Episode 579: The Society Gang Killing | Morbid

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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena. And this is Mobbed.

it's morbid morbid in the morning kinda hey yo it's like the late morning yeah almost afternoon yeah how are you what's up i'm good it's it's ghost movie week oh so i'm excited thoughts 's pretty exploiting are you guys going to see it who's going to see the ghost movie what is it called right here right now oh yes I knew that hell yeah because we've been singing in the pod lab right here I know not even the the ghost version no which is funny which is funny but yeah I'm very excited um I'm very I want to know what happens to papa I'm excited for you this is like yeah I haven't seen you this into a band since

Lincoln Park yeah it's true like your your Your love for Linkin Park is.

Yeah, it's translated into this.

Yeah, I used to love Linkin Park.

Chester was my guy.

Yeah, because I remember when you got the, you got like some like movie set for Christmas.

Yes, like the behind the scenes of like their tour.

Yeah, and this kind of like this new right here, right now coming out reminds me of that.

Yeah, you're right.

It is a little bit.

It's like the updated version.

Yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited for it.

And John's excited.

Because remember, in case you weren't here for the beginning of the lore, John's the one that introduced me to Ghost. he found them yeah out of nowhere a couple years ago on like a jimmy fallon show no jimmy kimmel it was um it's a like actually it's like a sports podcast he listens to one of the guys it's a huge sports fan or ghost fan he's sports fan too yeah but he's a ghost fan and he talks about them he like talked about them a lot and john was like oh i'm just gonna check these guys out so then he just started listening and he was like holy shit wait was the first performance that you saw

from like a jimmy show yeah he showed the first like live performance he showed me was the um oh my god what's his name jimmy kimmel jimmy kimmel that's what we're talking about yeah okay i was like am i insane that's not where he found them though got it got it he just showed me that performance because he was like hey look at this and they were in like full like call me little sunshine garb yeah so i was like this is as soon as the the camera panned over to of them and I was like I'm sorry what I was like this is the greatest thing I've ever seen tell me everything and he was like I knew you

would love this within a week she was hooked I mean within that moment she was hooked but within that week I think you had listened to like every album every single album and John and I sat there for like hours and listened to albums over and over again all the albums in fact I think when Tobias was on I mentioned that and he kind of like roasted me for a second was like considering the album's only like this many minutes it's shocking and I I was like, I listen to all of them, okay?

Okay. Every single one.

I was like, okay, I'm just trying to tell you.

I'm a fan. I'm a fan of Lo.

I'm a fan of Lo. I'm a foest. I like that.

You're a fobias. A fobias.

That's good. It gets more fun as it goes.

But yeah, I'm very excited about it.

I hope everybody else is really excited about it.

Yay. And we can talk about it afterwards.

There's going to be a lot to talk about.

Gather around, everyone.

Like all the theories that people have come up with and now.

I know, it's been so fun to see like I've gone into like the ghost subreddit And they have such cool theories It's very interesting to read in there What people think is going to happen You can find cool shit on there sometimes That's the thing, I was like I love this This is the complete opposite This is the antithesis of ghost, I would say I've been really into Survivor lately So there's a lot of Survivor subreddits too That I've gone into and just like where people can be really like fascinating and they have good theories and you're like huh all right actually they talk about the gameplay

strategies and that kind of thing yeah i love that ever go on survivor no i would die within a minute no no i no part of me has enough hubris to say that i would survive even i wouldn't survive the boat ride out to the island i could do the boat ride and or the helicopter ride but as soon as i had to start exerting myself no and then like the they all obviously like the first night you just like figure out what you can do for a like tent kind of thing like you don't get a tent no so they make a shelter but they all wake up covered in like the gnarliest bug bites you have ever seen in your life

yeah no it's wild nothing about it is something i not one part of me believes i could do it and couldn't even make the trip out i couldn't not like they'll they'll eat like one portion of rice per day i'm too hungry and i i'm a baby i need four hour feedings babe i'm too hungry snacks i need my car my little drinky drink i need my snack i need my treat i need my ollie pop yeah i get real um i turn into to a big cunt when I'm hungry.

Who doesn't? You know, I get hangry.

And I'm not great at group projects.

No, I'm terrible because and that's the other thing.

I end up, I'm like a control freak.

So I end up taking every, I'm like, I'll just do it because I can do it better.

And then I would end up dying.

It's not even me being like, I need to do it.

I just like working independently.

Hey, you know, some people are like that.

Yeah. And that's okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's how we feel about Ghost and why we wouldn't be good contestants on Survivor.

You know, just a little quick little intro of what's going on.

Just random. We don't do these longer ones all the time anymore.

No, but people like them.

They do. I think we got shamed out of them for a little while.

Yeah. But now we realize that like, you know, it's okay every once in a while.

Yeah, just go for it.

Just go for it. If you have something to say, you know what, that's the thing.

Yeah, we don't have anything.

we had some stuff to say i had to tell you about survivor and ghost is happening in a couple days so you know it's timely big exciting happy things okay but yeah i have a i have an interesting case today i hadn't heard of this one and then i was like doing some research for like some old timier cases because we're just having a lot of fun with those lately yeah they are they're a lot they're a lot more um they feel better to research they feel better to research they also like the some of the details that like you'll end up finding and then you can kind of go down a rabbit hole something random

that's the thing this one in and of itself is just a wily story from start to finish so it captivated me and i hope it captivates you so it's um the society gang killing is how it's known yeah i don't you know it sounds familiar but i think i i think it's just like that's that is a cool like this is not a cool thing like the case no but the title name name sounds like a movie you know like it's very cinematic that title yeah so i think i maybe have like thought i heard it before but i actually haven't they probably honestly this could be a movie like it's not but it could yeah so it starts with phil

kenimer and he was born in i think it's medill oklahoma you can yell at me if it's not he was born on july 26 1915 he was the youngest child of franklin and lily kenimer it was clear from a very early age that phil was really really like incredibly smart he loved to read and most of the time he would choose books that were very advanced for a child his age so that was good but he also had a tendency to behave in really uh basically he would he would behave in ways that people would later describe as peculiar okay um seems like a nice way to describe some things it is when he was five years old

and this is like a trigger warning this is pretty intense he wrapped a curtain cord around his neck and and jumped out of a second -story window of the family home, like, seemingly in an attempt to end his life at five years old.

Oh, my. Fortunately, the curtain ended up tearing from the window during the fall, and he actually also landed in a very large pile of sand, so he wasn't hurt.

What? But it was obviously, like, insanely frightening for his parents, Franklin and Lily.

And it's just, like, unfortunately, this is, what, like, 1920, so you're not necessarily bringing him to a psychologist, No. You know, kind of looking further into why this happened.

And he was five? Five years old.

I feel like at five, it's like, do you even have a conception of that?

Yeah, I don't know.

Like, maybe. Wow, that's very upsetting.

But it was, yeah. And in the years that followed that incident, Phil kept displaying strange behavior that confused a lot of the adults around him.

Like I said, he was said to be a very bright child, like he was really advanced at reading.

But his teacher said that he struggled to focus in school.

he was usually very defiant and one of the things that they most commonly said about him was that he rarely finished anything he started he would start up any kind of project but he would never follow it through I feel like so many people are like that there's a lot of people like and there's time like I think every and this might not be him but it's like I feel like everybody goes through little periods that they are like that a little bit yeah things are overwhelming and like stuff's going on I'm not saying that's what happens and you're kind of trying to figure out like what it it is you like

yeah or so you just start a bunch of sheer like i'm gonna organize my entire you know upstairs yeah and then you get like a quarter of the way in and you're like that was a good try not finishing that yeah but as an oklahoma state supreme court justice phil's father franklin had a pristine reputation to maintain so he was constantly frustrated by his youngest son's behavior like he was like you really need to get yourself in check because all through where we're We're kind of a prominent family.

We're kind of a big deal.

I don't know if anybody told you, but now when the family ended up moving to Tulsa in 1930, Franklin was really hoping that the change of environment and the structure of an urban life would help Phil gain some self -discipline.

But the move did literally nothing to improve his behavior.

No, it usually doesn't, I feel.

So now at a complete loss, Phil's parents decided to send him to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell.

well it's a college prep school and it was known for its very intense discipline and aliens yes no this was just a few months into their move so obviously things were pretty bad at that point yeah like they were like oh you know maybe the change of scenery will help i think things like really popped off and they were like we can't do this anymore we need help we need someone to intervene unfortunately though it seemed that even the military academy couldn't tame phil's defiant spirit just three months after his arrival at the school Franklin the father got a call in the morning informing him that his son had

run away during the Christmas break oh shit yeah obviously it's not unheard of for kids to run away from boarding schools especially ones that have a reputation for being strict disciplinary schools but Franklin treated the incident with kind of a surprising amount of alarm and seriousness for that time immediately after After he got the call, Franklin sent his court clerk to New Mexico to locate Phil, and he alerted the federal postal authorities to be on the lookout for Phil.

Oh, wow. And it ended up being one of those postal authorities that contacted or that located Phil after 10 days.

And he was able to find him because Phil sent a letter from Galveston, more than 700 miles away from Roswell, asking a friend to send him clothes and money.

So he like really got as far away as - Damn, yeah.

Yeah. Like, that's kind of impressive.

That is. Shows he has at least a little bit of something.

You're, like, definitely, like, got it together to do that.

Exactly. But despite his constant desire to get away from the school, Phil was eventually convinced to return.

And the following year, when he was 17, he found another reason to stick around, 15 -year -old Virginia Wilcox.

As the daughter of millionaire oil magnate Homer Wilcox, Virginia had lived her entire life in high society.

society. Phil himself was captivated by her beauty, but his own strict upbringing and his father's expectations made him feel a closer bond to Virginia, who kind of grew up with the same thing.

And he decided he was in love.

In love. In love. So they went out a few times to dinner in the movies, but Virginia decided pretty quickly that Phil wasn't really her type.

And she was like, hey, like I've had fun, but I think we'd make better friends.

Yeah. Cool. We love a a straightforward queen yeah she let him know yeah i'd let him down easy but completely heartbroken phil struggled to accept virginia's decision and continued to pursue her sending her gifts and flowers all the time and even asking her for a date two years in advance whoa and she was like i don't really know what part you didn't understand if i'd rather be friends but that's a lot yeah now most teenagers obviously would be like understandably devastated by their first heartbreak but phil's reaction to the rejection went beyond the bounds of reason his lawyer later told a jury

never a boy had a date with virginia wilcox without phil threatening to kill him if he didn't treat the young lady with every respect whoa yeah which i mean at least he was doing that yeah if you're being hyperbolic that's great yeah like i'll kill you if you don't respect her and it's like okay that's i don't know that he was being hyperbolic i was gonna say even when he he had been sent to a different school in Durant, Oklahoma, he kept sending letters, kept sending gifts nearly every day at this point.

Yeah, that's too much, Phil.

That's a lot. He was spending his entire allowance on these items that he sent to Virginia, and actually even borrowing more money from his friends when he would go above his allowance.

Wow. Just all to send her gifts and that kind of thing.

So eventually he concocted a plan to take a train to visit Virginia, thinking he'd be able to convince her just to go out on one last date.

And after that, his plan was to end his life and make it look like it was a hunting accident.

Oh, jeez. I know. He's down bad.

It is sad. The trip and the date never happened, but the plan alone clearly spoke to his obsession with Virginia.

Yeah. So in early 1932, Phil ended up joining his mom on a trip to San Angelo?

Angelo. Angelo. San Angelo, Texas.

I can't speak. Thank you.

And they stayed there for a few months while Lily received some medical treatment.

and she was having some health problems. While there, Phil's mom enrolled him in 11th grade at the public school.

That's the thing. It sounds like he's lived like a thousand lives.

At this point, he is literally in 11th grade.

He's a junior in high school.

Yeah, it seems like he's like a grown adult at this point.

Doesn't it? Not quite yet.

But if she had hoped that the new environment was going to improve Phil's erratic and impulsive behavior, she was proven wrong almost immediately.

He started acting out.

He was running away from home on the regular.

Sometimes he would get as far as Louisiana.

One time he even got to Florida.

Damn. Another time he got as far as New York City.

Whoa. Before being tracked down and returned to his parents.

Damn. Yeah, he was just running away all the time.

Finally, in 1934, just a little way into his senior year of high school, Phil decided to drop out, much to the displeasure of his parents.

To some, his personality was just flat -out defiant and just, like, it seemed like he was just being this way to be this way.

but others who ended up studying his behavior later would describe him as an impulsive fantasist like he was constantly in this fantasy world yeah he had these grandiose dreams and ambitions that he spent almost all of his time thinking about but then when those dreams didn't become reality fast enough or they actually required a serious investment of time that he wasn't willing to give that's when he would give it up he'd abandon them he'd move on to something new you know what time it is it's time for a fresh approach to dog food and that's where the farmer's dog comes in developed by board

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Hey there, my weird weirdos.

I want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called Who Took Misty Copsey?

In September of 1992, 14 -year -old Misty Copsey leaves the Washington State Fair with her best friend and is never seen again.

Her body is never found.

At the time, western Washington is home to prolific serial killers like the Green River Killer, which leads to different theories on who's responsible for what happened to Misty.

over the course of eight episodes host and cold case investigator sarah kalin speaks with misty's friends and family looks at police records and different anonymous tips to try to figure out if misty's disappearance is the work of a serial killer or someone who knew her no suspects are ruled out after 33 years sarah kalin hopes to answer the question who took misty you guys are gonna love this if you listen to morbid we know that you love a cold case and we always tell you a cold case is never cold so definitely give this a listen definitely look into the case listen to who took misty copsy wherever

you get your podcasts now kind of as an example after dropping out of school he wanted to become a writer and his parents were actually supportive of that and they encouraged him to pursue it but they were like you also need to make some of your own money in the meantime because you you just dropped out of school.

We're not going to just support you blindly.

Like, you got to help us out here.

So their insistence triggered a series of short -term jobs that Phil inevitably got bored with.

He quit just a few months later, including an advertising business he started with his friend that he hoped would lead him back to Virginia.

When that didn't pan out after a couple months, he was like, nevermind.

But wanting to be supportive of his son's ambitions, Franklin Kennemer went so far as to arrange for Phil to take a position at the Daily Oklahoma, a local newspaper, and even paid the salary out of his own pocket.

What the fuck? Just was like, give him a job.

I'll literally pay his salary.

Oh my god. But like, I just, like, don't tell Phil I'm paying his salary.

I just want him to realize he needs a job.

But that also fell apart after just a few weeks when Phil lost interest and quit the position.

Phil, get it together.

I know. Now, Franklin and Lily might have had high expectations for their kids, but nobody could say that they didn't support them in their dreams it's actually possible that franklin was too supportive and maybe too permissive when it came to his son yeah investing a ton of time and money in the hope that phil would just eventually find his place in the world when that job at the daily oklahoman fell apart franklin again used his connections to arrange another job for phil as a messenger boy at a law firm in new york hoping maybe that change of scenery would do him good but unfortunately after just

a few weeks in new york his parents found out that Phil started getting involved in criminal activities trying to quote organize two rival gangs in Harlem to come together under his leadership.

What the fuck? He was like what if we just unite and have one gang and I'm in charge.

I'm the leader of everything like what the fuck?

Dude your dad has paid your entire way your whole life what could you be in charge of?

Yeah let's be real.

So fearing for their son's safety Franklin and Lily insisted that Phil leave New York which which he did agree to do when his father again used his connections to secure yet another job for Phil.

All right, you got to cut the cord here.

Cut the umbilical cord, I know.

This time, this was at a law firm in California.

Not surprisingly, that job lasted only a couple weeks until Phil got bored and left. And after that, he went back to Tulsa.

Oh, man. Yeah. So for most of his life, the chaos that really just kind of swirled around Phil Phil earned him a lot of the attention from adults around him, especially his dad, who kind of managed to keep him from suffering any consequences.

Yeah, which like you get it.

You're that your kid.

Yeah. You'll do anything for your child.

Right. But like I mentioned, Lily, the mom there, wasn't in great health.

And eventually her illness was taking up a lot of Franklin's free time.

And he didn't have the time or the energy to figure out Phil's life for him.

Yeah. So he was like, I got to focus on your mom.

Yeah. Now without a job or any real ambition, Phil became really depressed, he started drinking heavily, and he was spending a ton of his time with a small group of equally privileged yet hella delinquent friends.

Hella delinquent. Hella delinquent, that'd be a good band name.

Yeah. So for months he bounced from one job to the other, spending his evenings at the High Hat Club, which was an exclusive social club for Tulsa's wealthy and elite young people.

Wow, the High Hat Club.

club his life was full of activity most of it was built pretty much around heavy drinking but he remained unfulfilled he occasionally chatted with girls at club functions but he was still really obsessed with virginia was writing to her consistently at this point like years later give it up inviting her to club dances no thank you sending her stuff all the time and she was always declining his invitations and like being like you don't need to keep sending me these gifts like i told you a million plus times nothing is going to happen here so crushed by the constant rejection he still expressed

his thoughts of ending his life or plans for running away to join the french foreign legion but he never acted on any of those plans in the spring of 1934 he took a job at the freights insurance company where his friend and co -worker preston cochran introduced him to 23 year old john gorrell jr john was a dental student from kansas city He actually grew up as the son of a prominent local physician, so he knew what it was like to come from a wealthy family with these high expectations, and they kind of bonded over that, just kind of like how he and Virginia originally bonded.

But unlike Phil, John actually always followed through with the things he set out to do.

Oh, that little difference.

Yeah, just a little bit.

He graduated from elite prep schools.

He completed programs at local universities.

universities he was he did a lot of good things but he also had a little bit of a wild streak or a lot a bit of a wild streak a lot a bit yeah like phil john occasionally quote flirted with criminality partially as a means of earning money when he was in school but also just for the sake of keeping things exciting yeah on september 12th phil got a call from john asking if he wanted to meet him and another friend ted bath for lunch at the brown derby cafe in downtown tulsa and phil was like, yeah, totally.

So they all got together.

And John explains that he figured the three of them would work well together and suggested that they brainstorm some kind of idea to make a little side cash.

Yeah. It didn't take long for Phil to realize that whatever business John had in mind, it was not of the legal persuasion.

Shocked. Yeah. So Phil suggested a low stakes robbery of a local beer bar, which he assumed would have a large amount of money on hand after a Saturday night but Ted shot the idea down insisting that some kind of place like that would definitely have guards so it would be difficult absolutely so they kept brainstorming a little bit more and eventually Phil and John came up with a new deranged idea oh fun they decided they would throw this big party and invite a bunch of young women from prominent local families and just supply them with free alcohol and once one of the women was sufficiently drunk

they would lure her away to a private room and take nude or lurid pictures of her and then use those pictures to blackmail her family into paying a large sum of money so as to avoid any scandal should those photos get leaked to the press what the fuck you just you sit there and you're like how did three people come together and say yeah and just be like i'm interested in that this is fine yeah Yeah.

I should say, too, because one of them was like, I don't really know about that.

But like, you all sat there and had that conversation.

Well, that's what I'm like.

One of you should have been like, this is fucked up, guys.

Like, no one in that room was like, this is real fucked up.

Like in that moment.

Exactly. So they threw out names of girls they knew, wealthy girls they knew.

But none seemed right until Phil suggested one Virginia Wilcox.

Stop. in his mind phil would later say that his plan was to intervene during the scheme and save virginia from the extortionist making him look like the hero in her eyes and not he thought that would be the way to win her over or that she's even more fucked up than i thought oh he's super fucked up he thought that would either win her over or that she would owe him something and the oh would be like to be with him it's like phil get it together no like get it together this is outrageous that's That's all assuming that she never learns that he orchestrated the plan to begin with.

Like, are you kidding?

Which, of course, she's going to find it out.

Yeah. Of course, Phil didn't mention his ulterior motive to the others, but it was just as well.

Because Ted decided, thank goodness there was, like, one moderately normal person sitting at the table.

This wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to get involved in.

Good for Ted. Bye. He might not have been interested in the extortion scheme, Ted, but John Grohl remained convinced that it would work.

A few days later, he proposed a new plan to two other friends, one of whom worked for the Tulsa World newspaper.

Rather than just trying to exploit the girl's parents, he added on another step.

He said, why don't we kidnap a girl and hold her for ransom?

Yeah. With their connections at the newspaper, the kidnapping could get a lot of press coverage and increase the pressure to pay the ransom.

But the other two people that he proposed it to wanted nothing to do with that plan.

Yeah, because that's fucked up.

And they were actually so put off by it that they went and told Phil, which immediately concerned him, which, like, if you're that concerned, I don't understand why you didn't just go to the fucking police.

Yeah, I'd be like, the fact that you even came up with that, you should be arrested.

Exactly. But from Phil's perspective, exploiting Virginia's father for money seemed like a relatively harmless scheme.

Absolutely. Exploiting somebody's parent for money by endangering their child is a total, very harmless.

Yeah. Yeah, very casual.

Yeah. He's like taking pictures and, you know, putting somebody in a horrible position is one thing, but kidnapping them, that's too far.

Yeah. That's a little too far.

Yeah. He figured that one thing, like that's fine.

The gang would get some money.

He would come out looking like a hero and most importantly, nobody would get hurt.

But he felt that John's new plan seemed far more serious and consequential.

Yeah. And like the kind of plan where somebody could get hurt.

So now he was concerned for Virginia's safety.

And in mid -October, he told her brother, Homer Jr. about John's new new plan but homer didn't believe him because i mean i i would look back and say homer like even if you don't believe this maybe mention it to somebody that's the thing i get why you don't believe it because phil has shown that he's a little unhinged here when it comes to your sister so it's like he barely knows phil i get that but it's like but you should at least tell someone and be like i don't know if this is bullshit but somebody told me this and it's like i can see like you barely knowing somebody as an argument for why

you wouldn't trust them and be like, oh, maybe that's foo -foo.

But also, you barely know them, so you don't know what they're capable of.

So you could see it going both ways.

Yeah. But because he barely knew Phil and had no reason to trust him, he was like, I feel like this is just another one of Phil's attempts to get Virginia's attention.

So he ignored the rumor, not wanting to worry anybody.

No worry, people. Yeah.

That's what I say. Now, the next month after John went back to school in Missouri, Phil got a letter from him saying that John had made some connections in the city and he figured they could get some easy money.

So he wanted Phil to meet him in Kansas City.

Convinced John was talking about the kidnapping plan, Phil decided that he needed to go out to Missouri to find out what John was up to.

So he told his parents that he and a friend were going to go on a camping trip for a few days, and then he packed a small bag and booked a flight to Kansas City.

So he arrived there on November 21st, 1934.

And he checked into the Phillips Hotel under the name Mr. Copeland from Chicago.

Mr. Copeland is here.

I'm Mr. Copeland from Chicago.

It just feels so like it does.

So fancy. So detective movie.

And then he set out to find John, who was drinking at a local cafe with a group of young men.

Surprise, surprise.

Shocked. John introduced Phil to the gang as Bob Wilson.

Excuse me, he's Mr. Copeland from Chicago.

Okay. Actually, get your facts straight.

And then they ended up, the two of them, stepping away to a corner of the room to discuss their plan.

According to John's friends, who would later actually testify at Phil's trial, the meeting was very tense.

Phil had wanted Virginia to see him as a hero, and in order to do that, he needed to be in control of this entire scheme.

But John's plan was a threat not only to Virginia's safety, but to his entire goal.

According to his friends, the interaction between john and phil actually left john a little bit shaken on his way to the bathroom john stopped at the table of his friend dick oliver and he said take a good look at this fella if i'm killed bob wilson's the one who did it damn it's like what the fuck if you're killed phil is the one that did yeah don't you want the person to know that like this guy's real name his actual name The same is, not Bob Wilson who doesn't exist. Like, I'm just not getting this, Hope.

No. But a short time later, Phil and John excused themselves from the group again and went into a private room to keep discussing their plans.

And Phil decided as long as he could stay in control and keep ahead of John, he could still keep everything on track to achieve his objective, Virginia's heart.

Yeah. But John threw another wrench in his plans when he introduced another conspirator, Everett Gardner.

Like Phil and John, Gartner came from an extremely wealthy family and he was kind of considered like a playboy.

He spent most of his time flying one of his two airplanes and just pursuing women.

I mean, yeah. Everett Gartner seems like he would do that.

Yeah. It's giving well, but I feel like, yeah, it absolutely is.

Yeah, exactly. But John roped Gartner into the plan because of his access to airplanes, which he hoped to use to transport Virginia.

So now they're kidnapping this woman and putting her in a fucking airplane.

plane. And then it actually gets crazier.

This is a nightmare.

It's insane. So the three spent some time discussing their plan and Phil repeatedly tried to convince John that they didn't actually need to kidnap Virginia.

He said, we could just send an extortion note.

But John pointed out that it was pretty unlikely her father was going to pay anything if Virginia wasn't actually missing or in danger.

Wow. Which like solid point, but still deranged.

Really deranged. So Phil kept kept trying to persuade them that it was a bad idea that it was going off the rails but for whatever reason he eventually relented and together they wrote an extortion note where they demanded twenty thousand dollars and five dollar and ten dollar bills today that would be about four hundred and sixty thousand dollars the note read failure to comply with our demands will result in certain and painful death for one or more of your children jesus after signing the note yours in expectation john doe gorrell added a postscript that read strict silence even in your family

must be observed i hate these two they're horrible what nasty little shit not three because everett's in on it oh i forgot about everett that fucking idiot flying the plane yep so after a few days in missouri phil eventually caught a ride back to tulsa with one of john uh john gorrell's friends floyd huff there's so many names in the names and they're so like old -timey they're sold Like Floyd Huff.

That's not real. Are you joking?

But along the way, it became clear to Huff that Phil, who had been drinking heavily, was not happy with their extortion plan.

As Huff drove, Phil drunkenly rambled about Virginia, telling him this bizarre story about how he'd come to Kansas City actually with a plan to kill John, which could very well have been true, actually, because at one point, Phil pulled out a large hunting knife that that he packed in his bag for protection just to prove to Floyd Huff how serious he was.

And Huff said, if you're so adamant about protecting Virginia and stopping John, why not turn everything over to the police and be done with it?

Like, finally somebody with half a fucking brain here.

Yeah, and he's literally sitting there being like, this is stupid.

Well, it doesn't even sound real to him.

He's like, this is stupid.

I doubt this is real.

And if it is, tell the fucking police.

Yeah, and don't sit here with your sob story story about how you're you don't want to do this when you're not doing anything to change it to stop it in a way phil agreed sure that could have worked but in all reality he had another far more elaborate plan in mind in truth he probably still believed that he could have used the opportunity to save virginia and win her back which is why he didn't do exactly what floyd huff recommended the other problem was that had he reported the crime to the police he probably would have been implicated as a co -conspirator and he didn't want to face those consequences

yeah let's just go go through with it.

Yeah. And see what happens there.

We'll figure it out after.

So instead, he explained that he had a plan to stop John by, this is real, taking him up into an airplane where he would knock John unconscious and then parachute to safety while the plane with John behind the controls plummeted to the ground below.

You could just call someone.

Probably. You don't have to do all this.

Like, what? The good news is, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this plan was foiled when they all got too drunk to rent an airplane.

Wow. And then Phil had to come up with a new plan.

They're really killing it.

Yeah. He said, that was my original plan, Floyd.

This is my new one.

Wow. Now I'm going to lure John to Tulsa where he would drive him out to a remote area and pretend that the car had a flat tire.

And then he said he was going to kill John and leave his body there.

Okay. Floyd Huff assumed that this too was drunken rambling and didn't really think anything more about it.

So he didn't call the police.

Everybody's really just, like, taking people.

Yeah, that's why I said half a brain.

Yeah. Yeah. As far as anybody could tell, the plan that John, Phil, and Everett had laid out was for Phil to return home to Tulsa to mail that note to Homer Wilcox Sr. Then he and John would kidnap Virginia and wait for the money to arrive.

But by the time Phil got to Tulsa, he couldn't bring himself to put the note in the mail.

So instead, he showed the extortion letter to his friend Jack Sneddon, Preston Cochran, and Sidney Borm, hoping that the exposure would be enough to get John to call off the plan.

And if that didn't work, he said then he would bring the note to the police and put an end to the scheme for good.

It's like, I don't think you ever were planning on going to the police.

Yeah, you definitely were never planning on going to the police.

You would have done it about 15 plans ago.

Exactly. Exactly. So on the evening of November 28th, Phil placed several frantic calls to the home of John's parents, where John had arrived earlier that day.

He was home for Thanksgiving break.

Because remember, these are all like teenagers or people in their early 20s, like fresh into college or like barely out of high school.

Wow. Now, so he kept calling John's house over and over again, said he needed to know whether John still intended on going through with everything.

But each time he called, John was out.

So he just kept leaving these frantic messages for John to call him back.

That's probably fine.

And John's mom was like, what the fuck?

Yeah, that won't alarm anyone.

No, not at all. Now, the following day, after eating Thanksgiving dinner with his family, Phil finally got a phone call from John, who presumably indicated, yeah, the plan was still on.

After hanging up, Phil went to his father and asked if he knew of a kidnap and extortion plot, if it would be a good thing for him to capture the criminals.

And Franklin Kenimer later told a jury, I told him it was a good thing to catch such people.

Yeah. Like, duh. You weren't like a little concerned with how stupid of a question that was?

Like, I'd be like, what was the reason for that question?

You know the answer.

I think he was probably used to Phil just saying like crazy fuck shit.

So he was like. Like, so he was like, yeah, that would be a good idea.

Yeah, you dodo. Like, what?

He's like, can you not ruin Thanksgiving?

So after dinner, the two went down to the drugstore where Franklin bought some cigars and they returned home.

The next time Judge Kanemar saw his son was around 1 a .m. And by then, John Gorl was dead.

John Gorl? John Gorl.

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When it comes to the murder of John Goral, there was only one person who knew what really happened.

And obviously that's the person who committed the crime.

And his version of events should be viewed with at least some skepticism.

According to Phil. Oh, it's Phil we're talking about.

Yeah, it's Phil. So, according to Phil, after returning home from the drugstore with his dad, he went back to the store by himself where he ran into Eunice Ward and Hazel Williams. The two women had made plans for a double date with John and his friend Charles Bard. So they told the clerk to relay a message to John that he could pick them up for their date at the hospital where they worked.

Phil was at the drugstore when John arrived and the two made plans to get together later that night to discuss the extortion scheme.

scheme the amount of times that they've had to discuss this plan and scheme insane that's all they talk about it's that's it they're just going through the same plan and it's crazy that like nobody heard them talking about this and i don't know went to the police about it because they talked about it everywhere every single day every day all day every every hour anytime like one of them was like hey have you heard that that new um like picture show that's coming out down they they were like yeah yeah but the extortion scheme like you there was no changing the subject no so later that evening around

8 30 p .m phil met up with some friends at a local cafe and told them that he had made plans with john later that night saying he planned to put an end to the kidnapping plot so literally anybody that knows phil knows about this plot yeah but i don't even they probably just think he's talking nonsense because he did talk a lot of nonsense phil though even He even took out the large hunting knife out of his coat pocket again and showed it to them as proof that he was well protected should things come to violence.

He said explicitly that he didn't have any plans to kill John, that this was simply a matter of protection.

But it's worth noting during his testimony at trial, Jack Sneddon, I think it is, one of the friends that Phil met at the cafe, actually contradicted Phil's account.

Yikes. He told a jury it was later in the evening, and Phil actually did say that he planned to kill John.

Oops. And showed them both the extortion note as evidence that Virginia was in danger.

So, oops. Like, completely different stories there.

Phil left his friends at the cafe that night, telling them, well, it's either Goral's life or my life tonight.

You'll read about it in the morning paper.

Wow. Yeah. And then he's like, I had no intention of.

No intention of killing this guy.

And then he walks out and he's like, one of us will die tonight.

Bye. See. See ya. Deuces.

Now, needing to kill some time before his plans with meeting up with John Goral, Phil left the cafe and went to the Quaker drugstore, where he ran into Sidney Bourne, an acquaintance he knew from school.

We've mentioned him before.

And more recently from the High Hat Club.

They had always gotten along pretty well, so Sidney didn't ask any questions when Phil asked him for a ride to the location where he was supposed to meet John.

A little after 11 p .m., Sidney's car pulled up to 19th and Utica Street, where Phil got out and walked to John's car.

According to Phil, he and John started driving.

John became irate when he learned that Phil hadn't yet mailed that letter to Virginia's father, Homer.

He said he then told John there isn't going to be any extortion, explaining that the scheme was coming to an end right then and there, or he was going to be turning over that letter to the police.

If that didn't work, Phil said, he had every intention of killing John right He said, Damn.

and then Phil fired again shooting John in the head for the second time and the second shot killed him wow now with its driver no longer in control the car swerved off the road and jumped the curb coming to a stop on the median between Victor and Forest Boulevard stunned by what had happened Phil wiped his prints off the gun put it back in the holster and then dropped that on the passenger seat before fleeing the scene whoa then he walked the two miles back down to the downtown town area and rather than going straight home he stopped into the sunset cafe which is a small bar on east 18th street

and inside he found his friend tommy thomas tommy thomas tommy thomas and sat down next to him at the bar where he wasted no time telling thomas what he'd done but this just happened thomas laughed not believing that his friend had actually killed anybody and just found somebody to give phil a ride home there's two ways to look at this uh -huh Phil is like hey I'm gonna kill this guy and everybody's like shut up Phil and then it's like hey I killed that guy and everybody's like shut up Phil nobody thinks you did that which you could look at as like it's two ways like one you're a liar and no one

believes you or two that like no one believes you would kill someone which is like you want that yeah that's that's kind of you know so it's like but I think this one is more like you lie all the time I think it's very much that he's just constantly talking nonstop bullshit and then you kind of are one of those people who spins yarns yes and we don't actually believe you've done any of this stuff and that's why i don't think anybody took the extortion plan seriously when he was telling them about it which like still you should you like take it with at least a couple more grains of salt you know

you'd rather overreact like maybe somebody would have ended up in jail instead of dead on a street corner you know so 17 year old wesley cunningham was on his way home from the movies that evening when he happened upon john girl's car stalled on the median just a few minutes away from his house thinking that it might have been some local drunk passed out behind the wheel wesley pulled over to the side of the road to investigate it was after midnight and actually snow had started to come down heavily so the headlights of his car barely provided enough light to see what was happening in the car,

but when he finally reached the driver's side door of John Quarles Ford, Cunningham realized it was not somebody drunk and passed out at all, but a dead man.

He later told police, I saw a man very pale with blood running down his face.

And after realizing what he had stumbled upon, he raced the short distance home to tell his stepdad about what he discovered, and it was then that they called the police to report the death.

After making an initial official evaluation of the scene, patrol officers first believed that the young man in the driver's seat had actually shot himself in the head while the car was still in motion, which would explain the hole in his head and the fact that the car had jumped the curb.

Yeah. But that theory quickly fell apart when they discovered that the gun was not laying on the floor or in the driver's hand, but was in fact back in the holster and lying on the passenger seat.

Yeah, that was dumb.

Yeah. Given that it would have been impossible for the driver to shoot himself in the head twice also.

I was going to say that was the first thing I thought.

I was like, he did it twice.

Yeah, he has two holes in his head.

But there would be no way that he could shoot himself in the head twice and then put the gun back in the holster.

So the case quickly shifted from an assumed suicide to a presumed murder.

It didn't take long to identify the driver as John Gorl, and a notification was made to his parents.

And remember, I think this is like the day after.

It's either the day after or the very day of Thanksgiving.

Yeah. Yeah. So, they refuted the idea that their son would have committed suicide.

His father said, John was in the best of spirits today.

And while they were certain that John hadn't died by suicide, everybody seemed to be at a loss for who would want to murder him or why.

He'd only been home for the holiday break a little over a day.

And as far as anybody knew, he hadn't gotten into any altercations with anybody.

So, at that point, his death really presented quite a mystery.

now according to the coroner's office he had been shot in the head twice with his own gun and the second bullet was the fatal wound but he didn't really have any other insight outside of that so in the meantime detectives started reconstructing john's evening starting from the moment he left the house to pick up his date detectives quickly deduced that john had been killed a little before midnight about 45 minutes before his body was discovered which meant that But whoever killed John had done so in a pretty short amount of time between when he dropped his date Eunice off at the hospital and when his body

was discovered. Because remember, he also went on a date that night.

Moreover, when they searched his pockets, they discovered all he had on him was $1 .50, which included the 50 cents that his friend Charlie loaned him earlier that evening.

So they all knew that robbery wasn't likely to be the motive.

of. Now, as detectives worked their way through John's friends and acquaintances trying to find any clue as to identify this killer, they eventually reached his friend and roommate back in Kansas City, Dick Oliver.

I don't know if you remember that name from earlier.

Possibly. There's been a lot of names.

When Oliver was told that John may have committed suicide because it was before they kind of really knew the gist of everything, the young man immediately refuted the assertion and explained just one week earlier John had had introduced him to an associate he called Bob Wilson and told this guy if he was ever found murdered, Wilson was surely the killer.

Bob was the guy sitting at that table.

Why did he say Bob?

I know. The problem, of course, like we were just saying, is that Bob Wilson was not the killer's real name.

So while investigators now had a potential suspect, they were no closer to finding actually Phil Kenimer.

Dick Oliver also wasn't the only person who suspected that they knew who killed John Gorill.

On the afternoon of December 1st, when Floyd Huff learned of his friend's murder, he also remembered a conversation with Gorill's friend, Bob Wilson, because that's how he knew him too, during that long car ride back to Tulsa just one week earlier.

In a statement given to Kansas City police the day after John's murder, Huff told police about how Phil, who he knew as Bob Wilson, had told him of his plan to murder John, and now he was actually scared that the killer was going to come back and kill him too.

floyd huff said he gave me his name address and telephone number i'm not gonna leave here until that man is arrested he's like fuck that now when pressed for more information he produced a piece of paper from his jacket pocket that read phil kenimer phil tower building 40219 shut the fuck up so it's like yeah he told you his name was bob wilson but then he gave you his fucking address address and listed his name as phil kennemer and you didn't look at it i don't know man wow floyd went on to tell kansas city police everything he knew about the alleged kidnapping and extortion plot and phil's rambling

plan to stop john and save virginia and although huff's story was outrageous and really would have been difficult to believe it was also extremely detailed in a way that made it more credible than kind of the usual fabrication people were used to hearing so investigators now knew their killer bob wilson was in fact phil kenimer the teenage son of don't forget a federal court judge man poor franklin yeah i know now while detectives in tulsa and kansas city were putting together the pieces of this mysterious death death on november 30th phil kenimer was in rogers county on a hunting trip with his father

just acting like Like, nothing had happened.

He just killed a boy.

He literally just killed a guy.

When they concluded their hunting, Phil asked his father to drive him to the train station so he could return to Tulsa to, quote, transact some business at a bank.

That should have been Franklin's first red flag of, like, what business do you have?

Yeah. He was probably just happy that his son wanted to fucking conduct some kind of business.

So he was like, yeah, sure.

And the next time he saw him, a little after noon the following day, phil was in the company of a flint moss a tulsa criminal defense attorney and together they all just have like one initial initial is that all defense attorneys i know you're so right a flint moss and so he shows up home with this attorney and phil and this attorney sit there and tell franklin exactly what happened a few days earlier franklin is blindsided yeah franklin and Kenimer later told a jury I told Phil to go as quickly as possible and surrender to the sheriff I had no doubt at all that Phil was irrational and irresponsible

that night oh so he's like maybe we can get some kind of you know and he's like go turn yourself in right now yeah so when Amos and Kenimer Phil Kenimer arrived at the sheriff's office on the afternoon of December 1st the lawyer presented his client for surrender and the deputy at the front desk didn't take either man seriously guys and thought it was a joke until moss made his official statement he said phil came to my office early today and told me he may have been compelled to kill gorl and in order to preserve his own life so the surrender and confession was immediately picked up by the police

or excuse me by the press who clamored for more information but when asked directly why phil had killed gorl moss said i've said as much as i can regarding that why does Does everyone assume that Phil is just a silly, goofy guy?

He's just the silliest of gooses?

I don't know. Always talking about murder and kidnapping, but never actually doing the murder and kidnapping.

Not only, like, not just his friends, but even the sheriff's deputy.

Whose job it is to take confessions.

Seriously. Like, take a statement about a crime that has been committed.

And this man is standing in the fucking presence of a criminal defense attorney, attorney and the sheriff is still like you're the silliest of gooses he's like you guys came in here just for some lol yeah he's like wow it's not open mic night tonight like what the fuck it's not open mic night tonight nobody's believing like he's literally running around town being like i killed john gorl and everyone's like you're hilarious go away that's so funny phil let's get you a ride home and also it's like guys john gorl is dead maybe someone should take it seriously a little little bit maybe you would think

i think the sheriff's deputy was like you gotta be fucking kidding me because you're a federal courts kid like judge's kid like he's telling you what he did bro yeah so flint moss may have been determined to remain tight -lipped around his client's actions but uh judge kenimer didn't make the same effort oh in a statement to the press immediately following his son's surrender judge kenimer said i never dreamed such a thing could happen I always instructed my boy never to touch the hair of a human unless it were a life and death struggle oh that hurts my heart I know when he says my boy yeah John

Grohl senior and his wife also prepared a statement for the press where they acknowledged that their son had indeed been friendly with Phil Kenimer but as far as they knew the two hadn't spoken in some time Mrs. Grohl said the first time I ever heard of Phil Kenimer was last summer when for about a week he would come by the house for John, accompanied by another boy.

The friendship was short -lived.

It just spurred it up and then suddenly died down.

I never heard much of Phil again until Thanksgiving Day.

Oh my. To the readers of the Tulsa newspapers, the Goral murder had all the makings of a perfect and perfectly irresistible scandal.

Extortion, kidnapping a beautiful young woman, friends turned enemies, and most importantly, a mysterious motive.

In the absence of an obvious motive the public and the press wasted no time speculating about what could have led the son of one of tulsa's most influential judges to commit murder they wondered if it was a thrill kill like the leopold and lobe murder a decade earlier or if it was the act of quote a band of well -to -do hoodlums who planned robbery and extortion a gang of well -to -do hoodlums which they kind of were i guess yeah it's just wow yeah the language what a sentence wild but the The prosecution was less interested in speculating on the motive than they were determining whether Phil was mentally

sound at the time he committed the crime.

Just days after his arrest, county attorney Holly Anderson reached out to Dr. Felix Adams, superintendent of the Eastern Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, is what it was called back then.

Is what it was called.

To be clear. I didn't just add that little moniker onto it at the end.

No, no, no. And he asked if the doctor would come to Tulsa as soon as possible to interview Phil and advise on his competency.

from an outside perspective a mental health evaluation seemed like the wisest course of action in his statements to police particularly those who had made their way to the press phil's only explanation for the murder was that he had to do it in order to save his own life so it kind of sounded like why did you have to do it especially when john was driving yeah exactly that takes away from that a little bit it does a little bit because like you're in like he's gotta drive.

So it's like the life or death situation gets a little, of course you can be in a life or death situation in that scenario, but it's a little harder to grasp.

Yeah, it definitely is.

And the case also hinged heavily on testimony from people like Floyd Huff, whose story about Phil's plans for grandiose intervention in the kidnapping plot hardly sounded like the actions of a sane man.

I think he's sane. I think he's just out of touch. I think now, like 2024, like we've seen so many cases like this, but think about it.

It's like 1930. People are like, what the fuck?

I think they're probably looking at it more like, that guy's crazy.

You know what I mean?

Like he's talking crazy, you know, like not like clinical sanity.

Exactly. I think it's like, yeah, he can't be in his right mind.

He's saying that kind of stuff.

And it's like, no, he's not in his right mind.

But like, that's his mind.

That is his mind. And it's a sane mind in my opinion.

I think the same thing.

Yeah. But the story became even more scandalous and mysterious a week or so later on December 10th when Sidney Bourne, the young man who drove Phil to meet John Goral on the night of the murder, died from a self -inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

According to the press, Bourne was, quote, found in his motor car, shot through the head with an automatic pistol near the spot where Goral was killed.

What? Despite the county attorney's emphatic statement that the death was an out -and -out suicide and, quote, couldn't be anything else.

Bourne's death gave credence to unsubstantiated rumors that John Girl's death was part of a scheme perpetrated by a gang of wealthy young criminals.

Only 20 or so minutes before Sydney Bourne was discovered in his car, he had been desperately trying to reach Phil Kenemar by phone, but the guards at the jail refused to let Phil take the call, which some people felt was evidence of a larger conspiracy.

conspiracy. So not wanting to waste the opportunity, Phil's defense attorney, A.

Flint Moss, A. Flint Moss.

A. Flint Moss. I feel like I'm saying like a singular Flint Moss.

Yeah, like a Flint Moss.

Yeah. He made a statement to the press indicating that Sidney Bourne might have had some information that could have exonerated Phil Kennemar. Oh shit.

Even Phil waited on the news telling reporters, I don't believe and will never believe that Sidney Bourne committed suicide.

aside. Whoa. I couldn't find anything to say he didn't, but who's to say?

It does seem pretty likely that his death really was a suicide, but the reason for him wanting to end his life remains a mystery.

Yeah. It seemed that since Phil's arrest, Sidney had actually been incredibly anxious and fearful.

Author Jason Morrow wrote, whatever the reason, Sidney Bourne's fear was certainly real to him, even if it was found later to be blown out of proportion.

I think the theory is that he was motivated by a fear that he was going to be roped into the case and kind of face some serious consequences.

Because he drove him there.

Because he drove him there, exactly.

But ultimately, Sidney's death presented a problem for the prosecution, because he was really the only buddy that could place Phil at the scene, being the one who drove him there.

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So with one witness dead and endless rumors swirling around the case, Holly Anderson knew he needed to get a hold of this case and get filled to trial as soon as possible, or there was going to be a greater risk of a tainted jury pool or possibly even an acquittal.

so given those circumstances anderson became very vocal about his desire to go to trial as quickly as possible and he actually even expressed his desire to skip the grand jury altogether damn he told reporters i'm opposed to any grand jury at this time it would not it would do no good in this particular case a grand jury could not obtain information from outside the county for one thing we have done that already and have the case under lock and key so indicating his intent to go to trial in mid -January, he said, Maddox and I, Sergeant Maddox and I are satisfied that we know the facts behind the killing

of John Goral. And while there was some question as to the legality of skipping the grand jury phase, he felt confident that they could move forward with the information that they possessed.

Wow. Now, one of the key aspects of the case that captivated the public was the perception that young people, particularly actually those from wealthy elite families we're out of control out of control like people are like what the fuck is going on they're wily they're like those kids from the purge yeah exactly that's all i think of is every time like when they're standing outside the door yeah and he's got the mask on and they're all just like skipping around out there yeah and he's like we're like you like they're that's what i think of that would be so so chilling that first one is so good

guys we saw that for my birthday remember remember like years ago yeah that's wild i think it's a great concept it is i haven't seen that since then yeah i haven't seen the other ones either i haven't either we should do those for screen we should all right noted all right but yeah wealthy elite children are out of control now the case against phil was at least appeared to give that panic some credibility and in the weeks leading up to the trial the youngest member of the wilcox family homer jr was arrested after it was learned that he and a friend had been shooting out street lights on the the night

of Goral's murder, for which he would ultimately be tried and fined.

That's what it is. They're rich and bored.

Exactly. They don't have anything else to do.

100%. But everybody was like, oh my god, it's out of control.

They're out of control.

And it's like, maybe they were.

Maybe. But at the same time, Phil started telling the press an elaborate story about a gang of youths involved in criminal activity in Tulsa, all of whom were involved in the plot to kidnap Virginia Wilcox.

Stating his belief that Sidney Bourne was killed to, quote, seal his lips and prevent his giving defense testimony, Phil urged the sheriff's office to arrest and prosecute the supposed members of the gang, who he privately named.

Sheriff Price told reporters, we haven't got enough on any of those fellows to arrest him.

You can't take that fellow's story at its face value.

Yeah, if we know one thing about Phil, it's that not a soul on this fucking earth believes the shit that comes out of his mouth no not a soul the thing was he that it was kind of like a half truth because there were a lot of people involved in this extortion ring this motherfucker must have lied say it's the boy who cried wolf because it's like you're not totally lying here but not a soul believes you that's the thing they never will and we won't but there was also no evidence to support his claims of a grand conspiracy either to kidnap virginia or frame him for murder.

It's clear now, though, that what Phil and his attorney were most likely trying to do was leverage the sensationalism and the rumors around the case in order to lay their groundwork for the defense.

Yeah, definitely. The well -to -do gang story had the potential to create enough doubt to win an acquittal, and if that didn't work, a Flint Moss could still use the story to support an insanity defense.

Yeah, it's a smart strategy.

Yeah, you gotta give credit where credit's do i guess in early january phil presented five handwritten notes in coded language which he implied were further evidence of a conspiracy the notes really just seemed like nonsense but they supported the defense's increasingly obvious plan to submit an insanity defense a flint moss told the press i have not seen the notes but phil told me about them sunday in a way that indicated he was boasting of his shrewdness as far as i've been able to learn These notes contain nothing incriminating and then he went on to speculate the notes strengthened Rather

than weakened the defense's theory that phil kenimer was unbalanced Okay, just really going for it the defense team did the best that they could to stall the fast approaching trial, but Aside from winning a change of venue.

They were unsuccessful at delaying the inevitable The press meanwhile continued continued their intense focus on the case touting it as the sensation of the decade and, without a doubt, the most sensational trial in Tulsa for a decade or more.

Wow. Like, that's crazy.

Now, rather than focusing on the facts of the case and without any new information, the press coverage shifted towards the members of the prosecution and defense teams and their histories of having faced one another in court before.

Like, that was kind of the new story, which is really less interesting to me.

Yeah. But Phil's defense team was being led led by his primary attorney, you know, A.

Flint Moss. You know A.

Flint Moss. You know that guy.

You know him. But also included other well -known and widely respected lawyers who had taken on the case as a favor to his dad, Judge Kennemer.

Among them, none stood out more than C .B.

Stewart. We have more initials.

Look at C. A formal federal judge from the quote -unquote territorial days who had more than 50 years experience practicing law.

Given the highly notable players involved, reporters and spectators eagerly anticipated a very exciting trial phil's trial began on february 11th 1935 at the district of pawnee oklahoma shut the fuck up we're in pawnee baby except it's a different pawnee i know but it's still but still pawnee oklahoma i was so excited to say that that's exciting so great but as far as spectators expectations were concerned it did not disappoint it was very very rich with flowery, dramatic rhetoric, notable witnesses.

The trial was a theatrical display that dominated headlines across the state and actually even around the country at this point in time.

Yeah. When opening statements finally began on February 13th, things had settled a little bit in the courtroom and it appeared like a lot of drama had ended.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Tom Wallace laid out the state's fairly straightforward case face to the jury he said phil kenemar had initially agreed to engage in an extortion plot and kidnapping of his former girlfriend which i'm like can you even really call her that you really can't they went on a few dates yeah but he said after a change of heart and a failed attempt to bring the plot to an end he murdered his former friend john and more or less admitted to admitted that to the police upon his surrender and investigators had collected sufficient evidence and testimony that supported this version of events

while everything seemed to be on track Within about an hour, the courtroom was thrown into disarray when one of the state's first witnesses, apartment owner Edna Harmon, told the judge she, quote, didn't want to testify because threats had been made against her.

This is wily. It's wily as fuck.

After hearing Harmon's statement, A.

Flint Moss jumped out of his chair and shouted, that's not the reason she's afraid.

That's such an A. Flint Moss thing to do.

He said, she's not scared because of that.

No way. I know this guy.

As the owner of a building where Phil Kennemar had supposedly rented a room, Harmon told the police, initially, that she overheard Phil talking about the murder with another young man, and that's why she was called as a witness.

Her statement about being threatened, though, came as a shock to the defense and the prosecution, with Moss demanding that a mistrial be declared and accusing the prosecution of hiring her to lie on the stand.

Wow. he said i can brew i can prove by a tulsa attorney that she tried to sell us testimony in another case i can show you the letter she asked us for as much as 2500 shut the fuck up edna so after sending the jury out of the courtroom the judge ultimately regained order and her statements were stricken from the record but no mistrial was declared they said edna get out of here they said edna get out of here you're not allowed to quote anymore you gotta go babe you gotta have have her name on a list or something seriously not allowed to testify so though the though it didn't derail the trial as

it as many would have expected it would edna's dramatic claim of threats being made against her and her family and the uproar it caused in the courtroom set the tone for the trial where everybody seemed to be determined to give the biggest performance under of their lives while they were testifying it is it's like they're still in the 20s in the 30s yeah yeah it's like still very 20s it's very like that you know that's very 20s i don't know you do one just like that you do one what is what kind of thing am i doing just a sound effect of the 20s what people did so of the 20s i feel like it would be

jazz jazzy like there you go okay yeah yeah i like it under no obligation to establish a motive holly anderson and the prosecution rested their case without really ever explaining why they believed phil had killed john cool they were just like he just did i don't know he did it we know that he admitted it yeah he said he did so now while the prosecution didn't have any theories as to motive the defense absolutely did and one witness after another flint moss probed into phil's history providing many examples of strange behavior going back as far as childhood all in an attempt to sell their belief

that, although he had murdered John Goral, he had only done so because of profound mental illness.

Feels intense. It is.

From his position behind the defendant's table, Phil leered at his former friends as they testified, many on behalf of his insanity defense.

And occasionally shouted at them before being brought back into line by the judge or his attorneys.

Which sounds like he's leaning into that as well.

When I said everyone was giving a performance of their lifetime, I meant absolutely everybody.

But testifying for the defense, Franklin Kenimer told the jury about his son's difficult social history, the many times he'd run away, and all the other trouble that Phil had caused his parents starting when he was very, very young.

Yeah, it sounds like he's just, he's a troublemaker.

Yeah, I don't think he's criminally insane.

I think he's just troubled.

Exactly. Insane. But I think he knew the difference between right and wrong.

But as an example of Phil's bizarre and erratic thinking, Judge Kenimer told the court, on some occasions when he was moody and depressed, rest, he thought the French Foreign Legion would be a good place to be banished from decent society.

Virginia Wilcox herself also testified on Phil's behalf, emphasizing what she and many others felt was Phil's obsession with her and his unwillingness to let go of their relationship.

Also, have you seen the picture of her?

Have I seen her? She is, I mean, she's a vision.

Oh damn, she's gorgeous.

She's beautiful Yeah she's really pretty I get why he was obsessed She's beautiful She really is I feel like Phil would have been like a pretty normal looking dude If he wasn't so wily Yeah I mean he's definitely not for me He's not for Virginia Yeah he wasn't for Virginia Virginia's a beauty She wasn't into it No and she was very clear with him That's the other thing She was kind but she was direct And said it's not happening I'd like to be friends And he would not let it go oh, that's fucked up.

That is fucked up. But while the behaviors described by many witnesses who had known Phil well almost certainly sounded bizarre and supported the defense's assertion of mental illness, what they lacked was any testimony or documentation from any psychological evaluations that confirmed Phil's supposed insanity.

Like everybody up there that knew him could be like, yeah, he's fucking crazy.

Yeah, of course. But they don't have a degree in this shit.

Exactly, you can say anyone's crazy.

Exactly. Phil had been evaluated, he actually had been evaluated by several psychologists in the months leading up to the trial, and only one famed psychologist, Dr. Carl Menninger, was willing to testify that Phil was, quote, mentally ill, irrational, and believed his own omnipotence on the night he killed Goral.

However, before Dr. Menninger could answer when directly asked whether he believed Phil was insane, the prosecution successfully objected, arguing that the doctor, having not heard the full extent of the evidence, couldn't possibly know that fact.

In fact, when he was cross -examined by the defense, the doctor admitted, were it not for the fact that Phil had killed someone, he probably wouldn't say he was mentally ill.

See, that's the thing.

That's the one thing you can say that you can't pinpoint into a rational mind.

Exactly. So after nearly two weeks of sensational testimony and dramatic court romantics, the jury retired for deliberation a little after noon on February 22nd with the judge's instruction that they could either find Phil Kenimer guilty of manslaughter or guilty of first -degree murder, the latter of the two likely resulting in his execution.

After nine hours of deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom that evening to announce their verdict that Phil Kenimer was guilty on the first -degree manslaughter.

I had a feeling that was going to happen.

Yep, of John Goral Jr. When the verdict was read, the court erupted in excitement with several spectators applauding the decision.

Although they had encouraged the jury to find Ketamur guilty of first -degree murder, when asked of his opinion on the result, Holly Anderson, the prosecutor, told reporters the state of Oklahoma is entirely satisfied.

Yeah, like he's still being punished for what he did.

Court resumed the next day for sentencing, and Judge Hurst's sentence filled to 25 years in prison.

In his closing statement, he addressed the sensationalism and controversy surrounding the case, particularly the frequent insinuation and assertions from the defense that that the case was being pursued as a vendetta against Phil's father.

It's like, no. No. The case is being pursued because a man died.

And because he admitted to doing it.

Exactly. But the judge said, it was suggested that the state wants to punish you to injure your father.

It was also suggested that you might not be given the same trial as anyone else.

In my idea, the son of a federal judge and the son of a peasant should be treated alike.

Yeah. When asked for a statement, Phil shook hands with several reporters and said, I mean, I don't agree with you.

You also just talk shit about your own dad.

Yeah, like, so... What?

Okay. Yeah, you're like, hmm.

Now, immediately after the trial, Phil's defense team filed several appeals for motions for a new trial, but they were all rejected, and the original verdict was upheld by higher courts.

Yeah, it feels fair.

It feels fair to me, too.

I agree. In his early years at McAllister Prison, now known as Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Phil tried multiple times to get parole, but he was unsuccessful.

successful. Finally, in 1938, he successfully lobbied Governor E .W.

Marland for a temporary parole of six months, during which he was confined to his parents' home in Arizona to spend time with his mother, who was dying at that point.

Oh, that's sad. After Lily Canemar had passed away, Phil again tried to get his temporary parole extended, but by then the state had a new and much less sympathetic governor who denied the request. That must be so much worse, to come out and then go back and then have to be go back have to be go back and i just said well have to be go everybody we didn't have coffee i need another coffee but yeah yeah to have to go back in after being out yeah that'd be rough that would be so hard i feel now phil appeared uh excuse me appealed to the governor's office again in 1943 and this time he was successful

at winning parole on the condition that he would join the military and be sent to the front lines to fight in world war ii damn he accepted that condition and ultimately became a paratrooper with the c battalion of the 460 field artillery 517th battalion regimental combat team damn after the invasion of normandy in the summer of 1944 his battalion parachuted into france on august 15th 1944 during which phil and another soldier were shot down by nazi machine gun fire whoa just Just before being, so he died like fighting in World War II.

Holy shit. I didn't see that coming.

Yeah, crazy turn. It just gave me chills.

But just before being sent to Europe, he gave a statement to a reporter from the Tulsa World where he said, something just seems to tell me that I won't come back.

I hope that if I die, that those who have condemned me will hold me differently in their memories.

Whoa. Yeah. And that is the end.

Wow. That gives you the chills.

It does. Like that's a, that's a wild end.

It was a wild case through and through because when I started reading it, I was like, oh, my God, they're going to go after Virginia.

And I ultimately thought that something was going to happen to her.

That's what I thought this was going.

You're glad nothing happened to her.

Yeah. But you don't see that coming.

You don't want anything bad to happen to anybody.

Yeah. It was a wild one.

Wow. Yeah. These kids, these purge kids.

These wealthy, rich kids of the judges and that kind of thing.

With the masks and the white dresses, you know.

Skipping outside your house Skipping outside your house on purge night It's these kids It's these kids I tell you That was a crazy one We hope you keep listening And we hope you keep it weird But not so weird that you do anything like this Because oh my god Don't hire extortion people And don't hear about extortions And not stop them And get into cars and hurt people Don't do any of that And don't be the kind of person where when you actually eventually do something bad and you're like hey everybody I did something bad you've lied so much that no one believes you yeah just stop lying just don't

do bad things and don't lie so people believe you please yeah If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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[The Strange Life and Downfall of Phil Kennemer: A Society Gang Killing]-[Episode 579: The Society Gang Killing]

📋 Summary

The Erratic Life of Phil Kennemer

The Deranged Extortion Plot

The Murder and Legal Aftermath

A Final Redemption?

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript