Welcome to Colorado! | John "Jack" Gilbert Graham & Alex Ewing

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Episode 17

Welcome to Colorado! From the vastness of the Rocky Mountains to the 300 days of annual sunshine, and the diverse cities to some of the most fu*ked-up murderers, this state has something for everyone.

With stories like JonBenét Ramsy, Columbine High School, Tedd Bundy, and the Aurora Theater shooting, Kevin and Brandon found two stories that are just as awful. With perspective from our co-host Kevin, whose formative years were spent in various cities throughout the state, this week's episode is about two awful humans that took the lives of many, right in the heart of the West.

Get ready for this insane episode, and forewarning, it contains the retelling of some traumatic sexual assaults and gory events. Kevin starts us off by diving into the story of a greedy, narcissistic man with severe mommy issues. John "Jack" Gilbert Graham, a hapless criminal and one of Colorado's worst mass murderers, is a dude who didn't get the memo that the song "It's Raining Men" was about delicious, sexy men raining down on you, fulfilling your ultimate gay naked fantasies.

Instead, he thinks the song means something quite sinister. Stupid boy. Then Brandon dives into the story of a 12-day murderous rampage that would take over 30 years to convict a murderer who had no motive. The story of the Colorado Hammer Killer, Alex Ewing, is a fu*ked-up tale of a small man with weirdo tendencies and a lot of hatred.

The moral of this story, friends... Lock. Your. Doors! If you enjoy the episode, please leave us a review and 5-star rating and be sure to subscribe to our podcast! And lastly, if you have a Homotown murder you want to share with us, send it over to murder@homocidepodcast.com.

Resources and References

Learn more about Alex Ewing:

• Where Are Kim Haubenschild and Vanessa Bennett Now?

• Denver Hammer Killer

• The Shocking and Gruesome True Story of the Colorado Hammer Killer

• Alex Ewing Guilty Verdict Closes Book on Hammer Killer After 38 Years

• The Colorado “Hammer Killer” From 1984 Murder Spree Identified

• 1984 Colorado hammer killer was no “criminal mastermind,” just an average burglar who evolved into a predator, FBI profiler says

• She Saw Her Family Murdered by a Hammer-Wielding Stranger When She Was 3. Now She's Speaking Out
  
  

Learn more about Jack Gilbert Graham:

• Jack Gilbert Graham

• Mass murder in the sky: John Gilbert Graham and United Flight 629

Transcript

 Welcome to homicide, the podcast.

I'm Kevin and I'm Brandon. Homicide, the podcast is your new favorite gay true crime podcast hosted by two homos with nothing better to do. Rude. It's us. I think if people know us, they're like, okay, nothing better to do. All right. Don't you have like 30 different things, like 800 things we're doing? We for sure do.

But that's just what life is for us. And we enjoy it. Apparently. So Brandon, why don't you tell us, uh, what is your story? Oh yeah. Or what can it be described as? So my story today is titled a psychopath with a hammer. Oh my God. I feel like you've had something similar to this. I'm sure I have it this way.

Hammer. Oh my God. Um, there was axes, so different kind of, yeah. Jesus Christ. Um, all right. Well, it's yours. Well, my story today can be described as a mid air massacre just [00:01:00] above Longmont, Colorado, mid air, mid air. Interesting. We should probably say that today's episode is, um, welcome to Colorado. It is our welcome to Colorado theme.

Yeah. We should probably add that in the beginning, but yeah, today's episode is all about, uh, my homestay. Well, kind of my home. Okay. Well, I grew up. You spent the majority of your childhood there. My lovely childhood full of orphanages, failed adoptions, abuse. All trauma brought to you by Colorado. So much.

Here's your, a new episode of trauma by Kevin. Just kidding. Um, anyway, yeah. Murders and trauma. Murders and trauma. Lovely. Right. Uh, this is our Colorado based, um, episode and I have a telemarketer calling me. Rude. To answer it on the air. No, fuck this fuckers. Okay. Anyway, uh, so with that, yes. Um, Brandon, any.

New and exciting stuff. I mean, Anna is [00:02:00] not on with us today because she is, once again, traveling the wild and um, we're not in New York. We're back, uh, in Tampa, I know at our agency with this cute little setup. If you're on YouTube watching, it's a fun little thought up with a mural that we had commissioned by the amazing Ashley Cantero here in Tampa, Florida.

If you don't know her, you should. Um, but yeah, we had a little, yeah, that's it. That's all. That's it. So my mind went blank right then. I know. I think you're about to ask me what's new. Yeah. Brandon, what's new? But I don't know what's, I don't even know what's happened since the last podcast. I don't know.

It's worth saying that we're doing a little better with, um, obviously everyone knows that we lost little Martinez, Martina Rita Fajita. Um, in February. So it's been about a month and, uh, we both cried last night. We did. We're we're not there. Those brief bursts still have brief bursts are real. Yeah. But, uh, we are doing a lot better, which is great.

We did take, um, the last week of our agency is just outrageously busy right now, which is a great thing. It is a great thing, but it doesn't [00:03:00] help. Getting time to get these notes put together. Putting these notes together is quite an adventure. It is time consumption. It is a lot of work. I feel like every time I'm like, how did it take me that long?

I know, but I'm also finding all these details and I'm like, Ooh, cool. Ooh, cool. And then I like get, it down a new rabbit hole. And I'm like, Oh, that's really cool. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wow, this is 15 pages. How are we doing dial it back? I'm like, these episodes just keep getting longer and longer.

They do. It's actually kind of outrageous, but but we're thorough. We have to be thorough. We are thorough, right? I swear. I have what, what one, two, three. Like 10 different sources. I actually only have two this time. Really? Oh, I got a lot. I could have used more, but I'm like, well, these are full enough. So, um, because this is quite a case, but I mean, it's an interesting one.

No, I'm excited. This is, and you go first this week too. I do. But, um, before we dive in just, uh, for quickly for all of you fabulous people, our podcast is [00:04:00] actually growing significantly. I know we're doing pretty well. Yeah. Quite a few, um, listens and just all these fun things. So, uh, it's worth mentioning, please, if you watch us on YouTube, um, if you like watching us on video, which we wouldn't, because we're stunning.

But if you, if you watch us, please subscribe. Uh, to our YouTube channel. Um, but if not, please follow us on wherever you listen to your podcast, but specifically Apple and Spotify, you know, the important ones, the important ones, they're all important. Don't get it twisted, but, uh, those are the most, you know, they're, they are monopolizing the podcast.

So with that, please, uh, do rate and review. Uh, us for sure only five stars. Thank you. Of course. But yeah, no, please, if you are a listener and you just love hearing our little homosexual voices, our little banter, a little banter, let us know. Brandon, do you want to show off your shirt today? Because you're gorgeous.

Yeah. My homeless side of the podcast. I can't even see the camera. Nobody's going to see it. Yeah. So, well, we do have, if you're [00:05:00] listening, we're just It's gorgeous. Sorry. You can't see us. It's literally the homicide podcast. Oh my gosh. The homicide podcast logo on my shirt. It's gorgeous. It's a piece of art.

It is worth noting that Brandon did draw. I did. This is the first logo I've ever created that I drew myself, which is weird. That I've actually like hand draw, drew, and then scanned and then used it. I thought you had done, I feel like when we started dating you had a whole notebook of like drawing. I did.

They were like ideas of stuff. Oh. But it was never, the, the designs that I did were never drawn for, you know, The logo, it was drawn for inspiration. So this was the first time I actually drew something and used it as a logo. And it's sick, which is fun. You did a great job. I did. Um, yeah. Um, I lost my train of thought, but you did.

That's that story. Anyway. Yeah. I am going first today on this here episode. Welcome to Colorado. So we would say [00:06:00] colorful, but, but it is trade. It's trademarked. And you go to Colorado, you see colorful Colorado everywhere you do when you're entering the state. Like really, I think it's at every road. I'm going to the state.

There's this gorgeous sign that says, welcome to, um, colorful Colorado. And, um, yeah, it's trademarked. So I probably shouldn't have just said it, but I did. And, uh, you know, we work in the marketing advertising space. And so we were like, Hmm, let's avoid that. Although whatever. So with that Colorado, yeah. So my story.

Do you want to know my title of my story? Yeah, say it again because I don't remember it. Well, I didn't say the title. See, I use the title. Yeah, and I don't. You're adding extra work. That's the story of my life. It is. It really is. Uh, my title is, Jack, you're a greedy bastard. Oh, Jack. But it also can be, John, you're a greedy bastard.

Is there multiple people? No. Or is it just one person who has a, just one [00:07:00] person with a cute little nickname called Jack, but he's an asshole. So I called him John throughout. Okay. Cause he probably didn't like being called John. He probably wanted to be called Jack. Oh, well if it's by his nickname. And I'm like, fuck you.

I'm going to call you John. So we'll go with your birth name on this one. All right. Perfect. Okay. Well, um, let's dive in. Let's do it. Okay. All right. I'm so excited. You were just like every other story. You were gasping and making noises. I'm a gasper. You're such a loud person. It was a general. Okay. I think that actually everyone would admit that.

Yeah. Like you, Kevin will sit at his computer and just make noises or talk to himself and everybody at work is like, Who's he talking to? ? Yeah. Just happen a lot. They're like, what? And I'm like, oh no, . That was for me. Um, anyway. Okay, y'all, it was 6:52 PM on November 1st, 1955. Who? An older story. An older story.

When? United Airlines [00:08:00] Flight 6 29. Why did I say nine? Like that? 6 29 . Nine. Okay. Um. United airlines flight 629 bound for Anchorage, Alaska took off from the old Stapleton airport in Denver, Colorado. If you've been to Denver, Colorado recently, or I don't know, since recently the nineties, I think, um, the, you go through DIA.

Denver International Airport, but that was not the airport originally. It was Stapleton Airport, which, uh, where that old airport is, is, was much closer to Denver and it's a really actually a cute little neighborhood at this point. And one of the old, um, towers is still over there. Uh, which is pretty cool.

And fun fact, my biological mother worked at Stapleton airport. Wow. That's so fun. Before I went to foster care. Okay. Because my life was fun. Um, Oh, there's the motorcycle. I want to be the hot. Probably not. But we're assuming that maybe a man and it's probably not. [00:09:00] Um, because we're that's that. So, As the beautiful lights of Denver began to fade in the background, all 44 passengers who were aboard the flight settled into their seats for the journey ahead.

Of those, 44, 39 were regular passengers. One being an infant and there were five crew members when I think about like today's standards of flights, that's actually a pretty small, Oh yeah. Like flight in general. Yeah. So 11 minutes into the flight after they took off from Stapleton airport, um, as the plane flew over Longmont, Colorado, A loud explosion occurred mid flight, breaking the plane into several pieces, killing everyone on board and causing fiery pieces of plane and bodies to rain down on the ground below.

And bodies, not bodies. That's terrifying. Yeah. This is a story of John Gilbert Graham, a hapless criminal and one of Colorado's worst mass murderers. That's awful. [00:10:00] Hapless? Hapless. I don't know. They used it in one of these and I was like, cool word. Um, So, uh, a couple of interesting things. So Longmont, Colorado is not too far outside of Denver.

It's like 45 minutes away north. Um, I actually went to high school in a town called Bertha to Colorado, which if you remember back, my adopted sister, Brianne actually did a homotown murder from Bertha, Colorado. Um, so when you're traveling, you're, you know, Denver's kind of like mid state ish and you go up from there and you're hit on I 25 and you're hitting like Thornton and Broomfield and Northland.

Like you're just kind of going up, um, where eventually it gets quieter and quieter until you get to Fort Collins and Fort Collins is like not too far, honestly, from the Wyoming border. Um, cause Cheyenne is like not that Cheyenne, Wyoming is not that far from Fort Collins. Um, and um, yeah, anyway, uh, Longmont, it goes Longmont, um, Berthed, Loveland, Fort Collins.

Um, there's other towns, but, uh, yeah, so [00:11:00] Longmont, Colorado, I actually owned a condo there when I was, um, younger and, uh, lived there for quite some time. So I actually looked up, um, like where the plane landed and it was not that far from where I had you ever heard of this story before you said, it's so weird.

And apparently it was a huge story in Colorado. So, all right, let's dive in and I'll start with John Gilbert Graham. Um, and again, uh, like I said at the beginning of Jack, um, John's and nickname was Jack, so. But I'm gonna refer to him as John because he's an asshole. So born on January 23rd of 1932, um, he was born in Denver, Colorado to William Graham and a Daisy Walker.

Oh, Daisy. I do love the name. Daisy. It's cute. So John was nicknamed Jack and was the second child of Daisy's, um, as she had a child from a previous marriage. So he was actually born during the height of the great depression, which, um, I think is kind of interesting in general. It has no weight. On this story at all, but it is interesting nonetheless.

It's just a [00:12:00] fun fact. Yeah, his parents separated when John was just 18 months old and by the time he was three, his father passed away from pneumonia. Um, after his parents' separation, uh, John was raised by his grandmother. . And what's interesting is that his mother ended up ge getting married again not too long after, uh, which was her third marriage to a man named, uh, named John Earl King.

And he was a well to do rancher, , they all are. Which I think he was well to do. What does that even mean? I'm not sure. So he was Christian, he was Christian, white and wealthy. Lovely republican to do rancher. Uh, so I mean, he was, you know, more than, so yes, he was Republican, um, even though his, um, mother married this new guy.

Uh, she did not go get her son because remember John was raised by his grandmother. Yeah. So, um, when John was nine, his grandmother ended up passing away and he was quickly sent to the Clayton college for boys, which I read that and I'm like, are we in Britain now? Right. Like Clayton college [00:13:00] for boys. So Clayton college was a relatively progressive orphanage that allowed the boys a fair amount of physical freedom.

Oh, weird. So that's interesting. Interesting. So like he could run in the fields. I don't know. . He was, he was, he would just p prance it. Frolicking. Frolicking in the fields. He was, he was definitely flocking. No, wait, no, it wasn't frolicking. What was it? Foraging. Foraging. Yes. . It was forging from our last.

Forging. Not even our last, what's it was like two ago. I don't know. It stuck with me. It did. Um, so. Being put in this school made John feel abandoned by his mother and according to the book Titled 11 minutes the sabotage of flight 629 by Edward C. Davenport John that was really good. That was thank you.

John's like intro to like a movie. I should be I should do more voiceover. We should excuse me, agent. Okay, so John felt he'd been sent there because his mother didn't love him. Oh, she probably didn't. Oh my God. Poor thing. Well, that is, I mean, [00:14:00] partially trauma. Sure. And the, the feeling of abandonment can be Yeah, I know.

Can affect you in many different ways in murder and killing people. It's not one you should do. I don't, I'm not saying you, I said, I mean, you as a collective, you as a world, I wish that, I wish that for me as a human, I didn't feel, I felt more for some people because when these are like, my mommy didn't love me.

I'm like, Oh my God. You're like, fuck you. I didn't have a mom. I didn't have a mom. I don't. I even got adopted by another mom who didn't want me either. So, okay. Anyway, like we said, trauma, trauma, this episode to be trauma. I feel like at this point, all of our, we're trauma bonding with our entire audience.

We are. So we feel you, we hear you send in your traumas. Yes. Let's have a trauma. Let's just have a trauma segment. We're sharing our trauma. Oh my God. Imagine if we had a segment where we just had people send us their trauma stories and we read them anonymously. That would actually be kind of [00:15:00] fun. And then we have to, we have to like speak it in a certain tone, like act out the trauma.

Oh my God. Not act it out. That'd be weird. But like, where are we going with this? I don't know. This, this got fucked up. My mind has just been racing with creative ideas today. All right. Well, that's a good thing. You're going to have a big presentation tomorrow. We do. That's that. Also, it's Monday and our episodes out tomorrow.

So that's what we're doing. Hello. Um, so anyway, John back to John, John would spend holidays off from school, um, on his stepfather's ranch. So I remember he was in the orphanage, but during holidays he would get to go, you know, To where his mom was with this guy that like visitation, do rancher. Yeah. Um, kind of, I'm like, he would go there.

It was like a school. I don't know. I don't, I wasn't alive, but, um, basically he would have to return back to the school. um, orphanage when the breaks were over. So when John was 13, he was taken in by one of his stepfather's neighbors and lived there for a short time. Um, like [00:16:00] so many other, um, episodes in his short life, um, it didn't work out and he was eventually allowed to live on the ranch with his mother.

So what's interesting is that his stepdad, John Earl King, um, actually passed away. Um, not too long after his mom and him got married and, um, because of that, he left a significant inheritance to, um, John's mom, Daisy. So, um, she actually became a fairly successful business woman after that. Oh, good for her.

Interesting. So, um, once on the ranch, John's life went from one botched scheme to the next. Cause he was a little fraudster at 13 little fucker. So, um, and this is children, right? Go back to the episode of children. There's some creepy ass. There are, there's a lot of creepy kids, one of them. So anyway, he jumped from run one relative to another and actually left home for a bit at 16 years old.

So, uh, John ended up having a brief stint in the coast guard. Hey, Hillary, um, my friend, Hillary is in the coast guard. And she's going to be on an episode soon. And she's going to be on [00:17:00] the episode soon, like in two episodes, which I'm excited about. It'll be fun. She lives here. We grew up in Colorado, but she lives here, um, in Florida.

So anyway, okay. So John ended up having, why did you just break into song? I don't know who doesn't do that. Most people. I'm sure. Yeah, that's true. Uh, all right. So again, Coast Guard, he jumped off and then from there he jumped from one entry job to the, what are you laughing at? I'm just laughing at you singing.

You're welcome. John ended up having a brief stint. Please do the whole episode. It's singing. And John, no kidding. That was awful. It was aggressive. It was aggressive. I got nervous. Um, okay. So he also had several, uh, well I thought it said breasts. He also had several brushes with the law, mostly due to fraud.

So throughout the, this entire time, Um, of his childhood, John maintained a complicated relationship with his mom, Denise, um, as in Daisy, because his mom says, [00:18:00] um, and this doesn't say Denise came out, Denise, Daisy, you might have some dyslexia as well, clearly ADHD and all these other things. Okay. This is regardless.

Yeah, regardless though, she would, um, bail him out of the multiple legal problems that he faced. And, uh, she was always ready to pay restitution and keep his jail sentences minimized. Well, that's where she went wrong. Yeah. Thank you. I'd have been like, bye. No, I think if you keep doing shit, you should probably, um, deal with the consequences.

I agree. So, a Rocky Mountain News article from April 1956 quoted a friend of Daisy's describing the mother son duo saying, Jack was her favorite. She took his word as a law and gave him a lot of things. I suppose Daisy was a little neurotic. Rude. Okay. So as John grew older and sort of like settled down, his mom ended up purchasing him a home, um, and then hired him to manage her drive in restaurant called the Crown A, which was at 581 South Federal Boulevard in Denver, which by the way, I looked up earlier and it is [00:19:00] not far from Saigon bowl on federal in Alameda, which we would, well, we always go to it when we go back to Colorado.

But when we, when I, I took Brandon there to live there for a couple of years, which is where we got married to, Oh, it's so good. And didn't Sam show it to us? Yeah, she did. Saunders, who I think listens to one of my theater friends, um, Sam, I think she showed us it. Oh God. It was so good. So if you're in Denver and this is not a paid thing, um, go to Saigon bowl cause it is like.

Oh my God. They have this appetizer where you can make your own spring rolls, which is really fun. Anyways, have you been to this place or is this place still around? Like now it looks like a little rundown. I don't even know. Um, I don't know. I don't want to be offensive. So it just does not look like somewhere I would go.

So, um, anyway, but I mean the building looks like it's still there. The lot is still there for sure, but there's like a little shack kind of a building. Yeah. Um, so anyway, yeah. Um, so he managed that restaurant that his mom actually owned, which was the striving. So, okay. But [00:20:00] back to that, you said she bought him a house.

She buys him a house. She buys him a house, gives him a job, but like out of jail, she really loves her son now. Where was she in his childhood? But yet, as an, as he grows up, he was fucking Earl. So, uh, anyway, John was not well liked. Oh, my God. That reminds me of the, the, the chicks song. The Dixie chicks.

Goodbye Earl. Their name isn't Dixie chicks anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot that. No, you grew up with that. I know it's a habit, but, um, the chicks, it rang in my mind, but I think quick. So I was, yeah, it's not that I don't think quick. I know. Anyway, it takes me a minute sometimes.

I mean, sometimes me too, but whatever, how are we, how do we, how are we successful? I don't know. And maybe we're not. I don't know. Anyway. Um, I forgot everything. Oh, the chicks. Yes. Earl had to die. That's not, yeah. I kept thinking of it whenever I was seeing his name, which was only twice, so [00:21:00] maybe thrice. Um, okay.

So John ended up, um, okay, so John was not well liked, obviously, uh, and he actually made his mom's life quite difficult by exploding at restaurant employees and continuing to engage in dubious activities, dubious, dubious. So they constantly fought, um, about the operation of the restaurant and his mother believed that John had been taking money from the business.

So John ended up marrying a woman named Gloria A. Elson, who he met during a failed stint at DU, Denver University. So they eventually had two kids named Alan and Suzanne. So, on Labor Day weekend in 1955, a mysterious explosion nearly leveled the Crown A and John was the main suspect. Though nothing was ever proved, he would eventually, um, admit to attempting to blow up the place as part of an insurance fraud scheme.

And now we're going to get into the detail. So did he admit to that? Like he [00:22:00] admitted to that later when other stuff went down, other stuff, like how it went down. Oh, that's okay. Well, that was an interesting job. We're moving into the plane. Crap. So goodness. So this is awful. Okay. This is a rough episode.

This is why Anna needs to be here. Cause she keeps us in line. I think. Does she? Cause you still say whatever you want to say. Okay. So November 2nd, 1955 United Airlines flight 629 blows up and rains debris. Down on Longmore, Colorado. So the explosion was witnessed by farm families, which that's a really interesting way to like the farm families.

It's what it said in all these articles from 1955. So it was witnessed by farm families in the Longmont area who heard a blast followed by a rain of fiery debris falling from the sky, which that's terrifying. That is really scary. First off, plane crashes are fucking terrifying in [00:23:00] general, but that is really, well, and that's not, and that's like different than any other it's not a plane crash.

It blew up in the air, like that's terrifying that it's like, boom. Oh, and it just flies in the fifties. Like I'm sure that they were all probably thinking that that was some kind of like, um, like. World attack a kind of event in the 1950s. Yeah planes have been around for a while No, I know but like it being some kind of like, oh, I mean it's like a big like something So yes, I know planes were around before that.

I'm like, are you thinking that these are the ones where it was like open air? It's the Wright brothers Straps or anything It to take off. They have to run with the plate and just pressurized and they have to go downhill with it. No, I've seen the ones where it's like open windows with like, like curtains that I always think like it was an open window.

Those curtains were just slapping people in the face. Yeah. That would have pissed me off. Okay. So, um, when witnesses arrived to help search for survivors, [00:24:00] they were subjected to a gruesome scene because it just blew. And so body parts like just awful stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the explosion appeared to have been of tremendous force, um, so much that it caused a fiery streamers to fall from the plane and a flare, which was like normal equipment carried on the plane, I guess, had separated from the plane, ignited and descended slowly to the earth.

So this flare is also going, bodies are falling, the flames. But I mean, it was not even bodies falling. It's body parts are falling. Yeah. Like it was just terrifying. Clearly like luggage on fire. I didn't get hit by an arm like that. Oh my God. That went dark. But like, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. I, I don't mean that in a funny way.

I know it probably is, but I, it's terrifying. Especially because you have a shit. Okay. So anyway, Jesus, this is messy. I know we're in a mode today. You're welcome. You are friends, listeners, or all of them are like, this is a horrible episode, right? [00:25:00] So we've lost everybody. So a second explosion occurred when the engines and forward compartment of the plane struck the ground as well.

Obviously cause fuel and all that kind of stuff. So it was just like a lot. So the control tower, um, or a control tower operator rather at Stapleton airport later said that he had observed the flash of light and the flare at 7 0 3 PM. And that's, that's some distance. That's quite far. Um, so the explosion is also Colorado in that area is so flat.

It really is. Yeah. Like just in the distance of the mountain, it's not like they're on the other side of the mountains. It's just, I'm sure you can see pretty far in a bright day. Yeah. So the explosion happened approximately eight miles east of Longmont, Colorado and at an altitude of 10, 800 feet, but that's based off sea level.

So it was actually 5, 782 feet above the terrain. So actually it wasn't even that high. No. So, um, what's interesting about this specific. is that this ended up being a huge news story in Colorado, but also across the country. [00:26:00] And, um, an investigation into the wreck immediately followed, um, and actually set the stage for modern airline disaster investigations where they rebuild the plane and stuff.

Oh, interesting. And copycat crimes, as well as it planted the roots for court TV. Oh, that's cool. In 1955. Isn't that interesting? So let's go into the investigation then. Um, because I'm sure you are, everyone already knows what happened. This one's like, not like other ones, but it's, it's an interesting, yeah, it's just interesting.

Well, it's not like he attacked them with knives. Like it's different, much more calculated, which is maybe. I don't know. So, well, I mean, you're planning to get on a plane. You're not thinking that somebody is going to bomb it or whatever. It's about to happen. Yeah. So, um, like I said, this was November 1st, right?

That this had happened. So, um, by November 7th, Of 1955, the chief of investigations of the several aeronautics, aeronautics, I think it is board officially stated that there [00:27:00] were indications of sabotage. So at the time he asked the FBI. That was interesting. He asked the FBI to institute an appropriate criminal investigation of the crime, which had taken 44 lives.

So, November 8th, 1955, they began their investigation. So, witnesses that were running to the scene to see if there were survivors, as well as investigators that went there, They immediately suspected foul play because they noticed a distinct odor of dynamite throughout the wreckage. And investigators pointed out that some of the bigger pieces of the plane appeared to have dropped directly from the sky and sunken deep into the earth.

Oh my gosh. The plane crashes and it's not just. Um, and so the entire debris field actually stretched out over a 15 mile range, which is humongous. All over the farm families. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. All right. All materials possibly connected with the plane were recovered from the debris [00:28:00] field and they were taken to a warehouse at Stapleton airport and placed under guard.

Um, there were of course other things that were found, like Pete bits of mail and stuff like that. Um, and I'll tell you why. So, um, A full size mock up of the central section of the plane was made of wood and wire netting, and all parts of the plane were then wired to the mock up in their proper places, um, and they were assembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

That's so interesting. I know, which part of me is like, I want to do that. Right. It's like a, it's like one of those 3d puzzles like that's super cool. Oh my God. I had a 3d Titanic puzzle when I was, I also had one of the empire state building, it was really fun. I loved the Titanic one. Anyway, um, they determined that the explosion had occurred, um, at what they call station seven 18 in the rear cargo pit designated as cargo pit number four.

This, uh, point of explosion was further pinpointed as being almost directly across the cargo compartment from the cargo loading door. So basically a piece of luggage was put in, which was the source of an explosion. [00:29:00] So what's interesting too is that they kind of knew a little bit more, um, based off of like near that area on people's skin with like the materials that were on there from like, The burning and the like, yeah.

Yeah. So that's interesting. Investigations from a range of agencies, which included the FBI, FFA, civil air patrol, United States postal service, because it was carrying us mail bound for Alaska and United airlines, um, combed the wreckage and came up with an interesting clue. Here's where things get twisty.

Well, they were pretty twisty when bodies were falling. Yes. To the ground. But what's interesting is every known suitcase on the flight was recovered. Most in remarkably good condition as the explosion occurred near the front of the plane, all the, all the suitcases, except for one belonging to John's mom.

Oh, who? was on that [00:30:00] plane. So, Oh my God. I know. So what's interesting is that after, I mean, she treated you like shit as a child, but she at least gave you a house and a job. So, um, she was actually on that plane going to visit her daughter, his sister in Alaska. Oh my gosh. And, um, and it must've just taken off if, cause it left, did it leave?

I'm obviously left from DIA or Stapleton airport. Yeah. 11 minutes later. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Upon further investigation, authorities found that Kings, um, or you know, her name was King Denise King cause she'd gotten married to, you know, yeah, yeah. So I'm not Denise, I keep calling her Denise and I, and I didn't even connect with that.

You just did that. Daisy. I know. But Denise is also a fun word too. Denise. Daisy. Daisy's better. Daisy. Okay. So Daisy, just a dollop of Daisy. Oh, don't, it's probably trademarks to or some shit. Oh, I'm sure that definitely is. Trade authorities found [00:31:00] that Daisy's son had been convicted, convicted of several crimes, including stealing blank checks from an employer and running bootleg liquor.

So FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, um, J. Edgar Hoover. Yes. Yeah. Ordered agents to focus on him, which they had in quotes. Uh, after learning this information, so authorities were also intrigued by the fact that John had purchased several life insurance policies on his mother at the airport, totaling more than 50, 000, which is about 350.

He did it at the airport. I knew you were gonna say that. about 350, 000 in 2020 dollars. So I put in here, who knew you could purchase life insurance policies at the airport? Can you really? So yeah, in mid century America during that time, that seems like a very obvious. Well, but I'm sure it was also people being like, well, we don't know about, we don't know how the safety of this, who knows what could happen.

So it says that life insurance vending machines were, um, get yourself a KitKat and a life, a soda and a life insurance policy. [00:32:00] So yeah, they had life insurance vending machines where a policy could be purchased for as little as 25 cents. Um, and they were common features at airports of all sizes. What was the denomination of that?

25 cents? I have no clue. For 25 cents, you'll get 10, 000. I don't know. Like I don't know. So it was learned that upon the death of his mother, cause again, she died in the plane crash. Um, John was supposed to also receive a substantial inheritance. Um, Well, because of the man that she was with that had a lot of money.

So as they're investigating, they also found that Daisy, um, had a considerable amount of personal effects that were, that were recovered from the records, including a number of personal letters, newspaper clippings about her family, a personalized checkbook, a thousand dollars in travelers checks, um, an address list and two keys with the safety deposit box receipt.

Those were with her. She had news clippings of her family. One of the newspaper clippings reflected that her son. John had been charged with [00:33:00] forgery by the Denver County district attorney and had been placed on the local most wanted list by that office in 1951. From the fact that most of these personal effects of, of hers were found on or near her body, it was apparent that she had been carrying them in her personal handbag at the time of the crash rather than in her luggage.

So, um, despite, so they, they just sort of, it's weird that she would have that. Um, none of her luggage was recovered, obviously. And the only small bits of the suitcases, uh, of that suitcase were believed to belong, uh, to her were found because we'll, we'll see. So let's talk about some interviews that came up.

So remember at this point, we know that 44 people have passed away on a flight that blew up over any of these other people, just his mother, just his mom. So, um, she, his mom boarded that flight and there's other like, I mean, not to say that he should be killing anybody, but why did you have to kill all of these other people?

We don't know that he killed any of them yet. [00:34:00] Right. Well, anyway, um, so what's, I mean, if you know, you know, yeah, so true crime podcast. So his, um, so his mom was on that flight going to see his sister, right? That those are the things that we do know. He found out that she died and he's like, Oh my goodness.

Um, Anyway, so, uh, the police suspected him obviously from several different, for several different reasons, including all of this other stuff, um, and his mom being on that flight. So, they also were able to identify other victims that were on the flight because they also had insurance policies that were out on them and, and whatever.

So, November 10th, 1955. So, we're not that far after the plane. John was interviewed with his half sister, the one from Alaska, but mostly focused on his childhood and history. They did, however, focus on the 1955 fire that happened at the crown a restaurant. So John actually ended up stating that in the spring of 1955, his mother had purchased property, that property built, um, equipped and opened a drive in restaurant, which he managed.

He said that the drive in business [00:35:00] did not do well unless he was actually operating. Of course. Um, so he's narcissistic as well. Yeah. So he said that during May of 1955, some unknown vandals, aka him, uh, had caused considerable damage to the window glass at the drive in and that in September of 1955, an explosion and fire had occurred at the drive in during the early morning hours.

Now remember, that's September of 1955 and the plane crashes on November, 1955. So it was very soon after. Yeah. So according to him, um, an examination of the drive in which drive in restaurant revealed that someone had disconnected a gas line connection, allowing the gas to flow into the room. Um, obviously accumulating until it reached a pilot light on a water heater, which ignited the gas causing the explosion.

So according to him, three. Um, dollars and change was missing from the cash register and some of the furniture in the drive in had maliciously been broken. Uh, the total damage had amounted to approximately 1, 200, which it was like [00:36:00] not a lot of money, but well, at that time it was more than, yeah. So John also stated in the same conversation as he's divulging all the information.

That he had suffered some misfortune in connection with a new 1955 Chevy pickup, which had stalled on the railroad track and had been hit by a train. Convenient. This dude was a fraudster. Right. That's a, uh, uh, Pretty interesting place for it to just crap out on you. I agree. So, um, John also offered a description of his mother's luggage, um, but claimed he had no knowledge of the contents saying that his mom would never allow someone, um, to actually assist her in packing and that he had not helped his mother with any of her packing and he did not place anything in her luggage.

So. He did say though, that his mother had a considerable quantity of shotgun shells and a rifle and ammunition with her intended for use in hunting caribou in Alaska. I'm like, okay. Sure. [00:37:00] So, um, a day later, November 11th of 1955, John's wife, Gloria was interviewed and stated that her husband had given his mom a present on November 1st of 1955, right before she left for the airport.

So she also stated that John had brought the package to the basement where his mom was packing her luggage and said that the gift was approximately 18 inches in length, 14 inches wide, and three inches in depth. She didn't know what it contained, but it was a tool set. It's very specific though. I know.

How did she get that measurement? How did you get that measurement? Like if it was a man, they would have measured it way different based off of their penis. That looks like eight inches. That must be eight inches girl. That's four inches. Anyway, let's talk about the confession. This is Mike. Okay. Okay. So, so Sunday, Sunday, November 13th, the FBI ended up inviting John and his wife to the FBI [00:38:00] building on stout street, um, to identify the charred pieces of Denise's luggage.

As well as to clear up some details pertaining to the claim, the case. So for over 12 hours, the FBI agents pressed John because they knew that John had tampered with his mother's suitcase because a suspicious, suspicious neighbor had told them, um, he had mentioned that he was going to sneak a Christmas present into her luggage.

Interesting. So John's mother was actually a hobbyist who made costume jewelry. And, uh, when pressed, uh, by that, her son said that he actually had purchased a jewelry making tool set for her and that he put the tool set into the luggage, um, and secured the bag. Oh, so the fact that he didn't do anything and then he's like, Oh, I just kidding.

I brought her this gift. So. Anyway, um, there was however, like no jewelry tools that were, instead, Mr. John had packed 25 sticks [00:39:00] of dynamite and a few blasting caps on a 20 minute timer into her luggage. Oh my God. So that it would blow that long into about 20 minutes into the flight, which would put them right into the mountains.

Which then would have been a very difficult place to have an investigation. Cause remember long one is, Oh, that was like very thought out. Yeah. So about, so that was Sunday morning, right? Six 30 at night. Agents, um, started to be like, okay. So they informed him that he was actually a suspect in the bombing and that he was both free to go, um, and call an attorney.

Apparently this was actually before the Miranda rights required to be read. So, um, John continued to, um, lean into his made up stories to the feds. So around midnight, agent James R Wagoner said, you've been lying to us all night. We are going to charge you with this crime, but why not make it easy for us?

And so John replied, where do you want me to start? [00:40:00] Okay. So he then spilled, I would've been like, we had to wait this long for you to just say, like, that's all I had to say. Bitch, I'm hungry. So he then spilled. His plot to cash in on his mother's death and be rid of her once and for all saying I Watched her go off for the last time.

I felt happier than I ever felt in my life Wow, the other 43 people on the plane didn't matter to him His regret was that a 10 minute delay had caused the plane to explode over open fire help him get caught In his original plan, the device would have detonated over the mountainous terrain, which would have made, um, finding evidence and difficult to impossible for investigators.

Fuck you. That was his only regret. You're an asshole. So as it was, investigators were finding piles of evidence against him after an, and after an investigation that was incredibly thorough and utilize state of the art investigative techniques, um, that are still the mainstay of contemporary air disaster investigations.

Isn't that [00:41:00] interesting? That's really interesting. This wasn't the first time this had happened, but it was the first time that it went to this scale and had that. Yeah. So, all right. His arrest. So obviously he confessed to, um, this murder of these 44 people on this plane. And, um, ended up building a bomb that then he placed into his mother's suitcase, had that put onto the plane and then knew that it would explode killing her and whoever else was in the vicinity of that.

And so severely calculated, he had been doing, you know, shit years before that, but yeah, with fraud and whatever, he was just an overall great guy. Greediest. So anyway, um, he was charged with the murder of his mother with federal charges for the destruction of the plane. So I did read that like, if something like this happened today, the charges would be substantial, but that was like what he was charged with.

So four days later, after his confession, he recanted his confession in an interview that appeared in the Rocky mountain news under the headline [00:42:00] dynamiter changes his story. So he attempted to clear himself by reason of insanity after a botched suicide attempt But he was found to be in good enough mental condition to stand trial So the trial actually ended up being set for April 16th, 1956.

So like They really moved. Very quickly. Um, now it would have been like months later, literally getting by with everything and not having any trial dates. Um, you know, happens when you are a billionaire, billionaire, whatever you are at this point, you can't even get half a million dollars or half a billion dollars put together today that he like can't find them, whatever, whatever.

So anyway, April 16th, 1956 trial starts, prosecutors brought in witnesses who recalled to John purchasing dynamite and blasting caps, and we're actually able to pick him out of the lineup. They also produced witnesses who, um, attested that John's, um, mechanical skills or attested to his mechanical skills, uh, and prior experience with dynamite.

And then they also linked the wire that was used in the bomb to wire that was found in his house. So [00:43:00] after the crash, John told investigators that he was upset that his mother died without ever seeing, uh, sorry, not investigators. After the crash, John told neighbors that he was upset that his mother died without ever seeing the surprise Christmas gift he'd, um, he'd put into her luggage.

Which is really fucked up. That is very fucked up. And because John was so specific about exactly what kind of gift investigators, um, or what kind of gift he actually put into his mom's suitcase, investigators had no problem finding the only place in Denver. Um, or the Denver Metro era that sold them, um, and proved like you didn't, you didn't buy it.

She didn't buy that. So, um, cause there was no Amazon prime two day. Exactly. He also apparently before that, um, had mentions, uh, or mentioned that he had premonitions of his mother's death. Um, uh, and he was saying that like as early as November 3rd, 1955, like right after she had died, he's like, I had premonitions of her death because he planned it.

So over the course of the 15 day [00:44:00] trial, um, prosecutors obviously meticulously laid out their case and, um, established that the cause of the crash, uh, was a non mechanical explosion. So the prosecutor, um, the prosecution also brought the judge and jury to a massive hangar near Stapleton airport. Um, or airfield where this, um, plane, which they called the main main liner, that's what they were like, called this.

The main liner had been meticulously reconstructed, so they took them over to there. Um, and, uh, though this type of reconstruction had been used in investigative, um, air disasters previously to this, this was one of the largest reconstructions done up to that point in time. So the case against John was amplified in a way that no other suspected criminal had experienced, um, to that point because of a new spec, um, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Okay. The case against him was amplified in a way that no other suspected criminal had ever experienced at that point because TV cameras came in. So what's, uh, what's interesting is that the [00:45:00] state of Colorado versus John Gilbert Graham is actually the very first trial in us history where television cameras were allowed to record the procedure.

That's really interesting and interesting. Um, and what I read in there too is that they gave the option for people to like not be on camera and the only person that said no, who do you think it was? Him? Yeah, of course. So on May 5th, I'm after that point, you shouldn't be giving him any options for anything.

No. So on May 5th, after hearing 80 witnesses and examining, examining 174 pieces of evidence, the jury in the case, um, obviously found him guilty. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, it took an hour for them to come back with a guilty verdict and they actually recommended the death penalty. So interestingly enough, um, when the verdict came down, John waived all of his appeals.

In general, um, uh, which was on May 15th and, uh, he was then sent to Colorado's death row in cannon city. So against his wishes, um, John's, uh, legal team actually filed motions to halt the date with [00:46:00] the, with him going to the gas chamber. So those actually stretched to that year up until October of 1956, when the Colorado Supreme court upheld his death sentence and, um, his execution date was set for the week of January 12th, 1957.

Oh, wow. Like. This is all that was very quick and he actually ended up being executed by the gas chamber. Um, at the Colorado state penitentiary on Friday, January 11th of 1957. That, yeah, that was all very quick. It was all very, very quick, but I found this to be like, I was starting to go through and I'm like, wow, that's very different.

Yeah. Because like I I've had it. Yeah. You know, you think of these types of things in these scenarios as being, um, uh, much of the, the intent. To, I think, kill is much grander than this guy who just wanted to kill his mom, but instead killed 44 people in one go. When you could have just done, again, don't kill anybody, but you didn't have to kill all of these innocent [00:47:00] people that had nothing to do with you and your issues and your, In whatever trauma you have like go screw yourself.

Um, but, uh, yeah, also interesting. Cause I'm reading the sunlight, you know, when you're from somewhere and you start reading this stuff, you're like, oh my goodness. Yeah. Well, especially when you can be like, Oh, that was a ripe on my condo. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm like that. That field was interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, yeah. That was the, just John, you're a greedy bastard. Yeah. I kind of liked that. It wasn't like a typical, a like. Yeah, it was very different. It's much different than mine, which is like your typical, like this person hurt people. Well that's what I'm thinking. Like, I think a lot of people perceive these probably because of like the datelines in the 2020s.

Oh yeah. But even other different types of murders. This is, this is a murder. I mean, this, no, it totally is murdered 44 people in a mass murder, um, intending to literally just get money, like so gross work for your money, right? We're handed a job by the [00:48:00] woman you killed. It's crazy. I, it's, it's funny too.

Cause I, greed for me is difficult because I don't get it like at all. And I get asked by a lot of people for support and money because they think I'm some wealthy, whatever, and I'm not. But, um, it bothers me a lot when people are so motivated by Taking advantage of others. Yeah. But I also think that because asking for money is not a bad thing.

Asking for help is not a bad thing. It's not. But when it comes to consistent and you are living your life based off of taking advantage of other people, then it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing when you're in desperation and need it. Once, twice. Yeah, for sure. But when you're going often, and you know, then you get the, the issue is, is, you know, you need to figure that out.

But, um, yeah, I think, uh, I think that money is at the root of most evil religion, but they kind of go hand in hand. It kind of sinks. Yeah. So a really interesting one. And, um, you know, welcome to Colorado land [00:49:00] of the, yeah, one of the, I guess the farm people did the farm people. That's such a weird way to put it.

That was really funny. All right. Well, Brandon, what, um, what is, uh, are you ready for mine? I'm ready for you. My story is a psychopath with a hammer. It's the story of the coddle of the Colorado hammer killer. Ooh, yeah, this one has a name and I thought this was interesting. I hadn't heard of this one, however, I'm sure there's other sources out there that have talked about this one.

I just haven't. So I thought it was interesting. So. You ready, ? Just dive in. Um, yeah, just let's do it. Dive right into that dark hole. Okay. Of of despair, of , of course. Like ta . Let's do it anyways. So no one knew that the night of January 4th, 1984. would be the start of a 12 day murderous rampage that would take over 30 years to convict the assault of seven [00:50:00] and the murder of four people in Colorado.

Is it weird that when you said the date, 1984, my mind went to like, um, like a skate castle or like a skate rink and people are like, you know, jamming, like 80s and music playing. For sure. This is not that kind of story. Oh, well I set the date. You did. You did. It was very, uh, camera is pulling away from that and we're going to focus on this other thing.

It's very, um, why can't I think of stranger things? Very stranger things. Yeah. Very. Um, what was that one that we, the Goldbergs. Yeah. Yeah. Very different than other ones as well. My mind went to Ruthless people, which was actually filmed, I think in the eighties. That's a good movie. I don't know. If you had not seen Ruthless people with, uh, wait, Ruthless people, It's Danny DeVito and Denny DeVito.

I don't know what I said. Did I even say his name correctly? Danny DeVito? I feel like I said his last name wrong. I think you might have. But that was not the one I was thinking of. Go watch [00:51:00] Ruthless People as well. I was thinking about Jumpin Jack Flash. Oh, I love Jumpin Jack Flash. That's a good one. Oh my God, go watch that too.

Again, all very different than what I'm about to get into. Because I start quickly. When you start with the 80s, my mind goes, I love the 80s! I do. Oh my God. That's so much. Okay. Anyway. Okay. So anyways, so it all started on June, January 4th in 1984 in the largest Denver suburb, Aurora, Colorado, which is where I used to go to skate castle.

Oh my God. You're just all about skating right now. I do. I loved it. Actually. There's a funny, the reason I do is because my visitations, when I was in foster care with my, one of my two biological sisters were often at skate castle. which is a good place city. Ooh, I think it might've been skate castle city.

Either city council. Okay, let's move on. Anyways, back to murder. Um, [00:52:00] so again, we're in setting the scene. We're in, um, the Aurora suburb of Colorado. So Jim and Kim, Hobbins child were sleeping in their home and sometime after 2 a. m. When abruptly Kim was woken by a flash of pain that overcome that overcame her Yeah, opening her eyes and seeing a shadow of a man standing holding a hammer About to strike again, terrifying, realizing what was happening.

She screamed, startling the attacker. Uh, they, the attacker threw the hammer and ran out the door days in confused. She looked over at Jim who was also training, trying to gain consciousness from being struck in the face. However, in his own rage, Jim jumped out of bed and chased after the assailant, which, uh, I couldn't imagine that.

Like that, the adrenaline that must have been pumping through him. Um, quickly Kim grabbed the phone and dialed nine one one. By the time the officers [00:53:00] arrived, it was a little too late following the shoe prints in the fresh snow. They tried to keep track. However, there were, uh, there were quite a bit to follow looking as if the attacker was searching for any home that had an unlocked door.

He ended up at Jim and Kim's house through the open garage door. So the assailant was wandering around the neighborhood trying to find a door. He was going up and opening up doors to see if anything was open and he found a garage door, which happened to be Jim and Kim. Okay. Listen, don't lock all your shit.

Yes. And it's, it is a routine I do every night. Yes. Also I have a, but this was also in the eighties when it was still a little, I mean, a lot of shit has happened at that point, but a lot of people were still. Whatever. So, unfortunately, the police and Jim were not able to find the attacker that night. So, then, January 9th, a 28 year old flight attendant, Donna Dixon, arrived home from a day of shopping.

Pulling into her garage, she leaned over the passenger's, uh, side, uh, passenger seat, [00:54:00] uh, to grab something before exiting the car. Then, all of a sudden, she was struck with a striking pain on her temple. What Donna didn't know when she drove into the garage that afternoon, that somebody was waiting for her, attacking her.

Um, when the assailant and found the prime opportunity, he ended up knocking her unconscious, pulling her from the car so hard that it bent the emergency brake lever. Um, and she, he sexually assaulted her gaining consciousness after the incident. She found herself alone in the garage, still holding her keys in her hand.

Oh no. Yeah. This is Donna. Uh, yeah, this was, it's, yeah, this one is. Awful. Um, uh, uh, gaining consciousness. Okay. Trying to catch her balance. She stumbled her way to the bedroom. I almost said bedroom like a bedroom for some reason that like wants to roll should forever. Oh my God. Anna would be dying. She would be.

Cause I would lock eyes with her. If we were in New York and we both like, Anyways, in [00:55:00] the bedroom, um, leaving a bloody scene all over the place, especially in the garage. So the next day, her boyfriend, Ron, who just arrived home from work as an airplane, airplane pilot, uh, was shocked when he saw blood on the stoop of the house.

Running inside, he saw Donna lying in a bed of pool of her own blood, own dried blood. She was still alive. Oh my God. Quickly rushing her to the hospital, it was evident that something was wrong. According to a nine news interview, Donna said in the hospital, I say I had the mentality of a two year old.

Everything was new to me. Once again, I didn't know a knife and a fork. I couldn't even tell you that I can't open my mouth and how hard it is to eat. Because she was attacked so brutally, so it would end up taking Donna nine years, nine, nine years. I'm sorry. It would end up taking Donna a year and nine days to get back to normal to get back to work because of the assault.

I mean, I'm, I'm honestly, I'm surprised that she was able to get back to normal. I [00:56:00] agree. I mean, there's no normal after being attacked like that. No, no, no, there is no normal. But getting back to a normal work life is. Um, I, that, that's good for her because I don't know how I would, but, uh, when the police arrived at the crime scene, they saw an intense sense, sense, that's supposed to be seen.

They saw an intense scene of blood all over the garage and they found a bloody hammer. However, the police, just like before, had no idea who the attacker was. Alright, so next, on January 10th, 1984, 51 year old Patricia Louise Smith, um, a recent transplant to the Lakewood suburb of Denver, um, from Nebraska, was settling in after her divorce from her husband, looking for a new start with her daughter and grandkids.

She thought Colorado would be an excellent place for them. It was on the 10th that Patricia was at home during the day while the grandkids were at school and her daughter, Sherry, was at work. Um, towards the end of the day, Patricia was supposed to pick up Sherry at the park, at the park and ride, um, their typical meetup [00:57:00] spot.

However, Patricia never showed up. This immediately made Sherry nervous, calling her cousin to come pick her up. They grabbed the kids at school. I don't know why I said it like that. They picked up the kids at school and made their way to the house. At school! They picked up the kids at school. So they picked up the kids and made their way to the house.

Um, being surprised when they got there and saw no lights on in the house and a faint glow of the TV shining through Patricia's bedroom window, her bedroom window, only made them grow more concerned because it was dark out. Yeah. Yeah. So. Opening the door and flicking on the lights, Sherry gasped seeing her mother's body wrapped in her four year old's grandson security blanket that was bloodstained.

She immediately knew that her mother was dead, rushing her children to the neighbor's house. They quickly called the police. During the investigation, the police were able to determine that the attacker gained entry into Patricia's home through the open garage door. The attacker found Patricia making lunch in the kitchen.

Um, and he [00:58:00] violently bludgeoned her with a hammer. That was found, uh, next to the body and he then sexually assaulted her. Oh my god. So collecting evidence, um, from all over the crime scene, the police was, were stumped when they had no idea who, uh, as to who the killer was. Um, being that she was new to the area and knew no one, they were puzzled to think that this could have been a complete stranger that did it.

Which is terrifying. Fucking garage door, man. Yep. So. Yeah. Again, our stories have some similarities in them sometimes. And yours is he didn't care that he killed a bunch of random people in this guy. Yeah. He killed a bunch of random people. But I'm also thinking about like all of like our in birth in Colorado where we lived on where we were farm family, um, we, uh, our garage door, our side garage was always unlocked.

Yeah. It was open. Yeah. This was like in our dog run. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. Then comes January 16th, 1984. I keep on saying 1984. I don't really need to say that anymore, but it was January 16th of 1984. Aurora, Colorado [00:59:00] couple, 27 year, 27 year old Bruce and 26 year old Debra Bennett never made it to work that they both worked together at a furniture store.

So it was hard to miss them if they didn't show up. Um, so coworkers got concerned when they. Uh, called the typically punctual couple and no one answered calling Bruce's mother Connie Um after they wanted to see if they um if she had heard anything She let them know that she hadn't heard from them either and her all her calls also went unanswered Worried about the couple and their seven year old daughter melissa and three year old daughter vanessa Connie got in her car and headed over to the house trying to figure out what may have happened within the last few hours because the night before she was over at the house for a birthday celebration for Vanessa and everything and everyone was fine.

Um, as she entered the front door, she immediately saw Bruce's lifeless body in the living room and blood everywhere. Again, this is her son. Um, When the police [01:00:00] arrived, um, on the scene, they were able to start putting the pieces together. So, at some point in the early morning hours, um, the same intruder, intruder gained access into the home, catching Bruce at the top of the staircase as he was heading down to warm a bottle for Vanessa.

They had a physical altercation and they ended up rolling down the staircase, breaking spindles as they fell together. So after blows to the head with the hammer. The struggle ended after the intruder slit Bruce's throat, leaving him in the living room. Oh yeah. This is brutal. Yeah. So as the police continued the search of the house, it didn't get any better.

As they entered the primary bedroom, they saw Deborah's body. Um, there was evidence that she was attacked with a hammer, stabbed and then sexually assaulted. So as they continued through the house, um, they saw the body of Melissa at the bottom of her bed with her nightgown pushed up in her legs, dangling.

She too had signs of being attacked by a hammer to her head. And sexual [01:01:00] abuse. Um, on the other side of the bedroom, squeezed between the wall and another bed was the body of Vanessa with visible attack wounds. Like the rest of the family, um, the police were shocked to hear her make a noise, rushing her to the hospital.

They were able to keep her life. Um, even with a broken arm, skull fracture, shattered draw, shattered jaw, broken ribs and signs of sexual assault. Jesus fucking Christ. Again, she was three years old. Oh, Yeah. This part. Yeah. It pissed me off a lot. Wow. So at this point, um, At this point, the police obviously knew that they had a serial killer on their hands being that they were attacked all in the same manner.

So they tried to create a profile on this person. They assumed, um, there was no reason for the murders because they were not premeditated. Um, the person was not looking for anyone specific, just an open door. They also assumed that there, that the person was younger because of the sloppiness of the murders and the lack of ability to break into someone's home.

Since [01:02:00] he only looked for a They, the attacker only looked for, uh, doors, unlocked houses. So jiggling the handles of doors until he found the right one. So they assumed, they also assumed that, um, they could have been in the construction industry because of the use of hammers every time he would leave them behind.

And every time they were different hammers, some were old, some were new. However, because of the crimes were in different jurisdictions. Each county moved in different directions, not knowing that there could be the potential for a serial killer. Um, and at this time the police had a mound of evidence yet no idea who the killer was.

So each, each county were doing their own searches, not connecting, whatever. So, which I think was a thing at that time where they didn't really connect. We've had that on another podcast too. But with the idea that this seems a little, um, um, planned in the sense that if you're not in the same County doing the same thing over and over and over again, they're not going to realize that it is until something bigger happens.

So then, [01:03:00] um, on January 26, 1984, again, 1984 in Kingman, Arizona, a Roy Williams was sleeping in his bed. Unbeknownst to him, he would have a visitor enter his house through the unlocked back door. So we moved, Just over a little bit. Stop at the back door is being open. I know. Waking up, uh, Roy was shocked to see a man standing over him holding a 25 pound slab of granite.

The attacker swiftly threw it in the air and drove it down onto Roy's head, um, knocking him out cold, picking it back up and driving it back down. The second blow landed on his chest, breaking some ribs. Roy, however, Um, it was not having it and somehow gained consciousness, got up and chased the man out of the house.

Jesus. I don't know what's up with these dudes, but they were bred different back then.

Calling the police immediately, they arrived and tried to understand what happened. [01:04:00] Unfortunately, Roy couldn't identify his attacker because If it being nighttime and it was so dark, there wasn't much police could go off of until they noticed a clear shoe print leaving Royce home with a very visible nine on the imprint.

They were able to tell that the print came from a tennis shoe. Uh, size nine, uh, without the shoe size and style documented, um, with the shoe size and style documented. That's exactly what I just said. The, it didn't sound right. As I was looking at it, uh, the officers put out a, a BOLO. I kind of want to just say BOLO, which is, I think that they say it might be BOLO.

Um, but it's, uh, what it means is be on the lookout. Yeah. It's totally BOLO. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so a few hours later, that same day, a police officer officer was on a, uh, saw Who was on duty, saw a hitchhiker walking down the road, um, interested in talking to the man. He pulls over and questions him, um, being told that the man was trying to get home to California, something didn't seem right.

So asking him if he could see the imprint [01:05:00] of his shoe, the officer was surprised to see the same number nine as described in the Bolo. I have a right. We all know that was coming. Yeah. Um, asking the man to come to the station. The police officer was surprised again when the hitchhiker took off. However, after a short 30 minutes, the unknown man was found and taken into the station.

So here is when we would hear the name, Alex Christopher Ewing. Okay. So Alex was a five foot three, very short man, 23 year old high school dropout from Sacramento, California throughout his life. Are you just shocked? His life? He was five, three. He was five, three. He was a small man apparently. Yeah. So throughout a five, three man yielding a hammer and hammer into 25 pound slab and slits.

Yeah. So throughout his life he was in and out of trouble. In 1979 he had been arrested for several burglaries in grand theft auto. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Burglaries. [01:06:00] Um, so he, uh, was in and out of jail and getting in trouble, just kind of like your guy. Um, and in about 1984, he moved to Colorado right before 1984, he moved to Colorado and took on a construction job.

Um, so he was, he was only in Colorado for about a year at this point. So Alex was quickly arrested and charged with attempted murder against Roy. Um, as he awaited his trial, uh, Alex was placed. In the, uh, Mojave County Sheriff Department Jail. But due to overcrowding, about seven months later, Alex was transferred to the Well, actually that part's not correct, so that goes to the next part.

Uh, due to overcrowding, I'm not sure when that part that's a different note. Alex was transferred to the Washington County Jail in Utah. So by August 9th, which was seven months later, um, Alex was put on a bus to head back to Arizona for his trial, uh, with a quick pit stop to grab gas in Henderson, Nevada.

Alex took his chance and [01:07:00] escaped the transport, right? So running across the street to Kmart, he quickly grabbed new clothes and got out of his orange jumpsuit and fled the area by foot. Uh, once the officer note and officers noticed Alex was missing, they went on the search. However, they couldn't find him.

Until the next day when the police station answered a 911 call from a 24 year old, Nancy Berry that evening, uh, Nancy and husband, 34 year old Christopher were at home. Um, and they were getting ready to tuck in for the night, going to prep a bottle, um, for their youngest of their two children. Nancy went over to the kitchen.

When she turned on the lights in the kitchen, she shrieked. When she saw a man standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a broken ax handle. The man was obviously Alex. So running to the bedroom to get her husband, Alex followed her reaching Christopher. At the same time, the intruder started to attack him hitting him with the broken axe handle.

Christopher sustained extensive injuries to his face and jaw. Trying to help Nancy [01:08:00] tried to push off Alex, which caused him to hit her hard enough to break both of her wrists and fracture her arm. Oh my Lord. So when Nancy got a free moment, she ran to the phone and called 911. How? Oh, with a broken wrist.

I'm somehow, I mean, I don't know. I've never had a broken wrist, but I'm imagining you still pressing Nancy. Can you let us know how and search? She just hit like, they were buttons on the phone. It's not like it was a cell phone. Is that like, well, by that time you could have, you had, you know, like it wasn't a rotary antenna.

Oh, I think you, I think, I think you had that in 84 probably in the eighties or the phone, like on the wall, you know, the, yeah, it was definitely, you know, and you could, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, anyways, um, once Nancy got a free moment, she called 9 1 1, um, and Alex continued, um, he continued to hit her until she, uh, played dead in hopes he would stop, which he did.

So quickly after the phone call, the police arrived to the house. However, they were moments late. They never captured the intruder, but [01:09:00] luckily both Nancy and Christopher and their kids survived the attack. Cheers. Jesus Christ. Then on August 11, Ayyy, I know this is why when you're transporting murderers, they should not be able to escape right.

Fucking idiots. Okay. Um, a collect call was placed from a payphone in Lake Mead, Nevada, and I have a note in here. Um. Um, because I don't know the generations of people who listen to this. So and for those who are too young to know what a collect call is, I figured I would, I would answer this. So back in the day, um, uh, you could do a reverse charge on a phone call.

So much like the correctional facilities today, if a prisoner calls you and you see it on the movies where it says, will you accept this collect call from Kevin to Alaska? Um, it's, it's, it's, it's more like the Arapahoe County jail. Yeah. Oh, an inmate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if you watch like a dateline or whatever, it's actually, you can, it's on there.

Yeah, you can hear it on there. Um, uh, so you would be able to pick up the, so back then you would be able to pick up a pay phone and request an operated [01:10:00] An operator to give a number, a call in the person who were calling could accept the charges. So it would be on them to answer, to pay for the call. You would pay, you would pay the charges for the collect call.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so what, listening into part of the conversation, the phone operator heard this man describe that he escaped from prison and that he needed help. So I didn't say who he called, but the operator didn't hang up immediately and heard some stuff. Yeah. So being that he was not used. Um, Oh yeah, that he needed help being that he was not used to the extreme temperatures of Nevada.

He was dehydrated and on the brink of collapse. So the operator called the police. Good. So when the operator, yeah. So when the police and the park Rangers arrived, um, Alex was in bad shape, only wearing shorts covered in sunburns, scrapes, and bruises. Scratches. It was obviously that it was obvious that he was not doing well trying to run from them He only got a few feet before he would collapse from exhaustion So Alex was then apprehended and brought back to jail in 1985 Alex [01:11:00] was charged and convicted of two counts of attempted murder murder Burglary and escape for his most recent excapades racking up a hundred and ten year sentence But they still haven't connected the Colorado.

Yeah, so however However, before the extent of this, the extent of the sentencing for the Barry family, the charges against Roy were dropped, which makes no sense to me because they were like, he's already in there for 110 years. Roy was attacked, but Roy. I guess doesn't matter. I don't know. I didn't, I couldn't find much on that rude.

So, which it's funny that you brought that other mention up because I have, now you may be wondering what about the other attacks and murders? Um, so, well, during this time, the police did not stop their search. Eventually they were able to connect the assaults and murders together. Um, And in total they interviewed over like 500 people, which led them nowhere.

However, in 2002, for the first time in the state of Colorado, for the state of Colorado, an arrest warrant was obtained for the killer based on the DNA results, a collection of the crime scene [01:12:00] without a known murderer, which is really interesting. So they're basically like, we, uh, this is the killer and we don't know who it is, but whoever connects to this DNA will be charged.

So then into 2017. The police heard of a new technology called genetic, uh, phenotyping, uh, partnering with Virginia based company called Parabon. Uh, I think that's how you say it. They were able to take the DNA and create a facial reconstruction of what the person may look like. This image was circulated in all major media outlets.

And side note, It didn't actually look that much like him, so it didn't really go anywhere. Oh, yeah. I was gonna say, I didn't even know that they could do that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, however, before, um, this company solved a couple other cases, so they thought that it could have helped and they, and they did it so that they could figure it out.

Sure. So, um, and they regularly would check the combined DNA index system. Or CODIS for short, to see if they could find a match. Later that same year, detectives started to open up their search to see if they could find [01:13:00] any other similar crimes in other areas. Um, since there was an abrupt stop with no additional attacks for years, they thought that maybe the killer was either dead or they were incarcerated already.

So, uh, their search ended up bringing them to a case in Henderson, Nevada. Um, and a man named Alex. Ewing, uh, with too many similarities, detectives reached out to the North Nevada Correctional Center, medium security prison where Alex, uh, was to see if they could get a DNA sample. By early 2018, the results were in and they finally had a suspect for the murders of the Bennett family and the murder of Patricia Smith.

So on August 17th, 2021, Alex was put to trial and was sentenced to three additional life sentences, a felony murder for the murder of the Bennett family. He was also scheduled for another trial in October, 2021. Uh, for the murder of Patricia Smith, which ended in a mistrial because the defense requested Alex, uh, would under [01:14:00] undergo a competency evaluation, um, which he passed, meaning, uh, he was, they basically were like, you are competent.

You are very competent. You, you just prolonged the inevitable and Alex was then convicted of the murder in the fourth life sentence to his prison's prison term on April 12th, 2022. Wow. Yeah. Um, um, he, he's currently still in prison at the Colorado territorial correctional facility in Canyon city, Colorado.

Unfortunately for Jim and Kim Hobbins child, uh, Donna Dick and Donna Dickson, it would be too late. Uh, for Alex to be tried for the assault on each of them in the, in the state of Colorado, the statute of limitations for assault is three years and for sexual assault is 20. And Alex was found 34 years after the sexual assault of Donna.

Yeah. So we just, some facts, um, Um, I have a quote from Vanessa, uh, because [01:15:00] from this, she had a very difficult life. Um, it caused a lot of different things and she struggled a lot. So the very first, this was one that you talked about, right? No, this is the three year old. Oh yeah. Yeah. So she, this quote that I saw, I said, I'm sober now, but I still can't talk about things.

Many things with my family or anybody for that matter. Yeah. But all everyone else sees is my anger and my antisocial behavior. I didn't just lose my parents and my sister. I lost my trust in people and my dignity and pride. I lost the person I was supposed to be, which I thought was awful. I just want to hug her.

Right. Um, and then I have two other short little things that by the time detectives realized Alex was the murderer. He was only three years away from being eligible for parole. Yeah. So if they didn't match his DNA, he could have potentially gotten out. So it's a really good thing that all of that kind of happened.

I'm really glad that especially for a cold case. Yeah. I'm glad that they, when they're like cycles of detectives come in, that they [01:16:00] recycle. Those old cases because, you know, the, it's clear that, well, I think that there's some broken systems in general for all things. Um, I do think that their dedication to cold cases is just really, really admirable.

I agree. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So, um, in the last one I have, so Connie Bennett, Bruce Bennett, the father of the family, um, mom, Connie was his mom said some people may call him an animal, but I won't because I think animals have a purpose in this world. Oh, shit. I loved that. No, that was the mom of the father who died.

So Vanessa's father. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So she said some people may call him an animal, but I won't because I think animals have a purpose in this world. Well, I completely agree with that girlfriend and that's how I will end the story of this jackass. That's crazy. Yeah. I know. I've never heard of that at all.

And that was multiple States. So that's craziness. [01:17:00] That was crazy bananas. Bananas. Yeah, I thought that was a good one when I saw it. I was like, Oh, this is interesting. Yeah. Holy shit. Colorado. Which, you know, if you watch a lot of these, um, true crime, uh, shows, you, there's a lot of, um, times where Colorado and Florida specifically are featured on these shows.

And um, and that's because of the, the open records laws. So, um, Um, yeah, this, even my guy, um, John, there was a lot of like stuff out there. Granted, this was 1950s, right? So there's been a lot of time and it's been featured on other podcasts and stuff like that for sure. Um, this one, I, yeah, I've never. Heard of that, but I think that it's worth noting.

It doesn't matter where you live. Lock your fucking door. Lock your doors. All of them, including your side garage door. We don't have a garage. No, we just, but it would be locked if we did. Um, triple locked. Yes. I am so paranoid that we have [01:18:00] alarms on every window. We do. Every door of everything. Literally the door opens up.

So somebody wanted to be like smashing our door. That fucking alarm. First off, it's on the outside of our house too. Yeah, motherfuckers, but it's on the outside of our house too. And it immediately goes up and it is allowed every time I open up the door and forget. Oh my God. It terrifies me. And I'm like, Oh my God, our neighborhood is going to hate us.

They already do because we're the homosexuals in the neighborhood surrounded by Christians, Christians. Oh, well, right. Anyways, that was a good, good episode. Yeah. Welcome to Colorado. Right. I love Colorado. It is a really great state. It really is. I loved growing up there. If you're a listener in Colorado.

Hi, hello. That's it. Um, anyway, really good episode. Do we, what's the next episode about? Do we know what we're doing on the next episode? I have an episode 18. It might be satanic rich or ritual ritualistic killers [01:19:00] killers, and there's a lot of them. Unfortunately, um, yeah. And then something else after that.

I don't know. Of course, there's always going to be seriously. Um, but, uh, yeah. Don't forget to rate and don't forget to subscribe, but don't forget to follow the rate to review all the fun stuff. But I guess there's what you didn't do. That'd be great. Please there was the media card. Please go over to Apple and leave us, um, a review and rating and Spotify's great tube.

Apple is like the most powerful cause we want to start showing up on some shit. We have had a lot of downloads recently. Y'all are loving this stuff. So thank you for following along on our little journey. Um, this is a fun little thing that we get to do in our life and I are always together. Um, I don't know how welcome we are able to be together always.

We have our moments, believe me, but very rarely it's fun to, you're not even listening. We have our moments very, very rarely. [01:20:00] This is one of those moments, I guess.

Shut up. Anyway. Um, cool. Episode eight. What the, what is this one? 17, 18. Oh fuck. I don't know. 17, 17, episode 17. I cannot believe we're at 17 episodes and thank you so much for following, um, us on this little true crime journey. We're a mess, but maybe that makes it better. I don't know. I think it just makes us relatable.

Yeah. We relatable to anyone who doesn't hate us for being gay. Thank you. Anyway, um, episode, uh, yeah, 17. So, uh, follow us on social media. Please go follow us on tech talk. We'll have more fun videos there. Drama, fun, laughter, murder. That's that. So anyway, beautiful. Yeah. Poetic. Uh, thanks everybody. I'll talk to you soon.

I know it's not, it just came to my mind. It's a, it's like the, [01:21:00] there's like a character limit. And there is, it's like a very specific way of writing. I know I, we, I had a text exchange with Jen and Katie. Our friends. Yeah. You know, and um, Katie said something and I was like, I'm gonna turn this into a haiku.

But I had to actually go look and figure out what a haiku was. Again, no, I knew what a haiku was, but I didn't know the like cadence? Yes. . Okay. I knew it was like three parts, but like there's this many that you can put in that and then that and then, so there's a whole structure to it. There is, I looked it up and then sent the haiku, but I did it very quickly.

So they probably don't know until they listen to this. If they listen to it. Right. So they will. Thanks Anyway. Bye. Bye.