0:00

The Ford F-150 truck drives smart design

0:02

forward. The standard 12-inch productivity screen helps

0:04

you get what you need done too.

0:07

And the available Pro-Access tailgate improves access

0:09

to bed and cargo and utilization of

0:11

the bed, including when towing a trailer.

0:14

Together with a wider bumper step, it's easier

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to access the bed and load in tight

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spaces. An available Pro-Power onboard

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serves as a mobile power source, providing up

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to 7.2 kilowatts of power to charge a

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bed full of electric dirt bikes or run

0:27

an entire job site worth of tools. I'm

0:30

still driving my 2016 F-150 truck and 90,000 miles in. As

0:34

long as I keep it clean, it honestly still looks brand

0:37

new. I've taken it down snow-covered, forest-service

0:39

roads, taken it out camping, put a ton

0:41

of miles on it on the freeway, had

0:43

five adults in the cabin for long trips,

0:45

and it's been great everywhere. Super dependable. I

0:47

still love the way it looks, nice and

0:49

rugged design, but with a super comfortable interior.

0:51

And I'm still very happy with the quality

0:53

sound system and heated seats. And since I

0:55

bought my 2016 F-150 truck, the

0:59

list of standard amenities that make a truck

1:01

feel like a luxury vehicle have only grown.

1:04

TUF this Smart can only be called F-150. Find

1:07

your local Ford dealer at ford.com.

1:10

Pro-axis tailgate available starting spring 2024.

1:13

See owner's manual for important operating

1:15

instructions. At

1:17

Capella University, you'll get support from

1:19

people who care about your success. From

1:22

before you enroll to after you graduate.

1:24

Pursue your goals knowing help is available when you

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need it. Imagine your

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future differently at capella.edu. Richard

1:34

Byrd, Las Vegas' forgotten madman,

1:36

the Las Vegas trip strangler.

1:39

Born and raised in the cowboy and mining

1:41

town of Winnemucca, Nevada, where he seriously creeped

1:44

out his classmates, and possibly, if

1:46

not probably, murdered one of them, Richard

1:48

would move to another mining town, Elko,

1:50

Nevada, after graduating from high school, where

1:53

he would quite possibly, if not almost

1:55

certainly, murder a young woman there. He

1:57

would also get married, and when his marriage ended,

2:00

In such a strange way, he

2:02

would follow his now ex-wife to Las Vegas, where

2:04

he will kill eight girls and women during a

2:06

10-year murder spree that lasted from March of 1991

2:09

to September of 2001. And

2:13

that is why you have very likely

2:15

never heard of him. Richard

2:17

Byrd was arrested the day after 9-11. Yes,

2:20

that 9-11. While the

2:23

world was focused on the 9-11 terror attacks,

2:25

Richard was arrested and quickly confessed to eight

2:27

murders and additional crimes. There was no trial,

2:29

and even where the crimes happened in

2:31

Las Vegas, there was almost no media

2:34

coverage. The city was still

2:36

too worried about being attacked in another

2:38

terroristic strike. A forgotten true

2:40

crime tale. And what a tale

2:42

it is, my God. This

2:44

guy's a weird one. Real weird. And

2:47

I share his full, disturbing story

2:49

on another true crime. Feel lucky

2:51

you never crossed paths with this

2:53

degenerate, Sin City hair brushes and

2:55

butthole addition. That'll make sense

2:57

eventually. Have time, suck. This

2:59

is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time

3:01

Suck. You're

3:03

listening to Time Suck.

3:16

Happy Monday and welcome or welcome back

3:18

to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan

3:20

Cummins. Suck nasty. Guy who

3:22

would have never made it to the age of

3:25

adulthood in all likelihood. Rata, a

3:27

guy who will never make pronunciation guide videos for

3:29

how to say Greek words in English.

3:32

Guy who has never stood on a tree

3:34

branch and beat off either. That'll pay off

3:36

later. And you are listening

3:38

to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail

3:40

Lucifina, praise be to Good Boy Bojangles

3:42

and glory be to triple M Michael

3:45

motherfucking McDonald. I just

3:47

want to say real quick before we dive in, thank you, thank

3:49

you to all of those of you who

3:51

have bought tickets for the Wet Hot

3:53

Bad Magic Summer Camp 2025 September 4th

3:56

to the 7th. Tickets are on sale now

3:59

at Bad Magic. addmagicproductions.com, get them

4:01

all you can. Holy hell,

4:03

it will be a blast. And

4:06

that's it for today. And now, oh boy,

4:08

what a story. Not

4:16

a lot of setup before we really get into it

4:18

today. Most of this episode will

4:20

be a timeline that will start with Richard Byrd's

4:22

birth and end with him in

4:24

prisons and then, well, you'll

4:27

have to wait to see what happens to this dirt bag in

4:29

prison. Before the timeline, since I

4:31

will be referencing a fair amount of brothels today,

4:33

as in legal brothels, with them factoring

4:35

quite a bit into the story, I'd like to

4:37

share a bit of information regarding how Nevada is

4:40

very different than the rest of the United States

4:42

when it comes to sex work. Nevada

4:44

is the only US state where prostitution

4:47

is legally permitted in some form. Prostitution

4:50

is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, although

4:53

only six allow it in

4:55

every municipality. Six counties

4:57

have at least one active brothel, which

4:59

mainly operate in isolated rural areas. The

5:02

state's most populated counties, Clark,

5:04

which contains Las Vegas, and

5:07

Washoe, which contains Reno,

5:10

not as fun to say, are among

5:12

those who do not permit prostitution. It

5:14

is also legal in Nevada's capital, Carson

5:16

City, an independent city. Despite

5:19

this, the vast majority of prostitution in

5:21

Nevada takes place illegally in the metropolitan

5:24

areas of Las Vegas and Reno. Have

5:27

you ever spent time in the gambling centers of either

5:29

city, like the Strip on Las Vegas?

5:31

I doubt you are surprised. Lot

5:34

of ladies hustling out there, and there used to

5:36

be a lot more. Currently

5:38

about 66 times more money is spent

5:40

by customers on illegal prostitution

5:42

in Nevada, primarily in Las Vegas

5:44

than in regulated brothels. I

5:47

would say that Las Vegas has to be the sex

5:49

work capital of the United States. Sin

5:51

City, baby. Las Vegas

5:54

and Reno both had legal prostitution prior to World War

5:56

II, but then in 1942, President

5:59

Franklin D. Roosevelt caught a bad case

6:01

of gonorrhea, aka the clap. During

6:03

an orgy he participated in at Cat's Pussy

6:06

and Penis Pervert Palace in Reno. And

6:08

he gave it to First Lady Eleanor, and she was

6:10

pretty upset about it. She apparently took

6:12

a lot of pride in having a sparkly,

6:14

clean, and shiny and STI-free pussy-plus. So

6:17

he issued a presidential order to shut it down.

6:20

And that's not quite the truth. In 1942, though,

6:22

FDR did issue a presidential

6:24

order to suppress prostitution on their military bases,

6:27

and that did affect the legal red-light districts

6:29

of both Reno and Las Vegas at that

6:31

time. Then when that

6:33

order was lifted in 1948, some

6:36

uptight Reno officials tried to shut down

6:38

brothels as, quote, public nuisances. And

6:41

that action was then upheld by some more uptight

6:43

dipshits. At the Nevada Supreme Court

6:45

in 1949, 1951, both Reno and Las Vegas,

6:47

closed their red-light districts as

6:50

public nuisances, but brothels

6:53

continued to exist throughout other parts of the

6:55

state. And because you just can't stop

6:57

certain kinds of vice, there was even

6:59

more sex work in Reno and Las Vegas

7:01

after the ban than before. That's

7:04

why I called those folks dipshits. Taking

7:06

away legal prostitution will not end sex work, kind

7:08

of like how prohibition did not stop

7:11

the use of alcohol. A lot of

7:13

people drank even more, because now it

7:15

was taboo and cooler and sexier, getting

7:17

in all those gin joints. Currently

7:20

under Nevada state law, any county with

7:22

a population of up to 700,000 as

7:24

of the last census is allowed to

7:26

license brothels if it so chooses, in

7:28

corporated towns and cities, in counties

7:30

that allow prostitution may regulate the trade

7:33

further or prohibit it altogether, though. This

7:35

legality, by the way, has not created some

7:37

explosion of brothels, where sex work is just

7:40

in your face, everywhere you look, like

7:42

some seem to believe there is not a cat's

7:44

pussy and penis pervert palace on every corner. As

7:48

of February 2018, there were only 21 legal

7:51

brothels existing in the state, only

7:53

employing a total of around 200 women at any

7:55

given time. So that's not exactly

7:58

rampant prostitution. In

8:01

some locales, there exist multi-unit

8:03

complexes of several separate brothels

8:05

run by the same owner,

8:07

including The Line in Winamukka,

8:09

where our story begins. Mandatory

8:12

HIV testing began in 1986 at these

8:14

brothels, and mandatory condom law was passed

8:16

in 1988. A

8:19

study conducted in 1995 in two brothels

8:21

in Nevada found that condom use in

8:23

the brothels was consistent and

8:25

sexually transmitted diseases were accordingly absent.

8:27

I picture a few

8:29

listeners pausing the episode right now and buying

8:31

Penn tickets to Nevada. Let's go! Per

8:35

Nevada law, sex workers and brothels must submit

8:37

monthly blood tests for both HIV and syphilis,

8:40

and the state board of health requires sex workers to

8:42

be tested for a broader range of STIs, sexually

8:45

transmitted infections, either weekly

8:47

or monthly, depending on the county. Finally,

8:50

brothels cannot employ sex workers until

8:52

they first provide recent test results,

8:55

showing that they do not have syphilis,

8:57

gonorrhea, chlamydia or HIV. So

9:00

pretty damn safe. A better

9:02

system in my mind than illegal sex work that

9:05

no one will ever stop, where there are

9:07

no health guidelines and also no bouncers or

9:09

security personnel nearby to protect sex workers from

9:11

customers. The system

9:13

is far from perfect this system, and women are

9:15

still abused, primarily because legal

9:17

prostitution gives the very few brothel owners

9:20

in any given area too much power.

9:22

There's not enough competition, and some

9:24

former sex workers have said that these brothel

9:27

owners are actually worse than pimps. Hopefully

9:30

that's not true currently, but I don't know. Now

9:32

just a bit more about prostitution in Las Vegas, where

9:35

a lot of today's story will also take place. 90%

9:38

of illegal prostitution in Nevada takes place in

9:41

Las Vegas, the majority of it taking place

9:43

around the Strip, where most

9:45

of the big casinos are. Not

9:48

all. Around 300 to 400 sex workers

9:50

are arrested every month by the Las

9:52

Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, but

9:55

it's only a misdemeanor, so not a huge deterrent

9:57

to stop doing it. And I

9:59

can dive further into the... of all of this

10:01

and the legality of this situation versus that situation,

10:03

which is better, which is worse. But

10:06

again, that's not really necessary when it comes to today's

10:08

story. I just wanted to provide a bit of understanding

10:11

when it comes to why I will be

10:13

referencing so much sex work, legal

10:15

and otherwise safe. That

10:17

groundwork now laid, let's tell this

10:19

tale. Let's get weird.

10:22

Real weird. In

10:24

today's Time Suck timeline. Step

10:28

on the boots, soldier. We're

10:30

marching down a Time Suck

10:32

timeline. On

10:39

November 11, 1957,

10:42

Richard Henry Byrd was born in Winnemucca,

10:44

Nevada, to a 39-year-old

10:46

blackjack dealer, Harris Elijah Byrd,

10:48

and a 20-year-old cocktail waitress,

10:50

Phyllis Holden. Yep,

10:53

especially rough 19-year age gap. And

10:56

he is the couple's second child. Big

10:59

cringy. Their first daughter,

11:01

Peggy Sue, had been born nearly three years earlier, December 14,

11:03

1954, when Harris was 36 and Phyllis was 17. And

11:11

she'd gotten pregnant when she was 16 and

11:13

he was 35. So that's super cringe.

11:16

Technically legal, but gross. And

11:19

then the couple would have their third and final child,

11:21

Barbara Jane Byrd, born on February 16, 1960. Richard's

11:25

father, Harris, had met Phyllis in Winnemucca, where

11:28

she had grown up, early in 1954, after

11:30

he had moved to Nevada from Spartanburg, South Carolina.

11:33

Several years after his first wife, Kathleen,

11:36

had died of bacterial meningitis shortly

11:38

after Harris returned home from serving in the Army in

11:40

World War II, where he had been a bit of a war

11:42

hero. At least, that

11:45

is the story he told Phyllis. She

11:47

will find out years later that he was full of shit.

11:49

Harris never served in the Army. He certainly

11:52

never fought in World War II. He had

11:54

never even been to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Just

11:57

thought it had a cool town name, I

11:59

guess. SPARTAN! But he

12:02

was married though, just not to a woman named

12:04

Kathleen. He was married to a woman named Jolene. Didn't

12:06

seem to have worked very hard to come up with a fake name for her. And

12:09

he still legally was married to Jolene. She'd

12:12

wait for him to finish serving what was supposed

12:14

to be a 12-year prison sentence in Rayford Prison,

12:16

down in Rayford, Florida, for beating

12:18

a teenage sex worker nearly to death in Jacksonville

12:20

in 1940 when he was 22. The

12:24

girl, unnamed in sources, apparently spent a few weeks in

12:26

a coma. She was not Harris's first

12:28

run-in with sex workers or with the law. He

12:31

had been arrested several times previously for

12:33

solicitation of prostitution. And he had

12:35

gotten caught stealing a car, robbing a

12:37

liquor store, and sources referred to a litany of

12:39

other charges going back deep into his

12:41

childhood that are not specifically named. Harris

12:44

was a bad boy. A

12:46

naughty little stinker guy, if you will. He

12:49

had grown up in southern Georgia and northern Florida,

12:51

born in the little town of Folkston, Georgia, May

12:53

15, 1918. And

12:56

he bounced around a bit on the outskirts of Jacksonville. We

12:59

don't know a ton about his childhood. But

13:01

what we do know, not good. It

13:04

seems he'd set out west after being released from prison in

13:06

1947 to start a new life for himself.

13:09

But he never divorced Jolene Oliver. Why

13:12

not? Not a lot of

13:14

info on that. But based on what I found in

13:16

some court records databases, it seems

13:18

that they married while Harris was in prison.

13:21

And likely he having a wife outside, a

13:23

wife probably writing letters, I imagine, to court and

13:26

prison officials pleading for an early release is

13:28

what may have gotten him out of prison five years

13:30

early. But then

13:33

he didn't actually want to be with her. And he splits.

13:35

He does seem to be a very manipulative guy. Probably

13:38

just used her to get out early. Maybe something

13:40

like that. Anyway, between 1947 and 1953, before

13:42

he made it to Winnemucca, Harris

13:47

lived for unknown periods of time based

13:49

on arrests and census records in Omaha,

13:51

Nebraska, Bozeman, Montana and Elko, Nevada. Solicitation

13:54

of prostitution, petty theft for the crimes he

13:56

committed while he bounced around the ones we

13:58

know of. Who

14:00

knows what he did for work in each place and

14:03

exactly why he left each place. Dick's

14:05

mom, let's just call Richard

14:08

Bird Dick now, since that's the name he'll go by for

14:10

the rest of his life. Dick Bird. Picture

14:14

a real weird looking bird right now, real

14:16

ugly, one eyed, mostly featherless bird with a

14:19

big old set of nuts. Can't

14:22

believe he can fly, actually. Anyway, Dick

14:24

Bird's mom, Phyllis Holden, she

14:26

would never legally marry Harris because she was

14:28

already married. He told her that he promised

14:30

to only marry Kathleen and he just couldn't

14:33

bear to get married again legally after she'd

14:35

gotten sick and die. You know, break his

14:37

heart. However, they still held some

14:39

sort of small ceremony with members of her friends and

14:41

family for the most part, and she would take his

14:44

name in public. Weird I know.

14:46

Again, Harris, real manipulative shitty guy.

14:49

I'm sure he twisted everything around to make Phyllis believe

14:51

that he was just so sweet. What a good boy.

14:54

She would not believe he was sweet a little bit later on, but

14:57

by then they had a kid that I'm guessing she felt

14:59

trapped by this dirtbag, and Phyllis did not have the best

15:01

life. He was not raised by a good dad. No

15:04

one gave her a good template of what to strive for

15:06

in a guy, and also she

15:09

grew up in Winnemucca. I mean, so that in

15:11

and of itself, you know, pretty rough.

15:13

It's been a long time since I made fun of Winnemucca. It's

15:16

overdue for me to do it again. I

15:18

Googled, is Winnemucca a good place to live

15:20

for my research this week, and my laptop

15:22

shut itself down? And then later,

15:24

when it booted back up, Siri said,

15:27

there is such a thing as a stupid

15:29

question. Winnemucca is a shithole. You knew that.

15:31

Everyone knows that. Waste my time with

15:34

dumb shit like that again, and I'll fry your hard

15:36

drive, you silly cuck. Yeah, Siri called me a cuck.

15:39

Not sure what that's about. Let me talk

15:41

about Winnemucca a bit, where a little dick bird was

15:43

born and raised before he flew the

15:45

coop. Because it's a bird. I'll stop.

15:47

I looked up home prices on some

15:49

sites like realtor.com and for a 2600

15:53

square foot, three bedroom, two bath

15:55

rancher, built a 1963 on

15:57

a half an acre lot, right in town. right

16:00

now was listed as police taking. It's not worth

16:02

the property tax. No. I did

16:04

find a three-bedroom two-bath 2400 square foot home on

16:06

20 acres just outside of town. It's listed

16:11

right now for 200,000 though. New

16:13

construction. Now, nothing's been done on the inside

16:16

of the home other than sheetrock, but still looks

16:18

like it's plumbed in. 200,000 for a shell of

16:21

a house on 20 acres is insane. If

16:23

you want a lot of land for cheap,

16:25

a lot of dry dirt, sagebrush, lizard, and

16:28

snake-filled land. You should jump on a

16:30

deal like that right now because these prices will not

16:32

last forever, or maybe they will. For

16:35

real now, 165 miles northeast of Reno

16:37

and connected to Reno by Interstate 80, Winamukka

16:39

is the county seat of Humboldt County, Nevada. It's

16:43

about halfway along the drive on I-80

16:45

between San Francisco and Salt Lake City.

16:47

It's also the only incorporated town in

16:50

Humboldt County with a population of 8,431. More

16:52

like 4,000 or 5,000. Actually, I'll share the exact amount. I don't

16:55

know why

17:00

I'm trying to guess right now what the population was. When

17:02

Dick grew up, I'll share that in a bit. Some beaver

17:04

trappers working along the Humboldt River first settled in the area

17:06

in 1830. Soon the area became a

17:09

trading post known as Frenchman's Ford. It

17:11

was named Winamukka after Chief Winamukka of the

17:13

local Northern Paiute tribe in 1863. Winamukka translated

17:18

into English means fuck this place. JK,

17:21

again, no, it means the giver. While

17:23

the town would not be incorporated until 1917, by September 16th,

17:25

1868, when the Central Pacific Railroad reached

17:30

Winamukka, it was already a proper town, train

17:32

station was officially opened on October 1st of

17:35

1868 along with what

17:37

was the first transcontinental railroad. This

17:39

made it a lot easier for people to settle in the

17:41

area and the town grew. Many of the early settlers

17:43

were Basque people from the Basque region of Spain

17:46

and France who worked as sheep herders

17:48

in the area and then many worked

17:50

as ranch hands with cattle as well. Still

17:52

today, Winamukka holds an annual Basque

17:54

festival. In late 19th

17:56

and early 20th centuries, Winamukka had

17:58

a pretty vibrant Chinatown. of about 400 Chinese

18:01

settlers. In 1911, the community was

18:03

visited by Sun Yat-sen,

18:05

future Chinese president. Sadly,

18:08

Winnemucca's Chinatown no longer exists. Last

18:11

building that was abandoned was torn down in 1955.

18:13

In the 1870s, Winnemucca bloomed as

18:15

a railhead for cattle driven to the loading

18:20

pens from across northern Nevada and southeastern

18:22

Oregon and southern Idaho. Cattle,

18:24

mining, and potato farming would be

18:26

the big industries around Winnemucca. All three industries

18:29

continue to be big today. Definitely

18:31

a cowboy farmer and mining town. Old

18:34

West, Wild West, feel to it.

18:36

A lot of yeah! September

18:39

19th, 1900, famed outlaw Butch Cassidy's

18:41

gang, robbed the first national bank of

18:43

Winnemucca for 32,640 bucks. Currently a massive mining operation and

18:48

processing plant for what may be the largest known

18:50

deposit of lithium in the world is

18:53

being developed at nearby Sacker Pass about

18:55

50 miles from Winnemucca. Estimated that

18:57

the area has roughly $4 billion worth

18:59

of recoverable lithium. So

19:02

much precious metal in this

19:04

area. Historically though, mostly gold, silver, also some

19:06

lead have been mined around Winnemucca over the years

19:08

going back to 1868, primarily

19:10

silver it seems. Circling

19:13

back to cowboys, Winnemucca is still

19:15

a cowboy town. Rough and rugged

19:17

cowboy town like real cowboys. Holds

19:20

the largest ranch hand rodeo in Nevada every year.

19:22

30 teams competing for

19:24

bragging rights and prizes and saddle

19:26

bronc riding, steer stopping, wild

19:29

mugging, wherever that is, trailer loading,

19:31

team roping, ranch doctrine, and team

19:33

branding. Yeah! Winnemucca

19:35

is even home to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame and

19:37

Heritage Museum. And a buckaroo is

19:40

a real cowboy. Someone whose job it

19:42

is to actually take care of cattle. Not

19:44

swing dance with a large belt buckle at a

19:46

bar in the city. Circling back to

19:48

Dick's mom Phyllis now, she was born in

19:51

Winnemucca on July 6, 1937. One of six

19:53

kids, at least a few of them girls,

19:55

her siblings not named in sources, and

19:58

they were all born to Jack and Lois Holden. Lois

20:01

was a homemaker and Jack worked at

20:03

a big local business that sold agricultural

20:05

equipment called Carter Agra Systems. And

20:08

Jack was also a fucking dirtbag. He'll

20:10

be arrested for the rape of a local teenage girl in Winnemucca

20:12

in 1961 when he was 63 years old. Lois

20:16

will divorce him when he goes off to prison for a

20:18

10 year stretch. And she will leave the area

20:20

and move to Reno. Rather than stay in Winnemucca

20:22

and I guess live with that kind of stink

20:25

around her name. There

20:27

are allusions and sources that Jack very

20:29

likely molested Phyllis and her sisters. Phyllis

20:32

would drop out of high school either her sophomore or

20:34

junior year after getting pregnant. She

20:36

apparently either gave up the baby for adoption or

20:39

had an abortion. Sources differ. Speculation

20:41

that she was carrying her father's child. Out

20:45

of school she worked first as a waitress at

20:47

a local cafe called Hoot's Cafe. But

20:49

they made some mean pancakes at Hoot's. Doesn't seem

20:51

to be around anymore. Then she

20:53

got a job at the Sonoma Inn Hotel and

20:55

Casino. Around the time she turned 18 in 1955. Population

21:00

in Winnemucca at this time. I kind of referenced

21:02

earlier. I don't know that I was thinking

21:04

about guessing which was stupid. About

21:06

3,000 people. Even though

21:09

a fair amount of other people lived nearby in different

21:11

mining camps. Still a pretty small

21:13

isolated area of miners, ranchers,

21:16

farmers. And then of course people working

21:18

in town at various grocery stores, feed

21:20

shops, tiny little hospital bars, churches, school

21:22

system, a few small casinos and such.

21:25

Winnemucca also had some strip clubs

21:28

or gentlemen's clubs. With

21:30

the most popular called the Black Pearl.

21:33

And as I already mentioned, Winnemucca had several

21:35

brothels. One of which was the Pussycat Saloon

21:37

and Brothel. Which has been

21:39

closed now for a few years. But had been

21:42

open in Winnemucca since the town's very active bustling

21:44

red light district kicked off in the mid 1800s.

21:46

Was open for over 100 years. It

21:49

seems as though while there are still legal sex workers

21:51

in Winnemucca today. There are no more

21:53

proper brothels. The last few closing in just

21:56

the past couple of years. I

21:58

get why brothels thrived Winnemucca. muckert for so long.

22:03

For a long time, there have been a lot of big

22:05

cattle ranches in the area, a lot of sheep too, a

22:07

lot of mines, like a lot

22:09

of big mining operations within 100 or so

22:11

mile radius. And there's no other

22:13

town of more than a couple thousand people within 100 miles,

22:17

within over 100 miles actually. The nearest proper

22:19

town of more than a few thousand people

22:21

is Elko, Nevada, 123 miles away. And

22:24

Elko only has a little over 20,000 people

22:26

in a big valley with a population in the surrounding area

22:28

of about 50,000. So for

22:31

years, excuse me, there have been all of these

22:33

lonely male miners, male ranchers,

22:35

right, traditionally very male dominated trades, working

22:37

in the sparsely populated, very remote, desolate

22:39

place without a lot of available women.

22:42

I had a great uncle who worked in mining camps

22:44

for years in northern Nevada. And he talked

22:47

about working with a lot of bachelors or

22:49

guys who were married, but their wives

22:51

was far, far away and they would send money

22:53

home. All these mine camps, you know, they

22:55

don't or did not have schools near by,

22:57

not exactly a good place to raise

23:00

a family, not a place a lot of wives

23:02

would have wanted to settle down. But

23:04

these jobs, mining in particular, you know, paid very well. So

23:07

for years, you have a lot of lonely guys making good

23:09

money, and not really any place nearby

23:11

to spend it living in nearly desolate high desert, real

23:13

hot in the summer, real cold in the winter country,

23:16

feels like a demographic, you know, built to dump a

23:18

lot of money into sex work, should it be available.

23:20

And it was. There was

23:22

for over a century, first a booming red light district.

23:24

And then by the time Phyllis was a young woman,

23:27

a brothel district called the

23:29

the line, which is, you know,

23:31

one person did own several brothels in the line, and

23:33

then just the area surrounding brothels, everything became known as

23:35

the line. And now let's

23:37

reconnect with Dick Bird and his folks.

23:41

Dad Harris is a con artist and criminal of sorts,

23:43

somebody abusive towards women, least towards sex

23:45

workers, who shows up in a dusty

23:48

remote little town where he can reimagine his life and

23:50

have him guessing a lot of access to sex workers, which

23:53

is probably part of the what drew him to town considering his

23:55

interest in them. Dick's mom is

23:57

someone who grew up in a dusty little remote. ranching

24:00

and farming and mining town full of I

24:02

would guess more than its fair share of

24:04

skeevy fucking creeps who see women

24:06

as little more than fuck toys. One

24:08

of those guys was her dad. Harrison

24:10

Phyllis met in Winnemucca early 1954 when she was just 16.

24:13

He's 35. So that you know, as we went over

24:17

super cool. She's a

24:19

teenager, he's over twice her age. And again, he has a

24:21

history of being abusive towards women, and almost

24:24

certainly of being sexually abusive, which she

24:26

had likely been groomed to

24:28

be able to receive handle. I don't even know

24:30

what term I should use there. Within just a

24:32

few months, she'll be pregnant. Sources

24:35

aren't clear on the exact date of her wedding.

24:38

And since there are no records because they were not

24:40

legally married, I'm not sure on what date

24:42

they had a ceremony. Guessing they

24:44

did that just before the baby started to show, which would

24:46

have been kind of customary at the time, but again, just

24:48

guessing. We do know that

24:50

by the time of their first child Peggy Sue, born

24:52

December of 1954, they

24:55

had bought a little two bedroom, two bath, not quite 1500

24:57

square foot home at 418 West

25:00

Second Street. This will be the family home for

25:02

years. Dick is born, he

25:04

and his older sister Peggy Sue will share a room and

25:06

they will keep sharing it when the family's third child Barbara

25:08

Jane is born in February of 1960. Three

25:11

kids in one bedroom, mom and dad and the other. When

25:14

mom and dad are home for the night, both

25:16

of them, which starts to become rare. At

25:19

some point in the early 1960s, according

25:21

to the main source we leaned on,

25:23

most heavily for this episode, Las Vegas's

25:25

forgotten serial killer by Joe Eshinbaugh, Phyllis

25:28

began working at a new strip club in town, the

25:30

Black Pearl. guessing she

25:32

had a stage name, or

25:35

maybe strip clubs didn't have DJs back then. They

25:37

had to, right? What the fuck kind of

25:39

music? Would they be playing in a strip club? When

25:42

I'm up in Nevada, in the early

25:45

1960s, Mass Potato Time by

25:47

Dv Sharp. That was one

25:49

of the biggest songs of 1962.

25:51

Was this what they were blasting

25:53

the Gentleman's Club? Ladies

26:03

and gentlemen, but probably just gentlemen since

26:05

I doubt anyone is bringing their lady to the strip club,

26:07

it's 1962 and we're in Winnebaka. Please

26:11

welcome to the stage, the

26:13

phenomenally sexy, Phyllis! Get

26:16

your dollars out gentlemen. Phyllis

26:18

loves to dance for her money. Pay

26:20

her enough to make sure she rubs her hot little

26:23

club of mashed potato on the pole. Keep

26:25

your gravy in your pants. I

26:27

don't know, maybe something like that? Or

26:30

maybe, I don't know why it's so funny

26:33

to me to imagine women coming

26:35

out and stripping naked to these kind of songs. Maybe

26:38

her walk out song was Peppermint Twist. Like

26:40

Joey Dee and the Starlighters. It was

26:42

another big hit in the early 60s. A

26:47

little more upbeat. A

26:50

little faster dancing happening here. Twisting

26:52

around, shaking your butt. Oh,

26:55

you gotta do this and it goes like this.

26:59

Oh, you gotta do it, do it, do it, do it. The name of

27:01

the dance is Peppermint Twist. Coming

27:03

to the Blackpool stage. Oh, my, I

27:05

like it like this. Peppermint Twist.

27:07

The incomparable Phyllis! She

27:10

is ready to push her hot little peppermint

27:13

right up into your candy loving faces. Come

27:15

out, make some noise. Something like that?

27:17

I don't know. Anyway, by

27:20

1963, around the time, Little Dick Bird starts

27:22

kindergarten. What an unfortunate name. Mama

27:25

dancing a lot of nights at the Black

27:27

Pearl and Dad's doing a variety of shit.

27:30

Dad's not killing. Dad has lost his

27:32

job dealing blackjack at the Sonoma Inn Hotel

27:34

and Casino. He was fired allegedly

27:37

for running some scams with a few regular players.

27:39

Basically, he would let them win and then they would give

27:41

him a cut of their fake winnings. And I

27:44

guess he just didn't expect a word to get around in

27:46

a town the size of Winnemucca. He

27:48

was not arrested for that according to, again,

27:50

the author of our main source, Joaishin Ba.

27:53

The casino handled the matter internally and Harris

27:55

will now walk with a limp for the rest

27:57

of his life. I knew the mafia

27:59

was a good idea. was involved in other casinos,

28:01

like in other places in Nevada, most

28:04

notably Las Vegas, but also in Reno with

28:06

the mob also ranch it, but Winamaka, a

28:09

dusty little ranch in mining town, a town that's never

28:11

had a huge casino, just a handful of pretty small

28:13

ones. Apparently the mob brought

28:16

gambling to Winamaka in

28:18

the 1920s shortly after they brought it to Reno. Their

28:20

first casino in the town was the Index Club. I

28:23

was able to find an old match cover from this club

28:25

from the 1930s on eBay. On

28:27

one side, there's a picture of a lame dude wearing a derby

28:30

hat, smoking a big cigar, looking real cool. On

28:32

the other list, the phone number, just three digits. I love

28:34

that. Just 104. Just call 104. That's it.

28:37

And below that it says, if

28:41

a man takes a drink, that's his

28:43

business. If a woman takes

28:45

a smoke, that's her business. This

28:48

book of matches tells our

28:50

business. Liquors, wines, beer

28:52

with the lowest prices, Index Club, largest

28:54

in Winamaka, Nevada. Okay.

28:57

Yeah, someone was happy about that. And

28:59

some guy originally from Baltimore, Vinnie Corby,

29:03

was the gangster who ran mob

29:05

business in Winamaka from

29:07

the late 1920s all the way until he died in the 1970s.

29:12

It feels like he was being punished. Clearly

29:14

not a top mobster if you're sent to

29:18

handle Winamaka. Vinnie,

29:21

I have a job for you. There's

29:23

a city in Nevada. I need you to

29:25

run for me. Oh yeah, you

29:27

bet boss. I'm ready for it. I almost

29:29

certainly am. It's Reno. Please tell me it's

29:31

Reno boss. I love the mountains. No

29:34

Vinnie. It's not Reno, but

29:36

it's not too far from Reno. You

29:39

will see mountains. Shitty brown desert mountains, some of

29:41

which will be completely flat and open to mining.

29:44

I need you to run for me, Winamaka.

29:47

Oh, Winamaka boss. I gotta

29:49

get a map. I like

29:51

to picture some dude named Mustang Frank Caparelli

29:54

or something. Italian mafia guy. 60s with

29:56

slick back hair, silk button

29:58

up shirt, gold chain neck but also

30:00

a giant silver and turquoise belt buckle, ranger

30:03

jeans, cowboy boots, bolo tie over

30:05

the top of his gold chain somehow. Just kick

30:07

in the shit out of Harris

30:09

behind the buckaroo bowling alley and

30:11

bust his kneecaps with a baseball bat, maybe

30:13

a cattle prod. Don't

30:15

you ever fuck with Finney's business,

30:18

you goddamn varmint. Act like

30:20

a wise guy again. You'll be sleeping with the

30:22

rattlesnakes. However it happened, Harris

30:24

gets fired from the Sonoma in Hotel and Casino and will walk

30:27

with a limp for the rest of his life and

30:29

become more of an asshole. He's

30:31

taking various jobs now around town working as a bartender,

30:33

as a Black Pearl for a bit before he gets

30:36

fired from pulling a gun on a customer. He

30:38

does actually work at a place called the

30:40

Buckaroo bowling alley for a little bit and

30:42

at a place called Winnemucca Farms where he

30:45

sells animal feed I guess. He

30:47

also pushes Phyllis at some point in the

30:49

mid-1960s into sex work and

30:51

for years when she is not dancing at the Black

30:53

Pearl, she is working at the Pussycat Saloon. And according

30:56

to what Dick Bird will say later, Harris is

30:59

now physically and sexually abusive to her at home,

31:01

usually getting pissed off due to worries that she's

31:03

cheating on him with some guy at the Black

31:05

Pearl or enjoying her work a little too much

31:07

at the Pussycat. Right, we've seen

31:09

those assholes before. You know,

31:11

the guy who pushes his girlfriend, wife, baby

31:14

mama, whatever into sex work and

31:16

then punishes her for making money

31:18

the way that he has manipulated her into

31:20

making. Just complete scumbag. This

31:22

enrages Lucifina. And

31:24

how is all this affecting little Dickie? Not

31:27

well. According to what he'll say

31:29

later, and Peggy Sue and Barbara Jane will also corroborate

31:31

this to various degrees, in either

31:33

1967 or 1968 when Dick is nine or ten and his older sister Peggy, Peggy

31:38

Sue, 12 or 13, he

31:41

gets moved outside to the shed. Why

31:44

that? You will

31:46

find out why Dick gets banished to the shed right

31:49

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now let's find out exactly why Dick was

36:59

setting to live in a damn shed. Well,

37:02

he was turning into quite little creeper peeper, a

37:05

chip off of Dad and Papa's shitty blocks.

37:09

First Peggy Sue realized he had snuck out of their

37:11

shared room a couple different times, you know, late at

37:13

night, and each time she would find him standing outside

37:15

of their parents' bedroom door, watching

37:17

them have sex through the space between the door and the

37:19

frame. Which I guess

37:21

was quite a bit wider than you would normally find

37:23

on the door because it was not a great house. And

37:26

then worse, Peggy Sue woke up

37:28

one night to see a little Dick playing

37:32

with his little Dick while standing right next

37:34

to her bed and looking down on her. She

37:37

tells her parents, and interestingly, Phyllis, not Harris, will

37:39

now be the shit out of him, paddle

37:42

him with a big wooden spatula so

37:44

hard he truly could not sit down for a few days. And

37:47

then his parents moved him not only out of

37:49

his sister's bedroom, but out of the house entirely.

37:52

His new bedroom was

37:54

an uninsulated shed in the

37:57

back of the property. A shed room, if

37:59

you will. And here it begins. Dick

38:02

Burt is not good therapy. That wasn't very common practice

38:04

at this time in history, especially at Winnemucca, Nevada, I'm

38:06

guessing. Highly doubt that Winnemucca had a single

38:08

therapist of any kind in the 1960s. No

38:12

one's talking to him about how perverse, what he did was in

38:14

a, you know, let's get to the bottom of this, you know,

38:16

problem solving kind of way. I mean, who's

38:18

gonna talk to him about that? His fuck up dad? You

38:20

know, his abused mom who's working at either a small town

38:23

brothel or a small town strip club. He

38:25

probably learned his lack of sexual boundaries from

38:27

his dad. So he doesn't

38:29

talk about it other than being told he is a disgusting

38:31

pervert. He just gets his ass beat with

38:33

the wooden spatula and he gets thrown in the fucking shed.

38:38

I mean, that won't certainly turn him into a serial

38:40

killer or anything. Living

38:42

in that shed had to have been rough. Winnemucca

38:45

can get real cold and real hot. It's

38:47

record high. All these degrees will be in Fahrenheit. It's

38:50

109. So it can get up to 109 in the summer and

38:53

it can get as low as negative 37 degrees in the winter. That's

38:57

quite the range. Very, very hot. Very,

38:59

very cold. It's average daily high for July is

39:01

95 degrees. It's average daily

39:03

low in December, only 18 degrees. Imagine

39:06

experiencing that in a shed. Little

39:09

Dick was given a bunch of blankets, I guess. And

39:12

he was given an electric space heater and a

39:14

fan. Hopefully allowed to crash in the

39:16

house on the couch or something on the hottest,

39:18

coldest nights of the year. Once

39:20

he started living his shed life, Dick

39:23

will get more kinky. And

39:26

that first big beating with a spoon, he'll later say,

39:28

or excuse me, after that first big beating with a spoon, he'll

39:31

later say that while he couldn't sit down for a while, he

39:33

could jerk off. And

39:36

he did a lot. Getting

39:38

spanked hard by mama, right after sexually

39:40

fantasizing about his sister, I guess

39:42

really turned him on. And that

39:44

of course is not good. Now

39:46

he'll routinely sneak into the house and try and listen

39:48

to his parents have sex or see them or

39:51

catch his mom getting in and out of the shower. Same

39:53

for his sisters. And if he gets caught,

39:55

win-win. Bring on the beating.

39:58

Bring on the spatula. Ah, put your. Put your

40:00

back into it! Smack my ass and call me Dickie! WOOO!

40:04

Uh, on more than one occasion, he will later say, when he got

40:06

a bit older, he

40:08

actually would come while his mom

40:10

would... was spanking him with

40:12

a spatula. What the fuck is going on? It's

40:14

family. Dear God. But he'd act like

40:16

he really hated it. No, no,

40:18

Mom, please don't! I swear I'll never do it

40:20

again! Just whack, whack, whack! Oh, oh, fuck that's

40:23

nice! Oh yeah, just like, oh, come on, oh,

40:25

sexy lady! What did you say? I said please

40:27

no more, smacks mama! I cannot take it! Whack,

40:29

whack, whack! Oh, fuck that's gonna do the trick!

40:31

If only Pegasus was here. Pretty

40:34

deranged. Now let's back up a bit.

40:36

Let's see how Dick's doing in school. I'll give you a hint. Not

40:39

great. Uh, Dick did

40:41

pretty well in kindergarten, 1963, going into 1964, and

40:45

first grade in 1964, going into 65,

40:47

at the Winnemucca Grammar School. Or

40:49

at least no problems were reported. But in

40:51

1965, when he started second grade, started to

40:53

get in trouble for being creepy with girls. Got

40:56

a little handsy at recess. He

40:58

would accidentally grab their

41:00

private parts. Also this year, his

41:02

parents had to come in and talk to the principal, because he kept

41:04

sticking his hand down into his pants in the middle class, and

41:07

squeezing and shifting his junk around, like that was

41:09

a totally normal thing to do. Jumping

41:12

three years ahead, he didn't seem to get in

41:14

trouble again until 1968, which

41:17

would time out with his shed life, and

41:20

getting, you know, turned on by the wooden spoon

41:22

beatings by mama. He's now in

41:24

fifth grade, and he gets caught in the girl's bathroom. He'd

41:26

apparently hidden in one of the stalls, and when

41:28

the girl came in, sat down in another stall, started

41:31

beating off. Then still beating off,

41:35

did a little walking jerk, he walks out

41:37

of the stall. He walks around at the

41:39

front, so he's like in front of

41:41

the girl's stall, you know, that was next to his

41:43

stall, and he's peeking at her in between the door

41:46

and the frame, his specialty, and

41:48

she saw him and she screamed, as one would do. And

41:50

she screamed right as another girl walked into the bathroom, and she

41:52

screamed as well. So now he gets, excuse

41:54

me, now he gets taken to the principal's office, gets paddled again, gets

41:57

paddled by a doodle, so he doesn't like it, and it's... His

42:00

parents are called in. And he's suspended

42:02

from school for a week and threatened with expulsion. I

42:05

mean, if he had done that now, he would be expelled immediately

42:07

and probably have criminal charges filed against him,

42:10

I'm guessing. Back at home

42:12

after he gets suspended, his dad, Harris, now disciplines

42:14

him severely. Harris

42:17

whips him with a belt on the butt and back

42:19

that night hard enough to draw blood. And

42:21

this does not turn him on. Just really

42:23

fucking hurts and rages him. That

42:26

also locks him in the shed room for

42:28

three days. No food and

42:31

just a bit of water. At one point, when he

42:33

started screaming to be released, his dad came in and beat

42:35

him with his fists and he did not scream out

42:37

again after that. It's

42:39

like they were trying to create a monster.

42:43

For the next several years now, Dick seems to have straightened

42:45

up. He did not straighten up, but he seems to have

42:48

to his family and people at school. Afraid

42:50

that his dad will beat him half to death if

42:53

he does something like get caught trying to watch his parents

42:55

have sex again or jerk off on his sister or

42:58

peep on some girl and jerk off

43:00

at school, Dick now gets sneakier. He

43:02

starts sneaking out of his shed room at night. I'm

43:05

pretty proud of coming up with the term shed room, by

43:07

the way, and looking for a

43:09

new place to peep. And he finds a

43:11

new place. There was a young lady who lived by

43:13

herself just a few properties away, one of his mom's

43:15

coworkers from the pussycat and she

43:17

would bring back clients to her house sometimes, her

43:19

boyfriends, get it

43:21

on late at night and I guess she would leave the

43:24

lights on and not always be real good about closing her

43:26

blinds, closing her curtains. So

43:28

Dick later said that she didn't ever have

43:30

lights on in the backyard near where her,

43:32

this is so ridiculous, near where her window

43:34

was. That was a

43:36

nice little dark trail he could take

43:38

from behind his shed room through

43:41

another backyard with no lights and into her backyard.

43:44

There was also a fair amount of trees, you

43:46

know, to kind of camouflage him. There was no dogs

43:48

to alert people to his presence. So it was fairly

43:50

easy to slip out of his place over

43:53

to hers without being detected. And

43:55

then he climbed up in his little tree outside of

43:57

her bedroom window and he would have a

43:59

great view. of what was going on in her bedroom and

44:01

not really have to worry about being seen himself if he's quiet.

44:04

So he starts doing this a lot. And

44:07

apparently, since he likes

44:09

spanking, I've never heard of something

44:11

like this, but he couldn't stand on a tree

44:13

branch and jerk off and spank himself, you

44:16

know, without really risking falling or being hurt.

44:18

He did what was the next best thing. He

44:21

brought along a small hairbrush that he stole him

44:23

from his sister's room. And he would

44:25

stick the handle of this thing up his ass and

44:28

then jerk off on a tree branch. I'm

44:31

not sure that that was the next best thing, but I guess is what

44:33

he did. Can you imagine if he would have been caught? Hey,

44:35

how are you doing kid? And then some

44:38

11 or 12 year old boy just pops down

44:40

out of a tree with his dick out his

44:42

pants around his ankles, and then just turns and

44:44

like waddles away. And there's a hairbrush just sticking

44:47

out of his ass. That

44:49

would truly be a sight you'd never forget. Also,

44:52

before moving past this disturbing section of his childhood, one

44:55

of this neighbor lady's occasional

44:57

clients was his dirtbag dad Harris. And

45:00

Dick will admit to still beating off

45:02

up in the tree. Even when the

45:04

guy who was watching have a sexless lady, you never

45:06

knew her name was his dad, just just

45:08

beaten as one does just beaten off in a tree

45:10

branch or on a tree branch with

45:13

a mucka with a hairbrush and a little stuck up your

45:15

ass while you watch your dad cheat on your mom and

45:17

fucking neighbor lady. Boys will be boys, right?

45:20

What childhood? What Steph,

45:22

Steph Cox for a scurvy child. I can't even

45:24

talk now. I'm so distracted. If

45:27

you grew up in a shed room,

45:29

cause you got caught peeping on your mom

45:31

and sisters and then got beat half to death

45:33

by your daddy for jerking off in the girls

45:35

restroom and school while staring at some girl on

45:37

the toilet. And then you start

45:40

beating off in a tree with your sister's

45:42

hairbrush, shoved up your butt, watching your dad

45:44

has sex with your mom's toe worker. He

45:46

might be a killer. Truly you

45:49

are. You are a killer. Let's

45:51

jump to the summer of 1971. Now Dick is

45:53

13 and his dad goes missing and

45:56

Harris's body has never been found. The

45:58

local rumor mill. said he ended up

46:00

getting buried out of the desert after he got

46:02

too rough with some girls at the Pussycat Saloon. Did I mention

46:05

that Harris apparently would go to the

46:07

Pussycat Saloon where his wife is working and

46:09

he would use some of the money that she was

46:11

making fucking other dudes so he could fuck other women.

46:14

What a life! And that brothel was

46:17

supposedly connected still to the mob and Harris had

46:19

gotten into debt with the mob. Again, this is

46:21

according to the rumors, doing some

46:23

sports betting and the mob no longer felt

46:25

like they were ever going to get their money back from

46:27

him. He was a problem and

46:30

what did they do to get rid of problems like this?

46:32

Well they made them disappear. So

46:34

likely executed and buried out in the desert

46:36

somewhere around Winnamucca. And

46:38

then when Phyllis reports him missing to the police,

46:41

they dig into his records and that

46:43

leads to her finding out that he was never in the military. Never

46:46

fought in World War II, police ended

46:48

up notifying Harris's wife, Mrs. Jolene Byrd,

46:50

who was living in Jacksonville. Not

46:52

sure why she never got legally divorced. Phyllis

46:55

now realizes if he is declared dead, she'll

46:58

never get any benefits. Jolene

47:00

will. Harris is just

47:02

the gift that just kept on giving. Phyllis

47:05

now 34 years old transitions out of sex work.

47:08

So Mary, a frequent customer of hers,

47:10

actually legally married in late 1972. Before

47:14

then there was a period of about a year and

47:17

a half where Dick is home with his two sisters

47:19

and mom, all of whom he is sexually attracted to

47:21

and there's no scary grown man to keep him in

47:23

check. And she gets more out of control. Peggy

47:26

Sue, when she's 17 and a senior in high school, wakes

47:29

up in the middle of the night feeling something wet

47:31

and warm, hits the side of her face and hair and

47:33

that is her brother's semen. Oh,

47:36

for fuck's sake. And then

47:38

when she screams, she sees him turn and run. Apparently,

47:42

apparently with an old hairbrush she'd lost years

47:44

ago. Sticking out of his ass.

47:47

Holy shit. She's still sharing a

47:49

room with her little sister, Barbara Jane. She's only 12 at this

47:51

point and Barbara Jane sees all this too. She's

47:54

scarred forever. Dick runs off

47:56

into a shed room where his mom now comes out there,

47:58

threatens him with a gun. Well, shoot

48:00

him dead if he ever does that again. I

48:03

guess he believes there are at least somewhat because he

48:05

does not do that again. This is one of the

48:07

craziest childhoods that we've ever covered.

48:09

The hairbrush is killing me. How was

48:11

it staying in his ass as he ran? How

48:14

is that even physically possible? Was he just raw dogging it

48:16

in there? No lube? Just letting

48:18

it get sealed somehow? I

48:20

don't understand it. Meanwhile at school, Dick,

48:23

still not doing great. Shocking, I know. He

48:26

gets held back in eighth grade. He is

48:28

not well liked by classmates. Either the first or second

48:30

time he goes to eighth grade. Doesn't

48:32

seem as if he literally had any friends, some

48:35

bullies at school had taken to calling him Dick Turd. Okay,

48:38

well done. This is right there. Fucking balls right on

48:40

the T. Back in grade school

48:42

and the nickname stuck to

48:44

the point that by the time he was in

48:46

eighth grade, not sure if this is the first or

48:48

second time, he would just answer to Dick Turd as if

48:51

that was his real name and not an

48:53

insult. What's going on, Dick Turd? Oh,

48:55

nothing. Just wish I was open to a dark tree. When

48:57

had my jacket hairbrush up, I asked about you. A

49:00

former classmate, Tracy Moses, interviewed by author Joe Ishenbaufer.

49:02

His book had this to say after he was

49:04

arrested for multiple murders, almost 30 years later, I

49:08

wasn't surprised, not really. When I heard about what he'd

49:10

done, he was always different.

49:13

As a girl, you never wanted to be anywhere alone with him. I

49:16

remember when we were little, he was the kid you would tease

49:18

your girlfriends about going out with because it was

49:20

such an insult. You know, you'd say stuff

49:22

like, I heard you had a boyfriend. I heard

49:24

you and Dick Bird, except even then we were

49:26

calling him Dick Turd. We're going steady. By

49:29

junior high, we didn't judge like that anymore. We

49:31

were scared of him. And then after Tina went missing,

49:33

we were real scared of him. He'd

49:35

always been kind of quiet at school. By junior high,

49:38

he never said much at all, but

49:40

he was always looking at the girls. Like if you wore a

49:42

shirt that he could see down at all, he would be staring.

49:45

If you wore a skirt, he'd try and look up it. Like

49:48

he'd do stuff like walk to the front of class,

49:50

drop his pencil on purpose in front of a girl's

49:52

desk, and then he would just take

49:54

his time down on the ground, picking it up, like

49:56

just straight up trying to peek upper skirt. This

50:00

kid was a fucking time bomb for serious sexual

50:02

crimes. More serious than coming on his sleeping

50:04

sitcher, which is already pretty serious. Let's

50:06

talk about this Tina girl who Tracy mentions.

50:10

In the fall of 1973, when Dick is a 15-year-old freshman in

50:12

high school about to turn 16, a

50:14

local 14-year-old Tina Huffman, described as

50:17

sweet, overly trusting, gullible, and a

50:19

bit slow in sources, goes

50:22

missing from Winnemucca. Her body

50:24

will be found several years later buried in a shallow grave

50:26

in the desert about a mile from town on the back

50:28

of a little hill. It is believed,

50:30

although he will never confess to this murder, that

50:32

Dick killed her. She lived just

50:34

seven houses down from the bird's home and disappeared

50:37

in the middle of the night. There

50:39

was no sign of a breaking. It

50:41

was assumed she crawled out of her bedroom window,

50:43

lured very possibly by young Dick. When

50:45

her remains were found, they were buried inside a

50:48

big garbage bag. They had been transported from some

50:50

other place. Dick perhaps

50:52

lured her back to his shed room, do

50:54

something to her, possibly rape her, then worried about the

50:56

trouble he'd get in, kill her. Did

50:59

he hide her body there until the search for her started

51:01

to wind down? Then he snuck out one night, buried her

51:03

in the desert. That's what some, like

51:05

author Eshinba, think is a definite possibility. The

51:08

police will interview him, but never it seems get a

51:11

warrant to search his shed room. They wanted to look

51:13

around, but his mom Phyllis would not allow it. Maybe

51:16

she was worried that her son had done something. She

51:18

certainly knew he was a creep. Speaking

51:21

of Phyllis, she has been remarried for about a

51:23

year now to Dick's stepdad, Wayne Morgan. I'll

51:26

back up a little bit, talk about him. Wayne, it seems actually

51:28

pretty good dude. Not real

51:30

good with women. He was a big guy,

51:32

real big, six, four, weighed around 300 pounds. Maine

51:36

source author again, Eshinba describes him with the

51:38

following quote, Wayne Morgan

51:40

was not easy on the eyes. He

51:42

was friendly though. He had a wide enthusiastic

51:44

smile when he smiled, which was a lot. He

51:47

was also missing two of his teeth in the front, which

51:49

he didn't seem to mind. He typically wore

51:51

a big patchy beard and his eyes set

51:53

atypically close to one another were dull and

51:55

small in comparison to his large pie shaped

51:58

face. His hairline was. sin

52:00

and receding and his forehead often had a few pimples

52:03

on his typically greasy skin. His

52:05

large head seemed to rest directly on his shoulders as

52:07

if his neck had grown tired of supporting his large

52:09

cranium and packed up and left. His

52:11

barreled chest was massive as were his arms and

52:13

legs. In another life, he

52:15

could have been a professional power lifter or an NFL

52:17

offensive lineman. While generally a gentle soul,

52:20

you got the feeling that if you did cross him, there might

52:22

be hell to pay. Ah

52:25

man, Hashibah really does not hold back

52:28

with some of his descriptions. Wayne

52:30

ran heavy equipment for a local mining

52:32

outfit that operated out of the so-called

52:34

awakening district of mines about 30 miles

52:36

outside of Winnemucca. Good of

52:38

his job, made solid money, and he loved

52:41

Phyllis. Created her like a princess,

52:43

which is awesome after all that she has been

52:45

through. After they got married, he

52:47

never sought out sex work anymore and neither

52:49

did she, apparently. Like

52:51

that, what he lacked in looks, he made up for

52:53

in dependability and kindness, protectiveness.

52:57

Phyllis is said to have grown deeply in love with him,

52:59

and her girls loved him too. Back

53:01

in 1972, when Dick's older sister Peggy Sue got

53:03

married and moved to Reno a few months before

53:06

Tina Huffman had gone missing, she

53:08

got along great with Wayne and will

53:10

later say that she only felt okay about leaving

53:12

her mother and little sister Barbara Jane with Dick

53:14

because she knew Wayne would be in the house

53:16

and there to protect him. And he

53:18

did protect them. Barbara Jane would

53:20

never have to wake up to get in a come on

53:23

by her degenerate brother and it would never

53:25

again see him scamper off with a hairbrush

53:27

sticking out of his butthole. So

53:29

that's good. 1977 now, Dick graduates high

53:32

school to age 19, barely.

53:35

There are rumors that some teachers gave him a C's

53:37

instead of F's just to get them, just to get

53:39

him, excuse me, the hell out of school and

53:41

hopefully out of town. He still didn't

53:43

seem to have made any friends. I

53:46

don't know that he literally had any friends growing up, which

53:48

is fucking crazy. I feel like all the

53:50

serial killing degenerates we've covered before have

53:52

at least had a friend growing up, but not Dick

53:54

Burke. Just living that solitary

53:57

shed life, which for sure

53:59

continued with Wayne. became man of the house. No

54:01

one seemed to have had a good thing to say about Turd from

54:03

high school. His English teacher, Mrs.

54:05

Owens, was interviewed about her memories of Dick.

54:08

She shared the following, I

54:11

taught English at Lowery High School or Lowery High

54:13

School for over 30 years. I

54:15

had some truly wonderful students, a

54:17

few I've kept in touch with who have gone on to do

54:19

some very interesting and amazing things. I

54:21

also had a lot of tough students. Winamaka is a

54:23

tough town and it was a lot tougher back then.

54:26

We had a lot of parents who were not

54:29

educated themselves, people who did not really value education.

54:31

That as a teacher can be very difficult. We

54:34

had some kids who were problems for sure, kids

54:36

who had to be suspended, a few kids who

54:38

were expelled. But only one

54:40

kid ever really scared me. That

54:42

was Dick Bird. Even before the

54:44

Huffman girl went missing, we all came to

54:47

thinking that he did that. But

54:50

even before then, there was something about

54:52

his eyes. Even when he smiled,

54:54

he would only smile with his mouth. His eyes never matched

54:56

his smile. The way he looked at me made

54:58

the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I

55:01

was a young teacher then and it was the

55:03

early 1970s and sometimes I'd wear a skirt to

55:05

class. But I stopped doing that when

55:07

Dick was in my class. I made sure

55:09

not to wear clothes that were revealing on any level. I

55:12

didn't lock my car or my house for that matter

55:14

before I taught Dick either, but I started to once

55:16

I had him in my class. And

55:18

then over time, after he left, I

55:20

went back to no longer doing that. I felt

55:22

safe again. We all talked about

55:24

him, especially the women. We all seemed to know he

55:26

was going to go on to do some very bad

55:28

things. I feel so terrible for those girls.

55:32

While Dick didn't have any friends at school, he did

55:34

have co-workers while he was in high school. I'd

55:37

spent his last two years of high school working at a little

55:39

grocery store in Winamuka that is still there today. Uptown

55:41

Market on Bridge Street. Bad

55:44

groceries, stocked shelves, mocked floors, cleaned toilets, made

55:46

sure carts were collected from the parking lot,

55:48

that sort of thing. Never

55:50

once beat off with a banana peel in

55:53

the bathroom. From what we understand, if you

55:55

know, you know. His old manager Mike Newman, I

55:57

had this to say about him. He did a

55:59

great job. I never had to worry about

56:01

that. And he was never a problem for

56:03

me. But the women at the store didn't like him.

56:06

They were bothered by the way he looked at them. He

56:08

never said or did anything to them that would be grounds

56:10

for being dismissed. He just creeped them out.

56:14

And while he worked there, he had a hell of

56:16

a time keeping certain loa—or, excuse me. And while he

56:18

worked there, we had a hell of a time keeping

56:21

certain lotions and baby oil on the shelves. And

56:24

women's hairbrushes randomly. I

56:27

think he was stealing them, but I could never catch him. No

56:30

one has ever loved a hairbrush the way

56:32

Dick Turd loved a hairbrush. Clearly

56:35

Dick was a town creep by a long, long

56:37

ways. Luckily for Winnemucca, this menace

56:39

leaves town in the fall of 1977 and

56:41

becomes some other place's problem. His

56:44

stepdad Wayne wanted him gone, and so

56:46

he used some of his mining connections to help get

56:48

Dick a job at the Gold Strike Complex of Mines

56:51

working for Pan Cana Minerals. This

56:53

mine complex located 46 miles outside of

56:55

Elko, about an hour's drive. Many

56:57

who worked there will live in Elko. A

57:00

huge mine complex. There

57:02

are literally miles and miles of underground tunnels,

57:05

and Dick will work down in these tunnels for the next 16 years. If

57:09

he killed during this time, and I do think he

57:11

killed at least one woman, he never admitted it. He

57:14

may have kind of behaved himself, but probably not. Not

57:16

long after he moved to Elko, the reports from a

57:18

few local women have seen a man in a tree

57:20

outside their windows at night. And

57:23

a tree peeping in on him,

57:25

or peeping in on them, but they can

57:28

never identify who, and Dick was never caught or arrested for

57:30

that. Such a specific fantasy.

57:32

One woman even could tell that the guy

57:35

in the tree was jerking off. What a strange and

57:37

terrifying thing. See a grown man

57:39

jerking off on a tree, looking down at you. I've

57:42

never heard of that one before. Like a fucked

57:45

up, I don't know. He did get picked

57:47

up and charged with loitering when he got

57:49

caught hiding in an alley once, a public

57:51

alley behind an apartment building downtown. Probably jerking

57:53

off in the alley, I'm guessing. And

57:55

a few women would go missing from Elko

57:57

while Dick lived there, and he was heading for

57:59

the house. heavily suspected at least one of their disappearances.

58:01

We will get to that here soon. But

58:04

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I'm back and now it's time for me to

1:01:48

make Elko, Nevada's board of tourism. Just as

1:01:50

happy as Winnemucca, Nevada's board of tourism is with me. Elko

1:01:53

is an awesome place to live if

1:01:56

you just moved there from Winnemucca. The

1:01:58

word Elko is shown. word that means

1:02:00

slightly better than Winnemucca. No, it means

1:02:02

rocks. What it really means is rocks piled on

1:02:04

one another. That's kind of sad. That's

1:02:07

not a great selling place, you know, point for a place. You

1:02:10

can go there. There's a bunch of rocks. Pile

1:02:12

on some rocks. A lot of rough.

1:02:15

You're into rocks. Oh, shit. You can't

1:02:17

beat it. Elko's motto

1:02:19

is the heart of northeast Nevada, which

1:02:21

is a better motto than Winnemucca's, which is the

1:02:24

butthole of earth. Sorry, it's hard

1:02:26

to stop. Winnemucca's actual motto kills

1:02:28

me. It's called the city of paved

1:02:30

streets. That's so sad. To me,

1:02:33

that tells me that Winnemucca peaked about 100 years ago,

1:02:35

when they just got paved streets. And no one

1:02:38

else around had paved streets. And they're like, haha,

1:02:40

check out our streets. We have fucking best streets

1:02:42

in this whole area of Nevada. And

1:02:44

they haven't done anything since to

1:02:46

be like, to the component to that's all that's

1:02:48

cool to Elko's a bit younger than

1:02:51

Winnemucca. And while indigenous people live

1:02:53

in the area for who knows, you know, how many centuries before

1:02:55

white settlers showed up, white settlers did show

1:02:57

up in 1868. It was

1:02:59

a railroad camp line at the east end of

1:03:02

the Central Pacific Railroad being built to connect California

1:03:04

to Utah. When railroad crews

1:03:06

moved on, Elko remained and it became

1:03:08

a regional center for ranching, mining, rail

1:03:10

freight and general supplies. First

1:03:12

courthouse was built quickly in 1869.

1:03:14

Elko officially incorporated in 1917. Climate

1:03:18

wise, almost identical to Winnemucca.

1:03:21

High desert, they can get real hot up to 107. A

1:03:24

little bit colder than Winnemucca down to as low

1:03:26

as negative 42. Again, in Fahrenheit. Like

1:03:29

I mentioned earlier, Elko has a little over 20,000

1:03:31

people situated in a big valley, the Ruby Valley,

1:03:33

which is more of a basin, actually, about 60

1:03:36

miles long, 10 miles wide, and about 50,000 people

1:03:39

live in this big basin. Similar to

1:03:41

Winnemucca, the economy is based largely on

1:03:43

mining, ranching, and agriculture. But

1:03:46

mostly a focus on mining, specifically gold

1:03:48

mining. Nevada has a lot of gold.

1:03:51

And it seems that most of it is around Elko. The

1:03:53

state of Nevada produces more gold than all

1:03:55

but four countries. And most of

1:03:58

the gold mined in Nevada is mined around Elko. Because

1:04:01

of that, the economy of the area is heavily

1:04:03

dependent on the current price of gold. There are

1:04:05

literally hundreds of abandoned mining camps in the area

1:04:07

from mines that went bust or from the price

1:04:09

of gold dropping. Also like

1:04:11

Winnemucca, it's a big cowboy area. Elko

1:04:14

has been home to the annual week-long National Cowboy

1:04:16

Poetry Gathering since 1985. A

1:04:19

festival celebrating not just poetry, but

1:04:21

cowboy-themed music, gear,

1:04:23

photography, films, food, and

1:04:26

more. And again

1:04:28

like Winnemucca, there's a large Basque population. Every

1:04:30

July since 1963, Elko has hosted the National Basque Festival.

1:04:35

Finally like Winnemucca,

1:04:37

the town has a long history of both illegal and

1:04:39

legal sex work. There

1:04:41

are a number of brothels still there today, including

1:04:44

Dick Bird's favorite, the Desert Rose. And

1:04:47

the Desert Rose will take us to the disappearance Dick

1:04:50

was suspected in. Likely

1:04:52

murder. The first few years, Dick

1:04:54

was in Elko. It didn't seem like Dick got into

1:04:56

any trouble. He made good money. Lived

1:04:58

in a little one-bedroom apartment by himself, Unit

1:05:00

12 of the Rabbit Brush Run Apartments on

1:05:03

College Avenue. And yes, there

1:05:05

is a small college in Elko, Great Basin

1:05:07

College, opened in 1967. Go

1:05:09

big, hard sheep! The

1:05:11

Great Basin College might have the

1:05:13

status website of any college. Just

1:05:16

period. Stop. It just might have the

1:05:18

status website of any college. Definitely of any college I've

1:05:20

ever looked at. It looks like

1:05:22

whoever designed Great Basin College's website ironically

1:05:25

never went to college. But I'm

1:05:27

sure it's a fine school. Actually looking

1:05:29

at some pictures, I'm not sure about that. I'm

1:05:31

not even remotely sure about that. I doubt that. I

1:05:34

am sure that it is a college, so that's cool. Anyway,

1:05:37

Dick is working at the Gold Strike, and

1:05:40

he's living at the Rabbit Brush Run Apartments, and he finally

1:05:42

has a friend, another loner, Floyd Birch.

1:05:44

Oh, Floyd. Floyd grew up

1:05:46

an hour away in Battle Mountain, another little

1:05:48

mining town in I-80 nestled in between Winnemucca and

1:05:50

Elko. It's never been incorporated, but

1:05:52

it's been around since 1866

1:05:54

when copper ore was

1:05:57

discovered nearby. So many minerals in

1:05:59

this area. Copper, gold, silver,

1:06:02

all mined in the area over the

1:06:04

years. Same high desert climate, geography, same

1:06:06

heat and cold, same desolation. When

1:06:09

you go to the arts and culture section –

1:06:11

I'm not making this up on Battle Mountain's Wikipedia

1:06:13

page. I like that it has

1:06:15

a section for arts and culture, and it literally just

1:06:17

lists one small public library. That is

1:06:20

the entirety of the town's culture. All of

1:06:22

it. All of its art. 2001

1:06:24

Washington Post article called Battle Mountain

1:06:26

the armpit of America, essentially naming

1:06:29

it America's shittiest town. Far

1:06:31

from the only person who has poked fun of these towns.

1:06:35

Floyd and Dick were quite the pair, I guess, two

1:06:37

oddballs that no one else, not even other

1:06:39

lonely northern Nevada miners, wanted anything to

1:06:41

do with. But they got along with

1:06:43

each other for a time at least. During

1:06:46

their work week, they bunked together at a

1:06:48

work barracks at the mine. There were rumors

1:06:50

they were romantically linked. Who knows? Maybe

1:06:53

Dick figured out that Floyd's penis worked better as a

1:06:55

butt plug than a hairbrush handle when he

1:06:57

wanted to get off. Or maybe they didn't do anything like that.

1:07:00

They both liked to go blow money at the Desert Rose

1:07:02

frequently on their nights off, and some

1:07:04

women working there were interviewed by police in 1983.

1:07:06

Following the disappearance of

1:07:09

a 22-year-old girl who went by the

1:07:11

stage name of Jasmine, real name April

1:07:13

Beasley. And then at least one of these women

1:07:16

was tracked down later by Joe Eshinbaugh for his

1:07:18

book, and this is what she said, Venus, aka

1:07:20

Sarah Robbins. That's what she had to say about

1:07:22

Dick Byrd. Dick

1:07:25

was weird, like really weird.

1:07:28

And I'm saying that as someone that other people think is

1:07:30

weird. I'm a freak, baby. But Dick,

1:07:32

he – we call him Chester. And

1:07:35

not like Chester the Cheetah, like Chester the molester.

1:07:38

He had creepy eyes, just real dead

1:07:40

dark brown eyes. He was

1:07:42

a skinny kind of tall guy with a neck

1:07:44

like, who's that guy? Ichabod something? With

1:07:46

a Big Adam's apple? And he

1:07:48

had this funny little mustache, real thin, and

1:07:51

funny haircut too, like a bowl cut, kind of.

1:07:53

It looked like he cut himself. And

1:07:56

he wore these thick glasses with big black frames, and

1:07:58

t-shirts that always looked a bit weird. It was

1:08:01

like no one had ever showed him how to dress like he grew up

1:08:03

alone. Well, I mean, yeah, he kind

1:08:05

of did grow up alone. He spent

1:08:08

most of his childhood in a fucking shed room in Winamaka.

1:08:12

They're continuing with their less than

1:08:14

flattering description of Dick saying, this

1:08:17

is absurd. She said, he smelled bad too.

1:08:21

Like I know what cum smells like. And

1:08:23

he smelled like cum. He smelled like he jerked

1:08:25

off all the time, which I bet he did. And he didn't shower

1:08:27

enough. She smelled

1:08:29

like pancake batter. B.O. Whenever

1:08:33

any of us girls had sex with him, and I think we all

1:08:35

did, he paid well. We made him shower first

1:08:37

if he wanted to actually have sex with us. But a

1:08:39

lot of the time, he didn't want that. He had

1:08:41

this real specific fantasy. He

1:08:44

wanted to pay for two girls. And he'd

1:08:46

want to be in the room with just one at

1:08:48

first. She pretended to be asleep, my God. And

1:08:50

then Dick would pretend to sneak in and he would start jerking off

1:08:52

next to the bed. And she had to keep her

1:08:54

eyes closed and oh my God, I almost forgot. This

1:08:57

is so, I don't know what this is. But

1:08:59

he would pay extra if he could have one

1:09:02

of our hairbrushes. And he'd stick the handle in his

1:09:04

ass. Man, he's fucking, he's

1:09:06

locked in on this fantasy.

1:09:09

And I guess it works, it works. Different

1:09:11

strokes for really different folks. Sarah then adds,

1:09:14

and he only wanted the first girl to wake up and

1:09:16

start yelling at him when he came on

1:09:18

her. And that's when the second girl was supposed to come in

1:09:20

with, get this, a

1:09:22

wooden spatula. And she was supposed to scream at

1:09:25

him too. He actually had the manager Rick

1:09:27

tell us to quiet down a few times. Or

1:09:29

we actually had the manager Rick tell us to quiet down a few times because

1:09:31

this was all ruining the mood for other customers. Yeah, I bet. But

1:09:34

the second girl, she was supposed to come in and yell at him

1:09:36

to take his pants off. And he would pretend to not like it.

1:09:39

And she would hit him with a spatula and she

1:09:41

would keep yelling at him. Like I

1:09:44

said, it was real specific. And I can't remember

1:09:46

if she would take his pants off or if he would. But

1:09:48

then she would put him over her lap and

1:09:50

spank him with that spatula. Until

1:09:52

He came again the whole time yelling at

1:09:54

him about how he was a disgusting little

1:09:56

boy. He needed to stay away from his

1:09:58

sister. Crazy, right? Yeah.

1:10:01

Yeah. Those fucking crazy star. That's.

1:10:03

A year. What is classic deeper that will

1:10:05

deter Dick Bird for dual thing. Us

1:10:08

are all.as your boss About how Obsessed

1:10:11

Degree came with April Beasley. She.

1:10:13

Said. Are. The only girl he

1:10:15

ever. Pursued. Me: don't go he

1:10:18

never asked to act out this fantasy with

1:10:20

was April when by Jasmine to customers. April

1:10:22

was a sweetheart. She also had she

1:10:25

was also like. She's. A

1:10:27

magnet for all the freaks. She. Was

1:10:29

real small. Maybe just five foot and eighty or

1:10:31

eighty five pounds or so sin from. Almost.

1:10:33

Know Ted's way this I guess I'd

1:10:35

say. She. Was pixie cut until

1:10:38

real young? Like if I

1:10:40

saw her with no makeup wearing kids clothes and

1:10:42

you told me she was twelve, I wouldn't blink.

1:10:44

And when you look like that works in a

1:10:46

place called. Are. Like the Desert Rose,

1:10:48

you're gonna get some creeps And we all knew

1:10:50

that April was the favorite. He had

1:10:52

a different fantasy with her. He wanted to pretend

1:10:54

that she was his girlfriend. You want to delay

1:10:56

in the bed with her and just chat about

1:10:58

their days and pretend they had been together long

1:11:01

time and he'd have sex with her. Kind of.

1:11:03

See that he would finish and seconds after

1:11:05

been inside of her or sometimes before he

1:11:07

even.inside of her. And now would miss

1:11:10

him angry. So angry it scared her. He

1:11:12

let himself. At least a few times she

1:11:14

was worried he was going to hit her. About.

1:11:17

A year before she disappeared, he started asking her if she'd

1:11:19

gone a real date with him. Like. Outside of

1:11:21

the desert rose. That's. Just not

1:11:23

how works. He wanted her number for home numbers

1:11:25

we could color and yet real mad when she

1:11:27

wouldn't give it to him. A stop to any

1:11:30

sub, come around for a walk. Or.

1:11:32

He come back with nor. And. A one

1:11:34

time you wait of her in the parking lot

1:11:36

and his car. he drove us savvy Citation a

1:11:38

hatchback. I only remember because we talk about how

1:11:40

perfect it was for him. It was a terrible

1:11:42

car. Really? Ugly but for perfect

1:11:44

for him. and one

1:11:47

of the bouncers went off on him about how

1:11:49

he needed to lead the parking lot when able

1:11:51

came out after work when i got scared the

1:11:53

bouncer over home gym i think his name was

1:11:55

and did followed zone april and gym ended up

1:11:57

chasing dick off like in his car The

1:12:00

next time Dick showed up to the club a week or

1:12:02

two later, Jim was there. He had

1:12:05

talked to Paddy the owner and they agreed to ban him

1:12:07

for good. And Jim told

1:12:09

him that, but he demanded to see Rose anyway, who

1:12:11

he called Jasmine, and then Jim grabbed him to throw

1:12:13

him out. Jim was a big guy. Dick tried to

1:12:15

push him away, then Jim hit him a few times,

1:12:17

like punched him in the stomach and maybe even once

1:12:20

in the face. And then Jim dragged

1:12:22

him outside, threw him on the ground, and kicked him

1:12:24

a while, and told him he'd kill him if he

1:12:26

ever came back. That was the

1:12:28

last we saw of Dick, but I think he did come back. I think

1:12:30

he waited a while, six or so months, and I

1:12:32

think he followed April home and he grabbed her. Ugh.

1:12:36

Also, that's so sad in addition to being creepy.

1:12:39

It's like he truly had no idea

1:12:41

how to form normal

1:12:43

attachments, especially romantics. I'm

1:12:46

surprised he ever figured out how to make some

1:12:48

sort of platonic male friend attachment with Floyd Birch.

1:12:52

I wonder what his deal was, Floyd's deal was,

1:12:54

that he would view Dick as friend material. I

1:12:58

would love it if Floyd liked to

1:13:00

shove a comb or a beard brush up his ass and

1:13:03

also had a history of specifically jerking off in trees. What

1:13:06

a thing to bond over. What? No way! You two?

1:13:09

Oh, wow. Let's compare techniques. September

1:13:12

7, 1983, now a 25-year-old Dick would

1:13:14

be interrogated about April's disappearance, but

1:13:16

he had an alibi, his buddy Floyd Birch. She

1:13:20

had gone missing back in the night of

1:13:22

August 20, 1983. Floyd insisted, like Dick did,

1:13:25

that the two of them on the night April went missing,

1:13:27

which was a Saturday night, and had gone on to a local bar,

1:13:29

the Silver Dollar Club. And then after

1:13:31

that, they walked to Dick's apartment, where they both crashed, and Floyd

1:13:33

was too drunk to drive to his apartment, which was a few

1:13:35

miles away. Witnesses

1:13:37

would put them at this bar until

1:13:40

around 2 a.m. April finished work

1:13:42

at the Desert Rose, though, at 3 a.m. She

1:13:45

then had seen who drove herself home. She also lived in an

1:13:47

apartment complex, one called the Riverview

1:13:49

Apartments. Her car will

1:13:51

be found there in its normal parking spot

1:13:53

locked, nothing taken from it. April,

1:13:57

who lived with the roommate, never made it home that night, though.

1:14:00

that happened to her in between

1:14:02

leaving the car and making it to her apartment

1:14:04

less than 20 yards away. Also

1:14:06

when Dick went in for his next shift the

1:14:08

following Tuesday, a few co-workers will remember seeing some

1:14:10

scratches on his face. Damn.

1:14:14

Dick Turd, I'll never get tired of saying that, definitely looking

1:14:16

real guilty here, so why wasn't he arrested? Well,

1:14:19

for starters, there was no security cameras at the Riverview apartment

1:14:21

since 1983, and he

1:14:23

was not interviewed by police for weeks. By then,

1:14:26

his scratches had healed. They

1:14:28

wouldn't think to ask co-workers if he had scratches, and he

1:14:30

had time to get his alibi right with Floyd. But

1:14:33

the main reason was Dick was just sadly one

1:14:35

of many, many creeps who were obsessed

1:14:37

with April. He wasn't the only guy

1:14:39

apparently who had been banned from the desert roads in the

1:14:41

past year alone for turning into a stalker. Police

1:14:44

were focused on another guy's remaining suspect, Troy

1:14:46

Peterson. Troy was a 40-something former

1:14:48

regular of the desert roads who worked for construction

1:14:50

company Elko, somewhat new to town. He

1:14:53

had moved to Elko the year before after

1:14:55

finishing serving an eight-year prison term for attacking

1:14:57

a woman he knew in Carson City, an

1:15:00

exotic dancer he'd become obsessed with. So

1:15:02

Troy seemed like a good candidate. And

1:15:05

who knows, maybe Troy did do it. He

1:15:07

was never arrested though, and most people seemed to think it was

1:15:09

Dick. Following being

1:15:11

interviewed by police for April's disappearance, Dick keeps

1:15:14

a real low profile for the next year

1:15:16

or so, goes to work, comes home, rarely

1:15:18

goes out, and seems to have some

1:15:20

sort of falling out with Floyd. The two

1:15:22

stop hanging out shortly after they are questioned by police,

1:15:24

which is pretty suspicious. Then before the

1:15:26

year is up, Floyd will quit his job at Gold Strike

1:15:29

and take a new mining job back home in Battle Mountain,

1:15:32

and then sadly die a few years later in a tunnel

1:15:34

collapse that killed five miners in 1988.

1:15:37

And Dick is a lone wolf once more. Starting

1:15:41

sometime in 1985, Dick starts hitting

1:15:44

up some Elko brothels again, just

1:15:46

not the desert rose. Instead, he's going

1:15:48

to Mona's ranch. Seem to do

1:15:50

their Mona, and also to Sue's

1:15:52

fantasy club. Same old

1:15:54

story. Mine is getting obsessed over any of the

1:15:57

girls. He seems to have mostly wanted to run

1:15:59

his come on one girl while she's asleep. sleep

1:16:01

that have another girl com punish him for that

1:16:03

en el com was he spanks him fancy. Shelby's.

1:16:06

Ah, He's it's a new Albert Fish minus minus

1:16:08

the appeal of have been at that's how is

1:16:10

your elbow Ah speaking of says he did share

1:16:13

another similar to that guy. The. Like

1:16:15

to write a letter. The

1:16:17

Noise Airbases Ninety Five Dicks who does not really

1:16:19

keep in touch with scissors or does still talk

1:16:21

to his mom regular on the phone and he

1:16:23

tells you that his gaze. Man. Die

1:16:26

yeah kind of This. Secondly,

1:16:29

Bar. Richard found the back some random poor mag

1:16:31

I'm guessing. same as new Super and born. You.

1:16:34

Use Uber and for it anyway. I you know

1:16:36

the term mail order bride. Will. Dick

1:16:38

sound a phone number or get dressed

1:16:40

up for a mail order bride service

1:16:42

in South Korea fines or contact information

1:16:45

gets a catalogs and to him and

1:16:47

he will through catalogues service meet you

1:16:49

know he is yong. Of. Who

1:16:51

now goes by Sony Douglas in America Study

1:16:53

Was interviewed by As You Boppers Book and

1:16:56

Wow what a story she had to tell.

1:16:59

Sunny to.how he's was. Born.

1:17:01

Nineteen Sixty Five she's going on for adoption by

1:17:03

birth mother is a baby in Seoul. Mom

1:17:06

was a teenager who see believes doing with

1:17:08

our theme. Today was a sex worker and

1:17:10

Dad likely one of the clients. She.

1:17:12

Ended up lock three an orphanage. There was

1:17:14

massive amount of kids in South Korea for

1:17:17

adoption lighting Sixty's the war and left lot

1:17:19

orphans oslo fly young women and desperate situations

1:17:21

for money many them turning to sex work

1:17:23

with into more pregnancies and morty to put

1:17:25

up for adoption. Er, une he

1:17:28

never adopted by the time she was for Dean's

1:17:30

We live in our own. Son

1:17:32

household. cleaning houses are rich people working on a

1:17:34

theme. Fish up at a at are clean up

1:17:36

and she's be like a fish Markets work as

1:17:39

a street vendors selling bracelets. another jewelry she made

1:17:41

all sorts of stuff. And then she

1:17:43

was sixteen She met a young three a

1:17:45

man whose you fall in love with the got

1:17:47

married but he is kill that a freak accident

1:17:50

at work and warehouse massive palette of lumber

1:17:52

dropped on him. Some. People have no

1:17:54

lox. Ram dozens of

1:17:56

the such as Issa said her into dire times

1:17:58

again and feeling like her life. South Korea

1:18:00

would always want of misery. She really you know

1:18:02

started to become a a beautiful young woman now

1:18:04

and she was approached by older woman who work

1:18:07

at an international agency or helping to arrange marriages

1:18:09

between South Korean women. And men

1:18:11

in a variety of countries are including United

1:18:13

States. Share. Pictures taken but the

1:18:15

catalog and you'll essentially be of any kind

1:18:18

of sold to a man overseas who agreed

1:18:20

to marry her. Ah man who would pay

1:18:22

a brokerage, feed the agency and also pay

1:18:24

to fly the woman to his country. Sania

1:18:27

decided that she wanted to move

1:18:29

to America as he taught herself

1:18:31

English and how lucky or we

1:18:34

are she saved some letters of

1:18:36

old deterred rotor. Here's.

1:18:38

One was dated February eighteenth Nice. a five.

1:18:42

These. Beautiful Using I'm happy

1:18:44

Europe you wrote me back.

1:18:46

You're very beautiful. I like

1:18:48

long hair. Of a smell Very good.

1:18:51

Odds: Answer some questions you asked me. I

1:18:54

work at a large mine I'm blessed hole

1:18:56

drilled. It is a hard

1:18:58

job with dangerous job. But. It is

1:19:00

safe. Okay, ah, very good

1:19:03

at it. I

1:19:06

have promotional so I think he meant promotions

1:19:08

there is east listen to these are the

1:19:10

most of his killer right? he continues. I

1:19:13

have nice apartment. Of more

1:19:15

than twenty five thousand dollars in

1:19:17

savings, I'm not rich. Bobby.

1:19:19

Rich with you, Are. Never

1:19:21

have had girlfriend I'm too shy. By.

1:19:24

Am too kind. I. Like movies.

1:19:28

I like tacos and spaghetti. Do. They

1:19:30

have tacos and spaghetti and South Korea. I

1:19:33

bet you make a good tacos and spaghetti stem

1:19:35

as index was never choose been genius. He

1:19:38

was. Seeking. Cities. You.

1:19:40

Like to pretend sleep. Do. You

1:19:43

like to pretend someone's very beautiful older

1:19:45

sister? The be sleep do I

1:19:47

pretend that young brother come in to

1:19:49

wake you up? Do. You think

1:19:51

sexy if a man stick hairbrush handle it

1:19:54

is bottle and someone says. We.

1:19:56

Love deterred. We. masturbating bedroom

1:19:58

would light on and window open not laugh

1:20:00

at Dick Turd who stand naked on tree branch

1:20:02

like perverted Mothman. Come raining down

1:20:04

like falling leaves with sister hairbrush and butthole." He

1:20:06

didn't write that. He may

1:20:09

have thought that stuff, but he didn't write that. No, it

1:20:11

was too good for him. He wrote, I

1:20:13

will make a husband. I will honor you very beautiful

1:20:15

you and he. I would

1:20:17

like babies with you. Very beautiful South

1:20:20

Korean babies, but also white.

1:20:23

I'm white. I would like

1:20:25

to be your white husband. Sincerely, Dick Bird.

1:20:28

I like that he wrote sincerely. At

1:20:30

the end, he meant it. He was sincere.

1:20:33

Also, it's like he wrote a business letter, which I guess

1:20:35

he kind of did. Not exactly the

1:20:37

most romantic poetic love letter, you know, but Sunday

1:20:40

was desperate to get out of sort South Korea. She

1:20:42

didn't realize how badly written this letter was because she

1:20:44

was just starting to learn English herself and

1:20:47

letters like these would lead to her moving to

1:20:49

Nevada. She came

1:20:51

to Nevada even after she got the last few letters

1:20:53

from Dick, which were increasingly creepy. She

1:20:55

ignored some red flags because again, she was very desperate, starting

1:20:57

her life and was not

1:20:59

that good with English yet. Check out

1:21:02

the second to last letter. I guess it

1:21:04

written back and forth about 10 times now, she said, and

1:21:06

now it's gotten sexual. This is from August 7th,

1:21:08

1985. Beautiful

1:21:10

you and he. I'm happy

1:21:13

you agreed to marry me. We will

1:21:15

have beautiful life. I'm very sexual.

1:21:18

I need release five or six times a

1:21:20

day. I cannot wait to touch you

1:21:22

with my mouth and for you to touch

1:21:24

me. I will need you to

1:21:27

spank me. Showbiz. That's how you now

1:21:29

go. Here we go. Here's the weird shit. I

1:21:32

like be spanked with spatula. Very hard. Do

1:21:34

not worry. I will not spank you like

1:21:36

this. I want

1:21:38

to wake up you by releasing on

1:21:41

you while you sleep. You're very

1:21:43

beautiful. Got to hammer that home. I

1:21:46

like your long hair. I bet you

1:21:48

smell very good and I will

1:21:50

make love more after release on

1:21:52

you. I will also release in you.

1:21:55

Jesus. Only one month and

1:21:57

I see you. We get married at courthouse.

1:22:00

after you get her. Probably

1:22:02

here. I love you beautiful you

1:22:04

and he. You stars to

1:22:06

my son sincerely dick bird. You

1:22:09

know I do like he's remained sincere. He's

1:22:12

a very sincere meat sack. He's completely fucking

1:22:14

insane. Who says release like that?

1:22:17

I'll also release in you a serial killer. That's you.

1:22:20

How many of you lady suckers are so moist

1:22:22

right now so turned on by that exceptional sexy

1:22:24

dirty talk? Zero? None?

1:22:27

Huh? Okay. That sounds right. You

1:22:30

need a case on your eyes and I'll go to about a September 9th 1985

1:22:32

and dick bird picture up at the

1:22:34

airport. Crazily there were no

1:22:36

direct flights between Seoul South Korea and I'll go

1:22:38

to about a shed of life first

1:22:40

to Los Angeles and the Salt Lake City. Then

1:22:43

to Elko. She was exhausted

1:22:45

and then incredibly disappointed when she saw the skinny

1:22:47

odd looking checks of the most for holding for

1:22:50

holding large sign with her name on it. The guy who as

1:22:53

Venus a case are Robin from the desert rose would say

1:22:55

smelled like a jerk off all the time and didn't

1:22:57

show enough. Good job. Welcome

1:23:01

to America. After

1:23:03

convincing dick that she wanted to wait until she was

1:23:05

married to have sex for the first time. Sunny gets

1:23:08

married to dick at Elko

1:23:10

County Courthouse next day and

1:23:12

then she will move out in less than a year. She

1:23:15

and dick will then come to a new

1:23:17

arrangement. He will pay for her

1:23:19

apartment but will say

1:23:21

that she still lives with him on tax documents etc.

1:23:23

She is so she can transition from a green card

1:23:25

to citizenship and why would dick agree to do this

1:23:28

and why did she move out. Let's

1:23:31

look at the second question first then address the first one. Sunny

1:23:34

said she moved out essentially because

1:23:36

her hair brushes consistently smelled like literal

1:23:38

shit and she kept getting pink eye.

1:23:41

No. She said that she felt less like

1:23:43

a wife and more like a living sex

1:23:45

doll who just or like

1:23:47

a sex worker with one John a creepy and

1:23:50

satiable John. Sunny said she

1:23:52

wouldn't have even lasted nearly a year but he was

1:23:54

only home two to three days a

1:23:56

week some weeks with his schedule to gold strike. You

1:23:59

know some weeks he didn't come home. at all. And he's working overtime.

1:24:02

Initially, their first few stretches of time together, Dick

1:24:04

seemed to have tried to court her

1:24:06

more traditionally. They went out to restaurants

1:24:08

for dinner, he bought her flowers a few times. But

1:24:11

then when whenever they went to have sex, you

1:24:13

know, he either could not perform or he would

1:24:15

prematurely ejaculate. In both instances, he

1:24:17

would get furious, he would leave the room, Sunny

1:24:20

would hear him grumbling in himself, she

1:24:22

could hear him hitting himself with something. And

1:24:24

then later, she would notice Wells on his back and butt. So

1:24:27

she's a bit disturbed, but at least he's not hurting

1:24:29

her. But then a month or

1:24:31

so into them living together, he starts up with his fantasy.

1:24:34

You know the one by now. Pretend to be asleep. Let

1:24:36

Dick sneak into the room, let him beat off on you. Maybe

1:24:39

with something in his butt. Maybe with a hairbrush. It

1:24:42

escalates little by little as these things do when

1:24:44

someone is sexually obsessed with you know, their fetish.

1:24:46

And soon he wants her to spank him afterwards. And

1:24:49

she somewhat reluctantly indulges him in this. But

1:24:51

then six or so months in, he

1:24:53

brings up wanting to bring another woman into the

1:24:56

bedroom to escalate to fantasy and Sunny not having

1:24:58

that. Dick gets frustrated. And one

1:25:00

night when she turns down this offer again, he

1:25:02

hits her slaps her across the face. And

1:25:04

then he rapes her, holds her down as she

1:25:06

tries to fight him off. He starts to strangle her. This

1:25:09

turns him on immensely. He orgasms, he

1:25:11

releases. And then afterwards, he demands that

1:25:14

Sunny spank him hard. Afraid

1:25:16

she does. He likes this

1:25:18

a lot. Then after releasing again,

1:25:20

he acts like he did not just rape her.

1:25:22

Like it was all just some role playing. Just a fantasy. And they both

1:25:24

had a great time. They both enjoyed it. Over

1:25:27

the following months, he attacks Sunny like this again and again

1:25:29

and again. And when she fights

1:25:31

back one night, and she hurts him, she

1:25:33

never went into detail as how, she said

1:25:35

he told her something trying to scare her. Something

1:25:37

that if the police were to find out would

1:25:40

get him in a lot of trouble though. Sunny will

1:25:42

not, wouldn't say what this was. But

1:25:44

it was enough for her to be able to broker this deal. She'd

1:25:46

keep his secret, his secrets. She now told some friends

1:25:49

she'd made in town who would tell the

1:25:51

police if something happened to her. She'd get

1:25:53

a job, work on her own. She'd pay most of her own

1:25:55

bills except for rent. For legal purposes,

1:25:57

they would pretend that they were so happily married

1:25:59

and living together until she had citizenship

1:26:01

and could bounce. Then

1:26:03

they will get divorced and she will leave the

1:26:06

area and start a new life. Hail Nimrod! Hail

1:26:08

Yoon Hee-Jong, aka Sonny Bird, aka Sonny

1:26:11

Douglas. Author Joe

1:26:13

Ejenbaugh believes that the secret that Dick told her is related

1:26:15

to the disappearance and almost certainly murder of

1:26:18

April Beasley, aka Jasmine, that sex worker from

1:26:20

the Desert Rose, who disappeared back August

1:26:22

20th, 1983. From the fall of 1986, when this deal between Sonny

1:26:28

and Dick was struck until the spring of 1990, both

1:26:32

Sonny and Dick will honor the deal. Sonny

1:26:34

got work as a cocktail waitress, then later will

1:26:36

work at various, on various table games, excuse me,

1:26:39

eventually becoming a croupier,

1:26:41

fancy word for a craps dealer at Mavericks

1:26:43

Casino. Then once she gets her

1:26:45

citizenship, files for divorce from Dick

1:26:48

is granted divorce, moves to Las Vegas to

1:26:50

work as a craps dealer down there. And

1:26:52

how is Dick Turd handling all this? Great,

1:26:55

actually, super pumped about it all. He

1:26:57

started seeing a therapist at Elko's Premier

1:26:59

Mental Health Counseling Center, Desert Skies and

1:27:01

Clear Minds. And he came to

1:27:03

understand that maybe his childhood wasn't like the best,

1:27:06

that maybe he didn't have great male role

1:27:08

models between his rapist grandpa, who probably molested

1:27:10

his mom, and his manipulative abusive father, who

1:27:12

beat his mom. He came to understand that

1:27:15

maybe you shouldn't be so focused on such

1:27:17

specific sexual fantasies to the point to dominate

1:27:19

your life. He began to

1:27:21

understand that he was really depressed. And that was

1:27:23

why he wasn't showering enough, you know, and

1:27:25

doing hygiene stuff. He began to have more

1:27:27

respect for himself to feel like he deserved

1:27:29

more from his childhood than had been banished

1:27:31

to his shed room and been called Dick

1:27:33

Turd by his peers. He called his sisters

1:27:35

made amends. He was more

1:27:38

than a Dick Turd. He was he was Richard

1:27:40

Henry Bird, hard working man who deserved a good

1:27:42

partner. And that partner deserved to

1:27:44

be treated like he was more than a fuckdoll.

1:27:46

And he shouldn't choke anybody until they unless they

1:27:48

ask for that. And you got to be careful

1:27:50

with hairbrushes, because they can really hurt your butthole.

1:27:53

And he made amends with Sonny, who agreed

1:27:55

to help him transition to a healthier sexual

1:27:57

and overall life perspective by letting him occasionally

1:27:59

find release. on a tree branch,

1:28:01

you know, a couple times a month outside

1:28:03

her apartment while she stood in front of

1:28:05

a window naked with the curtains open. And

1:28:08

she even gave him her favorite hairbrush to stick

1:28:10

up his ass. I guess if

1:28:12

I got here. No, Dick grew angry. He

1:28:15

soon started heading back to the town's brothels. Not

1:28:17

the desert roads, but others. And

1:28:19

according to interviews with some of the women he visited later and to

1:28:21

bartenders at some of these town's gentlemen clubs

1:28:23

as well, he complained a lot about how his

1:28:25

wife ruined his life, about how his own mother

1:28:27

made him stay out and shed growing up. Basically

1:28:30

about how he'd never been treated well by any woman in his

1:28:33

life. Not ever. Not even his own sisters would

1:28:35

talk to him. You know, he, of course,

1:28:37

you know, never mentioned his role in all this. Also

1:28:40

got rougher with the women to the point he would

1:28:42

eventually be banned by all the brothels in town and

1:28:44

the strip clubs as well. The

1:28:46

summer of 1990, Dick is angrier than ever. Sonny is

1:28:48

just left for Las Vegas. He doesn't know

1:28:51

where in Las Vegas she's living, but

1:28:53

he knows that she's moved there and is working in a

1:28:55

casino somewhere. He'll later say that

1:28:57

now he has a new sexual fantasy. He

1:29:00

thinks about raping and choking her to death. Focuses

1:29:03

all of his hate on her. This

1:29:05

fantasy becomes so intense that he quits his job

1:29:07

at the gold strike, moves down to Las Vegas

1:29:09

in August to try and find her with murder

1:29:12

on his mind. Oh, before he left,

1:29:14

there had also been new police reports of a man

1:29:16

spotted masturbating outside women's homes in Elko in 1998, 89,

1:29:18

and 90. There

1:29:22

were no more reports of this after he left town. In

1:29:25

the fall of 1990, Dick Turd, now 36 years old,

1:29:28

moves into the Anchor Village apartments, not

1:29:30

far off of the intersection of Durango and Sahara. Dude

1:29:34

had enough money to buy a house. He later would say he

1:29:36

saved up a lot of money before leaving, over 100 grand. But

1:29:39

I don't think Dick thought about practical things like that. He

1:29:42

wasn't thinking about building equity and retirement

1:29:44

planning. He's probably thinking about how he

1:29:46

had plenty of room in a one bedroom apartment to

1:29:48

stick a hairbrush down his butt, took off the thoughts

1:29:50

of coming on his sister or choking his ex-wife. Yeah,

1:29:52

this'll do. This'll do just fine. I picture

1:29:55

him walking in when he's touring it and just kind

1:29:57

of like putting his arms out and just be like,

1:29:59

okay, maybe like pantomime. me kind of jerking off putting

1:30:02

something okay yeah nope let me check the angles no

1:30:04

this doesn't be fine it'll be great I

1:30:06

started looking for sunny get the job at a snack

1:30:09

and beverage distribution center called ice

1:30:11

production working in a warehouse

1:30:13

where they store to large amounts or large

1:30:15

amounts of Pepsi products Frito-Lay chips that kind

1:30:17

of stuff before these items would be

1:30:19

shipped off to area stores basically

1:30:21

ran a forklift and helped take big pallets

1:30:23

full of boxes of goods from big rigs

1:30:26

into the warehouse stacking them in the right

1:30:28

places for pickup unstacking them for transport etc

1:30:31

and he'll work there for 11 years all

1:30:34

the way up in his eventual arrest for multiple murders

1:30:37

Asham Bal will interview one of his former shift

1:30:39

managers Lloyd McCall and McCall

1:30:42

said I was surprised when Dick got arrested but

1:30:44

not shocked odd guy good

1:30:47

worker but an odd guy but

1:30:49

he never called in sick showed up late some

1:30:52

guys burn out a job like Dick had after a few

1:30:54

years to get tired of the monotony of it all or

1:30:57

frustrated that there isn't a lot of room for advancement

1:31:00

but not Dick never asked for a

1:31:02

promotion or a new assignment he seemed perfectly

1:31:04

content to show up do his job and

1:31:06

get a paycheck honestly I wish

1:31:08

I had more guys like Dick I mean not the killing

1:31:10

women part but not complaining about his job

1:31:12

and you know I'm doing a job well part

1:31:15

never saw the other side of him probably because

1:31:18

the crew here when he was around was all men

1:31:20

and Dick was quiet real quiet only

1:31:23

thing close to a problem I had with him was his hygiene we

1:31:26

secretly took to call him pancake

1:31:28

batter that's what he smelled

1:31:30

like pancake batter and BO but

1:31:33

he never really had to work up close and personal

1:31:35

than he wanted he was using a forklift so I

1:31:37

didn't ever feel the need to address it with him

1:31:40

fucking dick pancake battered turd

1:31:43

what a guy most of his

1:31:45

neighbors at the anchor village apartments won't

1:31:47

have much to say about him other than

1:31:49

Jackson pew who lived in

1:31:51

the same apartment unit corridor is dick for most

1:31:53

of time dick live there is upstairs and across

1:31:55

from him and Jackson

1:31:57

would say this guy's character Dude

1:32:01

was greasy fucking creep. Hella creepy. When

1:32:04

I heard about what he's arrested for and then

1:32:06

read about it in the paper, I literally said,

1:32:08

I fucking knew that dude was fucked up. Like,

1:32:10

I literally said that. He was hella weird. Never

1:32:13

brought friends over. Stinky fucking

1:32:16

loser. Probably had none. I hated that

1:32:18

guy. One time I was hooking up with

1:32:20

this fly girl, people say that, who

1:32:23

came over wearing a skirt and that dude straight

1:32:25

up, gocked up between her legs as she walked

1:32:27

up the stairs in front of me and I

1:32:29

caught him staring. And I called his ass

1:32:31

out. I was like, yo, fuck you doing

1:32:33

creep? Why are you staring at my girl's skirt and shit?

1:32:36

And I started, you know, walking back

1:32:38

down the stairs to confront him and

1:32:40

homeboy straight scurried back into his apartment.

1:32:42

Like the fucking cockroach he was. Dude,

1:32:44

literally scurried. Hella scurried. Which

1:32:47

I could have caught that dude myself and gone like

1:32:49

full judge, jury and executioner on that motherfucker. You know

1:32:51

what I'm saying? I

1:32:53

do, Jackson. We all know what you're saying.

1:32:55

I hella know. We all hella know what you're saying.

1:32:58

Within about six months of moving to Las

1:33:00

Vegas, Jackson's murder spree begins. The

1:33:03

following victims I'll mention are all women he will confess

1:33:05

to killing or otherwise harming.

1:33:08

On the morning of March 13th, 1991, the dead body of 23-year-old Alicia

1:33:10

Mitchell is

1:33:14

found on the Las Vegas Strip laying under some

1:33:17

thrown out construction material on the

1:33:19

lot where the Luxor Casino will open two years

1:33:21

later. Excuse me. She had been

1:33:23

raped and strangled. Seaman was found in her

1:33:25

hair. Alicia had moved to Las Vegas

1:33:27

from Omaha, Nebraska as a teenager in 1984 after

1:33:30

running away from home. Born in

1:33:32

Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, March

1:33:34

3rd, 1968. Her

1:33:36

mother Loretta said she wanted to be a singer. She

1:33:39

was in the Glee Club when she started high school, had

1:33:41

been in the choir and church, used to sing around the

1:33:43

house a lot. Mom said that she

1:33:45

had the most beautiful voice you've ever heard. Her

1:33:47

favorite singers were Bonnie Tyler and Joan

1:33:50

Jett. Good taste. Uh,

1:33:52

she, according to her mom, fell in with the wrong

1:33:54

crowd in high school, started using meth. After

1:33:58

getting in trouble, in home and at school for... and

1:34:00

being threatened with being sent to boarding school, she ran off,

1:34:02

made it to Las Vegas, where she fell into an even

1:34:04

worse crowd, found this

1:34:06

shitty boyfriend who was really a pimp who pushed her

1:34:08

into sex work. She turned 18

1:34:11

a year and a half after moving to Vegas, ending

1:34:13

her parents' chance of having her found by police and

1:34:15

apprehended and sent back home. She

1:34:17

never returned home. She cut off all ties

1:34:19

with her family. And between 1984 and 1991, the year of her death, she

1:34:23

was bouncing around between sex work, working as

1:34:25

an exotic dancer, briefly holding a few

1:34:28

jobs with like a hostess at a few places,

1:34:30

cocktail waitress, and some others, before she

1:34:32

ran into Dick Berg. Dick

1:34:34

will later say that he picked up Alicia

1:34:36

outside the Flamingo in

1:34:38

a 1986 Chevy Suburban he was driving, where

1:34:41

he had the seats taken out of the back, windows

1:34:43

tinted, and a mattress added to the back. He called

1:34:45

it his love mobile. Not

1:34:47

sure who he said that to, since he didn't really

1:34:49

have any friends, but that's what he said he called it. Let's

1:34:52

call it the turd mobile instead. Dick

1:34:55

turds, turd mobile. Anyway,

1:34:57

Dick picked up Alicia in his turd mobile after agreeing

1:34:59

on a price. And

1:35:01

then he drove her to a parking lot of a grocery store, not

1:35:03

far from the strip, said it had been closed down, was

1:35:05

about to be demolished. They drove behind the

1:35:07

former store, got out, went into the back, Alicia

1:35:09

laid down, pretended to be asleep, but

1:35:12

she said he could not choke her, as he had

1:35:14

asked. Frustrated by her

1:35:16

denying him, he had trouble getting erect. So

1:35:19

then he put his hand on her throat, according to Dick, applied

1:35:21

just a little bit of pressure, not really a choke. He

1:35:24

said he did not intend to harm her, but she freaked out like

1:35:26

this is her fault. And she started

1:35:28

screaming, and now he just tried to get her

1:35:30

to quiet down, be calm, and he panicked, and

1:35:32

he started choking her to try to get her

1:35:34

to be quiet. And this turned him on a

1:35:36

lot. So he kept choking her. He

1:35:39

penetrated her as she fought back, then released

1:35:41

inside of her. And by

1:35:44

the time he had orgasmed, he said she was dead.

1:35:47

So now he leaves her body in the mattress in the back, drives

1:35:49

around looking for a spot to dump her body. That

1:35:51

leads him to the construction site where the Luxor will

1:35:53

be built. She displaces her body in

1:35:56

a pile of garbage from the job site. Gets

1:35:58

turned on again as he does so. So now... He

1:36:00

chokes her already dead body as he masturbates above

1:36:02

her and that is how he got ejaculate onto

1:36:05

her hair He said he returned home

1:36:07

after that proceeded to masturbate

1:36:09

Masturbate numerous times that same night

1:36:11

reliving this fantasy and

1:36:13

now he craves doing this again So while he you know

1:36:15

said he didn't set out to kill anyone when he headed

1:36:17

out looking for sex on the night of March 12th

1:36:20

1991 he will be heading out with murder on his

1:36:22

mind following this I'm

1:36:24

sure sunny is on his mind and before he

1:36:26

can speak in a sunny he does find his

1:36:28

ex-wife in Vegas June 3rd 1991

1:36:32

Dick's walk dick walks into the

1:36:34

Fitzgerald's hotel and casino Downtown

1:36:37

Vegas on Fremont Street where the

1:36:39

D sits today It

1:36:41

was the middle of the day dick had the day

1:36:43

off and on his way to grab some cheap buffet

1:36:45

meal He was apparently fond of he finally spots her

1:36:48

his ex-wife Sonny. She was there

1:36:50

dealing craps He'd already looked for her

1:36:52

at all the casinos on the strip multiple times

1:36:54

on various days and nights and at all the

1:36:56

downtown casinos As well, this is the second or

1:36:58

third time looking at the Fitzgerald's He

1:37:01

assumed she worked nights There's

1:37:03

more money than that But she had taken the morning and afternoon

1:37:06

shifts because you know, she was new and didn't have the seniority

1:37:08

to get the better shifts He

1:37:10

approached her and when she saw him

1:37:12

he said she went pale He

1:37:14

thought she was going to talk to the pit boss and

1:37:17

have him removed But she did not say

1:37:19

anything to any co-workers and so he bought

1:37:21

some chips and that motherfucker started

1:37:23

playing at her craps table She

1:37:26

later said that when he first approached there was another player there and

1:37:28

he made small talk, you know, how have you been? How

1:37:30

do you like Vegas? Where are you staying? That's

1:37:32

sort of thing like they're like they're close She

1:37:35

kept her answers tourist but professional she kept smiling to

1:37:37

not make a scene and avoided sharing any information with

1:37:39

him But then it was real quiet

1:37:41

as you see know when the other player left the table and

1:37:43

it was just dick and sunny She quietly said to him dick.

1:37:46

You need to leave and never come back I

1:37:48

have a new boyfriend now a very protective boyfriend

1:37:51

and if you ever come back here He might be waiting for

1:37:53

you and he will hurt you fuck. Yeah,

1:37:55

bro Dick now leaves in a huff culture

1:37:58

bitch delz are He would just be nice, didn't

1:38:00

want to see her anyway. He would

1:38:03

hurt her boyfriend, you know, because he's so tough, blah, blah, blah.

1:38:06

And then he leaves, she hopes she never comes back, but he

1:38:08

does come back. The next week at the same time, Sunny

1:38:11

thinking if he did come back, he might just do that,

1:38:13

you know, with his whatever work schedule. She

1:38:15

did tell her boyfriend who did show up to play some

1:38:17

slot machines with an eye side of her table. This is

1:38:20

so great. And her boyfriend's

1:38:22

a big dude, I guess, and a former Golden Gloves

1:38:24

boxer. She didn't ever reveal his

1:38:26

name to author Eshinba, but she said

1:38:28

that she told her pit boss about Dick this time

1:38:30

when he showed up, and that, you know, management then

1:38:32

asked Dick to leave the premises. When

1:38:34

he's escorted out, her boyfriend follows. Follows

1:38:37

him all the way to his suburb in his turd

1:38:39

mobile in the parking lot. And

1:38:41

when Dick opens the door, this guy runs

1:38:43

up and punches him in the fucking neck.

1:38:46

Hail Nimrod, then slams the

1:38:48

door on Dick a few times, steals his

1:38:50

driver's license. This dude did not play. He

1:38:53

makes it clear to Dick that now he knows

1:38:55

where he lives and what car he drives,

1:38:58

and that he'll be really defined. And

1:39:00

that if he ever, ever shows up to

1:39:02

the Fitzgerald again, or if Sonny ever just

1:39:04

even fucking sees him again anywhere in town,

1:39:07

he will pay Dick another visit, and this time he will beat him

1:39:09

to death. Then he kicks Dick in

1:39:11

the ribs a few times, leaves him there to bleed a bit

1:39:14

before Dick gets into his turd mobile and drives off. I

1:39:16

love this guy so much. Whatever your

1:39:19

name is, if you somehow heard this podcast, you have a

1:39:21

huge fan here. I have never done

1:39:23

anything as cool as what you did to Dick turd in

1:39:25

Vegas on behalf of Sonny. Sonny

1:39:27

doesn't mention this guy as her

1:39:29

husband when she gets married later and changes her name

1:39:31

to Sonny Douglas, so I'm not sure that they stay

1:39:33

together, but maybe she's just protecting his identity. Dick

1:39:37

now emasculated and angrier

1:39:39

at Sonny than ever, and thus anger at women

1:39:41

in general will be more brutal going forward. December

1:39:45

4th, 1991, the

1:39:47

dead body of 20-year-old Hannah Curtis is found in a

1:39:49

vacant patch of undeveloped land about a mile from the

1:39:51

strip. She had been like Alicia

1:39:53

Mitchell before her raped and strangled, semen

1:39:55

again found on her body, on her shirt this time.

1:39:57

Chest, she'd also been hit in the face several times.

1:40:00

times. Perpetrator had left her badly

1:40:02

battered. Hannah was from Bakersfield,

1:40:04

born there on April 17,

1:40:06

1971, Bakersfield, California. She'd only been in

1:40:09

Las Vegas for about six months. She had moved

1:40:11

out with a boyfriend, gotten addicted

1:40:13

to fucking crack, was

1:40:15

dumped by her boyfriend a few months later, and soon resorted

1:40:17

to sex work to pay for her addiction. And

1:40:19

then Dick found her. He said that

1:40:21

like with the previous victim. He picked her

1:40:24

up on the strip in his turd mobile, after

1:40:26

she agreed the terms. Then he drove

1:40:28

her to a secluded spot behind a casino parking structure.

1:40:30

He had scouted out beforehand. Then just

1:40:32