Episode Transcript
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0:02
Happy Holidays everyone! As we wrap up
0:04
the year, we're taking a short break
0:07
to rest and reflect this year as
0:09
brought a lot of changes for the
0:11
team. Here at Serial Killers, we've covered
0:13
stories of killers who have yet to
0:15
be caught and we tried new angles
0:17
like our specials on man hunts and
0:19
hitman. Thanks for sticking with us through
0:21
it all and letting us bring you
0:23
the stories we find the most fascinating
0:26
every week. For the next two weeks
0:28
we're highlighting a favorite episode from this
0:30
year, the story of the buried bodies.
0:32
Killer! Thank you so much for tuning
0:34
in during Twenty Twenty Three and will
0:36
see you and Twenty Twenty Four! Stay.
0:39
Safe out there. Due
0:49
to the nature of this
0:51
killers crimes list or discretion
0:53
is advised. This episode includes
0:55
discussions of murder, sexual assault,
0:57
child abuse, bestiality, gun violence,
0:59
and kidnapping. Consider this when
1:01
deciding how and when you'll
1:03
listen. To. Get help
1:05
on mental health and
1:08
sexual abuse. Visit spotify.com/resources.
1:17
The chris like mornings and the Adirondack Mountains
1:20
often make the forest feel idyllic, but it
1:22
only seemed bomb it has to for men
1:24
walking along it's dirt roads back in the
1:26
summer of Nineteen Seventy three. Though
1:29
they looked like an ordinary group
1:31
of hikers, they were actually on
1:33
a grim mission. Their friends Damion
1:35
Susan had been missing for days.
1:38
The. Crew remain silent as they moved. Each
1:40
try to hide their fears as they searched
1:43
for their friends. Gym King walked
1:45
a few paces ahead of the others,
1:47
his eyes scanning over the landscape, looking
1:49
for clues. Finally he
1:51
saw it at the bottom of
1:54
a steep and bank meant beside
1:56
the road a sliver of white
1:58
without hesitating. gym clambered. It's
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4:53
In the summer of 1973, 37
4:56
year old Robert Garo left behind the idyllic
4:58
suburban life he'd worked so hard to build.
5:01
For years he'd kept up appearances with
5:03
his neighbors, children and parole officer. He'd
5:06
concealed his true monstrosity from everyone
5:09
but his victims. But
5:11
now that was all over. He'd
5:13
just killed a teenage girl,
5:15
Alicia Hauck. He knew the
5:18
cops already had him on their radar. He had
5:20
to get out of town. And
5:22
fast. So that July he
5:24
packed up a few belongings and drove north, more
5:26
than 150 miles to the vast
5:29
expanse of Adirondack Park. A
5:31
sprawling six million acre stretch of forested
5:33
mountains, it was a popular spot for
5:36
tourists and hikers. It was
5:38
also an ideal place to get lost
5:40
and never be found. As
5:44
he'd picked a secluded place to set up camp, Garo
5:46
tried to unwind. But out
5:48
in the wilderness, with only birdsong and his
5:50
own thoughts for company, he became
5:52
more agitated. His head
5:55
was pounding, a white hot pain
5:57
that worsened every hour. Vanessa
6:00
is going to take over on the psychology here and
6:02
throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa
6:04
is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but
6:06
we have done a lot of research for
6:08
this show. Thanks
6:10
Greg. These headaches date back to
6:13
the car accident Garo had the previous
6:15
year. Persistent headaches are the
6:17
most common symptom of a traumatic brain
6:19
injury and the risk may be increased
6:21
if a person experiences recurrent head trauma.
6:24
You'll remember from our previous episode that
6:26
according to Garo's sister, their mother knocked
6:29
him unconscious at least once when he was
6:31
a boy. We already discussed
6:33
the well-established risks of childhood brain
6:35
injuries. It's possible
6:38
that the car crash aggravated
6:40
existing damage causing Garo's debilitating
6:42
headaches. Several studies indicate a
6:44
link between severe headaches and
6:46
hostility. A 2021 case
6:49
report published by researchers at a
6:51
Turkish university described a patient whose
6:53
headaches triggered what seemed to
6:55
be dissociative aggression. While
6:57
headaches aren't enough to make someone a murderer,
6:59
they could have made Garo's violent impulses worse.
7:02
Over the next two days the pain persisted,
7:05
making it hard to sleep or even think
7:07
straight. By July 14th, Garo
7:09
had become a powder keg. That
7:13
same morning, 23-year-old Danny Porter
7:15
and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Susan
7:17
Petz, set off on a
7:19
camping trip in the Adirondacks.
7:22
Danny was working hard as a political pollster
7:24
for a local election at the time while
7:26
Susan was about to begin her final year
7:28
at Boston University. They were both
7:30
looking forward to a well-deserved break out in the
7:32
wilderness. By mid-afternoon, the couple
7:35
reached a pretty stretch of woodland on the
7:37
southern side of the mountain range. There
7:39
was no formal campground in this area of the
7:42
park and as far as they
7:44
could tell, there was nobody else around
7:46
for miles. But they
7:48
were wrong. The details of
7:50
what happened next are sketchy. The
7:53
only account we have is from Garo himself
7:55
and by his own admission, his memory
7:58
is vague. Here's what he told
8:00
his lawyers. lawyers, according to Jim Tracy's book,
8:02
Sworn to Silence. Garro had pulled
8:04
over to the side of a narrow forest road because
8:06
his head was killing him. He sat
8:09
there in agony as Danny and Susan pulled
8:11
up behind him. They
8:13
didn't have enough room to pass, so Danny
8:15
got out and walked towards the driver's
8:17
side of Garro's car, perhaps to see
8:19
if he needed help. The
8:21
exchange quickly took an ugly turn. It's
8:24
unclear who said what, but good
8:26
intentions devolved into conflict. During
8:29
Garro's hair trigger temper, it likely didn't take much
8:31
to push him over the edge. At
8:34
some point, Garro exited his car and
8:36
started scuffling with Danny. The
8:39
pair ended up falling into a steep embankment
8:41
that ran alongside the road. In
8:44
a moment of pure fury, Garro reached
8:46
for the knife he'd concealed inside his
8:48
jacket and stabbed Danny repeatedly. When
8:51
he was sure Danny was dead, Garro
8:53
calmly walked back up the slope towards
8:55
the road. Susan was
8:57
still sitting in the car, completely
9:00
terrified. Garro told her that
9:02
he was taking her hostage, but
9:04
he had no intention of letting
9:06
Susan go. He drove
9:08
her about an hour north towards Mineville,
9:10
a tiny hamlet close to the Vermont
9:12
border. They camped there for
9:15
two days, during which Garro repeatedly coerced
9:17
Susan into having sex with him. On
9:20
July 16th, he said that Susan asked if
9:22
she could go home. When he
9:25
said no, he claimed she grabbed his
9:27
knife and tried attacking him. Garro
9:29
wrestled the knife away and then
9:31
killed her. After his
9:34
rage subsided, he hid her body inside
9:36
the air vent of an abandoned mine
9:38
shaft, where he hoped it would go
9:40
unnoticed. Meanwhile,
9:43
200 miles away in
9:45
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Danny's friend Pat Caddell
9:47
was already worrying. It was
9:49
Monday morning and Danny hadn't shown up for work.
9:53
Pat wasn't like him. He was reliable, the
9:55
kind of guy who always called if he
9:57
was running late. The
10:00
police and report it as friends missing.
10:02
Soon afterward, state troopers found the couple's
10:04
abandoned car on the same narrow forest
10:06
road where they'd left it. Nothing.
10:09
About the scene seem suspicious. The
10:11
car was parked and lot and there were
10:13
no signs of a struggle nearby. The
10:16
police dismiss path concerns. They knew a
10:18
big group of Boston University students run
10:20
a white water rafting trip in the
10:22
area that week. They figured Danny and
10:24
Susan had decided to join the others.
10:27
But. Part had an uneasy feeling, he
10:29
just knew something was wrong. So he
10:31
gathered a group of friends and
10:33
together. They drove out to the spot where
10:36
Danny and Susan's car had been Sound. Trying.
10:38
To keep their anxiety at bay, the group
10:41
found out and started searching the wilderness. Eventually
10:43
a young man. Named Jim King
10:46
Notice Danny's body lying in the
10:48
ditch. He picked Danny's remains up,
10:50
carried them to the road. And
10:53
yelled to the others for help but he
10:55
knew there. Was nothing to be done.
10:57
Danny had been dead for days.
11:00
In a cruel twist. A seat when
11:02
the friends called the police Day initially.
11:04
Became suspects d Authorities were suspicious
11:06
because gym had disrupted the crime
11:09
scene by moving the body, but
11:11
the group was well connected gym
11:13
work to Sen Ted Kennedy's and
11:15
so authorities turned their attention elsewhere.
11:18
With. Susan still missing. Investigators launched
11:20
a state wide search. At
11:22
the time, Garrow was still lurking
11:24
around the vast Adirondack park, blending
11:26
in amongst the day hikers and
11:28
backpackers. He must have been an
11:30
odd feeling. Between. Stints
11:33
in prisons, his various jobs, and his
11:35
family he'd gotten used to having constant
11:37
company about in the two weeks after
11:39
he killed Danny of Susan Garros spent
11:41
more time alone that he had in
11:43
years. He was reminded
11:45
of his childhood, the total isolation
11:48
he felt on the farm where
11:50
he'd been left with little supervision.
11:52
It wasn't a happy memory, in
11:55
fact it fan the flames of
11:57
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On July Twenty Eighth, Nineteen
13:12
Seventy. Three a group of four friends
13:14
said out from the outskirts of Albany
13:16
for the Adirondack Mountains. They were all
13:18
in their late teens and early twenties.
13:20
Looking forward to a long weekend camping
13:23
together, but the site where they plan
13:25
on staying was full. Undeterred, they found
13:27
a secluded clearing off of Route Thirty
13:29
and set up camp there for the
13:31
night. Twenty three year old Carol no
13:33
one else does. The oldest of the
13:35
group shared a tent with her fiance,
13:37
nineteen year old Day Freeman in another
13:39
tent where Daves. Friends: eighteen year
13:42
old still down blue states and
13:44
twenty year old Nick Fiorello. The
13:47
next morning, fill in Nyc woke up before
13:49
sunrise to go fishing while Dave and Carol
13:51
slept in. When
13:53
the couple awoke around. Nine Am. they
13:56
heard footsteps outside. Their tent. They
13:58
call their friends' names. assuming they'd returned
14:00
from the fishing trip. But
14:02
there was no reply. Instead,
14:05
Dave and Carol watched in
14:07
horror as the zipper to
14:09
their tent slowly opened. Still
14:12
half asleep, they wondered if it was a dream.
14:15
Garo on the other side was wide
14:17
awake. He hadn't slept all
14:19
night. He'd been parked nearby just out
14:22
of sight watching the group, waiting
14:24
for this moment. At
14:26
first, the couple thought Garo looked like a
14:29
park ranger. He was wearing a fedora and
14:31
had a pair of binoculars around his neck.
14:34
But then they saw the rifle. Garo
14:37
calmly told them to leave the tent,
14:39
and they obeyed. He claimed he'd
14:41
run out of gas and needed a fight and some
14:43
from their cars. Just
14:46
then, Nick and Phil returned from their
14:48
fishing trip to find this
14:50
strange scene. Dave and Carol's
14:52
paralyzing fear briefly turned to
14:54
relief. Now it was
14:56
four against one. But
14:58
it seems they were too disoriented and scared
15:00
to try to overpower Garo, who didn't seem
15:03
phased at all. He told the
15:05
group he just wanted their gas, but he had
15:07
a criminal record and couldn't risk getting caught. So
15:10
he was going to tie them all to trees to
15:12
make sure they didn't rat him out. He
15:15
marched the foursome into the woods at
15:17
gunpoint. Along the way, the group tried
15:19
to defuse the situation, telling Garo he
15:21
was welcome to just take the gas.
15:24
They promised they wouldn't tell anyone. Garo
15:26
wouldn't hear it. He snapped, Don't
15:29
try anything or I'll blow a hole in you. I've
15:32
killed before and I'll kill again. One
15:35
by one, Garo had the four friends
15:38
tie one another to trees while he
15:40
watched. He made sure to leave
15:42
several feet of distance between the trees so
15:44
that none of the captives could see each
15:46
other. The end
15:48
methodically, Garo walked back through the
15:50
woods surveying his hostages. Eventually he
15:52
reached the first tree where 18
15:54
year old Phil was tied up.
15:57
He lowered his gun and pulled out
15:59
a buck-knife. Garro
16:02
stabbed Phil repeatedly in the chest.
16:04
Though the others couldn't see what
16:06
was happening, they heard Phil's anguished
16:09
cries and then a terrible silence.
16:12
Panicking, the others began struggling against their
16:14
ropes. Since Garro had forced
16:16
them to tie themselves up, it wasn't too
16:19
difficult to break loose. Soon
16:21
Nick, Dave, and Carol were all free. They
16:24
all fled in separate directions. Momentarily
16:27
stunned, Garro looked around frantically and spotted
16:29
a set of footprints in the mud.
16:33
He started running after the tracks and caught
16:35
up with Dave in the woods. Pressing
16:37
his rifle into the back of the young
16:39
man's head, Garro forced him to return to
16:41
the campsite. He ordered Dave to
16:43
lie next to him in a ditch and help keep
16:45
watch. It's not clear exactly why.
16:48
It might have made more sense to flee, but
16:50
as far as we can tell, Garro simply froze.
16:54
Everybody's likely familiar with fight
16:56
or flight, but there are
16:58
actually three typical responses to
17:00
danger. Fight, flight, and freeze.
17:03
It's believed that the third response arises when
17:05
the other two are unlikely to be
17:07
effective. In those situations, the
17:09
human body stays put to wait for
17:11
the danger to pass. Consciously
17:13
or not, it seems Garro decided
17:16
that fighting and fleeing weren't his
17:18
best options. He was acting on
17:20
pure instinct. Regardless of what
17:22
was going on in his mind, the two
17:24
escapees weren't dwelling on it. Carol
17:26
sprinted through several acres of dense woods
17:29
and onto a nearby road where she
17:31
luckily managed to flag down a passerby.
17:34
Almost hyperventilating, she told the driver what
17:36
had happened and he agreed to take
17:38
her to the nearby village of Speculator
17:40
for help. Meanwhile, Nick ran
17:43
to his car and gunned it, still
17:45
half blind with panic as he drove
17:47
away. When he reached the
17:49
nearby village of Wells, he pulled into the
17:51
parking lot of a diner and began screaming
17:53
for help. According to author: Jim
17:55
Tracy, the locals were wary. Nick was covered
17:58
in dirt and, to them, a. Peer
18:00
to be having some kind of psychotic
18:02
episode History about being attacked by lunatic
18:04
in the woods. Sounded like a bad
18:06
acid trip. Eventually though,
18:09
he persuaded. A group of residents to
18:11
come with him to the campsite. Where
18:13
they came across Dave and Garrow still lying
18:15
under still makes in the ditch. When.
18:18
Daves. Ah, the. Locals. Coming to lead to
18:20
his seat and ran towards some screaming.
18:23
He's got a gun and he's going to
18:25
suit. But. Garrow didn't suit. Instead,
18:27
he com we got to his feet
18:29
and walked away into the forest. Once.
18:32
Again, it's hard to make sense of
18:35
Garros thought process here. but retreating. Turned
18:37
out to be a smart call.
18:39
His com attitude surprised and confused.
18:41
To locals. So much so that
18:43
no one bothered pursuing him. Meanwhile,
18:46
the man who picked up Carol call the
18:48
sheriff in the town of Like Pleasance about
18:50
fifty miles away. Once. The
18:52
authorities in both towns got involved.
18:55
Is soon became clear that Carol
18:57
Days and Nick Stories. Matched perfectly.
18:59
State Troopers sound silly Body still
19:01
tied to a tree near the
19:04
camp site. This. Wasn't some
19:06
acid trip gone wrong? This was
19:08
merely a mass murder. Within
19:11
forty eight hours, a sprawling manhunt
19:13
was underway for the two hundred
19:15
police officers com the woods and
19:18
mountains around the crime scene. Helicopters
19:20
buzzed overhead and bloodhounds blazed a
19:22
trail on the ground and news
19:24
the chaos Garrow Abandon. His car and
19:26
fled into the. Woods on Foot. That
19:28
turned out to be a fatal mistake.
19:31
Before long, the authorities found his
19:33
car and trace the license plate. Thirty.
19:35
Seven year old Robert Giro was now the
19:37
most Wanted man and a State of New
19:40
York. Looking. Into his record,
19:42
the police discovered he was on
19:44
bail for sexually assaulting to minors.
19:46
In Syracuse, he'd recently missed
19:48
his court date. At
19:50
some point, they also identified Garrow as
19:53
a suspect in Danny's murder based on
19:55
the similarities between the killings and the
19:57
location and Adirondack Park. Susan Pets mean.
20:00
While was ill considered missing. The
20:03
possibility that she might still be
20:05
alive, maybe even a captive, added
20:07
new urgency to the investigation. Rumors.
20:10
That a serial killer was on
20:12
the loose spread terror throughout the
20:14
area. After hearing the news from
20:16
panic campers abandon their tents and
20:18
campsite, leaving their supplies behind. To
20:21
catch Garo, the police set up
20:23
a sprawling network of road blocks
20:25
around Adirondack Park. They were
20:27
confident they were closing. In on the
20:29
killer, but girl was crafty,
20:31
evaded the police roadblocks and without
20:34
anyone noticing, stole a car
20:36
from a lodge and escaped. He'd.
20:38
Gotten away again by the skin
20:40
of his teeth. but he had
20:43
no intention. Of ever
20:45
getting costs. However,
20:52
you celebrate the holiday season
20:54
can be a lot for
20:56
mean the flights. Camp with
20:58
your sister between travel ma'am
21:00
we shopping since and more
21:03
when you're feeling overwhelmed. Moved.
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To try to do Christians focus
21:12
on one small thing at a
21:14
time. For. More to
21:16
for dealing with stress.
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Visit an Ha.ohio.com/checked. Your
21:22
home with times.com or none
21:24
of my last. See
21:28
I lie or let us install
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none of those last. Three
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Dance. Resembles
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and free. Speech
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and to blinds.com and see
21:44
how much you could mine.
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Mine rules and restrictions may have.
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my early august nineteen seventy three
21:59
37-year-old Robert Garro had been on
22:01
the run for about a week.
22:04
After somehow slipping out of Adirondack
22:06
Park, he made his way east
22:09
towards Lake Champlain. His
22:11
younger sister Agnes lived nearby and he knew
22:13
she wouldn't turn him away. The
22:15
cops already had her house under surveillance, but
22:18
as it turned out, Garro happened to arrive
22:20
shortly after the police left to follow up
22:22
on another lead. He
22:24
stayed briefly, just long enough to watch
22:26
himself on the 11 o'clock news. Thanks
22:29
to that report, he realized the
22:31
police had already identified his stolen
22:33
car. Garro told his
22:35
sister and her family that the whole thing was
22:38
a misunderstanding. According to journalist
22:40
Jim Tracy, Agnes believed him, so she
22:42
didn't alert the police to his presence.
22:45
After an hour or so, he slipped out of
22:47
the back door and disappeared into the night, leaving
22:50
the stolen car behind. The
22:52
next day, the authorities found the vehicle on
22:54
a dirt road near Agnes' home. Now,
22:57
in its second week, the manhunt
22:59
widened to cover the entire county.
23:02
Garro traveled by foot through nearby wooded
23:04
areas, stealing food and drinks from homes
23:06
and campsites when he could. Maybe
23:09
he figured he had better odds of surviving in the
23:11
woods. He
23:13
was wrong. On August 9th, a
23:15
game warden spotted Garro and recognized
23:17
him immediately. He tried to
23:19
place Garro under arrest, but the killer
23:22
fled. Until then, running
23:24
had always worked well for him. This
23:26
time, though, the game warden gave chase.
23:29
When Garro refused to stop, he pulled out
23:31
his gun and shot him four times. Somehow,
23:34
despite bullet wounds to his back,
23:37
arms, and legs, Garro kept moving,
23:39
but only for a few moments.
23:42
Finally, he collapsed into the undergrowth.
23:45
Authorities rushed him to the hospital. As
23:47
soon as he awoke, they bombarded him
23:49
with questions, desperate to determine Susan's whereabouts.
23:52
But Garro refused to say a word,
23:54
except to ask for his lawyer,
23:57
Frank Armani. Armani had
23:59
been affected. and ruthless in defending Garo
24:01
against the assault charges in the path. He'd
24:04
even persuaded some victims to drop their cases.
24:06
Garo was confident his old attorney would come
24:08
through for him again. Armani
24:11
took the case and enlisted a
24:13
criminal defense lawyer, Francis Belgee,
24:15
as co-counsel. The
24:17
defense had an uphill battle, and both lawyers
24:19
knew it. There was a
24:22
lot of evidence against Garo. Most importantly,
24:24
there were three eyewitnesses who could testify
24:26
against him. So,
24:28
Garo admitted everything. He told
24:30
his team he'd killed not
24:32
only Phil Domblouski, but also
24:34
Susan Petz and Alicia Hough,
24:37
the high schooler in Syracuse.
24:40
By that point, Alicia's body had not been
24:42
found. The police had her pegged as
24:44
a teenage runaway. But Garo told
24:46
them exactly where he'd left her remains,
24:48
in a cemetery near Syracuse University. He
24:52
also revealed that he disposed of Susan's
24:54
body inside the air vent of a
24:56
mine shaft. This
25:07
passive phrasing might simply indicate
25:10
Garo's unwillingness to take responsibility
25:12
for his crimes. Or it
25:14
could point to something deeper, a
25:16
type of dissociation. In psychology,
25:18
this word is a blanket term that refers
25:20
to a break in a person's mental functioning.
25:23
Generally, a disconnect between their
25:26
thoughts, actions, feelings, or
25:28
sense of self. Research shows
25:30
that some level of dissociation during
25:32
a violent crime is relatively common.
25:34
So it's possible Garo knew he'd
25:36
killed Susan, but felt no real-life
25:39
attachment to the act. Armani
25:41
and Belgee didn't have time to dwell on the
25:44
nuances of Garo's phrasing. They had to make sure
25:46
he was telling the truth. So
25:48
they followed the directions he'd given them, eventually
25:50
coming to a steep hill in a stretch
25:52
of woodland. Peering
26:00
into the darkness with a flashlight,
26:02
the men recoiled. Susan's body was
26:05
exactly where Garo said it would
26:07
be. On a separate
26:09
trip, Belji confirmed that Garo hit Alicia
26:12
Hauck's body at a cemetery in Syracuse.
26:14
The attorneys knew the police were searching
26:16
for Susan and Alicia. Their families
26:19
had been in agonizing limbo for
26:21
weeks. Now they alone
26:23
knew the truth. But
26:26
under the attorney-client privilege rules, they couldn't
26:28
disclose anything Garo had told them. There
26:30
are some exceptions to this rule. In
26:33
most states, lawyers can break attorney-client privilege if
26:35
someone is in danger, for example. But
26:37
that didn't help here. In
26:40
a 2016 episode of the podcast
26:43
Radio Lab, Armani discusses how morally
26:45
conflicted he felt during this time.
26:48
Both families were still clinging to the
26:50
hope that their daughters might be alive,
26:53
and he couldn't say anything. During
26:56
the Radio Lab episode, he said, You
26:58
wake up at two-thirty in the morning with sweat
27:00
running down your back. You're questioning
27:02
yourself. You're hurting people. So
27:04
you begin to wonder, am I
27:06
in the right profession? He
27:09
searched desperately for ways to get
27:11
the information out without directly betraying
27:13
his client. He tried brokering a
27:15
deal with the prosecution, offering up the
27:17
location of the bodies in exchange for
27:19
a more lenient sentence. But
27:22
the DA refused on moral grounds, finding it
27:24
unethical for the defense to use the bodies
27:26
as a bargaining chip. Ultimately,
27:29
the bodies were uncovered without
27:31
Armani's help. In
27:34
the final weeks of 1973,
27:36
two kids stumbled onto Susan's
27:38
remains while they were playing in the
27:40
mineshaft. Coincidentally, a Syracuse
27:43
University student found Alicia's body in
27:45
the cemetery around the same time.
27:48
After months of agony, both families were,
27:50
at last, able to bury their loved
27:52
ones. Garo's six secrets were
27:54
all unveiled. Because
30:00
somehow Robert jr. Smuggled a pistol
30:02
inside of all things a box
30:04
of KFC chicken It's
30:07
been suggested by some that for Robert
30:09
jr. It was an act of love
30:11
for the distant father He craved validation
30:13
from for Garo the gun was an
30:15
insurance policy. He wouldn't use it unless
30:17
he absolutely had to That
30:20
night after lights out Garo made a
30:22
dummy out of pillows Stuffed
30:24
it inside his prison clothes and left it
30:27
under his sheets According to
30:29
Jim Tracy Garo then exited his
30:31
cell in his wheelchair and used a
30:33
table leg to pop off two railings from
30:35
his wards porch Leaving a
30:37
gap just wide enough for him to wiggle
30:40
through Armed with the
30:42
pistol. He was ready to use it if anybody
30:44
confronted him, but once again Security
30:46
was lax and it seemed nobody noticed
30:49
to Garo go Nor
30:51
did they see him head outside
30:53
scale the prison fence and disappear
30:56
into the darkness beyond Garo
30:58
must have been elated as he jumped down
31:00
from the fence onto free soil Yet
31:03
again, he defied extraordinary odds to
31:06
evade justice breathing in the night
31:08
air. He felt invincible The
31:11
morning after a guard saw what appeared to
31:14
be Garo still asleep in his cell after
31:16
the wake-up call and yelled at him When
31:19
there was no response he realized what was
31:21
going on and raised the alarm Within
31:24
an hour officers had combed every square foot
31:26
of the prison and its crowns in Beacon
31:29
the closest town to the prison residents were
31:31
warned that an inmate had escaped as Guards
31:34
police and state troopers scoured
31:36
the surrounding area. They must have
31:38
felt hopeless After all
31:40
Garo had a huge head start his
31:43
escape had gone unnoticed for an entire
31:45
night He might already be
31:47
out of the state maybe even out of
31:49
the country But he hadn't
31:52
for reasons that remain unclear Garo
31:54
didn't even run once he was free. He
31:56
didn't take off into the dense woods or steal a
31:59
car from the lodge Once again,
32:01
he just froze. Three
32:04
days after his escape, corrections
32:06
officers found him running through the
32:08
woods just beyond the prison fence.
32:11
Astonished, they yelled at him to stop and
32:13
began chasing him. In response, Garro
32:15
shot one of the officers. With
32:18
that, the officials opened fire, shooting
32:20
him 39 times in all. On
32:24
September 11, 1978, Robert Garro died at the age of 42. Three
32:32
weeks later, his son pleaded guilty to
32:34
a charge of promoting prison contraband. He
32:36
claimed he hadn't known the details of
32:38
his father's escape plan and thought the
32:40
pistol was to defend himself from a
32:42
fellow inmate. Though he was 18, Robert
32:46
Jr. was tried as a juvenile and
32:48
ultimately released on parole after serving three
32:50
months in a youth facility. Garro's
32:53
escape and demise are so absurd that
32:56
it can be easy to overlook how
32:58
the killer bent the system to his
33:00
advantage. He served less than five
33:02
years behind bars, during which he focused
33:04
on nothing but his long con. Ultimately,
33:07
he died without fully bearing the
33:09
weight of what he'd done. Thanks
33:22
again for tuning in to Serial Killers. We'll
33:24
be back soon with another episode. For
33:27
more information on Robert Garro, amongst
33:29
the many sources we used, we
33:31
found Jim Tracy's book, sworn to
33:33
silence, the truth behind Robert Garro
33:35
and the Missing Bodies case,
33:38
on Radiolab's 2016 episode,
33:40
The Buried Bodies Case. Extremely
33:42
helpful in our research. You
33:45
can find all episodes of Serial Killers
33:47
and all other Spotify originals from Parcast
33:49
for free on Spotify. We'll
33:51
see you next time. Stay
33:53
safe out there. Serial Killers
33:55
is a Spotify original from Parcast. Our
33:58
head of programming is Jim Tracy. Julian
34:00
Boiro, our supervising sound designer
34:02
is Russell Nash, with Nick Johnson as
34:05
our head of production, and Spencer Howard
34:07
as our post-production supervisor. Stacy
34:10
Nemick is our supervising editor, and Derek
34:12
Jennings is our writing lead. This
34:15
episode of Serial Killers was written by
34:17
Emma Dibdin, edited by Robert
34:19
Tyler Walker and Terrell Wells,
34:21
fact-checked by Cheyenne Lopez, researched
34:24
by Brian Petrus and Chelsea
34:26
Wood, produced by Bruce Kitovich,
34:28
and sound design by Anthony
34:30
Valsic. Our hosts are Greg
34:33
Polson and me, Vanessa Richardson.
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