speaker 3: you come join us in Chicago.
Speaker 4: So the three kids immigrated.
Speaker 3: He was the older brother of two sisters, and they
Speaker 3: adjusted to life in America, which I'm sure was difficult
Speaker 3: as someone moving into a new school in kind of
Speaker 3: the middle of the year, learning a new language. But
Speaker 3: he was fortunate in that Chicago has a very vibrant
Speaker 3: Filipino community, both in the city and in the suburbs.
Speaker 3: And when Rico was at Palatine High School, where he
Speaker 3: was a sophomore, he met a young man named Michael Castro.
Speaker 3: And Michael Castro was his parents had immigrated from the Philippines.
Speaker 3: He spoke language, she was. Their family was very involved in,
Speaker 3: you know, other cultural events, and they got to know
Speaker 3: each other. They were in classes together, and Michael worked
Speaker 3: at a restaurant that was Brown's Chicken. He was saving
Speaker 3: up for a car he loved, was trying to soup
Speaker 3: up his car rather with new speakers, and was enjoying
Speaker 3: the work and having the freedom that comes with, you know,
Speaker 3: a young being a young person and finally getting a paycheck.
Speaker 3: And so he suggested to his friend Rico that he
Speaker 3: did a job at Brown's Chicken, and so he.
Speaker 4: Set him up with the opportunity.
Speaker 3: We goo met with the owners and with Lynn, who
Speaker 3: typically handled those those those interviews and the process and
Speaker 3: work with employees. He got to work as eventually a
Speaker 3: cashier at the restaurant, but started off doing other things,
Speaker 3: baking biscuits, washing dishes, the typical things you'd expect in
Speaker 3: a restaurant. And so the Tube became very close friends.
Speaker 3: They had a lot in common, and Michael certainly helped
Speaker 3: we go just to the United States, certainly he by
Speaker 3: the time nineteen ninety three rolled around, had only been
Speaker 3: in the United States a couple months really, so it
Speaker 3: was of course a tragic and short lived time in America.
Speaker 2: You introduce a character named Christian Lenstrom, happens to be
Speaker 2: the boyfriend of Jim Degorski. They both went to Fremd
Speaker 2: High School. You just introduce Jim de Gorski. He's a
Speaker 2: six foot guy, chubby, lives in Hoffman estates tell Us
Speaker 2: a little bit about Jim Degorski and this little story
Speaker 2: that involves Christian Lenstrom and just the demonstration of maybe
Speaker 2: future behavior.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that's unique about this book
Speaker 3: is that sometimes the suspense of a true book is
Speaker 3: figuring out who the killer is.
Speaker 4: And this is a story.
Speaker 3: That I knew a lot of people in Chicago would read,
Speaker 3: and it's resolved. People know the names if they followed us,
Speaker 3: and so I had to write this a little differently,
Speaker 3: and so Jim de Gorski and Wan Luna, the killers
Speaker 3: are introduced early, and then the third chapter there was
Speaker 3: a story about Kristen, as you mentioned, who was a
Speaker 3: girlfriend of James tu Gorski and who he was incredibly
Speaker 3: abusive towards. He would punch her and hit her, and
Speaker 3: there was an incident where he basically abducted her and
Speaker 3: took her to another town and threatened her.
Speaker 4: So he displayed this very violent behavior. Jim came from
Speaker 4: a very rough house. He had a tough upgriming.
Speaker 3: I would certainly say his father had mental illness and
Speaker 3: other issues, and that's built out into obviously dysfunction with
Speaker 3: the family. So he certainly had a tragic upbringing and
Speaker 3: That's one of the things I talk about in the
Speaker 3: chapters that weave in his story.
Speaker 4: One of the things that was really fascinating to me
Speaker 4: in writing this book is.
Speaker 3: When I spoke to the particularly the daughters of the founders.
Speaker 3: One of the things they said to the franchise owners,
Speaker 3: the unfls.
Speaker 4: One of the things they expressed to me was they.
Speaker 3: Asked her, are you going to write the story of
Speaker 3: Jim and One? And I was sort of hesitating, saying, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna talk about them, so you obviously have to
Speaker 3: to tell his story.
Speaker 4: And I thought they were.
Speaker 3: Suggesting they didn't, you know, maybe they didn't want me
Speaker 3: to or something like that, And what they were actually
Speaker 3: getting at was they wanted me to tell it. They
Speaker 3: wanted me to explain who the men were in a
Speaker 3: fair way, honest but fair. It really came from view
Speaker 3: that One and James were trouble kids, and they were
Speaker 3: exactly the kind of youth who their parents would have
Speaker 3: helped out through their work in the community, through Lynn's.
Speaker 4: Social service work.
Speaker 3: And so that I found to be just very incredible
Speaker 3: because it was not necessarily the way that I would
Speaker 3: have reacted if someone had had murdered my parents, and
Speaker 3: so I was just very astonished by their grace in
Speaker 3: that manner, and that's something a lot of the families
Speaker 3: displayed even at the trials, which I am sure will
Speaker 3: get to a sort of preview of it. When the
Speaker 3: decision the question of the death penalty came up, there
Speaker 3: were a number of families who opposed it and even
Speaker 3: attended rallies with the families of Juan Luna's family to
Speaker 3: jointly oppose posing a death sentence, which again was something
Speaker 3: that I found very astonishing, just because I don't know
Speaker 3: how my reaction would be in that instant, but I
Speaker 3: found there's to be just incredible.
Speaker 2: You're right that one Luna originally from Mexico, and Jim
Speaker 2: Degorski met at the frem High School and they became
Speaker 2: close buddies. Tell us a little bit about one Luna
Speaker 2: and his background.
Speaker 3: Well, one, as you mentioned, immigrated from Mexico. He family
Speaker 3: originally came into the moved to the city, then the suburbs.
Speaker 4: And they were a pretty normal family.
Speaker 3: He you know, would work the or or do the
Speaker 3: signs of things that kids in the suburbs do, hanging
Speaker 3: out with friends, working jobs, just getting drunk, hanging out
Speaker 3: in basements doing no good, but for the most part,
Speaker 3: was not necessarily someone who got in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 3: He was someone who was one of the only non
Speaker 3: white people in his school Palatine, was not necessarily at
Speaker 3: least friend high school where they went, wasn't the most
Speaker 3: diverse place, and he was a little shy, I would say,
Speaker 3: more so than Jim. Definitely, of the two, Jim was
Speaker 3: sort of the one who was more aggressive and more
Speaker 3: in charge. They're obviously both responsible for the eventual killings,
Speaker 3: but just gives you a sense of sort of his
Speaker 3: demeanor in all of this as well.
Speaker 2: That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
Speaker 2: you take us to January ninth and just the working
Speaker 2: arrangement at Brown's Chicken, and you introduced some workers and
Speaker 2: characters in this story. Marcus Nelson and also Guadaloupe and
Speaker 2: also Tom Menez introduced these three characters and the arrangements
Speaker 2: for working that weekend at Brown's Chicken.
Speaker 3: Sure, so there were three other individuals who were working
Speaker 3: that night to have passed. Guadalamube Maldonado was a father
Speaker 3: of three. He was forty seven and slave forties. Had
Speaker 3: lived in the United States a couple times before that,
Speaker 3: but had moved back and forth between the northwest suburbs
Speaker 3: of Chicago and Mexico, and he had moved about a
Speaker 3: month before the killings. This was his third time back
Speaker 3: in the United States, and he came with his now
Speaker 3: wife and their three sons, and so it was really
Speaker 3: a classic immigrant story of someone coming to the country
Speaker 3: in search of a different opportunity for their children. And
Speaker 3: he was a very hard working man. He had worked
Speaker 3: at several restaurants before this, and one of the restaurants
Speaker 3: he went to was kind of an old It was
Speaker 3: called the Old Town in it's exactly.
Speaker 4: How you would imagine.
Speaker 3: There were, you know, old timey vibes and music there sometimes,
Speaker 3: and it was kind of a classic American restaurant that
Speaker 3: he'd worked at. And when he went back to see
Speaker 3: if his job from his last stay in the United
Speaker 3: States was available, it was nuts, so he had to
Speaker 3: look for other works. So he eventually applied for a
Speaker 3: job at Brown's Chicken. The Elon Feltz took a liking
Speaker 3: to him. He was older than most people. They wanted
Speaker 3: someone who was mature and reliable and he had cooking experience,
Speaker 3: so it was a good good fit for him.
Speaker 4: There were other individuals working that night.
Speaker 3: Guatela Pemo Nana was the cook. Tom Ennis was a
Speaker 3: thirty two year old man. He was sort of quiet,
Speaker 3: not necessarily shy, but just more discerning about who he
Speaker 3: would speak to. Some people might call him a little quirky,
Speaker 3: but a nice guy. He rode his bike around Palatine.
Speaker 3: He didn't like to drive because he'd been in an accident.
Speaker 3: He took his brother's car out once and crashed into
Speaker 3: the garage and decided he wasn't going to drive anymore,
Speaker 3: so he wrote he would ride his bike around Valatine.
Speaker 3: He was a twin too. He was working that night,
Speaker 3: helping with breading the chicken and baking biscuits and doing
Speaker 3: all the other tasks in the restaurant. And then there
Speaker 3: was Marcus Nelson, who was a veteran. He was a
Speaker 3: Navy veteran. He had been on the management track at
Speaker 3: the restaurant, and he was someone who had gone through
Speaker 3: a divorce that certainly impacted him. He was sort of
Speaker 3: blamed himself for it and was trying to make right
Speaker 3: getting a job working on himself and his struggle with alcoholism,
Speaker 3: and he was making very very good progress on things.
Speaker 3: He was doing well at Brown's Chicken, and they were
Speaker 3: sending him to training classes and things so he could
Speaker 3: learn more about how to manage the business and was
Speaker 3: certainly enjoying that that new experience in a new work
Speaker 3: environment that was definitely working for him. So he was
Speaker 3: the last of the seven individuals working that night.
Speaker 2: Now the owner Lynn Eldenfeldt, she was not scheduled to
Speaker 2: work that night, but her daughter was Dana, but she
Speaker 2: wanted to be with her boyfriend and her parents to
Speaker 2: meet their parents or her parents' pardon me, and so
Speaker 2: Lynn took over the shift from her daughter Dana. There's
Speaker 2: closing time and two men arrive at the doors. What
Speaker 2: is the policy even though they were closed at the
Speaker 2: Brown's Chicken regarding closing and the sale of chicken.
Speaker 3: Well, they were not one to turn down customers, and
Speaker 3: so if someone came to the restaurant and they were
Speaker 3: closed technically it was after nine o'clock, they would still
Speaker 3: let people in the front. Owners had a policy that
Speaker 3: if there was still chicken under the the heat lamps
Speaker 3: in the restaurant behind the counters that they would they
Speaker 3: would serve that to anyone who showed up just passed close.
Speaker 3: So on January eighth, nineteen eighty three, two men showed
Speaker 3: up at the restaurant and they were let in and
Speaker 3: they ordered a four piece chicken meal, then sat in
Speaker 3: a booth and ate it while the people around them.
Speaker 4: Mopped up the floors.
Speaker 3: They counted the money, They cleaned the grease friars, and
Speaker 3: continued their morning excuse me, their closing routine that night.
Speaker 3: That is when eventually Juan Luna and Jim do Gorski,
Speaker 3: the two men who showed up, decided to go about
Speaker 3: killing seven people in the restaurant. It was essentially a robbery.
Speaker 3: It looked like a robbery gone wrong to people. They
Speaker 3: held people up and stacked them excuse me a force
Speaker 3: them into the cooler in the freezer, five in one,
Speaker 3: two in the other, and shot them in there. Then
Speaker 3: they proceeded to pick up the bullets shells so there
Speaker 3: would be no trace of them at the restaurant kind
Speaker 3: of sloppily, took a took a mop and clean up
Speaker 3: the blood. They shut off the lights to the to
Speaker 3: the restaurant and then then left left them there, which left.
Speaker 3: As time went by, of course, people wondering where their
Speaker 3: loved ones were and why they hadn't come home.
Speaker 2: You say that a patrolling officer checks Brown's chicken later
Speaker 2: on and notices that the door is open and goes
Speaker 2: in and sees blood on a mop handle and then
Speaker 2: calls for backup when also, though this story continues, when
Speaker 2: Michael Castro is supposed to come home right after work,
Speaker 2: there's some plans with his family and also another one
Speaker 2: of the employees as well, the brother I believe, goes out.
Speaker 2: So tell us what happens when a couple of these
Speaker 2: employees don't come back home when they're supposed to.
Speaker 3: Well, this is the first sign for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: and the families all start wondering right away why their
Speaker 3: loved ones hadn't come home. The mother of Rico is
Speaker 3: worried waiting for her son, feeling uneasy, wondering why isn't there.
Speaker 3: The family of Manny Castro goes to the restaurant to
Speaker 3: check on him. His brother goes and is told that
Speaker 3: he's probably out drinking, which they knew immediately wasn't the
Speaker 3: case because he wasn't a drinker.
Speaker 4: So they begin to worry more.
Speaker 3: Even even by that others arrive at the restaurant or
Speaker 3: call trying to figure it out. The family of Michael Castro,
Speaker 3: his parents go to the restaurant to look a number
Speaker 3: of times that night because they know something's wrong, and
Speaker 3: eventually his father is there that that night, just falling
Speaker 3: close behind one of the officers as they enter and
Speaker 3: figure out almost immediately that this is a crime scene.
Speaker 3: It's a sad scene because of the fact that there's
Speaker 3: they kind of know what has happened, but they won't
Speaker 3: know until many hours later when police tell them more.
Speaker 3: They announce officially the deaths and who is passed, and
Speaker 3: so the chaos of the investigation begins. Almost immediately the
Speaker 3: police close down the crime scene, they start putting together
Speaker 3: a log of who's going in and out. They unferral
Speaker 3: police tape around the scene as crowd begins to grow,
Speaker 3: and it's at this point in the early morning of
Speaker 3: now Sunday, excuse me, Saturday, January ninth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: The media is there almost instantly as well, from the
Speaker 3: very beginning filming taking pictures. They're very present on the scene.
Speaker 3: This was interesting for me, just realizing how present. They
Speaker 3: had been, because there's a video of this story almost
Speaker 3: from the very beginning, like I said, of police on
Speaker 3: the scene and a point when they still don't even
Speaker 3: know what's going on, So they were very present throughout
Speaker 3: this entire entire case.
Speaker 2: You introduce a pivotal character in this story. This Jane Homeyer,
Speaker 2: North Illinois's police crime lab analyst where they examine toxology,
Speaker 2: zerology and handling biological evidence. This is her first murder investigation,
Speaker 2: only her second crime scene, but she understands the developments
Speaker 2: in DNA and bags some evidence that someone at the
Speaker 2: crime scene. Other police technicians question why she's even doing it.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is one of the most pivotal moments in
Speaker 3: the case, although people don't realize it until much later.
Speaker 4: When the killers were at.
Speaker 3: The restaurant, they decided to eat a meal. It was
Speaker 3: not part of the plan, and one Luna takes a bite,
Speaker 3: they throw it in the garbage can before they decide
Speaker 3: to kill everyone. And when crime scene investigators and crime
Speaker 3: scene technicians and law enforcement are combing through the crime
Speaker 3: scene and processing evidence, they noticed almost immediately that the
Speaker 3: restaurant was very clean and that the garbage cans were
Speaker 3: mostly empty except for one where there was this four
Speaker 3: piece chicken dinner.
Speaker 4: So it sort of sits there for.
Speaker 3: A little while, and eventually Jane homer Are, the crime
Speaker 3: scene technician at the scene, decides she's going to freeze it,
Speaker 3: and people kind of look askance at her, not sure
Speaker 3: what the value is. And that's because in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: distracting DNA from a saliva sample that small just simply
Speaker 3: wasn't a thing.
Speaker 4: So I think common sense today you would, of course.
Speaker 3: You would save it, maybe you can get DNA, but
Speaker 3: at that point that simply was not technology did not exist,
Speaker 3: and so she was very shrewd and knew that this
Speaker 3: was the DNA technology was advancing rapidly, and so she
Speaker 3: decided to freeze the chicken bone, and eventually, later in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety eight, when the technology was more advanced, she
Speaker 3: was able to extract They were able to extract DNA
Speaker 3: from it and eventually connected to one whatever.
Speaker 4: Even in nineteen ninety eight, they didn't have a.
Speaker 3: DNA profile to connect it, so it was just a
Speaker 3: sample without a match, which took years to connect, which
Speaker 3: we'll talk about.
Speaker 2: You're right that this case becomes a huge media story
Speaker 2: nationally media frenzy, and there was a rest of a
Speaker 2: couple suspects, one being someone named Martin Blake. And Martin
Speaker 2: Blake had been in a form employee and police thought
Speaker 2: he might be a disgruntled employee because he had been
Speaker 2: fired not that previous to these to this massacre. But
Speaker 2: for the sake of this story, Martin Blake is cleared eventually,
Speaker 2: and this case with the police, Cook County and Palatine
Speaker 2: police have no answers and the perpetrators go free.
Speaker 3: One of the things I really wanted to do with
Speaker 3: this book is share all sorts of unique perspectives on it,
Speaker 3: not just from the view of police investigating, or the
Speaker 3: views of the families or the attorneys in the cases,
Speaker 3: but even people who are suspects. And so Martin Blake
Speaker 3: was the first one. His name was completely run through
Speaker 3: the ringer. They had his face plastered on the front
Speaker 3: pages of all the Chicago newspapers, which was a big
Speaker 3: deal back then, still would be, but much bigger deal then.
Speaker 4: His face was the broadcast in Chicago.
Speaker 3: His home video of him was obtained saying all sorts
Speaker 3: of silly things, and he was made out to be
Speaker 3: basically convicted in the court of public opinion even before
Speaker 3: they could say otherwise. So within forty eight hours his
Speaker 3: name is completely destroyed. And he talked to me about
Speaker 3: how eventually he had to leave the state as a
Speaker 3: result of this, because of how intense the the stigma
Speaker 3: of being.
Speaker 4: That first person was.
Speaker 2: You also write about Frank Portillo's fate. He offers up
Speaker 2: a big reward and wants to and thinks the police
Speaker 2: are are lax in their investigation, and so he's very active,
Speaker 2: but also he's trying to rescue his business from rune
Speaker 2: as well. And you talk about Frank Portillo again, a
Speaker 2: major character in this story. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about Brown's Chicken and its fate during all of this.
Speaker 3: In the immediate aftermath of this, the business suffered because
Speaker 3: people were afraid to eat at the restaurants. They don't
Speaker 3: know if it's connected in some way to Brown specifically.
Speaker 3: And this is both an emotional quandary for Frank Potilla
Speaker 3: because he actually knew the owners, he had helped train
Speaker 3: them and tried to get to know all the new franchises.
Speaker 3: But it's also a huge business problem, and so he
Speaker 3: becomes someone who is very helpful to the police in
Speaker 3: the beginning, giving them information where he can, records of employees,
Speaker 3: past employees, things like that he sent Chicken to the
Speaker 3: pass force that had been set up to investigate the crime.
Speaker 4: And eventually, as things drag on, he sort of loses
Speaker 4: fate with all time.
Speaker 3: Police and eventually he pushes an outside group, a nonprofit
Speaker 3: called the Better Government Association, to publish a report on this,
Speaker 3: to invest the from the outside. It becomes a whole
Speaker 3: thorn in the side of the Palatine.
Speaker 4: Police because BGA is.
Speaker 3: A credible organization. They do a lot of great work
Speaker 3: and investigated corruption and other things in the city of Chicago,
Speaker 3: and so when they decide to look into this, it
Speaker 3: becomes a problem for the police.
Speaker 4: But they can't share information with an.
Speaker 3: Outside group because it's an ongoing investigation, and so the
Speaker 3: police are sort of sort of forced with this difficult
Speaker 3: decision of whether or not to respond to the criticism
Speaker 3: they have and maybe potentially give out some evidence that
Speaker 3: might be helpful, nots giving out or just kind of
Speaker 3: taking it. And that becomes a theme throughout this.
Speaker 2: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now you take us to episode ten of
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety seven season of America's Most Wanted, aired
Speaker 2: on Sunday in May. By that time, the show had
Speaker 2: helped to put an end to nearly five hundred cases
Speaker 2: You write viewers in all fifty states, and Anne Lockett
Speaker 2: was one of those viewers. Tell us what she saw
Speaker 2: and what it stirred in her that airing of America's
Speaker 2: Most Wanted.
Speaker 3: Well, Anne had been paying attention to this story. An
Speaker 3: Lockett was told in the immediate aftermath of the crime
Speaker 3: by her boyfriend Jim de Gorski and Jan Luna, and
Speaker 3: she worries for her life because she had been threatened
Speaker 3: by Jim de Gorski that if she came forward that
Speaker 3: they would kill her. And so he calls in to
Speaker 3: check up with her over the years and kind of
Speaker 3: keeps tabs and she knows she said should come forward,
Speaker 3: but doesn't obviously, but she tries to drop a little
Speaker 3: hints for friends and sort of create a space for
Speaker 3: her to maybe come forward. She talks about the case
Speaker 3: with friends, will take walks around the Browns Chicken restaurant
Speaker 3: or around Palatine and always end up there and she
Speaker 3: sort of asks you know, what do you think people
Speaker 3: wonder about this case? Or do you think the families
Speaker 3: think about it? And nobody thinks anything of her asking
Speaker 3: those questions, she writes a letter to America's Most Wanted,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, laying out the everything she knows, and
Speaker 3: then sort of the needle in the haystack. Obviously she
Speaker 3: should have went forward directly to the police. That would
Speaker 3: have been a much cleaner way to do it. It
Speaker 3: was one sign that she had sort of sent to people.
Speaker 3: And of course the police had to be very unique
Speaker 3: in their approach, and so they actually worked with the
Speaker 3: producers to put on this show to hopefully shake up
Speaker 3: some new tips. But this unfortunately is lost. I'm sure
Speaker 3: for a variety of reasons. It was probably anonymous and
Speaker 3: and they've probably got thousands of tips. This is one
Speaker 3: of the biggest case files in the history of Illinois,
Speaker 3: and so the amount of information was just incredibly overwhelming
Speaker 3: at that time.
Speaker 2: You're right about this formation of a task force to
Speaker 2: address this, this multiple crime, multiple murders. Tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about who are members of this task force.
Speaker 3: Well, the Palatine Police is their suburban police department, kind
Speaker 3: of a medium sized suburb not a ton of crime,
Speaker 3: but there certainly had been murders in the past.
Speaker 4: They bring in.
Speaker 3: Experts, They bring in everyone you can think of in
Speaker 3: the immediate aftermath, from.
Speaker 4: The FBI and profilers.
Speaker 3: And some of Chicago's most experienced homicide detectives to assist
Speaker 3: with the case, as.
Speaker 4: Well as other people in the suburbs.
Speaker 3: And so the pass force is set up, run by
Speaker 3: the Palatine Police and with the assistance of these groups,
Speaker 3: and it balloons to over one hundred people working on
Speaker 3: the case in the weeks following the crime.
Speaker 4: And I think it's important to.
Speaker 3: Understand that one of the criticisms that the police faced
Speaker 3: for a long time was that they were very protective
Speaker 3: of the order the investigation. They somehow botched it because
Speaker 3: they didn't they didn't have the resources or they know
Speaker 3: how to do it. But the reality is they brought
Speaker 3: in immediately everyone who could possibly be helpful, and nobody
Speaker 3: was able to help because of the simple fact that
Speaker 3: this case was only going to be broken by someone
Speaker 3: coming forward, and eventually.
Speaker 4: That is that is how it solved.
Speaker 2: You read about Melissa Ben's and her pivotal role in
Speaker 2: all of this. When Anne Leckett gives her a call,
Speaker 2: and you write that Melissa sort of prize information out
Speaker 2: of her that and wanted to express.
Speaker 4: And yes, and this is one of the pivotal moments.
Speaker 3: Melissa Benz is a high school friend of Anne Lockett
Speaker 3: and she decides.
Speaker 4: To working one night late.
Speaker 3: She runs a landscaping business with her husband, and she
Speaker 3: gets a call from Anne, which is normal, they catch
Speaker 3: up once in a while. They're old friends, and Anne
Speaker 3: starts talking about the Browns Stricken murderers, and she asks
Speaker 3: her do you remember that? And she's very sort of
Speaker 3: nondescript about it, and eventually she tells Melissa, well, I
Speaker 3: know who did it. And it leads to a whole
Speaker 3: saga with the police and Melissa convincing Anne that she
Speaker 3: has to come forward and convey this information.
Speaker 4: To the Palatine Police, and so she does.
Speaker 3: Her friends, her friend convinced her finally to come forward,
Speaker 3: and they connect with Bill King, a detective who'd worked
Speaker 3: on the case for a long long time in Palatine,
Speaker 3: and initially he's sort of not skeptical is the right word,
Speaker 3: but he had seen it all about that point. And
Speaker 3: as I mentioned, this is one of the largest cases
Speaker 3: in the history of the state, and so they've gotten
Speaker 3: calls from all sorts of people, so he approaches it
Speaker 3: with a healthy amount of skepticism. But when he speaks
Speaker 3: with in Lockett, he gets a detail that is unique,
Speaker 3: and that is that one of the victims threw up
Speaker 3: French fries at the scene after they were killed. It's
Speaker 3: a gruesome detail, but it's one that the police had
Speaker 3: never released publicly, and there's no way that anyone else
Speaker 3: could have known about it. So they know that ant
Speaker 3: Lockett is telling the truth and that busts the case
Speaker 3: wide open. The police eventually are able to get a
Speaker 3: DNA sample from Wan Luna because he had worked at
Speaker 3: the restaurant before. They just kind of play it off as, oh,
Speaker 3: we're just going back to everyone again who worked there.
Speaker 3: They get a sample from Jim do Gorski, asking him
Speaker 3: to come to the police station when he's in town
Speaker 3: from Indianapolis, where he lived at that point, and they're
Speaker 3: able to connect the DNA from the chicken bones that
Speaker 3: they rose in nineteen ninety three, extracted a sample from
Speaker 3: the nineteen ninety eight and then in two thousand and
Speaker 3: two gotten a match between the chicken and o Wan Luna,
Speaker 3: which eventually leads to their arrests. One of the biggest
Speaker 3: stories resolved in Chicago of that last decade, and.
Speaker 2: It really all come down to that preservation of the
Speaker 2: chicken bones by Jane han Eire and her having the
Speaker 2: foresight of DNA advancements in the future.
Speaker 4: Absolutely otherwise it would not have been solved.
Speaker 3: And one of the interesting things that one of the
Speaker 3: sisters of the victims told me was a Locket was
Speaker 3: criticized for not coming forward earlier, and we all hoped
Speaker 3: that we would have, in a similar situation come forward earlier.
Speaker 3: But she said to me, you know, it probably worked
Speaker 3: out the way it was supposed to because had she
Speaker 3: come forward earlier, they would not have had DNA evidence
Speaker 3: to support her claim, right, and they also could just
Speaker 3: completely assassinate her character her. She was a very imperfect witness,
Speaker 3: I think, a good person who did the right thing
Speaker 3: in the end, but at that time had had been
Speaker 3: in a mental facility, had struggled with drugs and alcohol and.
Speaker 4: The sort of things that at a trial don't necessarily
Speaker 4: look good or speak well. So she was talmage.
Speaker 3: So in the end it sort of worked out the
Speaker 3: way it should because there was support for the story
Speaker 3: that she told police in the form of DNA evidence.
Speaker 2: Now, when you introduced another crucial character as Sergeant Bill King,
Speaker 2: when these two one Luna and Jim de Gorski, are interviewed,
Speaker 2: are interrogated. When they're interrogated, it isn't too hard to
Speaker 2: get those people, these two killers, to admit their involvement.
Speaker 2: It's a different story at the trial once they get lawyers,
Speaker 2: and of course they plead not guilty. But initially these
Speaker 2: people think that the gig is up and are willing
Speaker 2: to talk to police, aren't they?
Speaker 3: Yes, and both wan Laya confesses on tape, and it's
Speaker 3: an extensive tape. Illinois at that point had required confessions
Speaker 3: to be taped. Jim de Gorski confesses immediately when he's
Speaker 3: arrested in the says something I'm paraphrasing along lines says,
Speaker 3: well you finally finally, or it took I'm surprised it
Speaker 3: took you this long, essentially, and then he talks about
Speaker 3: it in the car with with the police on the
Speaker 3: ride home from Indianapolis, where he lived at that point,
Speaker 3: back to a police station in Illinois to be interrogated,
Speaker 3: and he openly said that that they did it and confesses.
Speaker 3: So obviously the story has changed later on and as
Speaker 3: you can expect, but he does somewhat confess on tape
Speaker 3: as well. He convinces to police in the station and
Speaker 3: then when they want to record it, he sort of
Speaker 3: have heartedly does it, which becomes an issue at trial later.
Speaker 3: But they both did admit to it almost immediately after
Speaker 3: being arrested.
Speaker 2: Because it's a capital punishment case, of course, there are
Speaker 2: excellent lawyers that vibe for to be able to represent
Speaker 2: these two characters, these two defendants. Joy ellen Felt, though,
Speaker 2: said that the parents had taught them that they would
Speaker 2: be firmly opposed to the death penalty. The death penalty
Speaker 2: was able to be had in Chicago at that time.
Speaker 2: Tell us what the jurors had in terms of their decision.
Speaker 2: You write about unanimity being essential for this three phases
Speaker 2: of a trial in this capital punishment case.
Speaker 3: Yes, so there are three phases in the death penalty
Speaker 3: cases in Illinois. There's guilt and innocence.
Speaker 4: There's the.
Speaker 3: Eligibility phase where someone is ruled eligible or eligible for
Speaker 3: the death penalty, and then there is sentencing, which in
Speaker 3: the third phase is essentially deciding whether to sentence someone
Speaker 3: for a murder like this to life in prison or.
Speaker 4: To death to give them capital punishment.
Speaker 3: So this was a very closely watched case because Illinois
Speaker 3: had at the turn of the century put a moratorium
Speaker 3: on the practice, and a number of governors in Illinois,
Speaker 3: Republican and Democratic, had commuted sentences and at that time
Speaker 3: rob Igoivitch, who was governor who I'm sure people know,
Speaker 3: had kept a moratorium in place, but it was still
Speaker 3: a sentence that could be imposed, and if a different
Speaker 3: governor was an employee a launch, then it was possible
Speaker 3: for the death penalty being posed. So this was very
Speaker 3: closely watched, and it was also a case that was
Speaker 3: unique in that some people in Illinois attorneys viewed it
Speaker 3: as an opportunity to potentially outlaw the death penalty in Illinois.
Speaker 3: So that becomes a flashpoint in this case. But as
Speaker 3: I mentioned, and you allude to, one of the unique
Speaker 3: aspects of this is that some of the family as
Speaker 3: now ultimate jurors don't see that because it's outside the
Speaker 3: courthouse and they're sequestered.
Speaker 4: But I think it's.
Speaker 3: A unique aspect of this, and so at trial, Juan
Speaker 3: Luna and mc gorski are put on trial in two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven and two thousand and nine, respectively, and
Speaker 3: it becomes a very closely watched event. They're both ruled
Speaker 3: eligible for the death penalty and guilty of the murder
Speaker 3: of these seven individuals, but it becomes a question of
Speaker 3: whether or not to sentence them to death, and this
Speaker 3: is something that obviously jurors agonized over. I spoke to
Speaker 3: a jur who talked to me about what it was
Speaker 3: like to be in that room and make that decision. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: with the first trial with Wanna, there was one woman
Speaker 3: who was a holdout to very emotional decision, but she
Speaker 3: stuck to her ground with that, and the same with
Speaker 3: de Gorski. There were a couple more jurors who disagreed,
Speaker 3: but without a unanimous decision on that, they're sentenced to
Speaker 3: life and sent to a stateful prison. But it's a
Speaker 3: unique case in number of ways because some of the witnesses.
Speaker 3: You obviously have the police. You've got people like doctor
Speaker 3: Henry Lee, who is a very well known forensics expert.
Speaker 3: People might know Hi from the oj trial and the
Speaker 3: staircase case, and I talked to him about it and
Speaker 3: what it was like to testify and be a part
Speaker 3: of this, and he was certainly a character in this
Speaker 3: and provided some moments of levity in an otherwise very
Speaker 3: tense trial. One of the I think most intense portions
Speaker 3: of this trial comes after their sentenced exees me after
Speaker 3: their found guilty. In the eligible there's the mitigation phase
Speaker 3: where statements are read by ones both the victims families
Speaker 3: and then of course the killers themselves too, to sort.
Speaker 4: Of sympathy if you will.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of boiling it down, but from jurors to
Speaker 3: not sentenced them to death or to you know, to
Speaker 3: give them a lighter sentence. And it's very emotional to
Speaker 3: hear the stories of the people who who passed and
Speaker 3: the courage they have standing up there and.
Speaker 4: Having to do that. So it was a Sometimes.
Speaker 3: Trials are hard to write about and make interesting, so
Speaker 3: I try to weave in the most interesting parts and
Speaker 3: keep it, keep it flowing well. But it was certainly
Speaker 3: very helpful for understanding the stories of people as well.
Speaker 3: Through that testimony, You're.
Speaker 2: Right about and locket, and what we didn't mention was
Speaker 2: that she had been contacted when she was at this
Speaker 2: at a hospital, a psychiatric hospital and given the news
Speaker 2: that Jim de Gorski, her boyfriend, had done something big
Speaker 2: him and Wan and then she was later in on
Speaker 2: the details of something Big. City officials decide that Anne
Speaker 2: Lockett and Melissa Bens would split the almost one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollar reward. You write in the very end that
Speaker 2: really the only thing something big, something big would really
Speaker 2: apply to Michael Castro's goal of joining the military. Something
Speaker 2: big was the story of Rico Solis and his transition
Speaker 2: to life in America. Something big was Marcus Nelson's deep
Speaker 2: love for his daughter. Something big was Tom Menne's gentleness
Speaker 2: and adoration for his family. And something big was the
Speaker 2: dedication Lynn Ellenfeld had for helping others, and Dick ellen
Speaker 2: felt the chance he took at opening a restaurant in
Speaker 2: hopes of providing financial stability for his family. And something
Speaker 2: big was Loupe Maldonado's dream of a better life for
Speaker 2: his children in Chicago. You also say that in acknowledgements
Speaker 2: that you want to thank authors Dennis Sheer The Last
Speaker 2: Meal and Morris Posley's The Brown's Chicken Massacre and the
Speaker 2: series forty four Minutes just give us a little bit
Speaker 2: about that initial goal to present this book as an
Speaker 2: honor to these victims and their families. Just tell us
Speaker 2: something insummation, please.
Speaker 3: Well, the headle of the book is something big, and
Speaker 3: that is the excuse or the motive that the killers
Speaker 3: give for their actions that day. They said that they
Speaker 3: decided to kill seven people because they wanted to do
Speaker 3: something big, and to this day, no one really understands
Speaker 3: exactly what that means, and it's sort of a very
Speaker 3: unsettling end to this. So I tried to sort of
Speaker 3: turn that on its head in the end of the
Speaker 3: book and talk about what was really big, like you said,
Speaker 3: and that was the dreams and aspirations of people who
Speaker 3: were just seven hardworking, very decent individuals past for no
Speaker 3: reason other than just a very heinous and selfish, horrendous act.
Speaker 3: So I hope that it ties the focus back and
Speaker 3: the end nicely to others involved in this case, and
Speaker 3: a focus that is different than how the story has
Speaker 3: been told in the past.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I want to thank you Patrick Woolf for coming
Speaker 2: on and talking about your extraordinary something Big, the true
Speaker 2: story of the Browns Chicken massacre, a decade long manhunt,
Speaker 2: and the trials that followed. Thank you so much. For
Speaker 2: this interview. For those people that might want to find
Speaker 2: out more information about this story in this book, and
Speaker 2: do you have a website or social media that you
Speaker 2: could refer us to.
Speaker 3: I do. You can find more information on Patrickwall dot
Speaker 3: com and my social media is there as well, so
Speaker 3: check it out.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Patrick Wool. Something Big the true
Speaker 2: story of the Browns Chicken massacre, a decade long manhunt,
Speaker 2: and the trials that followed. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: this interview, Patrick Wool, have a great evening and good night,
Speaker 2: good night,