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Speaker 5: Loo you are now listening to True Murder, the most
Speaker 5: shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
Speaker 5: have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK.
Speaker 5: Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 5: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 5: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 2: Good evening. This episode of True Murder is brought to
Speaker 2: you by Audible, the world's leading name in digital audiobooks.
Speaker 2: Descended from a notorious Carneifan family, Grady Styles Junior traded
Speaker 2: on the deformity that gave his hands and feet the
Speaker 2: look of lobster clause to achieve fame as the Lobster Boy.
Speaker 2: In November nineteen ninety two, neighbor Christopher Wyant, in a
Speaker 2: conspiracy with Style's wife and stepson, shot Styles in the head,
Speaker 2: leading to one of the most bizarre trials in criminal history.
Speaker 2: The book that we're featuring this evening is Lobster Boy,
Speaker 2: The bizarre life and brutal death of Grady Styles Junior,
Speaker 2: with my special guest, investigative journalist and author Fred Rosen.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much
Speaker 2: for agreeing to this interview Fred Rosen.
Speaker 6: Always pleasure to be with you. Hi, Dan, how are
Speaker 6: you great?
Speaker 2: How are you doing? Fred?
Speaker 6: Well, it's it's always a pleasure to be with Danan.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to
Speaker 2: interview Fred Rosen. Always busy and always with a great
Speaker 2: story and a great book. And we're going to go
Speaker 2: backwards in time a little bit later on, we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about the latest developments in the Kendrick Johnson case.
Speaker 2: For those people that are dedicated fans of the show,
Speaker 2: they'll know what we're talking about. There has been some
Speaker 2: really interesting and very well, it's beyond interesting, cutting edge
Speaker 2: programs about current injustice in America, and so with Fred
Speaker 2: rose and spearheading the investigation. So but first, let's go
Speaker 2: back in time to Lobster Boy. And before we get
Speaker 2: into this incredible story that not everyone knows, when did
Speaker 2: you write this? When was this book published? And when
Speaker 2: did you write this book? Fred Lobster Boy?
Speaker 6: Well, Dan, Dan, I'll tell you what happened. What happened was,
Speaker 6: as you pointed out, the murder occurage of nineteen ninety
Speaker 6: two and oh much an about a year later, I
Speaker 6: was in Florida with the person would eventually become my
Speaker 6: ex wife, thank god. And uh, I was going to
Speaker 6: I was going to Disney World, and I picked up
Speaker 6: the local newspaper, you know, in in in Orlando, and
Speaker 6: I found out about this trial that was taking place
Speaker 6: down in Tampa in Hillsborough County. Uh and and this
Speaker 6: the the person on trial was a woman named married
Speaker 6: Teresa Stiles, who had allegedly arranged for the murder of
Speaker 6: her husband, Gray Styles Junior also know this lobster Boy.
Speaker 6: And I got on the phone with my with my
Speaker 6: editor at that time at the publishing house I was
Speaker 6: working for, and I said, you're not going to believe this.
Speaker 6: And I said, uh, there's this woman and she supposedly
Speaker 6: killed her husband and he was lobster boy. I said,
Speaker 6: isn't that a joke? And he said to me, that's
Speaker 6: your next book. I said, you're kidding. He said, no,
Speaker 6: that's your next book. And that's how I found out
Speaker 6: about it, and and that's how I got the assignment
Speaker 6: to write the book, and and and and so what
Speaker 6: happened was I got the contract. It was unusual, especially
Speaker 6: compared to today, where I got the contract pretty quickly
Speaker 6: and the next thing, you know, you know, within a
Speaker 6: couple of months. It was Halloween night of ninety three.
Speaker 6: I was on a I went down to Florida to
Speaker 6: start investigating Wow, and I landed again on Halloween night.
Speaker 6: And I and I'll never forget this. It's not in
Speaker 6: the book. I should have put it in there, Dan, Uh.
Speaker 6: And I'm I'm driving out of the airport in Tampa
Speaker 6: and I, you know, I'm at a light and I
Speaker 6: look over and the next car I see Dracula. I
Speaker 6: said to some dude who was dressed as Dracula, and
Speaker 6: I went, Oh my god, what's going on? And then
Speaker 6: because I realized it was Halloween, but that was sort
Speaker 6: of like the harbinger of things to come, you know.
Speaker 6: And that's how I working on it.
Speaker 2: Now, that's a good segue because Halloween is appropriate because
Speaker 2: you're going to a place that's what they call Carnival Heaven.
Speaker 2: You describe, uh, this Gibson Town, Gibson, Gibsonton, Yeah, Gibsonton, Yes,
Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit about tell us about
Speaker 2: this little Gibsonton little town.
Speaker 6: Well, I'll tell you, Dan, it's probably the most unique
Speaker 6: town in in certainly in the United States. Uh, you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know if you have anything that you know,
Speaker 6: comparable in Canada, but it's not in in the US.
Speaker 6: It's weird. You go down, you know, the main you
Speaker 6: go down the this main highway and you go over bridge.
Speaker 6: Next thing, you know, you come to big sign It
Speaker 6: says the Giants Camp. I swear it says the Giants camp.
Speaker 6: And what the heck is this about? Well, it turns
Speaker 6: out this was a camp where the Giant camped. What
Speaker 6: it was was that in the nineteen forties, people who
Speaker 6: were in the Carny gravitated south during the winter. They
Speaker 6: settled in Gibsons in south of Tampa because of the weather,
Speaker 6: the Bomby weather in the summer. And the Giant was
Speaker 6: a giant. The guy who was about I don't know,
Speaker 6: seven eight feet fall something like that. You know, I
Speaker 6: made Shaquilonia looked short. And he married the world's only
Speaker 6: within half girl. Her name was Jennie Tilmany. And I,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm going, what the heck is this about?
Speaker 6: You know, I'm there to investigate a murder case. And
Speaker 6: it got weird. Dan, it got weirder. You'd be riding
Speaker 6: around this town and you'd see things like wirewalkers, three
Speaker 6: legged you know, goats, you know, all kinds of animal oddities.
Speaker 6: You'd see little people in those days they would call midgets.
Speaker 6: You'd see all kinds of carnie freaks. It was the
Speaker 6: weirdest thing. And when you went to the post office,
Speaker 6: the counter that they had you had two counters. One
Speaker 6: was for normal sized people and one was for little people.
Speaker 6: It was the weirdest thing. And then you'd see all
Speaker 6: of the carney trucks and things like that in the backyards.
Speaker 6: And eventually I wound up going from I had lunch
Speaker 6: at the Giants camp. I met Jeanie Tomini, the world's
Speaker 6: only living half girls. She was born with missing the
Speaker 6: lower half of her body. She married the Giant, they
Speaker 6: had kids, wonderful human being, wonderful person. And then eventually
Speaker 6: I found my way to to the trailer where Lobster
Speaker 6: Boy had lived with his wife. Married Teresa Stiles, who
Speaker 6: in the carnival was known as the Electrified Girl because
Speaker 6: it was an illusion that was perpe that they did
Speaker 6: where she would seem to be she would sit in
Speaker 6: a chair like an electric chair, and you know, lightning
Speaker 6: bolts would come out of her fingers, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6: And at that point she was in jail because she
Speaker 6: had already been charged with killing Grady, her husband. And
Speaker 6: I met Grady Styles the third aka Little Grady. I
Speaker 6: met his sister, Kathy Styles, who also had ecodactyle, which
Speaker 6: is the genetic condition that causes diffusing the hands and fingers.
Speaker 6: Kathy would later go on to be on the TV
Speaker 6: series Carnival as a lobster girl. And I met Mary's
Speaker 6: third husband, Midgetman. Hectter have a nice guy named Harry
Speaker 6: Glenn Newman. And when she married Harry Glenn Newman midget Man,
Speaker 6: they had a son, Harry Glenn Newman Jr. And he
Speaker 6: became the human blockhead. You can't make this stuff up,
Speaker 6: which is a person who talents things up his nose,
Speaker 6: h to you know, only in the United States. Canada's
Speaker 6: to civilized for this stuff. But anyway, that's that's what happened.
Speaker 6: And I met these people and I and I and
Speaker 6: I basically interviewed them and I got their confidence.
Speaker 2: Now, how did you pronounce the the disorder itself?
Speaker 6: Again? Sorry, It's called ectodactyle, and what it is is
Speaker 6: a disorder. It's a genetic disorder that that goes from
Speaker 6: generation to generation where it causes the fusing of the
Speaker 6: fingers uh and the stunting of growth of the feet,
Speaker 6: and it comes out slightly differently in every generation. And
Speaker 6: what makes this interesting is that in order to stop it,
Speaker 6: you'd have to adopt. Yet the Style family decided not
Speaker 6: to do that, and so they had this this genetic
Speaker 6: condition prevailed in the Style family from one President Polk
Speaker 6: we're going back to the eighteen forties, was president up
Speaker 6: until the present, and so they continued to procreate for
Speaker 6: whatever reason. I never got into it with the family,
Speaker 6: but they decided to procreate, and the odds were in
Speaker 6: favor of the condition coming out in whatever child was
Speaker 6: born from this family. Except there was one child in
Speaker 6: the Styles family, Donna, who did not have that condition,
Speaker 6: and that created other problems later on down the line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's not jump ahead there. Yes, created, we'll discuss
Speaker 2: that because that would be very important as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's interesting too. He talks about I guess one of
Speaker 2: the Styles saying the grandfather, I guess saying, you know
Speaker 2: that he knew that there was a fifty fifty chance
Speaker 2: and he had said that to the family, almost with
Speaker 2: pride that you know he got about a fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty chance of getting it. So yep, for whatever reason. Now,
Speaker 2: for those didn't see the photo or don't get to
Speaker 2: see the photo that a little I posted on for
Speaker 2: the show description, it's interesting that the hands are then
Speaker 2: have a claw actual like a lobster claw, but just
Speaker 2: for people to know that it's right past the knee
Speaker 2: so it doesn't step into.
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Speaker 2: The Lobster boy didn't really have legs, so maybe you
Speaker 2: can describe that.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 6: He just pretty muchset it in terms of the what
Speaker 6: happens is the condition comes up differently in every generation.
Speaker 6: So in Grady's case, Grady styles junior, he had regular
Speaker 6: arms that ended with the best way of describing it
Speaker 6: would be if you think of mister Spock had, you know,
Speaker 6: putting the vulcan symbol up, which actually is is based
Speaker 6: on actually that's actually based on on on a Jewish
Speaker 6: symbol that Leonard Meimoy brought to the table. But if
Speaker 6: you think about the you know, the the the four fingers,
Speaker 6: you know, separating I'm doing it right now, that's pretty
Speaker 6: much the way that the clause looked. And in terms
Speaker 6: of in in in Grady's case and in most instances,
Speaker 6: the condition in terms of the legs would come out
Speaker 6: where right below the knee, there's nothing else. You just
Speaker 6: have again a fusion of the bonees and and and
Speaker 6: the flesh, et cetera, et cetera. And so as a result,
Speaker 6: people who suffer from this condition wind up living rather yes,
Speaker 6: living with with the wheelchairs so to get them around. However,
Speaker 6: and this is very important. However, because of the fact
Speaker 6: they have this condition, they are they become so powerful
Speaker 6: in their upper body that they can they can uh.
Speaker 6: I was gonna say locomotes, but there's no such word.
Speaker 6: They could move around just on the basis walking around,
Speaker 6: you know, like like like a chimpanzee does, on their hands,
Speaker 6: and they become extremely powerful in their upper body, extremely powerful,
Speaker 6: and they are capable of doing every single thing that
Speaker 6: all of us can do, including shooting a gun, which
Speaker 6: of course will become relevant later on.
Speaker 2: Now this guy knows the carnival life, and he to
Speaker 2: to explain that he grew up in this as well,
Speaker 2: and then he had Grady Styles, or he had a
Speaker 2: son named Grady as well, and he had a son.
Speaker 2: So name the siblings there or the family that he
Speaker 2: has that is afflicted with this disorder, and then tell
Speaker 2: us what their life was like in terms of we
Speaker 2: already said that there are carnival people. But did Grady
Speaker 2: Styles grow up in this as well and then figured
Speaker 2: this was the thing to continue with his family?
Speaker 6: Yes, yes he did. What happened was his father, who
Speaker 6: was known as the lobster Man, same condition, same situation.
Speaker 6: When Brady was born in Pittsburgh. By the age of
Speaker 6: six or seven, he was put on the carny stage
Speaker 6: by his dad, and he grew up in the car
Speaker 6: and he figured, hey, man, I got to go through it.
Speaker 6: My kids have got to go through it. So when
Speaker 6: he married Mary Teresa Stiles, he had he had a
Speaker 6: couple of kids. Uh, he had Donna. Donna was normal,
Speaker 6: I had no you know, she doesn't have the genetic conditions.
Speaker 6: Then came Kathy, who has the same condition. He put
Speaker 6: Kathy on the stage with him at a very early age.
Speaker 6: And then after Kathy, what occurred was that he divorced
Speaker 6: to Mary Teresa Styles and he married a woman named Barbara,
Speaker 6: and he had another child with her who became who
Speaker 6: was known as Little Grady, though he would be called
Speaker 6: his former name is Grady Styles the Third. He had
Speaker 6: the condition, and so eventually you had at one point
Speaker 6: you had three three members of the Lobster family, Grady
Speaker 6: Stiles Junior, Grady Styles the Third, and Kathy on on
Speaker 6: the platform or stage at the same time. But the
Speaker 6: kids didn't take to it the way that their dad did.
Speaker 6: But he nevertheless, he felt that that was the way
Speaker 6: to go and this was how he made his living
Speaker 6: and he did quite well with it for many, many,
Speaker 6: many many years.
Speaker 2: Now, what was it like growing up for Grady Styles Junior?
Speaker 2: What was it like growing up for him? Like you
Speaker 2: talk about that you know there was certain there was fame,
Speaker 2: and he made this adjustment, and his father had made
Speaker 2: the adjustment. It was a family tradition and it came
Speaker 2: with certain perks. But really describe what that life was
Speaker 2: really like being this freak and as a result, what
Speaker 2: was his character soon developing in say his teen years,
Speaker 2: what was his character really like?
Speaker 6: His character is I like to say, was the op
Speaker 6: was the flip side of the La Man. Where the
Speaker 6: elephant Man in real life and in the film that
Speaker 6: mel Brooks produced was an individual who had this freakish appearance,
Speaker 6: but inside was this incredibly sensitive, wonderful human being. Gravy
Speaker 6: Styles was the direct opposite. He was as freakish on
Speaker 6: the outside in his behavior in many ways as he
Speaker 6: was in the inside. So he was put on the
Speaker 6: platform by his dad when he was seven. He wound
Speaker 6: up growing up with people gawking at him throughout the
Speaker 6: nineteen thirties, forties and into the early fifties, and he
Speaker 6: got very smart about using what we would now turn
Speaker 6: a disability to his advantage. And so he would appear
Speaker 6: in the carny and whenever he was off stage, however,
Speaker 6: he would try to make sure that he wore gloves
Speaker 6: because he didn't give it away for nothing, and he
Speaker 6: wound up growing up incredibly bitter about his condition. Yet
Speaker 6: he made a lot of money at it, and he
Speaker 6: also became a life mostly for most of his life,
Speaker 6: a lifelong alcoholic, and whenever he drank, he was an
Speaker 6: incredibly brutal human being to those around him. However, when
Speaker 6: he didn't drink, he was extremely charming. He was extremely likable.
Speaker 6: And there is still people as we speak, some of
Speaker 6: whom may be listening in Gibsonton, Florida, really liked Grady
Speaker 6: a heck of a lot except but to his family,
Speaker 6: this guy was he was a piece of crap, and
Speaker 6: he was abusive physically and emotionally to his wife. He
Speaker 6: was abusive emotionally to his children. But as far as
Speaker 6: I know, and the evidence that I was able to
Speaker 6: come up with, he wasn't physically abusive to them, but
Speaker 6: he was extremely abusive in all ways to his life.
Speaker 2: Now, they were married for quite a few years and then,
Speaker 2: as as her will, she left him and divorced him.
Speaker 2: And this will be important later when we talk about
Speaker 2: this as well. So she had enough and she left
Speaker 2: him was and so then he remarried. Tell Us about
Speaker 2: this interim period where she leaves, Teresa leaves and then
Speaker 2: Barbara comes into the picture. Tell Us he must have
Speaker 2: had the charm on the fair amount in that period
Speaker 2: of time, didn't he?
Speaker 6: Yes. What occurs is that is that he abused it.
Speaker 6: He already has. He's living in Pittsburgh and eventually they
Speaker 6: moved to They were still watering Gibsonson, but for the
Speaker 6: most part they're living in Pittsburgh. And what occurs is
Speaker 6: that his his daughter Donna, uh, because it gets to
Speaker 6: be sixteen years old. Kathy is younger. He's still living
Speaker 6: with with with Mary Teresa styles his first wife. But
Speaker 6: Donna can't stand what's going on, and she's the normal one.
Speaker 6: She wants to get out, so she winds up getting
Speaker 6: engaged with a young man. And Grady takes exception to this.
Speaker 6: He feels like she's going to be deserting him. And
Speaker 6: what happens is on her it's really very tragic. On
Speaker 6: her wedding night or wedding day, rather, she comes home
Speaker 6: after they've gone shopping for some you know, for her
Speaker 6: dress and so forth, and she's with her future husband
Speaker 6: who's seventeen.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 6: She goes, he approaches the house by him, and Grady
Speaker 6: is waiting for him in the parlor of the house
Speaker 6: with a rifle. And Grady was a death shot despite
Speaker 6: the affliction that he grew up with, and he kills
Speaker 6: the guy cold blood, and this is like incredible, And
Speaker 6: Donna winds up cradling the head of her future and
Speaker 6: never to be husband in her arms, and he dies
Speaker 6: in her arms, bleeding out on the street. And the
Speaker 6: state of Pennsylvania charges Grady with murder, and there's a
Speaker 6: trial and eventually he's found guilty, and because the judge
Speaker 6: takes pity on his condition, he gives him probation and
Speaker 6: he doesn't go to jail, and soon after Theresa well,
Speaker 6: at that point, Theresa has already divorced him, okay, or
Speaker 6: rather Grady has divorced her. Excuse me, I'm getting ahead
Speaker 6: of myself. He's living with Barbara. But Grady gets sort
Speaker 6: of a second chance after this trial, and he turns
Speaker 6: around and starts courting his first wife Mary Teresa again,
Speaker 6: and she decides to go back with him. So, in
Speaker 6: other words, after a cold blooded murder, she decides to
Speaker 6: go back with him, allegedly because he's so charming and
Speaker 6: he's starting to pay bills and she told me all this.
Speaker 6: By the way, we did a tremendous amount of the
Speaker 6: discussion together, and so he goes back with me, and
Speaker 6: which is sort of weird because in between can make
Speaker 6: this stuff up. Then, while Grady's married to Barbara Mary,
Speaker 6: Teresa winds up marrying midgeard Man. That was his name,
Speaker 6: Harry Glenn Newman, Sr. Wonderful human being, great guy. I
Speaker 6: loved him and he treated her wonderfully. But Teresa had
Speaker 6: problems with midget Man. She had to do a lot
Speaker 6: of thames for him because of his lack of height.
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Speaker 6: Not as accepted as they are today, and as a result,
Speaker 6: she divorced him and she goes back with great.
Speaker 2: Now, how long are we talking about he's she's back
Speaker 2: married with him. And you said you had the conversation
Speaker 2: with her her motivation were you? Did it sound genuine?
Speaker 2: Did it made sink? Did it make sense to you?
Speaker 2: Why her motivation for going back was she sincere.
Speaker 6: You know what I love about you. You always ask
Speaker 6: great questions and to make me think, hmmm, I'll get it.
Speaker 6: I'll give you the answer that I think. You know,
Speaker 6: I didn't play it in the book, but i'll you know.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what I think, which is, I think
Speaker 6: she went back with him because he was willing to
Speaker 6: pay the bills. And there's no and also there's no Grady.
Speaker 6: Grady was one of the most charming human beings. He
Speaker 6: He's a carnate guy. Everybody that I met in Gibsonton
Speaker 6: would tell me how charming Grady was and he I
Speaker 6: think she went back with him because of the fact
Speaker 6: he was paying the bills. I think there's no question
Speaker 6: there was love between them, and he had a very
Speaker 6: magnetic personality. I mean, to this day, I have met
Speaker 6: people who saw Grady on the carnival circuit as Lobster Boy,
Speaker 6: and it's idelibly etched in their memories. And I don't
Speaker 6: think it's just because of the condition. I think it's
Speaker 6: because of Grady's ability as a performer, which and something
Speaker 6: he passed on to his son. And I think that. So,
Speaker 6: to answer your question, I think she went back with
Speaker 6: him for a variety of reasons, but I think the
Speaker 6: dollars and cents of it had a lot to do
Speaker 6: with it, Plus the fact, I might add that he
Speaker 6: was sober at this point, he stopped drinking, He was
Speaker 6: not not violent, he was at that point he was
Speaker 6: a good person, right, And so she figured he turned
Speaker 6: over a leaf and she went back with him. At
Speaker 6: least that's what she told me.
Speaker 2: Right now in this this is nineteen eighty eight, I
Speaker 2: guess they get remarried from correct, and then how long
Speaker 2: before he's back to his old ways of watching TV
Speaker 2: in his underwear and drinking and smoking and cursing and
Speaker 2: being abusive.
Speaker 6: Pretty quickly, it happened, very very quickly. She winds up
Speaker 6: getting back with him just about that period of time,
Speaker 6: and the family is still Kathy's are living with at
Speaker 6: that point. It's the family is Grady, Theesa, Kathy, Little Grady,
Speaker 6: and Harry Glenn Newman Jr. Who again the human blockhead,
Speaker 6: who was her son from the marriage her marriage to
Speaker 6: midget him. Donna had already gotten out of the house
Speaker 6: as an adult and married a fella named Joe. But
Speaker 6: they all worked together in the carneye. So from that
Speaker 6: period of time, or rather during that period of time
Speaker 6: eighty eight to ninety two, they were touring throughout the
Speaker 6: United States and Canada as a unit, and Grady ran
Speaker 6: something which I found very fascinating because I didn't know
Speaker 6: anything about. You know, what do I know about the Carnival.
Speaker 6: I'm from Brooklyn, for God's sakes, you know, the Carnival
Speaker 6: with the Brooklyn Rodgers, you know, but now was before
Speaker 6: my time. Excuse me, and and and I'll probably I'm
Speaker 6: gonna I'm gonna get a lot of flak for that one.
Speaker 6: But anyway, in any case, what happens is they tour
Speaker 6: and Grady has a thing called that ken and one
Speaker 6: it's and I deal with it in the book a lot,
Speaker 6: which is very interesting. It's like ten shows, ten shows
Speaker 6: or illusions in one. So for the for the price,
Speaker 6: for whatever price you're paying when you go to the Carney,
Speaker 6: you get these illusions. And some of these illusions are
Speaker 6: pretty damn interesting. Like you've probably seen some of this
Speaker 6: stuff on TV and other places. Like one of them
Speaker 6: is like with a girl. There's a girl, she turns
Speaker 6: into a gorilla. Yes, exactly, the girl turns into the gorilla.
Speaker 6: They had that they had Grady himself on the platform.
Speaker 6: They had the Animal Oddity Show, which was run by
Speaker 6: Kathy and her husband Terrell, wonderful guy, and a couple
Speaker 6: of other things. And these are the things, you know,
Speaker 6: and this is what attracts people. And it's a heck
Speaker 6: of a show. I mean, you know, we you know
Speaker 6: we're gonna get you know, this is all before of
Speaker 6: course YouTube and all that. Are you going to get
Speaker 6: anything like that for you know? And I might add
Speaker 6: they also had so this was the last season they
Speaker 6: went out in nineteen ninety two. Grady had a man
Speaker 6: named Merl mccobin whose nickname was Merman the Magician. He
Speaker 6: did magic and he did fire eating, and they got
Speaker 6: really really tight together and he would later become very
Speaker 6: crucial in terms of giving me information about Grady's background.
Speaker 6: So he had all these things going down, and you know,
Speaker 6: I'm discussing with you right now, I'm saying to myself,
Speaker 6: you know what I wish i'd seen it. You know,
Speaker 6: it would be cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Absolutely now there is We didn't talk about the living arrangements.
Speaker 2: This is a trailer in this Gibsonton and the whole
Speaker 2: family doesn't live in the one trailer. So describe the
Speaker 2: sort of a living arrangements that become important or aren't
Speaker 2: important to the story too.
Speaker 6: Sure, there's three trailers, there's one trailer, and this is
Speaker 6: on a trailer park. It gives the thing as a
Speaker 6: community where where it's it's the trailers are on regular streets.
Speaker 6: And what they would do is they build a trailer
Speaker 6: and then they build extensions as they made more money,
Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera. So he had one trailer where
Speaker 6: Mary Teresa Stiles lived with Grady and Grady Jr. In
Speaker 6: the back was another trailer where Kathy lived with her
Speaker 6: husband Terrell and her at that point, her three year
Speaker 6: old porter. I guess flipped this up, by the way,
Speaker 6: because I knew we'd be talking at that point. Her
Speaker 6: three year old daughter. Her name is Misty. She's not
Speaker 6: twenty three years old, so and I can't believe that,
Speaker 6: but and Missy's when the condition came out, and Misty,
Speaker 6: it was so bad. I did when I did this interview,
Speaker 6: the condition was so bad and I felt so awful.
Speaker 6: He was literally like when you looked at her, she
Speaker 6: had like a lobstercor attached to her shoulder. So she
Speaker 6: didn't actually have a full arm. Okay, again pointing out
Speaker 6: how it turns out differently. They lived out in one trailer,
Speaker 6: and then there was a third trailer, which was like
Speaker 6: a travel trailer, and that's where they stored the illusions.
Speaker 6: And there was aroused about named Marco Eno who lived
Speaker 6: in that trailer. And uh so you had essentially three
Speaker 6: trailers on the same property.
Speaker 2: What what's a roaster boat?
Speaker 6: By the way, besides the fact that it's a movie
Speaker 6: with Elvis Presley, uh, it's after that. Is the dude
Speaker 6: or dudes that sent the carney, they're they're they're they're
Speaker 6: a muscle, you know, they set up they set up
Speaker 6: the tents, the you know, they they you know, they're
Speaker 6: the dudes that you might find uh in the in
Speaker 6: the the wagon, the wagon where you know, they're selling
Speaker 6: the food, that sort of thing. You know, they're the
Speaker 6: guys that move things around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so tell us what Theresa her state of
Speaker 2: mind is here is and and sorry, what is what
Speaker 2: is their state of mind that? And what what is
Speaker 2: the some of the relationships that she is developing here?
Speaker 2: Uh as she sees this new marriage of this latest
Speaker 2: marriage going sour.
Speaker 6: Well, what happens is Grady continues every time he's drinking
Speaker 6: to be abusive, and his clause are as such, and
Speaker 6: I detail it in the book where they were weapons.
Speaker 6: Really they were very, very hard. And the important thing
Speaker 6: to realize is he's not disabled, not in the way
Speaker 6: that we use that term today. He could walk as
Speaker 6: well as you or I could on his feet, I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: as well as urai can on our feet. He could
Speaker 6: walk on his clause. And if you've got slapped with
Speaker 6: his claw, you go him back against the wall. That's
Speaker 6: the sort of situation. So he's slapping her around and
Speaker 6: he's being very abusive to Teresa, and she decides that
Speaker 6: she can't take it anymore. That's what she said at trial.
Speaker 6: She claimed that she could and leave him. She had
Speaker 6: left him before, but she claimed she could not leave
Speaker 6: him because it was she would later claim battered wife syndrome.
Speaker 6: And so what she does is she takes money that
Speaker 6: she has gotten through various means, and she takes fifteen
Speaker 6: hundred dollars gives it to her son, Harry Glen Newman Junior,
Speaker 6: the Uman blockhead. She says, listen, you know I need
Speaker 6: some help here to get rid of Grady and he
Speaker 6: takes the money and he gives it to a kid
Speaker 6: who lives in the same trail parks. Seventeen year old
Speaker 6: kid named Chris Wyant tells him what he wants, wants
Speaker 6: Grady killed, and that's it. You know, he says, Okay,
Speaker 6: I want Grady killed. I want my stepfather killed. And
Speaker 6: it makes a deal and gives the kid the money.
Speaker 6: Kid goes out and purchases a gun, and then other
Speaker 6: things happen right after that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets the gun from another kid, and yes
Speaker 2: he's a professional, real professional hit going on here.
Speaker 6: But yeah, well, actually he buys the gun. He doesn't
Speaker 6: buy the gun from a kid. It's actually an adult,
Speaker 6: and he buys it further south and Apollo Beach, where
Speaker 6: again we're on the west coast of Florida. But he
Speaker 6: and the gun he buys. You know, we're not talking
Speaker 6: to Cornees with forty four magnum, you know, the most
Speaker 6: powerful handgun in the world. You know, we're talking a
Speaker 6: piece of crap. I think it was a thirty eight.
Speaker 6: I can't I can't even remember. It's not important. But
Speaker 6: he buys a piece of craft gun. You know, it
Speaker 6: pays a couple of hundred dollars for it. That's as
Speaker 6: stupid Chris is at this point. And he gets the
Speaker 6: gun and he makes the plan to come to the
Speaker 6: house and he's going to kill Grady. And at one
Speaker 6: point there's some talk between him and UH and Harry
Speaker 6: Bilin Newman Jr. About calling to hit off, but it
Speaker 6: doesn't happen. He decides they they decide to go ahead
Speaker 6: with it. And so there's going to be a murder
Speaker 6: unless something intervenes, and of course, you know, unless it's
Speaker 6: the movies, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: So what is tell us about the Faithful Evening itself?
Speaker 2: What set the set the stage for you know, Rady
Speaker 2: Styles he's in the trailer, Teresa's there. Tell us how
Speaker 2: they hatch this plan and what goes down and what
Speaker 2: what their plan is to happen, and what does actually happen.
Speaker 6: The plan, what happens is this they Teresa decided, Teresa
Speaker 6: decides to leave the trailer. I'm just going to report this,
Speaker 6: and she's in the trailer. She will later tell the
Speaker 6: police that she decides to visit Misty, the granddaughter, and
Speaker 6: the other trailer with Kathy because Misty is not feeling well,
Speaker 6: and so she decides to leave with Harry Glenn Newman junior,
Speaker 6: her son. However, she leaves Grady the third in the trailer,
Speaker 6: allegedly asleep in a different room. Okay, so now you've
Speaker 6: got and and what So what occurs is this They've
Speaker 6: watched a video of the film Ruby not to be
Speaker 6: a film by the way, with with Danny Iello playing
Speaker 6: what's his name? Help me out here Dan the dude
Speaker 6: that shoots Lee Harvey.
Speaker 2: Oswald Oswald, Jack Rubin.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, Jack Ruby, thank you. So Danny Iello is
Speaker 6: playing Jack Ruby, and they're watching this film and they
Speaker 6: leave and the and Teresa says, I'm going to go
Speaker 6: out and visit Misty. She leaves with Harry. They go out.
Speaker 6: They go into the other trailer with Kathy. Kathy, I
Speaker 6: might add is an is what they call in an
Speaker 6: unundicted co conspirator, which means the state decided not to
Speaker 6: charge her, though allegedly she had knowledge of what would occur.
Speaker 6: And so Chris Wyant comes up to the house. This
Speaker 6: is old planned. He steals in through the back door
Speaker 6: of the trailer. He comes into the main room. Grady's
Speaker 6: sitting there watching TV. He's a he's in his underwear,
Speaker 6: as you point out, he's watching Ruby. Grady goes through
Speaker 6: that and he looks around. He says, Chris Wyant, and
Speaker 6: he tells him to leave and out back. Marcoweno, who's
Speaker 6: in that other trailer that I described. Suddenly, here, pop,
Speaker 6: pop pop, three gunshots. Marcolino runs out, runs into the
Speaker 6: trailer where Kathy is with Teresa and says, I you
Speaker 6: know what's going on here? And they think it's gunshots,
Speaker 6: and so Marco and.
Speaker 2: He go.
Speaker 6: He approaches the trailer and he goes into the trailer
Speaker 6: and he discovers Grady Stiles junior lobster Poy, slumped over
Speaker 6: in his chair with three neat bullet holes in the
Speaker 6: top of his head. Dead and allegedly still sleeping in
Speaker 6: the back room is Grady Styles the third, his son.
Speaker 6: I'm just reporting right jumping huh Now, armink I said,
Speaker 6: that's something, isn't it, Dan?
Speaker 2: Yes it is, Yes, it is. And now the story
Speaker 2: gets a little more complicated. Now police are called to
Speaker 2: the crime scene, and obviously they are doing some questioning.
Speaker 2: How do they proceed and what developments happened?
Speaker 6: Kind of quickly, Well, it's funny you're asking this question
Speaker 6: right now because this is a case. The last time
Speaker 6: I spoke to the investigating officer, Detective Michael Willette. Actually
Speaker 6: he was a detective then he eventually retired from the
Speaker 6: department as a captain of detectives. I had spoken to
Speaker 6: him in about eighteen years. But I'm doing this segment.
Speaker 6: I'm taping a segment of the TV show called Evil
Speaker 6: Kin about Lobster Boy at the end of next month.
Speaker 6: So I actually called Wilette and we got to chat
Speaker 6: about this, and you know, it was like, you know,
Speaker 6: old homely because we were very friendly. And is what happened.
Speaker 6: The police are called. Michael Lett comes into the trailer
Speaker 6: and and he looks at what's going on, and he
Speaker 6: sees the body slumped forward. By that time, the techies
Speaker 6: are there, and he immediately does what cops are supposed
Speaker 6: to do, which is says, okay, who would do this?
Speaker 6: And he begins to wonder, does some preliminary questioning of
Speaker 6: the family. They claim that he has no enemies, that
Speaker 6: Grady has no enemies, and it takes them about he
Speaker 6: and his partner fig Figuretto. Takes them about twenty four
Speaker 6: hours before they double back and they start questioning the
Speaker 6: family again and that's when they begin to discover Grady's
Speaker 6: abusive behavior when he's to and it doesn't take them
Speaker 6: very long to get Harry Glen Newman Jr. To tumble
Speaker 6: and say what really occurred. And once he does that,
Speaker 6: then they go to Teresa. And it isn't a situation
Speaker 6: where people are saying I didn't do it. They rarely
Speaker 6: admit to it. But Teresa says she was pushed to
Speaker 6: it because he was so abusive, and at that point
Speaker 6: she is then charged with murder. Harry Glen Newman Junior
Speaker 6: Is charged with murder. The trigger man, Chris Wyant, is
Speaker 6: charged with murder. And then it's up to the court
Speaker 6: system in Hillsborough County, Florida to figure out how to
Speaker 6: try these individuals. And they make a decision to try
Speaker 6: them all separately, and well, they won't tried. And what
Speaker 6: happens is they're able to try them. They can try
Speaker 6: it for well, they get tried for second degree murder.
Speaker 6: It's well some of them. It's like one of them
Speaker 6: gets tried for first, one of them gets tried for second.
Speaker 6: You know, it's it's so weirder, you know, the way
Speaker 6: the court system works at least here, and that's what occurs,
Speaker 6: and it doesn't. As I said, it doesn't take very long,
Speaker 6: so Mike will let to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 6: But I might say that I think it's an excellent
Speaker 6: piece of police work because he gets one to inform
Speaker 6: on the other, and then it becomes a cause celebra
Speaker 6: because Teresa engages an attorney, Arnie Levine, who's very big
Speaker 6: in that area in Tampa, and he decides he's going
Speaker 6: to use a very very unique defense, at least for
Speaker 6: that period of time, got in wife syndrome in the
Speaker 6: case of a cond got killing only the fourth time
Speaker 6: at that point in nineteen ninety three, I'm sorry nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety four that it has been used in the United States.
Speaker 6: It's pretty interesting when you think about it. You know,
Speaker 6: batted wife in German the case of contract killing and
Speaker 6: what follows is a four star trial. I mean, it's
Speaker 6: a real Carnival trial. I might get a real Carnie.
Speaker 2: Well. You know what's interesting too, is that we skipped
Speaker 2: over is that there was so much controversy in this
Speaker 2: that she did get out on bail temporarily and then
Speaker 2: the division. You know, so there was enough, I guess
Speaker 2: you know. Again, it wasn't. It wasn't a foregone conclusion.
Speaker 2: They were putting a lot of weight on this manslaughter
Speaker 2: rather than so she fared better than the other, the
Speaker 2: other two and so and again thanks to the lawyer
Speaker 2: for sure. So tell us about the carnival nature of
Speaker 2: the trial.
Speaker 6: Oh boy, I was cutting my teeth in those days.
Speaker 6: It was only my I think it was only my
Speaker 6: second murder case. And uh, it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 6: It was a big carnival. What occurs is that you
Speaker 6: have in the court in the visitors gallery. Well, actually no,
Speaker 6: you didn't. They were not in the visitors gallery. What
Speaker 6: happens is, well, at least in Florida, I don't know
Speaker 6: any other state, but if you're going to testify in
Speaker 6: a trial, you're not allowed to go into the courtroom.
Speaker 6: So but you have either in or outside the courtroom,
Speaker 6: depending upon what they're going to get courtless witnesses. You've
Speaker 6: got You've got Harry Glenn Newman, senior midget man. He's
Speaker 6: in a wheelchair. You've got Kathy the daughter, she's in
Speaker 6: a wheelchair. Uh, You've got Grady Styles the third, who
Speaker 6: is little Grady he's in a wheelchair. And let's see.
Speaker 6: Then you've got Terrell Berry, who is the husband who
Speaker 6: ran the animal oddity show. Torell is normal. And of
Speaker 6: course you had Donna, who is the saddest person in
Speaker 6: the bunch, because I got to talk to her about
Speaker 6: how Grady. When I say Grady, I mean I mean
Speaker 6: lobster boy, how he had killed her fiance back in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 6: you know, many years before. And so you have all
Speaker 6: of these individuals, either inside or outside the courtroom. And
Speaker 6: Mary Teresa Styles is sitting at.
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Speaker 6: Defense Table with Annie Levine and what happens is well,
Speaker 6: a couple of things happen. First. First major thing that
Speaker 6: happens during it, Well, you've got Nidgetman testifying. He testifies
Speaker 6: to Grady's cruelty. Then you have Grady the third he
Speaker 6: gets on the stand, Little Grady at that point he's seventeen,
Speaker 6: and to show the ability of Robster Boy to be
Speaker 6: abusive physically, he has Little Grady to a handwalk in
Speaker 6: front of the jury. And so the TV cameras are
Speaker 6: capturing all this and that sort of thing. And it's
Speaker 6: just about at that point that I get involved directly
Speaker 6: in the case as a participant. Am I getting out
Speaker 6: of myself? No?
Speaker 2: No, go ahead, he's muzzled.
Speaker 6: You go ahead, want me to go ahead?
Speaker 7: Dan?
Speaker 6: Okay? Yeah, absolutely, all right, Okay. Here's what happens. At
Speaker 6: the very beginning of the trial, Arnie Levine sends it
Speaker 6: out a videotape those days it was videotaped today. You know,
Speaker 6: I guess c D whatever we excuse me, I'm sorry
Speaker 6: with YouTube, Dan fout me old Dan, okay, and he
Speaker 6: sends out a videotape. And on the videotape, it's quite interesting.
Speaker 6: It's Grady wrestling with little Grady, you know, like like
Speaker 6: a father and a son wrestling, you know. And you
Speaker 6: can hear kidd saying Yiddish word meaning kidden around in
Speaker 6: the background. You can hear Mary Teresa Stiles. You can
Speaker 6: hear Kathy Mary Teresa Stiles says, hey, Grady, break the
Speaker 6: whole meaning can She's look when she says Grady, she
Speaker 6: means a little Rady. Okay, no big deal, right, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know you've got a kid. You know you might
Speaker 6: wrestle with the kid, right, It's no big deal.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I get this video tape just like everybody else
Speaker 6: in the press, and I just, you know, I pass
Speaker 6: it into the you know, into into the box. Go
Speaker 6: to Florida. I live. I live in Upstate New York.
Speaker 6: I go with to Florida. I go to the trial.
Speaker 6: Next thing, you know, at the trial, they showed the videotape.
Speaker 6: Arnie Levine shows it to the jury, but he shows
Speaker 6: it without sound. And when you looked at it without sound,
Speaker 6: it look without sound. It looks like Grady is being
Speaker 6: brutal to his son. And at the end of the
Speaker 6: proceedings that day, I woke up to Ron Haynes, who's
Speaker 6: the who's the state's attorney, And I'm not, you know,
Speaker 6: I just you know, I said, And I talked to everybody.
Speaker 6: It's my personality. And I said, Ron, I said, my
Speaker 6: video tip's got sound. He says it can't sound. I
Speaker 6: said it does. He said, well, then send for it.
Speaker 6: Let's take a look at it. And I and I
Speaker 6: walk in that day. I walk out and I'm going
Speaker 6: to walk into the to the parking structure. I got
Speaker 6: my car park I'll never forget it. Because I get
Speaker 6: to the elevator and I put it the butt and
Speaker 6: I go, oh man, I use a different word. I'm
Speaker 6: not going to use it on radio, even though we're
Speaker 6: on you know, internet, And I said, oh man, I said,
Speaker 6: I don't know what just happened. See, I went to
Speaker 6: film school University of Southern California Film School. So I'm
Speaker 6: very aware that when you have video or film with sound,
Speaker 6: it's completely different than when it's without sound. And I went,
Speaker 6: wait a second, If you have the sound, it's not brutal.
Speaker 6: If you don't have the sound, it is brutal. They
Speaker 6: took the sound off, they doctored it so that people
Speaker 6: would think it's brutal and they would feel sorry for Mary,
Speaker 6: and they would come back without convict there. And at
Speaker 6: that point, Dan, I had one of the hardest moments
Speaker 6: of my life. I sent her the tape. Ronnie Ain't
Speaker 6: said to me, you get that tape, you call me.
Speaker 6: And I had people telling me not to give it,
Speaker 6: not to become part of the case. As you know,
Speaker 6: journalists are not supposed to be part of the case, right,
Speaker 6: And the tape came, and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 6: And at the day that it came, and I've never
Speaker 6: spoken about this publicly, this is the first time I
Speaker 6: had been up for tenure at a place called Hosta
Speaker 6: University in New York, where I taught journalism. The day
Speaker 6: that it came, I was denied tenure because my degree
Speaker 6: was in film not journalism. I was told I wasn't
Speaker 6: qualified to teach journalism because I didn't have a degree
Speaker 6: in it. I looked at the tape and I said,
Speaker 6: wait a second, if I'm not qualified to teach journalism,
Speaker 6: how come I just came up with a piece of
Speaker 6: evidence that can lead to the conviction of the killer
Speaker 6: if I turn it over to the prosecution.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, And so Dan, I had to figure out
Speaker 6: what I was going to do because, you know, thank god,
Speaker 6: the death penalty wasn't on the table. So I have
Speaker 6: to figure out what am I going to do because
Speaker 6: if I turn this tape over, I know it's going
Speaker 6: to lead to the conviction and I'm going to become
Speaker 6: part of it, and the media is going to dalify me.
Speaker 6: You know, I know the way the media works. Yeah, so,
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, some people would consider me part
Speaker 6: of the media. So I have to decide what to do.
Speaker 2: And what was your decision?
Speaker 6: Well, then I sat there in that hotel room in Tampa.
Speaker 10: And I didn't know what the hell to do, and
Speaker 10: I didn't know who to call. I didn't know who
Speaker 10: to talk to, I didn't know what to.
Speaker 6: Do, and came to me at that point, I went
Speaker 6: back to my childhood. One of my heroes growing up
Speaker 6: was Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger for real, and
Speaker 6: all I could think was what would the lone Ranger do?
Speaker 6: And the answer came quickly, The long Ranger would serve
Speaker 6: justice regardless of personal consequences. And I felt then, as
Speaker 6: I do now, that the one thing that sacrisanct in
Speaker 6: our system is the jury system. That the jury had
Speaker 6: the right to hear all the evidence untainted. And so
Speaker 6: I copied the tape. The next day, I went in
Speaker 6: and I gave the tape before trial to Ron Haynes,
Speaker 6: the prosecutor, and he said to me, this is now
Speaker 6: evidence in a murder trial. He went into court he
Speaker 6: said to the judge, I'd just gotten a hold of
Speaker 6: a copy of the tape with sound. I want to
Speaker 6: show it. The judge said, how did you find this tape?
Speaker 6: And he said, Fred Roseen is writing a book on
Speaker 6: the case. And I stood up in the courtroom and
Speaker 6: you could have heard a pin drop. The family looked
Speaker 6: over at me like they wanted to kill me. They
Speaker 6: let him threats against me, but you said, okay, let's
Speaker 6: get the tape cued up and As he was doing it,
Speaker 6: Arnie Levine, the defense attorney, came over to me, leaned
Speaker 6: over the slatted rail divider and said, you mother, you
Speaker 6: know what you're effing up. You're effing up my murder case.
Speaker 6: And I had my tape recorder going and I looked
Speaker 6: at the guy and he was ready to punch me out.
Speaker 6: And I looked at him and I said, you're messing
Speaker 6: around with the jury system, you're messing around with evidence,
Speaker 6: and you're talking to me this way. And Ron Haynes
Speaker 6: came over to him and said, Arnie, he's recording this,
Speaker 6: and he pulled him away. He was ready to hit me,
Speaker 6: which I was sort of hoping because I was going
Speaker 6: to take the punch because I figured if he punched
Speaker 6: me out, then I'd owe him. And then they bought
Speaker 6: the jury in. They showed the tape and eventually Grady
Speaker 6: was convicted. I'm sorry, Mary was convicted. And when the
Speaker 6: jury was pulled afterwards, they said the thing that decided
Speaker 6: them to convict her was the videotape that I had produced.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a double whammy for them because they see
Speaker 2: the defense lawyer lying, yes, you know, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a travesty to do something of that order. It would
Speaker 2: have been better for him to not acted underhandedly like
Speaker 2: he had and let the chips fall as they were.
Speaker 2: He would have a much better chance. But you did
Speaker 2: do the right thing, and that is the right thing,
Speaker 2: that's the right to say, that's well.
Speaker 6: You know, in journalists can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I can't. You have to have you have
Speaker 2: to have that higher ethic because as we know from
Speaker 2: court cases, we've seen injustice and we will be talking
Speaker 2: about another extraordinary spectacular case of injustice very soon. But
Speaker 2: you have to do the right thing, your honorable thing,
Speaker 2: because the courts lots of times, by their own definition,
Speaker 2: that's not their job. So someone has to have that
Speaker 2: that task, and especially when that opportunity is there for you.
Speaker 2: It may you know, maybe journalists aren't supposed to be
Speaker 2: part of the story, but then again it's probably a
Speaker 2: once in a lifetime opportunity because you're normally not in
Speaker 2: that kind of situation. So I applaud you for doing
Speaker 2: the right thing. And of course it makes for an
Speaker 2: even more interesting story too, doesn't it.
Speaker 6: It does? But I and I thank you for saying that,
Speaker 6: because it was a very it was the most difficult
Speaker 6: decision of my life.
Speaker 2: It's confused now now with with Teresa. She really did
Speaker 2: benefit though in terms of she did get this bail
Speaker 2: and then she she she get her She began her
Speaker 2: sentence in ninety seven. So and so she was what
Speaker 2: is the prospect of her parole date or is that
Speaker 2: any kind of possibility for getting that kind of release someday?
Speaker 6: You're not gonna believe it. She's been out for over
Speaker 6: ten years. There you go. She she served. She only
Speaker 6: served a couple of years. You see. The thing is
Speaker 6: Ron Haynes was just an incredibly compassionate prosecutor. He had
Speaker 6: offered her five years if she played guilty. She said no,
Speaker 6: So she went to trial, she was convicted. They gave her,
Speaker 6: you know, for time served, for the time that she
Speaker 6: was incascerated before she got bailed. She said maybe three years.
Speaker 6: She was out. By the time I Take the Knee
Speaker 6: documentary on this case in two thousand and one, she
Speaker 6: was already out. However, Chris Wyant, the hit man, he
Speaker 6: served about eighteen years. He's out. The only person that's
Speaker 6: still in jail is Harry Glen Newman Jr. Who is
Speaker 6: least culpable because he gave the money to Chris. He
Speaker 6: was also offered five years, but Mary Teresa's Stiles spoke
Speaker 6: to him for her son. She was so angry at
Speaker 6: the system she wouldn't make the deal, and as a result,
Speaker 6: he got convicted and sentenced for life. And he's in
Speaker 6: jail in Florida for life, which is a shame. It's
Speaker 6: an absolute shame. And he didn't deserve it. He really
Speaker 6: didn't deserve it. So two out of the three year
Speaker 6: out and in fact, if you know this show Evil
Speaker 6: Ken for the Investigation Discovery Channel, they're going to be
Speaker 6: contacting some of the family and seeing if they want
Speaker 6: to be on the show. And you know, I've I've
Speaker 6: told him, I said, that's great. I said, to make
Speaker 6: sure we're not in the same studio at the same time.
Speaker 6: Otherwise I'm calling Tony Stark and I want his armor,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's very interesting too. You were talking about
Speaker 2: them being on the HBO series Carnival. But also Kathy
Speaker 2: has appeared in Tim Burton's Big Fish and another Firecracker. Yeah,
Speaker 2: another movie called Firecracker, and and and apparently too that
Speaker 2: there is some still some performing going on in that family.
Speaker 6: Excellent well, boy, Dan, that's why you're you're much journalist
Speaker 6: that I am. I didn't bother looking that up keeping
Speaker 6: on IMDb.
Speaker 2: Huh, there's lots of stuff, you know, there's lots of stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's an amazing story.
Speaker 6: He compelled me to. Yeah. I mean, you know, the family,
Speaker 6: the performers, the performers, and look, you know, you got
Speaker 6: to make a living, right Yeah, and and uh, you
Speaker 6: know it's it's uh, you know, it's it's it's some
Speaker 6: time ago. But I think this case seared itself into
Speaker 6: anybody who was involved in it. It seared itself into
Speaker 6: everybody's heart. If you were involved in this case, you're
Speaker 6: involved emotionally. I mean, I interest my dad.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I was going to say that it was a sad
Speaker 2: sort of ending too, is that there was no pallbearers
Speaker 2: at the funeral. This guy was maybe not so loved.
Speaker 6: Well, see that that's more something that's perpetrated by the family.
Speaker 6: The fact is there were people in the community that
Speaker 6: did like them, and I spoke to them, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, if you're going to do a few as
Speaker 6: you will, you know, as anybody knows, if you're going
Speaker 6: to do a funeral, you let people out people that
Speaker 6: like them. Okay, it wasn't a question of that people
Speaker 6: didn't like him, it was you know, I'm sure it
Speaker 6: was more a question of they just didn't let people
Speaker 6: know about it, you know. And uh, I mean, look
Speaker 6: think about it. I mean it's like, Okay, these people
Speaker 6: perpetrate his murder, and now they're going to be his pollbearers.
Speaker 6: Got I got a little problem there, guys. You know,
Speaker 6: you know, but I did go to I did go
Speaker 6: to his Uh. I did go to his grave as
Speaker 6: part of pull it research. Whatever or I can tell
Speaker 6: you is this, I don't care what he did in
Speaker 6: his life. Okay, he didn't deserve to be murdered. Nobody
Speaker 6: deserves to be murdered, period, and and and and it's
Speaker 6: wrong and uh, you know, and and there's one other
Speaker 6: thing that you know, and you know, I'll leave this.
Speaker 6: You know, if people are listening and they're interested in
Speaker 6: buying the book, which is on Amazon Kindle, you'll find
Speaker 6: some interesting stuff that we haven't discussed at the very end,
Speaker 6: and which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that
Speaker 6: the night that he was killed, Grady Stiles was not
Speaker 6: a menace to anybody, no matter what he did in
Speaker 6: his life that night. He was not a menace to anybody.
Speaker 6: And that's on the book and you.
Speaker 2: Can see it.
Speaker 6: I mean you can see it, you can smell it it,
Speaker 6: you know. And I always felt like, you know, our
Speaker 6: job is Dan when we're doing this work and your
Speaker 6: true crime author as well as I am, we speak
Speaker 6: for the dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that's that's true, absolutely, because a lot
Speaker 2: you know, it is customary for people. And again sometimes
Speaker 2: the big bad media to depict people as you know,
Speaker 2: somehow have it coming to him and wrong place at
Speaker 2: the wrong time, or or they because they'll use the
Speaker 2: they'll they'll note some people as well, the innocent victim. Well,
Speaker 2: they're all innocent victims. I mean, for the amount of
Speaker 2: people that we can say, okay, absolutely, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: I I'd like to just think of all people, no
Speaker 2: matter what their foibles, whatever they're they're past, they're a
Speaker 2: murder victim. And certainly that's part of our task, is
Speaker 2: to find out the truth because we do speak for
Speaker 2: those people. Sometimes the last cline that shall not kill.
Speaker 2: Now speaking of speaking for the dead, and we are
Speaker 2: going to get to this case of Kendrick Johnson and
Speaker 2: we've had a couple programs already on True Murder about
Speaker 2: this specifically, and we've had a little bit of well,
Speaker 2: we've had developments. Let's let's get right to that. Give
Speaker 2: us a sort of a recap for those people that
Speaker 2: don't know anything about Kendrick Johnson, and they'll be motivated
Speaker 2: to go back in the archives and listen to some
Speaker 2: of the programs and do some of the research, and
Speaker 2: go online and look at Abony Magazine some of the
Speaker 2: articles that you've written already. So tell us give us
Speaker 2: a little synopsis of this case, and then we can
Speaker 2: get up to speed on what the latest developments are
Speaker 2: in this incredible case.
Speaker 6: On January the tenth, two benty thirteen, Kadri Johnson, seventeen
Speaker 6: year old African American teenager, walked into the gym at
Speaker 6: Lowndes County High School in Valdosta, Georgia, and he disappeared.
Speaker 6: He disappeared like he was taking off the face of
Speaker 6: the earth. The next day, coach Philip Pioblow's class discovered
Speaker 6: him in a rose up wrestling mac in the old
Speaker 6: gym at the school, and he was dead. His face
Speaker 6: was very distorted at that point. Pictures of his distorted
Speaker 6: face became viral on the internet. The family was devastated,
Speaker 6: as anybody would be. There were no suspects. The local sheriff,
Speaker 6: a guy named Chris Prime, claimed that he died by
Speaker 6: falling into the wrestling matt while reaching for a sneaker
Speaker 6: that he'd stored there, and died from something called positional asphyxiation,
Speaker 6: which simply means that he couldn't get out, there was
Speaker 6: a lot of pressure on his chest, he couldn't breathe,
Speaker 6: he died and that's that. And so what occurred after
Speaker 6: that was that the family, Kenneth and Jackie Johnson, very
Speaker 6: courageously protested on the streets of Aldosta that their son
Speaker 6: had been murdered and that the sheriff was not doing
Speaker 6: his job and that this was wrong. Subsequently, Kendrick Johnson
Speaker 6: was found to have died from positional association by the
Speaker 6: Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is notoriously corrupt. And we
Speaker 6: have discussed this on this show before in the Gary
Speaker 6: Hilton case, and it is known in Georgia by many
Speaker 6: individuals how corrupt this organization is. And if they have
Speaker 6: any problems with what I'm saying, come and get me
Speaker 6: make my day. And so what occurs is that they
Speaker 6: claim that they do an investigation and they send out
Speaker 6: they do a pretensive investigation like it's a murder investigation.
Speaker 6: And during this investigation, during this investigation, they send a
Speaker 6: a detective to interview two boys who excuse me, one
Speaker 6: of seventeen. One is eighteen. Their dad is an FBI agent.
Speaker 6: And this dad, who's an FBI agent, was in charge
Speaker 6: of the Southwest Georgia Gang task Force and the individual
Speaker 6: the cops send out to through the investigation was part
Speaker 6: of this gang task force. Never declares conflict of interest,
Speaker 6: interviews the father, interviews the two boys, and it turns
Speaker 6: out that one of these boys has had two fights
Speaker 6: with Kendrick Johnson, the only individual we have come up
Speaker 6: with who has motive? Am I doing so far? Again?
Speaker 6: Pretty good?
Speaker 2: Tell us about the texts that were It's very compelling information.
Speaker 6: Okay, we'll be okay. There's a few things I want
Speaker 6: to say something publicly before I get to the text,
Speaker 6: which is in previous broadcast on the show, I was
Speaker 6: on with a private investigator in Ain't Baul Webster. Mister
Speaker 6: Wester had been had been employed at one point by
Speaker 6: Shavin King Junior, who was the first attorney representing the family. Subsequently,
Speaker 6: I discovered that what occurs is this in Webster had
Speaker 6: given me certain information regarding who the he claimed certain
Speaker 6: individuals were the perpetrators of this crime. However, what occurred
Speaker 6: was this, In November of twenty thirteen, Webster called me
Speaker 6: up and told me that my life was being threatened,
Speaker 6: and I was I couldn't tell. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't know how anybody else would feel. But you know,
Speaker 6: when you hear somebody's telling you that there's been texts
Speaker 6: and emails and phone calls your life is being threatened,
Speaker 6: took me aback. Well, it took me about ten minutes
Speaker 6: during that phone conversation to find out that Webster was
Speaker 6: perpetrating a hoax. He thought this was funny. Subsequently, I said,
Speaker 6: wait a second, if he's pulling this crap, there's something
Speaker 6: wrong here. And I then investigated further, and I discovered
Speaker 6: that some of the individuals that he claimed were involved
Speaker 6: in this case as bad guys, were not. He was
Speaker 6: disingenuous to the nth degree. And further, I discovered that
Speaker 6: he'd already been by the time I started writing about
Speaker 6: the case, contrary to what he told me, he'd already
Speaker 6: been fired by Shadine King Junior as the private investigator
Speaker 6: in the case. So what I did was this, I
Speaker 6: kept going, got some new contacts in Valdosta, Georgia, and
Speaker 6: luckily these were wonderful contacts, and I got a tremendous
Speaker 6: amount of cooperation from people on Twitter, people in Valdosta,
Speaker 6: my researcher who helped me out as a New Jersey.
Speaker 6: There's one investigative reporter who I'm working with in Valdosta
Speaker 6: who's a woman who's incredibly brilliant. And the whine up.
Speaker 6: We found texts and guess what. There was a student
Speaker 6: in the gym who texted when the body was discovered,
Speaker 6: and he went to chapter and verse about what occurred
Speaker 6: that day. And then on Kendrick Johnson's birthday, October tenth,
Speaker 6: he texted that the body was taken out of the
Speaker 6: gym before the car and showed up hours before and
Speaker 6: the car and I himself and his report had said
Speaker 6: the body was moved, which means that when the Karna
Speaker 6: came on the scene over four hours after the body
Speaker 6: was discovered, they had taken the body out and guess
Speaker 6: what guys they put the body back in. And when
Speaker 6: I say they, I am talking about the Lownes County
Speaker 6: Sheriff's Department, specifically Chris Prime. This information was brought to
Speaker 6: the attention of Michael J. Moore, who is the United
Speaker 6: States Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, who's opened
Speaker 6: an investigation into the case. And now it's up to
Speaker 6: mister Moore to decide whether he is going to charge
Speaker 6: Chris Prime and his investigators with corruption in this case,
Speaker 6: which he absolutely can do. So that's one of the
Speaker 6: things that's happening here. The second thing is this, and
Speaker 6: I'm hoping to write this piece for ebony dot com,
Speaker 6: which is this. I have discovered the motive, the means,
Speaker 6: and the opportunity for one of those two boys that
Speaker 6: I mentioned earlier, whose daddy is an FBI agent, to
Speaker 6: have killed Kendrick Johnson. And so that is something that
Speaker 6: I would like that I would like to write and
Speaker 6: what I would like to pursue further. I have information
Speaker 6: that has come to me about why Kendrick Johnson walked
Speaker 6: into that gym on January the tenth, how he was
Speaker 6: lured in there by somebody and there's one other point
Speaker 6: that I'd like to make publicly which I've written about,
Speaker 6: which is this. His school district was very quick to
Speaker 6: send out a press release saying, oh, and this is
Speaker 6: before the autopsies completed. Oh, he died from positional assixiation.
Speaker 6: You know what. The Lounge County superintendent is a man
Speaker 6: named Wes Taylor. It was his daughters who decid covered
Speaker 6: the body in the mat. Now I understand being a
Speaker 6: father trying to diminish your children's participation in a case
Speaker 6: to protect them. However, there is a greater interest here
Speaker 6: and a greater good, which is justice for a boy
Speaker 6: that was murdered. And that's where mister Michael Moore comes in.
Speaker 6: He needs to and he is dispatched rather five FBI
Speaker 6: agents to Lowndes County. They're blanketed Georgia. They're interviewing individuals
Speaker 6: who knows something about this case, and the hope is
Speaker 6: that they are going to come back with information that
Speaker 6: will lead to the indictment of the individual or individuals
Speaker 6: who have committed this murder. And if anybody who's reading
Speaker 6: this thinks this isn't murder, then I suggest you go
Speaker 6: see a Steven Spielberg film A guy named e t Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this is a fascinating story of cover up,
Speaker 2: but it's also a very tragic story, but also an
Speaker 2: encouraging story of parents taking again justice into their own
Speaker 2: hands and demanding justice on the streets of Aldosta, but
Speaker 2: also at the courthouse of Aldosta, locking arms and and
Speaker 2: and daring them to arrest them. So these people have
Speaker 2: you know, your heart goes out to these people. A young,
Speaker 2: really good looking kid with a lot of promise in
Speaker 2: his life. And when you see the photos, it's a
Speaker 2: visceral reaction that his face was look, his teeth were
Speaker 2: knocked out. It was incredible. And like you say, the coroner,
Speaker 2: very powerful with the coroner says this is they didn't
Speaker 2: they didn't follow any kind of procedure. I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: be called immediately. So you've got one heck of a
Speaker 2: story going on here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, let me just let me just correct something. His
Speaker 6: teeth were knocked out. What occurred was this when doctor
Speaker 6: William Anderson, who is an absolutely brilliant pathologist, was pulled
Speaker 6: in by the family, they breathed. What they did was
Speaker 6: in June of last year, they disanted the body they
Speaker 6: sent it to doctor Anderson in Orlando and he did
Speaker 6: the second autopsy. That's when he found that the organs
Speaker 6: were missing. Now that is what became the news. Okay,
Speaker 6: and doctor Anderson said to me, Fred, he said, everybody's
Speaker 6: going to pick up on this business of the organs missing.
Speaker 6: It's a red herring, he said. The fact is I
Speaker 6: read the first off, I read the report of the
Speaker 6: original autopsy by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They claimed
Speaker 6: with lungs weighed the normal amount. He said, if it
Speaker 6: was positional asphyxiation, the lungs would filled with order, which
Speaker 6: means he didn't die from it. And doctor Anderson then
Speaker 6: did a dissection of Kate Kj's neck. He discovered that
Speaker 6: kJ died from one blow to his neck or it
Speaker 6: could have been pressure performed by a wrestling hold. Remember
Speaker 6: the two kids that I mentioned earlier, whose daddy's an
Speaker 6: FBI agent.
Speaker 5: Yes, just what.
Speaker 6: They're both wrestless. Okay, they're both wrestlers, and one of
Speaker 6: them is a is a brilliant football player. Okay, these
Speaker 6: are very strong, capable kids. So what we have and
Speaker 6: and the parents, Jackie and Kenneth Johnson, have been pushing
Speaker 6: by for justice by and tomorrow morning. If anybody is
Speaker 6: listening to what I'm saying, and you're out on the
Speaker 6: street of streets of Albosta, you're seeing from Corneus they're protesting,
Speaker 6: looking for justice. And the hope is this that Michael
Speaker 6: Moore no relation to the documentary film producer. That's why
Speaker 6: I always call Michael Jaymore to differentiate him from the
Speaker 6: dude from Michigan. Michael is going to he has said
Speaker 6: to me, and I believe him. I believe he's one
Speaker 6: of the few federal officials we have that's earning his salary.
Speaker 6: Mister Morning has said to me that he will go
Speaker 6: any place to get justice. He is investigating until I'll
Speaker 6: see otherwise. I as an American, I support what he's doing.
Speaker 6: As a journalist. I will always hold his feet to
Speaker 6: the fire. Which is what we have to do, isn't it, Dan.
Speaker 6: I don't care if it's you know, I don't care
Speaker 6: if it's right. It makes some difference if if it's
Speaker 6: you know, if it's a federal official, a member of
Speaker 6: you know, of Parliament, the Prime Minister, of the president.
Speaker 6: That's what we do, okay. And so what more is?
Speaker 6: What more is doing is gathering information. At the end
Speaker 6: of the day, whenever that is, he makes a decision,
Speaker 6: do I have enough evidence to indict? Personally, I think
Speaker 6: he's got enough evidence right now to go after the
Speaker 6: Lowndes County Sheriff's Department for turning up what occurred that day.
Speaker 6: And I might add, ladies and gentlemen that the corner
Speaker 6: said and the evidence is there, the cops compromise the
Speaker 6: crime scene, Dan, the kids found in the wrestling that
Speaker 6: you're ready for this? Do you know what they did
Speaker 6: with the wrestling that they coined it? Sure, they coined
Speaker 6: it in. And guess what besides the fact that his
Speaker 6: audience disappeared after the first of the popsy, he's clothing disappeared.
Speaker 6: We called that forensics' clothing disappeared. And guess what the
Speaker 6: video of him playing in that gym and facing his
Speaker 6: fate that disappeared. Excuse me and these quates in in
Speaker 6: v Algaska. The cops, the white power establishment think they're
Speaker 6: gonna get away with this crap. And the only way
Speaker 6: they don't get away with it is when people like
Speaker 6: us talk about it publicly the way that we are now.
Speaker 6: And we called them out and say Okay, you think
Speaker 6: you're gonna get it's not gonna happen. We're not. And
Speaker 6: the and the Johnson family has been out there in
Speaker 6: the street protesting, and I think that they that eventually
Speaker 6: we will get justice for Kate Day, because that's what
Speaker 6: this is about. We can't let something like this go
Speaker 6: on because quite frankly, if we let that happen, it
Speaker 6: can happen to any of our kids any place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that is it. You know, you pay a
Speaker 2: huge price for justice, and in fact, there is wrongful
Speaker 2: convictions constantly, but there's also these non convictions where if
Speaker 2: not for the family and then subsequently for people like
Speaker 2: yourself and private investigators and activists tweeting and commenting on
Speaker 2: a case like this keeping it alive because like you
Speaker 2: had mentioned in another interview that Valdosta is kind of
Speaker 2: out of the way, kind of isolated, and things can
Speaker 2: happen in small places with people with special interests, and
Speaker 2: so an incredible crime like this was just going to
Speaker 2: be covered up really easily without the efforts of the
Speaker 2: family first and then all the other people that were
Speaker 2: affected by seeing this travesty of justice. So we pay
Speaker 2: a high price for this, and we should demand that
Speaker 2: the system works the way it's supposed to work, and
Speaker 2: this certainly has you know, well, you've got the attention
Speaker 2: of Attorney General or the Attorney State Attorney Michael J. Moore.
Speaker 2: So that is testament that there's some validity to cover up,
Speaker 2: and that's why the heavy charges are being considered. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I wish the family luck there, and I think the
Speaker 2: added pressure that these lots of times, it's never underestimate
Speaker 2: people looking at this kind of case and demanding justice.
Speaker 6: So well, never never underestimate a journalist who hosts a
Speaker 6: radio show, you who is given this attention, and there
Speaker 6: are people out there who listen to your podcast all
Speaker 6: the time, and I've seen them quote it on Twitter.
Speaker 6: So I just want to say personally, thank you very
Speaker 6: much for your commitment to this case.
Speaker 2: Well, it's my pleasure because this is really if there
Speaker 2: is any kind of purpose to a show other than
Speaker 2: telling stories of justice and good police work and dedicated
Speaker 2: prosecutors and dedicated defense attorneys as well, and the psychopathic
Speaker 2: and twisted killers that are a part of these stories.
Speaker 2: But when you have this kind of again, travesty of justice,
Speaker 2: these are stories that obviously the audience is interested in
Speaker 2: as well, because we're all we'd all love to see
Speaker 2: justice actually happen the way we believe in this system.
Speaker 2: We know that this is a system that we have,
Speaker 2: and when we are participants in writing that wrong and
Speaker 2: understanding the difference between justice and injustice, that again, I
Speaker 2: think the true crime reader is that kind of passionate
Speaker 2: person and the person that listens to these programs, who
Speaker 2: authors tell their stories, that's the kind of person that
Speaker 2: they are. It's not a it's not a thrill seeking person.
Speaker 2: It's a person that's interested in the most serious type
Speaker 2: of history, and that is true crime.
Speaker 6: You know what that There's nothing I can say except
Speaker 6: that you're you know, you're very eloquent, and I couldn't
Speaker 6: you know, there's no way to say that any better
Speaker 6: than than what you've said. And uh and I couldn't
Speaker 6: agree with you more about the reader. I've discovered that too,
Speaker 6: on especially on Facebook, that there you know, there's a
Speaker 6: there's a group that I am part of talking true
Speaker 6: crime with Maria and these people are these people are
Speaker 6: incredibly dedicated to the truth and and and it's it's
Speaker 6: it's astonishing, it's really astonishing, and I'm just hoping that
Speaker 6: there'll be enough interest in this and I know you
Speaker 6: have an international audience that people will continue to pay
Speaker 6: attention to this particular case because there's many cases in
Speaker 6: the world. There's many cases all over the world. But
Speaker 6: if we start here and we're successful, it just keeps going.
Speaker 6: And because of the fact that you have an international audience,
Speaker 6: you make a difference. You make a difference in people's lives.
Speaker 6: So again, thank you very much for continuing to bring
Speaker 6: this case to the attention of your listening audience.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Fred for those kind words. And I
Speaker 2: want to thank this the audience that tunes in and
Speaker 2: all the people that email me constantly and tell me
Speaker 2: just letters of support, comments on how much they they
Speaker 2: value the program and value the authors that come on
Speaker 2: and talk about their books and the stories, and the
Speaker 2: entertainment value of it all and the benefit of it,
Speaker 2: the educational aspects of it. Oftentime. You're picking the brains.
Speaker 2: I'm picking the brains of the people that are the
Speaker 2: experts in this area. And there's so many people fascinated
Speaker 2: by that. I wanted to say before we go to that.
Speaker 2: I'm very happy also to have Audible, the world's leading
Speaker 2: name in digital audiobooks as the sponsor of this program
Speaker 2: as well, and I wanted to tell people that listen
Speaker 2: to the program today that there's a thirty day free trial.
Speaker 2: If you haven't experienced audiobooks as of yet, Audible is
Speaker 2: the place to start, with over about one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand titles and growing. And they're also I didn't
Speaker 2: know this, but they're the leading producer provider of radio
Speaker 2: and television and audio versions of newspapers and magazines. So
Speaker 2: they really are the biggest name and information, education and
Speaker 2: entertainment in audiobooks. And for those people that again, an
Speaker 2: ebook is an experience. A paperback, of course, is what
Speaker 2: everyone grew up with.
Speaker 6: I grew up with, you grew up with.
Speaker 2: It's not going to go away. But an audiobook is
Speaker 2: really a completely different experience. And so with the very
Speaker 2: best narrators, Audible really does provide an experience that you
Speaker 2: just don't get. And there's a lot of people that
Speaker 2: are on the road or very very interested for various reasons.
Speaker 2: Some people are handicapped visually, people are on the road
Speaker 2: and basically got two hands on the wheel, and so
Speaker 2: they want to listen to audiobooks. There's all kinds of people,
Speaker 2: but if you haven't heard them, it's an amazing experience.
Speaker 2: It's really totally something that you haven't experienced. Sort of
Speaker 2: use that word again. And if you do visit audible
Speaker 2: please audible dot com slash true Murder tell them Dan
Speaker 2: sent you so again thirty day free trial and experience
Speaker 2: a free audio book right now and go see Audible
Speaker 2: an Amazon company. So thank you very much for that.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to thank you Fred for coming on
Speaker 2: and again sharing this story of the Kendrick Johnson because
Speaker 2: this is close to my heart. I know it's close
Speaker 2: to your heart, and I think the fans are and
Speaker 2: they've responded this way that they're very interested in being
Speaker 2: part of this story and seeing this to come to
Speaker 2: fruition because it's we've got this information in bits and
Speaker 2: pieces and very much a very unique experience, and I'm
Speaker 2: very very positive people will be very very interested in
Speaker 2: the book. And then getting down to the entire background
Speaker 2: and your involvement in this case. Again, you've stuck your
Speaker 2: neck out and you're making some claims and you're digging deep,
Speaker 2: and you're the leading purveyor of this in this case,
Speaker 2: I applaud you on that, and I want to thank
Speaker 2: you very much for coming on talking about Lobster Boy
Speaker 2: and talking about this case as well well.
Speaker 6: Dan, thank you very very much. As always, I love
Speaker 6: being on with you. I am going to check out Audible.
Speaker 6: I recommend that everybody else to who's listening to support
Speaker 6: Audible because that means it supports you. And all I
Speaker 6: can wish you is good health and happiness in this
Speaker 6: new year for all of us.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and really, Audible is really just providing another
Speaker 2: way for people to enjoy the author's books. You know
Speaker 2: now that with the advent of published on demand and
Speaker 2: now with the books as we've just demonstrated with Lobster Boy,
Speaker 2: a book that might have been hard to find now
Speaker 2: is accessible everywhere and it's very reasonable prices. So it
Speaker 2: gives the true crime fan even even more to go
Speaker 2: back because nothing can match a story like Lobster Boy.
Speaker 8: It's just.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, this is just such a wild tale.
Speaker 2: I mean, with all these developments and in in No
Speaker 2: there was, you will never find this kind of freak
Speaker 2: show going on again. It's a slice of Americana and
Speaker 2: it's amazing, and.
Speaker 6: It's just I don't know what the Canadian Canadiana, I
Speaker 6: don't know. It's also part of Canada because he played
Speaker 6: Canada too.
Speaker 2: There's a famous movie actually I saw and it was
Speaker 2: the closest thing to this story here Lobster But I
Speaker 2: was so excited to read this book is that there
Speaker 2: was a movie that was only really collectors and it
Speaker 2: was I guess it was illegal to actually own, and
Speaker 2: of course I knew somebody that owned a copy of it.
Speaker 2: It was called Freaks, and I think it was shot
Speaker 2: in Toronto, and it was amazing. They said, you know,
Speaker 2: this would never ever happen again because of all the
Speaker 2: developments in medical techniques and people didn't stay as freaks,
Speaker 2: and people again you know a bore that kind of word,
Speaker 2: and the whole freak show kind of carnival thing that
Speaker 2: you described in Lobster Boy was kind of outlawed in Canada.
Speaker 2: But they did make this film and they actually used
Speaker 2: you know, the man with no arms and legs lighting
Speaker 2: a cigarette, and they and they employed all of these
Speaker 2: actors loosely in this and in this story, and so
Speaker 2: what an incredible tale. But this is about the close
Speaker 2: freak and Lobster Boy, so great.
Speaker 4: The freaks.
Speaker 6: Was was the film was from the nineteen thirties if
Speaker 6: we're talking about the same.
Speaker 2: Film, that's right, Yeah, absolutely, yeah Toronto. Well, I that's
Speaker 2: what I remember. I remember was nineteen thirty two. As
Speaker 2: you say, that's that's from my memory, but maybe not
Speaker 2: cost But what I don't know if that's for sure.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's for sure. But I saw
Speaker 2: a copy, well like thirty years ago. So I saw
Speaker 2: a copy of The.
Speaker 6: Mid Here you go, huh wow, thank you. I gotta
Speaker 6: watch it. I've never seen it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much, Fred, and I hope to
Speaker 2: hear from you again soon. And I'm sure we'll be
Speaker 2: talking again soon because I know that that this Michael
Speaker 2: Moore will be we'll be doing something that will be
Speaker 2: encouraging to the family and all those people that are
Speaker 2: looking at this case very very seriously.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you again for your interest in and I'll
Speaker 6: talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Fred. Have a good night, you you sir, good night,
Speaker 6: good night.