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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
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We'll see you next time. available on qualifying orders retail sales only some exclusions apply see store for details Hey, weirdos.
I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. It's morbid and... And it's a really, like, sad, very scary beginning to this morbid because...
One of our own is missing. Yeah. I think Ash has most of the information in front of you, right?
I do. Yeah. So our listener Gabby Petito is missing. and she was last seen on August 25th in Grand Teton, Wyoming.
She was headed for Yellowstone National Park and she was traveling in a white 2012 Ford Transit van. with her fiance.
They were headed north around the time that she disappeared.
But she apparently is no longer traveling in the van.
Her fiance drove the van back home to Florida without her.
And has not been available for questioning and is not cooperating with the police.
And... He just showed up to Florida without her.
Yeah. And apparently, like Ash just said...
Police can't talk to him. The parents aren't letting him speak to the police.
He's not cooperating. I'm concerned what's happening here.
Obviously, we don't know what's going on, but there's a lot of weird things.
And also... We gotta find Gabby. We have to find her.
This is making me crazy. I mean, her parents have been... pleading with media, social media, any way that they can share all this information.
Any outlet. We've shared it on our Twitter and our Instagram, on our personal Twitters.
If you guys can see it on our social media and you want to share it, please do.
Make it shareable wherever. Yeah. Wherever you can do it.
Cause we really, really want to help them find cabbie because this is like killing me.
If you, you know, Her Instagram page is just like full of life.
It is. She's so beautiful. She seemed like such like a sweet, just like free spirited.
Yeah. She and her boyfriend or excuse me, fiance were traveling around the world, living like a nomadic life. lifestyle.
They were just visiting different parks.
And she was documenting all of this, I believe, on a YouTube channel that they shared together. and then all of a sudden it was just like no one had heard from her.
Suddenly he shows back up to Florida. Without her.
And has no... explanation for where she is.
And she had been checking in with her mom throughout the trip, her father.
Her cousins, I believe they said that her niece she was keeping in contact with.
And her father said she... always checked in, she is not the type to go long periods of time without speaking to them.
They are sure that something is wrong here.
And... It's breaking my heart. It's killing me.
Also, all of her information, she is... 22 years old.
She has blonde hair, blue eyes. She is approximately 5'5". and I read in one source like around 100, 110 pounds.
She has Let It Be tattooed on her right arm and a tattoo of a triangle with flowers on her left arm.
And anybody with information about the whereabouts of Gabby, please contact the Suffolk County New York Police Department.
The phone number is 1-800-220-7000. Again, that's the Suffolk County New York Police Department and the phone number is 220-8477.
And there's a GoFundMe set up to help in the search efforts.
We're going to post it in the show notes in case you didn't.
I try to remind everybody what the show notes are because I know some people don't know what they are.
I didn't before I started doing a podcast, so don't feel bad.
The show notes that we talk about when we say we're going to link something, it's just in the description of this episode.
So wherever you're listening to this episode...
That little description under the episode name, you can hit see more and that's where all the links are going to be.
So we're going to put the GoFundMe link in there.
Even if you can throw five bucks at it, anything.
If you can't, that's okay. Just share the information.
Whatever we can do, we want to get Gabby home.
I'm just about to spread the word. Yeah, we want to get Gabby home with her parents.
We wanted to make sure we said that right away.
So sad. I really hope that they're able to find her.
I know. brought home safe yeah so to gabby's friends and family we are thinking of you and we send a huge, huge amounts of hugs.
All of them. And we'll do anything we can to help.
So... Yeah, so that is the real bummer news at the top of the show.
Yeah. Yeah. But I think the I mean, good news if we because we're going to have to move on with the show.
The good news is we are not talking about the Sunset Strip Slayers anymore in this episode.
We're not, but you know, I didn't really bring it to like the lightest place.
I was already working on my case for the week when you decided to bring us down.
Yeah, I'm sorry. And I was like, ooh, I'm not really lifting us up. up either.
But, you know, I don't know if you're listening to Morbid to be like, cheer.
Yeah, I don't think so. And you know what?
If you're like, whoa, this has been pretty heavy, I'm going to take you to a spooky place this week, so...
There will be a little bit of like... Reprieve.
Yeah, probably not a lot because it's me, but...
I was going to say, you're like the macabre, majestic Maven.
Oh, I love that. It just came out. I like that.
I think I need to add that to like my official name.
What did I even just say? Macabre, majestic, maven.
I'm not caffeinated at all right now. No, Ash is real.
She's struggle bussing. I really am, like deeply.
And I don't really know why. I just... Yeah, she's really struggling this week.
I can't speak. I can't function. I just...
I believe in you, though. I believe in you.
Thank you. I think you can do it. All right, so this case that I'm going to talk about today is the case of Mackenzie Cowell.
This, just right at the top, is a very controversial case. have not totally made up my mind yet about what I think, so I'm just going to present all the facts. and you can feel about it however you want to feel about it.
I'm not going to tell you how to feel one way or the other because I assume we don't know.
Or is there no conclusion to this? So there's a conclusion, but apparently a lot of people, this took place in Wenatchee, Washington.
And apparently the town is just like completely divided like on whether or not the right person is in prison or not.
Because there's just like a lot of weird things that happen throughout the investigation. there's a lot of he said she said and a lot of circumstantial evidence and then a lot of like solid evidence, but then people are like, that's not solid evidence.
Oh, okay. So it's a very like back and forth crazy case and At the center of it is Mackenzie Cowell and she was absolutely beautiful.
In this case, it's just so sad. So let's get into it.
Mackenzie Cowell was born on April 1st, 1992.
Her parents were Reed and Wendy Cowell. She grew up, like I said, in Wenatchee, Washington.
Wenatchee is actually known as the apple capital of the world.
Really? Yeah. And I had to like double check that.
I was like the whole world. Wow. Everywhere in the world.
Apparently. That's wild. It's apparently like a super quiet.
Washington apples. Washington apple. That's a really good martini, isn't it?
There you go. Yeah. It's apparently like a super quiet rural place where bad things just like don't.
Rural. where bad things usually just don't happen here.
Like the community was shocked by what happened to Mackenzie.
Now, growing up and all throughout her teen years, Mackenzie was a girly girl who absolutely loved to dance.
She was really talented. She was hardworking.
She was driven. She actually danced on the Appalettes dance team.
The Appalettes? I know, isn't that the cutest?
She went to high school full time. She modeled in her spare time.
After school, she took classes at the Wenatchee Academy of Hair Design.
Oh, look at that. A stylist. Yeah, she was a stylist.
This is actually called like the beauty school disappearance or the beauty school murder.
Oh, wow. A lot of times in the true crime world.
Now, Mackenzie's stepmother said of her dancing, she loved to dance, dance, dance.
Anywhere she went, she danced. Grocery stores, gas stations, anywhere if a song came on, she would just break out in a boogie.
Oh my god. It was like, ruined me. Just break out in a boogie.
In a boogie. Ugh. And like, everybody who knew Mackenzie just knew her as this like, quintessential girly girl she loved putting together outfits she loved doing hair and makeup and she was really just immersed like in that girl world like yeah you know what i mean like yeah me Like I was like, I see you, girl.
Like same. Yeah. She also had a boyfriend, Joaquin Villasano.
And her parents said that she was totally in love with him and vice versa.
They were like head over heels for each other.
So Mackenzie's parents, Reed and Wendy, they got divorced at some point and both of them moved on from the relationship.
Mackenzie's father got engaged to a woman named Sandy Francis.
She was the one who said that Mackenzie loved to boogie.
Aww. And her mother started dating a man named Joe Fisher.
Now, Mackenzie and Joe did not get along at all.
They fought. constantly, they just didn't see eye to eye about anything.
Oh, that's sad. And actually, the day before Mackenzie went missing, she apparently got into a fight with Joe.
And she ended up telling her mother, it's him or me.
Oh, no, that's the day before she was very ominous.
So the day she did go missing was February 9th, 2010.
She. left for school early that morning her father said that she had like a super strict schedule for herself and She woke up really early in the morning, gave herself about an hour to get ready, and she had to be out of the door by 7.15.
So she would head to school and then directly after that, she would head to classes at the cosmetology school.
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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. Now, everything that morning was going to plan.
Mackenzie saw her dad before she left and they made plans to have dinner that night.
They were going to have like. karaoke burgers, I guess.
And Mackenzie and her dad were like super, super close.
They had like daddy-daughter dinner dates all the time.
Oh, okay, just ruin me. Yeah. they would have like root beer floats like orange floats together like any kind of float and they would all like call each other on cell phones like she'd be upstairs and like call downstairs and be like, what kind of float should we have?
Like they were just really close. Super close and just, like, really cute.
But, like, she just wouldn't have missed their dinner date for anything.
Yeah. So, she did make it downtown that day to the Academy of Hair Design.
Her morning went to plan, she went to school, she made it to hair school after high school. okay now around 3 p.m she asked one of the other students do i need to sign out if i'm only leaving for 15 minutes Okay.
And it's unclear what exactly she was going to do.
Some of her classmates assumed that like maybe she was going to grab a coffee or something.
That would make sense. Yeah. Nobody really knew exactly.
Yeah. For 15 minutes, it's like she's just running to do something quick.
Yeah, exactly. exactly like a quick errand yeah and she was known to go to like a certain coffee place so they were like makes sense yeah But the last video of her movement shows her stepping out the back door of the academy.
She heads up the stairs to the parking lot and walks to her car.
And that is the last known video of Mackenzie Cowell.
Really? So she texted her boyfriend, Joaquin.
She said, hey. And that would be the last text he would ever get from Mackenzie.
And that was the last time anybody heard from Mackenzie.
Really? So Reed said that beauty school got on at five o'clock.
So he called Mackenzie at around like 540 to see how close she was.
Because remember, they're going to have like teriyaki burgers tonight.
They have a whole plan. And her cell phone went straight to voicemail, which he said was really weird.
That was like very unlike Mackenzie. Like her phone would have always been charged and on.
Yeah. So we texted her a couple more times.
At one point he was like getting annoyed that she wasn't answering.
And so we sent her a text like, hello, like I'm getting irritated.
Like, why aren't you answering? And then more time went by and she wasn't answering that text message.
So we sent another one and was like, I'm not upset with you.
Like, I'm sorry. Like, I'm just concerned.
I'm starting to panic. Exactly. I'm starting to panic.
Time kept passing, and Reed was getting more and more worried, and then about two more hours went by, and he got a call from the local police.
And they said, are you missing your car?
So he told them, I'm missing that car and I'm missing the girl who drives it.
Oh, are you kidding me? Now, Mackenzie's car was registered in her father's name.
So as soon as he got that call, his stomach must have just sank.
Hearing are you missing your car and knowing that your daughter who you have not been able to get a hold of is in that car must be one of the worst things you can ever hear.
I can't even imagine. Like, where your mind would go and where your heart would drop, I can't even fathom.
And I just picture him, like, getting their dinner, like, ready.
Yeah. He's, like, just waiting. Just waiting. figure it out and like pass the time as he's waiting for her to come back and he's probably sitting there like oh it's going to be something silly like her phone died or you know but that kills me she never came that really kills me Now, her car was found just two miles away from the Academy of Hair Design.
It was found on a rural road. That's so hard to say.
It is. called Pilcher Canyon Road. Inside the abandoned car, the police found Mackenzie's purse.
But her cell phone, her car keys and debit card were all missing.
And to this day they've never been found.
Really? Never been found. Now, anyone who knew Mackenzie and was like close with her knew that Her purse went everywhere with her.
She wouldn't have gotten out of the car without the purse.
No. Now, later on in the investigation, the police would speak with three witnesses that described a similar looking man. walking down a road right near where Mackenzie's car was later found.
Okay. They all said that this man was wearing a dark coat and that he was in the area between 430 and 530.
One of the three had like a slightly different description of the man than the other two.
But like eyewitness accounts are just like the absolute worst.
It can be real tough. And that's really like the only place that goes like.
Yeah. It's not super prominent. Because it's hard.
It's hard to know what you're supposed to believe and what people really saw.
And if the timing is even right, because one person's 5.30 is another person's 6 o'clock.
Oh yeah, and there's been plenty of times where I have trusted my own memory of someone.
I'm like, no, they had a beard. I'm like, no, they 100% have a beard.
And then I'm with you and I'm like, that person didn't have a beard.
And then we'll see it and I'm like... They didn't have a beard.
Where did my head conjure a beard? And where did I convince myself that it was 100% true? your brain naturally fills in the missing pieces.
Like it literally, is. That's why it's so hard.
Eyewitness accounts are so hard. They can be great but And they can be so detrimental.
Like, honestly, like the eyewitness accounts always make me think of the Lacey Peterson case.
Yeah. Because there's so many eyewitness accounts and all of them are different times and they're all messed up.
Oh, yeah. It happens in so many cases. Yeah.
So back to this investigation. Four days into it on February 13th.
Mackenzie's father got a call from the FBI and they told him that Mackenzie's body had been found.
Trigger warning, this body was found in a very disturbing way.
She was found laying in the shallow water of the Columbia River in an area called Crescent Bar, and she was about 15 feet away from the shore.
This was an area where people would like go and party like from around that area.
She was 48 miles away from home. Wow. Yeah.
And her car was found like two miles away from the beauty school.
Wow. Yeah. Now, there were various injuries noted to her body.
She had been stabbed multiple times. there was blunt force trauma to her head.
She had a head wound. Oh my God. She had been strangled and there was a deep neck laceration.
And then on top of all of that, whoever had done all of that to her, Also tried to saw her arm off.
What? When her body was found, the knife was still stuck in the tissue of her shoulder. stop like the knife was literally like they just like gave up in the middle of it which is interesting to me because it's like Did somebody come and startle them?
Like, that is outrageous. Yeah. And to leave the weapon.
Yeah. In the wound. Right. That's like so frenzied and so... unorganized and so strange well and I think the whole manner of how she was killed was so frenzied and unorganized and so brutal because it's like They clearly like tried multiple things.
Yeah. Wow. That's like, ugh. Yeah, it's chilling.
It really is. Because you look at pictures of her and you're like...
So she's just like a girl that I would have gone to high school.
Yeah, just her whole life. I would have been a friend with like.
She just looks like somebody you could see walking down the street.
Yeah. Whenever you like, obviously any victim you look and you're like, you have the rest of your life in front of you.
But when it's like a teenager or someone younger, you're just like...
Man, you had decades, decades of life to live.
Who are you going to be? I think that's the saddest part.
When you're that young, you don't know who you are.
Like rarely do you know if somebody did like kudos, but like I definitely didn't know who I was. was at 17 and it's like you know I never really found out who I was till I was like 30 like that's when I really found out felt like comfortable with who i am and it's like yeah they never get a chance to feel that like no total comfort in who they are Because I think life experiences kind of teach you who you are.
It's just like it adds like such an extra bummer to it.
It does. It does. Well, so the police obviously had to look into the family.
Of course. But they said Mackenzie's parents were never real suspects.
Like, it was just a formality. Yeah, you just have to.
Now someone that they were very interested in talking to multiple times though, was Mackenzie's boyfriend.
Obviously, in any case, the significant other is looked at for obvious reasons.
Of course. And this case may have started off like that, but it definitely seemed like there were other reasons why Joaquin was being looked at so intensely. people say, for a while he was told that he was the only suspect.
Oh, he was interviewed a few times, like on multiple occasions.
He was given multiple lie detector tests And he was told multiple times that he kept failing one particular question.
And the question was, do you know who kills Mackenzie?
Wow. Obviously, he was saying that he didn't know who had killed her and that he hadn't, but the detectives were not happy with that.
And he said that they also asked him multiple times whether or not he was a gangster.
And he was like, I'm not a gangster. And also like, what?
Yeah. seemed to be like a little bit of racial profiling going on.
I was just going to say that seems to be a little bit of like a, you know, very pointed question.
Yeah, super pointed question because I'm like, and he was like, no, I'm not.
Like, I'm just dating this beautiful girl who was just brutally murdered. but like thank you thanks for like making this all about me being a terrible person yeah because i'm not Like cool.
So almost 800 people were interviewed during the search for McKenzie's killer and her family just felt like it had to have and someone she knew because like we hear in a lot of cases, Mackenzie wouldn't have gone off with someone that she didn't know. yeah like she wouldn't have gone anywhere with someone she didn't trust yeah you know whether someone is that kind of person or not you know a person that's more kind comfortable doing that.
Exactly. Now, Mackenzie's mother, Wendy, her boyfriend Joe was also looked into, especially because of that fight that happened where she said, like, it's either him or me.
That comment was really chilling. Yeah, for sure.
But he had an airtight alibi. And according to the police, they complained. completely cleared not only him but Joaquin as well oh good so neither of them did it but then it's like okay, so who the fuck did this?
I know. Cause it's, you're like, good. I don't want it to be her mom's boyfriend or her boyfriend.
Like that's, adds a whole nother layer to this, but then immediately you're like, but who did it?
Now I need to know who did it. So now this woman comes forward.
Her name is Liz Reed. And she said, she knew exactly who killed Mackenzie.
Oh. And that she saw a snuff film of the murder.
And that... The snuff film was taken by the killers, obviously, who she knew personally.
Honestly, as out there as that sounds, whenever you hear snuff film, you're like, what?
No. One, it happens. The worst things in the world happen.
And then on top of it, how brutally she was murdered. does kind of lend itself to something like that.
I think so as well. I'm not saying that that's definitely what happened.
Obviously, I have no idea. I'm just saying like, okay, I could see a connection to that.
It's interesting. Wow, that's really fucked up.
So the woman, again, was Liz Reed, and she was working with the Wenatchee Police Department already at this point. as an informant.
She was enrolled in college full time. She was a straight A student.
But she also had connections to the drug world, which is why she wasn't informant.
At the time she was selling OxyContin and she was also struggling with an addiction herself.
Oh, okay. But at the time, they were still using her as an informant, so obviously they trusted her.
Yeah. Now, she told investigators that now there was a task force for Mackenzie's like disappearance and investigation.
So she was telling the investigators that made up the task force that A man named Sam Cuevas and Emmanuel Buda-Ceros were the ones responsible for Mackenzie's murders.
So they, too, were drug dealers like they had been in prison before and like served time for things like that.
And Liz said that she was told by them that the whole thing was a case of mistaken identity.
Apparently, Cuevas and Ceros had mistook Mackenzie for someone else who they thought was also working for the police. no and that's why she was killed they thought that she was an informant Liz Reid.
I can't even fathom this. Liz Reid said they told her that they had, this is horrible, they had to choke Mackenzie twice. because the first time they thought that she was dead and then she wasn't.
And then she said that Sam Quovas told her, quote unquote, we choked that bitch to shut her up. what now for me it is interesting that they said they choked her twice because she had that super deep laceration.
So I'm like, that's interesting. Yeah. That's just something to look at.
For sure. Now she then got into further details about the knife that the killers had used.
And remember, it was left there. And she was correct about the knife that had been used.
And had they released this information? And at that point in the investigation, this was information that was being held close to the chest.
So that was a turning point in this case.
Maybe this girl was telling them the truth. is exactly why they hold that kind of stuff back.
So somebody comes forward and without the information from the media and they can corroborate it exactly corroborate it corroborate it wow did i do that to you You did.
Your spirit passed into me. Co-operate. Co-operate.
So according to the investigators, Liz read through the entire investigation into Overdrive.
And a lot of the investigators working on that task force thought that they had their guys.
They were full-fledged ready for this. I mean that seems like a pretty solid case.
It makes sense. But then they got another tip from another informant named Theo Keys.
Now, Theo wrote a letter to police while he was in prison for exposing himself to a barista.
Oh, just that. Very specific crime. Yeah.
He definitely was troubled. Yeah. It was said that he struggled with a lot of mental illness as well.
OK, so worth putting out there. Yeah. The letter stated that they should look into someone that he was, quote unquote, friends with.
This person was named Christopher Wilson.
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Now, Chris Wilson was actually one of Mackenzie's classmates at the Academy of Hair Design.
Oh, he was like an artist, a musician, and he was a very like eccentric guy for Wenatchee.
People like to point out that a lot of his artwork was really dark, that he dressed differently, he wore dark clothing, he dyed his hair black.
He liked the show Dexter. Same. He had a tattoo of Hannibal Lecter.
I would too. They were really just pointing out all the dark, macabre things about him.
The stuff that only matters after something like this happens.
Yeah, and that gets so hairy. It's not fair.
Yeah. People also look to the fact that he worked at a funeral home as a red flag when he became the prime suspect in this case.
I don't think that's a red flag. Of course it's not.
Even after the fact. People have to work at funeral homes.
It's a job. I'm not just saying that. No, you're an autopsy technician.
I just don't think that's a... indication of somebody being a murderer.
No, it's not. I really don't. His mother had an explanation for why he worked at a funeral home.
She said that actually he decided to start working for a funeral home because of an experience that their family had had.
So Chris's mother, Kathleen, she had been married to a man who actually legally adopted Chris, and then they went on to have another son together.
Now, unfortunately, years later, he passed away when he fell from like a three-story hotel window.
Oh. And the reconstruction they did on his face looked nothing like him.
And it was really horrible for the family members at the funeral.
And at that moment, Chris decided that he wanted to get into the business so that other families wouldn't have to suffer like his.
He was like, maybe I can do a better job.
That's a great reason. Yeah, if that's the reason.
And again, I don't know anything about, I don't know this case, so I don't know. what the deal is here, I can see why after somebody gets named as a murder suspect that you're going to point to all these quote-unquote strange or unique things about them to be like, look, because sometimes it matches, sometimes it works.
But I think it's like a really slippery slope.
It is. Because it's like a Hannibal Lecter tattoo doesn't make you a serial killer.
He's not a real... He's a fictional character.
But not only that, he's a fictional character.
And I like... People have tattoos of actual serial killers, but that doesn't mean that they're murderers.
Exactly. It's like, dude. Is it in poor taste?
Sure. But like, is it but that doesn't make them a murderer.
You know, it just is a totally different set of.
Or like even like I think of like on Halloween when like tattoo shops will do those specials and like you can get like a butcher knife tattooed on you.
People do that all the time. That doesn't mean that you're a murderer.
Exactly. And it's like, sure, it might not be for you, but it doesn't make someone who gets it a murderer.
That's a very dangerous thing to start doing. completely connecting what you have on your body with being an actual serial killer.
Exactly. Like, I think it's just a very dangerous connection to make because then we're really showing people that like judge a book by its cover.
Exactly. And judge a book by what they do as an occupation.
That's not fair. And the other thing was that wasn't the only thing he had done in his life.
He hadn't like specifically only worked at funeral homes.
He had worked at some funeral homes, but he also had been in the army.
He had also worked at like a bike shop. He had worked at like a hotel.
Like he'd worked in like plenty of different places.
But of course they're going to. stick to the it's like the death industry doesn't mean that like you're obsessed with death in a way that is like gnarly and unsavory.
You can be fascinated by death and want to work in the death industry and not be... fetishizing death exactly like i am fascinated by death and what happens after we die I'm not fetishizing it.
I'm not, you know what I mean? I'm happy that you said that because...
Whether or not Chris Wilson did this, I do think that they painted him way so like so much in that light because they were like, he was like so interested in serial killers and learning about them and he was fascinated by death and it's like You could say that about a lot of people.
Exactly. All like, you know, true crime podcasts, any... you know, medical podcasts, any medical people, like people who work in the medical field are fascinated by death because it's like, It's such a joke.
It's a blanket. It is. It's a blanket generalization that I think can be tough.
And that's not to say that I don't think that he did this because I personally haven't made up my mind yet.
See, and I literally know nothing about this case, so I have no idea if...
Even if he did do it, I just think it's it's something we like shouldn't always do is like point to what they look like and what they wear.
Exactly. That's a reason to pinpoint them as a suspect.
That's my whole point. and we won't harp on this for much longer, I'm just saying, I always bring it back to Ted Bundy.
Nobody believed that he was a serial killer just by looking at him.
Because he didn't look the part. He was involved in politics.
They don't always look the part and he did some of the gnarliest shit you could ever do.
I mean, he was a necrophiliac. It's like, let's... not just look at somebody and be like, well, they're weird.
Again, I think we've said it before, like Carla Homolka.
Yeah, she's... They called them the Ken and Barbie killers because they looked like Ken and Barbie.
Like, it's just slippery slope. It is. But back to Theo and his letter.
That was our PSA. PSA, don't judge people by their faces.
Exactly. And tattoos. Now, back to Theo and his letter.
Theo's letter said that the police should look into Chris Wilson because he had an interest in dead bodies, serial killers.
And he had said that he liked to cut people up.
Okay, that's weird. Definitely weird. But also like, do we have video of him saying that?
Like, do we know for sure that he said that?
No, but I mean, like somebody saying that somebody said that is a little strange.
Oh, absolutely. I will say that. Oh, it's really strange.
And it gets stranger. And that's why I'm like, every time I was like, but wait, I was like, oh shit.
And then I was like, but wait. I was like, oh shit.
Because again, it obviously doesn't prove he did it, but it's like, that's a strange thing to say.
It's a strange thing to say. You shouldn't like cutting people up.
No. And this is a strange thing that was also stated in the letter. apparently a woman had told Theo that Chris had come up behind her at a party and started strangling her. but then he stopped out of nowhere and acted like it didn't happen oh that that's fucked up that's fucked up yeah So that's the thing.
That's why I'm like, I don't know what's going on here.
Again, has nothing to do with what he looks like.
That's just fucked up behavior. Right. Now, apparently the police also got another tip from another woman... saying that Chris Wilson should be looked into as a suspect in Mackenzie's case because he had told her that he killed a woman in a hotel that he used to work at.
And he did so by strangling her with a belt.
Yeah, okay. This is not looking good. Not looking good.
Not looking good for Chris. Not at all. So now right around the time that the tip came in about Chris Wilson is when the investigators on the task force started doubting Liz Reed.
Like all of a sudden they were like, I don't know if her story is so true because they were trying to find that snuff film.
Like they were trying to locate where that would be. and they couldn't find any evidence that it even existed yeah So they confronted her about that and they said that that's when she quote unquote changed her story.
Now, she didn't really change her story, though.
She just retracted what she had said. And this is where things get weird because a lot of the articles that you read say that Liz Reid outed Sam Cuevas and Emmanuel Acero so that she wouldn't be looked to as a suspect.
But why would she even be looked to as a suspect at all?
So then I was watching the video of her explaining why she retracted her statement.
And the way that I took her saying it was that she recanted the statement about Sam and Emmanuel because she felt threatened by the police that she had to retract her statement or then the murder might get pinned on her.
I'm not saying that's what happened, but that's what it sounded like she was saying. because technically retracting your statement is changing your story okay because you're now saying that story didn't happen right so you're saying But I just, I mean, like she didn't change like any details or anything.
She just took it all back. Exactly. Yeah.
And the way that she said it was like she felt like she had to or this was going to be pinned on her if she didn't change her story.
Okay. But then a lot of people are like, no, she didn't want it pinned on her.
And that's why she took her story away. And I was like, if anything, that would make you look less credible and it might get pinned on you.
My, what a tangled web this is. I can't, I'm like.
I don't know. See, that's the thing. That's why I'm like, I have no idea.
And girl, it only gets more tangy. I'm just going to take these facts that come out and I'm going to be like, I don't know.
Me too. And I think it's sad because it's like a lot of people feel that way.
And it's like... At the center of this is... mackenzie is mackenzie and her family exactly do they feel this way like yeah like i have what i i And to have literally no idea.
Right. Yeah, that's just like a real... Like to not... I...
I don't know if you'll say it later, but like, I hope they feel some kind of closure.
I'm not entirely. I think they did. Seems like they did.
Like I watched the 48 hours and it seems like they were like. okay, like we have, we'll get there.
So. But why would they want her to retract her statement when so many of them believed her for a good while?
Now, a lot of people think Now, like this is where I say like the community is divided because some people think that the murder was pinned on Chris Wilson at this point because it had been like a good like six months or so into the investigation with nothing.
Now, it really wasn't going anywhere and they were apparently getting desperate.
Now, this case was suggested a lot in our inbox, I think I said in the beginning, and everyone pointed out that everybody had different feelings.
And half of the people think that the wrong person is in prison.
So let's get into like a little more about Chris Wilson.
Yeah. going to cosmetology school, by the way, because his mother and her husband opened a salon in town and he wanted to help his mother run the salon.
So that's why he was in hair school. I was also going to think, I would think that cosmetology would be helpful in funeral home if you're looking to get into like embalming and the post-mortem. makeup and all that I feel like cosmetology school would help yeah exactly if that's what you're looking to do.
Exactly. But it's interesting because then like his friend said like he didn't really want to work at the funeral home anymore because the bodies creeped him out.
So like his friends were saying that it creeped him out and then other people were saying like he said that he liked to cut up dead people.
So it's a lot of back and forth. But back to February 9th, the day that Mackenzie went missing.
Chris Wilson is seen on the security footage from the school leaving out the same back doors McKenzie not too long after she leaves.
Okay. Which is weird. Yeah. Now, when he was interviewed by police originally, he said, yeah, he knew who McKenzie was, like they went to school together. but that they didn't really talk.
And he willingly gave them a sample of his DNA.
So it took a week for the DNA to come back.
And when it did, they brought Chris Wilson back into the station again.
This time they asked Chris Wilson if he had ever been to Crescent Bar, where Mackenzie's body had been found.
He told them that he hadn't. And then they asked him if that was so, then how would his DNA have ended up there?
So couple that with the fact that the Crescent Bar was only a few blocks away from his apartment.
Oof. The police were zeroing in on him.
They told him he was under arrest for the murder of Mackenzie Cowell. and at that moment he immediately asked for a lawyer.
I mean, all this seems pretty good to me.
Yeah. So Chris's family, and you might think this name sounds familiar, they hired famous defense attorney John Henry Browne.
Oh, hey. Yep, Bundy. There you go. He represented Bundy, Colton Harris Moore, the Barefoot Bandit, and Sergeant Robert Bales.
He's like a very controversial lawyer. Yeah.
But John Henry Brown claims that Chris Wilson was being framed for this murder and that it wasn't the first time Wenatchee was doing this.
Now, he recalled a case in Wenatchee that he had actually worked on in the mid-90s where ton of people were wrongfully convicted of sexual abuse in what he called the Wenatchee witch hunt, and which became known as the Wenatchee witch hunt.
Really? No, he was the one to get some of the cases dropped for a bunch of clients.
I'm going to link this really good Washington Post article in the show notes to give you like a little more about that case.
But the gist is that In Wenatchee in the mid-90s, there was this officer named Robert Perez who who was promoted to a detective during a time where there was a lot of child sexual abuse cases going on.
That's awful. Now, this guy was trained really quickly and he was the only investigator working on these kinds of cases. but a lot of people felt like he wasn't qualified for the job and that he was placed in a position of power when he shouldn't have been.
Now, later, he and his wife were fostering a child who I'm just going to leave nameless for this.
Yeah. She started having... like horrific recollections of essentially a child sex trafficking ring that involved like hundreds of people in the community.
What? But the more and more involved it got, there were people being accused that like, definitely didn't have anything to do with it because they weren't even living there at the time.
So fingers were being pointed at people and it seemed like fingers were being pointed at people if they spoke out against this whole thing and like doubted it it literally was like A witch hunt.
Wow. People said that Perez would quote, pick people out, and target them.
Now, eventually, this child, like the foster child... named over 90 different people who abused her particularly. and got other children to say things about what had happened to them. time, her story started becoming less credible because like I said, she was like saying people had done it that hadn't even been there at that time. and then other children admitted that they were lying.
Oh wow, this is messy. It's super messy.
Children also came out later and said that Perez had intimidated them into lying about some alleged abuse.
Now Perez did admit later that he would destroy his notes from cases.
What the fuck? But not before a ton of lives were like, totally destroyed and everything just like died down but people went to prison for this well that all sounds bad all around people lost everything they had to put it Basically, it became the witch hunt of Wenatchee.
And these kids are like are having to go through all this like traumatic.
Oh, it's just it's a case within itself. itself that we'll definitely never cover because I can't get into children stuff like that but again I am gonna link that Washington Post article it goes like very into detail and it was interesting to read about okay heartbreaking but interesting wow I've never heard of that Neither had I. But that was what John Henry Brown was referencing.
And he was like, this isn't the first time Wenatchee has like pointed out people that are different.
Because a lot of the people that were pointed out in that case were like illiterate people.
They were poor people. They had some kind of unique thing.
They were kind of like the outskirts like people, like the oddballs, quote unquote.
Yeah. Now he was able to get some of his clients charges dropped in that case, or he had them plead guilty for less harsh sentences.
Now, he's known as a defense attorney to have his clients plead guilty to lower sentences just to get them, basically to get them plea deals.
For sure. Now, interestingly enough, The prosecutor in that case as well, Gary Riesen, was going to be the same one trying to prove that Chris Wilson was guilty of murder.
Oh, wow. So these two were going head to head again.
Oh, wow. Like, however, like what? 20 years later.
That's crazy. Like rematch time. Yeah. Now, the prosecution did have a good amount going for them.
They had a piece of duct tape and that's the one that was found along the shore.
It was found along the shore where Mackenzie's body had been found, and Chris's DNA was found on it, and so was Mackenzie's blood.
Now, it was Chris's Y strand DNA found on the duct tape, and it was found through YSTR profiling.
And YSTR can't actually identify a specific individual like a fingerprint would. but it can narrow down a statistical pool of people.
So the DNA profile found on that piece of tape would most likely be Chris Wilson's.
But according to a court affidavit, A white male has a 1 in 1,047 chance of sharing Wilson's YSTR profile. okay now that sounds like a big number but it's really not but in yeah it's just yeah so that like his profile would be shared by his father his grandfather like maybe even like some of his brother, like it's...
Yeah. It's intense. Yeah. Now, obviously a slim chance that like it was somebody else's DNA because one in 1,500.
It's a coincidence if it's not his that it happened to be the guy that they're looking at.
But because it's not like a fingerprint or something like that.
It's not as compelling. It's not as compelling and it's enough that would provide reasonable... reasonable doubt to a jury for sure so the prosecution had more though now this is where i'm like Okay.
They found a video on an iPhone belonging to Tessa Skyliman.
She was one of Chris Wilson's friends and they had actually dated like when they were younger.
His mom said that she was like a daughter to her. wow now the video is of she and chris cleaning up his apartment when he was moving out And they seemed to be really concerned about the cleanliness of the apartment.
And they said that was because Chris wanted to get a security deposit back.
Like, that's why they were concerned about it.
And is this moving out of the apartment that was near the crime scene?
Yes. Okay. So this is after Mackenzie had been murdered.
This is after Mackenzie had been murdered, yes.
Now, so they're having this really weird conversation So I'm going to tell you what it says.
Chris says, does it look clean? And Tessa says, clean for what is happening?
Like clean considering? Yeah, it's clean considering. which is a weird thing to say.
For what is happening? Yeah, like for what is happening.
I was like, what does that mean? And then they found another video of Tessa going into the apartment alone.
And they say that she moves a coffee table and zooms in on where they ended up finding Mackenzie Cowell's blood. they end up finding her blood in that apartment.
Oh, okay. I mean, to me, that's case closed.
Case closed. So they say that she zooms into the blood and then she like goes into the bathroom and takes a video of the bathroom and then the video ends with her face in the mirror. the police believed that it was obvious that she was looking for blood and saying that the apartment was clean considering the fact that Mackenzie had been murdered. there because she's sitting there saying considering wow but according to Chris and Tessa That specific area of the carpet had been damaged during a party, and that's what they were saying when they were saying, like, clean considering what happened.
Well, I mean, it was found to be her blood.
It was found to be her blood. That's it.
Right. I mean, how do you explain that? So...
Tessa actually ended up being arrested on suspicion of obstructing an investigation and rendering criminal assistance.
She was arrested and held on $29,000 bail, but she was able to post the bail.
In the affidavit for the case against her, the police also claim that there's photos of her lying on the floor where the blood was found.
Quote unquote posing like a dead person.
But. She said that those photos were taken after she passed out from being drunk at a party there.
And then the police said that her boyfriend at the time came forward and said she didn't know where she was posing.
Like she didn't know that the blood was found there and that Christopher Wilson had instructed her to pose there like that.
That's what one of her boyfriends said. But she had told the police that she had passed out in that area.
And then for some reason, he took a photo of her. like three different stories happening yeah there's yeah there's like 87 different very shady So Chris's defense tried to argue that the blood had been planted in his apartment.
And that there was no evidence proving that it hadn't been.
Except for the video of her zooming in on it when they were just there.
But they're trying to say that that was a stain from a party, like that it wasn't blood.
Because it also wasn't super dark in that video.
And then, I don't know. So they also argued that there would have been much more blood found in the apartment because of the manner in which Mackenzie was stabbed. but her blood was only found in that specific area, like that one cutout of the carpet.
They also wanted to note that Mackenzie was stabbed and that her jugular vein had been cut.
I was going to ask if that was like... There would be a whole different of blood.
And so her jugular vein was cut. And remember, they tried to saw off her arm.
Yeah. And the prosecution had a point for that, too.
Remember I told you Chris Wilson really liked the show Dexter?
They said that he was infatuated with that specific serial killer So maybe he had taken notes from the show and laid out plastic.
That was their... Okay. Which... Okay, sure.
Now all of that, I mean, sure. Yeah. I also think that the... Since that knife was found in her arm still, to me, that says that it was... attempted where she was found.
That's, I don't think they would transport her with the knife in her arm. and not remove it at some point.
It doesn't make a lot of sense. To me, it was done there.
Right. So maybe that explains why there would be a lack of blood at the apartment for that part.
Maybe that part and maybe a lot of the mutilation and stuff was happening over there.
Good point. Maybe. I mean I don't know. You can look at it whatever way you want to because there's This is a wild case.
We're about to get even more wild because This is what I find the most interesting in terms of the concrete evidence.
So in addition to Chris's DNA, Another unknown male's DNA was found on the strip of duct tape.
On the knife that was left in the tissue of Mackenzie's shoulder, they found genetic materials from at least three males on that knife.
None of which are a match for Chris Wilson.
Now, one of the possible contributors of the genetic material on the knife is a detective who was involved in the chain of custody, which can happen, but they try really hard to avoid that.
But it definitely happens. But that's not it.
The interior of Mackenzie's car was swiped for DNA...
And there was some found, but none of it matched Chris Wilson's DNA.
So no DNA in the car matched his. Okay. And it was determined to be from an unidentified male, the DNA in that car.
Okay. And finally, and this is the most compelling evidence for me, there was DNA found under Mackenzie's nails on her left hand. that did not match Chris Wilson's DNA.
That's interesting. Whose DNA is that? Whose DNA is that?
So the only place he left his DNA was on a piece of duct tape.
Well, and it's like, then to flip it, you could say maybe this unknown male drove her car.
Yup. Or was the one... Maybe there was multiple people involved.
Maybe there was multiple people here. Exactly.
Maybe it's not just one that we're looking for.
Right. Because I just, I don't... Wow. This is like very...
I would not even know what to say. No, that's the thing.
So because like. Some of the evidence was circumstantial with the DNA and all that, but then there was the blood, but then the prosecution was trying to say the blood was planted.
Everything was just all over the place. And Chris Wilson got offered what many referred to was the deal of a lifetime.
If he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, he would only have to serve six and a half years in prison.
For what was done to her. For Mackenzie's murder.
They were willing to drop the charges to manslaughter.
Six and a half. which like, and he'd only served six and a half years for, stabbing a woman, strangling her, leaving a deep laceration in her neck, and trying to saw off her arm and blunt force trauma to the head and blunt force trauma to the head.
Thank you. Six and a half years, and they were going to drop those charges to manslaughter.
I'm literally like short-circuiting right now.
How? I have no idea. How? I can't even wrap my brain around it.
So his defense attorney, John Henry Brown, said it was a great deal for someone who was guilty. but for someone who was innocent, that it wasn't.
Because you don't want to serve six and a half years in prison for something you didn't do.
And be charged with manslaughter when you didn't do it.
And Chris said... No, I didn't do this.
I'm not taking that plea deal. He said no to the plea deal and he was willing to go to trial and prove his innocence.
Okay. He was like that confident in it. Now, insert Liz Reid back into the picture.
Oh, boy. She wasn't done yet. She was like, I'm gonna let you finish. but actually i'm not wow uh so she comes back into the picture and she says that emmanuel buddha saros demanded that she come out to the place where Mackenzie was actually murdered. and find a ring that had come off her finger while they murdered her.
And she said that she was willing to testify at trial under oath about what had happened.
She found the ring. She said, quote, it was smashed.
It was a little bent, but it was a ring.
Now, the ring was shown to Mackenzie's family and her boyfriend allegedly, but none of them recognized it.
There is a photo, though, where Mackenzie is wearing a ring...
That looks an awful lot like the one that Liz Reed found.
And I will post it. To me, it looks like the same ring.
And it's a very distinct ring. You can Google it right now.
I'm literally going to Google it. silver and I'm not sure if it's pearls or if it's just like silver beads on the top, but there's two beads.
So there's the picture of the ring when Liz Reid says she found it.
And then there's a picture that Mackenzie took.
I think it's like a mirror selfie. And it looks like the same ring on her finger in the picture.
Okay. Now, Emmanuel Acero said that Liz was crazy. that he finally had a good job, he was turning his life around, and that she was ruining it for him.
Oh boy. So all of that is going on before the trial even started.
They're all just sitting there saying like, I'm going to say this and I'm willing to testify this and yada, yada, yada.
So now they're doing jury selection and a lot of people being considered for the jury admitted in like questionnaires. that they had seen a ton of media coverage about this.
And apparently, either more than or just around 80% of them were going into this thinking that Chris Wilson was already guilty.
That's a tough one. So when he heard that, he panicked and he decided to ask for another plea bargain because he was like, really panicking at this point.
But in order to get this plea bargain, he needed to write a full confession.
And that would be in exchange for 14 years in prison.
So. If he really was innocent, he really should have taken that first one.
I was just gonna say, wow. Chris Wilson agreed to that.
And the judge asked him in front of a packed courthouse.
And he paused before saying yes. that this was indeed his statement, but ultimately did say that he quote, recklessly caused the death of Mackenzie Cowell by strangulation and stabbing her with the knife.
Now on May 23rd, Chris Wilson was sentenced to 14 years in a medium security prison.
And the judge, Judge Bridges, said... It's almost impossible to find the words for the family of the victim, the family of the defendant, or the community.
It's just too bad for all of us. But I just wanted you to know we're all kind of in this together.
So Mr. Wilson is going to prison. It was just a really strange... Okay, they... I'm like, that's a...
Like, he's apologizing to Mackenzie's family, thank God, because they absolutely deserve to be apologized to for what happened.
Yes. But then he's also recognizing... Chris Wilson's family and the entire community.
And he says, like, we're all kind of in this together.
I mean, I get it at the same time. Like at first I'm like, that's a strange way of saying it.
But then when I think about it, I'm like, well, yeah.
This rocked a community. Because no matter what, it's like you can't blame Chris Wilson's family if he is the killer.
We say it all the time. They're also victims in a different way.
And then the community obviously felt very connected to this case and this young woman.
So in a way, they all were wrapped in...
So it is. And it's not like he sat there and was like, sorry, Chris Wilson, for having to sentence you.
It's one of those things where this whole case, you look at it one way, but then you look at it another way, and you can kind of see that you're like, Because when you're coming at it, like when you can come at it from like, oh, maybe he didn't do it, then things start turning. different ways in your head, but then when you come at it from the other way, it turns the other way.
Right. It's hard. There's a lot of gray area for me in this case.
I'm glad I went into it not knowing this case.
I know. I'm trying to look at things both ways and I can tell you right now, I don't know.
Me either. I don't know. Okay. I'm glad that you don't know if they got it right.
I don't know if they got it right. It seems, I don't know, it's the DNA stuff is what throws me away. little bit because that's the thing because as soon as they were like her blood was found in his apartment i was like oh shit he did this like you literally said case closed but then it's like all this other DNA was found like on her actual body and on the murder weapon and he didn't do it.
But then you're also looking at it like, well, he really liked Dexter and like Dexter's really good at cleaning.
It's like, well, one of the main thing and of course again I don't like looking at what you watch or what you listen to because if that's the case I'd be locked up.
Look at our Amazon library. Yeah, it's not a good thing to do.
And Dexter is one of my favorite shows. John and I were obsessed with Dexter.
I had the same blood spatter analysis photos that he had in his laboratory.
I like that you said had. Well, I have them.
I haven't hung them up, though, because children.
It was before we had children that I had them hung in our living room and then I had to take them down because.
We would just be like at Christmas, like, oh, we're at Elena's.
And I'm like, there they are. But I loved that show.
I still love that show. Can't wait for it to come back.
But one of the things that is really specific to Dexter's character and his... you know, his whole role as a serial killer is one, he kills bad guys.
So that's the other thing. Not that it's really great, but...
On top of that is that he is methodical.
Mm-hmm. and that he has a room set up ahead of time and that he puts the tarps down He's always wearing gloves.
He's always wearing a full suit, so not even a speck of anything could be found on him.
Because his whole life was training to never be caught.
So it's like... Maybe somebody who was into that and was already feeling those feelings...
Sure, could take notes and say, I need to cover myself completely to not get caught.
Absolutely, that could happen. It doesn't make it, like, you know, Dexter's fault or something, but...
I also think that's like a stretch in a way because what you watch and...
I don't know. Well, and then it's like, OK, so can we look into his bank account?
Did he buy sheets of plastic? well that's what I'm wondering I'm like do we have any evidence that shows that he bought plastic or anything if they had that they would have presented that and i didn't find that anywhere in my research But then, but it also doesn't mean that it isn't part of the evidence.
But also he bought it with cash. Yeah, exactly.
Went somewhere where they didn't know, like. that's the thing it's like anything could have happened in this case and I feel like there's just so much that you're left to kind of fill in piece together to make up your own mind and at the end of this i was like my mind isn't made up No, I don't know.
Right. I hope they have the right guy in prison.
Of course, because you hope that. Of course.
I hope that justice is being served. And I hope that the family feels closure.
And I hope that it's all. I hope that's the way it is for Mackenzie's family.
And those who cared about her and knew her, I hope that the right guy is in prison and that that closure is there.
And that they feel that closure. Like, I hope that.
Yep. And I can see. I can see. I can see why he's in prison.
Absolutely. But it's like, I mean, her blood was found in his apartment.
That is compelling. Case closed. That's real compelling to me.
I just don't know. But interesting. Chris's mom and Mackenzie's stepmom, like after the verdict was read, they hugged each other in the courtroom and both of them talked. told each other that they were sorry for the other one's loss.
It broke my heart, but it's also just like, such an example of, like, what wonderful people they are.
Because, like, for her stepmother to sit there and say like I'm sorry for your loss when her son is still alive because you've And you've lost your daughter in such a gruesome manner, maybe at the hands of her son.
And you can say... Like, I'm sorry for your loss too.
I think that's like, that's some like high level humaning. high level like that's like above level human beings right there now we're not done yet We're not done.
We're not done. What? So about a year later, Chris Wilson tried to withdraw his guilty plea. saying that he didn't understand at the time the consequences when he entered the plea deal, and he said he entered it involuntarily. his request was denied.
Oh boy. But he might be able to be released from prison in 2023. and he still maintains his innocence.
And so does his mother, Kathleen, who, I saved this for the end, She said that at the time Mackenzie was supposed to have been murdered, Chris was out with her buying a plate of cupcakes.
Okay. And she said, it's interesting to me, the trial of public opinion, the way they've portrayed my son and Tessa as It's so tragic that number one, people are so judgmental and number two, if they lived in Seattle, they would not have been looked at twice. but because we live in Wenatchee, they do stand out a little bit more.
And then Mackenzie's father Reed said that he hung this beautiful wind chime in the front yard. and that whenever it goes off, he likes to think that it's Mackenzie talking to him, which I immediately just wanted to cry. oh my god that just like hit me like any kind of bricks and he said i still think about her as though she's still around course like that was his little girl oh i well Oh, I feel so bad.
I feel so bad for her. him like yeah her mother and her stepmother her whole family it's just that's horrific It's horrible.
Wow. But he might be being released in 2023.
Wow. Because this happened in 2010. So yeah, I didn't even think of that because it seems like it. such a recent thing i know like when you're talking about it because i was like wait how is he going to be released then i'm like oh shit it's almost been Because when you said 2010, I was like, wow, so this is recent.
Then I'm like, no, that was 11 years ago.
Like, whoa. Yeah, but wow, I don't even know.
So guys, what do you think? Yeah, I got to know what everybody thinks.
I didn't get to listen to the episode yet, but I also saw that they covered this case on the first degree.
I was just going to say, I think they covered this.
Yeah, because it seemed familiar. So now I want to listen to what they think.
Yeah. I try to listen to episodes after the fact so that my mind doesn't get all jumbled up with information.
Yeah, exactly. you like my point of view yeah and then now i'm gonna go listen to like 78 podcasts because i Like, I gotta know.
It's interesting. Wow. That's really horrifying.
Yeah. I feel for her family in such a big way.
Yeah. But we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.
Just stop this weird. Yeah. Don't hurt people.
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