Speaker 1: Willie's intro. But you don't have Willy today, it's me.
Speaker 1: We want to only Mike Allen Senior in for the
Speaker 1: great American Willie Cunningham today. I'm in for him today,
Speaker 1: tomorrow and Wednesday of next week. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to do a good show for you today. I
Speaker 1: think we got a pretty good lineup. At one o'clock,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to a guy by the name
Speaker 1: of doctor Robert Marbitt. He just finished producing a documentary
Speaker 1: on the fentanyl crisis. And you know, I know it's
Speaker 1: a holiday season and don't want to bring anybody down,
Speaker 1: but take my word for it as somebody who's in
Speaker 1: the systems, it is a real problem. We will talk
Speaker 1: to doctor Marbitt at one o'clock. Two o'clock. This is
Speaker 1: going to be interesting. We're going to do a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the John Bennet Ramsey case with JT. Townsend.
Speaker 1: He has just been all over this thing and he's
Speaker 1: got a timeline and a lot of interesting kind of
Speaker 1: takes on it. There is a great Netflix documentary out
Speaker 1: on it. I saw it about a month or so ago.
Speaker 1: If you're into that stuff, you got to give it
Speaker 1: a try. So pretty good show lined up for you.
Speaker 1: I think, well, you know, obviously we're just getting out
Speaker 1: of Christmas. I hope you all had a good Christmas.
Speaker 1: Mine was good, but it was kind of interesting. And
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, I'll share it with you, and
Speaker 1: if you want to share with me. Seven four nine,
Speaker 1: seven thousand, one eight hundred, the big one are the numbers.
Speaker 1: I spent last week in Mexico Port of Aarta. I
Speaker 1: love going to Mexico. This is probably, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: thirty forty years about my twentieth time down there. Just
Speaker 1: absolutely love it. So went down there last week. It
Speaker 1: was a great trip. It really was. Weather was in
Speaker 1: the mid eighties every day, not a drop of rain
Speaker 1: at all. And it's kind of interesting here in the
Speaker 1: Christmas carols when you're sitting out by the pool drinking
Speaker 1: a beer in December, but you know, they celebrate Christmas.
Speaker 1: Obviously a lot of Catholics down there. It was just
Speaker 1: interesting seeing that. But I gotta tell you too, I
Speaker 1: was dreading. I've never flown around Christmas time. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I've been there a million times, but not around Christmas.
Speaker 1: It was near perfect. I mean, nothing went wrong, we
Speaker 1: flew from Cincinnati into Houston and from Houston into Port
Speaker 1: of Aarda, and I was in Port of Aarda I
Speaker 1: guess about ten years or so ago. And man, it
Speaker 1: has grown. I mean it's grown by leaps and bounds,
Speaker 1: and that's one thing I was kind of hoping that
Speaker 1: didn't but it did. But at any rate, the flight
Speaker 1: was great. TSA. I mean, I can't say enough about
Speaker 1: those guys. They take a lot of grief and I've
Speaker 1: been on the receiving end of some discourteous, if you will,
Speaker 1: comments from them, but they were courteous, efficient. It was
Speaker 1: just impressive. On the way home, It's something happened that
Speaker 1: has never happened to me before. From part of our
Speaker 1: Arta to Houston, we actually got there a half hour early.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the pilot did that. He must
Speaker 1: have had his foot jammed on the accelerator, but it
Speaker 1: was just it was nice to go through all that
Speaker 1: without any glitches. So TSA takes a lot of crap,
Speaker 1: but well, I'll tell you, I can't say enough about them.
Speaker 1: And that's just not on this trip. It's been on
Speaker 1: just about every trip lately. And by the way, just
Speaker 1: kind of by circumstance. Last night I watched on Netflix
Speaker 1: a great movie about TSA. It's called carry On. It's
Speaker 1: a drama. It's not a real life thing, but it's
Speaker 1: really good and it's all about what some bad guy
Speaker 1: wants to do at an airport and if you get
Speaker 1: a chance, you ought to watch it. One downside though, however,
Speaker 1: and this has only happened to me one time before,
Speaker 1: came home and brought a little bit a case of
Speaker 1: Montezuma's Revenge with me. And for those of you that
Speaker 1: might not know what it is, that's just look it
Speaker 1: up because I don't want to talk about it too much.
Speaker 1: But needless to say, it kind of put me on
Speaker 1: the sidelines for a couple of days. So I missed
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day as well.
Speaker 1: But I'm up and at them today feeling a lot better.
Speaker 1: So you know the thing with Monozumer's revenge, it's don't
Speaker 1: drink the water. Well I didn't drink the water, but
Speaker 1: I mean you can get it anywhere. They can be
Speaker 1: transported through food and anything like that. But still a
Speaker 1: great trip, but it kind of put a damper on
Speaker 1: the holidays. I kind of have a theory about Christmas, though,
Speaker 1: this is what I believe, and I really believe this.
Speaker 1: Christmas is great and it's fun when you're a kid.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just nothing better when you're a kid.
Speaker 1: And then it becomes great again when you have kids.
Speaker 1: How much fun it is to watch them tear open
Speaker 1: their gifts and you know, knock each other on the
Speaker 1: head with whatever they got, And it'll be fun again
Speaker 1: if I ever have grandkids. Other than that, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a holiday to hook up with family and friends
Speaker 1: and things like that. But I don't know, just a
Speaker 1: little bit too commercial, starts way way too early, and
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's just my thought. Hey, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you, and I want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Seven four nine, seven thousand, one, eight hundred, the big
Speaker 1: one are the numbers your best Christmas gift ever? Best
Speaker 1: Christmas gift ever? And I'll start off with mine. I
Speaker 1: probably was maybe I don't know, nine ten years old
Speaker 1: and I got from Santa Claus to with my mother
Speaker 1: and father. And if you're in my age group, you'll
Speaker 1: remember this a swim stingray bike with the banana seat
Speaker 1: and it actually had a shifter in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: That was a big deal back in those days, and
Speaker 1: I was not expecting it at all, And boy, I
Speaker 1: tell you what, I was kind of the envy of
Speaker 1: the neighborhood for a while until of course I trashed it.
Speaker 1: But that's my best Christmas gift. And I've got a
Speaker 1: lot of good ones since then, but that's mine. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to weigh in with yours again,
Speaker 1: seven four nine, seven thousand, one eight hundred, the big
Speaker 1: one are the numbers. How about Christmas traditions? Every family
Speaker 1: just about has a Christmas tradition, and my family's no different.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about it. It's kind of funny. Okay.
Speaker 1: One year, when the kids were young, pretty young, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of money for Christmas gifts. It
Speaker 1: just kind of worked out that way, and you know,
Speaker 1: we got the gifts and thought, hen, that's not going
Speaker 1: to look like too much under the tree. We better
Speaker 1: do something. So I went to Big Lots and got
Speaker 1: the kids a lot of cheap, cheap toy as well,
Speaker 1: kids being kids, you know, they didn't notice that. I
Speaker 1: kind of kept that tradition up. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you shop at Big Lots, if you ever have and
Speaker 1: the people there are just so nice and so friendly,
Speaker 1: but they kind of have some off the wall and
Speaker 1: unusual things. So usually on Christmas Eve I'll stop in
Speaker 1: there and kind of try to find the goofiest things.
Speaker 1: I can wrap them up like they're real gifts and
Speaker 1: exchange those on Christmas Eve. And it's kind of gone
Speaker 1: over well for the last, oh my goodness, probably about
Speaker 1: thirty years. So, like I said, I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: your Christmas tradition, your best Christmas gift ever? Seven four nine,
Speaker 1: seven thousand, one, eight hundred the Big One. Give us
Speaker 1: a call and let us know. Hey, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a short break, but we'll be back. Mike Allen
Speaker 1: in for the Great American seven hundred WLW. Hey we're back,
Speaker 1: Mike Gallon in for the Great American. Willie Cunningham. And
Speaker 1: you know, just telling you about my great Christmas tradition
Speaker 1: of going to Big Lots to buy goofy gifts for
Speaker 1: family members. My great friend Kurt Hartman, lawyer extraordinaire, just
Speaker 1: sent me an article out of the useless A Today,
Speaker 1: Big Lots plans to close all stores. See full list
Speaker 1: of locations around the US. Just a couple of sentences here,
Speaker 1: America is preparing to say goodbye to another big name
Speaker 1: retail chain. Big Lots is planning to shudder all of
Speaker 1: its locations following months of store closures and a September
Speaker 1: filing for Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection. So you know what,
Speaker 1: I can just cross another thing off the list that
Speaker 1: I used to like that is gone. Yeah, the big
Speaker 1: one lately is Frishes and I don't understand that. I
Speaker 1: know the mayor family sold it, and well, i'll tell
Speaker 1: you what you talk about good stewards of that restaurant
Speaker 1: chain and that tradition. They sold it to some out
Speaker 1: of town concern and just want the hell in a handbasket.
Speaker 1: And I just hate to see that. Also, and this
Speaker 1: is very, very very important, Hussmand's potato chips. Man, I
Speaker 1: love their potato chips, especially the barbecue, but they are
Speaker 1: long gone now too, So what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: I guess it's progress, but not really. Hey, getting back
Speaker 1: to the topic of Christmas, and again would like to
Speaker 1: hear your comments. Seven four nine, seven thousand, one eight hundred.
Speaker 1: The big one are the numbers. Christmas shopping, or as
Speaker 1: they like to call it now, holiday shopping. I pretty
Speaker 1: much did all of my Christmas shopping this year for
Speaker 1: the first time online through Amazon, and a lot of
Speaker 1: that was because I was going out of the country
Speaker 1: for a while. But I'm going to continue to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm one of these guys. It takes me
Speaker 1: a while to buy into technology. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: the way it is with my generation. But Amazon, I mean,
Speaker 1: they are absolutely amazing. There have been a couple of
Speaker 1: times when I've ordered some kind of obscure things on Amazon.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, early afternoon, by the time I
Speaker 1: go to bed, it's already there. Now that's not everything,
Speaker 1: or even close to everything, but still they do a
Speaker 1: great job, I think, And boy, what a great way
Speaker 1: to avoid the nonsense of the shopping malls in the
Speaker 1: box store, which you know, talking about things going out
Speaker 1: of style. They're going the way of the Dodo too.
Speaker 1: I think at some point it's just so much easier now.
Speaker 1: The one thing I haven't had to do yet, and
Speaker 1: I've been told that this actually goes pretty smoothly, is
Speaker 1: to send something back through Amazon. Supposedly they got a
Speaker 1: relatively simple process to do that, and I'm sure at
Speaker 1: some point I'll have to deal with it, But the
Speaker 1: malls themselves, I can't. I just can't do it anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm also too last. What about two or three times
Speaker 1: grocery shopping? I just have Kroger bring it to me.
Speaker 1: I hate going to the grocery store. So as much
Speaker 1: as I bitch and moan about automation and things like that,
Speaker 1: it's making people's lives easier, even old farts like me.
Speaker 1: But the malls in the box to, like I said,
Speaker 1: they're going the way of the Dodo bird. I think,
Speaker 1: although you know, you look out the window here where
Speaker 1: we are, it looks directly on the parking lot of
Speaker 1: the Kenwood Shopping mall, and man, there are people coming
Speaker 1: in and out of there and have been, I don't
Speaker 1: know since Thanksgiving. Christmas starts way way too early these
Speaker 1: days too. Hey, good, we got a call here Mike
Speaker 1: and Alexandria. Hey Mike, how you doing good?
Speaker 2: Mike, Hey, glad to hear you every Saturday on your show.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I just had a story. You were talking about all
Speaker 2: the franchises and stuff that are closing. Yeah, my dad's
Speaker 2: a Westsider. Went to elder hell Y Ben been gone
Speaker 2: about twelve years now, But he used to when I
Speaker 2: was growing up, Mike. He used to eat so back
Speaker 2: in the day when husbands have the big.
Speaker 3: Bags, the four bags or small backs.
Speaker 4: Inside of them.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he would eat a bag of chips, trout,
Speaker 2: French onion dip, and free burger beers almost every night.
Speaker 1: How did he get free burger? Now? And my day
Speaker 1: burger was pretty darn cheap. But how did your dad
Speaker 1: get it for free?
Speaker 5: But he didn't get it for free. He drank three
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 1: Oh I thought you said free. Okay, there three of them.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: And and that was his kind of routine, huh.
Speaker 2: That that was his evening after dinner and stuff.
Speaker 5: And he owned his own he owned his own business, so.
Speaker 1: He worked a ton of hours.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty fun, you know. If you remember husbands too,
Speaker 1: remember they used to come in like a kind of
Speaker 1: like a big drum if you like had a party
Speaker 1: or something like that. But I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, people are probably thinking, now, you know, get
Speaker 1: over it, Mike, But a lot of things that you
Speaker 1: grow up with are gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 6: I just I just.
Speaker 2: Wanted to I don't.
Speaker 6: I rarely call.
Speaker 7: In, so I appreciate that, give you that story.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Thank you, Mike.
Speaker 8: Hey, you have a good happy New Year.
Speaker 1: You too, Thank you. By bye. I'm glad he called
Speaker 1: Burger beer. My goodness, I haven't heard that brand uttered
Speaker 1: in quite a long time. Uh. And you know, back
Speaker 1: in the day, we would occasionally and bibe and Burger
Speaker 1: when we couldn't find the Hootie. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one thing, it was cheap. It was really cheap. At
Speaker 1: some point, I think in the seventies Burger merged with Hootipol,
Speaker 1: and Hohodipol was making Burger, and you know what, they
Speaker 1: hung in there quite a bit. Linda from Springboro, got
Speaker 1: just a second here to Linda, what you got.
Speaker 9: Hello, Yeah, I'm getting off of speaker.
Speaker 5: Just some moments, okay, all right.
Speaker 1: So hey Linda, Hey Linda, Linda, can you hang on
Speaker 1: through the news because I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: and I don't want to give you short shrifts, So
Speaker 1: hang on and we'll get to you right when we
Speaker 1: come back. Mike Allen in for the Great American seven
Speaker 1: hundred WLW Well thirty eight News Radio seven hundred WLW
Speaker 1: Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham today and tomorrow as
Speaker 1: well as next Wednesday and next Thursday and Friday. I'm
Speaker 1: in for Sloaney. Anyway, we were talking about Christmas traditions, things,
Speaker 1: all things Christmas, I guess, and I want to get
Speaker 1: back to Linda here from Springboro. Linda, thanks for hanging
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 5: Oh that's all right, thank you.
Speaker 9: I want to let you know that it is easy
Speaker 9: to do returns from Amazon. Really send packaging that you
Speaker 9: can reuse to send things back. Or actually I'm on
Speaker 9: my way to the Cools to go ahead and return
Speaker 9: a guest that I got for a daughter that doesn't
Speaker 9: fit and I've already ordered the right size, so so
Speaker 9: it's incredibly easy. They sent me, uh uh that one
Speaker 9: of those codes QR codes, whatever they are, and that
Speaker 9: I will they'll scan there and that shows that, hey, yeah,
Speaker 9: they have started the process of a return.
Speaker 5: So incredibly easy. However, I will tell you that I
Speaker 5: I also.
Speaker 9: Think it's very important for us to get out there
Speaker 9: and shop. Maybe not during Christmas time was so busy,
Speaker 9: but those are big box stores because you know, some
Speaker 9: of us are traditional sizes. Also, a lot of sizes
Speaker 9: are different depending on a brand name. And what I'm
Speaker 9: speaking of is clothing, shoe runs and that sort of
Speaker 9: thing that that that you're just you need to try
Speaker 9: something on, you need to feel the fabric, you need
Speaker 9: to write how it's, how it's made, and and that's
Speaker 9: what is frustrating. I'm tall, and so it's that's always
Speaker 9: been a difficult challenge for me in terms of clothing.
Speaker 9: I have large feet for a woman, and so wear
Speaker 9: size eleven, and so that can be a challenge because
Speaker 9: those often sell out first as soon as they come in.
Speaker 5: To a store.
Speaker 9: But so I do utilize them when I know a
Speaker 9: particular brand I have that the shoes work.
Speaker 5: But I would never order close through Amazon. But you know,
Speaker 5: it's a great company.
Speaker 9: I think it's a great compliment, compliment to.
Speaker 5: Our big box stores.
Speaker 9: But please, we need to get out there and shop
Speaker 9: at our Macy's and our Coals and our you know,
Speaker 9: and our discount drug stores and also our regular pharmacies
Speaker 9: and that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: We need to have them.
Speaker 9: My concern is if we just go to online purchasing
Speaker 9: and we close down too many of these big box stores.
Speaker 9: Right now, there are free returns, are there going to
Speaker 9: be free returns if they have us over a barrel,
Speaker 9: because their choice.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a lost sight ranking.
Speaker 9: Well, no, I'm not going to go that far, but
Speaker 9: I'm going to say we really.
Speaker 5: Need to think in terms of that, you know.
Speaker 9: So I like that that there is a diversity of
Speaker 9: choices for people, you know, during COVID, I certainly when
Speaker 9: I had it and when I didn't have it, there
Speaker 9: were times I've glad that I could order things I
Speaker 9: need it to be delivered to me. I've had things
Speaker 9: delivered to a daughter. I've ordered a Chris's gift for
Speaker 9: a daughter that lives in San Francisco. So it has
Speaker 9: its place, but there's definitely we've got to preserve our
Speaker 9: big box stores.
Speaker 5: You have to.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you if you had seen
Speaker 1: Macy's has a place now at Rookwood where I think
Speaker 1: it's where bed Baff and Beyond used to be, and
Speaker 1: it's it's a department store in the traditional sense, but
Speaker 1: a very scaled down one. I went in there and
Speaker 1: I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, and it
Speaker 1: seemed like they had a pretty good selection. So hopefully
Speaker 1: they hang on, because that's somewhat of a local company,
Speaker 1: or at least it used to be.
Speaker 9: Yeah right, yeah, way back to the Chilitou's days, was
Speaker 9: a beautiful Christmas windows that my parents would take us
Speaker 9: to see when we were a little myself here. So, yeah,
Speaker 9: I want to this is off topic, but I do
Speaker 9: want to say something real quick, because I listened to
Speaker 9: your news in the meantime and do frequently. And about
Speaker 9: the bridge, I'm glad that I'm not having to deal
Speaker 9: with that. I don't get down to that area. However,
Speaker 9: safety comes first, so people need to think they want
Speaker 9: to hurry and get this done. I think it should
Speaker 9: be expedited, but it safety has to be number one.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I wanted to say, all right, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm trying.
Speaker 10: That.
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: All Right, you're welcome. You know. Linda's right, And you
Speaker 1: know I use that route, the four seventy one south. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not using it now, but I do frequently. And
Speaker 1: you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. But yeah,
Speaker 1: one thing I can't wrap my mind around. Why would
Speaker 1: you want to burn a bridge down? Number one? Number two?
Speaker 1: How in the hell do you do that? I guess
Speaker 1: that must have been one heck of a fire, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad they charge some people on that and we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens as far as a possible conviction. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard for me to wrap my brain
Speaker 1: around how you do that. But it is a mess
Speaker 1: and we do have to just kind of be patient
Speaker 1: with it. And you know, I'm known in many circles
Speaker 1: as mister Patients, so I don't have a problem with it.
Speaker 1: And if you believe that, I got a bridge to
Speaker 1: sell you anyway, Let's go to Dick from Dayton.
Speaker 10: Hey, Dick, Hey, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: Mark you too, buddy, Mike.
Speaker 10: How are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good. What you got for me?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 10: I just wanted to tell you of a big shop
Speaker 10: where I've been going to the swift stores and since.
Speaker 11: The Bengals are doing good in Ohio State, I've stocked
Speaker 11: up in all the jerseys and I say, with four
Speaker 11: or five bags, I've only paid like five or ten bucks.
Speaker 10: How about that.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. You know, you'd think, like you said,
Speaker 1: with them doing well, that there wouldn't be too many
Speaker 1: out there at the thrift stores. But that's a great idea.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I've always well my family, as
Speaker 10: you probably know, my musical and my uncles.
Speaker 11: I used to go up to Cleveland and.
Speaker 10: We played for two or three days and my aunt
Speaker 10: would buy me like all CDs and stuff like that,
Speaker 10: and we played for a lot for my family. And
Speaker 10: I'm down here now, I've been retarded four years from
Speaker 10: low So I'm a little bit bummed out because I'm
Speaker 10: going to try to go tomorrow to play, you know,
Speaker 10: because it's part of my life music.
Speaker 1: As you there, where are you gonna play? Can you
Speaker 1: tell us where you're gonna be?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 11: I'm usually at uh well, the strummers play in Beaver
Speaker 11: Creek and then I go and Xenia and then uh,
Speaker 11: let's see the Henry banjo will start up and another
Speaker 11: week because it's.
Speaker 10: Here in the Dayton area. But sure I get, you know,
Speaker 10: and I played the dulcimer a little bit. But but
Speaker 10: everybody loves it, you know. They always say we can
Speaker 10: count on Dick. Debbie always says, we hear Dick promoting us.
Speaker 10: So h it's a good little band.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It sounds like and I tell you what, you can
Speaker 1: get a heck of a lot of music out of
Speaker 1: a banjo. As you well know, I.
Speaker 10: Play actually mandolin, but I played the banjo, yuke and
Speaker 10: the ukulele banjo, and they're pretty Oh.
Speaker 1: Okay, I didn't know there was such a thing.
Speaker 10: They've got the blue oh the bluegrass Ben Joe. Oh boy,
Speaker 10: you can go down the fingerboard and hit his loud Mike.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll.
Speaker 11: Bet that I'm beat.
Speaker 10: I tell your son, I said, Mary Christmast and everybody.
Speaker 1: Okay, I appreciate it. I'll pass it on, okay, bye bye, right, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, Dick, you know, And I wanted to mention
Speaker 1: something about this, but of course I forgot. I'm sitting here,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of thinking about what I'm going to
Speaker 1: do in the next segment, and what do I hear
Speaker 1: is my son doing a spot for his new law firm.
Speaker 1: And that's I wasn't expecting it, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just thought it was kind of cool. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of that young man. There's just no
Speaker 1: way I can explain it, but that was kind of cool. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's do this. Let's take a short break and then
Speaker 1: come back. Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're back. Mike Allen in four of the Great American
Speaker 1: Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW. I'm going to get back
Speaker 1: to the phones in just aminutey. We've got Steve from
Speaker 1: Marie Mont Definitely got to get to him. Just a
Speaker 1: couple statistics here about how much money people spend on
Speaker 1: Christmas and how and what they're spending it on. This
Speaker 1: is from Capital One Shopping Research, so I'm assuming it's
Speaker 1: legit and accurate. The average American spends around one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for the winter holidays, most of it on gift giving.
Speaker 1: American holiday shoppers will spend listen to this, folks, and
Speaker 1: estimated nine hundred and eighty four point three billion dollars
Speaker 1: on Christmas in twenty twenty four, and projections indicate I
Speaker 1: don't know how they do that, but by twenty thirty
Speaker 1: we'll be spending in this country one point to two
Speaker 1: trillion dollars. Pretty amazing when you think about it, and
Speaker 1: including travel and entertainment expenses, the average consumer spends one thousand,
Speaker 1: six hundred and thirty eight bucks throughout the holiday season.
Speaker 1: And we were just talking about this buying things online
Speaker 1: holiday shoppers in the United States are expected to spend
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety eight billion bucks shopping online. And
Speaker 1: what would you think, just what would you think the
Speaker 1: percentage would be? Fifty, fifty, sixty forty. It's actually thirty
Speaker 1: point one percent of holiday sales in dollars since twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and that is going up because it's just
Speaker 1: so darn easy. Hey, let's talk to Steven Marie Mount. Hey, Steve,
Speaker 1: how you doing.
Speaker 5: What's up, Mike?
Speaker 8: I just want to say you can get you off
Speaker 8: for prayers up for an officer that died yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, Andrew Lee Lansing. He was a correctional officer. I'm
Speaker 8: gonna retire. Correctional officer did twenty one years. So that's
Speaker 8: why I'm calling.
Speaker 1: I'm glad he was.
Speaker 8: Working for Christmas morning and he got attack. My an
Speaker 8: inmate at Ross Correctional.
Speaker 1: I read that, Steve, and I am so glad you called. Absolutely.
Speaker 8: I used to work every holiday and I just feel
Speaker 8: sorry for the poor guys family.
Speaker 1: Isn't that something that unfortunately is on the rise in
Speaker 1: this country and maybe even in Ohio.
Speaker 8: It's terrible. I don't know what you can do to
Speaker 8: stop it. I mean, you don't. You can't have solved inmates.
Speaker 8: You've got to give him, you know, a good laid
Speaker 8: way and stuff. It's just a problem. We've got to
Speaker 8: get around and talk about how to solve it, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, because I mean it's just something
Speaker 1: that you can't stand for any law enforcement officer, which
Speaker 1: they are, who is killed in the line of duty
Speaker 1: obviously or injured.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was sixty two.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, My goodness.
Speaker 8: So I retired as like sixty about the same age,
Speaker 8: three or sixty four or something, and it just to
Speaker 8: get older. You can't. How can you handle a younger guy.
Speaker 8: You don't have the strength, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I'll tell you what. I get into
Speaker 1: the prison sometimes visiting clients, and I so much admire
Speaker 1: the job that they do, and also in the local
Speaker 1: lock ups as well. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: at the Hamilton County Justice Center.
Speaker 8: In Hamilton County. They got a lot of problems done
Speaker 8: there too. Well, they're doing a better job though.
Speaker 1: You know what. And I just I look at the
Speaker 1: individual deputy and they just do an outstanding job under
Speaker 1: difficult circumstances. So I am so glad that you called
Speaker 1: in and recognis.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I just want to remind you about the people working
Speaker 8: the holidays that are incorrect or prison police officers and stuff.
Speaker 8: It's a tough.
Speaker 1: Job, it really is. I'm sorry, Okay, it really is.
Speaker 1: And we definitely will say some prayers for him, or
Speaker 1: at least I will.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mike, appreciate you, love your show.
Speaker 1: Okay, thanks Steve oh Man. I am glad he called
Speaker 1: because I saw that this morning and thought about mentioning it,
Speaker 1: but of course forgot. I'm telling you, like I said,
Speaker 1: I get over that Hamilton County Justice Center two or
Speaker 1: three times a week. And you know, I mean, being
Speaker 1: a cop in today's day and age is hard enough,
Speaker 1: but that job where you don't get outside, you're dealing
Speaker 1: not exactly with the kremme de la creme of society.
Speaker 1: And I don't think those guys make very much money
Speaker 1: at all at all. And you know what this is
Speaker 1: probably isn't going to be real popular with some of
Speaker 1: my Republican friends. But and I love Jim Neil, but
Speaker 1: I think the sheriff, our current sheriff, does a pretty
Speaker 1: a darn good job. On that, on all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's just a tough job. It's a difficult job
Speaker 1: that they have to perform under very very difficult circumstances.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad he recognized that corrections officer, you know,
Speaker 1: And we talked about this on my Saturday show. There
Speaker 1: is a move a foot to get on the ballot.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to be the November
Speaker 1: ballot or May ballot, whatever, a proposed constitutional amendment to
Speaker 1: get rid of qualified immunity for law enforcement officers. Qualified
Speaker 1: immunity is where if a police officer acts in good
Speaker 1: faith and injure someone, even kills someone, and he was
Speaker 1: not outside of acting in good faith, he's got that immunity.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that the victim's family is not
Speaker 1: taken care of. You sue the munition. It's a palady
Speaker 1: that that police officer works for, not the police officer privately.
Speaker 1: We got four states that have it now and it
Speaker 1: has just been a disaster and it's the worst thing
Speaker 1: that could possibly happen to cops. And we don't need
Speaker 1: that now. We don't we need more cops. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what if you think recruiting is difficult. Now,
Speaker 1: if they pass this thing, which I don't think they're
Speaker 1: gonna do, it's even gonna be worse. And we got
Speaker 1: to take a break for the news. But when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're gonna get serious. And I always say this,
Speaker 1: but I've had fifty plus years in the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system and I've never seen anything like what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about, and that is the fentanyl epidemic. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're not in the system, I don't think people
Speaker 1: really realize that we had a crack crack epidemic in
Speaker 1: the eighties and early nineties and that this is nothing
Speaker 1: that is nothing compared to this. When we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to a man, doctor Robert Marbitt,
Speaker 1: and he did a documentary produced it. It's called Death Incorporated,
Speaker 1: and it's all about fentanyl. And I think you're really
Speaker 1: gonna want to hear what he is to say, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk to him when we get back. Mike Allen
Speaker 1: in for Willy Cunningham seven hundred WLW Preddios seven hundred
Speaker 1: WLW Mike Allen in for the Great American Willie Cunningham.
Speaker 1: On the day after Christmas, Well, it was like I
Speaker 1: was telling you before the break. Of all the challenges
Speaker 1: that we face in this country, this is one that
Speaker 1: is just not being talked about enough. And I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the fentanyl crisis. I'm old enough to remember, and
Speaker 1: I was in the system back in the year eighties
Speaker 1: and early nineties when we had the crack epidemic, and
Speaker 1: that was an epidemic. But man, it is nothing like
Speaker 1: this one. And here to talk about it is doctor
Speaker 1: Robert Marbitt. Doctor Marbitt served as a White House Fellow
Speaker 1: under President George W. Bush. He has most recently served
Speaker 1: as Executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Speaker 1: He served on that from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: But here's why he's here. He has produced a documentary
Speaker 1: that's getting rave reviews and it's called Fentanyl Death Incorporated.
Speaker 1: It's scheduled to be released sometime in January. Doctor Marbret,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us this afternoon.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me. And when you
Speaker 7: go through that crack, you know cochine, Yeah, you can
Speaker 7: go all the way back to the angel dust, PCP,
Speaker 7: black tar plus crack cocaine K two spice. We have
Speaker 7: never seen anything like fittanol, And you're absolutely right, world's history.
Speaker 1: And the problem doctor marvid Is, I'm sure you know
Speaker 1: is that people seem to be shrugging their shoulders, people
Speaker 1: who are not in the system about this. We got
Speaker 1: a lot of problems in this country, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't think this one's getting the attention that it should.
Speaker 1: But tell us about the documentary and where we can
Speaker 1: see it and when we can see it.
Speaker 7: The documentary will be out in first quarter of twenty
Speaker 7: twenty five, and it will probably hit some theaters around
Speaker 7: the country, select theaters, and then we will go to streaming.
Speaker 7: You can go see it right now at Salem now
Speaker 7: dot com. That's like a web based not a traditional
Speaker 7: television streaming. And let me give you one stat that
Speaker 7: will just really put how bad this situation is and
Speaker 7: how we've never seen anything like this. In the last
Speaker 7: five years, more people have died in Fitnel than in
Speaker 7: America than all the US military fatalities of all uniform
Speaker 7: branches of government plus the intelligence services all added up
Speaker 7: for the last hundred years.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 7: So World War Two, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, a few
Speaker 7: un actions, the several different global War on terrors. Add
Speaker 7: all that up for the last hundred years, it still
Speaker 7: doesn't beat what's happened to fitnel in the United States
Speaker 7: in the last five years.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely chilling. Well, let me ask you, I mean,
Speaker 1: why do you think that people, not everyone, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people are just kind of shrugging their shoulders
Speaker 1: at this.
Speaker 7: Well, I think that it comes from the leadership the
Speaker 7: last four years. The White House has been asleep on
Speaker 7: this issue, whereas President Trump elect, who's not even in office,
Speaker 7: is already talking about it and talking about it heavily.
Speaker 7: The fact he got the Mexican president to give him
Speaker 7: a call and, by the way, start cracking down on
Speaker 7: the cartels, right, and same with our northern border, with
Speaker 7: the biker games up in Canada, and got a Premier Trudeau,
Speaker 7: prime Minister of Trudeau to come down to see him
Speaker 7: in mar A Lago. We've already had more action and
Speaker 7: he's not even in office yet.
Speaker 1: Wow, let me ask you something, because I've listened to
Speaker 1: and watched an interview that you did, and I think
Speaker 1: I heard you say that there's more fentanyl coming from
Speaker 1: the Canadian border than there is from the Mexican border.
Speaker 1: Am I right about that.
Speaker 7: Yes, and that's happened in the last really eight months.
Speaker 7: That's a new thing, and it's interconnected with the Southwest border.
Speaker 7: Part of it is we have pulled so many agents
Speaker 7: to the southwest border to deal with what's going on
Speaker 7: there that has left the northern border open. And here's
Speaker 7: a crazier deal. We have border agents on the northern
Speaker 7: border sitting at their desk, at their station, but they're
Speaker 7: not patrolling their districts. So they're at their computer and
Speaker 7: they're processing people coming across from the southwest border.
Speaker 1: Wow, and so quote.
Speaker 7: They're on station, but they're not out patrolling. They're not
Speaker 7: out doing what you need to do to really keep
Speaker 7: a border. And my deal is this shouldn't be a
Speaker 7: political issue. This should be common sense. We should have
Speaker 7: as a sovereign country. We should know who's coming across
Speaker 7: a border and what are they bringing with them, and
Speaker 7: if they're bringing the most lethal chemical drug elis drug
Speaker 7: we've ever known to the world's history, we want to
Speaker 7: know about it rather than just letting them walk it across.
Speaker 1: You would think, you know, and like you said, hopefully
Speaker 1: we do get some action when President Trump gets into
Speaker 1: office again in about a month or so, I got
Speaker 1: to ask you this, what I see is just so
Speaker 1: much misery and heartache that this drug causes. In one year,
Speaker 1: doctor marbat I, and I'm a criminal defense attorney in
Speaker 1: my day job, in one year, I had three of
Speaker 1: my clients die from fentonyl overdoses. And these were not dealers,
Speaker 1: these were consumers. These were users, And you know, and
Speaker 1: that kind of made me take a pause here and
Speaker 1: think about what the heck's going on. I just and
Speaker 1: I know I'm maybe fixated on this. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why the general public isn't up in arms about this.
Speaker 7: Well, you got a lot of four or five things
Speaker 7: in there, and I think the big thing we need
Speaker 7: to do is that the mere fact you have me
Speaker 7: on your show is a help in getting people to
Speaker 7: understand the magnitude of death. Five years ago, when I
Speaker 7: started seeing fentanyl and I was President of Trump's first
Speaker 7: Homelessness Art, I was saying fentanyl on the street in
Speaker 7: San Francisco, a little bit in La Portland and Seattle.
Speaker 7: That was sort of about all I was seeing. And
Speaker 7: fast forward in the last six months, I've sat down
Speaker 7: at every single dinner, I've sat down with or every
Speaker 7: single sort of business meeting I've had, somehow they say, hey,
Speaker 7: I hear about your movie. Let me tell you about
Speaker 7: my nephew, my niece, sadly, my son or my daughter.
Speaker 7: Five years ago, you didn't have that. Now, almost everywhere
Speaker 7: I go, somebody sits down and tells me their story
Speaker 7: about a very immediate relative that is dyed, not addicted,
Speaker 7: not taking, not using, has died. And I think the
Speaker 7: more that message gets out. And here's another scary stack.
Speaker 7: The fastest growing death rate for children zero to five
Speaker 7: is fentanyl zero to five, zero to five, fastest growing
Speaker 7: rate of death rate there. And you sit there and go,
Speaker 7: they're not calling a dealer, they're not addicts. They're just
Speaker 7: getting fittonyl what's called fitnyl poison because finnyl dust is
Speaker 7: so dangerous. And let's put in perspective, two grains of
Speaker 7: salt equivalent of fitnel will kill most people. Three grains
Speaker 7: will kill anybody, or one fifteenth of a rice green.
Speaker 7: And so you can't see it, you can't smell it,
Speaker 7: you can't taste it, and it's sort of like dust,
Speaker 7: you know, And so when you have a bunch together
Speaker 7: you can see it but a deadly amount is almost
Speaker 7: non seeable. And so if somebody leaves some fentanyl dust
Speaker 7: on a park bench, a restaurant counter, it's some bad
Speaker 7: actor comes into somebody's home and left it on a side.
Speaker 7: And then you put your hamburger down, your sandwich down,
Speaker 7: you pick it back up, your debt. And also the
Speaker 7: dealers are starting to make pills that look like skillets.
Speaker 7: They're colorful pills, they look like they're candy. And so
Speaker 7: this is not just about addicts anymore. It used to
Speaker 7: be I get that, but and that may be part
Speaker 7: of your answers. That's the stigma. Well, they were addicts,
Speaker 7: they add it coming to them or something like that.
Speaker 7: That is no longer the case. Now we have cross contamination,
Speaker 7: we have lacing, and we have poisoning. And if it
Speaker 7: wasn't for everything else, just the fact that this is
Speaker 7: the fastest growing death ray of children's that were before
Speaker 7: that should be astonishing enough to stop it, or in
Speaker 7: another way to think about it, it's a seven thirty
Speaker 7: seven going down every single day in America, and we
Speaker 7: knew what happened when two Boeings went down. They stopped
Speaker 7: the whole fleet in the world. And we're not acting
Speaker 7: like our house is on fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not. We're not, and we absolutely have
Speaker 1: to and hopefully your documentary will get a lot of
Speaker 1: people's attention. You had mentioned lacing. I read something not
Speaker 1: too long ago that on the college campus, that's something
Speaker 1: that's going on quite a bit. Can you comment on that.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. And there's two sort of sides of this. One
Speaker 7: is contamination, which generally when you have a contaminator and
Speaker 7: they may be doing weed and something more simple or
Speaker 7: innocent if you will, Still it's a drug. I get that,
Speaker 7: but they don't. They're not going there and taking thinking
Speaker 7: they're getting fentanyl. And because of the distributors or the
Speaker 7: wholesalers or the producers, last Thursday, they're producing fentanyl and
Speaker 7: on Friday they're putting packets a weed together and they
Speaker 7: don't clean the table, so it cross contaminates there. Then
Speaker 7: you get the crazy stuff like up in the h
Speaker 7: Kensington area up in Philadelphia that's sort of the epicenter
Speaker 7: of this part of the crisis, where they're purposely putting
Speaker 7: it in with horse tranquilizers, So you have a mix
Speaker 7: of horse tranquilizer and fentanyl together and and you see
Speaker 7: it and you're just like, how can we I mean,
Speaker 7: horse tranquilizer is bad enough, but then you add fitanel
Speaker 7: to it, and so sometimes it's purposeful, but most of
Speaker 7: the time the person and often the dealer doesn't even
Speaker 7: know fentanel's in it. That's what's so how pervasive this is,
Speaker 7: and part of it is it's such a small dose
Speaker 7: as lethal. You know, you basically can't see it or
Speaker 7: measure it by unless you're a scientist and you're in
Speaker 7: a lab right of the proper equipment.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Weed is now legal for recreational
Speaker 1: use here in the state of Ohio. I have not
Speaker 1: seen a case yet that actually was discovered, and the
Speaker 1: Coroner's office here does the testing and they do a
Speaker 1: great job. I haven't seen any cases yet where weed
Speaker 1: has been laced, either accidentally or intentionally with ventanyl. You're
Speaker 1: saying that's happening around the country.
Speaker 7: Too, absolutely, And I think the difference is the states
Speaker 7: where you have a state operated or state overseeing regulated dispensaries,
Speaker 7: you are not seeing it there. But in the states
Speaker 7: that you have no official legality in your getting it
Speaker 7: off the street, that's where it's really happening the most.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I wanted to ask you too, with your background,
Speaker 1: not necessarily criminal justice, as from what I have seen,
Speaker 1: what caused you to get involved in this thing and
Speaker 1: do the deep dive that you obviously have done on it.
Speaker 7: Well, I've been involved with homelessness for four decades, right,
Speaker 7: and I have a master's in criminal justice from the
Speaker 7: criminal colleges, and so I've been around the sort of
Speaker 7: intersection or the nexus of the illicit drugs and homelessness
Speaker 7: for a very long time. The difference on what happened
Speaker 7: on Fitnel is you had a two prom problem happening initially,
Speaker 7: but part of it was what was happening on the
Speaker 7: streets within homelessness. But there's another one. I think we
Speaker 7: absolutely have to be honest about it and talked about it.
Speaker 7: When Purdue Farm went around and not just Purdue farmat
Speaker 7: but it was others. But yet there's the one that's
Speaker 7: most known. They went around and said that these new
Speaker 7: synthetic opioids are non addictive, that they wouldn't get you
Speaker 7: addicted and they would be fine. Well, it turned out
Speaker 7: not only was that not right, it was almost exactly
Speaker 7: the opposite. One of the most dangerous drugs and everybody
Speaker 7: was getting addicted. So when all those lawsuits occurred, an
Speaker 7: FDA and everybody got involved in the state attorney generals
Speaker 7: started saying, all right, we're going to not do these prescriptions.
Speaker 7: You had millions of people using the synthetic legal opioids
Speaker 7: through prescription through their doctors, hundreds of thousand addicted. And
Speaker 7: the cartels from Mexico they're horrible people doing horrible things,
Speaker 7: but they're good business people. They understood they had an
Speaker 7: addicted community ready to fill the supply, and they brought
Speaker 7: the supply up. And that's really Phase one of the
Speaker 7: Finnel crisis was a criminal justice replacement from the drugs.
Speaker 7: You know that you were seeing the precursors from China
Speaker 7: going through the Mexican cartels, and all they did was
Speaker 7: backfill the supply for everybody addicted. Through the Purdue Pharma problems.
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't realize that. I mean, Perdue Pharma did
Speaker 1: some as you well know, some serious damage with that.
Speaker 1: But that makes sense.
Speaker 7: There's a direct tie between the how, and I think
Speaker 7: in retrospect, when the history gets written about it, somebody's
Speaker 7: going to say, well, if we knew that many people
Speaker 7: were addicted, and government was complacent because they authorized it.
Speaker 7: I think people are going to come back and say,
Speaker 7: why didn't we spend that money for treatment and recovery
Speaker 7: as people are coming off that, rather than just leaving
Speaker 7: an open market wide open to the cartels to backfill
Speaker 7: the supply.
Speaker 1: You know, you bring up a good point, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about where the supply is going and things like that,
Speaker 1: and treatment, which I don't think we have enough treatment
Speaker 1: in the system. We really don't. And from what I
Speaker 1: can see, it's not always successful, and more often than
Speaker 1: not it isn't. Can a fentanyl addict be rehabilitated from
Speaker 1: that addiction?
Speaker 5: In your opinion, Yes, and it's hard.
Speaker 7: It's not easy. I don't want to be polyannish about it.
Speaker 7: But you can and we have and I know successful people,
Speaker 7: and more importantly, I think we have a moral obligation
Speaker 7: to absolutely try. Yes, our country, and I'm going to
Speaker 7: talk real philosophical is sort of a person that's worked
Speaker 7: in the White House three different times.
Speaker 1: We got we only have about a minute doc.
Speaker 7: Okay, we've made it real easy to get high in
Speaker 7: America and hard to get treatment. You need to make
Speaker 7: it easy to get treatment and hard to.
Speaker 1: Get high in America. You know what, I've never heard
Speaker 1: it said like that, doc, but that makes a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot of sense. Really appreciate you joining us
Speaker 1: one more time, sir, if you could tell people how
Speaker 1: they can watch the documentary.
Speaker 7: Feitinal Depth Incorporated. It'll be on multiple platforms in about
Speaker 7: three months, and right now, if you want to stream
Speaker 7: it through a web based program, you can go to
Speaker 7: Salem now dot com and the title of it is
Speaker 7: fitnal Depth Incorporated.
Speaker 1: All right, sir. Again, really appreciates you weighing in on this.
Speaker 1: It's extremely important.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for caring about the fetnel crisis.
Speaker 7: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, sir. All Right, that was doctor
Speaker 1: Robert Marbitt. That's kind of sobering, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you hear these statistics about how damaging and how dangerous
Speaker 1: this drug is, and some people kind of shrug their
Speaker 1: shoulders or don't believe it. I mean, there it is
Speaker 1: out of the horse's mouth. And we shall see with
Speaker 1: the border situation, with the new president coming in, if
Speaker 1: he can at least somehow stop the bleeding. I guess
Speaker 1: we'll see. Hey, we got to take a break, but
Speaker 1: we'll be back Mike Allen and for Bill Cunningham seven
Speaker 1: hundred WLW Berne, we are back Mike Allen in four
Speaker 1: the great American Willie cunning In. I should say Mike
Speaker 1: Allen Sr. As opposed to Mike Allen Junior, whom you
Speaker 1: can hear on Sunday nights here when there's not a
Speaker 1: football game. You know, some more statistics. And I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to bore you with this stuff, but I think
Speaker 1: people are genuinely interested in this. And by the way,
Speaker 1: at eleven o'clock and I think we're going to have
Speaker 1: him for a full hour, we're going to talk to JT. Townsend.
Speaker 1: JT has done an incredibly deep dive into the John
Speaker 1: Benet Ramsey killing witch. And I didn't realize this till
Speaker 1: I read it from some material that JT gave me.
Speaker 1: It was twenty eight years ago last night that little
Speaker 1: girl was sick, so my elder math is right, she'd
Speaker 1: be thirty four years old. Now. It's just so tragic
Speaker 1: and what a screwed up up investigation. And JT said
Speaker 1: he will take calls, so I know there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people out there that are interested in these
Speaker 1: kind of things, and here's your chance. Okay, back to
Speaker 1: the boring. I don't I mean interesting statistics. Gift cards
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I get them and I
Speaker 1: give them out too. It's some people say it's kind
Speaker 1: of a cop out, and in some ways it is,
Speaker 1: but you know, you think about it, like I've given
Speaker 1: out gift cards for Amazon. Well, what are people gonna
Speaker 1: do with it? They're gonna get whatever the heck they want.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, it's I guess
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more personal than giving cash, but
Speaker 1: it's almost like giving cash. But anyway, I use them.
Speaker 1: I buy them for some of my gifts, and we
Speaker 1: use them when they come to me. Get this, though,
Speaker 1: I didn't think it would be this high. Seventy one
Speaker 1: percent of holiday shoppers planned to purchase gift cards in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. This was done I think in November
Speaker 1: seventy one percent. And again, this is good, this is
Speaker 1: good research Capital one shopping research seventy one percent. So
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are doing what I do,
Speaker 1: and a lot of other people is lightening their load
Speaker 1: of gift giving. If you will by giving gift cards,
Speaker 1: fifty three percent of gift recipients. And this surprises me too,
Speaker 1: fifty three percent of gift recipients want to receive gift
Speaker 1: cards in twenty twenty four. Holiday shoppers purchased an average
Speaker 1: of three to four gift cards during the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three holiday season. Like I said, mine were all Amazon
Speaker 1: except for one. But here's the thing that I could
Speaker 1: not find statistic on. You know, I've been given gift
Speaker 1: cards for like restaurants and things like that, and that
Speaker 1: is a big part of these gift cards as restaurants,
Speaker 1: and I haven't used them. I just haven't had the chance.
Speaker 1: It might be a restaurant that's pretty far away. I
Speaker 1: just wonder how much, let's just use the restaurants as
Speaker 1: an example, how much the owners are making on these
Speaker 1: things just simply by you know, them selling them and
Speaker 1: the person not showing up to redeem them. Now, the
Speaker 1: older ones that I've had, when I have tried to
Speaker 1: use them, I have not been turned back once by
Speaker 1: somebody saying, hey, sorry, you waited too long. But I
Speaker 1: wonder about that if you have any knowledge of that
Speaker 1: or carred away in four nine seven, eight hundred The
Speaker 1: big one are the numbers. Okay, this one is interesting.
Speaker 1: I think this is what people want, what they want
Speaker 1: to get for a Christmas gift. Uh, this is in
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. So the preferred I'm sorry, that's a
Speaker 1: different statistic. Preferred holiday gifts in twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 1: just told you fifty three percent gift cards, forty nine percent, apparel,
Speaker 1: books and media twenty eight percent, cosmetics. He could give
Speaker 1: cosmetics for a Christmas gift. Cosmetics twenty five percent, electronics
Speaker 1: twenty two percent, home goods twenty two percent, jewelry twenty percent.
Speaker 1: I would have thought that would have been more sporting
Speaker 1: goods seventeen percent. So that's what people want, and fifty
Speaker 1: three percent want those gift cards. So hopefully they're not
Speaker 1: going to say that was kind of a kind of insensitive.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that just gives you an idea. The bottom
Speaker 1: line is we're spending a heck of a lot of money. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's do this, because my voice is wearing out a
Speaker 1: little bit. Let's take a break and then we'll come back.
Speaker 1: Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 12: Hey, Mike McConnell, here reminding you if you overslept, or
Speaker 12: if your head was encased in plaster, or you're being
Speaker 12: chased by dinosaurs on some remote island. The reason doesn't
Speaker 12: really matter. Just know if you miss my show, you
Speaker 12: can catch what you missed the Mike McConnell Show on
Speaker 12: the Mike McConnell podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: Just in time for the new year, the new and
Speaker 1: improved free iHeartRadio app is finally here. It's everything eleven
Speaker 1: forty eight. News Radio seven Drew Mike Allen in for
Speaker 1: Willie Cunningham. Right before we broke, we were talking about
Speaker 1: gift cards and I don't hit in front of me anymore,
Speaker 1: but I believe it was fifty three percent of Americans
Speaker 1: said that's kind of what they wanted for Christmas. Let's
Speaker 1: talk to Hank in cold Water. He wants to talk
Speaker 1: about it. How you doing, Hank, Hello, Hank? Yes, how
Speaker 1: you doing? Yes?
Speaker 5: Mike.
Speaker 3: First of all, I want to tell you how much
Speaker 3: I appreciate your show, especially on Saturday mornings. I think
Speaker 3: I've been the best thing b LW did.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: The thing with lef cards, I don't think, and you
Speaker 3: probably more knowledgeable about that than I am. There's no
Speaker 3: expiration date. They might put it on there, really that's
Speaker 3: not that doesn't work.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 3: I think there's something that they passed oh few years
Speaker 3: back that there's no such thing as an expiration date.
Speaker 3: They might put it on the card, but it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: They gotta honor it now, you know what I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig down into that, Hank. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: letting us know that. I kind of thought at some
Speaker 1: point they would expire. But I gotta think, especially restaurants,
Speaker 1: they're making some money on this because they're people that
Speaker 1: just you know, they for whatever reason, they don't redeem them.
Speaker 1: And you know what, if they don't redeem them, it's.
Speaker 3: On them, right, I know, I agree, and I don't
Speaker 3: think you can do that anymore. I think they got
Speaker 3: to honor them.
Speaker 1: I do too. I mean, but that's the trend. I mean,
Speaker 1: the trend is to shop online and purchase get cards.
Speaker 1: Guess why, because it's easy and we've kind of become
Speaker 1: a little bit lazy I think in this society.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate the call. Well, thank you, okay, Hank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't use them. That's on you.
Speaker 1: Having said that, I've got you know what. I actually
Speaker 1: went out years ago and bought actually one of those
Speaker 1: little index card boxes with alphabetical separators that I put
Speaker 1: the gift cards in. And there are some I know
Speaker 1: that have been sitting there. One restaurant in particular, I
Speaker 1: won't name is across town. It's a great restaurant, but
Speaker 1: I just I haven't had the chance to use it yet.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how it plays out. But it sure
Speaker 1: seems like that is kind of the kind of the
Speaker 1: trend that we're seeing. Oh, I'll tell you this has
Speaker 1: been It's been an interesting holiday for me, Like I said,
Speaker 1: spending a great portion of it out of the country
Speaker 1: in Mexico and then coming back coming back to Mana
Speaker 1: Zuma's revenge and if you don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: look it up. It ain't fun. But I am in
Speaker 1: the tail end of it. I'm very happy to be here,
Speaker 1: and I'll be very happy to be here tomorrow for Willie.
Speaker 1: Hey wanted to let you know before we break at
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock and we're going to have him for the
Speaker 1: full hour and he's accepting calls. JT. Townsend. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the John Benet Ramsey case. And it's
Speaker 1: relevant because twenty eight years ago, yesterday, Christmas Night, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, she was brutally brutally murdered a six year
Speaker 1: old little girl. And new documentary out on Netflix that
Speaker 1: I think is shedding some light on this. I don't
Speaker 1: know that well, I do know. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: going to lead to any kind of conviction or anything.
Speaker 1: But in these kind of and JT. I'll ask him
Speaker 1: about this. Sometimes people just want answers. So anyway, we
Speaker 1: will talk to JT. Townsend when we get back. Mike
Speaker 1: Allen in for Okay, we're still going here. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get a Bengals report in just a few seconds here.
Speaker 1: So that's why I have to ramble on. You know
Speaker 1: one thing, there is no way that I can get
Speaker 1: through this whole show without just a little bit of politics.
Speaker 1: Axios came out with something a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: Democrats more likely to reduce family time over politics. Listen
Speaker 1: to this who says that they will reduce time with
Speaker 1: family due to political differences. And this is something that,
Speaker 1: without getting into detail, I'm dealing with in my family. Well, no, surprise.
Speaker 1: Democrats leading the pack at twenty three percent, Republicans all
Speaker 1: the way back at five percent, doesn't surprise me a
Speaker 1: darn bit. And again with respect to Democrats and the
Speaker 1: left in particular, it's arrogance. You know, they think they're
Speaker 1: right about everything. Doesn't surprise me at all. All voters
Speaker 1: twelve percent and independence eleven percent. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: something that is something that's going on in a lot
Speaker 1: of families, and you just heard it. You just heard it.
Speaker 1: Overwhelmingly more Democrats are saying, hey, I don't want to
Speaker 1: spend any time with you over the holidays because you
Speaker 1: voted for the evil Orange Man. And it's really just
Speaker 1: a shame. I mean it is, I don't know. It
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me at all. And again this is from Axios.
Speaker 1: Listen to this too. Democrats are are almost five times
Speaker 1: as likely. Let me do another one. Democrats are now
Speaker 1: much more likely to view Republican Party as a serious
Speaker 1: threat to the country then they were in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Of course, that was before Trump was elected. It was
Speaker 1: fifty percent back in twenty sixteen versus eighty one percent. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to talk about a threat to
Speaker 1: the country, maybe Democrats in the left in general ought
Speaker 1: to just kind look to the other side or take
Speaker 1: a look in the mirror. I guess Republicans more likely
Speaker 1: to view the Democratic Party as a serious threat. Republican
Speaker 1: but it's only six percent. That was twenty sixteen. It's
Speaker 1: kind of up there in twenty twenty four, sixty nine percent.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what. We've stayed off of politics
Speaker 1: today for the most part. Will be back at it Saturday.
Speaker 1: There is so much going on, friends, And I said,
Speaker 1: and I meant, I meant that this election, the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election, was the most important election in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: And everything went it could have. We could have we
Speaker 1: could have beefed up our majority in the House somewhat,
Speaker 1: but everything went pretty darn good. And guess what, it's
Speaker 1: our turn and we got to come through. I don't understand,
Speaker 1: I swear I don't understand the backbiting and the going
Speaker 1: back and forth with Republicans over all this budget stuff.
Speaker 1: It would seem to me to be an exercise in
Speaker 1: being able to count. And we're running the show now,
Speaker 1: and it looks bad for us to be divided on
Speaker 1: those things. And it's going to be really interesting too
Speaker 1: to see Trump's cabinet picks. If he gets every one
Speaker 1: of them through, I don't think he ever would have
Speaker 1: got dates through after what's coming out on him. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Now we got to take a break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: back with JT. Townsend Mike Allen in for Willy Conningham
Speaker 1: seven hundred WLWA Mike Allen in for Willy Cunningham, and
Speaker 1: I will be tomorrow as well and next Wednesday. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, like I said before the break, the
Speaker 1: John Bena Ramsey horrible, horrible murder. She was killed twenty
Speaker 1: eight years ago from last night Christmas Night in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six. There is a new Netflix documentary which is excellent.
Speaker 1: I saw it I think about a month ago. That's
Speaker 1: raising questions and there are a lot of questions that
Speaker 1: still linger about this case. Did an intruder murderer bent
Speaker 1: on kidnapping or molesting her? Or was she killed by
Speaker 1: a family member, either with malice or accidentally. Some people
Speaker 1: think it was accidentally. Was this a personal cause homicide?
Speaker 1: Was it a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong, a lust murder,
Speaker 1: a conspiracy or all of the above. Here to talk
Speaker 1: about it today and take your calls if you want to.
Speaker 1: Is true crime historian extraordinary j T. Townsend. JT is
Speaker 1: the author of many books. His last one, Summer's Almost Gone,
Speaker 1: It was about the brutal, brutal murder of the entire
Speaker 1: three member brick A family back in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I say it every time he's on,
Speaker 1: and I mean it. It was one of the best
Speaker 1: books I've ever read. I read it in one weekend,
Speaker 1: couldn't put it down. So if you're in too true crime,
Speaker 1: Summer's Almost Gone is the book that you should get.
Speaker 1: But we're not talking about that today. We're talking about
Speaker 1: John Benney and JT. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you. My call is a pleasure to be on
Speaker 4: with you.
Speaker 1: You're hearing me, okay, I'm hearing you loud and clear.
Speaker 1: But I did tell one little fib there, JT. I
Speaker 1: do want you to bring us up to date on
Speaker 1: the brick And murders, if there is anything to bring
Speaker 1: us up to date on. I had John a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and it didn't sound like there was.
Speaker 4: It's coming down to DNA and whether there is enough
Speaker 4: evidence in DNA left to run another test. I've spoken
Speaker 4: with the coroner. They seem to be reluctant to use
Speaker 4: what little they have left to make another attempt. But
Speaker 4: we're still working on that, and I will be offering
Speaker 4: a coupon code to buy Somemmer's Almost Gone here at
Speaker 4: the end of our at the end of our time here.
Speaker 1: Okay, make sure you remind me JT because I will.
Speaker 1: I want to get that book in as many hands
Speaker 1: as possible, because, like I said, it's excellent. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, getting back to John Beney, I really,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously I read things about it, but didn't
Speaker 1: take much of an interest in it until that Netflix documentary.
Speaker 1: What interested you in this case?
Speaker 4: Oh boy, I tell you, Mike, this is really one
Speaker 4: for the books. I think what got me initially was
Speaker 4: the fact it was a statistical aberration. The FBI did
Speaker 4: a study of seventeen hundred child kidnappings for ransom of
Speaker 4: the nineteen nineties, and in only one case was the
Speaker 4: victim found murdered in their own home, and that's John
Speaker 4: Benay Ramsay. Really one case out of seventeen hundred where
Speaker 4: the victim was found murdered in their own home, and
Speaker 4: then I just I saw that, and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 4: this really does stand alone. And then you look at
Speaker 4: the numbers. About only six percent of child murders are
Speaker 4: committed by strangers. Family members commit about fifty four percent,
Speaker 4: family friends maybe another twenty percent. So it appeared, at
Speaker 4: least initially that this was an inside job, as most
Speaker 4: of them are. But you've got this wealthy family and
Speaker 4: an elite, upscale neighborhood, and you've got the police and
Speaker 4: the prosecutors at odds, you've got two separate investigations going on,
Speaker 4: you've got very little cooperation, and then you have at
Speaker 4: the heart of it, this beautiful child. This spawn her murder,
Speaker 4: spawned epic media coverage, sessive national fixation, Her picture was everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I guess that's when I started getting interested in it.
Speaker 4: I have not seen the Netflix.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on
Speaker 1: it sometime. Well, I thought it was very well done.
Speaker 4: I thought, you know, I'm gonna have to watch it.
Speaker 4: I'll be honest with you, Mike, Uh, I think Netflix
Speaker 4: sucks at true crime really. Uh, Stephen Avery, The Making
Speaker 4: of a Murderer, That that big case of the guy
Speaker 4: who murdered Teresa Hallbach at his uh at his Junkyard
Speaker 4: car lot.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that.
Speaker 4: Uh, well, this was a big sensation a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago. Everybody now thinks this guy is innocent, and
Speaker 4: I've looked at that case. Uh, he's been convicted of it.
Speaker 4: They had tons of evidence to suggest he had done it.
Speaker 4: They had his nephew link him to it and then recan't.
Speaker 4: But Netflix was all over this. They used confirmation bias,
Speaker 4: They started with the idea he was innocent and then
Speaker 4: build a case around him. So I'm not real thrilled
Speaker 4: with how Netflix does true crime, but.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that that documentary has kind of
Speaker 1: put this thing back in the public view, for better
Speaker 1: or worse. I mean, you got this thing down cold.
Speaker 1: You provided me with pages and pages of research that
Speaker 1: you did, so I don't know. Maybe this will kind
Speaker 1: of spawn some kind of additional investigation or do they
Speaker 1: Is there any way that this thing is going to
Speaker 1: be kind of brought up again.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think it's going to be solved, and
Speaker 4: we've got to We've got two warring factions here now, Mike.
Speaker 4: We've got all the circumstantial evidence that suggests the Ramses
Speaker 4: were involved. But now apparently we have DNA evidence unknown
Speaker 4: DNA found under her fingernail and underpants John Benet's that
Speaker 4: indicate an intruder. So we're really seems like we're at
Speaker 4: an impasse. Mike, I tell you you're a prosecutor. I really
Speaker 4: am sad about the denigration of circumstantial evidence as a
Speaker 4: valuable evidence. I mean, how many times you know, direct
Speaker 4: evidence somebody saw defendant enter a house, they saw him
Speaker 4: stab somebody BINGO. But if you see the person enter
Speaker 4: the house, you hear screaming, and you see the guy
Speaker 4: leaving with a bloody knife, that's circumstantial and you need
Speaker 4: to have an inference and interpretation and an implication because
Speaker 4: it's not obvious that this is direct evidence. But you know,
Speaker 4: I I like a writer. I used to like Edmund Pearson.
Speaker 4: He wrote about the Lizzie Borden case. He had a
Speaker 4: great quote about circumstantial evidence. When seven or eight clear
Speaker 4: items of circumstantial evidence point directly to the guilt of
Speaker 4: a person, that person is innocent nowhere but in the
Speaker 4: detective novel. Yeah, you know, and you begin to think,
Speaker 4: how could someone be this unlucky to have this many
Speaker 4: coincidences and circumstances pointing at them and still be innocent.
Speaker 1: Well, it's the criminal defense lawyer to point out and
Speaker 1: sometimes say, with not one hundred percent accuracy, if you will,
Speaker 1: that circumstantial evidence is not very valuable in the real world.
Speaker 1: It is. It is, absolutely if you have enough of it,
Speaker 1: you can get a conviction. I've been on both sides
Speaker 1: of that fence, and I just think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of circumstantial evidence here. I'm gonna wait till the end
Speaker 1: to ask you this sixty four thousand dollars question your thoughts. JT. Townsend.
Speaker 1: And you've done so many of these things. Uh, and
Speaker 1: summer's almost gone. I've talked about that, just broke it down,
Speaker 1: the investigation, the mistakes that were made, so well, just
Speaker 1: give us your thoughts in general on the investigation of
Speaker 1: this case.
Speaker 4: Well, Mike, this has got to be that's got to
Speaker 4: be the most botched criminal investigation I've ever seen. Crime
Speaker 4: scene protocol, Mike, secure the scene, separate the witnesses, search
Speaker 4: for evidence, secure and collect evidence. It was like a
Speaker 4: Roman circus at that house.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
Speaker 4: The Ramses called all their friends, people came over there
Speaker 4: were like twenty people in this house. The protocol separating
Speaker 4: the witnesses and clearing the scene was not done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tell you. And it just goes on and
Speaker 1: on and on, and you talk about everybody trapesing through
Speaker 1: the crime scene. It kind of reminds me of Brica.
Speaker 1: But that was nineteen sixty six, and right, investigators, I
Speaker 1: weren't I guess as well trained then as they are now.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe how badly they screwed up that
Speaker 1: crime scene.
Speaker 4: Oh it really is. You know, we can almost start
Speaker 4: at the beginning of this thing. Mike Patsy Ramsey's nine
Speaker 4: one one call. Yeah, and we've seen this before. I
Speaker 4: think of Ryan Widmer with his wife in the bathtub
Speaker 4: and how he immediately said, oh my god, my wife
Speaker 4: fell asleep in the bathtub and drowned.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Will you try and out your your your alibi here, buddy?
Speaker 4: You know how about my wife passed out? I don't
Speaker 4: know what happened, But Patsy immediately said on the nine
Speaker 4: one one call, we have a kidnapping. How about my
Speaker 4: daughter's missing?
Speaker 1: Help Because they hadn't discovered the body at.
Speaker 4: That point, they had not discovered the body Police respond, Mike,
Speaker 4: she is dressed in the same outfit she had on
Speaker 4: the night before at a party, exact same clothing, hair
Speaker 4: and makeup flawless. And it would imply this woman didn't
Speaker 4: go to bed the night her daughter was murdered in
Speaker 4: her house.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: And it just, you know, it just kind of goes
Speaker 4: on from there. Her language in the nine to one
Speaker 4: one call is very unusual. She expressed no concern, none
Speaker 4: for her daughter at any time, what John Bennet might
Speaker 4: be going through. And she says things like she is blonde.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what that had to do with anything.
Speaker 4: The phrase I am the mother, not I am her mother,
Speaker 4: I am the mother. I mean that sounds like she
Speaker 4: already knows John Benet's dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And what
Speaker 1: you're saying is absolutely right. It's not what you would
Speaker 1: normally expect you'd get on a nine to one one
Speaker 1: call from the mother of a child who's missing.
Speaker 4: She should have been hysterical, and yet she said a
Speaker 4: couple of times, help me Jesus. She seemed to want
Speaker 4: a lot of help for herself. There is no concern
Speaker 4: for her daughter's welfare, expressed at any time during this
Speaker 4: nine to one one call. And I find this odd.
Speaker 4: She talks about the ransom note and we need to
Speaker 4: get into that. And she said it says SBTC Victory.
Speaker 4: Well that was page three. But she told the nine
Speaker 4: to one on operator that she hadn't actually read the note.
Speaker 4: But somehow she was able to quote page three on
Speaker 4: the nine to one one call without having read the note.
Speaker 4: And more that note, I have never seen a more
Speaker 4: bizarre clue in true crime history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you, And as you accurately point out,
Speaker 1: in those kind of cases kidnappings, if you will, they
Speaker 1: don't write a three page note. It's probably three sentences.
Speaker 1: I've got your daughter, I want X amount of money.
Speaker 1: If you don't give it to me, she dies.
Speaker 4: Don't call anybody that of thing. So if we've got
Speaker 4: a kidnapper, it's a short note. If indeed this is
Speaker 4: an intruder pedophile, we've got no note. Now I've got
Speaker 4: the note. I've got the note up on my screen
Speaker 4: right here from my PowerPoint. This thing is is just
Speaker 4: you know, I could probably go on and on just
Speaker 4: about this note.
Speaker 1: Well, tell us about it in general. We got about
Speaker 1: three minutes before we have to break for the news,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to get into that too.
Speaker 4: JT tell us about what we need to it's probably
Speaker 4: the most valuable clue DNA notwithstanding, and I understand today
Speaker 4: the CSI effect. Everybody's like, well, what's the DNA say?
Speaker 4: What's the DNA say? I'm a circumstantial evidence guy myself.
Speaker 4: We talked about the note being so long. They call
Speaker 4: themselves a small foreign faction. Who calls themselves a foreigner?
Speaker 2: Ye?
Speaker 4: Are you a foreigner to yourself?
Speaker 1: Bizarre?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And withdraw one hundred and eighteen thousand from the account,
Speaker 4: why not just say get the money, you know? And
Speaker 4: why such a small amount? Bring an adequate size attest
Speaker 4: shay case, and I advise you to be rested. Why
Speaker 4: are they concerned about that?
Speaker 1: Well, and you point out too that the one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighteen thousand dollars amount just happens to and maybe
Speaker 1: it is a coincidence, coincide with what John Ramsey the
Speaker 1: boss that you've got that's.
Speaker 4: Weir bonus, and then we've got the we've got the
Speaker 4: she dies as mentioned four times. That's absolutely from the
Speaker 4: movie Dirty Harry.
Speaker 1: I know exactly got you're.
Speaker 4: Talking to a stray dog. She dies John Don't try
Speaker 4: to grow a brain. That's from the movie Speed. John
Speaker 4: Maney is never mentioned by name. They're warned not to
Speaker 4: contact anyone or Jean Benet will be beheaded. They contacted everyone, yep,
Speaker 4: and the note said the kidnappers would call between eight
Speaker 4: and eleven. Yet the officer on scene said, no one
Speaker 4: seemed to be expecting a call. But Mike, here's the one.
Speaker 4: Here's the one, and that gets me the most. The
Speaker 4: kidnapper used the phrase, and hence, yeah, that is now
Speaker 4: that is incorrect. It would be hints and hence is
Speaker 4: a duplicate nation, a double negative, so to speak. That's incorrect.
Speaker 4: It's very uncommon. I mean, Mike Coffin, you say, and
Speaker 4: hence when was the last time you used that word?
Speaker 4: But three days earlier, in a Christmas card that she sent,
Speaker 4: Patsy uses the phrase, and hence.
Speaker 1: They got strong JT. I really do.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're not going to get an indictment on that,
Speaker 4: but in the court of circumstantial evidence, and hence she
Speaker 4: puts it in a Christmas card in three days later.
Speaker 4: It's on the ransom note yep. And some of the
Speaker 4: other verbiage at tahe deviation. There's a lot of educated
Speaker 4: kind of words there, yep in this thing. And there
Speaker 4: was a practice note on the pad where it was written.
Speaker 4: It was Patsy's pad. Five of her fingerprints were on
Speaker 4: that pad. The pen used to write the note was
Speaker 4: put back in a cup on the kitchen counter. Mature
Speaker 4: an intruder would put it back in the cup.
Speaker 1: No, hey, listen, we got to take a break for
Speaker 1: the news, but we got the whole next segment, JT,
Speaker 1: can you hang in there with us?
Speaker 4: I will hang in.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, thank you, Yeah, and we will finish talking
Speaker 1: with JT. Towns and about this case when we got back.
Speaker 1: And if you want to ask JT a question, he
Speaker 1: said he would do that. Seven four nine, seven thousand, one,
Speaker 1: eight hundred. The big one are the numbers. Mike Allen
Speaker 1: in for Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW Hey, we're back
Speaker 1: Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham on the day after Christmas.
Speaker 1: And well, this has been an interesting segment. We're going
Speaker 1: to start it up again. We are talking to JT. Townshend.
Speaker 1: JT is a true crime historian about the John Bena
Speaker 1: Ramsey case relevant for any number of reasons, but one
Speaker 1: is which is she was killed twenty eight years ago.
Speaker 1: Last night, she would be I believe thirty four years
Speaker 1: old now, JT. We have a couple of questions, and
Speaker 1: I promised the callers I'm going to get to them.
Speaker 1: But there's a couple of points that you wanted to make. First.
Speaker 4: Well, let me let me sum up out the note.
Speaker 4: You know, they've never they said the handwriting was similar
Speaker 4: to Patsy. No one's ever specifically indicated she was the writer.
Speaker 4: Colorado Bureau of Investigation expert claimed the twenty four of
Speaker 4: the twenty six letters in the alphabet from the ransom
Speaker 4: note matched her own handwriting. But here's the thing. I've
Speaker 4: never heard anyone say this, Mike, but me, and I'm
Speaker 4: looking here. Write at the note. She wrote it with
Speaker 4: her left hand. It's very wavy on the first page,
Speaker 4: and then it gets better as it goes on. And
Speaker 4: if you're write with your off hand, you're going to
Speaker 4: see that wavering in the letters. And I don't understand
Speaker 4: why anybody didn't really take a look at that that
Speaker 4: you could have written it with the off hand, because
Speaker 4: it certainly looks at it when you see how squiggly
Speaker 4: the characters are in that. And if she wrote the note, Mike,
Speaker 4: why no got either she killed John man Ay or
Speaker 4: her husband did, or Burke did, or some combination. And
Speaker 4: this is that note is classic staging, trying to divert
Speaker 4: the police away from the real criminal.
Speaker 1: I got it. Anything else you want to get across
Speaker 1: before we.
Speaker 4: Take callers only John Ramsey's unusual behavior. At no point
Speaker 4: during this vigil waiting for the kidnapper call was he
Speaker 4: seen comforting his wife at all. And he was actually
Speaker 4: caught on the phone with his pilot trying to fly
Speaker 4: his family to Atlanta. And the police were like, hey, John,
Speaker 4: we haven't even found your daughter yet, we haven't even
Speaker 4: heard from the kidnappers, and he's trying to fly them
Speaker 4: away from there.
Speaker 1: Well, and let me do this. Let me ask the
Speaker 1: first question here and then I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: the callers. Can you tell us tell the callers in
Speaker 1: me just exactly how John Benet's body was discovered and
Speaker 1: where it was discovered.
Speaker 4: Well, it was down in the basement, and Mike, that
Speaker 4: thing was a labyrinus down there. I don't know how
Speaker 4: a stranger could have navigated in the dark. You know.
Speaker 4: She was found in a room way off to the back.
Speaker 4: She was tucked in with a blanket. There was a
Speaker 4: garret around her neck. She had a horrible skull fracture,
Speaker 4: but because of death was strangulation. It's almost like someone
Speaker 4: struck her in anger and then she was finished off
Speaker 4: and the staging was then done.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering how they missed it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: gotta think the cops would have done a thorough search,
Speaker 1: or even a perfunctory search of it, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 4: You know, they left that one. They left that one
Speaker 4: detective there all loan to manage a house full of
Speaker 4: like fifteen people, Mike. They had victims' advocates there who
Speaker 4: write down the kitchen counter.
Speaker 1: I saw that.
Speaker 4: After they fixed coffee.
Speaker 1: It it makes me angry to see how much they
Speaker 1: screwed this up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and John Ramsey disappeared for a while, and when
Speaker 4: he came back, he sat in a different room from Patsy.
Speaker 4: I think it's possible he had found her body previously
Speaker 4: and didn't mention it. When they finally said, well, John,
Speaker 4: will you search the house again with your friend here?
Speaker 4: He went right to the basement room where she was,
Speaker 4: and people said in that house, you could get lost
Speaker 4: in that house even if you were familiar with it.
Speaker 1: And that comes through in the Netflix documentary. Let me
Speaker 1: do this, JT. Because I, oh, we got a number
Speaker 1: of questions here and I promised i'd get to him.
Speaker 1: Let's see. How about Leonard? I think he was first.
Speaker 1: Hey Leonard, you're on with JT. Townsend. What's your question, sir?
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for taking my call. I really think that
Speaker 6: we follow the league detective the hitch. After that, he
Speaker 6: honed in with.
Speaker 13: Laser focus on the Ramseys, never had off, wouldn't let
Speaker 13: anybody else, and you're the case. And then I think
Speaker 13: that Jesus, who which family member would kill a child
Speaker 13: with a garat that was made on the scene out
Speaker 13: of a broken hate for USh handle Good. That investigation
Speaker 13: never went further than those two parents, which is really
Speaker 13: what they teach them in the investigative schools.
Speaker 1: That's stint Okay, thank you for the question, Leonard. Your
Speaker 1: thoughts on his question.
Speaker 4: Well, we'll speak to that. He's talking about Steve Thomas,
Speaker 4: the lead investigator, and I've read his book, Jean Benet.
Speaker 4: I think it's the best book on the case. And
Speaker 4: they ran down every single tip they could. They checked
Speaker 4: out numerous pedophiles, people involved with the pageant situation. The
Speaker 4: biggest problem with his investigation was the prosecutors investigators were
Speaker 4: funneling evidence to the Ramsey attorneys. Mike, I think you
Speaker 4: can appreciate this. They asked Ramsey attorneys asked to see
Speaker 4: all the evidence, in other words, setting up like a
Speaker 4: trial discovery situation. And they weren't even arrested. And yet
Speaker 4: they gave them copies of all the evidence, right, And
Speaker 4: normally that's something to do with trial, Mike, as you.
Speaker 1: Know, absolutely, and discovery you further contaminate the evidence it.
Speaker 4: They gave them copies of the ransom note, they gave
Speaker 4: them everything, and the prosecutors investigators just seemed to you know,
Speaker 4: the caller just said they centered up on the Ramseys. Well,
Speaker 4: the prosecution investigators centered up on anyone but the rams right, right.
Speaker 1: And there were two competing investigations.
Speaker 4: And you competing investigations, no cooperation whatsoever. And I want
Speaker 4: to make this very clear. The Ramseys hired attorneys two
Speaker 4: hours after Jean Manet was found, but it took them
Speaker 4: four months to sit down for a police interview. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and Mike, come on, if could have been my daughter
Speaker 4: or your daughter, we'd have been camped out at the
Speaker 4: police station, no question about it.
Speaker 1: Let me get back to the I got to get
Speaker 1: these callers, Jacobs, go ahead, let's talk to Jim in Mason.
Speaker 1: Jim your question for JP Townsend.
Speaker 14: Yeah, very interesting program.
Speaker 6: My question is.
Speaker 14: Were was there ever a request for lighte detector tests
Speaker 14: for the Ramses? What was their response? Good question then,
Speaker 14: and then secondly, I've seen interviews with the father.
Speaker 6: In the last five years.
Speaker 14: It would be interesting if one of those interviewers said
Speaker 14: to him, would you be willing to take a lie
Speaker 14: detector test today? And I would be interested to see
Speaker 14: his reaction, how he respond have some experts there on speech,
Speaker 14: movements of the eyes in that and then his actual response.
Speaker 1: Your response, JT. That's a good question.
Speaker 4: Good question. A lot of controversy about the lie detect
Speaker 4: There's Steve Thomas indicated several times their attorneys were approached
Speaker 4: about taking polygraphs, and the Ramsays indicated their willingness, but
Speaker 4: they never actually took them. And just like handwriting, analysis
Speaker 4: is not an exact science, Mike, as you know, polygraphs
Speaker 4: are not admissible in trial. To my knowledge, they never
Speaker 4: took polygraphs, and as time would pass, the value of
Speaker 4: the polygraph obviously diminishes. I do know that a stress
Speaker 4: analysis of the nine to one one call that Patsy
Speaker 4: made indicated consciousness of guilt based on her voice, her diction,
Speaker 4: the things she said. And that's maybe the closest thing
Speaker 4: we have in terms of closest thing to the time
Speaker 4: of the crime was her nine one one call, which
Speaker 4: was just very odd. Absolutely, we should have been screaming,
Speaker 4: what the hell is going to happen to my daughter?
Speaker 1: I agree, that's not how a mother would respond the.
Speaker 4: Way, Absolutely not. She never even mentioned her by name.
Speaker 1: We got Tom and Cole Rain. He's got a really
Speaker 1: good question, and I was going to ask you, but
Speaker 1: I want Tom to ask. Hey, Tom, you're on with JT. Townsend. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 15: I by the way, I read your book on BRICCA
Speaker 15: and it was interesting.
Speaker 8: I've got a couple of copies. I saw you talk
Speaker 8: at the libraries.
Speaker 7: Also.
Speaker 4: Oh, okay, My question is this.
Speaker 15: I've got the feeling that the brother and John Bday
Speaker 15: were had pineapple in their stomach right, and that there
Speaker 15: should have been.
Speaker 8: Sharing it and he got the son, got upset and
Speaker 8: hit her with a flashlight, and then they didn't want
Speaker 8: to lose both kids.
Speaker 5: They already lost their daughter, they didn't want to.
Speaker 8: Lose their son. That's my comment.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, good question, Tom, Thank you for that. And
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you to, like I said,
Speaker 1: JT that sun at least at the time, there was
Speaker 1: just a lot of things not normal with him.
Speaker 4: Is that a fact. Let's talk about what he just said,
Speaker 4: because I just about believe the very same thing. Jean
Speaker 4: Benet had pineapple in her stomach undigested. She ate that
Speaker 4: pineapple within twenty minutes to a half hour of her murder,
Speaker 4: and they found a bowl in the kitchen with the pineapple.
Speaker 4: Three fingerprints on that bowl, Mike, two of them were
Speaker 4: Patsy's and one was unidentified. And the flashlight was there. Now,
Speaker 4: they were never able to tie the flashlight to the
Speaker 4: skull fracture. But you're thinking burke her fighting over the pineapple,
Speaker 4: hit her with the flashlight. And again, like he just said,
Speaker 4: Patsy didn't want to lose two children the same night.
Speaker 4: Because let's review here, she didn't go to bed that night,
Speaker 4: she was fully dressed and ready to go when the
Speaker 4: police got there. And it would have taken a while
Speaker 4: to have written that note. But her fingerprints were on
Speaker 4: that bowl of pineapple, and Mike, she denied feeding her
Speaker 4: daughter that pineapple. So the kidnapper or the pedophile is
Speaker 4: feeding her daughter pineapple and spending all that time in
Speaker 4: the house writing that note. Yep, that dog don't hunt
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 1: No, and I get that. I do. Let me ask you.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about the conduct of the
Speaker 1: boy in later interviews. I guess he was awful cavalier about.
Speaker 4: It, wasn't he boy? You know, I saw the interview
Speaker 4: with him. It was about a month afterwards. They would
Speaker 4: not let him be interviewed immediately. And the thing he
Speaker 4: said about John Benet, how she made him mad all
Speaker 4: the time. And then he said, I don't think about
Speaker 4: her anymore. And you know, he's an eight year old
Speaker 4: kid and his sibling is murdered in their house. He
Speaker 4: should be frightened. Yep, he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's sometimes right about that kid.
Speaker 4: And I understand. Burke had a problem with smearing feces
Speaker 4: around the house, and he would often do it in
Speaker 4: Jean Benet's bedroom. Now we're getting into the whole bed
Speaker 4: wedding thing. You know what could have triggered the blow
Speaker 4: to the head, and that was a nasty skull fracture,
Speaker 4: but that was not the cause of death, So what
Speaker 4: could have done it? I think the truth of this
Speaker 4: case lies within the residence of that house, not unlike
Speaker 4: the Lindbergh baby kidnapping of nineteen thirty two, And there
Speaker 4: were five people in that house, Mike, and I've been
Speaker 4: in that house. I guarantee you the truth of the
Speaker 4: Limburg baby was the five people in that house.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And maybe someday we'll get into that one too.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'd love to.
Speaker 1: And we're running out of time here, unfortunately, JT. I
Speaker 1: did want to ask, y'all. I'll just ask it like this,
Speaker 1: And you've looked at a lot of these things. Was
Speaker 1: this the most screwed up, damaged, damage, really in a
Speaker 1: very harmful way crime scene that you have ever seen,
Speaker 1: because I've seen a few of them too, and without.
Speaker 5: Question tho you have.
Speaker 4: It really was. And this is Boulder, Colorado, not a
Speaker 4: huge jurisdiction. You got to clear that house. All these
Speaker 4: people that the Ramsays called. I love that you call
Speaker 4: anyone will behead your daughter. They call twelve people and
Speaker 4: people descend on that house. You clear the house, You
Speaker 4: put the husband upstairs, you keep the wife downstairs. You
Speaker 4: start questioning seeing them separately from each other. And they
Speaker 4: were never questioned separately. And you know about that.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's like they teach you that the first damn day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that investigat.
Speaker 4: Basically interrogation oneh one. They never got a chance to
Speaker 4: do that. And it was a screwed up investigation, a
Speaker 4: compromise crime scene from the start. But I think the
Speaker 4: Bowlder PD pushed off in the right direction, concentrated on
Speaker 4: the parents, and they didn't count on the prosecution investigators
Speaker 4: helping the Ramsey lawyers. I still I said it earlier.
Speaker 4: There's no discovery during an investigation. You don't have to
Speaker 4: give them anything that's right that I found that they
Speaker 4: gave them everything.
Speaker 1: That's that's malpractice, that's insane. Unfortunately, we're out of time,
Speaker 1: But I got to ask you this one question, ask
Speaker 1: Ques and if you want to take a pass on
Speaker 1: an ironer, stand there'll never be a conviction in this
Speaker 1: case in my opinion, too long. It's just not going
Speaker 1: to happen. In your heart of hearts. JT. Townsend, Who
Speaker 1: do you think is responsible for this horrible crime.
Speaker 4: I've really come down to Patsy me staging it. I
Speaker 4: think Burke perhaps started it with the blow to the
Speaker 4: head and Patsy did the staging. It's the most logical
Speaker 4: conclusion at this point.
Speaker 1: Yep, I couldn't agree with you more. Unfortunately, we're out
Speaker 1: of time this.
Speaker 4: You got to give me thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right. I told you to remind me. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you did.
Speaker 10: I am.
Speaker 4: I'm running another special on Summer's almost Gone, Cincinnati's most
Speaker 4: notorious cold case, the Brick and Murders. Go to www
Speaker 4: dot JT. Townsend dot com. Put in WLW in the
Speaker 4: coupon ten dollars off. All books will be signed by me.
Speaker 4: And if you're a Cincinnati native, especially if you're on
Speaker 4: the West Side, you've not read this book? What's wrong
Speaker 4: with you?
Speaker 1: No, it's like I said, and I know I sound
Speaker 1: like a broken record. One of the best books, one
Speaker 1: of the most easy reads that I've ever had. And
Speaker 1: we got to do this again. JT. I think it's
Speaker 1: really been helpful.
Speaker 4: Well, I think you're on I think you're in for
Speaker 4: McConnell next week. Yes, I'm available.
Speaker 1: Okay, I went again.
Speaker 4: Everybody WLW in the coupon code ten dollars off. All right, brother,
Speaker 4: thank you and Mike as always. I love being on
Speaker 4: with you man.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and it's mutual. Thank you. JT all Right, JT.
Speaker 1: Townsend man. He knows this stuff inside out and maybe
Speaker 1: we can do something next week. Hey, I am out
Speaker 1: of here, but Dan Carroll follows me. He's in for
Speaker 1: Eddie and Rocky. I'll be back tomorrow. Mike Allen seven
Speaker 1: hundred WLW. The countdown at twenty twenty five is in
Speaker 1: Bull Switch