Speaker 1 00:00
So your body bags, we’re going on a slaycation. Actually that’s not true. We’re actually going on vacation this week. So we don’t have a case for you. So if you’re jonesing for some vacation -themed murder, we recommend you go back and catch one of our earlier episodes you may have missed.
Speaker 1 00:21
In particular, for some reason, part two of Terror in Tampa did not load right or something. So that is definitely our least listened -to episode. So maybe now’s a good time to go and revisit that case.
Speaker 1 00:36
Or what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a quick little feed drop from our friends at Crawl Space, which is an episode that they did featuring myself and Kim, and we’re going to play that for you right now.
Speaker 1 00:50
So thanks for tuning in, and we will catch you next week.
Speaker 2 01:22
Welcome to Crawl Space. I’m Tim here today with Lance. Lance, how are you today?
Speaker 3 01:27
I’m doing fantastic today Tim. I hope everyone out there who’s listening, I hope they’re doing just as fantastic if not better. I love it when we make new friends. And a few weeks ago we made a new friend, Jerry Colbert, who is one of three responsible for a great new podcast that’s out there.
Speaker 3 01:44
But Tim, you’re responsible right now for telling not only me, but everyone out there how you’re doing today.
Speaker 2 01:50
doing all right today thank you for applying that pressure to my answer it’s probably not gonna change ever in these intros but no I’m doing good yes we spoke with Jerry a couple weeks ago and now we spoke with Kim and Adam so we’ve had all three of the hosts of slaycation on our crawlspace airwaves and really we’ve had a lot of fun talking with them we really
Speaker 3 02:15
have. And this is a true crime podcast with a comedy element to it. But Kim’s background was centered in the area of domestic violence and working with shelters for domestic violence survivors, really making a change, making a difference in those communities.
Speaker 3 02:32
So there’s this level of real world application that goes into the stories that they tell. And Adam is there for those moments that need the comic relief. This is such a fun conversation. And also a wonderful glimpse into the married life of two podcast hosts.
Speaker 2 02:48
Absolutely, and I was talking about you and me of course. Yeah, and Adam Tex Davis He actually wrote the movie with Ryan Reynolds called just friends, which was pretty cool I know I’m sure a lot of our listeners recall that movie fondly very funny movie very cool guests and Yeah, we hope you enjoyed this conversation and slate
Speaker 3 03:07
vacation covers a number of these stories, so be sure to check out their podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. But in this episode, we talk about the stories of Tina and Gabe Watson, Tony and Harold Henthorn, and Shanquella Robinson.
Speaker 3 03:20
So we cover three of the standout stories that they’ve talked about in episodes of Slavery.
Speaker 2 03:27
All right, everyone, we’re gonna break quick for commercial here. Make sure to check out Crawlspace Premium. That’s now on Apple Podcasts. You can get ad -free episodes, early releases, and our bonus show.
Speaker 2 03:37
So check that out. And if you’re not an Apple user, go to crawlspace .supportingcast .fm for that same product. Okay, we’re gonna break quick for commercial and we’ll be right back with Kim and Adam.
Speaker 3 03:52
And a thank you to our sponsors, back to the program.
Speaker 2 03:56
Welcome to the podcast Kim and Adam Davis. How’s it going today?
Speaker 4 04:02
Hey, good. How’s it going with you guys?
Speaker 3 04:04
We’re doing great. We always love, and I say this every time we have an interview on Friday, we tend to schedule our Friday interviews to be a little less heavy than the ones that we do during the week where we cover a lot of true crime and serious topics.
Speaker 3 04:16
We’ll get some serious topics here, don’t get me wrong, but we were so excited to get the opportunity to speak with the two of you about your show and beyond. Because just in the email exchanges that we’ve had, we knew that this was going to be a delight.
Speaker 3 04:29
So just thank you so much for rounding out our week in a nice, positive way.
Speaker 1 04:34
Well, how dare you say slaycation is not a heavy topic? How dare you, sir? Well,
Speaker 4 04:40
Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 04:42
And if you have anything bad to say about Jerry, you should get it off your chest now. It’s just the four of us here.
Speaker 1 04:47
Well, that’s what the podcast is for. You get to unload on him there. Now, you know, Jerry, Jerry’s great. And I saw I saw the interview you guys did with him. He said a high bar.
Speaker 2 04:57
He’s a lot of fun to speak with. Absolutely. Yeah, as you both know because you host a podcast with him. Yeah, so we had Jerrion a few weeks ago speaking about this great new podcast called Slaycation.
Speaker 2 05:09
But before we get into Slaycation, can we get a little background on you both and what made you guys decide to do this podcast?
Speaker 4 05:18
He’s far more interesting than I am in the respect of theater or film and even podcasting. A lot of my work is, in my past life, I was mostly in social work, social services. I worked in a crisis shelter for victims of domestic violence, worked with women in particular that dealt with homelessness, addictions.
Speaker 4 05:43
I’ve done some acting, I’ve done stage managing. I’ve even worked in a terrarium studio. But the one constant with me is my obsession with true crime. That’s the constant. Like I was into true crime before they even knew who the Green River Killer was, so.
Speaker 1 06:00
I’m a film guy, you know, Jerry and I, we met at film school back in like 89. He was doing more theater and then he got more into TV. I was doing more film. I was always doing comedy stuff. I wrote the movie Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds, but I always had this cool obsession with serial killers and like dark stuff.
Speaker 1 06:19
In my spare time, I also, you know, write horror movies and, you know, try to come up with horror concepts. You know, I met Kim and Kim was like the only person who had seen Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Speaker 1 06:31
And like, you know, I make the joke when the first time I went to her house, like, you know, her bedroom, it looked like the crime section of the library with all these books on the shelves. And I was like, holy crap, I didn’t even know they made Hunting Humans parts two and three.
Speaker 1 06:43
Like, this is amazing. You know, she had a very dark job and my job was to make her laugh and to find ways of being funny to get her to not, you know, just be crying all the time about all the hell at the domestic violence shelter.
Speaker 1 06:56
The hell is that?
Speaker 4 06:56
despair of our fellow humans.
Speaker 1 06:59
You know, I’m always thinking about ideas for crime shows and stuff. And I saw a case where people went on vacation and one killed the other tried to make it look like an accident. And I just said the word Slaycation.
Speaker 1 07:09
And she perked up and she was like, does that exist? And I was like, let’s look. No, it does not. You know, Jerry, he’s on the fence about true crime. He you know, he’s worked in it. And he’s done it.
Speaker 1 07:20
But at the same time, it’s not his favorite because it’s dark and it you know, he’s very, he gets very emotional. Kim and I have a strange way of detaching so that we don’t feel the heaviness too much.
Speaker 1 07:31
I mean, you probably learned that from social work.
Speaker 4 07:33
sort of compartmentalizing in a healthy way, yes.
Speaker 1 07:38
we’re like, let’s do it. But let’s make sure we have fun and be entertaining. But, you know, obviously, you want to be respectful to the victims and stuff. I mean, these are real people, you know, the concept of like, Jerry and Kim know the story, and I don’t.
Speaker 1 07:50
So they’re telling it to me in real time. So I can make comments, ask questions, make jokes that some people like, and some people don’t like. Yeah, especially
Speaker 4 07:59
don’t like.
Speaker 3 08:01
I feel like you are the perspective of the audience, Adam, where you’re learning about it and you’re thinking, okay, the audience is probably thinking, what about this? So I’m going to ask this, or it might be a little bit of gallows humor, but you make a joke.
Speaker 3 08:14
I feel like, Kim, your background with the crisis shelter and working with domestic violence survivors, I feel like that lends so much credibility to the show because you’ve been there and you’ve seen this.
Speaker 3 08:26
There’s no amount of gratitude and respect that Tim and I can give to you of putting yourself in that position to help people.
Speaker 4 08:34
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It’s not the kind of work that you do for the money because there is none. It’s tough. It’s tough. I think also the thing that makes it additionally harder is just realizing how awful we are to each other.
Speaker 4 08:52
I think also just doing this, it gives you also an opportunity to encourage everyone to be a little kinder, even in a very small way.
Speaker 1 09:02
way. To Kim’s credit, like, I, you know, I was working, I think I was working in a carwash factory at the time, like a factory in Hackensack, New Jersey that made carwashes, like all the machinery that’s in a carwash.
Speaker 1 09:14
And I was writing on the side. And then I finally got my big break and sold a couple of scripts. And I said to Kim, I was like, Hey, Tilda, the shelter, you’re done, you don’t have to work there anymore.
Speaker 1 09:25
And she was like, What? No. And she stayed and she worked for several more years because she knew she was helping when the bureaucracy there got too out of control.
Speaker 4 09:35
as always, always, always politics and bureaucracy. It follows you in all aspects.
Speaker 1 09:42
They basically fired like two people and then said, Well, we don’t have to hire anyone. You can just cover it all. Right. And then she was like, I think I’m done. Yeah.
Speaker 3 09:49
I mean, we hear those stories all of the time because we do have individuals on the show. A lot of that comes from a lot of that abuse. A lot of the result, someone going missing comes from domestic violence.
Speaker 3 09:59
And we do speak with people who work in shelters and work with domestic abuse survivors. And there’s always that moment that they say, this is where the system failed us.
Speaker 4 10:09
Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s unfortunate because at the end of the day, it’s a business and it will always take precedence even over people. A lot of my naivety, because I remember walking in there sort of like, okay, I’m here to help.
Speaker 4 10:27
I’m here to help. I’m here to change lives. And you soon realize like, yeah, it’s not quite how that works. I mean, you can try to squeeze that in. It can be very emotional. I remember when they do these things where they evaluate your performance.
Speaker 4 10:44
I remember on my evaluation, it was, isn’t supportive of tough administrative decisions because I would, you know, sort of advocating on the side of this is a human, this is that. It’s hard. And there’s a part of me that while I really cared about the work, I don’t miss it.
Speaker 3 11:03
Sounds like you need a slaycation.
Speaker 4 11:05
Right. Exactly.
Speaker 2 11:07
We’re just a vacation. Just a vacation, Lance. Kim, where did this love of true crime come from in you?
Speaker 4 11:15
It’s always been a curiosity of mine. I always try to figure out or try to see if I could glean some clues or hints of what creates these people. What makes that serial killer? What makes that person that’s like, I’m gonna take my wife on vacation or my spouse and shove them off a cliff.
Speaker 4 11:37
While I have no answers, haven’t found any answers, the quest continues. It’s just always been something that’s sort of driven me to try to find and I guess in a way make sense of it. And still, I haven’t been able to do that.
Speaker 1 11:53
On the other hand, I can think of a long list of reasons to shove a wife off a cliff.
Speaker 3 12:03
We’ll let that awkward silence just hang.
Speaker 5 12:05
Yeah.
Speaker 1 12:06
You should see the way she loads the dishwasher. Oh my God.
Speaker 3 12:10
I am the dishwasher loader in our household as well. Right. There are certain things that don’t go in certain spots.
Speaker 1 12:17
Thank you.
Speaker 4 12:17
Well, he is free to do it if he wants.
Speaker 1 12:20
do it. I do it twice. I do it when I do it and I do it when she does it because I want the dishes to get clean. A pile is not a pile. Oh my gosh. See, and we talk about our marriage and raising our kid on the show and stuff, so we try to bring some of that fun to it for people that would find that fun.
Speaker 1 12:36
I was a little nervous. Oh no. Believe me, I’ve gotten that look every day for 25 years.
Speaker 2 12:43
So what kinds of stories are you telling on Slaycation?
Speaker 1 12:45
Okay, so I say that the stories that we do come in three buckets, basically. There’s, you know, a vacation that is planned solely to commit a murder and to try to use the vacation, like as a cover, like it’s an accident and it’s like, you know, somebody murdering their spouse or somebody murdering a friend or something like that, where it’s a premeditated vacation solely exists for the murder.
Speaker 1 13:13
Then there’s the other bucket, which is you go on vacation and you get murdered. You know, just one person or both people or whatever, but they, they get murdered. And then there’s like a non premeditated murder that happens on vacation.
Speaker 1 13:26
Maybe it’s the people that go on vacation, murder somebody, or maybe something else happens and then suddenly it leads to a murder.
Speaker 4 13:35
forgot. Sometimes we don’t know what happens. Sometimes it’s mysterious. Oh, right. Oh. Right. Mysterious death. He’s obsessed with the murder component. Maybe I should be a little…
Speaker 3 13:46
Give us a hand signal if, uh,
Speaker 4 13:48
No, right
Speaker 1 13:50
Load the dishwasher correctly if you’re in trouble. That’ll be the sign.
Speaker 3 13:56
When in the process, Adam, did you identify that there were categories, or was that sort of a known thing going into it?
Speaker 1 14:04
When we first were like, figuring out the format of the show, we knew that we wanted to both be on it, you know, husband and wife. And then of course, we wanted Jerry as well. And then it’s like, you know, but if all three of us know the case, it’s a little less fun, it’s a little less interesting, it was like, okay, but we also wanted to make sure there were enough cases to do a show.
Speaker 1 14:24
So in the initial research, we started looking up murders that happened on vacation, and we realized, okay, there’s a lot of ones where it’s somebody killing their spouse. But there’s also a lot of ones where someone’s just getting killed, or, you know, mysterious death.
Speaker 1 14:39
So you know what, let’s keep it open. You know, the twisty turning ones are my favorite, if I had to say favorite, but the ones that keep you guessing. The third one we did was Gabentina Watson. And it was a scuba diving one.
Speaker 1 14:51
And to this day, I still am not sure whether it was a murder, or just hubris, leading to an accident. Those are like the quintessential, I call those the quintessential slaycation. Yeah, some of them are just more straightforward, you know, meeting their doom.
Speaker 1 15:06
And then what are the events that led up to that? And what is the aftermath? Did they catch the person or not? And in some cases, it blows the lid off of major corruption or major, you know, wow, there’s a whole culture of violence here that’s being swept under the rug, because they want the tourist industry to thrive.
Speaker 1 15:24
And if you are saying, Oh, there’s murders here all the time, like people don’t go. So once we realized, okay, well, there’s plenty of cases, then I removed myself from the case finding process, so that I could be the proxy for the listener.
Speaker 3 15:36
You mentioned the Gabe and Tina Watson case, and that I think was one that Tim and I both had on our list to talk about. Can you talk about that one in a little more detail without giving away too much?
Speaker 3 15:45
Because we do want to make sure that people listen to that episode, but it is a twisty turny one.
Speaker 4 15:50
I mean, like, I remember, like, when I was telling, and when Jerry and I was sort of going through the events, you know, Adam was like, what, what? And essentially, there was many different things that sort of made this case, you know, one of the things was the fact that they were a couple, they were together, they were married, and he was a big, big into scuba diving and was very interested in having her scuba dive.
Speaker 4 16:19
And she was not as interested. I’m a knitter, right? It’s as if I’m like, Adam, you need to learn to knit. This is how-
Speaker 1 16:26
much of a knitter she is. She’s literally knitting during this interview. You’re knitting right now. Yeah, she’s knitting right now. There’s a- What are you knitting? There’s a scarf being made. Wow.
Speaker 2 16:38
That’s amazing. I feel like I’m fiddling with my pens all the time. I should be knitting instead.
Speaker 4 16:43
Exactly, exactly. It’s a great way to channel that ADHD or OCD. But the thing is, is that Gabe was very interested in having Tina and because she loved him, you know, she went, she took some scuba lessons.
Speaker 4 16:56
It was clear just from the reports and everything that I read is she had great anxiety about scuba diving. It was it really just wasn’t something that she was into. Right.
Speaker 1 17:08
He planned their honeymoon to go to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to do a fairly advanced dive that she had no business doing. In fact, it was so advanced and she was so novice and inexperienced that he lied to the scuba masters.
Speaker 1 17:27
They’re supposed to interview people separately, a couple separately. He made them interview together so he could do all the answering and basically forced it so that she would do this dive and said, don’t worry, I’m a master diver.
Speaker 1 17:38
I can take care of her. So that’s where like the hubris comes in.
Speaker 4 17:42
And who knows, was it because he was really, you know, methodically planning to do away with his wife, or was he just this arrogant jerk -off that just was like, I got it all
Speaker 1 17:54
control. So without giving anything else away, let’s just say two people go diving. One comes back and a series of like a witness thinks they see something that could have indicated something. There was also a problem with the equipment that they thought he had tampered with, but then it turns out he maybe didn’t.
Speaker 1 18:15
And also like people’s behavior, you know, plays a huge factor. Like, you know, he went back to the surface didn’t
Speaker 4 18:21
left her down there and yet he’s saying he’s a master diver. You’re trying to translate and understand like what does it all mean and that’s the thing too because there’s sort of this notion that you behave in a certain way this is what you’re supposed to do but when you deviate from that it gives a different impression.
Speaker 4 18:37
Again people are left with all these different impressions of him.
Speaker 1 18:43
had me going back and forth oh it’s a murder oh it’s an accident oh it’s a murder
Speaker 2 18:47
Doesn’t it ultimately come down to if the person took out a life insurance policy before the trip, almost always?
Speaker 4 18:55
You think.
Speaker 1 18:56
Not this case, nope.
Speaker 2 18:57
Okay.
Speaker 1 18:59
Wow. The life insurance was like minimal. And she had a ton of debt that he had taken on. That was the other thing. Yeah, there was like, it didn’t fit like there have been cases and you know, we jokingly say like, how long after you take out the life insurance policy, can you kill someone without it looking suspicious?
Speaker 1 19:17
How long do you need to wait? What is that non suspicious time? Four months. Well, what is it? Four months. Four months? Okay, okay. Feels a little firm. Well, I took out the life insurance.
Speaker 3 19:30
policy on Tim in October. What? No, you didn’t. Oh, I thought I was muted.
Speaker 2 19:36
You’re going to say that on mute?
Speaker 1 19:37
Jerry and I have like insurance on each other. So we always say, like, make sure that the company is doing better than the insurance or mutual destruction.
Speaker 2 19:46
That does seem to be kind of a common occurrence in some of these cases though. Have you found that? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean. Our first case. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 19:55
I mean, definitely in our first case, the Hawthones, I mean, he had quite an extensive number of policies out on his wife. It really definitely made him look very suspicious because of that. But Gabe and Tina, that was a missing component, no insurance.
Speaker 4 20:15
There was nothing certainly for him to gain financially from killing his wife.
Speaker 3 20:21
Yeah, they were just married for like 10 days or something, 11 days, right? And then he took on her debt after she died, which is the exact opposite of what mostly you hear with these types of murders.
Speaker 3 20:34
It is a head scratcher. I mean, in your gut, what do you think, though?
Speaker 4 20:38
I don’t know if he did it, but I guess what I would say is if I was sitting on a jury, I don’t know that I would be able to say he’s guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, I don’t know whether or not he did it, but I don’t know that the evidence proves that he definitely did it.
Speaker 4 20:59
But my gut says, I don’t, I don’t know, I go back and forth, I go back and forth. I guess the best answer I can give is if I was on a jury, I would have to say the evidence is not there, he’s not guilty.
Speaker 1 21:15
It’s definitely the longest answer you could give.
Speaker 4 21:17
Yeah, well, I’m good for that.
Speaker 3 21:19
It’s too bad I just looked this up to confirm it. She was 26 years old.
Speaker 4 21:23
Yeah, I mean, they were college sweethearts. Yeah.
Speaker 3 21:27
Was there any indication of abuse prior?
Speaker 4 21:29
The only thing that sort of stood out for me was her parents hated him. They did not like him. I couldn’t really understand why they didn’t like him. It just felt like they didn’t think he was good enough for her and that’s a whole other issue.
Speaker 4 21:45
I don’t know that I found that anything that went on between them was unusual or raised any red flags. Thanks.
Speaker 1 21:55
How long were they together before they got married? Do you remember? I think they were together a couple of years. So was it like, because we have places where people get married after like, three days or a week.
Speaker 1 22:04
And it’s like, Hmm, okay. And it turns out they had a huge policy on them. You know, yeah, this one was a real headscratcher, as Kim said, I know a lot of guys who are the people that no, no, no, I got this.
Speaker 1 22:14
I got this. Don’t worry about it. And then when shit goes bad, they freak out and they can’t handle it. And what do you.
Speaker 4 22:20
think do you think do you think he’s guilty what does your gut say no no
Speaker 1 22:27
All right. Yeah, he went back to Australia like they were, you know, he was here in the States. He got out. There’s no extradition to bring him back. But he went back on his own. That doesn’t feel like what a guilty person does.
Speaker 4 22:39
Well, to be fair, there was murmurings that he had made a deal with them prior to that return. He had made a deal with the authorities that like, okay, you’re going to serve this time and we’ll drop it down to this.
Speaker 1 22:56
But still, a guilty person might not even make a deal. They’re just gonna… Yeah, that’s true. Now, right?
Speaker 4 23:01
It depends. See, we don’t know. We don’t know. We could go back and forth with this.
Speaker 1 23:05
day long. It was weird that he was sitting on a boat and his wife was either dying or dead and he’s not like overly concerned about her well -being.
Speaker 4 23:14
But then maybe he’s just trying to disconnect and not freak out because how is that gonna be helpful?
Speaker 1 23:21
We may or may not have given away too much.
Speaker 6 23:26
Well, I- The Hargan women seem to have it all.
Speaker 5 23:28
From the outside looking in, we were blessed. My mom was amazing.
Speaker 6 23:33
But as detectives would soon learn, there was a lot going on inside the Hargan household.
Speaker 7 23:38
Ashley and I have been calling my mom and the house and Helen, no one’s answering.
Speaker 6 23:44
63 -year -old Pamela Hargan gunned down in her own home. Her youngest daughter Helen lay dead upstairs.
Speaker 5 23:51
Patrol, when they arrived, assumed or thought that there might have been a murder suicide.
Speaker 6 23:56
but for the detectives on the scene. There were things about the scene itself that were concerning to us on day one. Who would want to kill their mother and their little sister? There is no boogeyman here.
Speaker 6 24:08
It is exactly who we think it is. I’m Peter Van Sant from 48 Hours. This is Blood is Thicker, the Hargen Family Killings. Listen to Blood is Thicker, the Hargen Family Killings, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 8 24:26
Hi, I’m Matt Harris. Seton Tucker and I host the podcast Impact of Influence, which for two years covered in depth, Alec Murdoch, who was eventually convicted in 2023 of murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul.
Speaker 8 24:39
That story continues to evolve and we will cover that. Plus, we will tell you stories of other true crime events that have happened in the South. Please join us on Impact of Influence and give us a follow on the Impact of Influence Facebook page.
Speaker 9 24:56
Hello, this is Dr. Grande, the host of True Crime Psychology and Personality. On my podcast, I explore and explain the pathology behind some of the most horrendous crimes and those who commit them. We discuss topics like narcissism, psychopathy, sociopathy, and antisocial personality disorder from a scientifically informed perspective.
Speaker 9 25:18
What is a narcissist? How do you spot a sociopath? What science can you look for to protect yourself from these dangerous personalities? It’s not just about the stories, but also the science and psychology behind them.
Speaker 9 25:31
So, if you’re interested in true crime or mental health, I’d encourage you to give my show a listen wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 2 25:38
That one seems to definitely sounds like one that it would be hard to convict him in a court of law opinion wise I don’t know. It’s a little bit of a different story
Speaker 1 25:47
It is interesting how, you know, the way people act during, after police interview, 911 call, like all those things really just play into how the public is going to perceive you. And if you do the wrong thing, you know, in the eyes of the public, you will be seen as guilty.
Speaker 1 26:05
We just watched that, you know, American Nightmare on Netflix, and it’s like more of the same, like they didn’t behave the right way, so.
Speaker 3 26:12
Hold on haven’t seen it watching it this weekend. Oh, yes. Let’s not ruin anything
Speaker 4 26:17
convene and discuss.
Speaker 1 26:19
I am so sorry. No, no, no, no. The, uh, the endorsement is…
Speaker 3 26:22
making me more eager to check it out, so I appreciate it. Good.
Speaker 1 26:26
Yes. We were just bummed it didn’t happen on a vacation.
Speaker 7 26:30
We’ll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 26:35
And a thank you to our sponsors. Back to the program.
Speaker 2 26:39
Tell us a little bit about this Harold and Tony Henthorn case. I know we’ve kind of talked about it a little bit. This guy pushed his wife off of a cliff at Rocky Mountain National Park and then you guys play the 911 call.
Speaker 4 26:53
Yes. Did you hear that? That’s crazy. That was the craziest rambling. That sounds like me on any given day. That’s crazy. Or no.
Speaker 2 27:04
Yeah, he’s going through the weather and the wind and things like that. I mean, oftentimes I feel like they’re very weird when they’re played in a true crime podcast. This one was very suspicious.
Speaker 1 27:15
I mean, usually it’s like stop asking me questions, get over here, and he’s doing the opposite.
Speaker 4 27:20
So, they met through a Christian dating site, second marriage for the both of them. I think she, in particular, was very vested in this working out. And I think she was very interested in starting a family and just really settling in.
Speaker 4 27:35
That’s what they did. In this case, there were a number of red flags. One red flag was she was the one that generated the income, but he managed to take over and unilaterally manage their finances. The second thing was that he began to start isolating her from her family.
Speaker 4 27:58
At one point, they moved from their home down south and moved to Colorado. So, that was another thing.
Speaker 1 28:07
He had it arranged so that like if she gets a call on her cell phone, he also gets the call. So he can listen in and surveil.
Speaker 3 28:15
Oh, some might say that’s a red flag.
Speaker 4 28:17
Just yes!
Speaker 1 28:18
Yes. Somebody also say like, the last thing I would want is to have to listen to her calls. There is no way. There is no way.
Speaker 4 28:27
Anyway, sorry.
Speaker 3 28:29
Tim and I have the same program on our cell phones, but it’s just strictly business.
Speaker 4 28:33
Right, right, right, right, right. But that’s, you know, that’s the thing though. And of course, he was it was really just to keep her under his thumb and to monitor even so what she could share about what was really going on in their household.
Speaker 1 28:50
Do they plan, say, an anniversary getaway?
Speaker 4 28:53
Exactly. It’s 12 years of togetherness. He reaches out to the office manager of her office and sets up a time when he’s basically going to walk in and whisk her away to their sweet honeymoon gala. But of course, he comes, he’s already packed her things.
Speaker 4 29:14
There is no world where he would show up and say, we’re going away, and I’d go, okay, great, but we need to stop at the house first. And him go, but I have everything that you’ll need. That’s great, but we need this, but that’s not what happened here.
Speaker 4 29:31
So that’s another reason.
Speaker 1 29:32
Yeah, he packed her things, picked her up, and they went straight to the Stanley Hotel, which is the Hotel from the Shining.
Speaker 3 29:40
This is clearly going to end badly.
Speaker 1 29:42
Exactly. Then he takes her on a picnic or whatever, a romantic picnic, to the most remote cliff that nobody goes to.
Speaker 4 29:51
Yeah, even the Rangers that were, you know, part of the investigation was like, this is really remote. Nobody really comes to these.
Speaker 2 29:59
these parts, except for
Speaker 1 30:00
him. Except for him. And it didn’t help his case either that they found a map in his car with an x marking the spot on that weird remote cliff area where she wound up being found. The point is, yeah, so then yeah, she quote unquote fell.
Speaker 1 30:15
And then he made the 911 call and rambled on rambled on and then it was like, okay, well, they couldn’t there was nobody there, no witnesses, but then they started finding things. And then also his past was just it was devastating.
Speaker 4 30:29
Red flags, just red, this was a case of red flags all around. Like it- Not even flags, just red every-
Speaker 1 30:35
Everything, just red rum, red, yeah, everything, so.
Speaker 4 30:40
had a child together, correct? They did, yes. A little girl. From what I understand, she ended up being raised by her maternal uncle and his wife, her aunt, and once, which I don’t disagree, once has cut off ties with her father.
Speaker 4 30:59
It’s a shit show. It’s a total shit show. I mean, this guy is probably, again, what you would think of when you would think of as a sociopath. The quest is, what makes those people? What is in the DNA?
Speaker 4 31:13
I can’t relate to that. I don’t understand it.
Speaker 3 31:17
I mean, it does take like a certain type of mentality when you’re with somebody over the course of a few years and you’ve developed a relationship and then you have a child. If you don’t want to be in that marriage any longer, there’s a number of alternatives.
Speaker 3 31:29
A number. Before you get to murder. And then the murder on vacation is like, you’re setting this person up to enjoy themselves. It’s doubly diabolical to do that to somebody. Once you figure that out, or if we figure it out, like the why behind all that, then we’ll be right there accepting our Nobel Prizes.
Speaker 1 31:47
I will say the vacation aspect does lend itself though more to potentially getting away with it, right? When you’re thinking about the perfect crime, that’s not shooting somebody that’s not strangling them in your house It’s oh my god.
Speaker 1 32:00
They fell off a cliff. They fell off a boat We were scuba diving and their equipment malfunctioned the joke I mean It’s like it seems refreshingly doable in a day when it’s really hard to get away with murder The slaycation seems almost doable But then it’s crazy how these evil geniuses also get tripped up by things like leaving a map in their car with an axe with an axe
Speaker 2 32:20
It must be ego that gets in the way, I guess, at some point. You think you’re smarter than whoever’s investigating. But I think you’re right in that pushing your wife off of a cliff in a remote area that no one else is there, like, he very easily could have gotten away with that.
Speaker 4 32:35
Exactly. And the crazy thing is, is that that’s not the only case. I mean, I can think of two right off the top of my head where a young kid, you know, early 20s, late teens, you know, was in love with this girl and they had broken up, but you know, was like, hey, let’s just get together and hang.
Speaker 4 32:51
And what does he do? He pushes her off a cliff. Wait, did we do this case yet? No. What did we do? Because it wasn’t a slight cation. It wasn’t a vacation. It was just like, I’m gonna pick you up and we go for a ride.
Speaker 4 33:01
You know, I guess that could be, but if, you know, they weren’t going away together. They were just hanging out.
Speaker 1 33:07
It really is screws up with our home life because she wants to talk about the case with you. I can’t I can’t she’s calling Jerry at like one in the morning to talk about murder
Speaker 4 33:16
Yeah, that’s what it’s become.
Speaker 7 33:18
We’ll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 33:23
And a thank you to our sponsors, back to the program.
Speaker 2 33:27
Tell us about your most recent episode on Shanquella Robinson, really tragic story.
Speaker 4 33:33
There’s no better way to describe it, my friend, because, yeah, essentially she had traveled with a group of, you know, I want to say the word you’d say is friends, but obviously, but people that she knew, acquaintances, and apparently one of the travelers was a really good friend of hers, and they had obviously all been acquainted with each other, and they traveled to Mexico, and they had this beautiful villa,
Speaker 4 34:02
and then at some point, something went wrong. That’s not clear even what happened. Nobody really knows what happened, but what we do know is that she is dead, and initially those people on the trip with her were saying it was alcohol poisoning.
Speaker 4 34:22
The autopsy reports indicated, particularly the autopsy report in the United States had indicated that it wasn’t alcohol poisoning. It just led into all of these questions that can’t really be answered, and then a video surfaced of her being essentially beaten up by another woman who was on that trip with her.
Speaker 4 34:47
We don’t know why, we don’t know what happened, we don’t know what happened before, where that even came from. That’s the thing, nobody’s talking.
Speaker 2 34:57
right so someone released this video purposefully you would think it’s never been stated who that was on the trip who released it or why
Speaker 4 35:07
Nope, we don’t know who released the video.
Speaker 2 35:09
How weird.
Speaker 4 35:10
Yeah. The person in the video that’s beating her down is somebody, of course, that she was there with.
Speaker 1 35:15
Even so, there are fights happen, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be fatal. And then her friend, her good friend, is there. You don’t see him on the video, but you hear him. Right. You hear him and he…
Speaker 4 35:29
He’s certainly not helping. No, no, no. In fact, I think he makes a comment like you’re not gonna fight back
Speaker 1 35:35
And then, yeah, then the initial autopsy done in Mexico was not very… Right.
Speaker 4 35:40
Very well done. It wasn’t very clear. It didn’t help with identifying any real answers for that family. She was beaten up and it was not in line with what her alleged friends had told authorities.
Speaker 3 35:59
What about her background? She was 25?
Speaker 4 36:02
I mean, she apparently had a real entrepreneurial spirit. She would braid hair. She was known for that, particularly kids. She had a clothesline that she also was doing some designing. I mean, she was pretty amazing, pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 36:20
I think that’s what gets me every time with these stories is that you just see somebody who’s 25 years old with all of this potential and then there’s one incident that happens that no one has answers to but now that person is not around and whatever they were going to offer the world is not going to be a thing.
Speaker 3 36:35
I know obviously you both combat this with a sense of humor. Is that like your main go -to when you start really digging into these people’s stories and start feeling like wow I’m getting a little a little down because it was really shown sort of the dark side of humanity.
Speaker 3 36:52
Is the sense of humor the first thing that you go to?
Speaker 1 36:55
What’s interesting is like, we almost always start and whether it’s like happens before we start rolling or not. But like Jerry and Kim will look at each other and like, sigh, be like, Oh, boy, this one.
Speaker 1 37:05
What a mess. And they, you know, so they know, and I’m just like, Okay, what’s coming? And then, you know, they start telling the story. And then in the part before them, you know, leading up to the bad stuff, I can make jokes and try to be funny and whatever.
Speaker 1 37:19
And then they get into the shit. And it’s just like, oh my god, and I’m just hearing the most horrible, depraved, awful things that people do to each other. You know, sometimes I blurt out something highly inappropriate.
Speaker 1 37:34
Well, maybe highly inappropriate, or just like, you know, I blurt out something awful, but nowhere near as awful as the thing we just heard. That is correct. And so in a way, it’s real time reaction.
Speaker 1 37:44
It’s like, you know, it’s like, you hear something awful. You just like, Oh, fuck me. What? Yeah. Oh, man. Holy shit. What the fuck is he thinking? You know, and yeah, and then you start cursing and you start getting angry.
Speaker 1 37:54
And then to combat that you don’t want to just have a show of people being angry. So you try to find a way to cut through that with a little joke here or there. And a lot of it is timing to I told Kim because you know, she’ll tell the story and I have to like interrupt her with a joke or, you know, a comment and I’m like, unfortunately, the timing is everything.
Speaker 4 38:13
The joke isn’t going to tell itself.
Speaker 1 38:17
So I, you know, I’ll make the joke, but I have to like weigh like, is the joke worth it or not, or whatever. So anyway, the point is, yes, I definitely combat it with humor, or else I’m just going to be angry.
Speaker 1 38:29
You know, we’re humans too, we have a kid, we you know, it’s like we go on vacation, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s like shit happens and really dark, awful shit. So yeah, I try to, you know, add some humor to it.
Speaker 4 38:42
And for me, a lot of it is, you know, in just this quest of understanding, there’s also this quest of what can we, and we talk about this, what can be the takeaway? What can we learn? How can we protect ourselves?
Speaker 4 39:00
How can we be more aware of our surroundings? And particularly in this case, the thing that was so upsetting about it was that there was every reason for, I mean, I would be, if I was traveling with, you know, a group of people that I like, and one of my closest very best friends were there, there would be no reason for her to have felt like she was in any jeopardy.
Speaker 4 39:26
I mean, her best friend was there, was a person that she had vacationed with, not only just her and him, but her whole family knew this person. So you’re not thinking, but it almost makes you realize that you can never truly let your guard down.
Speaker 4 39:43
And I think like that’s, again, what I go to. Like, what do we learn? What can we do so that these people that have gone, what would they say to us if they were advising us? Well, this is what we should have done, we didn’t.
Speaker 4 39:58
So that’s how I try to come at it when I’m taking in and consuming all this crazy.
Speaker 1 40:05
at the same time, you don’t want to blame the victim, you know, you don’t want to say that they did something to bring it on. So
Speaker 4 40:11
But the thing is, is that it’s not blaming the victim. They did nothing wrong but live their lives. It makes you realize that you have to look out for the predators, sort of understand that you almost have to look at people as predators until they prove that they’re not, instead of the other way around.
Speaker 4 40:28
That’s when you strike.
Speaker 2 40:31
Yeah, you have to be aware of those red flags and take them seriously when they present themselves. But yeah, in Chanquela’s case, it doesn’t seem like.
Speaker 4 40:39
Yeah, that’s the thing that’s so frustrating about her. Again, there was a couple of birthdays in that group, they were going to a fancy villa. And it was just supposed to be hanging out, having fun, getting their drink on and just, you know, living their best 20 something lives.
Speaker 4 40:57
It is a mystery really, like what set all of this up. And the reality is, is that no matter what it was, there was no excuse for what was done to her.
Speaker 2 41:08
Yeah, it doesn’t seem premeditated, but it seems like the international jurisdictions might have prevented the case from being solved. Do you guys feel that way?
Speaker 4 41:17
I feel that they dropped the ball. The second that she was pronounced deceased, they should have all been questioned and that did not happen. In fact, what they did was just say, we’re going to just head out, get a bite to eat.
Speaker 4 41:33
And they got on a plane and went back to the US. That should not have been allowed to happen. And then once you’re now dealing with jurisdictions between nations, it becomes more complicated. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Speaker 1 41:47
You know what? In a way, this is different than a lot of our locations where the person takes someone on a vacation and then isolates them from everybody else and then potentially does it or doesn’t do it.
Speaker 1 41:56
In this case, you had a whole bunch of people that were around when potentially the violence happened. And yeah, they were allowed to leave. Right. Nobody
Speaker 3 42:06
was questioned. This one gets like more depressing when you think about how you just said like this was not an isolated incident. This wasn’t done in an area where it was rare to see people like this poor human beings getting beaten severely and no one steps in.
Speaker 4 42:22
Nobody was so depressed friend who’s there is not jumping in or saying Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you what is going on here?
Speaker 1 42:31
No, it’s not even clear if that fight is the cause of death.
Speaker 4 42:35
You know, one of the autopsy reports, they couldn’t conclusively say that her cause of death was from the beating. She could have aspirated. But what it sounded like was that it was the perfect storm of everything that created that outcome.
Speaker 3 42:49
I’m thinking that had she not been beaten like that, she probably would still be alive. Yeah. Regardless of what the actual cause of death was. Yeah, you’re right. It was a perfect storm.
Speaker 4 42:59
Yeah, that’s a very depressing and very difficult case. Like you go off, you board a plane, you’re just going to party with some friends.
Speaker 2 43:07
That video release is still like the strangest thing about it because it’s just like, why is that released?
Speaker 4 43:13
and who released it.
Speaker 2 43:14
Yeah, and it obviously was someone there. Well, what else is coming up on Slakation? Can you give us a tease for any upcoming episodes?
Speaker 4 43:23
I’m going to let you do that.
Speaker 1 43:26
Well, we definitely have a case that takes place on Murder Island in Thailand, Katao, which is dubbed Murder Island. I mean, you know, they all suck. They’re all grisly, crazy, whatever. But in this case, it kind of blows the lid off of a culture of violence and mob -like, and by mob, I mean like mafia, like rulers of this island and cover -ups and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 43:52
So that’s a really interesting one. And we’ve got a couple of two -parters where it’s like there’s so much fucked up that we couldn’t even cover it in one episode. So we have like two episodes like that.
Speaker 4 44:04
Yeah. It involves just a couple of college kids just saying, hey, we’re done with school. Let’s take the trip of a lifetime before we get serious and have to do real jobs and, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1 44:20
Yeah. And that one, the more you dig, the more you find, and you’re like, oh my God. And the more confused you are. Yeah, that’s true. And we got this other one, these women escape abuse and then meet somebody even worse than the abuser.
Speaker 1 44:32
That’s another two -parter. That’s pretty seriously, yeah. Yeah, we got- There’s plenty. There’s plenty. Yeah. Yeah, apparently.
Speaker 3 44:40
Yeah, unfortunately, there’s plenty. So should I be worried that Tim just sent me tickets to Murder Island for a little getaway? He was like, he was like, we need some R &R.
Speaker 5 44:49
Ha ha ha!
Speaker 1 44:50
Right, I would be worried, I would be worried.
Speaker 4 44:55
You weren’t. As did I.
Speaker 3 44:58
I guess we’re taking scuba lessons while we’re there.
Speaker 1 45:01
Why are we buying all these maps?
Speaker 4 45:06
You just X ‘ed me!
Speaker 2 45:08
It’s just the spot where you it’s a beautiful waterfall. That’s all just a beautiful view
Speaker 1 45:13
So see how we’ve gotten people like making jokes though? Like, that’s the thing. It’s like, we hear all this awful, we’re like in this place, we have to lift ourselves back up. And that’s kind of what we do.
Speaker 1 45:22
It’s like, you have to build back up or else you just let it crush you.
Speaker 3 45:26
I feel like the power of humor and laughter is often looked upon with an unfavorable light unfairly. But, you know, you have to laugh at it so that you can keep going and telling the stories so that those stories don’t die, because the people don’t exist anymore.
Speaker 3 45:43
But some injustice happens. So if that’s what keeps you going, it’s not disrespectful. It’s therapeutic.
Speaker 1 45:50
Yeah, that was nice.
Speaker 2 45:52
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us here today. Well, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 45:55
Thank you. Thank you. I’m upset.
Speaker 3 45:57
I was looking down and it was like, we were at 50 minutes and I was thinking, oh my goodness, that just flew by. I know. Do you two have any plans for a vacation coming up soon? No way.
Speaker 1 46:08
Are you kidding? We’re going to get separate rooms, we’re going to have bodyguards. I mean, it is funny because there’s so many things like, oh, you know, Gabe got his novice scuba diver, she took like three lessons in a pool and now, well, we’re going to go down to the shipwreck that’s like way down there.
Speaker 1 46:29
And I’m like, I can’t even get Kim to come see me play hockey. I can’t, you know, she’s not doing that. She’s not, you know, that’s part of the takeaway, I guess. Don’t do things that you’re, you know, that make you really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 46:41
As far as us going on vacation. I mean, we’re pretty on guard as it is. So, you know.
Speaker 4 46:48
we, we, we are.
Speaker 3 46:50
I’m fully expecting Kim to hold up like the four sweaters that she just knitted during this conversation. She’s knitting a red flag. She literally knitted a red flag. This is a sign.
Speaker 1 47:02
Look out for the red flags, and they’re on sale from my Etsy store.
Speaker 2 47:08
Well, Kim and Adam, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 4 47:13
It’s been fun. Yeah. Thank you. And stay safe out there.
Speaker 5 47:20
Thanks for watching!
