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
Smart Assholes: The Mensa Murder
It's been a couple of weeks, so we are late getting this episode out. In this episode, Kiki covers the murder of Peggy Carr (aka The Mensa Murder) and Rachel brings us the disappearance of Shrell Whitfield. And, as always, we talk chat about what we've been reading and watching.
In our next episode (episode 16), we will be reading our next book: "Hell's Half Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier" by Susan Jonusas.
Sources:
Sherell Whitfield
https://www.yourvalley.net/peoria-independent/stories/peoria-police-seek-assistance-in-locating-endangered-female,486415
If you have information please call the Peoria Police at 623-773-8311.
Peggy Carr
American Justice - Kill Thy Neighbor
Vengence Killer Neighbors - Season 2 Episode 2 "Poison Mastermind"
Socials:
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Instagram: Kiki - @kikileona84
Instagram: Rachel - @eeniemanimeenienailz
Email: details.are.sketchy.pod@gmail.com
Yeah, I'm so stressed. How are you doing Are?
Speaker 2:we doing our intro.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I forgot, we have to do that. How does it? Oh, I'm.
Speaker 2:Kiki and I'm Rachel. Is that loud enough?
Speaker 1:Okay, let's do it over again. I'm Kiki and I'm Rachel, and this is. Details Are Sket, sketchy, a true crime podcast and I don't know what's happening we're both it's kind of stressed out. Yeah, it's been a week, um. So we're doing something a little different this time. Rachel is gonna do the missing person and I'm going to do the main case again, because life yeah, and so you got your, your person, yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, uh, my missing person, my missing person, the missing person that I'm going to highlight today, is Sherelle Whitfield. Uh, she is, is 43 years old. Uh, 5'5, 250 pounds. Uh, she is black, she has black hair and brown eyes, and, uh, she was just went missing on may 4th. So, from you might want to know where Peoria, arizona. So we'll have slightly more information about her later, but, yeah, so it just happened Saturday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she just went missing. She left her residence on foot, and so, hopefully, yeah, yeah, breaking news, yeah, hopefully she can be located. Maybe she'll be located by the time we publish this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but great, yeah if so, we'll update you about that okay, so my murder case is the murder of peggy carr. It's also known as the Mensa murder. So it takes place in Alturas, which is a small farming community in central Florida. There are lots of cattle ranches and orange groves.
Speaker 1:Peggy, who was 41 at the time, was from Fort Meade. She was a people person who always smiled. She also had three kids from a 14-year marriage. After the divorce she got a job at the local diner that would be in or around El Torres, not Fort Meade. The diner is where she met Pi Carr, 44 at the time. Pi was a mine worker and came to the diner after work. He also had two kids, an adult daughter and a teenage son. So Peggy and Pi dated for several months and then got married in 1988. They'd been married for just a few months but already it was not a great family situation. Apparently the kids didn't really get along. They were living with the adult daughter and the teenage sons and Peggy's other kids, I guess. So the kids didn't get along. There was a lot of arguing between them. Also, pi wasn't coming home and Piggy suspected that he was having an affair. His name was Pi. His name was Pi. That's not his full name. Okay, I don't think. I think that's a nickname.
Speaker 2:Is it Pi like math or Pi like P-Y-E, p-y-e, p-y-e?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wouldn't have pronounced that pie, but that's how they pronounced it. On the Unexpected oh, what's your jiggers? So, according to Vengeance Killer Neighbors, peggy did confirm that he was having an affair so suspected or confirmed depends on the episode you watch. Uh, so she didn't confront either pie or his uh mistress and ultimately she agreed to give their marriage another chance. According to one of the shows, she actually took her kids and went to a hotel and then pie came around crying and begging for her to take him back and promising to change his ways.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say how could she agree to take him back if they hadn't had a discussion about the affair?
Speaker 1:yeah, I know so I I don't. It depends on the episode. I don't know which one is accurate. However, the marriage wasn't the same. Her son said she was a bit depressed and, on top of the affair, she later learned that he had taken a large life insurance policy out on her and that scared her. Frankly, that would scare me too especially if I wasn't told.
Speaker 1:It's time to pack up and go. Yeah, okay. So in June 1988, pi Carr received an anonymous letter in the mail. I don't know if it was actually addressed to him or if he's just the one that found it I'm not really sure, but it was typewritten on a Post-it note and he had showed it to his stepson, dwayne. And the note read, quote you and all your so-called family have two weeks to move out of Florida forever or else you all die. This is no joke. End quote. Despite the fact that it says it's no joke, pi thought it was and he also told Dwayne that he thought it was a joke and in one of the episodes Dwayne also said he thought it was a joke.
Speaker 2:I mean I could see thinking it was a joke, if it says this is not a joke.
Speaker 1:Right. Pi also showed the note to his friend and minister, Robert Grant Grant said that he couldn't see anyone in the community who would want to harm him or his family and told Pi to just ignore it. Ministers never think that I know they're like we're all god's children.
Speaker 2:All of my flock would never, ever do anyone harm no, never.
Speaker 1:Uh, in october of 1988 peggy thought she had the flu so she drank some Coke, some Coca-Cola, to settle her stomach. She kept feeling worse, so her family kept giving her more of the soda Right, it's supposed to the soda's poisoned yeah.
Speaker 1:You're getting ahead of the game. You're guessing too much. No, it's okay, sorry. No, you're fine. So they kept giving her more to hopefully settle her stomach. I lost my place because my phone decided to be weird.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then, on Sunday of October 23rd, peggy told her daughter that she wasn't feeling well. She had chest pains and her feet ached and she was unable to walk. By evening she could no longer speak and couldn't open her eyes. Oh, no, um. Her son said she could communicate using sign language. Her parents were deaf, so she grew up learning, knowing how to sign, but I'm not sure if it was like throughout the day and then she couldn't, or if she was doing it in the hospital. They weren't really clear on, like when she was signing. You know what I mean? Yeah, so she was taken to the hospital and, uh, had to be carried in actually like a, like a baby or rag doll, yeah, wedding style because she was in so much pain she couldn't walk. Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and they thought at least one of the shows said they thought it might be psychosomatic.
Speaker 2:Oh my god yeah, fucking doctors, I mean lots of. I mean without doctors, where will we be? But it's so frustrating when you get like gaslit by your doctors especially when you're female. Yeah, yeah, so I'm legit being poisoned here. Please help me yeah fuck right.
Speaker 1:So she said she sewed. She showed signs of improvement after a few days and was sent home, but her symptoms started to get worse and she complained about her feet hurting her. According to her son, that was pretty much all she would or could say. And she was about her feet hurting her, according to her son, that was pretty much all she would or could say. And she was again taken to the emergency room. Peggy's stepson Travis and her son Dwayne also began to complain about burning sensations in their feet, and they were also hospitalized.
Speaker 1:Doctors began to suspect that they had been poisoned by a heavy metal like arsenic. Once Peggy started to lose her hair, a doctor came up with a more remote possibility that they had been poisoned with thallium. So thallium is an odorless, tasteless and undetectable in standard screening tests, and it's for those reasons that it's called the poisoner's poison. It had been used in numerous murders and assassinations. Thallium is a deadly chemical that had once been used in rat poison, but it was so deadly that it had been banned for that use in the 1970s and had not been produced in the United States since 1984. So how does one get their hands on it? That is the next sentence.
Speaker 2:Sorry, that's okay.
Speaker 1:I should just shut up and let you tell us no, that's all right, it's good to have some back and forth. So thallium is imported for restricted use in the manufacture of electronics, low-temper temperature thermometers, optical lenses and imitation precious jewels. It also has some medical uses, and we'll get to another reason why there might be some thallium in just a minute. Okay, okay, the doctors did decide to test for thallium and found that all three. So Peggy, the stepson, travis, and then the son, Dwayne, had in fact been poisoned with a chemical.
Speaker 1:Peggy had actually ingested 55 times the amount it takes to kill a person. Eventually, she lost all ability to communicate and either fell into a coma or the doctors put her into a coma Again. That depends on what show you watch. I wish there was more consistency, but whatever. So Travis and Dwayne also began to lose their hair, and Travis also wound up on a respirator.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:God. So Ernie Mincy, a Polk County detective, was assigned to the case and it was treated as an environmental investigation at first, because thallium was not easily obtainable. I think is what I was supposed to have written there. The police searched the car property. They tested the well water, examined hundreds of items. They found an eight pack of Coca-Cola in glass bottles under the kitchen counter. Four were empty and tests on the empty bottles revealed trace amounts of thallium. So this obviously indicated that the poisoning was not an accident. Yeah, so the investigation was now a homicide investigation, even though Peggy was still technically alive, because her chances of survival were essentially none Right, she was taken off life support in May of 1989, but this isn't May yet.
Speaker 2:If they had, caught it faster, would she have had a chance of survival?
Speaker 1:I don't know, because it was so much, it was so much her body just shut down. I mean it essentially, like my understanding I'm not entirely sure, but I think what how they described it was like basically your arteries and stuff just kind of like shrivel up. She was in pain for pretty much that whole time. Okay, so the question now was uh, were the cars targeted or was this a product tampering case?
Speaker 1:because this is 1988, it's only a few years after the tylenol murders and there had also been some several other product tampering cases and at this point product tampering had become a federal crime. So the FBI was brought in. The FBI discovered that each bottle had been individually opened, laced with the poison and then resealed, which is nearly impossible to do on a large scale. And it was done apparently to the point where, like it was hard to tell that they yeah, you couldn't tell that they had been tampered. So it was determined that the Carr family had been targeted. The FBI also made a profile of the killer which they gave to police. I'll get into that later. It was the killer Pi. The investigation's focus shifted and Kaur was the first natural suspect. His marriage to Peggy was in trouble and he'd been having an affair. And of course there's that life insurance policy. But this is what really kills me. So in one of the episodes it was an American Justice episode they had interviewed the investigator and he goes. We couldn't really establish a motive. And I'm like dude, there's like three motives right there Apparently, life insurance, without one's knowledge is not a whatever that's not a motive
Speaker 2:what nobody ever kills for life insurance money right.
Speaker 1:So they couldn't really establish a motive to poison his wife or his own son, travis uh, who he by all accounts dearly loved and was the most severely poisoned of the two teens. Yes, he could. Just because you're a parent doesn't mean that you love your kids. Very true.
Speaker 2:People should not operate under that assumption.
Speaker 1:No, never. You can have children and have no desire to be a parent, or have I mean? There's a reason. Psychopaths have kids, right I mean, or have I mean?
Speaker 2:there's a reason psychopaths have kids, right. I mean. Plus that's a very like common kind of modus operandi of like whatever, like family men who kill. They like kill their whole family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, come on, let's be real.
Speaker 2:Oh shit I lost my spot again. Okay, Sorry if I sound like breathy or nasally, she's sick again. I think it's allergies, maybe this time. Oh that's slightly better, I guess, but it's yeah, it's been pretty bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's windy today, which makes it worse. Yep, okay, so tests also showed that Pi had also ingested some of the poison. Now, obviously he could have purposefully taken some of the poison to try and throw off investigators, but the authorities at least according to the dude on American Justice felt that he or anyone who knew anything about thallium wouldn't take that risk because it was so lethal like more lethal than like arsenic or whatever like it, just it doesn't take as much to kill you. I guess how much did he have pie?
Speaker 2:yeah uh, not anywhere near as much as the others and it's not an amount that he could have acquired accidentally through whatever spiking the cokes well, yeah, that that's.
Speaker 1:He probably did have like a sip of coke or something yeah like maybe he took a swig before he gave one to peggy or something. Okay, so they didn't think pie did it, so they began to look elsewhere. And, on top of that, none of the cars could remember who bought the Coca-Cola they believed that it wouldn't have been. Peggy, because she only drank Pepsi. Anyone could have come into the house, because the back door wasn't locked Again. Small town USA no-transcript.
Speaker 2:She only drinks Pepsi. Why wouldn't you spike Pepsi instead of Coke? And we'll get to that. Okay, all right, sorry, that's okay, I'll shut up now.
Speaker 1:No, you don't have to shut up, we'll get there.
Speaker 2:I probably won't.
Speaker 1:Let's see. So the back door wasn't locked. There also wasn't a lot of time for someone to get in the house, drop off the soda and leave undetected, just because of the nature of the household. Everybody was just coming and going. It was a busy, busy place. Therefore it had to be someone in the house or a close neighbor. So police looked at neighbors George Trepol and his wife, diana Carr no relation. Now they referred to her as Diana Carr carr, but then they also refer to her as diana traple. I don't know which is accurate. I just call her diana. Just thought I'd throw that out there, okay, anyway, uh, there had reportedly been squabbles between the two households, most of it revolving around the boys who were being obnoxious teenagers and doing things like playing their music really loud, setting off firecrackers. They would ride their three-wheelers on the Trey Palt property and Dwayne later said quote. We basically tormented him and quote him meaning what's his name? Pi, no, george, okay, no, pi is his stepfather.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So just days before Peggy got sick, she had a disagreement with Diana over the boys' loud music. So, according to Duane, diana had come over yelling and cussing and her reaction seemed to be way above what the situation warranted. Okay, so a little bit of background. George and diana were both members of mensa, which is for people with iqs in the top two percent of the population. Diana was an orthopedic surgeon with a love for mysteries. Friends described her as a workaholic who dominated her husband. I would stick a pin in that for later. Yeah, when the police questioned diana, she said that the cars were not quote their type of people. Oh my god, yeah, and characterized.
Speaker 2:I was right sorry, I was right about those smart assholes.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, when I was telling Rachel which thing I was going to do, she's like those smart assholes I was like, yeah, it's true, smarty pants are not always the nicest. She also characterized the encounter over the music as being an ordinary disagreement. Then, when they questioned George, the detective said he acted strangely and spoke with a nervous stammer. He did speak openly about his animosity towards his neighbors and he seemed to be upset over trivial things like the loud music which I don't know. I feel like I mean that is trivial, but it's also not when it's a lot and obnoxious.
Speaker 2:Sure they didn't like file a complaint with like the cops or whatever.
Speaker 1:I don't know neither of the things said, but I just jumped to poisoning. Well, I'm sure that they had disagreements and probably like, yeah, like can you not do that?
Speaker 2:but yeah, I mean, it's trivial enough that one shouldn't poison somebody over it, but if you're like I used to live next to a frat house and yeah, it's pretty awful, especially if you're like you have to get up and work the next like shut the fuck up. Yeah, but at the same time you can't just kill your problem away. You can't poison somebody, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So he also had a curious answer to the question why would someone want to poison your neighbors? So the standard answer that the detectives had received when they asked others in the neighborhood was some version of I don't know George's answer was someone wanted them to leave. So if you remember that well, first it's strange, not just because it deviated from the norm, not just because it deviated from the norm, but because it was very similar to the note in the mailbox that Pye had gotten back in June, which had not been made public.
Speaker 2:See, I was almost thinking that he wrote the letter to himself.
Speaker 1:Oh, you mean Pye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, oh, look what I found Right.
Speaker 1:Also, george fit the profile the FBI had given authorities. So according to the FBI, the killer would be an intelligent, passive white male who avoids direct confrontation. The profile also said the poisoner would threaten the victims and would like to watch from a distance. Watch from a distance. So obviously George was intelligent. Again, he was in Mensa. He was also a self-taught chemist and a self-described computer programmer.
Speaker 1:One of the shows said he worked from home and one said that he was unemployed. So I don't know which is true. Friends said that he had a long history of using drugs like LSD and speed. Apparently he also experimented on others, using homemade hallucinogens, for example. He and a friend went on a cross-country trip. They had cookies that they had laced with drugs and would give them to the hitchhikers they picked up. The hitchhikers didn't know that they were being drugged. Of course. Also, george had a criminal record Back in 1975, he had been convicted for conspiracy to manufacture amphetamine for sale and distribution. He told his fellow prisoners that when he got out he was going to get back into the methamphetamine business.
Speaker 2:So he fancies himself like a Walter White type.
Speaker 1:I guess. So here's the thing. Thallium, of course, is one of the ingredients often used in making meth.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So George told investigators that he had no knowledge of thallium, so obviously that likely is not true, but those that knew him best said that George was a Buddhist with a deep respect for all living things.
Speaker 2:I laughed. This is some very different pictures of this individual.
Speaker 1:Yes, because you know no one who manufactures meth or any type of drug like that An unemployed, self-described chemist meth manufacturer meth cook Right and who gives drugs to unsuspecting people would have any respect for life.
Speaker 2:No, let alone a deep respect. I was going to say he sounds like a sociopath. But then I was like, like you know, maybe I shouldn't like throw those kinds of labels around right since there's plenty of sociopaths that right.
Speaker 1:Live normal lives and don't do things like drug unsuspecting hitchhikers yeah, so he maybe didn't like people, but apparently he would catch and release insects and he also really loved his cats. But that doesn't necessarily again translate to people. I don't hate people, but I definitely prefer animals to humans. Yeah, generally speaking, he also was said to be a great friend and the car family actually thought he was harmless. In fact, duane Dwayne said he was a nerd, that George seemed really nice but also a little weird, though Dwayne's example for George being weird was that he wore black socks with slippers and shorts.
Speaker 1:I think that's just a dad move you know that's just an old dude, yeah, or a middle-aged dude thing, not a.
Speaker 1:I don't think that that makes him necessarily weird. So the question then was had george's disputes with his neighbors motivated him to poison them, or was he just an eccentric genius who only looked guilty? So detectives really didn't have any evidence of George's guilt and so they decided to send Detective Susan Goregg undercover. She was easygoing and unassuming, and it was believed that those would be traits that would encourage George to open up. So George and Diana would often participate in social events put on by Mensa, including their elaborate role-playing, mystery type stuff or I guess it wouldn't have to be mystery but any sort of role-playing whatever.
Speaker 1:In April 1989, they put on a Mensa murder mystery weekend at a local hotel. Gork decided to attend under an assumed name and identity, so she became Sherry Gwen, a timid woman trying to escape her abusive husband. The FBI thought Sherry was someone the suspect could relate to. Participants in the murder mystery weekend were assigned characters. They dressed in costumes and followed a script enacting various murder plots. So George wrote a booklet for that particular weekend titled Voodoo for Fun and Profit. And in the booklet George wrote, quote most items on the doorstep are just a neighbor's way of saying move or else, which again mimics the note. The booklet also explained that people who receive such threats should know their food or drink could be poisoned.
Speaker 2:Ooh.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Telling on yourself yeah.
Speaker 1:So Detective Gorick approached George as Sherry during the weekend. She found him to be pleasant and engaging. She said he was very easy to talk to, but he was also kind of like an encyclopedia, in that you could ask him anything and he would talk on that subject for hours. And she said he was also a little egotistical. Goric overheard George say that he was going to sell his house, or his and Diana's house, and so she took the opportunity to further develop a relationship with him and tell him that she was in the market for a house. They arranged a time to meet the following week and soon after that they became friends and often talked on the phone. Those phone conversations were recorded, but he never said anything about the poisoning. Mainly he would just talk about his day and his cats. However, over time it became clear that he hated people who have less intelligence than him and that he demands certain things and certain control. And Gorick believed that he didn't like that. He didn't have control over his neighbors.
Speaker 1:So later that year 1989, george and Diana moved about 40 miles away and rented out their house to Gorick they believe she's still Sherry and so she actually paid rent. So that meant that she could bring detectives and a crime scene unit with her and they didn't need a search warrant because George had basically given his tenant free reign of the property, right. So anything they found was sent off to the FBI lab for testing. Uh, so anything they found was sent off to the FBI lab for testing. So Sherry finally confronted George about the poisoning. Again, she did it, did I say Sherry? She did it as Sherry. Um, so he didn't admit it, but he did say that the poisoning was a personal vendetta and the perpetrators weren't going around killing everybody, which detectives thought was interesting for him to say, since the crime hadn't yet been solved. So how would he know?
Speaker 1:that it was a vendetta and that they weren't going to kill more people. According to Gorick, he wasn't like his usual self with her, and when it was over, he appeared to be quite shaken. Soon after that, the lab results came in. On the items taken from George's home, there was a bottle that had been found in his garage that contained traces of thallium, and so that was enough to arrest George. They arrested him at his new home, which was again 40 miles away.
Speaker 1:When they searched the house, they found some incriminating evidence, although some of this stuff I'm like, really, guys, yeah, okay, that might be a big red flag, but he's also a chemist, right? So of course he has chemicals around, or at least he has an interest in chemistry. So I wouldn't say that that was weird. That alone wouldn't. No, and none of them, apparently, were thallium. Now, the other one I would say could probably be a red flag, which is that they also found photocopied pages from a book called Poison Detection in the Human Organs. The pages that he had copied included a page on thallium, and the pages were covered with George's fingerprints. So that could be something. Yeah, certainly probably a bit suspicious.
Speaker 1:So they also found and this is the one that cracks me up the most. This is the one where I know we're in small town America. Yeah, in the 80s. Okay, so they also found what they believed to be a torture chamber hidden in the basement room. Was it sex stuff? Yeah, it had a wooden table with stirrups, the windows had been sealed and the walls heavily insulated. The detectives thought it looked again like a torture chamber. They also found bondage tools and like ball gags and handcuffs.
Speaker 2:And you know as soon as you said that like uh, his wife or whatever was domineering, I thought bdsm exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay, I I'm gonna continue along those lines. Okay, so obviously this stuff is unrelated to the poisoning, but detectives felt it revealed a dark side to george.
Speaker 1:Personally and this is what I wrote down because I was irritated personally I would have thought that, um, that that stuff would probably be more of the wife's preference since she apparently was supposed to be the dominant one in the relationship and I kind of agree with his friend that these so-called quote torture devices so the gags and the cuffs and the whatever could easily be explained as being relatively yeah, you know whatever. And then I wrote and, by the way, that shit's considered vanilla now.
Speaker 1:Yeah it is, it is considered yeah, I was gonna say like a bdsm is one of the top five kinks and is one of the most search items on google. Also, I don't think 50 shades of gray would have sold the bajillion copies it did. If people weren't into that kink right, like if I had been a detective. Maybe it would be different in 1988 or 89. But if I had walked into that room I would have been like they're into some kinky shit. I would.
Speaker 2:I would think that most cops would recognize that kind of stuff for what it is today.
Speaker 1:I would hope so you would, but like I see so many of these shows and like the detectives, particularly the ones from like small towns or who are particularly religious yeah that's like they don't.
Speaker 2:They don't see it as being sexual, they see it as something being like and yet religious people are some of the the largest um consumers of like porn and shit. Yeah, so you would think that they would know what bdsm is you would think you would think.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I thought it was hilarious because I was like, and also I was kind of laughing at myself, because when they were talking about the stirrups and stuff, I was like oh my God, I've seen too. I've read too much smut, because that is my head. Didn't go to torture chamber.
Speaker 2:No, my head didn't go there either.
Speaker 1:I was like somebody in that house is into medical play. Yes, that's the thing. In case y'all didn't know, google it. So anyway, george was arrested without bail, google it. So anyway, george was arrested without bail.
Speaker 1:It was a death penalty case and the Carrs family was actually really surprised by the arrest. They didn't really think that George would be the killer. So the defense attorney knew that a jury would have a hard time with George because he was a genius eccentric who didn't hang out with quote regular people. He didn't show much emotion in the court and jurors apparently did find him unsettling. One of the things his lawyers tried to get the jurors to see was that the investigators focused on him because of his eccentricities and the way he behaved when they first met him. So basically, they said his lips were dry and he wouldn't look them in the eye and so they automatically felt like he had something to hide. But that is kind of how George always behaved. That was just his. He was shy, he was, I wouldn't say, unassuming, but he's not necessarily somebody who would look you in the eye. I guess is what I'm saying. I have a hard time looking people I don't know in the eye.
Speaker 2:As well have trouble with eye contact. Who Neurodivergent?
Speaker 1:people. Yeah, that's exactly what. I figured, I mean I would say he's in some way neurodivergent. Yeah, that's not a red flag, no, but apparently it is to them, or dry lips.
Speaker 2:What does that have to do with?
Speaker 1:Well, if your mouth gets dry, you're usually nervous. I mean there are other reasons, but that is one of the reasons I see. So they said the prosecution couldn't prove that the bottle with the thallium traces belonged to George or that it was even used in the crime. There are no fingerprints and it was found about four months after they moved, so it would be a year or more after the poisoning, and George and Diana never locked the garage in the time that they lived there. So the defense attorney said, at least in the American Justice episode that I watched, that he believed it was Diana who did it, or at least that she was as good of a suspect as George. They didn't really bring that up in the trial because George didn't want them to. And I look into her. I don't think so and I kind of agree with that assessment. And I'm not saying that George is innocent, but I think it could definitely. I could definitely see her doing it or being or convincing George to do it.
Speaker 2:It's hard to believe that she wouldn't have been involved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also her personality is domineering like I don't know, I mean, I mean that's all that we've heard about her. Right is she has a domineering personality she, and she may not actually be all that dominating, it may just come off that way but mean even whatever, like they're a married couple.
Speaker 2:they have expressed similar sentiments right against their neighbors, so it's hard to envision that he would have done it just completely independent and she wouldn't have even known anything.
Speaker 1:True, Although.
Speaker 1:I mean people commit murder all the time and their spouses don't have even known anything, true, although I mean, it's hard for people commit murder all the time and their spouses don't know, that's true, like serial killers and whatever. So I don't know. I think I think george did it, but I also think diana probably had something to do with it, if it's true that she's domineering George was convicted on all counts, including the first-degree murder of Peggy Carr. The jury decided 9-3 for the death penalty, and he was ultimately sentenced to death. One issue in his conviction, though, arose in 1997.
Speaker 1:There was a whistleblower who called attention to some very serious flaws in the FBI lab. Roger Marks was the only one who linked the Coca-Cola bottles to George, I guess using the traces of thallium found in the garage, but like they were the same type, so somehow they were together. I'm not really sure what they were really trying to say there, but how many types are there, I don't know, and the Justice Department reported that some of Mark's work on George's case was inaccurate. Yeah, in jail George, at least as of 2000,.
Speaker 1:Kept up with Mensa. He wrote a monthly column for the newsletter that was put out by the Florida Chapter. He's had several appeals which he's lost, and I couldn't find anywhere that he's been executed yet, so I don't really know what's happened to him or any of the rest of the case. It was actually kind of hard to find any like hard information and I had to really right scour for the episodes and I actually did pay for a couple of them. But that's okay, that's okay. But anyway, that's the Mensa murder Interesting, yeah, and my sources were American Justice and Vengeance Killer Neighbors I keep wanting to say Killer Lovers, but that's a different one.
Speaker 2:Do they ever like find out information about, like why Pi had taken out the insurance policy?
Speaker 1:No, and that was only put in. One of the episodes Is that, like I don't know, I know Like I continually complain about poor 2020. I love 2020. I give Like I continually complain about poor 2020. I love 2020. I give them a bad rap, yeah, sometimes. But specificity guys Like go into some detail. Yeah, I mean, this wasn't a 2020 episode, this was vengeance and American justice, but like give us some more More information, please Like.
Speaker 1:how do you know what happened Right yeah? Give us some more more information, please like. How do you know what happened right yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, I want to know like, more information about, like, yeah, how, like it does seem very suspicious but at the same time, like you said, there's some flaws yeah and and uh, at least the way that they presented the evidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it feels like they didn't investigate anybody else except for Pi and George. So I mean I would have at least tried to get Diane in there somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I guess I mean, if you have an FBI profile and it says it's not a woman, I wonder how the FBI would come to that conclusion because, generally speaking, poisoners are women.
Speaker 2:I mean most of the whatever John Douglas, or is that the name of the guy? You know he's a man, so I don't consider like uh different, like things that you know that. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, like in words or not yeah, like in in most things, they tend to skew one way they they have a preconceived notion of women. Yeah and um like women, can only kill this way and like right I mean, although you know, evidence does suggest that most poisoners are women, like the way women kill and the way men kill, generally speaking, are different I don't know.
Speaker 2:Some of that stuff almost seems like freudian or whatever, like oh, it's a passive male or whatever.
Speaker 1:Like shit like that, which to me is like pseudosciencey yeah, um, well, like, what I would like to know is like, what? Like they obviously have more information than what was given to us to base their profile on Right, so I'd like to know the way that they think it would be a passive mail.
Speaker 2:I mean, other than it being poison, because yeah, that's the only thing I can think of that.
Speaker 1:Right, but I mean they clearly would have had more information than we did yeah.
Speaker 2:Why did they decide it has to be a male?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also it was only one of the episodes that said it was a passive male. Yeah, well, generally speaking, most killers are male, right White male. But I mean, obviously they've got a lot of education and they have more information than we have about why it would be that way. I mean, we kind of said that too about the Tylenol murders.
Speaker 2:Like why were?
Speaker 1:they focusing on a man instead of a woman since most poisoners are women. Yeah, they're ruling out like a ton of people. Yeah, yeah, Well.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean, that's another thing too, like if you only look for a man, then you're only going to find a man right, and so you know there's possibly lots of other types. You know more diverse ways that women murder that are not considered and therefore not investigated, therefore not convicted, etc yeah, so well, I mean it.
Speaker 1:There are definitely biases in every investigation at that torture thing, so torture chamber still makes me laugh. I'm just like oh, my goodness, and and clearly that was also an early tooth like that was american justice in 2000.
Speaker 2:So how awkward for them to be, like it's a torture chamber. No, it's not that, uh, yeah, um although I I don't think that.
Speaker 1:I think that the detective still felt that it was a torture chamber. I don't think his brain went to BDSM.
Speaker 2:I feel like at a certain point they're like we've got to stick to our guns, we've got to stick to our story.
Speaker 1:Or he does know it's BDSM and he just think that that means that anybody who would practice that kind of kink would necessarily have to have a dark side, because there's such a lack of understanding of that.
Speaker 2:But again, it's like one of the top five kinks, yeah, so I mean it's possible that a lot of people I mean everybody has a dark side, right but but like just to say that, like you know, people with BDSM are bad and murky, like that's.
Speaker 1:Also. I mean, I understand that a lot of times when we look at these cases, the torture chamber does belong to the man, yeah, but if he's supposed to be a passive individual, I don't think he would be the dom. I mean, maybe People are switch you know they switch all the time and maybe he's a dom in the bedroom or whatever.
Speaker 2:But Very true. But yeah, but like, regardless of what right who's the dom and who's the sub, like they're both, whatever Ideally right, they are both into their role. Yeah, so it's not just like you know, it's for both of them. Well, yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 1:I'm just I was trying to. I guess I'm saying they automatically thought he was the sub, no, that he was the dom, oh, oh, but according to the FBI profile he's supposed to be passive, right, so that?
Speaker 2:conflicts. And they claim that she's domineering and stuff. So Right, Evidence points.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean again, that really didn't have anything to do with I would more examples of like her behavior that's allegedly yeah I mean, they didn't really say anything at all about her, except that the friend said she was domineering yeah, um.
Speaker 2:And that she was a workaholic yeah, um I mean that could also like whatever, just play into stereotypes as well yeah yeah, oh, uptight women who work or whatever. Yeah, you know it sounds ridiculous when you just say it like that, but that yeah, no, that is yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1:People stereotype strong women as being domineering or whatever domineering bitchy uptight. It was female friends who described her that way, not that they can't be also swayed by, yeah, um, societal, whatever norms yeah, expectations, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, absolutely like.
Speaker 2:I'm not like discounting that, that's an accurate description right, yeah, no I want to hear some examples yeah, I, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd like a more in-depth uh episode. Yeah, like, do like a two or three part or something they should do like a, q a kind of thing. Yeah, that way I could ask all my obnoxious questions although, although I'm sure a lot of those people are probably not around anymore, they were. They were older in 2000, that's true, yeah, so unfortunate and I mean george himself think is like 79 or 80 at this point. Okay, so how about your missing?
Speaker 2:person. So my missing person. Don't have a ton of information about her. Her name is Sherelle Whitfield. She's 43 years old, black woman. It says black female, but I hate that. 5'5", 250 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. She is missing. Peoria police are asking the public for help to find her. She's that says 5'5", but this says 5'4". They don't know. She's around 5'4", 5'5", right, okay, average height, 250 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a multicolored beanie, a yellow or gold t-shirt and black leggings. She was seen about 8.30 am May 4th when she left her residence on foot near the area of 93rd West Olive Avenues and that's all we got. So anyone with information should contact the Peoria Police Department at 623 773 8311.
Speaker 2:But yeah, since her disappearance is kind of hot off the press, there's not a lot of info yeah, there's not a lot of info and hopefully even by the time this is published maybe she'll be found and hopefully you know. It's just one of those things and she'll be back and no worries. But if that is not the case and if she's still missing when this is published, go ahead and contact that peoria police department if you have any tips or information about her pressure.
Speaker 1:Uh, what were your?
Speaker 2:sources peoria police department, newsbreakcom and the Arizona Missing Persons file. Missing Persons Cases 2024 article from Fox 10 Phoenix.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've both been busy bees the last couple weeks. Have you actually had a chance to read or watch anything?
Speaker 2:So I did finish, uh, that hella book. Um wait, sorry, the. What book hella? Uh, it's uh, that book that was written by that star trek writer, david his last name starts with a g david grold. He wrote the Trouble with Tribbles episode.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's about like like a future where Earth is all fucked up and people are. It's implied that that like there's been like some kind of pandemic from extraterrestrial virus contamination like on earth or whatever, from uh like explorers bringing back viruses and contaminants, um, from other planets. But this is like a colony established on this large planet. I made like a circle with my arms so nobody can see A large planet named Hela. It's like a super-sized planet, so it has like a lighter gravity and things grow to really large sizes there. Things grow to really large sizes there and they have like dinosaurian type animals that are enormous, that grow most of the planet and like giant, uh sentient carnivorous plants type of thing. But these colonies are pretty, pretty established, pretty safe, they have tech and all this stuff in their, their colonies or whatever.
Speaker 2:But now, uh like a new ship of immigrants has come from earth, like like 1200 people, and so there's a big, a lot of fighting about what to do with him. And it's told from the perspective of like a 13-year-old autistic boy and it's pretty cool. Yeah, I thought it was pretty good for a free Amazon book and or not Amazon, same thing. Audible, yeah. Audible is Amazon, yeah, so yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:So yeah, audible is amazon, yeah so, yeah, that's good, so yeah, so yeah, very articulate. Yeah it was. It was pretty fun, damn it.
Speaker 1:I said yeah again, it's okay you wouldn't believe the number of ums that I cut out for both of us and now me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, now I started. Uh, mary, an awakening of terror again. This is my second read and I haven't gotten very far. I just listened to like half an hour of it yeah, so well, you're farther than I am.
Speaker 1:It's one of our monthly books, although that was supposed to be April. Yeah, but that isn't either of our faults. Rachel got a part-time job yeah, so she's been working away on that and I had training. That was like going to school and having my own class on top of doing my classes and getting ready for finals, so it's been a busy couple weeks. I got nothing. I don't. I haven't watched or read anything. I've listened to small town dicks, several episodes of that, but that's it. I ever. You're such a teenage boy. I know Case. Any of you don't know. Dicks is another term for detective. I do know that, but it's still funny, I know you do.
Speaker 1:But just in case other people don't I mean, it's kind of an old fashioned word that I don't think- is really used anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. Maybe we have youngins who are listening to our podcast for some reason. For some reason listening to some old folk.
Speaker 1:We're happy to have you, Absolutely. But it's great. It's got Paul Holes, it's got Yardley. I want to say her name is Yardley Smith. Yardley Smith the voice of.
Speaker 1:Lisa Simpson is yardley smith, yardley smith, who plays the voice of lisa simpson, and, oh no, how do I not know who the detectives are? Her husband, who is a twin, uh, okay, I gotta go to the show because I can't. What is happening? And now the internet's not working. Why is this happening? And now it doesn't tell me anything, but it's. I feel bad that I don't know who the other detectives are, but it's got twin brothers detectives, yeah, and one of them is her husband, okay, and they have detectives from other places, including Canada and Scotland, who talk about crimes that they solved, okay, which is interesting. So they're kind of fun.
Speaker 1:But speaking of Yardley, I've got a decision to make. So I'm going to CrimeCon, yes, in the end of May and June. So John Walsh is going oh my God, that's exciting, yeah, and so is John Douglas. I got John Douglas covered, but John Walsh has a meet and greet at the exact same time. That small town dicks has their meet and greet, their meet and greet. And so I am torn between should I try to meet john walsh, the granddaddy of true crime, or should I try to meet the small town dicks like lisa? Should I try to meet lisa simpson, or should I try to meet like amer? Most Wanted is really what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I would meet Lisa.
Speaker 1:Simpson, I know, but I can't tell you what to do. No, I know what will make you happy.
Speaker 2:Which one sparks joy.
Speaker 1:They both spark joy. That's the problem. Now, I regret not going to their meet and greet last time. That's the problem. Do it and I was like, oh, I should have done it, and then I wouldn't even have a problem. Why would they do that? Why would they put lisa simpson and john walsh against each other? I mean, these are like the icons of the 80s and 90s.
Speaker 2:Right, it's true so for someone who has kind of a weird voice I really enjoy voices I don't know, and it always kind of amazes me to see, to see, to hear the voice of a cartoon character coming out of a real person. I know that's where they come from, but it's kind of like, whoa, yeah, this is their real voice, yeah, and so I would go for that yeah, it's a real dilemma.
Speaker 1:I may have to do a coin toss at the time.
Speaker 2:Too bad, you can't divide into two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I could, but the problem is that they cut it off.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And while I will have a premium doohickey which usually means you can can go the front of the line, I would feel guilty.
Speaker 1:I know nobody else would feel guilty for taking a place I know I should be a bitch and just do it, but we'll see. We'll see how it works out. But and I was also thinking well, they've been to small town dicks, has been to a few crime cons, so they'd probably go to other ones. Yeah, but who's to say I'm going to go to other ones? Right, like I've gone back to having a part-time job instead of a full-time job, so money's going to be super tight, yeah, especially since I'm going on the crime cruise. Maybe they'll be on the crime cruise. I don't know Right now. The only people I know for sure going on the crime cruise, I think are like Paul Hulse and Matt Murphy. I don't know, there could be more and I just wasn't paying attention. But that's a dilemma.
Speaker 2:So if any of you out there give a shit and would like to tell me what I should do.
Speaker 1:You know you could hit us up on our socials or our sad, lonely email yeah, that's exciting, are you excited? I'm super excited I that is part of my 40th birthday week. Well, two weeks birthday bash, yeah, I mean it's before my 40, my 40th not till mid-june, but but yeah, I'll be leaving, I'll be spending first. I'll be spending like I don't know five, six days in California, in LA, before that and then going to Nashville.
Speaker 1:So it's gonna be all part of that, like 10 days of birthday extravaganza birthday extravaganza yeah, I may even be dorky, and I think because so Sanrio, which is like Hello Kitty or whatever. They have a bunch of different characters and one of their characters is Guditama, which is the lazy egg she is a lazy egg. I know you've heard about it, but they have a restaurant in California. I think it's in LA, I'm not 100%. I have to Google that, so I may be a complete dork, you should do it. And go to Goody Toma Restaurant Be a dork.
Speaker 1:And be a giant kid, absolutely. Yeah, we'll see. Be like I'm a giant kid all the time and it's fun. I could be like that time. I was in Australia and they had a children's like fair thing. I didn't realize it was for children until I left, but I got in line to ride a camel and it was only children. I was like the only adults. I really wanted to ride a camel and I didn't know I was gonna go to egypt at that point that was like four or five years before I would have gotten in line to ride a camel too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would be right there with you good, I'm glad I'm not the only weird adult. That was probably the best part. Part of my semester in australia was riding a camel, anyway, okay, okay, so that's it. We haven't done anything. We haven't really watched anything. Yeah, I need help deciding, I have decisions to make and I guess that's it. Next time you will be doing the case, since I've done two in a row now. Yes, I will do a thing.
Speaker 2:You'll do a thing, not Ruby Frankie.
Speaker 1:No, we should do that, but that'll be a big one A long one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what she said.
Speaker 1:Oh Jesus, I'm the one that reads smut. How am I not the one doing these things? You have the dirty mind, that's okay. That's why we love you.
Speaker 2:Maybe your mind is all dirtied out from all the smut. That's why we love you. Maybe your mind is all dirtied out from all this smut. That's true, that's true. Plus, I have to make up for our friend who's not here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she should come visit and be on our podcast. Yeah, she should Someday.
Speaker 2:That would be so awesome, wouldn't it, if we could convince her to do that, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:So download like subscribe review. If you would please, that'd be really awesome. Send us an email. Send us an email. You can hit us up on our socials. That information will be in the show notes. And oh, next time is our book Our book? Yes, and I still don't have the book in the house. It is in my trunk. Hell's Half Acre? Yes, it is called, not Hell's Kitchen. No, it is called Hell's Half Acre. And do we know the author? Let me Google it.
Speaker 2:Hell's Half Acre I had to make salmon for Jay and I was worried that I was going to undercook it. And then I was mentally yelling at myself like Gordon Ramsay it's raw, it's raw. The salmon is fucking raw. But it was not raw, that's good. I cooked it right somehow.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Okay, so the book. Its full title is Hell's Half Acre the Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier, and it's by Susan Jonasas, J-O-N-U-S-A-S. And that will be episode 16, which will be in two weeks from now, but we're going to record it, like next week. Probably Something like that. Yeah, so, oh shit, that's another book I've got to read, so we better get our asses in the room and read that book, and we apologize for our episode being super late this week, but life happens, shit happens yeah.
Speaker 1:Life happened. Okay, we will talk to you all next time.
Speaker 2:Yep, bye, bye.
