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Fatal Vision: The Jeffrey MacDonald Case Sep 25, 2018

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On February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, some of the most shocking murders in modern history took place. Colette MacDonald and her two young daughters were brutally murdered in their home on the base. Colette’s husband, Jeffrey MacDonald, was left wounded but he was still very much alive and well. This family massacre has fascinated and outraged people for nearly 50 years.

At the heart of this case is the relationship of a pregnant young mother with her ambitious husband, along with the character and behavior of a man believed to be either a monster or a gentleman, depending on who you’re talking to.

Jeffrey MacDonald has a version of what happened that night. Investigators and prosecutors have another version, backed up by what they see as blatant inconsistencies in his story and in the evidence.

Today’s episode will address the relationship of Jeffrey with his wife Colette, the timeline and the evidence, as well as Jeffrey MacDonald’s behavior both before and after his family was slaughtered. Did Jeffrey MacDonald brutally murder his family or was he a victim of a Manson-like gang? Join us at the quiet end for Fatal Vision: The Jeffrey MacDonald Case.

My Mother, My Killer: Theresa Knorr Sep 18, 2018

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For most of us, the relationship between mother and child is a sacred one. We love our children, put their needs above our own, and will do anything to protect them and promote their happiness. But mother of six Theresa Knorr didn’t feel any such love or devotion for her children, least of all her two daughters Sheila and Suesan.

Theresa wounded her daughter Suesan with scissors and a gun. When she wasn’t dead after a few weeks, Theresa tried to remove the bullet herself. The attempted surgery left Suesan near death. As her condition worsened, Theresa bound Suesan’s arms and legs, covered her mouth with duct tape, and ordered her sons to help her take the girl to a deserted road and burn her alive, dousing her with gasoline.
Theresa Knorr forced her other daughter Sheila into prostitution. After a few weeks, she accused Sheila of becoming pregnant and passing on a venereal disease through the family toilet seat. She beat Sheila, hogtied her, and locked her in a hot closet with no ventilation. Once Sheila’s body began to decompose, Theresa ordered her sons to dispose of her.

It took several years for Theresa to be brought to justice. During her trial, the public learned that she had been acquitted in the murder of her husband decades earlier. Her remaining youngest daughter, Terry, was the one to finally get the authorities to investigate her mother and believe what she was telling them: Theresa was a cold-blooded killer who had enlisted the help of sons in the murders of her own daughters.

As we discuss the disturbing crimes of Theresa Knorr, we will dispel the belief that a mother’s love is always selfless, always unconditional. Theresa was a dangerous and cruel mother, but the myth of all mothers putting their children first worked to silence those who had chances to stop her. Where were the good people in this story who could have saved her children? Theresa didn’t strike out of nowhere. She calculated and carried out her abuses over a period of years, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs and clues that were clearly ignored.

Theresa’s abuse could have been stopped but nobody moved to stop her. It was a legal system hesitant to believe her capable of murder, along with a society intent on minding its own business, who let her get away with the murder of two of her children and the nightmarish abuses of the remaining four.

Madison Reed

Disposable Woman: Reyna Angelica Marroquin Sep 11, 2018

Show notes

In 1999, a homeowner in Jericho, New York removed an old 55-gallon barrel from his basement. The trash men would not take it because it was too heavy. So he opened it. The smell was horrific. A woman’s shoe bobbed to the surface.
Locked away in that barrel for over thirty years was the now mummified body of a young woman and her full-term fetus. She was fully clothed with her purse and address book inside. Police would take hours extracting these remains from the barrel. The odor was so offensive that gas masks were worn by every person in the vicinity.
Investigators in this case did incredible work, examining the contents of the barrel, going over the lineage of ownership of the house, and putting together a tragic series of events that led to the violent death and decades long disposal of a young immigrant woman who put her trust in the wrong man.
In today’s discussion, Disposable Woman, we’re talking about one of the most remarkable cold cases ever solved. What may have been a simple story of an extramarital affair and an unwanted pregnancy became an obscene affront to humanity—a case of a person being cast aside and discarded as if she were nothing.

Poisonous: Audrey Marie Hilley Aug 28, 2018

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Homemaker Audrey Marie Hilley killed her husband, Frank, in 1975, and attempted to kill her daughter three years later. Her choice of victims, which also included her mother and mother-in-law, were the people close to her. Her motive was money.

What makes her case extraordinary is how she managed to elude arrest for three years while on the run, and then, while serving a 20-year-to-life sentence, managed to obtain a prison furlough and disappear into the woods of Alabama.

Her story begins in May 1975 when Frank Hilley visited his doctor complaining of nausea and pain in his abdomen. His doctor diagnosed a viral stomach ache. The condition persisted and Frank was admitted to a hospital for tests that indicated liver malfunction. Physicians then diagnosed infectious hepatitis. Because the symptoms closely resembled those of hepatitis, no tests for poison were conducted. After he died, the cause of death was listed as infectious hepatitis.
Over three years later, Audrey took out a $25,000 life insurance policy on her daughter, Carol. Within a few months, Carol began to experience nausea and was admitted to the emergency room several times. A year after insuring her daughter, Audrey gave Carol an injection that she said would help with her nausea. But her symptoms only worsened.
Audrey Marie Hilley was eventually arrested for the murder of her husband and the attempted murder of her daughter. But what if Carol had died? Would she have continued killing family members? All signs point to yes.
Today’s quiet end discussion, Poisonous, covers the twisted life and outrageous crimes of a woman to appeared to be a normal, 1960s housewife. Audrey Marie Hilley kept a home, raised her children, and just happened to commit murder when she was short on funds.

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Madison Reed

Fallen: Lisa Cecilia Harnum Aug 21, 2018

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Early on the morning of July 30, 2011, Lisa Harnum called her mother in Toronto, Canada. Terrified, told her mom that she was preparing to leave her fiancé, Simon Gittany. Simon was an emotionally abusive man. Lisa whispered over the phone that if anything was to happen to her, her mother should contact Michelle Richmond, a life coach in whom Lisa had been confiding for the past three weeks. This was the last time Joan Harnum spoke to her daughter. Just over four hours later, Simon Gittany picked up Lisa and tossed her from the balcony of their 15th floor apartment. Simon Gittany had been monitoring Lisa’s emails and text messages for months before her death. Lisa had recently confided in her personal trainer, Lisa Brown, and Michelle Richmond. She told them that Simon had cut her off from her friends and was trying to control every aspect of her life. Simon’s threats during the couple’s frequent arguments included that he could have her deported, destroying her dream of a life in Australia. With the help of her personal trainer, Lisa had begun removing her possessions from the apartment. And Simon somehow found out.

Simon would claim that his unstable girlfriend had committed suicide. But criminal records revealed that he was a violent cocaine dealer who spent time in prison. It also came to light that he was the target of a police investigation into his business dealings with two convicted meth dealers. Then a witness who came forward to say that he had seen Gittany drop Lisa. Today, in Fallen, we are covering a case of domestic violence which ended in murder. Each time we talk about a case like this, we have to consider how the murder, which might have been predicted, could have been prevented.

Jill Meagher’s Last Day Aug 04, 2018

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29-year old Jill Meagher was going about her daily life on September 22, 2012 when a man with a lengthy criminal record took it all away from her. That night, she had gone out with some friends after work for drinks. On the short walk back to her apartment, she encountered serial rapist Adrian Bayley.

CCTV would capture Bayley approaching Jill on the street at 1:40am. She had her mobile phone in her hand. His face was obscured by the blue hoodie he was wearing. When Jill didn’t make it home that night, her husband began to search for her, eventually contacting the police. She was officially a missing person at that point, but soon the awful truth would become clear: Jill had been brutally assaulted and murdered by a repeat offender out on parole.

On top of the horror of Jill Meagher’s rape and murder at the hands of Adrian Bayley, one other disturbing fact was exposed: the state’s parole system was broken. How could a man found guilty of 20 rapes in a 23-year time span be allowed to roam the streets of Melbourne’s suburbs after smashing the jaw of another man while on parole?

At the time of Jill’s murder, Bayley was on parole after serving eight years in jail for 16 counts of rape against five women. He had already served time before for rapes committed from the time he was just 18. It made the tragedy of Jill’s murder even more senseless.

At the quiet end today, we’re talking about a beautiful person whose life was violently taken by an evil, repeat offender. Jill spent her last day doing what many of us do—working in a job she loved, enjoying a few drinks in the company of friends, and making her way home on a well-traveled street just blocks from her home. So, what went wrong?

Madison Reed
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The Murder of Bonny Lee Bakley Jul 24, 2018

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Bonny Lee Bakley was not an ethical or particularly law-abiding woman. Not someone you would want your daughter to model her life after. She was a con artist and a groupie who used sex and deception to get money from men. When she was shot to death in May 2001, her husband at the time, actor Robert Blake, was charged with the crime, but there was a long list of other people with a motive.
As a young girl, Bonny’s dreams were similar to many other girls. She wanted to be rich and famous one day. Growing up in poverty probably helped to motivate her. Her desire to leave her hometown and begin her quest for stardom began early after she was sexually abused by her father. Fame became an obsession.
After high school, Bonny moved to New York. She started calling herself Lee Bonny. She got some small modeling jobs and worked as an extra in movies. But her goal of becoming a star was not happening. So, her focus switched from becoming a star to marrying one.
Her life was a life of scams: stalking celebrities, stealing credit cards, and eventually becoming pregnant with Robert Blake’s child and marrying him. After only 6 months of marriage, she was murdered. It took a year to bring her husband to trial. He was acquitted of her murder but found responsible for her death in a civil trial.
This murder is officially unsolved and there are many questions remaining. One thing worth considering is whether Blake would have been convicted if Bonny had been a more sympathetic victim. Does our justice system have different standards for so-called good girls than it does for someone like Bonny, a woman with an objectively shady history? And then, of course, there is the celebrity factor. Join us at the quiet end as we discuss the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley, the acquittal of Robert Blake, and the actual evidence in this case.

A Dangerous Woman: The Life and Crimes of Tracey Richter Jul 17, 2018

Show notes

Tracey Richter was an angry narcissist willing to do whatever it took to get what she wanted. She had no qualms about harming anybody who would dare to come between her and what she wanted. But Tracey was also a good actress. That may explain why she got away with so much for so long.
Tracey cheated on, deceived, and physically abused her first husband. When they divorced, she falsely accused him of child sexual abuse, going as far as to recruit her own son to tell lies about his own father.

Although Tracey would remarry and find a new man to deceive, her grudge against her first husband would stew inside of her. Tracey made cold-blooded, detailed plans and then followed through with them, killing an innocent young neighbor in a set up of her ex to keep full custody of her son.

As we talk about the life and crimes of Tracey Richter, aka Tracey Pitman, aka Tracey Roberts, aka Sophie Edwards, we will examine how she managed to hurt so many people for so long before she was finally brought to justice. Join us at the quiet end today for A Dangerous Woman: The Life and Crimes of Tracey Richter.

Tainted Love: The Murder of Kathy Augustine Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

Does tragedy run in families? In the case of the Augustine family, they seemed to have more than their own fair share of unexpected deaths. In August, 2012, 32-year old Dallas Augustine shot and killed her wife Jessie McCaskill before turning the gun on herself. Six years earlier, Dallas’s step-father Chaz Higgs had been accused of murdering her mother Kathy Augustine with a fatal drug overdose.
Chaz was a hospital nurse involved in the care of Kathy’s sick husband Charles Augustine when Charles died. Just weeks after his death, the marriage of Kathy and Chaz raised a lot of eyebrows. Kathy’s sudden death just three years into her marriage with Chaz had police suspicious not only that Chaz had murdered Kathy but that perhaps he had had something to do with the death of her husband.
This story received a lot of publicity, partially because Kathy had been a prominent politician in Nevada and she had undergone impeachment proceedings for violating state ethics laws. Chaz would claim that her political opponents were responsible for her death. By all accounts, Kathy was not an easy person to get along with. There were plenty of people who disliked her, but did anyone have more of a reason to want her dead than Chaz did?
Join us at the quiet end today for a story of murder too strange and complex to be fiction. In Tainted Love, we’ll learn about Kathy, Chaz, and the events leading up to their love affair and Kathy’s untimely death.

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Madison Reed

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