Details Are Sketchy
A bimonthly true crime podcast, in which two friends share an unsolved disappearance or unsolved case, a crime they're most intrigued by, and talk all things true crime.
Details Are Sketchy
When Blackmail Bites Back: The Murder of Gary Triano
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Rachel gives us the disappearance of Shaniece Harris and Kiki brings us the 1996 murder of Gary Triano. We also talk about sharks, fears, and Trek (because of course we do).
Our next book is "The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice" by Alex Hortis, which we will discuss in episode 20.
Sources:
Shaniece Harris:
FBI Missing Persons - "Shaniece Harris"
Uncovered Cold Cases - "Shaniece Harris"
If you have information call the FBI New York Office 212-384-1000 or the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office 845-807-0158.
Gary Triano:
American Greed Season 4 Episode "A Widow's Web."
Socials:
Instagram: Details Are Sketchy - @details.are.sketchy
Facebook: Details Are Sketchy - @details.are.sketchy.2023
Instagram: Kiki - @kikileona84
Instagram: Rachel - @eeniemanimeenienailz
Email: details.are.sketchy.pod@gmail.com
Unsolved Missing Person Cases
Speaker 1I'm Kiki and I'm Rachel, and this is. Details Are Sketchy, a true crime podcast, and we are on episode what 19? 19.
Speaker 2All right, so one more episode and we do our book Moving Right.
Speaker 1Along what Moving.
Speaker 2Right Along. We are Moving Right Along. Is somebody out there who has listened to all 19 of our episodes? If so, send us a shout out on social media or in our email, if you want to. That would be cool and let us know, because it would be great to hear from you.
Speaker 1Yeah, it would be. You're doing the missing person and I'm doing the case right. Yes, awesome.
Speaker 2Should I kick it off with our missing person? Sure, okay, so I've got a bit of a cold case. Her name is Shanice Harris. She went missing on May 29, 2017 from Rock Hill. She is a black biracial woman born February 2, 1986. So she would be 36 years old. Her hair is brown. Her eyes are brown. She has light brown skin. Her height was approximately is approximately 5'8". Her weight at last seen approximately 260 pounds. Harris has a tattoo on her right forehand that reads sparks with a z and a tattoo on her left arm of hands folded in prayer that reads rest in peace. So the fbi is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest in this case. She was last seen in Rock Hill, new York, in Sullivan County, on May 29th 2017 and has not been heard from since, and I'll have a little bit more details about her after the case.
Speaker 1Cool beanies. Why did I say cool beanies? I? Don't know, I have no idea, it's not cool beans no no, it's not, I just meant. I don't know what I meant.
Speaker 2I'm tired I guess I meant cool beans that you will tell us more.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, I don't know. I've been looking at a lot of instagram lately, surprise, surprise, and so it's got all like the 80s, 90s, early 2000s um slang and stuff, and so, like I've been using a lot of it for some reason like. Thank you, rachel, for that information exactly that's exactly what I meant, not cool beans that the poor woman is missing.
Speaker 2Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1Okay, so I have the murder of Gary Triano. I have Pamela Phillips written here, but she's the killer and that's not really given much away. I don't think. Yeah, if you don't know this case, you probably haven't been watching True Crime. No-transcript, arizona. As far as the gambling goes, the bingo halls and stuff that was primarily on indigenous casinos at the time, that'll be important a little bit later. So his friend and business partner, rusty Sands, which I think is a great name, described him as being very self-assured, flamboyant. He liked to be the center of attention and was a lot of fun to be around.
Speaker 1In 1985, gary catches the eye of pamela phillips. I'm gonna call her pam for the rest of this. She was a local real estate agent and fairly successful, I believe. She walked into the relationship with about two million dollars herself, so so she was fairly good at her job At the time. She was newly divorced from her first husband and she's out socializing with Gary at parties that are thrown by him and his wife. Gary and Pam become friends. Rusty Sands says in the American Greed episode that Gary was smitten by her and they soon began an affair. Within months of starting the affair, gary divorced his first wife, with whom he had two children. So less than a year after the divorce, he and Pam got married in a lavish ceremony on a yacht in San Diego. Must be nice to have a lot of money.
Speaker 2Well, sure, that's why everybody wants a lot of money. Well, sure, that's why everybody wants a lot of money, right, mm-hmm?
Speaker 1Well, yeah, but I mean to just go on a yacht and get married.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't know if I want to get, I just want. Well, anyway, continue, otherwise we're going to go off on a tangent about money and all that. Those kinds of things. Yeah, no, I know.
Speaker 1I mean, I don't know that I'd want a yacht necessarily I'm just saying it would be nice to have the option.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's nice to have options.
Speaker 1Yes, very true, in a jet-setting, high-style type of life, they purchased a home in Tucson's affluent skyline country club where they hosted their wealthy and famous friends, including want to take a stab At the rich asshole of the 80s and I say rich asshole because he is an asshole- Rich asshole. No, no, no, sure you do, ronald Reagan no no, no, like rich, or he claimed to be rich. Let's say, his daddy loaned him a million dollars.
Speaker 2There you go I was thinking trump, but I was like it can't be trump of course it's trump.
Speaker 1yes, god, yeah, okay, so yeah, okay.
Speaker 2So, um, I was gonna. I was gonna say, why would you be rich and choose to live in Tucson? But now that you said they were friends with Trump, it's all coming together.
Speaker 1Why would that come together?
Speaker 2I don't know Tucson, Tucson, Arizona Douchebags.
Speaker 1In Arizona. We're sorry to anybody in Arizona no there's plenty of nice people in Arizona, but it sounds like Gary wasn't like a terrible person.
Speaker 2Wealth plus Arizona plus Trump conveys a certain image. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1It doesn't mean that they were necessarily friends, but if you wanted to be anybody, you had to hang out with Trump. I don't know. I don't know why I'm trying to justify their friendship with Trump. I'm really not Okay. They also had some expensive cars, obviously.
Speaker 2Being a dick doesn't mean that it's okay to be murdered.
Speaker 1No, I don't think anybody thought that.
Speaker 2Okay, I'm just throwing it out there. Somebody might think that I think that True.
Speaker 1I don't understand why people don't just think the best of others, just assume somebody means it in the nicest way possible.
Speaker 2I don't want to see people murdered, even if they are big dicks.
Speaker 1Yes, okay, okay. But their fortune turns when the real estate market crashes. Gary was highly leveraged, so when real estate values dropped, he owed more than he was worth. Gary then turned, because God only knows why, but then he turned to heavier investment in gaming. However, he has this management company that dealt with tribal bingo halls.
Speaker 1Remember I mentioned that he was into the Indian casino gambling specifically, right? Was he indigenous? No, it's coming, it's coming, okay. So as the management company for the tribal bingo halls, he's able to skim a percentage off all receipts. So, in other words, he's entitled to some of the money. But in the early 1990s, arizona's gaming laws changed so that indigenous tribes could retain all income from gaming on their reservations. So, in other words, between the real estate bust and the fact that he essentially loses most of his gaming receipts, yeah, his income plummets 93% in one year and continued to decline.
Speaker 1So Gary still owed a lot of money, and a lot of it, to some not so great people Like. Apparently he wasn't getting investment from banks necessarily. He was getting them from some questionable individuals, right, including a group from Mexico or northern Mexico. They didn't say what group. I got the idea that it was probably mafia or drug gang or something along those lines, because the attorney of that group said that the group would likely kill Gary if he filed for bankruptcy rather than paying them. Gary filed bankruptcy anyway in 1994 with an estimated $26 million in debt. Oh rich people.
Speaker 2In today's money. He does sound like Trump's friend.
Speaker 1So he had an estimated $26 million in debt. In today's money that's about $55 million today.
Speaker 2How are all these rich fucks allowed to file bankruptcy? But students cannot file bankruptcy on our student loans.
Speaker 1That's awful yeah, it is awful because I know regular people can file bankruptcy, like a relative of mine filed bankruptcy or somebody they know filed bankruptcy. But yeah, not specifically for your student loans, no, okay. So pamela didn't know the extent of the financial trouble that gary was in. They wind up visiting a bankruptcy attorney together and that is where she discovered that gary is nothing like what he portrays himself to be, so he's really not that jet-setting car-owning. I mean, he owns those things but he doesn't really have the money, like he's in debt.
Speaker 2But he did have the money before, though right I'm not sure.
Mysterious Murder and Financial Troubles
Speaker 1It implied that he didn't necessarily have the money, Like he kept borrowing money, which is partly why he was in debt in the first place. Okay, Kind of like Trump. Actually, you should watch that American Greed episode. It's very illuminating. Anyway. So he has 74 pending lawsuits. He owes his attorney $97,000. He owed his former wife $1.8 million Wow. He owed his former wife $1.8 million. Wow. And he owed significant other debts and has, of course, no way to pay any of it.
Speaker 2Imagine just being able to just borrow $1.8 million. It's just like you know. I don't know if you're a white guy in a suit.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I know you can do a lot. You can. Maybe that's what we need to do. Maybe we need to strap our boobs and and our hips and go walk into a bank and be like I want a million bucks to you once he I'm sorry, once pam discovers all of this, she files for divorce and it's finalized in about a month In the agreement, the divorce agreement.
Speaker 1She got the house and the relationship, which apparently had been quite lovely up to the discovery of the debt, then turned truly bad and she winds up selling the house without telling him not that she needed to, since she technically owned it, and she recoups the proceeds which was, I think they said, something like $300,000, and left Tucson with their children to go to, I think, aspen. We'll talk about that in a minute. Then, on November 1st 1996, gary is playing golf. I should say just so things aren't confusing, because I was confused at the time this whole divorce, finding out about the finances thing, that's in 1994. And she absconds in 1994 with her two children. I guess it's really not absconding because it's perfectly legal, but whatever.
Speaker 2Abscond is a fun word.
Speaker 1It is a fun word to say. So this is now Novembermber 1st 1996, so roughly two years later gary is playing golf at the la ploma country club. So it turns out, gary, like many of us, is a creature of habit and he golfed at a particular place at a particular time with a particular group of people or person. Now he owed the club a lot of past dues, so it was unlikely that he would be playing again. In other words, that day would have been the last day that he would have been playing.
Speaker 1Okay, he played 18 holes and then he walks to his car, and he'd done that many times before. But on that day there was someone watching and that person had placed a blue bag on the car's passenger seat. Authorities believe that Gary reached over to pick up the bag and it exploded. He was killed instantly. Detective James Gamber of the Pima County Sheriff's Office was on the scene and began collecting evidence. He described the scene as the roof of the car had been torn off the car from the force of the explosion and had been riddled with holes from the shrapnel.
Speaker 2So whether or not he had picked up the bag, he probably would have gotten it anyways, probably.
Speaker 1The panels were blown out, the rear window and the windshield were also blown out. They actually recovered the windshield in a swimming pool 70 feet away. But it wasn't just that it went 70 feet, it had to go at least 20 feet in the air because there were trees that were about 20 feet tall and it sailed over them in somebody's pool.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1The bomb squad determined that the explosive device was a simple one. It was a pipe bomb that was initiated by a remote control. The remote had to be within a quarter mile of it of the bomb.
Speaker 2Oh snap, so somebody was watching him and set it off.
Speaker 1Yes, Rumors about who was responsible flew around town, including that it was a mob hit right it was. I don't know if it's fairly well known that he was in with some disreputable people.
Speaker 2I just realized that one of my nail polishes popped off. Oh, no.
Speaker 1It popped off in one whole piece, see oh yeah, I don't think I've seen your blank fingers in a long time. They're naked. They're naked. I don't think I've seen mine naked in a long time either. Rumors are flying around town. A lot of people think it's a mob hit right. Gary borrowed a lot of money from some very questionable sources. Also, given that Gary worked in the gaming world and that the bombing was a gangland style of murder, police did think that it could actually be organized crime, like it wasn't just people doing conspiracy theory shit. They really did think it could be that. However, they don't just look at organized crime. They also look closer to home for suspects, as they should. A detective interviewed Pam in her home in Aspen. So yeah, I was right. So she left Tucson a couple years before after the divorce home in Aspen. So yeah, I was right. So she left Tucson a couple years before after the divorce moves to Aspen. Detective in Aspen interviews her Did.
Speaker 2Pam make a pipe bomb?
Speaker 1We'll see. The detective said that she was used to money, used to having it and was struggling to get back on her feet. But he also said that she was very cooperative and even sat down with him without complaint on three different occasions and in those conversations in the investigation up to that point there really wasn't any evidence to connect her to the murder evidence to connect her to the murder. Now she did receive $2 million from a life insurance policy two months after Gary's death, after eight months. The case goes cold for 10 years until the Tucson police get a fresh lead.
Speaker 2That $2 million basically pays off his debt to her.
Speaker 1No, it would pay off the debt to the original wife.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, I thought it was the same wife, no different wife Okay my bad. Then I thought I did something there.
Speaker 1No, no, in 1994, two years before the murder. Okay, so we're going back again. Pam had moved the two kids using that $300,000 she made from selling the house and moved to a very affluent neighborhood in Aspen. So not only did she move to one of the most expensive places in the United States, she decides instead of going to someplace fairly reasonably priced she's going to affluent.
Speaker 1She's going somewhere bougie, bougie, very bougie. So she needed to find a way to make ends meet, and she did that by relying on her friends and making alliances with wealthy people, establishing herself as a realtor. Remember, she had been a realtor in her past life. Establishing herself as that in Aspen was harder than she had expected and her lifestyle exceeded her means being rich or pretending to be rich sounds exhausting.
Speaker 2It does sound exhausting.
Speaker 1I mean being living paycheck to paycheck is exhausting but in a very different way.
Speaker 2Yes, in a different way, like all that networking, all that schmoozing, all that pretense. I know, I don't know if I can do it.
Speaker 1No, I could never be in the business world. I could never do anything that would require that. That's probably why I am where I am in my career. I'm not a schmoozer. Maybe in my next marriage I'll marry a schmoozer and he can do it for me. Right, that's the way to go yeah, it's too late for me you fell in love with an even more introverted person I know, I know we're both allergic to schmoozing.
Financial Fraud and Murder Suspicions
Speaker 1Yes, Okay, so her lifestyle exceeded her means and her passion actually isn't with the real estate business, but with a startup business online. Right, this is the 90s called StarBabiescom. You want to take a guess what that is? It's baby celebrities? No, no, it's baby celebrities?
Speaker 2No, no, different kind of stars, like stars in the sky. Really, is it an astronomy class, not astronomy?
Speaker 1You're thinking too, astrology, oh.
Speaker 2Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was a website.
Speaker 2I aimed aim too high.
Speaker 1You did aim too high it was a website where she claimed uh, she or whoever could predict the future of newborns.
Speaker 1Oh god so there are babies involved, but not in the, not in that way okay, yeah, pam believed that the fledgling company could grow to be worth millions, but she couldn't do it alone. And, um, in case anybody's wondering, I did check starbabiescom does not exist anymore. So if you want to start, so if we want to start our own one, our own one predicting the futures of newborns Nice, that URL is available. So she enlists the help of her neighbor, a self-described business consultant named Ron Young. The two also begin a romantic relationship, even though Ron was not the kind of man that Pam usually went after. He was described as being unsophisticated, unattractive and not wealthy, but she was clearly getting something out of the relationship. In addition to business help, she leaned on Ron when it came to her troubled relationship with her ex Gary. She complained about Gary incessantly. She complained that he didn't pay her enough in child support or spousal maintenance. Ron considered himself a problem solver and a fixer, so he would come up so did he not?
Speaker 2pay the court ordered amount, or did he pay that amount, but she didn't think it was enough uh, it didn't specify, but I would assume he probably couldn't even make the regular payment.
Speaker 1Okay, I mean, technically, I think the court's supposed to look at your income, but that was it, was it?
Speaker 2a reasonable amount, or was it like, because I see some of those like celebrity, like child support payments and they're ridiculous I know.
Speaker 1Well, I don't know. I don't know if they, because he went bankrupt right, so I don't know if, if they based it off of like prior lifestyle together, or if they based it on his actual income, I can't imagine that they would make it so terribly high that he wouldn't have the money to pay it Right. So she either felt like he wasn't paying, it wasn't paying it on time, or that she felt he could pay more, but he just wasn't telling the court, or something like that. I get the feeling. No matter how much he paid her, he, she wouldn't think it was enough though. So Ron again considered himself a problem solver and a fixer, so he would come up with ways where she could I'm sorry, he could solve the problem with her ex. Uh, or she could solve the problem with her ex. He called it the 800 pound gorilla problem. They didn't go on to explain precisely what he meant by that. That's just what he called it apparently.
Speaker 1But by April 1996, things went sour in their relationship. Two of Ron's other clients reported him for fraud and Pam followed suit, reporting to police that Ron was also ripping her off in her Star Baby's business. The Aspen police tried to locate Ron but he was already gone. He was charged with two counts of theft and two counts of forgery and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Police in Aspen get a call from Yorba Linda, California. Ron's rental van had been found parked near his parents home.
Speaker 1Detective crawley of the aspen police flew to california and searched the van. Apparently ron had gone to try and get the van back and then the people there said the police were on their way and so ron just took off, yeah, and left the van, and so the detective was able to search it. He found business documents from star babies and divorce paperwork between gary and pam. There's was also a map of tucson as well as hotel receipts from tucson, a Arizona license plate, a taser and a shotgun. Detective Crawley didn't know what to do with that information until two weeks later when he heard about a car bombing murder in Tucson, Arizona. You're right. Crawley called the Tucson authorities to tell them what he found. So police I mean, obviously they can't find Ron, he's in the wind. So the police go to question Pam, right, so they've already. I think my understanding is they didn't question her a fourth time when they found out this information about her relationship with Ron. That was one of the three times. That's my understanding and that was one of the three times.
Speaker 2That's my understanding.
Speaker 1So when the police question her she minimizes her relationship with Ron, saying that he just did a little financial work for her, so denying the romantic connection. And at that point I don't know that they had any reason to think otherwise?
Speaker 2Well, and if they did, they would probably play it close to the chest.
Speaker 1Yeah, when they get the receipts, those hotel receipts, they find that Ron had been in Tucson in June and July for 18 days, so not November when the murder happened, but months earlier. Now they can't put him in Tucson in November of that year. As I just said, they wanted to ask why he was in Tucson, since he didn't have any ties there, so there's no family or friends for him to visit, or he didn't seem to have any other reason to be there, so it didn't seem like he was going to be there for touristy reasons or business or anything.
Speaker 1But again they couldn't find him. He was in the wind Going back to a few months after the murder. Right Pam took her $2 million from the life insurance and bought a house in Meadowood, which was, or is, a subdivision outside of Aspen. She remodeled the house and started living the lifestyle that she had become accustomed to.
Speaker 2She had become accustomed to. I want to live a lifestyle I've become accustomed to.
Speaker 1I know right. Oh, it's raining. Can you hear that?
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, that's why I was looking out the window.
Speaker 1Well, if you can hear all that stuff, it's raining here in New Mexico for probably the first time in Ever. Yeah, okay, so she's back to socializing. I'm sorry to her jet setting lifestyle. She's socializing, and when they said that I was like how is that an upscale lifestyle? Poor people socialize too. I assume they meant that she went like upscale socializing she. She skied a lot and that is a very expensive sport and she became known as a social jet setter. She moved in social circles with really wealthy people.
Speaker 1When Gary's case was looked at again, nine years later according to Gainbur now, if you don't remember him, he was the original investigator in tucson they had been able to eliminate every possible suspect except for one and that was ron. Young gamber reached out to america's most wanted and convinced them to do a segment on ron and it aired. On november 19th 2005 ron's chiropractor recognized him and called into America's Most Wanted. Apparently, ron had a standing appointment with that chiropractor and when he walked into the office, or was going to walk into the office, the police arrested him. He was taken in on fraud charges those ones from the 90s. He denied involvement. When they talked to him about the murder, he gave police consent to search his car, his home and his storage locker. I think it was in the storage locker. They didn't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what they were talking about. They found four large boxes of evidence.
Speaker 2Ooh rubby rub Did Rob make the bomb and Pam planted it.
Speaker 1Well, we're getting to that. There were a lot of paper records, a computer and some microcassettes. That was a blast to the past.
Speaker 2Do you remember those mini ones?
Speaker 1They should bring that back. They should bring that back. The police put one of the microcassettes in a recorder. Yes, yeah, we should bring that back. They should bring that back. The police put one of the microcassettes in a recorder and they hear Ron talking to Pam. In total they find recordings of 500 phone calls and 100 emails between them over an eight-year period. The topics were wide-ranging, but they mostly talk about money.
Speaker 1The police are able to see that Pam is paying her ex-boyfriend Ron in cash on a regular basis. In some exchanges the amount of money they discuss totaled the amount she would have received from Gary's life insurance policy. Again, that was two million dollars. So like she would say something like, or he would, she'd say something like well, there's two million and I got 1.6 million, so there's 400,000 for blah, blah, blah, whatever, right. So two million. So they never say anything about a murder in these cases. It's strongly suggested. So she sends him the money, generally via fedex, and then sends him the tracking numbers. He recorded all of it, obviously the phone calls, but all the tracking numbers.
Speaker 2400,000 is what she's paying him. We're getting to that Okay.
Speaker 1So he kept all of it. He kept recordings, he kept spreadsheets. The payments went on for about oh, ronnie, ron, yeah, how did you do that? Yeah, the payments went on for about 10 years and the police were able to prove 44 transactions between the two of them. So, yeah, I was thinking that I was like keeping the documents is either really stupid or really smart, because it's smart in the sense that he might. I guess he can turn it back on her.
Speaker 1Exactly, I think that was his thought process. However, if there's no documentation, there's no proof right Of anything of anything, of anything. Okay. So the tapes also showed that their relationship, such as it was, was deteriorating. Pam was getting behind on payments and they were disagreeing about the amount that they had originally agreed upon, which should have been about 400 000, he mentioned he intended to blackmail her that's.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. I'm pretty sure he was like, well, it may be ending, but if you don't keep giving me money I'll turn you in. Yeah, he mentioned that she would be sitting in prison for murder if she didn't pay. The authorities can't put either pam or ron at scene and they cannot prove that either made the bomb. But between the emails, phone calls, transactions and FedEx stuff, they have enough circumstantial evidence to charge them.
Speaker 1On October 16, 2008, ron and Pam are indicted on first-degree murder charges. Pam may have been indicted for murder, but she was living openly in Lugano, switzerland. She had gone to visit her daughter who was going to college there and began at the time dating a wealthy man who was living in the area, so that had given her reason to stay. So whether or not she knew she had been indicted I'm not sure, but anyway. Uh, it's important to note, in case y'all don't know, that switzerland, like many european countries, won't extradite if the accused could face the death penalty. So this is arizona in the early 2000 even now, death penalty state. So the death penalty was dropped in this case. However, the announcement that it would be dropped was made publicly, so Pam was able to run again before the police got there. So police in both countries the US and Switzerland worked together to try and find her. Meanwhile, ron stands trial accused of conspiring with Pam to kill Gary. The prosecution's case rides on the recordings between him and Pam she should have just faced trial.
Speaker 2That was her leverage to not have the death penalty.
Speaker 1Well she still wouldn't have the death penalty. Well, she still wouldn't have the death penalty Because otherwise, even if they found her, they wouldn't extradite her. Maybe she's not in Switzerland anymore? Yeah, most European countries won't. She would have stayed in a European country or any country that wouldn't have extradited.
Speaker 2I thought you were saying that's a unique trait to Switzerland.
Speaker 1No, it's a lot of European countries, okay.
Speaker 2That's good clarification. Yes, Sorry.
Speaker 1Okay, so the prosecution's case against Ron rides on the recordings between him and Pam. In an interview with American Greed, ron claims that his innocent, that he is innocent. God, I can't read my own typing here, okay, ron claims his innocence, which is no surprise, since they all do. Ron claims his innocence, which is no surprise, since they all do. And he claims he left Aspen in 1996 to go on a long driving vacation with his son and was not fleeing fraud charges. He didn't know about them or that they were going to happen. He said he didn't go back to face the charges because he didn't think it was that big of a deal. He says the two million that sounds like rich people stuff. Yeah, but I don't think he was actually rich.
Speaker 2He wasn't. No, okay, fine, steal.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay. So he claims his innocence. He says that he's on that vacation with his son. He's not fleeing the fraud charges. He doesn't go back because he doesn't think it's that big of a deal. And he says the $2 million they discussed on the tapes were about equity Pam had tied up in a San Diego real estate development, not the $2 million from the life insurance policy life insurance policy he claimed.
The Pamela Phillips Murder Trial
Speaker 1I don't think I wrote this down here, but I think what they were trying to say is that he did all of the work that needed to be done by various people so that she wouldn't have to pay all these different people to do that work for her. And because he did all of that work, she owed him money, right, and that is what her. Yeah, and because he did all of that work, she owed him money Right, and that is what he's claiming. That's the $400,000 or whatever. But with all the other stuff they talk about on the tapes, that doesn't seem likely. Ultimately, ron was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences one for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and one for first-degree murder. Okay, so those are two separate charges, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Okay, oh no, I just said it. So, yeah, two life sentences. So a life sentence for the first-degree murder charge and a life sentence for the conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Speaker 2I missed it, but they didn't find any evidence that he built a bomb or that they had supplies to build a bomb or anything like that.
Speaker 1No, they never did that. It's all circumstantial.
Speaker 2And did they ever place either of them, like you know, around or at no?
Speaker 1No, they placed Ron there a few months before for 18 days with no reason to be there.
Speaker 2I mean, I figure that he came to build the bomb.
Speaker 1Well, we're not done yet, Okay, okay. So, as for Pam, we've got the American police involved, right, but we've also got Interpol and the Geneva police, and they are able to track her down to Lichtenstein and then into Vienna where she was finally arrested. She goes back to the US in July 2010. She's booked on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, I believe first-degree charges, just like Ron, and her trial began February 18th 2014. That's a long time. Four years, yeah it 2014. That's a long time. Four years, yeah, it is. That's a long time.
Speaker 2For the whole time she was just chilling in Europe.
Speaker 1No, she came back in the States in 2010. Oh, okay, so part of the defense was that not only was Pam not paying the premium on the insurance policy, a friend was. So they're saying there's two reasons. They're saying that the insurance wasn't the motive for murder, that she had Right, because everybody's saying it's because she went with the money. That's why, she offed her ex they're saying. Two things make that unlikely. Number one is that she wasn't the one paying the premium on the insurance.
Speaker 1Also, she I believe the friend forgot to make the payment the month before the murder, right? So meaning, if you're planning on killing somebody for their life insurance policy, do you pay the premium. Wouldn't you make sure you paid that premium so that it doesn't get canceled, right? Right, she didn't do that, so she must not have killed him for the insurance. That's their argument. That's one of their arguments.
Speaker 2So busy playing the murder that she forgot yeah, but you would still think you would.
Speaker 1I mean, that's kind of an important it is important, but I don't know.
Speaker 2I can see that happening yeah, no, I could someone who forgets things.
Speaker 1Okay, so the defense team also had some new tests done, because this is over a decade later, right? Almost two decades later, right? So they get these new tests done. On the bomb fragments that killed Gary, they were able to find trace amounts of DNA, which excluded Ron, who was the person the prosecution said built the bomb.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's who, I thought, built the bomb.
Speaker 1They also present an alternate suspect, neil McNeese, who Gary ripped off for about $80,000. He was a heroin addict, but he was also a trust fund kid with a lot of money. So my argument against that would be if he's a trust fund kid with millions of dollars.
Speaker 2Why does he give a shit about?
Speaker 1$80,000? Exactly, but the defense claims that that $80,000, plus the fact that he was a heroin addict, plus just the principle right, the fact that he got ripped off Because he's a heroin addict.
Speaker 2That makes him more violent.
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 2You don't think that heroin, like you know, would? Not necessarily make you violent, because doesn't it make you just want to lay around?
Speaker 1I don't know if they were arguing that it makes him more violent or just trying to say he's a disreputable character. Oh okay, disreputable man, that's bullshit. It is bullshit. But you want a defense attorney who's willing to do that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't like it. I don't have to like it, though.
Speaker 1No, you don't have to like it, but it is a technique and you, as a defense defense attorney, have an obligation to use it.
Speaker 2I mean just the same kind of technique that they use with like saying like, oh, like these people listen to heavy metal and shit like that.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, it's also the same shit they do when a woman's been raped. Yeah yeah, it's trash. They're playing to the jury's moral prejudices and it's annoying, but it is an effective defense.
Speaker 2It perpetuates stereotypes about drug addiction.
Speaker 1It does, but the defense claims that he was angry enough to get someone to kill Gary, one to kill gary. Mcneese's doctor did testify that he had threatened, or had mentioned that. He threatened to kill gary on a number of occasions, but also, uh, the prosecution was like the debt occurred in 1991. So why wait five years? Why wait till 1996 to kill the guy? Right, right, good point. Mcneese died of an overdose in 2002 and had never been investigated by the Tucson police.
Speaker 2Did he have a history of any other kind of violent crime? I have no idea.
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 2Any kind of reason to suspect that he would know how to build a pipe bomb.
Speaker 1No, but neither did Ron or Pam, that's true, but they did have. But uh, wait, what else did I say? Um, hold on, hold on, hold on. Did I not put that in? Okay, oh, the other thing was again, maybe I didn't put it in. Um, they didn't say that McNeese built the bomb. They said that he was angry enough that he was able to get a friend who had at least experience in remote control type stuff to build the bomb.
Speaker 2So do they question the friend or try to charge the friend?
Speaker 1I have no idea.
Speaker 2The prosecution claimed that it was I mean obviously that's what the $400,000 was for, not whatever bullshit thing that they were saying. The little committed. They brought up the tapes and the transactions.
Speaker 1They also called Pam's former best friend, laura Chapman, to the stand. I don't know if she's best friend or a best friend or just a friend. I don't remember what they said. She testified that Gary had been over to Pam's house. They had a fight. Gary pulled a gun on her and threatened her. He left and she called her friends and they came over to console her. And while they are consoling her, pam apparently told them there was a $2 million insurance policy and that she should just hire a hitman and have him taken out.
Speaker 2Why would?
Speaker 1she say that I don't know. I mean, we all say dumb shit when we're really angry.
Speaker 2Very true.
Speaker 1In the end, it was a seven-week trial with hundreds of witnesses. On April 8th 2014, pam is found guilty and sentenced to natural life in prison without the possibility of parole. So my sources are American Greed, season 9, episode 4, a Widow's Web and Tucsoncom, but you can look up either Pamela Phillips or Gary Triano and you can find a Dateline episode 48 Hours Vengeance Killer, millionaires, millionaires or whatever. They're in jail. Still, yes, as far as I can tell, they are in jail and I think they're both still alive have any of them like, said anything or been interviewed?
Speaker 1or like well ron had been interviewed right and he said he was innocent okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was gonna be be a question like how do they send anything? Have they changed your story?
Speaker 1Yeah, nah, of course, that American Greed was in 2016 or 2017, so I don't know about anything recently, but when I Googled, there didn't seem to be any recent mention of it. Yeah, so, yeah, so moral of the story besides, don't kill your ex spouse, don't record everything, don't email about it, don't do spreadsheets, even if you think you're gonna get blackmail, leverage.
Speaker 2It's gonna bite you in the ass. Yes, it sure will. And um I mean, don't do any of that no, don't murder.
Speaker 1But if you're gonna, don't be stupid.
Speaker 2Don't blow up your ex with a pipe bomb, mm-mm.
The Pitfalls of Materialism and Consumerism
Speaker 1No, just let it go. Just let it go. It sucks to be poor once you're rich. It sucks to be poor period, but I'm sure it sucks to be poor after you've been rich. But just coast, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it's better to be poor and out of jail they're just not as rich.
Speaker 1Well, I mean I think she was, because she may have had that $300,000, but she was trying to live a rich lifestyle in Aspen, which is where most Well, sure, yeah, if you're a dumbass, then yeah.
Speaker 2But if she had taken that $300,000, then she could have done something smart with it and lived practically, yes, but she could have gone back into real estate and made more.
Speaker 1She did try to go to real estate Remember.
Speaker 2Yeah, but not in Aspen. No, somewhere regular no.
Speaker 1She wanted that lifestyle and I think that's part of it. Again, I think it's really Addictive, addictive, and it's difficult to go back and fall that far.
Speaker 2Wealth addiction. I mean, that's what like with millionaires and stuff like that. Like you know, I think that wealth is really an addiction. Well, yeah, but like our society really Promotes it, reveals it and reveals it, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, no, they do, and so we don't recognize that.
Speaker 1As an addiction. Yeah, that's a yeah addiction. It is just like power, right. Once you get a little bit of it, you want to have more. And I admit look, I admit you know this is nowhere near the same thing, but I had one of the first iPhones, right. It was great. When I went to Egypt, I couldn't afford an iPhone. I had to get one of those old Nokias, right. That was really fucking hard to go from having something really awesome to something really small.
Speaker 1Eventually you get used to it. You do get used to it, but you still also have that fear of missing out. Right Like I couldn't do the things that people could do.
Speaker 2You know, like if you're missing out with stupid shit like nail polish. You're like oh, it's a limited edition nail polish.
Speaker 1I'm like holy shit.
Speaker 2I need it Right, you know I. I need it Right, you know I don't need it no, no.
Speaker 1And that's kind of what capitalism does, right, it causes you. Part of that marketing is to cause you to feel like you're missing out on something.
Speaker 2No, it's like they talk about that in that book Ripe that I read which overall that book was meh yeah. Which overall that book was meh yeah. But they talk about, like you know, whatever San Francisco and like all those tech companies and the protagonist works for a tech company and their whole like job is to create addictive marketing Right To you know. Make the shopping, shopping, online shopping experience addictive like gambling and make you click, click, buy.
Speaker 1Yeah, it does. And, and you know, I notice even on instagram, like you'll have all these pictures from your friends or whatever, and then in the middle of it is a an advertisement of something that you're obviously interested in, because your phone listens to you. You know the algorithm, or whatever. They've seen you looking at something and it'll say limited time offer. Or you know yep, this is.
Speaker 2You know this only, whatever be here, for there's only a limited number, or they try and figure out, yeah, and you're and you're like oh my god, that's something I want I should get it.
Speaker 1Yeah, but if you stop and think for like five, Absolutely they try and figure out what you want. And if you actually stop and like think, okay, if I still want this in a week, maybe I'll get it, Hold on, and you go back like I've done this before, where I forget about it, but then it'll pop up again two months later, and then you're like, oh, you don't want it anymore.
Speaker 1Well, not just that, but like I'll forget it, and then two months later it'll pop up. And's still limited time offer special, whatever and it's like it's been there for two months. So clearly it's not, it's not yeah, no, okay, I'm sorry, no that's a problem I have.
Speaker 2I'm always trying to like predict what you're trying to say not just you, but everybody I know, and finish your thoughts. But but yeah, um no, yeah, I, I've seen that too.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's always limited edition, it's always like, and it's it's hard to ignore it like it doesn't matter how smart you are or that you even know that you're being manipulated.
Speaker 2Sometimes it's just, it is really hard and I have fallen for that. They're like oh, this special deal or something you're like oh my god, it's a special deal.
Speaker 1Yeah, like yeah and yeah. And then, after I buy it, I'm like why? Why did I buy this? Why did I want this in the first? Sometimes I'll get packages in the mail from amazon and I'm like, why did I buy that again?
Speaker 2yeah, that's. That's the other thing, though, that I was going to say, like if you do buy the thing and you get it and you're like, oh, this is really similar to another thing that. I already have and like I probably could have done without this thing, Right? Or it's not as special as it seemed at first blush right, or it is limited.
Speaker 1But then you're like, but what you may want it now, but are you gonna want it five years? Like I think of all those like mcdonald's shit or the beanie babies right, the fucking beanie babies and like maybe at the time, but now they're not worth shit. Yep, I mean, maybe some of them are, but yeah, um no, no, people don't care about beanie babies anymore.
Speaker 1Yeah and and I also think about things that I bought like 10 years ago, because I did really like it 10 years ago, but now I'm 40 and I'm like I really don't want to be walking around with a care bear on my shirt, right, you know, like I stay young and whatever, I still like the Care Bears, but I don't want to advertise the Care Bears, yeah, or whatever it is. You know, yeah, yeah. So I guess my point is we have to really work at being mindful about what you're buying and what you're looking at, about what you're buying and what you're looking at Like I bought those.
Speaker 2I told you about those pants that they had advertised for on like Facebook. They're advertising these pride pants and.
Speaker 2I wanted them for the pride parade, which we didn't end up going to anyway since Jay's not feeling well, but I wanted them for the parade that was today and I ordered them right at the beginning of June. Yeah, and it said like ships in three to five days. The whole thing was like a fucking scam. Yeah, and, which is another thing that's completely infuriating, they have all these advertisements on like Facebook, instagram. Some of them are not even legit Right Companies. Yeah, and like, they fucking sent me like a thing. It had a. You know how you get like order numbers or whatever. Yeah, my order number was like rainbow outfit 1984 or whatever. Yeah, my order number was like rainbow outfit 1984 or something, and I was like that doesn't seem like a real order number at all.
Speaker 2No it doesn't. So I sent them an email. I was like you know, like after like 10 days or something, I was like are y'all going to shit my pants Because, like I want to use?
Speaker 1pants for pride and right, they're not coming for pride yeah, I don't want them, that's like, and they never got in touch with you yeah, what like.
Speaker 2That's why I want a pair of fucking pants that look like a goddamn pride flag, right, not for all the time. Yeah, for pride, yeah, and they never got back to me, yeah, and so another week passed and so we disputed it. Yeah, that's good, but, yeah, absolute bullshit.
Speaker 1It is. It is bi-weekly, bi-monthly. Uh bitch about capitalism. Yeah, do you want to finish your, your missing person?
Speaker 2oh, yes, good idea. So, yeah, this uh is an updated article from I can't talk this April 2024, this year, and it says that that was her birthday week, her 36th birthday. But instead her family is searching for answers after Shanice Harris's I should repeat her name because you guys probably forgot. Shanice Harris should have celebrated her 36th birthday last April, but her family is still looking for her five years after her disappearance. After she left a friend's home Two days after she was last seen, her car was discovered that's never a good thing In a wooded area near Thompson, new York. What happened to her? Her friends and her family described her as warm, loving and a bit of a goofball with a natural gift for making people laugh. Her sister describes her as having a pure heart, a person who often helped elderly women with their groceries, but she was also someone who knew how to get the party started.
Speaker 2Shanice preferred to hang out at home and was close to her family. She would always check in with her sisters to tell them that she loved them. Her favorite saying was F-O-E family over everything. So when her family hadn't heard from her after she left to meet a friend, they knew that something wasn't right. She was last seen leaving her home around 8.20 pm to visit a friend on May 29, 2017. Her sister remembers talking to her less than an hour before she left. She had called her girlfriend via FaceTime before midnight at the friend's home time. Before midnight at the friend's home, a friend reported shanice left their rock hill new york home with someone they didn't know. Yeah, by 9 30 am the next morning, shanice was not home, which prompted shanice's girlfriend to reach out to shanice sister Tamika. Additionally, shanice had failed to call her mother, who was traveling to Florida, which was a big red flag because Shanice would always call to check her mother after flights. Shanice's sister Tamika immediately went to the Monticello Police Department to report her sister missing. However, she was told she needed to wait 24 hours to file a report. Tamika obliged, but when she returned the next day she received conflicting information and was asked why she didn't come in sooner. That's frustrating. That is frustrating.
Speaker 2Two days after her initial disappearance, shanice's dark gray four-door Volkswagen Jetta was discovered along Southwoods Drive at the town of Thompson, new York, less than five miles from where she was last seen. Multiple searches were executed in the area where her car was found, with no sign of Shanice. Unfortunately, there is limited information about Shanice's case, but no shortage of questions. Who did Shanice leave her friends home with? Why was her sister told to wait to report her missing then, according to the NYPD, when? When? According to the NYPD, sorry, there isn't a waiting period. Did no, they should sue. Did waiting longer to report her missing impact the search? Where the case stands today, shanice Harris is still missing. Her family is active in their efforts to find Shanice. They put up billboards near the area where she was last seen and on August 31st 2019, her family participated in an event to help raise awareness for missing people within the 845 area code. Shanice's mother still pays for her cell phone, just in case she calls. She shared in a 2019 interview.
Speaker 2The FBI recently increased their reward to $10,000 for any information related to Shanice's disappearance. So if you do have any information, please contact the Federal Bureau of Investigations New York office at 212-384-1000 or the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office confidential tip line at 845-807-0158. Shanice is described as a biracial woman with brown hair, brown eyes, 5'8", weighs between 260 and 300 pounds. She has rosary beads in her hair, both of her ears are pierced and she was wearing prescription Versace eyeglasses. She has multiple tattoos, which I described some of her tattoos earlier. The night she went missing she was wearing a black and gray hooded sweatshirt with four pockets, black sweatpants and black Nike Air Max sneakers. Okay, and that about covers it, and we can put up her picture when we post on social media and, yeah, so hopefully her family will find out some information about what happened to her soon. That's a very tragic disappearance.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a very tragic disappearance and, yeah, really frustrating to hear different, yeah, information from the police about what she should have done. Yeah, um, so hopefully they'll learn what happened to her.
Speaker 1Yeah, hope so, hope so, hope so, hope. So, all right, okay, what were your sources?
Speaker 2Yeah, so it was the FBI missing persons and the article came from Uncovered Cool. So we'll make sure to post those in our show notes. Yes, we will.
Speaker 1What do we do now? Oh yeah, what we've been reading, watching. What have you been?
Speaker 2watching, so we've been watching. We just finished up through season four of Star Trek Below Decks. There is a season five, but it's not. I don't know if it's like airing right now, or it's not on Paramount Plus yet, so I want to. I don't know if maybe it's not out yet. So I know there's a season five coming and the, the producers or whatever, or the network has said that they are going to cancel the show after season five. But I know that there is like an effort online to save the show.
TV Show Reviews and Podcasts
Speaker 2Like there's like a Facebook group Save Lower Decks and there's yeah, there's petitions and stuff to save it. So maybe if anybody loves star trek, lower decks then go sign the petition sign some petitions? Yeah, because I mean it's a awesome, hilarious animated star trek series and so many animated series go for so long. Even the actors have said that they want to continue doing this show. The fans have said that they love this show. It seems like there's no reason to cancel.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, look, the Simpsons have been going on for how long.
Speaker 2Exactly, like over 40 years Exactly.
Speaker 1The original.
Speaker 2March actress just passed away. Yeah, and they still are going on ad infinitum, so there's no reason that Lower Decks can't get a few more seasons.
Speaker 1No.
Speaker 2And yeah, it's really great. It's canon, it's also hilarious, so you should definitely watch it. Do you have Paramount Plus? Yes, so yeah, you should check it out. It's really fun.
Speaker 1Okay, I'm still working on my to be watched from 10 years ago.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah, I'll be really sad if the next season is the last season, because I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 1Yeah, what about you? What have you been watching? What have I been watching? Nothing, nothing, uh what have you been up to well in terms of watching?
Speaker 2not really anything that I can remember I haven't like seen you in like two weeks I know, yeah, I really haven't been watching anything, unless you count watching podcasts, sure, um so what podcasts have you been listening to?
Speaker 1well, I found decon chamber, I think is what it's called, which is I'm cannot for the life of me. Right now I'm totally blanking on the actors names, but it's um malcolm and tucker from enterprise, the actors who do that. Apparently they're good friends in real life and they have their own podcast and they interview other people's star tracks, so they did one. I forget who the first person was.
Speaker 2I didn't want to listen. I didn't listen to that I will.
Speaker 1I didn't listen to the first one. The second one was judzia dax, whose name I'm also blanking on, yeah, who apparently lives in New Mexico. Really, yeah, that's stalker, right. And I think that the newest one, I want to say Terry Cruz, but I don't know who that is. Was she a falcon? Yeah, that sounds right.
Speaker 2Yeah, was she T'Pol.
Speaker 1Yes, okay, t'pol. So T'Pol is the newest one. They only have three, okay, so Malcolm Reed yes Is. Dominic Keating. Yes, I wanted to call him Malcolm, dominic, so I kind of got it right. And Trip Tucker is Connor Trainor. Yeah, so, connor Trainor. Neither of them look like who they did, but I mean, I guess it has been like 20 years, hasn't it? Jadzia Dax is Terry Farrell. Terry Farrell, so who? There is a Terry Crews? I'm pretty sure there's a Terry Crews.
Speaker 2And hang on with T'Pol. I thought her name started with a P too, but maybe I'm getting confused with T'Pol Jolene Blalock.
Speaker 1No, was it Blalock? Let's see Decon Chamber Podcast. Let's see Decon Chamber Podcast. Let's check out. I'm just going to put in Terry Crews, maybe it's. Oh my God, the nope, that's a man. So nope, not that person. I don't know. I don't know. I do not recognize her, though, but I don't recognize anybody because they've I mean, it's been 20 years, you know? Okay, let me look up the podcast.
Speaker 2Okay, Hoshi is Linda Park.
Speaker 1It's not her.
Speaker 2It's not jerry ryan, is it?
Speaker 1no, it's not jerry ryan. I know who jerry ryan is I, I know you do.
Speaker 2I'm just like jerry, sounds like terry, no well, it still says terry fair.
Speaker 1I know they have a third one, but I guess it's not out yet, or maybe they. Maybe I just got old Instagram info. Robin Curtis, how did I get Terry Crews? Okay, robin Curtis, I'm not Ronan Curtis. Oh, william Shatner was the first episode. Oh, nice yeah.
Speaker 2That's cool. Yeah, she was cool. Yeah, she was Savik. Right, she was one of the Saviks Robin Curtis.
Speaker 1Yeah, lieutenant Savik, after Christy Ellie, yeah, yeah, okay, that's probably why I don't remember her, yeah, so anyway, I started listening to them and I think you can find them on YouTube and it's their faces, which is nice, okay. The other one I watched was a new episode of Juicy Scoop, because Matt Murphy was on it. He was being interviewed about the Sherry Pampini documentary. Okay, and so she does. You can listen to it and you can also watch it on YouTube. She does, you can listen to it, you can also watch it on YouTube. I've also been watching. For some bizarre reason, I've gotten really into these.
Speaker 2A Day in the Life Of yeah, we were telling you about that one.
Speaker 1Both, Well, not both. Actually Three places Japan, Korea and, for some bizarre reason, Nigeria. It's really cool to see how other people live it is really cool, but I don't know what possessed Nigeria exactly Like. Why didn't I search for like Poland or something? Why not, you know. Well, I'm just trying to think of why I did that I have like a very marginal amount of Nigerian ancestry.
Speaker 2Yeah, Like 0.9% I think.
Speaker 1Yeah, well%, I think yeah, well, I don't even have that. Maybe I did, I don't remember. It popped up and I started watching them because apparently they have anti-gay policies.
Speaker 2I think a lot of African countries do yeah like yeah, that was part of my, we talked about that on the podcast last year. Thanks to British colonization. So thanks to the yeah, that was part of my, we talked about that on the podcast last year. Thanks to British colonization. So thanks to the rest of my ancestry.
Speaker 1Okay, but we can only have one rant an episode, so we already had our capitalism rant.
Speaker 2That rant was in the last episode. Yes it was.
Speaker 1We don't need to really go down it again. No, let's see. So that's what I've been watching. I mean, I do the same usual stuff Background, forensic files. I've gotten back into forensic files, but again, mostly background. Yeah, so that's it. And also, I guess, since they're podcasts, that's technically, technically, would have been listening to as well. Yeah, reading has been, I've been on and, oh, what else have I?
Speaker 2been watching. I've also been watching booktube, so there are a lot of books I would like to read, but I probably oh my god, I bet I have not watched booktube and I already have so many books that I want to read. I I imagine that if I start down the path of watching booktube, that it's going to grow into an insurmountable pile. Yeah, yeah, mine's pretty insurmountable.
Speaker 1You're looking at most of them. Yeah, yeah, no, and for me it's not even like I don't really care about the reviews of the books. I like the vlogs. I'm a nosy person. I want to see people's lives. Yeah, so I like watching the reading vlogs when they're like also going out to like coffee shops and movies and grocery shopping and shit like that. That's. I enjoy that stuff too. Ok, I can see that being fun. Yeah, I'm a nosy, nosy person. I am. I'm a nosy, nosy person. I am. I'm definitely the kind of person who's going to look through your medicine cabinets. You know, look away.
Speaker 2There's like so many there's. Actually, I don't have a medicine cabinet. We have a really big mirror, yeah, and we don't have a medicine cabinet.
Speaker 1Yeah so yeah, my, I have a medicine cabinet. Yeah so yeah, my cat, I have a medicine cabinet. It's huge but it's useless. It doesn't fit anything.
Speaker 2Our medicine cabinet wouldn't be able to fit all the meds that we have yeah, no, my meds are are on a bookshelf.
Speaker 1Yeah, on a shelf of a bookshelf yeah, that's where ours are too yeah, I mean not that I need much space, but that's where they happen to be. That's it. Reading, though, mary, we did, I did, I finished, mary, and what did you think? Well, I loved it. I knew I would love it. I knew you would love it too, because those are spoilers, but there are all the kinds of a lot of things that you like that.
Speaker 1I like in a, in a book, um, or that will at least get me to pick up a book, right, um, although I didn't know that those things were going to be in the book, because it's not advertised that way, but yeah, I liked it. I was surprised well, I guess I wasn't surprised because I've seen reviews of it, but at the same time I was surprised that such a that a man could write a woman so well. They're actually non-binary. I believe he doesn't say that he calls himself a straight white man, do they?
Speaker 2Yeah, in the review or in the prologue they do In the afterword he called himself a straight white man.
Speaker 1I thought that they were non-binary. That is what I heard as well, which was why I was confused. I mean, he calls himself a man Because he even said in his afterword he says he calls himself a man because he even said in his afterword he says why would I have the right who has the right to write whom? And, as a white man, how do I have the right, or do I have the right to write about a menopausal woman? Yeah, and that he had to go through. He actually had to ask women who have been through menopause to make sure that he got it right this is about Mary.
Speaker 2This definitely seems to indicate that he is a man, that he is a man I am. Bd says gender identity, man.
Speaker 1Okay, okay, I don't know where, because a lot of people were saying he was either non-binary or trans it must be some whatever, just internet rumor yeah. Because Mary is quite good and yeah, must be some whatever just internet rumor, yeah, yeah, that it got picked up Because Mary is quite good and, yeah, a lot of men do struggle to see things from that kind of perspective.
Speaker 1Yeah, and he kind of mentioned that too. But he did a good thing in that he got the women in his life to proofread it and to ask questions, which I think men don't like to do.
Speaker 2Exactly. That's just the problem. A lot of yeah.
Speaker 1Men just don't listen to women, yeah or ask questions or think, to ask questions and I understand, I understand the whole not thinking to under to ask questions, because sometimes you just don't think that there's a question to ask, right Right, because you live in a world as you are and you don't necessarily realize that other people's experiences are different.
Speaker 2I think that the way that a lot of men are socialized, you know, or AMAB, people are socialized to, you know, not you know, be confident. You know, be leaders. You know, yeah, you know, take the bull by the horns and you know whatever like asking questions and being listeners and being whatever you know passive, you know passive learners or whatever you know that's contrary to that, so yeah.
Speaker 1Awesome job.
Speaker 2Nat Cassidy, yeah, and I want to read his other book.
Speaker 1Nestlings yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we should put that on our list, okay.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, this was. This was a really, really good book and again, I can't say what I really loved about it. Without giving anything away, right, I will say that not only was she written well, but the rage aspect, which is not a giveaway like that's first five pages, ten pages, whatever, also great, right, the whole being dismissed, being overlooked, and then having it be doubly so for a woman because that happens to you as a woman, but then when you age it happens even worse.
Speaker 2What is the word that I'm looking for? Yeah, I mean, mean it's kind of. It's kind of, you know, freeing, liberating, in that way, like you know that you know she does those because you kind of visions ah you just want to yeah yeah, yeah, and and so she does those things Right. Yeah, so that's kind of liberating, yeah, um, but yeah, when you you send me that message, you were like she did that thing and I don't want to keep reading. I was like, keep reading, keep reading.
Speaker 1Oh, oh, yeah, that thing, yeah, and then, and then it happened a second time, yeah, and I also didn't want to keep reading, but I did, I progressed. I don't know if I said I didn't want to keep reading. I think I just said I didn't like it. Yeah, I don't remember, it was a while ago, but yeah, no, I don't. That is a trigger warning. I don't handle that well, weirdly. Death of other types is fine, right Of other organisms.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Of other life, but that life no.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1So, yeah, I finished it and we both started on Fahrenheit 451. Yep, I thought it was longer than it is, but my book actually has about 100 pages of essays from other people about it. Yeah, it's pretty short.
Speaker 2I'm almost halfway through and I should probably finish it tonight or tomorrow. I am only about a quarter through, because I listened to it not yesterday but the day before yesterday when I was doing chores, and then yesterday I didn't read anything at all because I was just, yeah, watching videos and conspiracies about shark attacks.
Speaker 2Yeah, not that. I'm not a shark hater, don't get me wrong. I'm a shark lover, okay, yeah, but I'm also not one who's unrealistic about sharks. Okay, I think sometimes people get a little bit unrealistic and they're like sharks are just a big puppy dogs and they will never, ever hurt anybody, and they are large predators and some, and they may not actively want to hurt a person, but you don't always look like a person sometimes you look like fish and not every shark species is the same, right, and some shark species tiger sharks are more opportunistic than others.
Speaker 2Yeah, and the ones I was watching were all tiger shark attacks. You know there is, of course, context. You know the context of what it is. You know people who swim with tiger sharks all the time and and are okay, and there's professional divers that dive with tiger sharks all the time and, but in certain contexts then you're going to be seen as prey and unfortunately, you know that happens and, yeah, one of the ones I was reading, they were claiming it was a mako, but I was like I don't know.
Speaker 2I think that one's a tiger too. I think that one's a tiger too, because there wasn't, there wasn't a lot of evidence about that one and the video's not doesn't really show a lot on that one.
Speaker 2So but yeah, don't, uh, don't, jump off a cruise ship at night. That's especially not if they're chumming the water. No, night sharks are crepuscular, that's another thing. So they're hunting at dawn and dusk. Yeah, that's their feeding time, right? So yeah, maybe, maybe when you go on your cruise yeah yeah, where? Where are they gonna be cruise cruising like, where's the, where's the ship gonna be?
Speaker 1are you asking me yes, oh, oh my, the crime cruise your cruise.
Speaker 2I'm going on. Uh, I know we're going to the bahamas?
Speaker 1yeah, that's where the sharks are. Yeah, I know I won't be going in, don't worry about it, I mean.
Speaker 2I mean, you can go in, just don't jump off the fucking boat.
Speaker 1I don't plan on jumping off the if I get. If I go off the boat, I've been pushed, yeah I have been murdered. I will remember that. Okay, good, and I will leave that here in the things. So if I disappear on my cruise, yeah I have been murdered. Yeah, yeah, I will not willingly go anywhere with anybody.
Speaker 2Yeah, let me know when you get back if they chum the waters.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, I don't think the crews will. Yeah, you stop at islands along the way and they do things.
Speaker 2Yeah, this wasn't like a big cruise, it was like a little booze cruise.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, this, this is a like city, you know, like small city on a ocean style cruise.
Speaker 2But one thing that big cruises do sometimes do is dump the leftovers, yeah, overboard, and the the sharks don't eat the leftovers, but the leftovers do attract fish, right, which then attract sharks, yeah, yeah yeah, so yeah, still don't eat the leftovers, but the leftovers do attract fish, right, which then attract sharks. Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah still don't do it yeah no, no, if I go overboard.
Speaker 1I have been murdered. Yeah, I have been murdered, yeah but uh no, I will be staying as far away from balconies as I possibly. Good idea dying on a cruise ship is one of my biggest fears.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1It's one of my biggest fears In any way.
Speaker 1Well, I'm proud of you for facing your fears Not just like falling off or being thrown off. You could also get sucked under the ship. Get sucked under the ship, but also hitting something like the Titanic and drowning that way or some fluke happened Like all of it scares, you know. Or just meeting up with somebody awful and they just murder you, Right, Right. Or going on the cruise with somebody you love and they decide to murder you. Because that happens too, no, Because it happens to no, it's you know. Or even just going someplace getting sick and then not having the medical care you need yeah, that's true, cruise ships are also like lots of disease there.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and not really any Sorry.
Speaker 2That's okay.
Speaker 1No, trust me, there's nothing you're going to come up with that I haven't thought about. But yes, I am facing. I'm facing a few fears here I'm facing the open ocean. I love the ocean and I like being in the water me too but I do not like the deep ocean. Where I can, yes, I do not like that scares the shit out of me, um, that's why.
Speaker 2I love watching all those movies and those books. I know, I know.
Speaker 1I want to be scared.
Speaker 2I don't want to be scared bad enough to jump off a cruise ship.
Speaker 1I am. So I'm facing the fear of the open ocean, I'm facing my fear of cruise ships, I'm facing my claustrophobia that I didn't even realize I had until I started thinking about the fact that there aren't any windows in the room I'm in. I am facing, you know, illness, fears, right Right, and people, yeah Right. I mean, I'm not really afraid of people, but I do have that phobia of it's like claustrophobia, but it's with people, yeah. So, even though this ship is what, like a mile, mile and a half, long I'm still.
Speaker 1It's still a close. I'm still know that I'm going to be in a closed space with thousands of people. So right now, just saying that kind of makes me hyper, to hyperventilate you know you can get like a service dog for that Like.
Speaker 2you can get like a service dog that like creates like a barrier between you and other people.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's for me. A lot of times it's the thought more than it is the actual thing. Yeah, so I'm facing all of those fears, so yay me.
Speaker 2Go, katie Go.
Speaker 1Katie, all for the love of those fears.
Speaker 2So yay me Go, katie Go.
Speaker 1Katie.
Speaker 2All for the love of true crime All for the love of true crime.
Speaker 1I would not be on that cruise if it was not for CrimeCon or Crime Cruise. I wouldn't. I've never, ever wanted to be on a cruise, ever Right. But I'm doing it for true crime. Let's hope it's worth it.
Speaker 2I'll let you know, if I don't die on the cruise, I might consider one of those alaska cruises where you get to see whales and shit yeah, you know, I went on one of those.
Speaker 1I never saw anything, damn it, when I was there. That's the issue, that's the problem that you, when you get there on the boat, they will tell you you sign a little thing saying that you understand that you may not see anything If you don't see a whale. Yeah, that nothing is promised. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2I went whale watching in Monterey and I saw a blue whale.
Speaker 1Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I would like to see whales.
Speaker 2Yeah, I expected to see a lot of dolphins, humpbacks or greys, yeah, so blue whale was a delightful surprise, yeah.
Speaker 1My fears will be faced.
Speaker 2How did we get on that Sharks cruise ships. Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. All your fears in one.
Speaker 1All my fears in one.
Speaker 1Yes, drowning, wasn't that one of your fears? Also, that, yeah, any type, anything where I will lose my breath, any type of suffocation, yeah, style death is a fear of mine. Yeah, yeah, no, like I really one of the things that I really, really, really want to do in my life and I've wanted to do it for decades is learn to scuba dive. I would love to scuba dive right, but I am absolutely petrified that I will drown or that the oxygen thingy will stop working, or that somebody I'm diving with because you really shouldn't dive alone will like cut the thing and like I'll die or puncture it and I'll die like 23 meters down or something.
Speaker 1No.
Speaker 2Shark movie. It's all those. It's not very scientifically accurate.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And I hear it's not very scuba dive accurate either, but it's like Mandy Moore and another chick. They're in like shark cage and the shark cage falls to the bottom of the sea. And they're running out and they don't die. They're. They're running out of air and the sharks are. The sharks are coming.
Speaker 1There's deadly sharks all around and they have to survive yeah, no, I'm not gonna watch, but yeah, so I don't know, maybe when I move to california and get closer to an ocean, I will, yeah, learn to scuba dive. I'll get over that fear. I'll face that one, we'll see. I. I face my fears all the time. I do it all the time.
Speaker 2It's just no, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1Um no, I also will not be watching titan. I haven't seen any information or anything on Titanic until I sign up for that crime cruise, and now every other thing I see everywhere is about Titanic.
Speaker 2Titanic.
Speaker 1yeah, I really don't want to remember that, I don't want to think about it. What?
Speaker 2assholes. Whoever did the Facebook algorithm or?
Speaker 1Instagram algorithm. I know.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're like. Don't you want to remember these shipwrecks? Right, exactly, yeah well, you're gonna be in the bahamas, not in the middle of the frigid atlantic ocean. There aren't any, even any fucking icebergs there anymore, no, but anything could happen.
Speaker 1I mean, that that's my thing. I don't. I don't think. I don't think that titanic style thing is gonna happen, yeah, but there are lots of other ways the ship can go down. Oh my god, and it freaks me the fuck out. You're fine, I know. I. I know realistically, I know realistically, nothing is gonna happen. I will come back safe and sound. But it's the possibilities that make one afraid. That is what anxiety is. That is what fear is right, yeah, very true. And so once you face them, then you realize maybe it's not so bad. But leading up to that point I'm going to be freaking out.
Speaker 2I'm sure once I get there I'll be absolutely fine 23 meters down also has a sequel that's even worse and it's called 24 meters down, and in that one they're like cave diving in an underwater cave with like ancient ruins and somehow, in these very enclosed quarters, these enormous, blind, great white cave sharks have evolved and and they're out to get them, and it's got john corbett in it I love john corbett.
Speaker 1He must be hard up.
Speaker 2He gets eaten by a shark rather spectacularly. Oh no, I won't be watching that one either. I mean, they're very fake looking sharks.
Speaker 1Now, I admire people who go cave diving too. That's another one. I don't think I could ever do that.
Speaker 2Cave diving freaks me out.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, and cave diving in water yeah, no too, yeah, and cave diving in water. Yeah, no, no, which is why one of my favorite horror books is the Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling.
Speaker 1Yeah, Because it's about cave diving in water.
Speaker 2Partially. Yes, yeah, it's cave, like on a strange. She's on a strange planet in a cave. She's in a like a body suit that she's dependent on for life and she also has to dive in various parts and she isn't sure if she's losing her mind or not. Yeah, that's scary, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, thank you, no thank you.
Speaker 2It's delightful, yeah, and it's also queer, but it's quite like a very marginal part of the story. Yeah.
Book Reviews and Reading Plans
Speaker 1Okay, anything else now that we've detoured quite a bit, yeah.
Speaker 2Sorry, so I have read some other stuff Hang on. Let me say what those things are Okay. So I read A Bripe by Sarah Rose Etter. It was just okay it does. It kind of talks about the existential crisis of being a millennial and how you're never enough and how you can never fucking get ahead in this capitalist work culture and as a woman.
Speaker 1Yeah, don't give too much away. I stopped to read that one.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much all I have to say for it. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be Right, but it was okay. Yeah, I read Die Cat by Jenny Friend Davis, which I have had on my list for so long, you know, and I've been looking forward to for so long, and sadly I didn't like it.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I think you did talk about that. Yeah, I did talk about that, okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, so I finished it.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's not your cup of tea. It's not my cup.
Speaker 2Pretentious lesbians in New York. I can see, maybe, what she's trying to do. She's trying to make some kind of statement about queer culture, but it's like the queer culture of like the elites, the upper east siders. And.
Speaker 1I'm like I don't care, right?
Speaker 2you know like that's not or ever going to be me right and like like I get it, it's. It's about frivolity, you know, like how people behave, like how their actions are basically a pretension, or whatever.
Speaker 2And how it's frivolous and how it's joyful, but at times I can't really tell if the author is for or against that. I think it would have worked more for me if it had been a shorter story, right, yeah, so I gave it three stars and I gave it a review that it was tedious. I read Big Swiss by Jen Began. I'm not sure if that one was quite delightful. Yeah, that's another queer story, but, yeah, I quite enjoyed that one. It's about like a woman going through like a middle age crisis. She's going through like a mental health crisis and she has this affair with a much younger woman and it's quite unethical.
Speaker 2It's a big ethics breach because she's like a transcriber for this therapist and and she the the woman she's having an affair with is a patient of the therapist and so she learns about the woman from right during the transcription and then she meets her in real life and has an affair with her yeah, that is a yeah violation major yeah, um, but it's quite a fun romp. Yeah, the whole story is quite fun and it's um, you know it deals. It deals with some real serious issues of trauma and mental health and suicidal ideation, and not too heavy of a way, but heavy enough like in places and yeah, it was real good.
Speaker 2Yeah, I really enjoyed that one, so I gave it four stars, but I would say it's four and a half stars for me. But, like I said, I've complained before about how I wish that I had a more nuanced rating system. And then I'm currently reading in addition to Fahrenheit 451, I'm reading a book called I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me by Jameson Shea, and it is a young adult horror novel about a young black ballet dancer in the. What's the? I already forget.
Speaker 2I should know this because I was listening to in the book but basically the, the dance company in paris. Right, yeah, she's just graduated from this like elite parisian dance academy and now she's, she's been accepted into, like the whatever, the premier Paris ballet company. However, she's an excellent dancer and she's worked so hard for this for many years. But she has to deal with racism and all kinds of politics and bullshit and stuff like that and all kinds of politics and bullshit and stuff like that, and so she basically makes like a Faustian bargain with a dark god represented by a river of blood. Ooh, yeah, to give her power, the power to be undeniable. Good for her, yeah, good for her indeed, and so I'm quite enjoying that Mm-hmm. And then, of course, fahrenheit 451. Yeah, good for her indeed.
Speaker 1And so I'm quite enjoying that. And then, of course, fahrenheit 451. Yeah, what are we going to read next after we're done with Fahrenheit? Are we going to read in Austin? Are we going to read? Well, we have to read our book, our witch book. Oh, yeah, we got to read that one. Yeah, oh, that's right, we got to talk about that. Where is that book for me? The Witch of New York. So next episode, episode 20, we will be discussing the Witch of New York, the Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice by Alex Hortis. H-o-r-t-i-s. Episode 20,. We've got our book. I will put the title and the author in the show notes.
Speaker 2I will make an episode. It will be about crimes.
Speaker 1Yes, and it will be short.
Speaker 2It will be short.
Speaker 1The last one was supposed to be short, I know. Well, this one should be short too, because we're talking about the book. Yes, because we're going to talk about the book.
Speaker 2Yeah, okay, so the book is part of the thing, so I need to make a short one.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay, got it so, like subscribe, follow review would be good. Download please. Downloads are helpful. Yes, they are um and hit us up on our socials because crickets again have you checked since last.
Speaker 2You can listen to us anytime. If you run out of wi-fi, you can listen to us. Yep, oh, we have 90 followers oh, that's nice, okay, nice.
Speaker 1Thank you all. That's awesome. Thank you, um. I will make sure rachel checks more regularly if you would like to send us dms or emails or whatever. Um, yes, yeah, ask us questions.
Speaker 2Tell us something you would like us to do every time I miss posting on social media, I will accept being flogged publicly. There you go. In the village square.
Speaker 1Flogged and shamed. Yep, alright, put me in the stocks. There you go. Alright, so we will talk to you later. Okay, bye.
