Speaker 1: Judy was boring.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Then Judy discovered chumpacasino dot com.
Speaker 3: It's my little escape.
Speaker 1: Now Judy's the life of the party.
Speaker 3: Oh baby Mama is bringing home the bacon.
Speaker 1: WHOA, take it easy, Judy, Jump the chumpa life is
Speaker 1: for everybody. So go to chumpacasino dot com and play
Speaker 1: over one hundred casino style games. Join today and play
Speaker 1: for free for your chance to redeem some serious prices.
Speaker 1: Jump chumpacasino dot com. Noe's necessary, poly We're promitted by
Speaker 1: eighteen plus terms and condition to pla see what's every details.
Speaker 3: Step into the world of power, loyalty and luck.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna make him an offer you can't refuse.
Speaker 3: With family, canolis and spins mean everything.
Speaker 4: Now you want to get mixed up in the family business.
Speaker 3: Introducing the Godfather at chumpacasino dot com. Test your luck
Speaker 3: in the shadowy world of the Godfather slot.
Speaker 4: Someday I will call upon you to do a service
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 3: Play the Godfather now at chumpa Casino dot com.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Family vdW group.
Speaker 2: NOPERD is necessary if we were privited by low see
Speaker 2: terms and convisions eighteen plus.
Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about him Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 6: Good evening new from the best selling author of Wrecking Crew.
Speaker 6: During the early morning hours of July seventeenth, nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 6: fatigue became a factor for the young couple from central
Speaker 6: Illinois who spent their day under the hot sun at
Speaker 6: Marriott's Great America Amusement Park north of Chicago. On their
Speaker 6: drive home, the tired teenagers pulled to the shoulder of
Speaker 6: Interstate fifty five to get a RESTful sleep. As the
Speaker 6: teen slept inside their car under the moon and the stars,
Speaker 6: a dangerous force of evil lurked in the shadows parking
Speaker 6: directly behind them. The summer of nineteen eighty three was
Speaker 6: like no other for Joliet, Illinois, a hard working, rough
Speaker 6: and tough, blue collar industrial city an hour's drive southwest
Speaker 6: of Chicago. This was one of the hottest summers on
Speaker 6: record for Joliet, and an elusive serial killing madman kept
Speaker 6: piling up the body count as he showed no signs
Speaker 6: of being caught. One overnight killing spree claimed five victims,
Speaker 6: including members of the Will County Sheriff's office. The following
Speaker 6: month brought more bloodshed, a quadruple murder inside a small
Speaker 6: Joliette shop best known for its pottery classes. The plague
Speaker 6: of sensialsts violence spark the controversial New York City based
Speaker 6: Guardian Angels to mobilize foot patrols, and Juliet generating more
Speaker 6: unwanted news media attention for the community. Even the National
Speaker 6: Inquirer produced its own sensational peace, labeling Juliet Terror Town.
Speaker 6: USA residents shuddered with horror. Determined detectives worked in overdrive
Speaker 6: trying to find an overlook clue or two. Finally, when
Speaker 6: an arrest seemed to come out of nowhere, area citizens
Speaker 6: breathed a sigh of relief. Authorities linked the so called
Speaker 6: stone cold killing machine to a chilling count of fourteen
Speaker 6: homicides plus three women who miraculously survived their agonizing encounters,
Speaker 6: But with multiple murder trials on horizon, it remained anyone's guests.
Speaker 6: Whether Milton Johnson, whose family nicknamed him Biggin short for
Speaker 6: Big One, was guilty of mass murder and if so,
Speaker 6: would he die by means of lethal injection the Illinois
Speaker 6: Department of Corrections. The book that we're featuring this evening
Speaker 6: is Terror Town USA, The Untold Story of Joliet's notorious
Speaker 6: serial killer, with my special guest, journalist and author John Ferrick.
Speaker 6: Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much
Speaker 6: for this interview, John Ferrick, Thanks for.
Speaker 2: Having me on again. Dan, It's a great opportunity to
Speaker 2: be back.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. We haven't heard from you since
Speaker 6: your best selling and incredible Wrecking Crew, and you're back
Speaker 6: with Terror Town USA. Congratulations. Let's get to summer of
Speaker 6: eighty three and you talk about this very very unusual time,
Speaker 6: summer of nineteen eighty three and Joliet, Illinois and you
Speaker 6: were ten years old. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: that time and this turning point in your life and why.
Speaker 2: Well, the one thing, the one thing that really set
Speaker 2: out about the summer of n teen eighty three was
Speaker 2: that it was just unbearably hot. Obviously, all summers in
Speaker 2: the Midwest, especially around Chicago, are hot to begin with,
Speaker 2: but that year was just incredibly brutal. And then on
Speaker 2: top of that, we had this unbelievable senseless killing spree
Speaker 2: that just seemed to come out of nowhere, and and
Speaker 2: it just really frightened and terrorized, you know, the entire community.
Speaker 2: These were not these were obviously not you know, gang
Speaker 2: related or drug related homicides. These were you know, mass murders.
Speaker 2: You know, two to three to four sometimes five people
Speaker 2: were getting killed at one time, and it just seemed
Speaker 2: like all the victims were these crimes were just happening
Speaker 2: out of nowhere, and uh and and yearly were were random.
Speaker 2: That's the way it seems. So you know, as a
Speaker 2: ten year old kid, you know, I was I think
Speaker 2: I was a paper boy at that point in time,
Speaker 2: ten eleven and twelve. I pretty much passed the newspapers
Speaker 2: and uh. And there was another person in my neighbor two.
Speaker 2: It was like two or three of us that split
Speaker 2: up the routes, and there was there happened to be uh,
Speaker 2: one murder that happened just about five or six houses
Speaker 2: up the street from where I lived, right on the
Speaker 2: Vio Road, and it was an eighty two year old widow.
Speaker 2: And that was just I mean incredibly shocking because I
Speaker 2: had a grandmother, grandparents, well they were both alive at
Speaker 2: that point in time, that lived just two other streets
Speaker 2: over from me, you know, so to have uh, you know,
Speaker 2: a widow, a woman in her eighties who lived alone,
Speaker 2: just murdered five or six houses up the street from you,
Speaker 2: you know, and none to hear about it, you know,
Speaker 2: read about on the paper, but then also kind of
Speaker 2: hear a second hand, I mean, which was true as
Speaker 2: far as some of the facts that she was found
Speaker 2: you know, in her in her living room chair, you know,
Speaker 2: beaten to death at the time. And you know, at
Speaker 2: that point in time, Dan, I mean, nobody knew who
Speaker 2: the killer was, so it was you know again right,
Speaker 2: another murder had happened, and you know, and of all people,
Speaker 2: it's a eighty two year old woman that lives by yourself.
Speaker 2: I mean, that just was scary for everybody. It certainly
Speaker 2: was scary for me being a ten year old kid
Speaker 2: just trying to make sense out of life. And you know,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I paid attention to you know, Major
Speaker 2: League Baseball, Chicago White Sox, Cargo Cubs, and my little
Speaker 2: league team that I played with, and then you have
Speaker 2: all this going on in your neighborhood and around the city.
Speaker 2: It was pretty pretty mortifying.
Speaker 6: You talk about ten years later, you were a sophomore
Speaker 6: in college studying journalism at Eastern Illinois University. Summer of
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety three, returned to Juliet as a newspaper reporting
Speaker 6: reporter intern, and so you got to hear the stories
Speaker 6: from veteran journalists about that summer of eighty three and
Speaker 6: the terror and the ensuing murder trials. Tell us what
Speaker 6: happened after college and how you came to meet Frank
Speaker 6: ser Cervenik and the idea of about this book.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, as yeah, as you pointed out, I spent
Speaker 2: the summer of eighty three back at back in my
Speaker 2: hometown working for the local newspaper and uh and obviously
Speaker 2: again that was pre internet day, so uh, I mean,
Speaker 2: newspapers were still very very strong, and you know, that
Speaker 2: was pretty much deep place, uh, you know, for uh,
Speaker 2: for information. We had a really good newspaper at that time.
Speaker 2: So so it was really worthwhile and I you know,
Speaker 2: picked up a lot of you know, intelligence just from uh,
Speaker 2: just from hearing the stories and working with several of
Speaker 2: these veteran reporters. And editors and photographers who had been
Speaker 2: around ten, fifteen, twenty five years, you know, when they
Speaker 2: talked about Milton Johnson and just you know how uh
Speaker 2: how scary of the time that it was in Joliette.
Speaker 2: You know, the previous uh, you know, previous decade. It's
Speaker 2: always interesting again to kind of learn each town's you know,
Speaker 2: you know, some their most shocking crimes. And then you know,
Speaker 2: the summer of eighty three was always on a lot
Speaker 2: of people's minds. I eventually moved on UH after college.
Speaker 2: I worked in South Bend, Indiana for a while. I
Speaker 2: came back to the Chicago suburbs. I was in Green Bay, Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: out in Omaha, Nebraska, and then back to Wisconsin again.
Speaker 2: And then four years ago, dan is when I returned
Speaker 2: back to UH, back to Juliet my hometown, to UH
Speaker 2: to work as a reporter and editor for the for
Speaker 2: the Jolia Patch, which is the main news organization where
Speaker 2: an online only uh you know, news outlet and uh
Speaker 2: and uh so I was kind of getting my feet
Speaker 2: while I just kind of you know, re reacclimating with
Speaker 2: a lot of people in town. Yeah, four years ago,
Speaker 2: right around this time last or yeah, four years ago
Speaker 2: in the summer of seventeen, and uh, and I wound
Speaker 2: up going out for lunch with one of the one
Speaker 2: of the premier lawyers in the area, Frank Servignac. It's
Speaker 2: a hard name to say and spell. I still have
Speaker 2: a hard time spelling it, even though he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's training it a well known lawyer. But anyway, but Frank,
Speaker 2: Frank and his firm went out for lunch with me,
Speaker 2: you know, and and we were just talking, you know,
Speaker 2: that day, and he knew a little bit about some
Speaker 2: of the other books I had written over the years,
Speaker 2: and and he just you know, pointed out that there
Speaker 2: had never been a book ever written about Milton Johnson
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, in the summer Summer of Tear
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty three. And what was also interesting too,
Speaker 2: was that one of his law partners, Stephen White, who's
Speaker 2: who's in the seventies now. But but Steve was one
Speaker 2: of the key prosecutors on the Milton Johnson cases. And uh,
Speaker 2: and again Frank was just the opinion that, you know,
Speaker 2: nobody's ever written a book about, you know, Milton Johnson,
Speaker 2: even though he's probably one of America's in North America's
Speaker 2: most notorious serial killers, but yet there's there's very little
Speaker 2: known about him, and uh so I gave this. I
Speaker 2: kind of always had this case, to be honest with you, Dan,
Speaker 2: you know, on my unofficial little sheet of keep a sheep.
Speaker 2: It just kind of keep a sheet in my head
Speaker 2: as far as of you know, here's four or five
Speaker 2: possible book to at least think about, uh you know,
Speaker 2: for my next project. And when I returned to Illinois
Speaker 2: from Wisconsin four years ago after doing the Steven Avia
Speaker 2: book on Wrecking Crew, you know, I wanted to try
Speaker 2: to find something back in this area here around the
Speaker 2: Chicago land, uh you know, Joliet area. For me, it's
Speaker 2: always been easier to do books, you know, in a
Speaker 2: town or a state or an area that I'm familiar with.
Speaker 2: I do get requests, you know, every few months, somebody
Speaker 2: will send me something, you know about a case in
Speaker 2: Tennessee or Seattle or California, and I just don't pursue
Speaker 2: those from the standpoint that, yeah, I'm not if I'm
Speaker 2: not really familiar with that town or that area, I
Speaker 2: really don't think, you know, I'm the right person to
Speaker 2: be writing that kind of book. Uh So, uh So,
Speaker 2: I really want to write books only about areas that
Speaker 2: I'm familiar with or have access to a lot of
Speaker 2: key key people. And uh so so when you mentioned, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this this uh this story with Milton Johnson, I really
Speaker 2: thought that, yeah, that could be uh you know, that
Speaker 2: that has strong potential. And and I felt the fact too,
Speaker 2: that that there had never been any any true crime
Speaker 2: book really done on Milton Johnson. That in of itself
Speaker 2: was a strong reason to uh to pursue the research
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, and see where see where things
Speaker 2: would lead. I knew I had a lot ahead of
Speaker 2: me though, too. I mean, I knew if I undertook
Speaker 2: this project, it was going to take several years. It
Speaker 2: wasn't going to be a you know, a three month
Speaker 2: project or something like that. I'd have to put in
Speaker 2: the you know, the time and effort. But uh, you know,
Speaker 2: but but if I did that, I also felt there
Speaker 2: would be a good chance that it would be ah,
Speaker 2: you know, well researched book, book product.
Speaker 6: In the end, you talk about that research and this
Speaker 6: is pre internet days, this occurred obviously you're doing your
Speaker 6: research was more difficult. Tell us about some of that
Speaker 6: difficult research and why was so difficult?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, again, the thing about Milton Johnson is
Speaker 2: similar to a lot of the other notorious serial killers. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: you know, there's the there's the cases or the crimes
Speaker 2: that they're convicted of, but then there's the other cases
Speaker 2: that the police you know, had them as the prime
Speaker 2: suspect or there was strong evidence physical or circumstantial. You
Speaker 2: know that you know that for different reasons, oftentimes just
Speaker 2: for legal reasons, but that they may not be prosecuted for.
Speaker 2: And to do the Milton Johnson book, I wanted to
Speaker 2: you know, really step back and analyze and in all
Speaker 2: the cases that that he was a suspect and and
Speaker 2: and really try to look at the evidence and and
Speaker 2: see if it if it matched with the police and
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's furious were making this book a little difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like we said, Uh, there just isn't a whole lot
Speaker 2: that you could easily find by you know, just you know,
Speaker 2: going to the Internet or to do research on on
Speaker 2: Google or you know even a you know, even even
Speaker 2: a different true crime blog here or there, you know,
Speaker 2: or even news organizations. So one of the best places
Speaker 2: for me was was there's a little uh there's a
Speaker 2: little office annexed that the wil County government. Wilt County's
Speaker 2: the main county, uh for for it's one of the
Speaker 2: biggest counties here in the state of Illinois after Chicago.
Speaker 2: But but Wilt County is where Juliet's Joliet's at and
Speaker 2: uh the county has a has a little office building
Speaker 2: on the west side of town where they keep all
Speaker 2: their old archives, you know, going back to the eighteen
Speaker 2: hundreds or early nineteen hundreds, and and so so I
Speaker 2: wound up, you know, working something out where I would
Speaker 2: go over Wednesday for about two to three hours in
Speaker 2: the morning, from like nine to noon, for for several months,
Speaker 2: and they pulled out these big boxes that probably weighed
Speaker 2: about and I don't know, eighty to one hundred pounds each,
Speaker 2: and there was probably about three or four of them.
Speaker 2: And those inside those boxes then contained you know, all
Speaker 2: the old trial transcripts, some the some but not you know,
Speaker 2: not most of the police reports, but court exhibits, and
Speaker 2: then a lot of appeals documents. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: where I started my research as far as to kind
Speaker 2: of get an idea of, you know, who are some
Speaker 2: of the key people that were involved in these you know,
Speaker 2: in this case, in these cases I should say plural,
Speaker 2: who were some of the key witnesses, And then just
Speaker 2: to try to get a better idea of you know,
Speaker 2: who I'm dealing with as far as you know, police officers, prosecutors, witnesses,
Speaker 2: you know, and of course Milton Johnson and and so
Speaker 2: that was really very very hell helpul and you know,
Speaker 2: and then I would go through and try to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 2: these are the documents that I want to pay for,
Speaker 2: you know, to make copies of. And you know, these
Speaker 2: other documents here are interesting to read, but really I
Speaker 2: could tell ahead of time these are going to be
Speaker 2: you know, boring or now you know, there's you know,
Speaker 2: they're dealing with appeals that really are you know, not
Speaker 2: much interest to true crime readers or even myself. So
Speaker 2: you know, so those documents, you know, really we weren't
Speaker 2: worth my time to copy. So once I figured out
Speaker 2: kind of what were the key documents that I needed
Speaker 2: to get my hands on from there, then it made
Speaker 2: it a lot easier to kind of figure out what
Speaker 2: other cases that I needed to research and pursue as well.
Speaker 6: In your research, you come across February fifteenth and nineteen seventy,
Speaker 6: very important date in everyone's and everybody's history involved with this,
Speaker 6: but especially Milton Johnson. And you talk about a person
Speaker 6: named Lee Chandler and this is an alias, but Mary
Speaker 6: West his girlfriend drove to Pilcher Park and they were
Speaker 6: dating these two people, and so they have an encounter
Speaker 6: with this person. Tell us what he says to this
Speaker 6: woman and what he says to this young team and
Speaker 6: what happens as a result.
Speaker 2: Well, he again, it's Wruary, it's really cold. I think
Speaker 2: it was in the in the teams that singles didges
Speaker 2: are in the teens at the time. And and he's
Speaker 2: coming from the opposite direction. So the roads through the
Speaker 2: forest are you know, pretty much one way roads, you know,
Speaker 2: and there's a little area in there for cars to
Speaker 2: pull off and park, you know, go for a walks,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And he was coming from the
Speaker 2: opposite direction, and he started by asking them, you know,
Speaker 2: innocent question, you know, he if he was like going
Speaker 2: the wrong way, and uh and uh. So he's really
Speaker 2: not you know, threatening or really doing anything that that
Speaker 2: scares them at all of en And and then he
Speaker 2: comes back later a minute, a couple of minutes later.
Speaker 2: So and then this time when he comes back out,
Speaker 2: he's gotta he's got a gun with him and and
Speaker 2: uh and he orders uh the girl, the teenage girl
Speaker 2: that get in the back seat, and he makes her boyfriend,
Speaker 2: you know, lay on the floor in the front seat
Speaker 2: of the car, and he proceeds to uh, you know,
Speaker 2: commit just a violent attack against her, raping her savagely
Speaker 2: while the boyfriend you know is helpless in the front
Speaker 2: feet of the vehicle at the time. And it just, uh,
Speaker 2: it's just a really uh, I mean, just scary encounter,
Speaker 2: you know for this, you know, this teenage couple. The
Speaker 2: last thing they ever expected was just you know, somebody
Speaker 2: to come out of nowhere in the late at night.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, and uh you know, their their
Speaker 2: lives are in line, and uh, you know, he's beating her,
Speaker 2: he breaks her jaw and uh and you know, at
Speaker 2: one point in time, he goes back to his vehicle,
Speaker 2: you know, and has her boyfriend get out of the vehicle.
Speaker 2: For like a couple of months or so, and I
Speaker 2: remember he kind of goes through a series of questions
Speaker 2: with the boyfriend. He asks, like, you know, his he
Speaker 2: you know, have you been cooperative. You know, have you
Speaker 2: been doing what I asked that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 2: then and then he makes a comment to him about,
Speaker 2: you know, wanting the doors of the vehicle to be
Speaker 2: left open, you know while he's going to shoot them both, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh and the boyfriend's just going to
Speaker 2: run into the woods and uh you know and just
Speaker 2: uh miraculously, yeah, he survived and uh you know, and
Speaker 2: nobody was was shot and killed that night then, Dan, So,
Speaker 2: uh that was really, you know, just a chilling night.
Speaker 2: And I remember the Julia police were quoted in the
Speaker 2: Herald News the following day after the arrest was made,
Speaker 2: you know, just the detective said that was like the
Speaker 2: worst you know, beating a sexual assault case that he
Speaker 2: had ever he had ever encountered.
Speaker 6: You mentioned you write that he wanted to shoot both
Speaker 6: of them at the same time. That's what he had
Speaker 6: told the boyfriend, that he'd want to shoot him with
Speaker 6: one bullet and shoot both of them at the same time.
Speaker 6: And so that's what he had asked him to get
Speaker 6: into position for. And also that how did they find
Speaker 6: out that he was the perpetrator? Tell us how they
Speaker 6: found that out?
Speaker 2: Well, he and guessing he must have panicked, you know,
Speaker 2: when the boyfriend ran into the woods and he's going
Speaker 2: to drive you know, the you know, his victim, the
Speaker 2: girl that he had just beaten and an assaulted. Uh,
Speaker 2: he's going to drive her up to uh to the hospital.
Speaker 2: The it's over across hospital at the time, and uh
Speaker 2: it was just a couple of miles away if that,
Speaker 2: and uh so it's gonna be you know, witness identification.
Speaker 2: You know, she's all you know, she's gonna identify him
Speaker 2: as the as the salent, and so is the you know,
Speaker 2: the boyfriend. And the boyfriend ran into the woods, he
Speaker 2: got to uh got to a phone and I'm trying
Speaker 2: to remember it was a motel or a hotel or
Speaker 2: just something there, but you know, he got somewhere where
Speaker 2: he was able to get somebody to call the police.
Speaker 2: And uh so the police were able to respond to
Speaker 2: this crime very very quickly, and uh you know and
Speaker 2: basically Milton Johnson was arrested, you know, on the same
Speaker 2: night that this that this crime happened. And uh, it
Speaker 2: took me a while, but I eventually found, yeah, the
Speaker 2: old the original newspaper articles on the on the crime,
Speaker 2: and uh that's that's one of the challenges to sometimes
Speaker 2: stand you know, when you go back on the case
Speaker 2: that forty or fifty years old. I mean I did
Speaker 2: talk to a couple of different police officers that were involved,
Speaker 2: you know, are people that knew some of the details
Speaker 2: of this case. But ultimately, you know, the best source
Speaker 2: for the information was the old newspaper articles as far
Speaker 2: as you know, what was you know, what was factual
Speaker 2: and what what actually did did happen? And I heard
Speaker 2: different stories about the Milton Johnson arrest, but the fact is, yeah,
Speaker 2: it happened on the night that this this terrible, awful
Speaker 2: crime that happened out at the Pilcher Park Woods And
Speaker 2: just for perspective, this crime just really terrorized the community. So,
Speaker 2: I mean Pilter Park for a number of years then
Speaker 2: had a bad reputation as far as you know, people
Speaker 2: were just scared to go there at nighttime, you know,
Speaker 2: because of this violent, you know, late night attack that
Speaker 2: happened out there.
Speaker 6: You right, also that he burned her with the cigarette
Speaker 6: lighter on her private parts, just that more to the
Speaker 6: torture that he was inflicted upon her. You talk about
Speaker 6: this trial and their boyfriend Lee testified at this trial
Speaker 6: and he was sentenced to twenty five to thirty five years.
Speaker 6: Tell us how it happens that he is paroled in
Speaker 6: thirteen years.
Speaker 2: Well, that's uh, that's interesting of itself and just for
Speaker 2: people to kind of have a better unerting too. I
Speaker 2: did find there were a lot of articles about just
Speaker 2: generally in Illinois that the state was facing a prison overcrowding,
Speaker 2: you know, or overcrowding of this prison population. So I don't,
Speaker 2: I don't, I can't say definitively that was the reason
Speaker 2: he ultimately didn't serve the twenty five to thirty five
Speaker 2: years that he was sens to. But it's interesting. I
Speaker 2: tried to spend some time in the book actually chronicling,
Speaker 2: you know, his prison reports, you know, and I did
Speaker 2: have some success. And again those were documents of all
Speaker 2: places that I found at that little Well County, you know,
Speaker 2: government archives, building, a lot of a lot of his
Speaker 2: prison reports were in the appeal documents. So that so
Speaker 2: that was really valuable to find and and so he did.
Speaker 2: It seemed like by and large, despite that crime, and
Speaker 2: despite the fact that he felt that he was being railroaded,
Speaker 2: you know, or that you know that the sentence that
Speaker 2: he got was unjust. He did buy and large behave
Speaker 2: you know, and conformed to the rules and regulations of
Speaker 2: the Illinois prison system when he was in Pontiac, Illinois,
Speaker 2: at the Pontiac Correctional Center, which is about eighty miles
Speaker 2: or so from Juliet And And while he was there,
Speaker 2: although he did, he wasn't a perfect inmate. And I
Speaker 2: do document a number of issues that he had, but
Speaker 2: by and large, longdry state in prison, the better he
Speaker 2: behaved and the more privileges it seemed like he was acquiring.
Speaker 2: And I also found it interesting that it seemed like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it seemed like he made, you know, connections with a
Speaker 2: lot of the higher ups or the people in prison
Speaker 2: that had power, you know, to to help him out
Speaker 2: her you know. And and there was certainly one one
Speaker 2: woman in particular that I mentioned that she seemed to
Speaker 2: give him a lot of leeway, you know, And and
Speaker 2: she gave him a two or three times where she,
Speaker 2: you know, gave him good, good behavior and that just
Speaker 2: constantly would just reduce the minimum sentence that he needed
Speaker 2: to serve. So even though nobody back in Juliet and
Speaker 2: Well County was ever expecting him to return, you know,
Speaker 2: to the community in the summer of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: The fact is, by by getting a lot of these
Speaker 2: good behaviors, you know, ninety days office sentence here, another
Speaker 2: ninety days here, and another ninety days there, these were
Speaker 2: starting to add up and it made it, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot easier. So I think by the fifth or
Speaker 2: sixth times that he went up for parole, even though
Speaker 2: he was constantly rejected the first few times, Dan, you know,
Speaker 2: based on the severity, you know, the seriousness of the crime,
Speaker 2: and you know, and that sort of stuff. The fact
Speaker 2: is he was ultimately paroled in the March of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three.
Speaker 6: He also made a friendship in there from somebody that
Speaker 6: was from the outside that had interaction with the kitchen
Speaker 6: staff where he was assigned. And this person would write
Speaker 6: him and they began a relationship of sorts, especially at
Speaker 6: the beginning with through the correspondence, but later on she
Speaker 6: factors into this story near the end as well. You
Speaker 6: talk about him released in March, and you also write
Speaker 6: about all of the parole hearings and the work towards
Speaker 6: him getting his parole, and despite not having any employment
Speaker 6: opportunities or prospects, he was still paroled now. In June seventeenth,
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty three, you take us to this Silver Cross
Speaker 6: Hospital and Teresa McKean and she's just leaving this hospital
Speaker 6: and what does she encounter.
Speaker 2: Well, she was, yeah, she was working that night, and
Speaker 2: it was late at night, around midnight or so I
Speaker 2: take eleven thirty, the midnight twelve thirty, and she just
Speaker 2: goes back to her car, you know, and is just
Speaker 2: going to make a you know, four to five mile
Speaker 2: drive home en Route six, which is a two lane,
Speaker 2: two lane highway that runs right past the Silver Cross
Speaker 2: Hospital and over by the EJ and E railroad tracks too.
Speaker 2: But she just gets in her vehicle and starts to
Speaker 2: drive home, and then on her way home, a pickup
Speaker 2: truck kind of pulls alongside of her while she's still
Speaker 2: driving because again there's no real stoplights or stop you
Speaker 2: stop signs in this area. It's just fifty mile an
Speaker 2: hour speed limit out there, and she's thinking this vehicle
Speaker 2: is going to pass her, and and instead the next
Speaker 2: thing she notices is that there's glass shattering from her window,
Speaker 2: you know, And turns out it was somebody shooting at
Speaker 2: her vehicle from that other vehicle that vehicle then pulls
Speaker 2: the truck pulls way way way up ahead of her,
Speaker 2: you know, and is eventually able to fire several more
Speaker 2: shots at her vehicle, missing thankfully. But but yeah, she's
Speaker 2: terrified and is able to to make it home. Actually
Speaker 2: she lived just a few miles up the road there then,
Speaker 2: and and she gets a hold of the uh the
Speaker 2: police and uh and Illinois State of Police actually came
Speaker 2: out to investigate that crime. But but she, h, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was She's very lucky that that she she survived
Speaker 2: and wasn't wasn't her. But that's kind of that's really
Speaker 2: like the first major crime that happened in the summer
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty three that that didn't and it didn't
Speaker 2: lead to a to a murder. But that was kind
Speaker 2: of the them o, you know, for you know, for
Speaker 2: the person that was going around causing this terror of
Speaker 2: the late night crime. He seemed to be scouting out
Speaker 2: for his victim, paying on women, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of a dark it's a dark knight on a
Speaker 2: lonely road and uh, and this Teresa McKean seemed seemed
Speaker 2: to be a potential perfect victim for this, for this
Speaker 2: late night psychopath.
Speaker 6: You right, that she thought there might have been another
Speaker 6: person in the truck, and in fact, she when she
Speaker 6: reported it to police, he said that there was two
Speaker 6: people in the truck, and the police went with that
Speaker 6: that there was two people in the truck. Then Milton
Speaker 6: Johnson was stopped. But because of that possible that there
Speaker 6: was two people in the truck, Milton was stopped by
Speaker 6: an officer. What happens when Milton has stopped.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he's he's found on the side of the
Speaker 2: road and I think he had the hood up on
Speaker 2: the pickup truck at the time, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the officer you know, took his identification and uh you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, spoke with him. But uh, again working
Speaker 2: off of the uh you know, what the woman had
Speaker 2: with what Teresa mckeenath said about you know, two people,
Speaker 2: she was you know, she thought there might have been
Speaker 2: two people in the vehicle. It does not lead to
Speaker 2: an arresting for Milton Johnson. And I'm thinking, in hindsight,
Speaker 2: you know, if they would have brought her to the
Speaker 2: scene or or you know, or or I should see
Speaker 2: even that's the scene, but just if they would have,
Speaker 2: you know, did a little more thorough questioning. Maybe, I mean,
Speaker 2: she would have had a chance to identify this this
Speaker 2: this guy. But but I think you know, the state
Speaker 2: trooper that was working that night, he was working out
Speaker 2: for the premise, you know that based on what she
Speaker 2: told him. You know that two people were in a
Speaker 2: truck and one of them was shooting at her. He
Speaker 2: just happened to see this guy parked on the side
Speaker 2: of the road with his hood up. And Milton Johnson
Speaker 2: did not, do, you know, to draw attention to himself
Speaker 2: or you know, or act like he was evolved in
Speaker 2: that shooting. So so the officer, you know, let him
Speaker 2: go and and he was not not taken in the
Speaker 2: custody and not arrested that night.
Speaker 6: Than Dan Let's this isn't an opportunity to stop for
Speaker 6: a second to hear from our sponsor, which is Zip Recruiter.
Speaker 6: According to Forbes, Jim's nail salons, hotels, mom and pop stores,
Speaker 6: and more are set to go on an epic hiring
Speaker 6: spree in the coming months to meet the pent up
Speaker 6: demand for all of these services. I'm excited to be
Speaker 6: able to go to see a movie at the theater.
Speaker 6: I want to see Stillwater and I want to get
Speaker 6: to see some live stand up comedy again. All of
Speaker 6: these businesses reopening means that millions of jobs will need
Speaker 6: to be filled. So where do these businesses turn to
Speaker 6: fill these roles? Fast ZipRecruiter, and right now you can
Speaker 6: try it for free at ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder.
Speaker 6: When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, they send your
Speaker 6: job to over one hundred job sites, giving you access
Speaker 6: to their network of millions of job seekers. Zipcruiters matching
Speaker 6: technology scans resumes to find qualified candidates for your open
Speaker 6: roles and proactively presents them to you. Ziprecruiters technology is
Speaker 6: effective that four out of five employers who post on
Speaker 6: ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And
Speaker 6: right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at this
Speaker 6: exclusive web address ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder. That's ZipRecruiter
Speaker 6: dot com slash m u r d er. Just go
Speaker 6: to ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder. ZipRecruiter the smartest way
Speaker 6: to hire. Now, we were talking about this failed opportunity
Speaker 6: to be able to stop Milton Johnson before this murder
Speaker 6: spree took off. A week later on June twenty fourth,
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty three, and we talk about these two sisters,
Speaker 6: the Blum sisters, Norah Lahmann and her sister, Oh jeez,
Speaker 6: I've forgotten her name here. So anyway, we're talking about
Speaker 6: Nora and her sister, Vita Bloom pardon me, and what
Speaker 6: happens at their their home. They lived side by side
Speaker 6: by from each other. What happens one day who finds
Speaker 6: these sisters and discovers the whore.
Speaker 2: This is, you know, just an unbelievable example as far
Speaker 2: as just how close the crimes you know, hit to,
Speaker 2: you know, to the community, especially to the local police
Speaker 2: that had to investigate it. So so Pete hass And
Speaker 2: he was a sergeant at the wil County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 2: in one of the key you know, investigators in charge
Speaker 2: of the detective unit. He and his wife, Jean, they
Speaker 2: had about a seventy acre property on Rossland Avenue, right
Speaker 2: on the outskirts of the city of Joliet. So at
Speaker 2: that point in time, there was about seven or eight
Speaker 2: houses along Roscelin Avenue. Most of the people that live
Speaker 2: out there at that point in time, you know, had horses,
Speaker 2: you know, and were really involved in, you know, in
Speaker 2: farming too. And the newspaper carrier pulled into their driveway
Speaker 2: on a Saturday morning sometime shortly after six or six thirty,
Speaker 2: and I told them that looked like there was smoke
Speaker 2: coming from from one of their neighbors houses. So Jean
Speaker 2: and Pete, you know, got dressed really quick and uh
Speaker 2: and uh and Jean wound up going to uh t
Speaker 2: Zita's house and uh. And then Pete went to the
Speaker 2: house where the fire was at, which was Norris House
Speaker 2: and uh. And then also at the same time too,
Speaker 2: you know, fire trucks from the East Aliat Volunteer Fire Department.
Speaker 2: We're also on their way getting out to the getting
Speaker 2: out to the house. And and Pete, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: Pete was one of the persons and that found and
Speaker 2: he found both of the sisters in the house.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: It was a really bizarre, just horrifying situation. So there
Speaker 2: was a small little fire that had been set in
Speaker 2: the in the back bedroom of the house. It was
Speaker 2: a ranch house at that point in time. And and
Speaker 2: he found both of the sisters. Their bodies were in
Speaker 2: the in the bedroom and they were already dead, and
Speaker 2: you know, and they were you know, burned, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: well beyond recognition by that point in time. And uh
Speaker 2: and the crime name was just really creepy and just
Speaker 2: just really uh, you know, just the sick and uh
Speaker 2: he and the other walkin shurance officers and in the
Speaker 2: in the in the in the Australia fireman, you know,
Speaker 2: they found the bodies were staffed on top of each other,
Speaker 2: so they had been and put in into a into
Speaker 2: a sexual position, into a sixty nine position, and uh
Speaker 2: and both the women were already murdered, they were already
Speaker 2: dead by the time that they were set on fire.
Speaker 2: So so whoever was setting the fire was really trying
Speaker 2: to uh just you know, desecrate their their bodies and
Speaker 2: just uh and just really you know, just uh, I'm
Speaker 2: not even sure what the words are to describe it,
Speaker 2: but just it was. It was just a really sickening scene.
Speaker 2: And for you know, for these two women who really
Speaker 2: had no enemies at all the world, it just really
Speaker 2: defied logic as far as how in you know, who
Speaker 2: in the world would would target them, you know and
Speaker 2: pick them out for such a brutal, torture type of crime.
Speaker 2: And so to go back to the other house then
Speaker 2: where Gene House. Went to the first house, she found
Speaker 2: that that the door, the back door had been ripped
Speaker 2: off by by by such just sheer force. So whoever
Speaker 2: uh you know broke into the house just basically shoved
Speaker 2: the door so hard, with such great force, it might
Speaker 2: that they they even though the door had a little
Speaker 2: a little uh little lack across the top. Uh one
Speaker 2: of those just little ones. I remember my grandma used
Speaker 2: to have one of these two where just uh, you
Speaker 2: just put a little bolt on one side and then
Speaker 2: slid the slid the uh other part across across the way.
Speaker 2: But but so whoever, uh, whoever committed these crimes first
Speaker 2: went to uh to uh to Zita Bloom's house and
Speaker 2: uh and there was blood on the walls and blood
Speaker 2: on the floor, so it was it was apparent that
Speaker 2: she had been attacked, you know, and whether she was
Speaker 2: killed there or just knocked out or capacitated. But whoever
Speaker 2: did this, you know, clearly started at her house and
Speaker 2: then took her to her sister's house and continued with
Speaker 2: the carnage and uh and in the rest of the
Speaker 2: bloodshed place over at at Norris uh Norris's house, which
Speaker 2: is where the two sisters bodies were both found.
Speaker 6: Now while police are investigating this horror scene, you talk
Speaker 6: about July first, and Eric Johnson and his wife Terry
Speaker 6: Lynn tell us about this disappearance.
Speaker 2: Well, this one was another mystery at the time. We
Speaker 2: had the first weekend in July. So what kind of
Speaker 2: shaffofs already busy try and solve this, this double murder
Speaker 2: involving the Bloom sisters which just came out of nowhere
Speaker 2: and just again shocked the conscious of the community. But
Speaker 2: the wife of Eric Johnson and then the husband of
Speaker 2: a woman named The woman's name was Anna Chancellor, but
Speaker 2: her husband kind of Chancellor. They both disappeared on that
Speaker 2: first that first Friday night in July of nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: and uh it took a few days ultimately for the
Speaker 2: authorities to uh to find the two. They eventually realized
Speaker 2: that that Kenny Kenny Chancellor's UH vehicle, his wife's vehicle
Speaker 2: was found that night and there was left parked on
Speaker 2: some really rural railroad tracks out several miles outside of Juliet.
Speaker 2: But but kind of right on the county line for
Speaker 2: will County and Cook County and Cook County, is you know,
Speaker 2: the county where Chicago's at. But but but the vehicles
Speaker 2: found right inside of, right inside of you know, the
Speaker 2: Cook County area, and it there wasn't really apparent as
Speaker 2: far as you know, you know, where these two had
Speaker 2: had wound up. The police wound up checking a lot
Speaker 2: of the area hotels and motels to see maybe if
Speaker 2: if Kenny Chancellor had checked into one of the hotels
Speaker 2: something like that. And and meanwhile, again Eric Eric Johnson,
Speaker 2: He's got like two real small kids, and one of
Speaker 2: his kids was gonna have a birthday that weekend that
Speaker 2: they had a big birthday party planned, and you know,
Speaker 2: he's wondering, you know, where his wife sat, why she
Speaker 2: didn't come home. She worked at at a White Hant
Speaker 2: pantry convenience store at the time as this happened. And uh,
Speaker 2: and she had you know, she had a lot of friends,
Speaker 2: and you know, was known to frequent a lot of
Speaker 2: the different local bars just to hang out. So the
Speaker 2: police went to a lot of these places as well,
Speaker 2: just trying to figure out, you know, had she been there,
Speaker 2: did they see her, was she with anybody, you know
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. And and eventually, uh, sadly, the
Speaker 2: the two bodies of of Terry Lyn Johnson and kind
Speaker 2: of Chancellor are both going to be found within a
Speaker 2: couple of days of each other out in the in
Speaker 2: the drainage that really had really tall weeds, you know,
Speaker 2: and the bodies weren't easy to find. It took again
Speaker 2: several days for the police and family members and you know,
Speaker 2: the searchers just to try to you know, find them.
Speaker 2: But again they were working. They were checking the area
Speaker 2: down mainly where the car was found. They figured that
Speaker 2: was probably the best place to be searching. And the
Speaker 2: scariest thing of all out of this was when they
Speaker 2: eventually did the autopsies for the two of them, they
Speaker 2: found that they were both shot. They died of a
Speaker 2: bullet wound. But again but it was it was almost
Speaker 2: prophetic to that nineteen seventy crime that did not turn
Speaker 2: into a double murder, but in this case it did.
Speaker 2: The two were the two died of a single bullet
Speaker 2: that went through both of their bodies. And in one
Speaker 2: of the newspaper articles I saw, you know, referred to
Speaker 2: it that way that it was one shot, two killed,
Speaker 2: you know, in h you know, in the senseless crime spree.
Speaker 2: And again just these these two were out there. They
Speaker 2: were out parking that night, so they were you know,
Speaker 2: they were married to different people, but but they you know,
Speaker 2: they got together and were spending time with each other,
Speaker 2: and somebody, you know, this, this killer just lurked out
Speaker 2: of the shadows that night on a Friday night and
Speaker 2: just came upon them and shot them dead and then
Speaker 2: dragged their bodies, you know, several hundred you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred hundred yards to different locations and just left them
Speaker 2: out in the in the sweltering heat, you know, just
Speaker 2: with the you know, where the maggots in the in
Speaker 2: the insects. You know, we're gonna, you know, do their thing.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, you write about a very important character in the story,
Speaker 6: and Shoemaker. She's nineteen years old and she attends a
Speaker 6: party and she left the party to go on a
Speaker 6: walk with her friend and the truck whizzes by. What
Speaker 6: does she see and what does she decide to do?
Speaker 6: And what is the description of the men in that truck?
Speaker 2: Well, first, yeah, she was when the first happened. She again,
Speaker 2: she and her friend kind of duck down in the
Speaker 2: weeds and and you know, they they thought this whoever
Speaker 2: was driving this vehicle, maybe out to get them or
Speaker 2: find them and h and later than they came to
Speaker 2: the belief that maybe it was just somebody at one
Speaker 2: of the parties that they were at, or her friend
Speaker 2: of theirs, that was just kind of trying to play
Speaker 2: a prank on them, you know, knowing that they had
Speaker 2: left the party and went for a walk, so they
Speaker 2: decided to go back and get their own vehicle and see,
Speaker 2: you know, the bravely although you know, I were in
Speaker 2: their shoes, but they wound up going out to try
Speaker 2: to see if they could you know, tail or you know,
Speaker 2: followed this vehicle to see if they could get a
Speaker 2: better idea of who it is, you know. And this
Speaker 2: goes on for several minutes and over several you know,
Speaker 2: a few mile area just kind of at that point
Speaker 2: in time, this was a very rural you know, farm farming,
Speaker 2: uh farming region just right outside of outside of Juliette, Illinois.
Speaker 2: And they eventually, uh wind up you know, going back
Speaker 2: and catching up with some some guy friends of nurse
Speaker 2: and telling them about this, and and lo and behold,
Speaker 2: then this truck just comes streaking past them, you know,
Speaker 2: and squeals the tires and you know, continues onward, but
Speaker 2: they are least able to get a good description in
Speaker 2: the guy, you know, and he looked at them, probably
Speaker 2: like twenty five to thirty five. He was, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: had a had an afro hairstyle at the time, was
Speaker 2: African American and uh. And he was driving a dark
Speaker 2: colored pickup truck at the time.
Speaker 6: And uh.
Speaker 2: And eventually, again, you know, they and their boyfriends or
Speaker 2: you know, guy friends wound up going out and try
Speaker 2: to follow this vehicle, uh, you know a little bit
Speaker 2: more and actually have a close encounter on one of
Speaker 2: the roads where they they they're coming over a hill
Speaker 2: or cresting over a hill, you know, and this vehicles
Speaker 2: just kind of parked on the side of the road
Speaker 2: her you know, kind of on the side there where
Speaker 2: it's almost they have to kind of swerve to avoid
Speaker 2: hitting him. But uh, there're the girls smart enough to
Speaker 2: at least write down the license plates of the vehicle,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh and and she eventually is going
Speaker 2: to call it into the sheriff's office, you know, that
Speaker 2: either that weekend or the following weekend. It's sometime in
Speaker 2: the near future. But again, since there really wasn't any
Speaker 2: crime that had happened that night, and I'm sure the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's office, you know, was short staffed and only had
Speaker 2: a few people on and you know, didn't really know
Speaker 2: of anything going on. I could see how a tip
Speaker 2: like that, although well intentioned, may have kind of fallen
Speaker 2: to the cracks and really wasn't, you know, put it
Speaker 2: at the very very very top, you know, of the
Speaker 2: things that we need to investigate at the worldcoming Sheriff's
Speaker 2: office at that time.
Speaker 6: The season does an opportunity to stop for a second
Speaker 6: for these messages.
Speaker 2: With Lucky Landslots, you can get lucky just about anywhere.
Speaker 3: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today. Has anyone seen
Speaker 3: the bride and.
Speaker 1: Broom orri Sorry we're here. We were getting lucky in
Speaker 1: the limo and we lost track of time. No Lucky
Speaker 1: land casino with cash prizes that add up quicker than
Speaker 1: a guess registered in.
Speaker 3: In that case, I pronounce.
Speaker 1: You lucky him for free. At Lucky landslots dot com.
Speaker 1: Daily bonuses are raiting no purchase necessary board. We're prohibited
Speaker 1: by lock eighteam sluts terms and conditions applying see website
Speaker 1: for details.
Speaker 6: A week later, the following weekend, this is July sixteenth,
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty three. You have a Denise Foley. He's a
Speaker 6: veteran US Army valling Tiers safety patrol. He works at
Speaker 6: the Will County Sheriff's office in Joliet, and he's partnered
Speaker 6: with an officer, Stephen Mayer, who's twenty two years old
Speaker 6: and his father is Edward Mayer. The third a sergeant
Speaker 6: at Will County Police Department or Sheriff's department.
Speaker 2: Part me.
Speaker 6: Now, that's July sixteenth, nineteen eighty three. Richard Paulin they
Speaker 6: call them Dewey, thirty three years old and Kathy Norwoods
Speaker 6: who's twenty five years old, are parked in their little
Speaker 6: Chavette And this is in Lamont, a little population five thousand,
Speaker 6: and Will County Sheriff Pat Lombardo is on patrol. Can
Speaker 6: you take it from there? What happens to these this
Speaker 6: couple and what does Pat Lombardo able to do or
Speaker 6: how is he involved?
Speaker 2: Well, it's this and it's going to be the most
Speaker 2: complex and and the senseless crime out of all the
Speaker 2: ones from that summer. It's it sounds on a rural,
Speaker 2: rural stretch of an area that that we call Homer Township,
Speaker 2: and it's generally in the same same same general area
Speaker 2: where this where this previous week weekends encounter had happened
Speaker 2: with Anne Shuemaker, you know, where she saw a vehicle
Speaker 2: truck that was kind of following her and troll trolling around,
Speaker 2: you know, the rural parts of Homer Township. But on
Speaker 2: the on the weekend of the sixteenth and seventeenth, it's
Speaker 2: about three to three thirty in the morning, and uh
Speaker 2: and by the time Deputy pat Lombardo gets to the scene,
Speaker 2: he's going to come upon the Wolf County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 2: auxiliary car that's gonna be parked on the side of
Speaker 2: the road. There. He's going to see the little red
Speaker 2: Chevette parked kind of on the entrance to the far
Speaker 2: kind of off in the grass. And there's also be
Speaker 2: a seird vehicle that's going to be about another quarter
Speaker 2: to a half a mile down the road. That's a van,
Speaker 2: and that vehicle had crashed into the into the into
Speaker 2: the bean field over there, and the driver of that
Speaker 2: vehicle was dead. The passenger she was shot and shot
Speaker 2: in the shoulder and miraculously was not life wasn't in
Speaker 2: danger as far as just even though she was wounded,
Speaker 2: but she was able to run to one of the
Speaker 2: farmhouses covered in blood, you know, screaming hysterically about what
Speaker 2: had happened. And so that's spurred even more, you know,
Speaker 2: police to descend on the scene. But the the two
Speaker 2: Well County Sheriffs Auxiliary officers, Dennis Fully aged fifty, and
Speaker 2: then Stephen Mayer twenty two. Stephen Mayer was shot several
Speaker 2: times and and and he was sound dead in the
Speaker 2: ditch on the side of the road there not that
Speaker 2: far from where the red chavette is. Dennis Foley was
Speaker 2: able to survive at that point in time. He was
Speaker 2: able to use his uh, his his his his police radio,
Speaker 2: you know, and even though he was shot in the
Speaker 2: mouth and shot in the hip, shot in the abdomen,
Speaker 2: he was able to at least make radio contact to
Speaker 2: let will kind of shows off a snow that you know,
Speaker 2: something something terrible had happened. And and then the two
Speaker 2: people that were driving that little red chavette, Kathy Norwood,
Speaker 2: she was found dead, fatally shot. She was found right
Speaker 2: outside of the vehicle and in Deweiy Poland was shot.
Speaker 2: Uh he was shot dead inside the back seat.
Speaker 6: Of his own vehicle.
Speaker 2: So at that point in time, four fatalities and and
Speaker 2: two survivors. And unfortunately, Denis fully died one month later
Speaker 2: from uh, from the injuries that he had sustained at
Speaker 2: the at the shooting there. So we had five five fatalities.
Speaker 6: And you write about underneath auxiliary Deputy Stephen Meyer's body
Speaker 6: was what and what did they get garner from that information?
Speaker 2: That was one of the first major clues at least
Speaker 2: to emerge, and it was it was a fishing real
Speaker 2: receipt that was made out from a from a local
Speaker 2: shop that was called Walts Tackle, Tackle and based shop.
Speaker 2: But uh, but the receipt at least was made out,
Speaker 2: it had a name on it and uh it was
Speaker 2: made out to a guy named Sam Myers M. Y E. R. S.
Speaker 2: And Uh, Sam was in his fifties at that point
Speaker 2: in time, but the receipt was really fresh. So so
Speaker 2: the police didn't think this was just something that they
Speaker 2: had just come across out in the middle of the field,
Speaker 2: you know, just while they were investigating all these the
Speaker 2: multiple homicides out there. And so the police initially started
Speaker 2: to look at Sam Myers as you know, being a
Speaker 2: you know, being a prime suspect for these killings, and
Speaker 2: uh and realized that he was, like I said, in
Speaker 2: his fifties, and he had a ironclad alibi. He and
Speaker 2: his wife and some other family members had made a
Speaker 2: long trip down the Mississippi for several days as part
Speaker 2: of a family vacation. And plus he didn't match the
Speaker 2: description that Dennis Foley, you know, the officer who was
Speaker 2: shot but survived. At that point in time, he was
Speaker 2: able to give a good description of what the shooter
Speaker 2: you know, had looked like. And and there was nothing
Speaker 2: at all like Sam Myers. So the uh, the police
Speaker 2: kind of worked off of Sam Myers. But then, uh,
Speaker 2: when once they realized that he wasn't couldn't be the
Speaker 2: you know, the killer, they they uh they kind of
Speaker 2: uh you know, backed off and kind of had had
Speaker 2: to start from scratch. But they at least had the uh,
Speaker 2: you know, they had the information that something somehow connected
Speaker 2: him or at least uh, you know, perhaps his vehicle
Speaker 2: to this to this crime scene. Otherwise that receipt, you know,
Speaker 2: wouldn't have ended up underneath the Stevie uh Stephen Mayer's uh.
Speaker 6: You right about ray Tu Sick he's going fishing, and
Speaker 6: what does he find.
Speaker 2: He's, uh, it's the it's the very next day, and
Speaker 2: he's on his way down to the King Key River
Speaker 2: and uh. And he's driving on the old knows, the
Speaker 2: old historic round sixty six. It's now just called about
Speaker 2: fifty three. But he's driving, driving, has a way to
Speaker 2: go fishing, and he thinks that he sees, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll look at him like an arm, you know, in
Speaker 2: the median in the grassy median of the four lane
Speaker 2: highway here. Whether it's divine intervention or who knows what,
Speaker 2: but he decides he pulls over, backs up his car,
Speaker 2: you know, and goes back there. And he finds this, uh,
Speaker 2: this woman that had been you know, viciously beaten and
Speaker 2: and assaulted and and she had been stabbed as well.
Speaker 2: And she reads in the middle of the road there
Speaker 2: then and she's cleaning, clinging to life. And so he
Speaker 2: thinks really fast, notices another vehicle that's coming coming down
Speaker 2: the road, and he flags down that that individual guy
Speaker 2: named David Simms, who worked at the Illinois I think
Speaker 2: you'd correct center. And so the two of these two guys,
Speaker 2: these two guys who had never ever met each other,
Speaker 2: you know, are now on the side of the road.
Speaker 2: They found this woman who's planing to life and UH.
Speaker 2: They put her in one of their vehicles and the
Speaker 2: other person that speeds in the town to the nearest
Speaker 2: town and they're able to get her to UH to
Speaker 2: the Wilmington rescue UH unit and UH and get her
Speaker 2: to the hospital and Joliet where she's the doctors just
Speaker 2: do a miraculous job saving her life and UH and
Speaker 2: nursing her back to UH to help and she's eventually
Speaker 2: able able to uh to recover from from her injuries.
Speaker 2: But but she has survived this brutal attack. She was assaulted,
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 2: Her boyfriend. She witnessed her boyfriend being fatally shot right
Speaker 2: in front of her eyes. The two of them had
Speaker 2: parked on the side of the road and UH and
Speaker 2: just uh, we're really tired that night and just decided
Speaker 2: to go to sleep, and then lo and behold somebody,
Speaker 2: a stranger just taps on the window and no sooner
Speaker 2: do they wake up from the sleep, but several several
Speaker 2: gunshots blast into the front seat of the vehicle and
Speaker 2: Tony Hacketts you know, killed killed instantly, and the assailant
Speaker 2: then took took his girlfriend, you know, abducted her and
Speaker 2: and kidnapped her and uh and sexually assaulted her over
Speaker 2: the next several hours inside of his vehicle, which which
Speaker 2: again was a dark colored pickup truck. And she was
Speaker 2: able to get a really good description of the vehicle
Speaker 2: as well as the uh, the rapist killer. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 6: However, this reign of terror is not over. And so
Speaker 6: there was the ceramics shop in Lamont, Illinois. And uh,
Speaker 6: there's the owner of the and some people coming by,
Speaker 6: patrons of the shop coming by. Can you tell us
Speaker 6: what happens briefly at this ceramics shop?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: And yeah, in the ceramics shop there were two ceramic shops.
Speaker 2: The one in LaMotte was the one that the mother
Speaker 2: and son had just recently purchased. So her son was
Speaker 2: living right above the one in LaMotte. But the mother,
Speaker 2: Marilyn bears she was just in the process of eventually
Speaker 2: closing down her shop in Juliet, Illinois. And I'm about thirty.
Speaker 2: And this one was another crime that defied logic. It
Speaker 2: was a Saturday, late Saturday morning writer sometime around noon,
Speaker 2: and the store owner as well as three of her customers,
Speaker 2: all women between the ages of late twenties, late thirties,
Speaker 2: and then one customer was seventy five years old. All
Speaker 2: four of them were found dead inside the Greenware by
Speaker 2: Mary Ceramic shop on East Castree and Joliette. And they
Speaker 2: were all all fatally stabbed several times, about a dozen
Speaker 2: times each, with a really long night that some sheriff's
Speaker 2: deputies told me, you know, might have been like a
Speaker 2: machete type of instrument. But and then one of the women,
Speaker 2: the Anna Ryan, the seventy five year old woman, she
Speaker 2: was also shot. And the purses of all these women
Speaker 2: were stolen as well. I shouldn't say all of them,
Speaker 2: but three of the three of the purses were stolen,
Speaker 2: and you know, by the perpetrator. And again this crime,
Speaker 2: just this one deviated from the other crimes because all
Speaker 2: the other crimes were happening usually late at night or
Speaker 2: you know, during the overnight hours, but this one happened
Speaker 2: again late morning, you know, or around lunchtime on a
Speaker 2: Saturday on August twentieth of nineteen in eighty three.
Speaker 6: Tell us how this whole thing ends in terms of
Speaker 6: his arrest and and what was it? What was it
Speaker 6: what were the things that led to this arrest of
Speaker 6: Milton Johnson.
Speaker 2: Well, within a couple of weeks of the ceramic shop killings,
Speaker 2: again with the quadruple murders of these four defenseless women,
Speaker 2: the Illinois State Police at least went back out to
Speaker 2: the to the to the property of of Sam Myers
Speaker 2: again where the receipt had had fallen at the crime
Speaker 2: scene out in the Homer township, and they at least
Speaker 2: wanted to ask more questions about the pickup truck that
Speaker 2: that Sam Myers owned, and they wound up going out there,
Speaker 2: and this time they asked the questions of Milton Johnson.
Speaker 2: And they had done some research real life who he was.
Speaker 2: I realized he had just gone out of prison a
Speaker 2: few months earlier. And so they at least we're now
Speaker 2: starting to realize, Hey, maybe we have this all wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, we've you know, still looking at Sam Myers.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's Milton Johnson who's driving around and his dad's
Speaker 2: pickup truck this whole time. Right, he asked him a
Speaker 2: few questions. They don't really they at least put him
Speaker 2: on the spot as far as just asking them, you know,
Speaker 2: about like who he thinks could have done these types
Speaker 2: of crimes, you know, over the summer of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: And you know, and and they asked him about the truck,
Speaker 2: you know, does he use it, you know how often?
Speaker 2: And he at least acknowledges that he does. But what's
Speaker 2: really interesting about this crime and uh, and what happened
Speaker 2: after this interview is as that truck then goes off
Speaker 2: the grid and and it's taken off the streets of Joliet,
Speaker 2: never to be seen from ever again. For that matter,
Speaker 2: chill several months later, you know, when when some of
Speaker 2: the other world kind of sheriffs and us togethers are
Speaker 2: able to also piece things together, also realized they built Johnson.
Speaker 2: Fit's the pattern, you know, as far as the violence,
Speaker 2: a lot of these crimes things committing are very similar
Speaker 2: to the nineteen seventy Pilcher Park rape. And uh, they're
Speaker 2: able to eventually figure out that that this pickup truck
Speaker 2: is being stashed away, it's being hidden you know, in uh,
Speaker 2: in a in about two or three miles away from
Speaker 2: from where he is his dad lived, and it's it
Speaker 2: was being hidden in the garage in somebody's uh and
Speaker 2: somebody else's property. Even though this truck again was was
Speaker 2: uh you know, it was one of the main vehicles
Speaker 2: used used by the Johnson you know, Myers household. This
Speaker 2: thing had been taken off the streets for now seven
Speaker 2: or eight months and it was hidden in this scarach.
Speaker 2: So the police impound the vehicle and uh and eventually
Speaker 2: what they're able to do is find, among other things,
Speaker 2: they're actually able to find a receipt that was that
Speaker 2: that linked back to the purchase of a stuffed animal
Speaker 2: that the two teenagers, the girl that was found uh
Speaker 2: left for dead on the side of the road right
Speaker 2: and and her boyfriend who was fatally shot and his
Speaker 2: body was stretched across the front seat of his of
Speaker 2: his car. There was at the time he was found dead.
Speaker 2: He was found clutching uh, this Tasmanian devil on Looney
Speaker 2: Tunes from Bugs Bunny cartoons. But he was he was
Speaker 2: he was clutching this this big brown Tasmanian devil toy.
Speaker 2: He was using it actually as a pillow, you know,
Speaker 2: when he was sleeping on the front seat of of
Speaker 2: the of his car. And so he had bought this
Speaker 2: see bought this uh, this Tasbanian devil for his girlfriend
Speaker 2: at the Great America Six Flags Amusement Park that where
Speaker 2: they had spent their previous previous day. And and at
Speaker 2: the time that this crime had happened, not only did
Speaker 2: the killer, you know, take take the girlfriend hostage, but
Speaker 2: he he made he also reached into the boyfriend's uh
Speaker 2: you know, pockets, you know, and uh you know, and
Speaker 2: took the wallet from from him and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's almost a person everything that was. That was another
Speaker 2: commonality a lot of these crimes that purses or wallets
Speaker 2: were all often taken from the victims as well. But uh,
Speaker 2: but but again back to your question, Dan, Yeah, they
Speaker 2: found this was a really incredible piece of evidence, uh
Speaker 2: that that really helped seal the deal as far as
Speaker 2: proving that Milton Johnson was the murderer. But but this, uh, this,
Speaker 2: this receipt from the Great America for this for the
Speaker 2: Tasmanian Devil toy was found eight months after the crimes happened,
Speaker 2: you know, at the inside the the seat of the
Speaker 2: uh of the uh of the pickup truck that had
Speaker 2: been stashed away and hidden at at Ernest Omer's property
Speaker 2: in Blackpoyt, Illinois.
Speaker 6: Mm hmm. You read about that. They when they finally
Speaker 6: arrest him and then charge him. They go ahead with
Speaker 6: the Tony Hackett murder and Tanya Little this and alias.
Speaker 6: But she is the one that I did him, and
Speaker 6: she is the one that had to withstand cross examination.
Speaker 6: And we haven't even got into the trial antics of
Speaker 6: Milton Johnson as well, asking him to be his own attorney.
Speaker 6: And this is in a death penalty case. So Tanya
Speaker 6: was quite convincing in this trial, despite at first the
Speaker 6: defense tried to say that she didn't identify him or
Speaker 6: misidentified him because she didn't notice the goatee that Milton
Speaker 6: Johnson was sporting. So but by overcame that at they
Speaker 6: overcame that at trial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was very courageous and very believable. And again
Speaker 2: at the time that you have taken you know, at
Speaker 2: the time she was abducted in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: you know, she just witnessed her boyfriend being shot four
Speaker 2: or five times right in front of her eyes, you know,
Speaker 2: and she heard this, you know deep. You know I
Speaker 2: should say, low, low, growlly voice, you know, telling her
Speaker 2: to crawl on the ground. You know, don't look up,
Speaker 2: don't look at me. You know, I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 2: You know, and so she was able to make some
Speaker 2: quick glancing, you know, looks at him while he was driving.
Speaker 2: But again, it's the middle of the night. You know,
Speaker 2: she's not able to in the in the truck is
Speaker 2: pitch black, it's dark, and so she's obviously not going
Speaker 2: to be able to see anything and everything. She's trying
Speaker 2: to remember what she can. And I'm thinking, if the
Speaker 2: person's driving, they're looking face, you know, they're looking forward,
Speaker 2: you're looking at the side of their face. So if
Speaker 2: somebody has a goatee, yeah, you might not be able
Speaker 2: to see that. And and just all these small things too,
Speaker 2: where Milton Johnson was very angry at his sentencing, saying
Speaker 2: that she didn't you know that that she said he
Speaker 2: was wearing low top shoes and he said he always
Speaker 2: wear high tops. That may be true, but uh, but
Speaker 2: but the fact is she she did. She was very
Speaker 2: convincing as far as uh, you know, and she went
Speaker 2: to great lengths before she wanted to ever identify a
Speaker 2: person as being her rapist, because she wanted to make
Speaker 2: sure that she identified the person. Uh, you know, that
Speaker 2: she was identifying the correct person who did this, and uh,
Speaker 2: and so she was she looked at you know, hundreds
Speaker 2: of mugshots at different points of time, and was eventually
Speaker 2: able to go in person to the Will County Jail,
Speaker 2: you know, and view a photo lineup. And and she
Speaker 2: was convinced after she saw the the lineup and heard
Speaker 2: the people repeat the phrases as far as the ones
Speaker 2: that she was told that night uh as she was
Speaker 2: getting into the pickup truck. Uh. And she was convinced
Speaker 2: that without any doubt that Milton Johnson was the person
Speaker 2: who did this to her and her and her boyfriend
Speaker 2: Tony Hackett.
Speaker 6: Mm hmm. Prosecutor Petka sought the death penalty. And we
Speaker 6: mentioned just in the introduction about that there was a
Speaker 6: first trial what was the and there was a second
Speaker 6: trial for the August twentieth, nineteen eighty three Ceramics shop slayings.
Speaker 6: In both trials, what was the verdict in terms of
Speaker 6: the sentence.
Speaker 2: In terms of the sense. Both of the cases ended
Speaker 2: up with the death penalty for Formilon Johnson. So that
Speaker 2: one death penalty for the murder of Tony Hackett and
Speaker 2: then another four death sentences for the Sramic shop murders,
Speaker 2: which were you know, the victims being you know, the
Speaker 2: women that were killed at the seramic shop in angeliatt side.
Speaker 6: The prosecutor chose not to prosecute for the other five murders,
Speaker 6: not wanting to imperil the original sentences, yes and convictions,
Speaker 6: worried about an appeal possibly remotely bringing back all of
Speaker 6: those convictions and putting those back on appeal as well.
Speaker 6: Our time is up now, John, but I've wanted to
Speaker 6: urge people to continue with this Terrortown, USA, to find
Speaker 6: out more of what happens at this trial, because we
Speaker 6: would need another hour to be able to go through
Speaker 6: everything that happens in this remarkable trials and the first
Speaker 6: trial and the second trial and all the decisions that
Speaker 6: happen as a result afterward, and we don't want to
Speaker 6: give away the ending. So I want to thank you
Speaker 6: very much for John for coming on and talking about
Speaker 6: terror Town, USA, the untold story of Joliet's notorious serial killer.
Speaker 6: For those that might want to take a look at this,
Speaker 6: I know this is a wild blue press release. Could
Speaker 6: you tell us about your Amazon page or website tell
Speaker 6: us how they might find out more about this book
Speaker 6: and others?
Speaker 2: Sure, Dan again, John Ferrick dot com, j Ohn F.
Speaker 6: B R.
Speaker 2: A k dot com. I have an author's page there
Speaker 2: and enlist all my books there as well. Wild Blue
Speaker 2: Press dot com again is where you can find this book,
Speaker 2: Taryotwon USA, and you know in several of my other
Speaker 2: previous books, including A Wrecking Crew, which is the story
Speaker 2: about Stephen Avery and attorney Kathleen Sellner's efforts to try
Speaker 2: to overturn his conviction, the case made famous in the
Speaker 2: Netflix series From Making a Murder. Yes, and again, the
Speaker 2: easiest place to be asked with you just for people
Speaker 2: to go to look for Tarrytown USA is just just
Speaker 2: go to Amazon dot com right now. It's available in
Speaker 2: paperback and also ebook and and I'm hoping here the
Speaker 2: next several weeks that will also have an audiobook version
Speaker 2: as well for people, since I know those are very
Speaker 2: popular and several of my previous books have done real
Speaker 2: well as far as with the audiobook Bormant as well.
Speaker 6: Absolutely looking forward to that. Thank you so much, John Ferick.
Speaker 6: Terror Town USA, the untold story of Juliet's notorious serial killer.
Speaker 6: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, John Ferrick.
Speaker 2: Thanks again Dan for having me here. A great night.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Good night,