True Crime Campfire True Crime Campfire

It’s kind of hard to pin down what the first slasher movie was. Do you start with “Psycho” in 1960? Go even further back? But there’s no real doubt when the genre blossomed—the 1970s. And that makes sense, because the 1970s was also when the shocking crimes of serial killers really permeated the national consciousness. You ask someone to name a serial killer, there’s a good chance they’ll name someone who was mostly or exclusively active in the ‘70s—Bundy, Gacy, BTK, Son of Sam. The slasher movies tapped into a growing awareness that there really were terrifyingly dangerous people out there, killers who didn’t even have to know you to want you dead. This is the story of the horrible murders of two young hitchhikers, at a time when such cases were startlingly common. 
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Sources:
Ann Rule—Last Dance, Last Chance—"The Beach”
Court papers:,https://casetext.com/case/state-v-batten-3
https://www.thedailyworld.com/news/gone-girl-the-disappearance-of-laura-flink/ https://charleyproject.org/case/laura-lee-asynithe-flink

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Like most American Millennials, I was subjected to Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE. It was the typical kind of “Drugs Are Bad, mmmkay?” sort of thing. Police officers would come to school and show 2nd graders pictures of smoker lungs and suggest that everyone and their mom would be peer pressuring you to smoke weed and/or crack, which was not as big of an issue as some of us might have hoped. During one such class, we were being taught about the danger of gang violence and we were told to draw what we thought a gang member would look like. Yes, it does sound like a potentially extremely racist arts and crafts session, but yours truly decided to get creative. I drew a woman wearing a crop top and JNCO jeans. The DARE officer looked at my drawing and told me that women weren’t ever members of gangs, but were usually girlfriends, which made my tiny feminist hackles raise. What do you MEAN there weren’t any lady gang members? Whatever men could do, women could do, right? EQUALITY, RIGHT? If she had been prepared for nuance beyond her vaguely racist lesson, she might have talked about the culture of toxic masculinity that pervades most gangs as we think about them today and often, women have to carve out their own niche when it comes to organized crime. Officer Silva, this one’s for you.
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Sources:
Heritage of Endurance: Family Patterns and Delinquency Formation in Urban Japan By Hiroshi Wagatsuma, George A. De Vos
https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/the-queens-of-the-forties-1683/ https://www.dannydutch.com/post/meet-the-forty-elephants-the-all-girl-gang-from-london https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QZEnyZyYo4 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00220094211018490
https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/life-juveniles.aspx#:~:text=(Image%20source%3A%203%20)%20Wartime,year%20of%20World%20War%20II.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001112875500100210?journalCode=cada https://apnews.com/article/japan-gangsters-yakuza-crime-fdb57ffd2325fb3aba8c211a30b6c861 https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a60938449/under-the-bridge-manjit-suman-reena-virk-parents/ a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090801004713/http:/www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060719/virk_killer_060719?s_name=&no_ads=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer...

Obsession can be a good thing. An obsessed athlete can spend hours practicing to be the best they can be, an obsessed collector can find joy and community in the thrill of the hunt, or obsession can drive an artist to explore the human condition in a way that moves everyone that sees their art. But obsession can veer into something darker if the object of it is a person. That’s how you get a stalker. Someone who is so consumed with the life of another almost always pushes the boundaries of appropriate behavior. If you’ve seen the show Baby Reindeer, you’ll know that being the target of a stalker’s attention can have serious consequences. Today, we have two stalker stories for you. The first is about how a stalker can project their own feelings of love and affection onto their victim, to a violent outcome. In the second, we’ll tell you a story about how one of the largest companies in the world harassed a couple for the crime of blogging. This is One Step Behind: A Stalkers Grab Bag.

Sources: 
Journal of Homicide and Major Incident Investigation, V6I2 Autumn 2010, “Operation Hydration” https://library.college.police.uk/docs/J_Homicide_MII/J_Homicide_6.2.pdfNightmare in Suburbia, S2E5, “The Internet Stalker”World’s Most Evil Killers, S3E15, David Heisshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/technology/ebay-cockroaches-stalking-scandal.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/ebay-cyberstalking-crimes.htmlhttps://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/ex-ebay-manager-prison-harassing-natick-couple-stephanie-popp/https://www.svvoice.com/former-cop-discussed-using-scpd-contacts-to-obstruct-cyberstalking-investigation/https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/ebay-inc-pay-3-million-connection-corporate-cyberstalking-campaign-targetinghttps://www.reuters.com/legal/government/couples-case-over-ebay-stalking-campaign-can-move-forward-us-judge-rules-2023-12-13/https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/gdpzwzqykvw/12122023ebay.pdfFollow us, campers!
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When it comes to stuff, I really feel like counterfeit can be just as good as the real thing. Give me a lab-created diamond any day; I can show off some sparkle without robbing a bank. Same goes for shoes and bags and perfume dupes—I’m happy to sport a convincing knockoff. Fake isn’t always bad. But when it comes to people, it’s a whole different story. Especially when we’re talking fake doctor, or fake financial advisor…or as we’ll see in today’s story, fake assassin. Join us for a story of counterfeit clout, astounding gullibility, and greed, that when mixed all together, led to a deadly conclusion.

This is a wild one, folks. 

Sources:
Kill or be Killed by Robert Scott
Oxygen's "Mastermind of Murder," S2E10, “Under Covers”
The Investigators, S1E8, “Toy Soldier”
Court papers: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-supreme-court/1891091.html

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I'm not going to try and do his voice because it'd tear my throat up, but Hollywood legend Jack Palance once said, "The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed." Greed has been a motivation in more true crime cases than I can count, and it's astonishing how a grasping desire for dollars and cents can twist the human heart. It can drive someone to acts of both chilling cruelty and jaw-dropping stupidity, and in this week's case we get both. Join us for a bizarre true story of a heartless murder for hire that took 11 long years to solve. 

Sources:
Court papers: https://casetext.com/case/cooke-v-gang
Court papers: https://www.mdcourts.gov/sites/default/files/unreported-opinions/0815s23.pdf
Interrogation footage from the interrogations of Alexander Bennett and Grant Lewis
NBC's Dateline, episode "Indiscretion"
Investigation Discovery's True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, episode "Discreet House Cleaning"

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Almost everyone who walks into a casino feeling confident that they’re gonna walk out richer is what is technically known as “a sucker.” Every game you play at a casino gives the house an edge. Not much of one—otherwise, why would people play? Players have to win a decent portion of the time, that’s why they keep putting their money down on the table. But behind the glitz and glamour, casinos run on cold mathematical certainty. Over the long term, over hundreds of hands of cards and rolls of the dice and spins of the wheel, the house ultimately always wins.  But what if they didn’t? What if people, through brainpower and daring, managed to beat the odds and come out on top? It’s a tantalizing thought—and for the people in these three stories, it was too tempting to pass up.

Sources: 
https://www.888casino.com/blog/famous-mit-team-members
BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27519748
Esquire: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a37016468/heather-tallchief-roberto-solis-heist-netflix-now/
NBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9766179
Boston Magazine: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2019/06/21/mit-blackjack-team/
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/us/fugitive-in-armored-car-theft-gives-up-after-12-years.html
New Scientist: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428644-500-roulette-beater-spills-physics-behind-victory/
Science Alert: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-physicist-has-built-a-machine-that-can-beat-the-odds-at-roulette
Justice.gov: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nv/news/2006/03302006.html
http://www.richardmunchkin.com/2011/08/my-interview-with-john-laurie-c-mit.html
Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/heist-netflix-heather-tallchief-roberto-solis-true-story-facts-documentary-1610361

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