S5, Chapter 7: A Few Bad Orchards

0:04 Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions of violence and sexuality. Listener discretion is advised. Now we often hear from police advocates that in reality, the problem is just a few bad apples who give the entire police force a bad name. And to be honest, this is what I believed my entire adult life. When I was growing up, I went through a phase of a few years where I thought I wanted to become a cop. I've mostly respected and admired police officers. I think it's admirable that they put their lives on the line to protect us, to keep our society safe, and to those committed to integrity and accountability. I still do admire them. But the few bad apples narrative I begun to believe is flawed. Happens when the roots of an apple tree becomes so poisoned that the fruit the tree is destined to bear is just as rotten. I think everyone has a bit of a fascinat sheet of the Dark Side. By myself, most love the dark Side as well.

1:26 I think it's something that everyone secretly longs for. WANs do what happened? What happen? You gotta be a man man man up the dark side of the dark Dark. Mitch Brailsford continued to enjoy his thirty thousand dollars per year tax free allotment for his so called PTSD. Charles Langley enjoyed the beaches of the Philippines with his wife, but Laney continued to struggle with not just surviving, but how to raise two daughters without a dad. The trauma of losing a parent is undeniable. I've seen grown men break down over the emotional toll of losing their mom or dad, and I don't look forward to the day when my own parents die. T will eventually come, and so I can only imagine it's exponentially more challenging for a child to come to terms with the reality of death, especially at death as unjustified as the death of Daniel Shaver.

2:44 After the murder of George Floyd, America was a markedly less friendly place towards the officers in blue, and some cops took to TikTok and social media to express how hard it was for them to exist in this digital age when so much of the online conversation was filled with vitriol towards their chosen profession. Laney responded to one of these videos, and I want to play it for you, man. Want it time to be a cop in America right now where you can literally do your job textbook, save a young girl's life from being stabbed and still get shown for it. Like I can't even get on Facebook right now because I see all these news articles with the headlines please shoot and kill a sixteen year old girl. Like no, that police officer just saved a young girl's life from being stabbed. Unreal. Hey, my name's Laney Sweet. I am the widow of Daniel Shaver, who was executed by Philip Brelsford of Mesa Police Department in twenty sixteen. I want you to put yourself in my children's shoes. They are twelve and nine and they have absolutely no access to social media or smartphones or anything of the sort, because I am deathly afraid that they are going to accidentally stumble upon their dad's video of him being murdered. So it works both ways, and later she recorded this message for police. If you're a police officer, I want you to listen very closely to this video. Please. I am asking you, guys, I am begging you, guys, to speak out against this. If you

4:14 believe that Daniel shavers killing was unjustified, if you believe that their policies and their de escalation training was not that, if you believe that this was murder, if you believe that Brelsford walked away when he should be in jail, if you believe that Daniel Shavers should still be alive, I am asking you to speak out. I am still out there trying to defend your profession, and yet where are you trying to hold accountability for my husband's death. I have made it my mission to make sure my kids don't distrust all of you, but it's really hard. Emery was Laney's youngest daughter. She was nine years old and was going into fourth grade. The shooting happened in twenty sixteen, when Emory was only four years old, So while she remembers her dad, she never really got to know him. How well can you actually know a person when you're four? In your entire vocabulary is barely nine hundred words.

5:15 All right, tell me a happy memory with you and daddy. Okay, when we went to the beach. That's a good memory. And they're too my namely a kid, do what now pick another one, pick a new one. Okay, I have other things. What do you miss about Daddy? Oh? When? When? Like when he was alive? Like, what did you like to do with him? Um? I like to play with him, Make snowballs, Make snowballs. What else did you like to do? Ah Plague play. So Emory doesn't really have a ton of memories of Danny. A lot of the memories I can tell our memories that I've shared with her through pictures or videos, keeping his memory alive by keeping a photo album here in her room in the living room, we have pictures all around the house of him. Emory means home strength. She was born at home and was their little home birth baby. There is actually a picture I'm in her room right now because she's in my room of her the day she was born. It was because of her birth and my empowering homebirth experience that I became a birthworker myself and have been there to support hundreds of families doing that precious and honored, sacred time. So she kind of changed the

6:45 trajectory of my entire life. Thank gosh. Well, Laney's oldest daughter, Natalie, was hit hardest by the death in the beginning, Emory faced a different kind of tragic loss, a more delayed morning, and she began to grieve memories that didn't exist and never would see the thing. I knew Natalie struggled the hardest at first, but she was really really close with him. But I knew one day would hit Emory, that it would be even harder in her own way because she doesn't remember him. And that moment came last year on Danny's birthday. We were in Palm Springs in a hot tub, and she started crying and was like, I don't even remember my dad at all, and so it's starting to hit her. And I've dreaded this for years. Yeah, Brailsford and Langley had permanently been removed to or left on their own accord from the Masa PD, but that didn't mean an end to the department's encounters with controversy. In the years following the Daniel Shaver's shooting, more videos of Mesa police brutality began to emerge. In June of twenty eighteen, disturbing body camera video showed Mesa police repeatedly punching an unarmed, non violent man in the face. In the video, we see Robert Johnson, a

8:16 thirty five year old blackmail talking on the phone while multiple officers approach him from behind and they search his pockets while he continues with his phone call. Yeah, so what's going on? Almost it came back to dropping teas off chaster piece. I grab my stuff and my first form of sceptre were good. Moments later, they lose their temper. They escort Robert to a wall near an elevator, which is just a few steps away, and they ask him to sit down. This is when things escalate out of control. I've seen Robert sits kind of halfway down the wall, but not all the way down, and he's still looking at his cell phone, but it seems he has ended the phone call. Now, remember at this point, he's been frisked and police know he's unarmed, dude, they told. Officer John day Jones grabs Robert by the back of the neck and pulls him down to his knee, striking him in the stomach twice. Another officer punches him in the face.

9:28 His arms are being held down by a few other police officers that have gathered around, and then Officer John day Jones punches Robert full four six times in the face. What happens? Do whatever? Get in there, get his arm back, got him hold on watch ar okay, I'm on you, barrel. Robert did not strike back single time during the entire interaction. Police handcuff Robert and tie his feet together. As they are escorting him to the elevator, Robert tells the officers quote, you didn't need to put all that force on me. And then as the elevator doors about three fourths of the way open, Detective Robert Gambi smashes Robert's face into the elevator door with such force that it prevents it from opening all the way. The detective grabs Robert's head, pulls it back with a little bit of momentum, and smashes his face into the elevator door a couple more times. Robert had bruising and contusions to his right hand and left chest wall and was diagnosed with a concussion and post concussion headaches. In Mesa, Arizona, disturbing surveillance video released yesterday shows six police officers involved in an assault on a black man in a stairwell.

10:45 You can see four officers approach the man and exchange words before they start throwing punches. Then another two officers come out of the elevator. Police say the man refused to follow instructions to sit down. Three of the cops involved are now on paid lead and one is on administrative lead. Now this is when things begin to get interesting. Robert Johnson's lawyers went to the police records office and requested the background for Officer John Day Jones, specifically citizen complaints against him, and they found files, but not the kind that they were expecting.

11:26 They found certificates of records destructions, which is a document that's produced when a file is destroyed. According to the City of Mesa's own guidelines, citizen complaints do not need to be retained and can be requested to be destroyed by the own officer who they were against. Also, after three years, an officer's general records can be destroyed, and after five years, any disciplinary reports can be destroyed. The only records that Arizona law requires to be permanently retained are those resulting in termination, dismissal, or resignation. Everything else could be destroyed and in its place a simple record of destruction. Officer John Day jones internal affairs records were permanently purged in twenty twelve, and so any and all citizen complaints and use of force investigations prior to that date are no longer accessible to anyone. Phoenix New Times reports quote, under this policy, it seems that a police union member could shoot someone, but as long as the shooting met department policy at the time that had occurred, all record of that shooting would be removed from their departmental files. And it gets worse. A video obtained by twelve News shows the last police chief, Frank Millstead, instructing officers to quote purge your files and quote make sure the things you don't want in there aren't in there. That clip became so infamous it actually made it to

12:58 John Oliver's h investigative news show. One reason it can be hard to spot problem officers is that in many jurisdictions, policies allow discipline records to be destroyed. Then Mesa, Arizona, when a journalist started demanding records, a police chief actually made an internal video reminding his officers that there was a way for them to clean up their past. I don't want anybody to have to relive a problem that's already been adjudicated that they've already been disciplined four that has already seen scrutiny in the public eye. So perjure files according to policy, make sure that there's the things that you don't want in there, aren't in there that seems wrong. You should not be able to raise parts of your past that are damning. This is an official police file, not a Volkswagen corporate history that somehow starts after World War Two. Even though most of his files have been destroyed, John Tay Jones still had plenty of history In the past five years. He was involved in seventeen separate FOCE incidents between twenty twelve and twenty seventeen. These included bean bag round strikes, baton strikes, taser firing, unspecified deadly force, control holds, and deployment of a chemical agent.

14:13 The documents don't indicate whether there were any follow up investigations into these incidents. There was a citizen complaint alleging excessive force and discourtesy filed against Jones in twenty thirteen, but Massa found the allegations were not sustained. In addition to the Robert Johnson case and the Daniel Shaver case, there was another video to emerge at this time showing the Masa police assaulting a handcuffed fifteen year old new At Two officers placed on leave after a video surface showing them treating a fifteen year old armed robbery suspect roughly. The officers were caught on camera cursing at the boy, grabbing his shirt tightly around his neck, and stepping on him while he's handcuffed on the Now some of those responding officers are also part of the same squad scene in this video. It shows officers beating up a man who wasn't even a suspect on this call. As you heard in that news clip, the fifteen year old was an armed robbery suspect, and many of the suspects in these police incidents are suspected of committing violent crimes, but that's far from the case for all of them, such as this eighty four year old grandmother who was brutalized by police when they showed up at her home to do a wellness check. A new investigation within the ranks of the Mason Police Department because of what an eighty four year old grandmother has just told us. Traumatized, hurt, and sad. That's how eighty four year old Virginia says she's

15:45 feeling. I've talked police out out in front of my house for thirty years, and there wasn't everybody that ever behaved like this. Grabbed my wrist real hard and I didn't known anybody could hold you so hard and hurt so bad. I said, oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? And I guess the next thing I was waking up on the asphalt next to the police car. In a statement, Masa police Admitchie using force on Virginia, but say it happened because she tried to go back inside and the officer was grabbing her to protect her her family. It's calling for major accountabilities that shouldn't happen. There should never be any reason for an eighty four year old grandmother who is she's had her fourth stroke in December to be put on the ground. What's he doing to other people that he that he misunderstands the situation? Before we continue, I want to make a concession by no means do I think policing is an easy job and each case is filled with ambiguities.

16:52 And if we heard the comps perspective, I'm sure there would be a different take on the story. I'm not here to say that all police are bad. The officers who have chosen this profession risked their lives every day, and many of them are killed in the line of duty. Over a hundred officers have already died in the line of duty in the year twenty twenty two, whether that's been gunfire, vehicular assault, etc. Having said all that, it's hard to ignore that we have a serious problem in America with our police, and cities like Mesa are prime example. Originally, I wanted to briefly review each of the abuse of force cases in the Masa PD in the last four to five years, and while studying the Daniel Shaver case, I knew this type of abuse was happening in Mesa specifically, but I thought it was probably a rare thing, maybe a handful of abuse of force cases each year, maybe a dozen, maybe two dozen in the past five years.

17:48 How wrong that estimate turned out to be. Arizona Central has done an excellent job of reporting a detailed analysis on Mesa police abuse of force history. One of the most extensive breakdowns is of the year twenty fourteen. There were one hundred and fifty eight abuse of force investigations by the Masa PD into their own department that year. That doesn't even account for any abuse of force cases that were not investigated. One hundred and fifty eight in one year. That's almost an abuse of force occurrence every other day. And what about the investigations. How often did MASA PD find wrongdoing by their own officer three three times in one hundred and fifty eight cases. That's not just hard to believe, it's in the realm of complete fantasy. Less than two percent of those internal investigations resulted in any action taken, which is why it's not just important to have an independent review board, but it's an absolute necessity to preventing police corruption.

18:55 Of the eighteen thousand police departments in the United States currently only two hundred half review boards, which is barely one percent. I'm not saying a review board is the only solution, but it's a step in the right direction. Throughout all these incidents of violence, MESA had no independent review board. As I said, it would be impossible to take you through each one of the incidents in the last five years. As we're looking at five six, seven hundred cases, but some that stuck out to me. That all mention or Ivan Christick, an unarmed man who was shot to death outside his house in twenty sixteen. In twenty eighteen, the shooting of an unarmed African American man who was mentally challenged. In twenty seventeen, Scott Farnsworth, who was shot to death eleven times by three officers. In that same year, they stomped on a man and laughed at him while he was handcuffed on the ground and in a pool of his own blood. Beli's bodycam footage tonight showing officers punching a guy and then mocking him. Today, the man you've seen in these videos is telling us his side of the story. Yeah, Mesa Believe Department of Department once again under fire this evening after more video surfaces of yet another violent and many would argue brutal arrest. Twenty three year old Masa resident jose Condy today talking about this the night back in January when he was a passenger in a friend's car, the car pulled over, Condy taken into custody. This

20:25 just released police bodycamp video showing some of the violent arrest police Condy was resisting assaulting officers and had some cocaine stashed in a sack. I was searched. I was thrown to the ground. I was heaping into a wall. I was tased. I was punched over and over by multiple cops. I was gouging the eye. The police bodycamp video released to the media yesterday by jose Condy's defense attorney. Some of it shot in the hospital where jose Condi lay on the floor after allegedly trying to make a run for it. When officers act like this, it causes citizens to question the integrity of other good officers.

21:12 I had to have my ears zone back on, I had to have my head stapled back together. And what happens to these guys. Nothing, They don't get charged with anything. They just go back to their jobs and they possibly do this to other people. And that's unacceptable. Oh, you gotta be a man. Man man up. And then in twenty eighteen, there was the brutal beating of Cole Spencer. The body camp footage of this assault is so disturbing that it rivals the shooting of Daniel Shaver. It is sadistic. Three officers hold down Cole Spencer. They knee him in the head, smash his face repeatedly into the ground, wrapped their hands around his neck and choke him. Stun him with a stunt gun seven different times, spray him point blank in the eyes with pepper spray, broke multiple bones in his face, rubbed half the skin on his face off, put a knee on top of his neck, almost identical to what we see in the George Floyd murder. Cole said many times, I can't breathe, and after you watched the video, it's pretty amazing that they didn't kill him. Cole Spencer spent three days in the hospital for his injuries. The video we're about to show involves one of the most gruesome police beatings I've seen in twenty years as a reporter. A warning it's not appropriate for all viewers. It is at the center of a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Mesa, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, and several officers, including Aaron Pew. This is Masa's

22:48 squad officer Aaron Pew in March twenty eighteen. He's one of three officers holding down Cole Spencer, face down in the dirt, Pew rams his knee into Cole's head twice, then slams his face into the ground twice. But it's about to get a lot worse, and there's tasering. Cole stunned it seven times for a total of thirty six seconds. It's still not over. Officer Pew grabs Cole's neck with both hands and squeezes, hoping Cole would go unconscious so we could control him. He said in his police report, you should know that Cole Spencer is far from a model citizen. While he does not have a violent criminal history, he does have a long rap sheet for burglaries.

23:41 He was high on drugs the day of this meeting and he's now in prison. I stole something that wasn't mind, Cole explained what happened before the beating. We can't see it because MESA does not require SWAT team members like Pew to wear body cameras. The only video came from MCSO deputy who arrived later. Cole was a passenger in this car stopped for a minor traffic violation, and after Cole gave a false name, the officers moved to arrest him god under Arizona law. Pushing or shoving an officer is a serious felony aggravated assault on an officer. The MESA officers claimed Cole was fighting back with superhuman strength, so they cut off the blood supply to his brain. Those police departments have either eliminated the karatet neck restraint or they've elevated it to the point of, you know, it's a it's a choice between that or possibly using their firearm a deadly, a deadly forced situation. The legal standard is what would a reasonable officer do under the circumstances. Why didn't you just put your hand on your back question? That's a good question. I can answer that very, very easily. It's called NMI. It's called neuromuscular incapacitation. Cole says the repeated taser deployments left him unable to move. At other points, he says, he was unconscious to kick me right in my face, the blood everywhere. I can't even hear him. I didn't hear anything if he were killing me. I was just seeing like a survival. But even after handcuffing, officers continue to use force. Right here, Officer Pu appears to

25:12 put his knee on Cole's neck, sadistically inflicted. All this is on me. I want him to be held accountable like like I'm held accountable. And Officer Aaron Pugh was accused of excessive force again this July. He shot bean bag rounds at Lorenzo Jones while serving a warrant, even though Jones had his hands up and his small children nearby. There was no need for this under the law. He was complying. He had his shirt off, no weapons on him, He wasn't a threat. Mesa Police found Pew's use of force was justified against Jones. A Masa Police spokeswoman did say Pugh was in good standing and it is expected that an officer who is actively working in the field will be the subject of complaints, and she reiterated Cole Spencer's complaint about excessive force was not sustained. Police officers play an important role in our society.

26:15 They arrest suspected criminals and take them into custody so that the judicial process may take its course. What the police are not is judge or jury, but that is the role they have assumed in the Mesa Police Department and in many other police departments throughout the country. In Mesa specifically, they reached a potential turning point in the year twenty seventeen, a moment of possible redemption for their disgraced police department. A man stepped forward to become the new chief of Mesa Police and that man was named Ramon Bautista, and he faced a monumental task to clean up the culture of corruption that seemed to have taken a stranglehold over the city's police force. If you want to skip the ads and get access to this entire season instantly in the highest audio quality, join us on Patreon.

27:25 It takes a less than a minute to sign up. That's patreon dot com. Slash Tapes from the Dark Side. We'll be right back. In July twenty seventeen, Ramon Bautista inherited a police department in crisis. Ramon began his career thirty one years prior, when he joined the police force in Tucson, Arizona, in nineteen eighty six. In Tucsonon he served at nearly every position in the department, from patrol supervisor to traffic division, training academy commander, public information office director, and even the SWAT division commander. In twenty eleven, Ramone became captain and then the assistant chief of the Investigative Division in twenty sixteen. That's where he oversaw nearly every aspect of the department. Ramone seemed to be everything you'd want and a police officer, and when he became the chief of Mesa Police, he was dedicated to trying to find alternatives to imprisonment for low level violators, to try to reduce recidivism and overall lower the high monetary and sociological cost of needless incarceration. And he had his work cut out for him. With a budget of one hundred and eighty eight million dollars, twelve hundred employees and seventy police officers. He had ambitious ideas right from the start. He wanted to embed mental health workers in nine one one call

28:59 centers, something that had never been done before. He wanted to create a diversion program where all suicide nine one one calls were directed to crisis counselors instead of police officers. He wanted to focus on community relations between the police and the citizens of Mesa, and he wanted more diversity in his department and new de escalation training that emphasized communication over use of force. But to fully appreciate the uphill battle that Ramone faced as the new chief of police, I have to give you an idea of how rotten the roots of the department had become. And for that will go back in time thirty two years ago to Mesa, Arizona, July twenty seventh, nineteen ninety. There are quite a few officers at the center of this story, but the one will focus on was known as Dick Elegant Richard g Elligot, whereas he was known to his friends and colleagues. Dick came from a police family. His father, Richard Senior, had worked as a mess of Police officer, and so did his brother Tim, who was employed by the agency at the time. Dick joined the police force in nineteen seventy eight and enjoyed a distinguished career for twelve years.

30:21 He was awarded the Medal of Valor twice, the first time in eighty four after he rescued a suicidal woman from drowning in a canal. That was the very first time in Masa's history any officer had received the Medal of Valor, and he later got his second in another suicide rescue. Dick and his wife Laurie, both thirty seven years old, had four girls who were ages sixteen, thirteen, nine, and seven, and by all accounts, this seemed like your average yet happy American family. But under the surface, something demented had taken a stranglehold over Dick Eleigate, and on July twenty seventh of nineteen ninety, his entire world would be turned upside down. On that fateful night, a sixteen year old girl called her aunt and reported that she had been the victim of abuse at the hands of none other than Officer Dick Elligot and his wife. The girl's aunt was named Betty Joe, and even though she knew dick Elligot was a police officer, she went to the only place she knew to go, the Maso Police department. Betty Joe helped her sixteen year old niece, who was named Stacy, filed the police report, which alleged four years of abuse at the hands of Richard Elegant. These were not trivial accusations. She said Richard had touched her inappropriately, groped her, stripped her nude, and given her sexual massages, and even photographed her naked a number of times. Some of these nude photograph sessions also included Richard's thirty seven year

31:55 old wife. The very next morning, a warrant was issued and the police the Elligant house for possible evidence, and what they found would change the Masa Police Department forever. The pictures they found verified everything that Stacy had said. There were X rated self produced child pornographic photographs Richard had taken of the teenage Stacy posing nude solo and masturbating, and also her nude with his wife, and then the police found the diary. The so called diary was later reported to actually be a collection of note cards which detailed the numerous sexual affairs of Richard's wife, Laurie Elligot. There were thirty seven note cards with thirty seven names, and twelve of those names were officers who worked at the Mesa Police Department. Dick and Laurie Elligot were actually out of town on vacation when Stacy made the phone call end the next day when the warrant was executed. When the couple returned home, they were arrested at the airport and taken into custody.

33:00 The couple that the Elegants were vacationing with were none other than Lieutenant Rick Heath and his wife. Rick Heath just so happened to also be Dick's supervisor. Not only that, but he was the one who had awarded Dick his medals of valor. We now know that three years before the notebook's discovery, back in nineteen eighty seven, a Mesa civilian filed a sexual harassment complaint against Dick. A high ranking mess officer said Rick Heath took care of it. He always took good care of Dickie. Rick Heath would retire shortly after the scandal broke. Here's what we know about the so called diary. Dick Elligant had personally arranged for numerous affairs between his wife and Mesa Copps. This included command level supervisors. Among the thirty seven names on those note cards. The first card detailed the day Laurie lost her virginity in age seventeen. The cards go on to list a number of sexual affairs, most of them my first name only, but some of the names will never know as Masa Police redacted them. I'll later describe how Masa Police made the decision to investigate this case themselves. Each of the cards had a series of gold or silver stars to indicate whether Laurie was married at the time of that specific encounter. Richard would later say, quote it just for my own personal reference for future things down the road to where I could refer to them as far as reference. The

34:30 investigators asked Laurie why Richard kept these note cards, and she just said, well, fantasy is down the road. But according to those closest to Dick, these note cards served a much more sinister purpose. Dick's own sister in law said they were quote insurance so that certain people will not touch him. Now, how did MASA get their hands on the diary? How were they in a position to redact the names of their own officers. Surely they wouldn't be allowed to invest gate the case themselves. Yet that's exactly what happened. The County Attorney's office permitted the mess of Police Department to investigate the child molestation case against Dick Elligott, even after the sex diary was discovered and directly showed the department had been compromised. It will come as no surprise that the original supervisor in the case was MASA PD Lieutenant Bill Hamilton, who was a personal friend of the Elligots and according to multiple sources, was also directly named in the sex diary. Bill Hamilton was taken off the case when his name came up on note card number twenty one. He said quote, I was relieved because I knew since my name was in the tyree, I wouldn't have to work on the case. He says he had no idea why Richard Elligott would falsely put his name in the diary. Yeah, okay, Bill. The Mesa County prosecutors allowed the Mesa Police officers to protect the sex ring by waiting out the names in the three hundred and seventy four page report before it was

36:02 released to the press. Yet, curiously, they left the name of the juvenile victims, which is a violation of the victim's Bill of rights in Arizona. One of the prosecutors, Jennings, said he made the right call by not insisting Masa Police removed themselves from the investigation. He said he had full confidence that the Masa PD could properly investigate this case. Another disturbing note card came towards the back of the pile. Among the more recent events on note card number thirty three was the detailed rape and molestation of a thirteen year old boy who reportedly lived near the Elegates. This note card had no name, but the detectives found the child listed on the card and interviewed him. He said he was brought into the elegates living room, where Richard led the boy to his blindfolded wife. He then said, Dick put on some records, told his wife to quote do her thing. Laurie then undressed, reclined on a coffee table, and the thirteen year old boy was forced to perform oral sex on the thirty plus year old woman. And then they had full on intercourse as Dick Elegant stood by and watched. And yet this is not the worst of it. There's one little detail that for Richard we've so far conveniently glossed over. Even the newspapers of Mesa, Arizona did not report the true identity of the sixteen year old girl Richard had molested for four years. But

37:36 now we know her name, Stacy Elegant zoned daughter coming up. In the final episode of season five of Tapes from the Dark Side, the Mesa Police Department is investigating two former officers, both Caughts, stalking out the area and your chief from own Batista's House. If you want to support Tapes from the dark Side and help us continue to make independent, investigative true crime content, then consider supporting us on Patreon. Support the show at Patreon dot com slash Tapes from the dark Side. We're also making Justice for Daniel Shaver t shirts.

38:42 Everyone at the Patreon producer tier will automatically get one, and for everyone else they'll be thirty dollars. We're having them custom made for limited release, so check out the design on Instagram and Facebook. Instagram at the dark Side Pod and Facebook dot com Slash the Darkside Pod. Thank you so much to our producers who support us at the very generous rate of fifteen dollars per month. Greg B. Christy Ramsher, J C. Leavy, Erica Walters, Joel Simonson, Sherry Sly, Angela m f and Alexis Kathleen. Thank you to twenty six hundred who allowed us to adapt his song for our main theme.

39:29 Thank you to Augusta Trevororum, and also to Emmanuel wits Doom. All the music that you heard today can be found in our show notes. Today, I want to tell you about a podcast aptly named our True Crime Podcast It's another one of those that focuses on bizarre and lesser known cases, just like us, and it's hosted by two women, Jen and Cam who respectfully yet thoroughly present true crime in a captivating way. An episode I'd recommend is number one eighty seven, The Stranger in My Home, Carolina Killer. It's one that I listened to recently and it got my blood pumping. Since I'm from North Carolina, this one hit close to home. I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes. Please go and subscribe today to our true crime podcast. Last year, there were nearly twenty two thousand murders in the US. Not surprisingly, more than two hundred true crime podcasts launch every year in the US alone. There's no shortage of crimes and no shortage of crime podcasts to cover them. But none of those shows have the heart of our true crime podcasts. Thank goodness. Well home, they didn't even have seatbelt laws back then. They ain't never worse the bet, Yeah, it's fine. He could not remember exactly what happened and thought that he had blacked out. That was about it. That's all you could tell officers. He

41:02 was drawing things, saying that the thoughts won't stop. I want to see how this plays out. It's heartbreaking. Isn't it time you made our true crime podcast your true crime podcast. Our true crime podcast available on all your favorite podcasting apps.