0:00

This podcast explores themes of

0:02

murder and rape. Listener discretion

0:04

is advised. It's

0:09

a cool Alaskan summer day in 1980. Detective

0:12

Maxine Farrell is at her desk

0:14

in the Anchorage Police Department. Call

0:18

came in from patrol. That alignment

0:20

had called in that there was a body

0:22

out there. Somebody said, oh, there's a body

0:24

to dig up, which you

0:26

did a dirty job, said Maxine. So

0:29

there I went. 30

0:33

miles from Anchorage, the small native village of

0:35

Aklutna is home to a huge power plant.

0:39

Rows upon rows of power lines

0:41

cut through the dense forest, giving

0:43

the impression of waterways running for

0:45

miles along the remote landscape. The

0:47

city of Aklutna is now in the

0:49

city of Aklutna. The city of Aklutna

0:51

is now in the city of Aklutna. The city of Aklutna is now in

0:53

the city of Aklutna. It's

0:56

a very beautiful city. We get to the

0:58

site in there. You know, you

1:01

look at it and you see pieces of a

1:03

body here, there, all over the place, the bears

1:05

had been moving the body around and

1:07

the clothing and the stuff. The

1:10

site of the clothing, you know, and the

1:12

boots and whatever we saw, was

1:15

clothes that we would see prostitutes wearing

1:17

on Fourth Avenue. She

1:19

was buried in the woods. We figure somebody killed

1:21

her. The

1:23

remains of the young girl are taken

1:26

to the coroner's office, who determines she's

1:28

been stabbed to death. Weeks

1:31

and months pass by and still there

1:33

are no answers. The

1:36

area we found her in was in Aklutna. It's

1:38

just outside of the Anchorage line. And

1:42

so we call there Aklutna Annie. Aklutna

1:44

Annie's case lingers in the back of

1:47

Maxine's mind during the subsequent months as

1:49

she starts to get more reports of

1:51

missing women on her desk. Now,

1:55

over 40 years later, it's still

1:57

there. I think

1:59

it's still there. because they never did find out

2:01

who she was. But

2:03

we still don't know who she is. This

2:08

is Mind of a Monster, the Butcher

2:10

Baker. And I'm your host, Dr.

2:12

Michelle Ward. In this seven-part

2:14

series, we're going to be unraveling the case

2:16

of one of the most prolific, but not

2:19

so widely known, serial killers

2:21

in U.S. history. And to

2:23

do that, we're going to start right at the

2:25

beginning. We're going to follow the

2:27

investigation through the eyes of the victims, the

2:30

police officers, and Alaska state troopers who

2:32

were there on the ground. We'll

2:35

delve into police reports, old newspaper

2:37

articles, and then cover audio tapes,

2:39

all to reveal the identity of the killer

2:42

as it happened. This is

2:44

episode one. We called her

2:46

a Kloetna Annie. For

2:50

me, the story starts with Maxine Farrell,

2:53

the detective who responded to the call

2:55

about a Kloetna Annie's body. I

2:58

was hired on as a

3:00

police officer with the Anchorage Police Department

3:03

in March of 1973. Maxine

3:07

is in her 80s now with

3:09

beautiful straight silver hair and dark

3:11

pink lipstick. She has

3:13

bright, whip-smart eyes. And as

3:16

we start to talk to her, her

3:18

husband hands Maxine her glasses. You're welcome.

3:20

Get your glasses on. There

3:24

we go. I'm a complete

3:26

mixture. My father's Irish-German. My mother's

3:28

from Panama. My grandmother

3:31

is from Jamaica. And

3:33

then my great-grandmother is an Arawak

3:35

Indian. So that's my heritage.

3:37

You're like the United Nations. Yes,

3:39

I'm a United Nations. I always,

3:41

when they say, what race are

3:43

you, I said anything. You

3:45

name it. I'm looking at

3:48

a picture of you right now at this

3:50

crime scene, and you look so intense. I

3:52

can only see the back of you, and you're in your

3:54

jumpsuit getting ready to get your

3:56

hands dirty doing the actual work. Have you

3:59

seen this photo? I haven't. The

4:03

picture I show Maxine is from the Alaska

4:05

State Troopers' records. She's

4:07

standing over a Kloetna Annie's shallow

4:09

grave. She has curly, dark

4:12

hair. Her male colleagues

4:14

are still in suits looking stiff

4:16

and formal. But Maxine is

4:18

in this dark jumpsuit with her hands

4:20

on her hips, her legs astride. I

4:24

used to dress up. Let me give you an example. I

4:26

used to dress up to go to work in case I

4:28

had to go to court about something or whatever to look

4:30

decent. But I always in

4:33

my car, I had jumpsuits and things to

4:35

put on and boots if I

4:37

had to go to a dirty job because I expected it. But

4:40

right at the start when you begin at

4:42

the Anchorage Police Department, you aren't actually a

4:44

cop then, right? When

4:46

I first hired on, I said, I'm

4:49

working the counter and I'm taking police

4:51

reports all the time. I'm

4:53

doing police officer's work. So

4:55

can I apply to be a police officer? They

4:57

said no without hiring women. Well,

4:59

there was a federal law that came down that

5:02

they had to have women. And

5:04

this was actually part of the Civil

5:06

Rights Act, right? It prevented women from

5:09

being discriminated against in public agencies. Right.

5:12

I think what they did was they went around

5:14

and looked for the two quietest women in the

5:16

department and that was Jan and I. We're

5:19

very strong people, but they didn't realize that.

5:21

They thought we were real timid, quiet women.

5:24

We figured they hired us so we could fail. And

5:27

so we got on there with the attitude that we're not

5:29

going to fail. We showed up

5:32

because you guys are warriors. Can

5:36

I just stop for a moment to say what

5:38

a badass this woman is? It's

5:40

1973. Not

5:42

a single woman has ever been hired

5:45

as a police officer in the Anchorage

5:47

Police Department. She's finally getting

5:49

hired because they have to employ women,

5:52

but she knows exactly what they're doing. They

5:54

don't want her to succeed and she's

5:56

having none of it. an

6:00

attitude that we're going to do whatever.

6:02

If they sent us, we'd go to

6:04

a bike stolen record and write up

6:06

a fantastic report and we just did

6:08

it. The two of us

6:10

did that. How was the

6:12

reaction of their male colleagues? Some

6:15

of them are right out. I remember a sergeant standing

6:17

with me as I was exiting one day to

6:19

go home and he says, you shouldn't be here.

6:22

And I said, well, where should I be? He said, you should be

6:24

home taking care of your kids. And

6:27

I said, you're wrong. I'm here and I'm going

6:29

to stay. And

6:31

then I walked off. So

6:33

for a number of years, you're a patrol cop. When

6:36

did you become a detective? I

6:39

think they realized because my sergeant usually put

6:41

me up to be officer of the month, the

6:43

lieutenant, he was always on my side. He

6:45

was always a supportive person. He just

6:48

called me in his office and said, would you

6:50

like to go into homicide? Well, it was

6:52

called death investigation at that time. And

6:55

I said, sure. You know, I would say

6:57

yes to anything that was like a promotion.

6:59

And I walked in there. Two

7:06

years later, Maxine is working the desk

7:08

when a guy walks into the station

7:10

to report his girlfriend missing. Her

7:13

boyfriend is just a general guy

7:16

just missing his girlfriend. And

7:19

he's saying she would not leave me. We're going to get

7:21

married and that and that. And what was his girlfriend's

7:23

name? It was Sherry Morrow.

7:26

And she was a dancer? Yeah, he was

7:28

adamant that she would not have gone off and

7:30

not told him where she was going or not

7:33

come back to him. And

7:35

at first I thought, well, you know, these girls

7:37

do that. And then I thought, no,

7:39

no, he's too convinced that she

7:42

wouldn't and how committed she was to

7:44

him and sticking to buy it. You

7:46

know, he wanted her back. Maxine

7:49

takes down Sherry's details. Her

7:51

boyfriend describes the clothing she was wearing

7:53

and a gold arrowhead necklace Sherry always

7:56

wears. And he would bug me

7:59

every week. every day if he could. He'd

8:01

call me or he'd come in to see if

8:03

I found out anything. And I'd

8:06

say, sorry, I haven't found out anything. Sherry,

8:12

my roommate, she didn't have

8:14

any family up here. We

8:18

kind of hit it off. You're hearing

8:20

the voice of Susan Bradford. As she says,

8:22

she lived with Sherry at the time she

8:24

went missing. Susan was

8:26

18, Sherry was 24. They'd

8:29

both come to Anchorage to escape from

8:31

difficult pasts. I

8:34

was running away from a very abusive

8:36

situation. So we

8:39

tried not to dwell on it. We're

8:41

just trying to make a new living for

8:43

ourselves and get away from the bad. Susan

8:47

is sadly now deceased, but

8:49

she spoke to the Mind of a Monster documentary team

8:51

in 2020. We

8:54

actually physically looked a lot

8:56

alike. She was blonde, haired, very sweet,

8:59

very curvy girl. 36, 24, 36.

9:04

I mean, just a lovely soft

9:06

spoken lady. I mean, we even

9:08

used to share costumes. That's how

9:11

much alike we were. Very

9:13

quiet, very shy. We

9:15

both had day shifts. We're

9:17

considered good girls. If you want to put

9:20

it that way, sweet polite, not

9:22

nighttime. One

9:25

day on shift at the Good Times Club in

9:27

1981, a guy has Susan sit down

9:29

next to him with a bottle of champagne. He's

9:33

not the type of person that would ever stand out. He

9:36

just looked like the average Joe. He

9:38

kept telling me, I have an airplane. I have an airplane.

9:40

I'm like, yeah, you know, it was one of those girls

9:42

that just wasn't impressed with material

9:44

things. But he'd asked me, do you have family up

9:47

here? Where'd you come from? And his big drill, do

9:49

you have sisters and brothers? Where are you from? What

9:51

you're doing? He got so intense. He even asked me,

9:53

do you want to go on a date? And I

9:55

went, nah, nah, I prefer not to.

9:57

You know what I mean? The

10:00

next thing I know, the next day, you

10:02

know, Sherry goes, hey, I got a date.

10:04

This guy's an airplane. I said, yeah,

10:06

I remember him talking to me. He gave me the creeps. I

10:09

said, why do you want to meet him?

10:11

And she goes, well, I think he's kind of nice. Well,

10:13

you walk me to the appointment. I said, absolutely. I'll walk

10:15

you down. He

10:21

had Sherry meet him downtown in this quaint

10:23

little place that served. I mean, it was

10:25

just like a little food stop. And I

10:27

remember going, hey, have a nice trip, you

10:29

guys. I'll see you later on today. And

10:32

he just gave me this cold, weird stare.

10:35

And I

10:38

went home. You know,

10:40

a couple of days went by. And I remember going and

10:42

looking in a room to see if she'd been back. Nothing

10:45

had been touched. Nothing had changed. Nothing.

10:48

She just disappeared. Sherry's

10:52

disappearance hits Susan hard. She's

10:55

absolutely sure that something bad has happened to

10:57

her. And now she's also worried for

10:59

her own safety. I was

11:01

just too terrified. After she'd come

11:03

back, I'm scared of this guy. And then

11:06

you're scared of, what

11:08

are you going to do? I get things up

11:10

and run. Just instinct, get

11:12

the hell out of there. I

11:15

guess he could have very easily hopped me down.

11:17

I moved out of that apartment and stayed with another

11:20

friend for a couple of days until I could get

11:22

a flight and a ticket out. Susan

11:24

doesn't call the police. And I want you

11:26

to remember that as we're going to come

11:28

back to why she doesn't later. Instead,

11:31

she calls the office at the

11:33

club where they both work and

11:35

reports Sherry missing. Then requests permission

11:37

to quit her job. I

11:40

mean, I remember asking them, hey, can

11:42

I leave the business? And they allowed

11:44

me to leave. I sold my

11:46

car. I got my

11:48

ticket and one-way ticket. And I flew and was out of there.

11:54

It's several weeks later that Sherry's

11:56

boyfriend makes the missing person's report

11:58

to Maxine. But by

12:00

that time, Susan is already out of the

12:02

state, and Maxine never gets the crucial information

12:05

about Sherry's date with the average Joe.

12:08

But Maxine, Sherry wasn't the only one, right?

12:11

That time, they said that time period, I

12:13

was looking at my desk and I had

12:15

at least seven women. And

12:17

I'm saying, I'd rather these

12:20

prostitutes. So I said

12:22

there must be something going on. So you have

12:24

this growing theory? Yes. Actually,

12:28

like Sherry and Susan, not all the

12:30

women were sex workers. But

12:32

if they didn't work the streets, they worked

12:34

in topless and bottomless clubs. For

12:37

Maxine, it was too much of a coincidence.

12:41

Did you talk to your superiors about this? Oh,

12:44

right. Well, I made the remark. I

12:46

was talking about Iclutna Annie to some journalist.

12:49

I think it was from the Anchorage

12:51

Times. And I said, we've

12:53

got a lot of missing girls and I've got a feeling that

12:56

maybe there's a serial killer. There may be a

12:58

serial killer out there. Well,

13:00

that got in the news right away. My

13:03

superiors went crazy. They

13:05

did. So they came down on

13:07

me and they said, what are you doing? And you're

13:09

going to upset the entire community, blah, blah, blah. I

13:12

was getting balled out for it. And I said, you

13:14

know, I think there is a serial killer. And

13:16

I'm telling them all the things I have and

13:18

what's going on. And they're saying,

13:20

no, no, no, no, nothing like that. And

13:23

so they made me go

13:26

to the newspaper, called them in so I could

13:28

tell them, I don't think it's that. I think

13:30

it's just, you know, we have missing girls all

13:32

the time and they might come back and talk

13:35

it down because he said I was going to

13:37

upset the community. How did that make you feel?

13:40

I was so angry. Before

13:46

we go any further, I want to do

13:48

some scene setting because Anchorage at this time

13:50

is not like anywhere else in the world.

13:54

What were your impressions of Anchorage when you

13:56

first got there? As

13:58

you're coming in on the airplane. You're

14:00

flying over the Chugach Mountains

14:03

and they go on and on and

14:05

on, snow captains. And

14:07

I'm going, I kind of like this. This

14:10

is Leland Hale. He's the charming

14:13

affable author of the book Butcher

14:15

Baker and a rigorous researcher. He

14:18

first came to Anchorage in the early 80s on

14:20

the invitation of the state troopers. You

14:24

see the massage parlors first because

14:27

they're closer to the airport. So

14:29

you don't even have to go into Anchorage, right,

14:33

to get services. Is

14:36

that like Vegas where they leave the slot machine right

14:38

at the very end before you get on the airplane

14:40

so you come back for more? Yeah,

14:42

right. Sort of like that. Yeah. And

14:45

then I'm driving. What do I see but a moose

14:48

in a neighborhood chewing on a tree? I

14:51

am definitely in Alaska. I'm

14:53

not at home. I'm not

14:56

at home anymore. And

14:59

what's going on in Anchorage and in Alaska at this time in

15:01

the 1970s and 80s? Alaska

15:04

is sort of

15:07

an, I'll call it an extractive

15:09

economy. It's a boom and bust

15:11

economy. So you've got oil.

15:15

Before that you had gold. You've

15:17

always got fish and you've always got

15:19

temper. Those are the main sources of

15:21

wealth. And

15:23

each of those industries attracts

15:26

transient people. And

15:28

at this particular time, it's the black

15:31

gold of oil. And

15:33

it's attracting men, mostly

15:36

men, from the oil patch. So

15:38

that's Texas and Oklahoma, places

15:41

where they're already experiencing how to

15:43

extract and drill for oil. From

15:48

October until the end of August,

15:50

we had moved approximately 34,000 passengers. It's

15:54

tough, tough work. So

15:58

you have an idea of exactly how to... many men, it's

16:01

estimated that 70,000 traveled to

16:03

Alaska to work on the

16:06

800-mile-long Trans-Alaska pipeline. So

16:09

those men work up

16:11

on the North Slope for weeks

16:13

at a time, and then they get a

16:15

paycheck and they get some days off, and

16:18

they come to Anchorage and they want to spend it.

16:27

So in a very short amount of

16:29

time, secondary industries pop up to serve

16:31

these guys in their down times. Bars,

16:34

eateries, strip clubs, and an

16:36

explosion of sex workers, most

16:39

of whom reside along the strip,

16:41

4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage. So

16:45

Leland, tell me what was your first reaction

16:47

when you saw 4th Avenue? What was that

16:49

like? So I

16:51

was lucky because I got

16:53

a guided tour of 4th

16:55

Avenue by a cop. It

16:57

was famously described by comedian Bob

17:00

Hope, 4th Avenue

17:02

is the longest bar in the world.

17:07

The sex workers start off on the

17:09

East End and then they gradually make

17:11

their way closer to the

17:13

fancier hotels because there's more money and

17:15

there's more tourists and there's more

17:18

opportunity. And as

17:20

they get really sort of dangerously

17:22

close to Hotel Captain Cook, they

17:25

start busting them. They start

17:27

arresting them and then it starts all over again

17:29

at the other end of 4th

17:32

Avenue. And there was

17:34

a lot of police calls. I mean, one club

17:36

had hundreds of calls in a year. Like

17:39

the wild, wild, wild. Yes.

17:43

My name is John Daley. I'm a

17:45

senior officer with the Anchorage Police Department. Still

17:48

working there. Wow. So

17:50

you've been there a long time with that particular department. A

17:52

little over 42 years now. In

17:54

the early 1980s, John is a rookie. He's

17:57

just finished his training and started on

17:59

patrol. right in the thick of the

18:01

4th Avenue chaos. How

18:04

green were you or how seasoned were you? Pretty

18:06

green. Barbara would come around and

18:09

they would open up and literally just shove

18:11

all these crowds, everybody

18:13

completely drunk, while

18:15

all on the streets. A lot of times you just go

18:17

to, you'd go to one fight, break

18:20

them up, throw them off of each other, throw

18:24

them against the wall, stop this, and then,

18:26

okay, this one is calm down, the next

18:29

one, go to that, and you

18:31

were just going down, up and down the street. It

18:33

was a hard time keeping a cap on it. We

18:36

were right up there with some of the

18:38

busiest cities, like Chicago. We

18:41

could, per capita, we

18:43

could match Chicago with our crimes because

18:46

people came to Alaska. This

18:48

is the last frontier. They could do whatever

18:50

they want. So

18:53

we've looked into this and, in fact, crime

18:55

rates in 1980 were higher

18:57

in Anchorage, 7.7% to Chicago's 5.8%. And

19:03

when it comes to rates, the number

19:05

in Anchorage was almost double that of

19:07

Chicago. So violence against

19:09

women is part of the fabric of Anchorage

19:11

life at this time. It's something that police

19:14

encounter a lot. And men and

19:16

women are coming and going from Anchorage all the

19:18

time. So I asked

19:20

John Daly, what happens when a girl goes

19:22

missing in this kind of environment? With

19:25

that large number of people, the

19:28

number of dancers and prostitutes and

19:31

workers and everybody coming through, the

19:34

the transiency of the

19:37

time. I haven't seen Susan in

19:39

a while. Well, Susan

19:41

could be anywhere. She could be back down a

19:43

low 48. She could be working up in another

19:46

town. You just don't know. But

19:49

there's another layer to this when

19:51

that Maxine Farrow was more than

19:54

aware of at the time. At that

19:56

time, and I think it's still to some degree

19:58

still that way, you know. You know,

20:00

it's just a prostitute, a dirty prostitute,

20:02

who cares? They

20:05

go away all the time and they, you know, they

20:07

take jobs. There was a big turnover.

20:10

And you felt differently. Oh yeah,

20:12

you know, I realized that a lot of

20:14

them were just girls. Their

20:17

stories were so different as to what and why

20:19

they were there. It's

20:23

September 1982, nearly a year after

20:25

Sherry went missing, and there's still

20:27

no formal case open at the

20:29

APD looking into her disappearance. But

20:32

I want to take you out of Anchorage for

20:34

a moment, 35 miles north, to be

20:36

precise, to the scenic banks of

20:38

the Kinek River and the beautiful

20:41

Alaskan wilds. Police

20:43

officer John Daly just bought land out there

20:45

with the hopes of building a house. We

20:48

were just like a lot

20:51

of people chasing the Alaska dream. I

20:53

mean, I love to fish, hunt, fly,

20:56

boat. I

21:00

love to get out and explore. I

21:02

mean, one of the

21:04

big things is the good thing about Anchorage is

21:06

it's really close to Alaska. Take

21:09

us back to September 12th, 1982. Where

21:13

were you and what were you doing? Myself

21:15

and my friend and co-worker,

21:18

Audie Holloway, we

21:20

both went through the academy together. So

21:22

we made kind of a plan on

21:24

the go that we were going to go take the

21:26

boat to the river, put it in, and

21:29

float down the river and hunt

21:31

for moose. The

21:37

sky is dull and cloudy, and there's a

21:39

distinct chill in the air as

21:41

the two young cops start to head downstream.

21:51

Of course, two young guys didn't check the

21:53

weather very much, and there was a storm

21:55

blowing in. There was pretty heavy wind, and

21:57

even just for the river there, it was

21:59

really nice. rocking pretty good. We

22:01

realized pretty quickly that we didn't get

22:03

our tails off the river. It's got

22:05

a chance we're gonna swap. You decided

22:07

to cut your losses. Yes. So

22:10

we dragged the boat off, got

22:12

into the trees, found a good place, set up

22:14

our camp or tent. It

22:18

was getting late, later in the evenings.

22:20

We still had light.

22:22

There was enough to go hunting. So

22:25

we started doing a hunt and going along

22:27

the sand dunes towards the major part of

22:29

the trees. And

22:32

Adi ended up coming first

22:34

on this area as a

22:36

depression. That was the understanding.

22:39

It looked unusual because you see things

22:42

out there, you know, the way the wind blows

22:46

and creates the effect there.

22:48

It's pretty consistent. And this

22:50

depression was kind of circular.

22:55

And Adi ends up seeing what's

22:57

called a moon boot. And

23:00

that wasn't that unusual. Could have

23:02

been just somebody camping that dropped

23:05

it off there and got buried somehow.

23:09

And so we

23:12

looked at it and we're

23:15

basically almost ready to just go

23:18

on our way and then we noticed there's some

23:20

fabric. If I remember it was a denim type

23:22

fabric. And you could

23:25

tell it had been there for a little while. And

23:27

then we started manipulating it to look

23:29

and kind of the hair started sticking

23:32

up and there was a

23:34

kneecap under it. It's

23:37

a body. You found a body. We

23:51

pretty much knew what we had there, that there

23:53

was a body under this. You know,

23:56

this isn't just like an accidental. Somebody

23:59

is stumbling around. and fell off. I

24:01

mean, it was, this was done

24:03

on purpose. It's

24:06

a chilly September 9th in 1982. In

24:09

fading light on the banks of the Canick River, off-duty

24:12

police officer John Daly and his buddy stand

24:15

over what they are pretty sure is a

24:17

shallow grave. What

24:19

was going through your mind when you saw

24:23

that piece of skin? You're

24:25

a new cop here, you see something like

24:27

this, and you go on, this

24:29

is something. And

24:32

on the other hand, too, it's a little bit, I

24:36

don't want to say frightening, but what have I got myself into? What's

24:39

going on here with this? Who

24:41

at the time dealt with bodies in

24:43

that part of Canick? Well,

24:46

that was the state troopers. So

24:49

the Anchorage Police Department deals with things actually in the

24:51

city of Anchorage, more of

24:53

a central location, and it's the state troopers who

24:56

deal with everything else? Correct.

25:00

Because John and his friend are on a hunting trip, they

25:03

have no vehicle, no radios, and

25:06

they are out of Anchorage Police Department

25:08

jurisdiction. Back then, there

25:10

was nothing like cell phones or anything like

25:12

that. We

25:15

had nothing, anything, any communication. So

25:18

we made a decision to go back, get back

25:20

to our camp, sleep

25:23

out through the night. Did it

25:25

cross your mind that there might still be a killer

25:27

there nearby? It

25:29

did. I mean, we were kind of thinking, you know, who knows? It's

25:33

kind of Wild, Wild West out there. I mean, it

25:36

could have been anybody. Talk

25:41

us through the next morning. We

25:44

walked our way back up to our friend's cabin, got

25:47

to use our phone, and called up

25:49

the troopers. The

25:51

troopers arrive, and they head down the trail

25:53

with John to the site in a 4x4 Ford

25:55

Bronco. Once we got

25:57

them out there, they did a good job of doing their approach.

26:00

which make their observations and then

26:02

slowly, meticulously, and then

26:05

deciding that, yeah, we definitely have

26:07

a homicide here. I mean, we're young

26:11

rookies kind of gawking at it and seeing how they're

26:13

doing it. And once they

26:15

were able to unearth the body, what did they see?

26:18

I think there's a, once we

26:20

got to the head,

26:22

there was an ace bandage that was wrapped

26:25

around the

26:27

victim's head. What

26:29

did it mean to you that there was an ace bandage

26:31

around her head? It took no

26:34

back to me that no one that

26:36

was against her will probably kidnapped.

26:40

So that hit me fairly

26:42

quickly. This was just

26:44

somebody who was doing something that they had to

26:46

have planned this out. Later,

26:50

the coroner's report would confirm that

26:52

this young woman had been shot

26:54

through the heart. I

26:57

mean, I had young kids and wife

26:59

and everything, and it kind of hits home that something

27:01

like this, we're out here, this

27:04

is where I chose to live in this

27:06

area. I had just bought

27:08

like 24 acres right on the river, probably

27:12

within a quarter mile

27:14

of where this occurred. And so

27:16

all of a sudden thinking, well, your

27:18

little Alaska dream hasn't had an effect

27:21

on me with that. The

27:26

state troopers take on the case and the

27:28

local media have a field day. The

27:31

police are looking into the death of an

27:33

unidentified body found in what appears to be

27:35

a shallow grave. The names are

27:37

the young girl is between 18 and 25.

27:39

The death has been treated as suspicion. Alaska

27:44

state troopers report that the remains

27:46

of a young woman... Within a couple of

27:49

weeks, the body is identified through dental records.

27:52

It's missing dancer Sherry Morrow.

27:55

But there's one thing that nobody notices at the

27:57

time. The golden arrowhead necklace

27:59

Sherry Morrow. always wears isn't on

28:01

her body. Sherry's roommate

28:03

Susan Bradford. I remember seeing

28:06

the newspaper and it floored

28:08

me when it all came

28:10

to reality to see Sherry's picture in there

28:12

and then to realize that all that together

28:14

I felt bad because I felt like you

28:16

know I walked her to her very

28:20

last date. How

28:23

would you feel? Not

28:26

knowing you know that

28:28

I do enough. For

28:32

Detective Maxine Farrell the discovery of

28:35

Sherry's body was confirmation of

28:37

what she's feared all along. It

28:40

must have been kind of shocking for you

28:42

to realize oh gosh this

28:44

is the girl whose boyfriend's been

28:46

looking for her and she's

28:49

dead. That was

28:52

the first one and I said I knew it. I

28:55

knew it all of them were turned up dead because

28:58

that's what I was saying all along. This

29:01

is a serial killer. But

29:05

Maxine's alone in her conviction that there could be

29:07

a link to the missing girls. In

29:09

this article I'm looking at here printed a few

29:11

weeks after Sherry's body was found a

29:14

state trooper says quote there's

29:16

nothing now to indicate that the

29:18

disappearances are anything other than a

29:20

coincidence. How

29:23

did that make you feel at the time? The saying

29:25

to me you don't have the brains

29:27

to say that there's a serial killer out there

29:30

and yet I was an expert on

29:33

my cases in homicide. I had a

29:35

clear 90 I think I was about

29:37

95% good in

29:40

all my cases. They were

29:42

so well done. Did they allow you

29:44

to investigate it? Well I went

29:46

ahead and investigated it anyway. That was my

29:48

attitude. And

29:51

this is why I love Maxine. She

29:54

starts to compile all of the information she

29:56

can about the other missing girls. That's

29:58

no easy task when most of the people are in the hospital. Most of them

30:00

danced under pseudonyms like angel or

30:03

enchantment. We didn't have any

30:05

names. We had names that they

30:07

gave us, but we didn't have any real names.

30:10

So part of my job during that time was

30:12

going down there and checking with

30:14

all the girls, anybody who knew the

30:16

girl missing, what they know about her. So

30:19

where did you start? How did you approach the girls?

30:22

I had a good relationship with Edna Cox,

30:24

one at the Bush Company, and this was

30:26

a strip club in town. That's

30:29

right. So when the girls were being missing,

30:31

I went to her and I said, this

30:33

is going on. You need to talk

30:35

to your girls and I need to

30:37

get your records with real names and real

30:39

social security numbers. And

30:42

she was helping me in every way she could.

30:45

She let me come in one evening and sit down

30:47

with the girls and talk to them and say, you

30:49

go out, try and get a license number. Try

30:52

and take another person with you. Don't

30:54

go out alone. Chances are you could be

30:56

killed. I

31:01

want to take a sidebar here. In

31:03

the 1980s, a lot of the clubs

31:05

in Anchorage, including the Bush Company, were

31:07

run by a Seattle-based talent company called

31:09

Talents West, whose job it was to

31:11

bring girls to the town from the Lower 48.

31:14

Now, Talents West didn't form a big

31:17

part of the original investigation. It was

31:19

like a backdrop to the scene, but everyone

31:21

we spoke to knew they existed and knew

31:24

what they did. Author

31:26

Leland Hale has looked into their history

31:28

extensively. Tell me about

31:30

how Talents West operated. Talents

31:33

West is run by an Italian

31:37

mafia guy. He's not affiliated

31:39

with any of the

31:42

other families. He runs it independently.

31:45

His name is Frank Colicurtio. He

31:48

came up with this idea. What

31:51

if we took

31:53

over clubs that

31:56

are failing? So I've

31:58

got a bar, let's say. and

32:00

I'm just not making any money. Well,

32:03

what if we bring in topless dancers? So

32:06

he sets up Talents West, and

32:09

they advertise in the

32:12

classified ads dancers

32:15

wanted, and

32:17

women answer, and they come. So

32:19

they fill a whole load of bars with dancing

32:21

girls, but how are they making their money from

32:24

this operation? So there's a

32:26

further benefit, because they're buying

32:28

a struggling bar.

32:31

So what's good about a struggling bar? They're

32:33

not paying a lot of taxes. They're not

32:36

making a lot of money. And

32:38

once you get the dancers in there, and

32:40

you're really making money, you

32:43

can start skimming the profits. It's

32:46

a perfect front. Right.

32:50

Now, there's something else I want you to

32:52

understand. Originally, Colacruccio was

32:54

paying the girls as employees,

32:57

but in May 1982, he got

32:59

busted for not paying workers comp. So

33:02

he devised a legal workaround. The

33:05

dancers were classified as, quote, entertainers,

33:08

and this is the part that blows my mind. As

33:12

entertainers, the girls had to pay

33:14

Talents West to dance at the

33:16

bars, rather than the other way

33:18

around. And this is

33:20

exactly the arrangement that Sheri Morrow and

33:22

Susan Bradford were under. The

33:25

ad in the newspapers, what I answered, and it

33:27

was they were looking for dancing girls, and they'd

33:29

pay your flight up here. They'd put you up

33:31

in a hotel. You'd make really good money. I

33:34

mean, perfect for a scared

33:36

girl trying to get away. Look like

33:38

a heck of a deal. But

33:40

when Susan got up to Anchorage,

33:42

the reality was very different. You

33:45

had to dance every day in their clubs.

33:47

You had to live in their housing, and

33:50

every day that you were living in their

33:52

housing and in their clubs, you incurred debt.

33:55

And so you had to work until the debt was paid before

33:57

you could leave. had

34:00

to pay back their airfares, they had to

34:02

pay to dance, and they had

34:04

to pay rent for their accommodations. For

34:07

the Mind of a Monster documentary, Susan returned

34:09

to the building she lived in with Sherry.

34:13

We were brought over to this building here. I said,

34:16

this is your apartment. And you

34:18

walked in and there was literally just two

34:20

mattresses. It was

34:24

like a cold, empty

34:26

room with no life, not

34:29

even a pillow to put your head on. There

34:32

was a couple girls that ran away. They were brought back. They

34:35

were brought back. Yeah, they

34:37

were made to pay their debt. It was

34:40

terrifying. So Leland,

34:42

help me understand this, because there are some

34:44

women we've talked to who worked for these

34:46

clubs, and they had a great time. They

34:48

earned thousands of dollars a week, sometimes even

34:50

in a day. They

34:52

are the stars. And so it's like, you

34:54

know, maybe you're not doing something right, because

34:57

these women are just banking

34:59

the box. Susan Bradford

35:01

says the same thing. Thousands

35:04

of dollars I saw those girls making.

35:06

Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.

35:08

There was so much money. There was

35:10

so much cocaine. It was ridiculous. And

35:14

I guess you just have to be into that.

35:17

I wasn't into the drugs, nor

35:19

did I care to earn the money the way that

35:22

we're making their money. I barely

35:24

made 100 bucks a

35:26

day compared to the other girls to give you an idea.

35:29

It took Susan nine months to

35:32

pay off her debts and leave

35:34

her position at Talents West for good.

35:37

It's almost like a little prison. It's

35:39

almost like nowadays, what would you...

35:43

It's almost like trafficking, but in a

35:45

different way. You know what I mean? You

35:48

belong to them until your debts are paid.

35:50

You know, that's how we looked at it.

35:54

I really want to get a sense

35:56

of how much a mafia organization like

35:59

Talents West can contribute to potential

36:01

violent crime against women. So

36:03

I call up Dr. Brent Turvey. Hi,

36:08

Brent, how are you? I'm good.

36:10

How are you doing? It's good to hear from you. Brent

36:14

lived in Alaska for nearly 20 years,

36:16

and he's a criminal profiler who works

36:19

on violent crime cases. Right

36:21

now, he mostly lives in Mexico, which is why

36:23

you'll hear the odd street horn outside his windows.

36:26

You have a very specific specialty. Your

36:29

focus is on femicide and crimes against women

36:31

in general. How is this and why is

36:33

this important to you? When

36:35

I was younger, I had a girlfriend who was

36:37

sexually abused by her brother. And when she reported

36:40

it, her family made her keep quiet about it.

36:42

They found out the brother had been doing this

36:44

for years, but they said, he's getting married, he's

36:46

got kids, you're going to destroy his life. So

36:48

you're really the problem. And so she

36:50

wound up trying to kill herself. Oh my

36:52

gosh. And I watched everyone sort of descend

36:54

on that and just rip that apart. And

36:57

Destroyer was very awful to watch. That

36:59

is horrible. When

37:02

you talk to Brent, you can tell within a few

37:04

minutes that he's a guy on a mission. He

37:06

talks a million miles an hour, and you

37:09

kind of get the sense that every fiber

37:11

of his existence is there for the express

37:13

purpose of pointing out injustices. His

37:16

opinion on Talents West is very clear.

37:19

So the MO of Talents West, they

37:21

would solicit and prey upon young

37:23

vulnerable girls who they viewed as disposable.

37:27

It's just like any other pimp, any

37:29

other sex trafficker. They bring in

37:33

somebody, they consume them until they're no longer

37:35

a viable product, and then they discard them.

37:37

I mean, it looks like sex trafficking to

37:39

me. Yeah, it

37:41

is. So people will say, all these girls had a

37:43

choice, right? Man, this

37:46

is the problem. They're targeting vulnerable girls, vulnerable

37:48

young women who don't have a lot of

37:50

other options or opportunities available to them. It's

37:52

like being impoverished and having crises. It's

37:55

like being on fire. You'll do anything

37:57

to make it stop. Yeah. I mean, it's a good thing.

38:00

In the case of Susan, she just needed to get

38:02

out of a bad situation any way she could.

38:04

That's exactly right. There's one, you

38:07

know, how they function as a business and what

38:09

they do and how they acquire talent, talent's

38:11

west. And then the other part is

38:13

how it never gets seems to get eradicated, even though it's

38:16

going on right in front of everyone. Well,

38:18

that's because you have a huge military base

38:20

there and you have a huge population of

38:22

migrant workers on the pipeline in the oil

38:24

fields that were discovered in 67. And

38:27

their goal was to protect these

38:29

women. Their goal was to service these men to keep them

38:31

there working and happy. That was their

38:33

goal. Now, this isn't just your opinion,

38:36

right? Well, it's happening

38:38

today. Right. There's this

38:40

one study of a man camp in the oil

38:42

region of Montana done in 2019. And

38:46

to be clear, this is where a

38:48

large number of unaccompanied male workers moved

38:50

to an area to work in oil

38:52

or timber or gold, and they live

38:54

there in a camp. The

38:57

study showed that violent crime in those

38:59

areas shot up. Reported

39:01

violent reported crime. Should have 70

39:03

percent. Rape, murder and

39:06

manslaughter alone reported was up

39:08

30 percent. And

39:10

then the region's directly outside of the

39:12

oil areas, violent crime rates fell. The

39:15

issue is that men who are committing

39:17

those crimes are moving into

39:19

the man camps. This moves

39:22

the crime to those locations. It also moves

39:24

some of the vulnerable victim populations of those

39:26

locations. So

39:30

to put it another way, in order to service

39:32

the men working out in the oil fields of

39:34

Alaska, Talents West facilitates

39:36

the move of vulnerable girls into

39:38

a high crime area. And

39:41

the type of crime that explodes in

39:43

these very male dominated places tends

39:46

to be violent crime against women. There's

39:49

another impact Talents West has on

39:51

this investigation in particular. Earlier

39:54

I told you that Susan didn't go to

39:56

the police when Sherry went missing. Well

39:59

now I want you to... understand why. We

40:03

were told police are not your friends. That's

40:05

not a place where you ever called

40:07

the police. Help me. You

40:09

didn't ask questions. You were told don't even ask

40:12

questions. You always reported everything

40:14

to Junior or one of his

40:16

staff. Never to the

40:18

police. Junior,

40:21

Susan's boss. That's

40:23

Frank Colacurteo's son, 20 year

40:25

old Frank Colacurteo Junior. I

40:29

remember calling the office and going, hey, I took Sherry

40:32

to meet this guy and she never

40:34

came back. And I think something's wrong.

40:38

And it was like, these girls disappear all the

40:40

time. They

40:42

act like they didn't care. No

40:44

big deal. It happens all the

40:46

time. Wish I'd

40:48

had the courage back then to go to the police. Instead

40:53

of being scared and running. That's

40:56

true. It

40:58

falls on the terrified 18 year

41:01

old Susan to make an impossible

41:03

decision. Risk herself further

41:05

or get the hell out. I'm not surprised

41:08

that she chose her own safety. No

41:10

one else was looking out for her or girls

41:12

like her. It's

41:16

now spring of 1983. I'm

41:18

intense on doing a good job. I'm

41:20

intense of finding evidence. After

41:23

months of work, Detective Maxine Farrell

41:25

has tracked down dental records, taken

41:28

notes of the jewelry the missing girls

41:30

were wearing and contacted as many family

41:32

members as she can. When

41:35

she is finished, she has a list

41:37

of no less than 12 missing

41:40

girls. Yeah,

41:42

I found out much of their background as I could.

41:45

And I had it up on a list on

41:47

my wall. Now

41:49

her attention turns to suspects. One

41:52

is a transient worker who fled to Hawaii.

41:55

The second guy was this guy that

41:57

was taking pictures around town. Maxine

42:00

remembers that there had been complaints from

42:02

parents that this guy was approaching teenage

42:04

girls and asking to take their pictures

42:06

in supermarkets. The last suspect on

42:09

my list was Robert Hanson. Hanson

42:11

was a guy who frequented the topless

42:13

and bottomless clubs in town. He

42:16

was not that tall. He had

42:18

glasses and was soft-spoken. I

42:21

talked to the girls down at the Bush

42:24

Company, and a couple of them

42:26

had told me the only one that offered them money, but

42:28

he's so innocent and he's an okay guy, he

42:31

wouldn't hurt them. Next

42:37

time on Mind of a Monster, a missing

42:39

girl makes it back to the police. Hey

42:42

guys, parents. And

42:44

I was handcuffed the whole time,

42:47

and there was fish, there was wolf skin,

42:51

there were stuffed

42:53

animals everywhere. Mind

42:56

of a Monster Butcher Baker is produced by

42:58

Arrow Media for ID. The

43:01

executive producer for ID is Jessica

43:04

Lauter. Arrow Media's producer

43:06

is Jess Leindevere. Editor

43:08

is Millie Tackner. Audio engineering

43:10

by Mahoney AudioPost. Our

43:13

line producer is Philippa Whittle. Our

43:15

production manager is Alexandra Kelly. Our

43:18

junior production manager is Jodi

43:20

Tanner-Wilde. Our production coordinator

43:23

is Shannon Tunicliffe. Our

43:25

archive producer is Katia Lum, and

43:27

our assistant producer is Isabelle Wilson.

43:30

Arrow Media's series producer is Gabrielle

43:32

Nash, and executive producer is Stuart

43:35

Pender. I'm your host,

43:37

Dr. Michelle Ward.