You're listening to a morbid network podcast. Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena.

And I'm Ash.

And this is morbid. I had just, like, stretched one of those good, strong, deep stretches when I said that. That's why it came out a little crackly.

That's okay. I was yawning while you said, hey, weird. It's early. It's wedding week.

I'm tired. It's just all of that.

We're working.

We're twerking.

I'm really trying to learn how to twerk.

I was just going to say we are not twerking.

You could twerk if you wanted to. You can twerk if you want to.

You can give it a try. No. Ash is on a quest.

I am.

And I'm not going to interfere in that quest. I'm just going to be on the sideline and I'm going to cheer her on.

Thank you. The TikTok girlies say that you just lean forward and shift the weight between your heels. But I look like a duck when I do that. But I was doing it the other day in my mirror, and I think I'm getting somewhere. Oh, I can't show you quite yet. I'm really perfecting the strategy, but I think I figured something out.

Good. I mean, I shall wait with bated breath.

I'm glad that's me on my twerk journey. Thanks for hearing me out. Brought to you by twerk journey.

Ash, we're silly goofy today. We are. It's a crazy week because Ash is going to be married lady at the end of it. Whoa. So that's fun.

That's cuckoo, nuts, bananas.

Yeah. Then we just go back to regular life.

Well, for like a minute, but then I leave again. Yeah, but, like, first Thanksgiving, I wasn't going to leave for that. I fucking love your Thanksgiving.

And last year, I got the neurovirus on Thanksgiving, so I couldn't cook.

And then I tried to take over Thanksgiving, and nobody wanted me to because.

I've really put my stamp on Thanksgiving. If I can't cook it, apparently it can.

I mean, pretty much actually was the answer that I was given.

But this year, the worst part was last year was I had all the stuff ready to go because I always have it all laid out. I have some things cooked the night before, like, at least prepared the night before. And I woke up in the morning and started dying and got full blown neurovirus. Literally the morning of things. Like, woke up at 04:00 a.m. And that was that.

Yeah.

Everybody had store bought Thanksgiving that year.

Last Thanksgiving was the most depressing Thanksgiving ever.

Because last year was depressing.

Last year was so depressing.

Drew's dad had COVID last year, so.

We couldn't even go to his parents for Thanksgiving. So we literally just sat.

And that was, like, the worst year. Anyways, we had a lot going on. People were making our lives miserable. Not you guys. Trust me.

No, never you guys.

The people who didn't know who they are. And we're not going to have that this year. No. Because this year we said, behold my field of fucks, for it is barren. I said, you will not ruin it. Dave's yags. Dave's yags. You don't know what that means, but I do. But, yeah, it was rough, actually. My youngest this year literally asked me last night. She said, can you promise not to get the tummy bug this Thanksgiving? And I was like, you're like, let's not trust talk about it. That was not my intention last year. I did not ask for that. I did not manifest it.

But you should start taking airborne.

I'm going to. I'm going to do everything, because now I'm scared.

This is not sponsored, but the elderberry. Elderberry Airbornes. First of all, they taste delicious. And second of all, Elderberry is like just one more punch to the one two. Cold season.

All right, you heard it here first. Okay. Elderberry or Elderberry? If you're from Boston, I know every.

Time I say it, I'm like, someone's going to correct me.

But that's just like Elderberry. If you're nasty, respect your elderberries.

Okay. Oh, gosh, I'm in such a silly mood. But I have to tell you a pretty rough tale.

Awesome.

I do have a tupata for you.

A tupata, Kid Tupata.

We're going to be talking about Sharon Kinney today, also known as La Pistolera.

Very familiar that.

Like, I'd heard her name before, but I did not know the details of this case.

I think that's where I am. I've heard the name. I don't know anything about what you're about to tell me.

Well, I kind of love that because this is a wild tale from start to finish. Part one is pretty fast paced. Like, we're going to get through a lot, and then I will tell you. Part two is a little bit trial heavy in the beginning, okay. But I have to make it that way. Just like it makes sense for the setup. But once we get through the trial stuff in part two, shit goes down. Okay? So just know that. Bear with me through that in part two.

Yeah. And I know some of you really like going through the trial. You know?

You'll love that. It's some people's cup of tea. It's other people's, not cup of tea. Personally, it's actually not my favorite tea.

It's the trial.

It's like, I would drink it, but I wouldn't drink it. It wouldn't be my first choice.

Yeah, I feel you.

You know what I mean? Let's get into it. We're going to talk about Sharon Kinney.

Let's go.

But before she was Sharon Kinney, she was born Sharon Elizabeth hall on November 30, 1939, in Independence, Missouri.

Missouri.

Missouri. Her father was Eugene, and her mother was Doris Hall. Eugene was a steel worker, and Doris was a homemaker. When she was young, her father. Actually Sharon's father, hurt himself on the job and became unemployed due to that injury that he got. So once he was out of work, he started drinking heavily, and he really paid no attention to his kids. So dark from the start, I was going to say.

So we're killing it already. Yeah.

And we're not really going uphill at all, because Sharon's mother, Doris, was equally distant, especially when it came to her daughter. And as a result, Sharon started to develop a very creative imagination, I think, out of. Mm, that makes know. And a former school friend told reporters she'd take us on explorations down through a sewer. On the way home from school, she'd talk about finding money and jewels that were hidden there. We didn't even see the filth or know it was there until we got home and our mother started howling. She was like, just enjoy me in the sewers.

But I kind of love that she was such an adventurous, like, let's go find hidden jewels. Yeah, I love that. That was me as a kid.

That was a cool thing about her.

I was always making that shit up. Oh, no.

Yeah, you like that about child.

That's the thing. I don't know anything about this case, so I didn't know if Sharon was. Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

She's the perp.

But either way, that was me as a kid. I used to do weird shit like that.

And you feel bad for Kid Sharon, like, her parents were basically just like, fuck off. Yeah, it's true.

Now.

By the time she reached high school, Sharon's creativity had taken a more serious, guarded tone. Another former friend said, I think Sharon was always strange and alone and as a teenager. I know it is. As a teenager, her complexion was described as, quote, modeled and sallow, sometimes pimply, which made her the target of a lot of bullying and shitty comments from people.

Oh, that sucks.

And then when she was 14, the family actually moved briefly to Washington due to rumors that Sharon had secretly married an unnamed man who, quote, died when his truck plunged over a cliff in Idaho.

What?

The wild thing is, there's not evidence to indicate whether these rumors are true or not. But when Sharon did eventually marry her question mark, first or second husband, James Kenny, she did list herself as a widow on the marriage license.

What?

Yeah.

That's just, like, so bizarre.

Just came out of nowhere. And then when you learn about secret.

Man who plunged over a cliff in a truck. Like what?

Well, when you learn about what Sharon is all about, maybe that did happen. I don't know.

Damn wild. That is wild.

Widowed or not, the halls ended up moving back to independence about a year later when Sharon was 15, and she resumed her increasingly solitary life. In the summer of 1956, she met 22 year old James Kinney at a Mormon church function. And even though she was six years younger than his 22 year old self. Oh, James on that.

Yeah.

James was instantly attracted to the 16 year old. Unlike Sharon, who was smart, savvy, and emotionally mature, James was shy, he was deeply self conscious, and he was a student who was home on break from Brigham Young University.

It makes sense that he was emotionally immature because she's 16. Exactly. 22.

What do you have to if you're not emotionally immature? Now, Sharon noticed James was staring at her all night, but he didn't make any move to come over and talk to her. So she actually took the initiative and approached him instinctively, sensing that his attraction to her kind of gave her the upper hand in the situation. Now, to James, a shy Mormon boy on campus surrounded by chaste, proper Mormon girls, Sharon's boldness was very exciting, and also her unfamiliar, sarcastic, biting wit kept him off balance the entire time they talked, which was even more exciting to him, in my opinion. Also still wrong, because she's 16 years old and he's 22.

Yeah. This is not a cute moment.

No, it's not. But Sharon knew that she had the upper hand, like I said, so she made it seem like she wasn't super interested. But she did end up giving James her phone number before abruptly walking away.

Wow.

Now, in all reality, James, or someone like him, offered a potential escape from this small town life that she'd been dreaming of since her family came back to Missouri. The year before, she wanted.

She's bored. She's lonely. She's neglected.

Exactly. Author James C. Hayes wrote, sharon maintained ambitious dreams. She wanted to find a prince who'd spirited her off to anywhere that wasn't independence, Missouri. She wanted to be a woman of glamor and wealth. Now, James Kinney may not have been a prince exactly, but Sharon saw that she could use his, for lack of a better term, naivete to her advantage. And while she figured she might have been able to do better than him, she definitely could have done worse.

Wow. What a dream.

Ambition.

Yeah.

James did not wait long to call Sharon. And despite the considerable age difference, they did start dating very qUickly. And quickly they became inseparable.

I'm uncomfortable.

Me as well. I also feel like it doesn't excuse this behavior, but I feel like this was so much more common in the 50s.

You know what? I was. Yeah. There's no excuse for it at all. But you're right. This was a much more common thing that was just kind of like, not side eyed.

No, it really was.

And it's so strange to look at now.

It really is.

Because, again, I always think we're in the year 2000 here. So I'm like, 50 years ago. That's a long time. But I'm like, no, it was a lot longer than 50 years ago now. So that's a long time ago. And it makes sense now that we're.

Like, oh, what the fuck?

What the fuck?

We're like that about a lot of things.

Yeah.

But the more infatuated James grew with Sharon, the more people around him became suspicious or uncomfortable with her. There was something off about her.

Okay.

For example, after just a few weeks, James'father, Haggard Kinney, had become so uneasy around Sharon that he actually voiced his concerns to his son. And he said he was worried about the way she, quote, played James like a marionette. He was like, I think she's got the upper hand. And like, sure, that could be fine, but she's playing you.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like you want to have some balance. Yeah. Nobody should be the all powerful being in your relationship.

Right. And James, he loved and respected his father immensely. Like, they talked about a lot. They were close, but he did not agree. He simply could not see what others saw in Sharon and dismissed their concerns without even a second.

I've seen so many people like this.

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I think they were maybe getting there, but she did know that he was her best chance to get out of small town life.

It's codependence.

It's codependence. Exactly. And she was very, very worried that with him heading back to school, some other girl might take that away from her. So, playing into his religious sense of moral responsibility, Sharon sent him a letter at school in September saying, quote, the sins of summer have produced a child in my womb.

Shut the fuck up.

But don't worry. I don't expect you to sacrifice your education and return to independence. I'll handle the situation. That is so dark and so manipulative.

That's unbelievably manipulative. And just like the way she phrased.

It, the sins of summer.

The sins of summer have produced a child in my womb. I got to go. I got to go.

The sins of summer had not produced.

No, of course not. One part of me believed that in.

Case anybody else out there was like, wait, is she pregnant?

No, she's not. She's not.

She is not pregnant.

I don't even know this story. And she is not. She's not that thought she was telling the truth.

No, but she knows what she's doing because he's deeply religious. So her saying. She's essentially saying, I'll take care of this situation and get rid of deeply religious.

And obviously that would trigger something in him.

Precisely.

Wow. Yeah. Wow.

She's like, 16.

I was just going to say, isn't she 16? That is high level manipulation. Sharon.

Sharon operates at a higher level. I'm not saying it's a better level, but she operates at a higher level.

It's a higher level of depravity.

It is.

Exactly. That was a beautiful sentence.

Thank you. I like when you say depravity.

I like depravity.

Now, James, he didn't like depravity, but he was a little shocked and not really sure what he should do. He's not a kid, but for all intents and purposes, he kind of is.

Well, and it sounds like he was emotionally very immature. So it's like, this is a loss.

And to me, it sounds like he lived a very sheltered life.

But I'm also like, you guys obviously committed some sins over the summer, so you can't be that connected to those thoughts that you have, those boundaries that you have. Seems like they might be a little fake. Seems like it.

Or it seems like Sharon was like, listen, we're fucking doing this.

Yeah, but it's like.

But it takes two to tango.

Tango. But.

So he wasn't sure what to do. So he showed the letter to a female friend, and she was like, you know, she might be lying to you.

To trap you into a me. She was like, nothing about that is real. She was, like, poetic. Yeah. Like, wow.

But garbage. Garbage. And James was like, no, Sharon would not lie to me. And I don't think she would lie about this. I don't think she's capable of that. She would, and she absolutely would. And having been raised in a strict Mormon family, he just couldn't believe that a woman would lie to him, especially about something like pregnancy.

But it's like, you guys fucked before you were married. You're not super connected to these ideals, obviously.

That's the thing.

Like, the cherry picking here is really annoying. It's just like, okay, well, you can't be that upset about it because you guys fucked. So I don't know.

It's one of those things, though, where I know they are connected to those.

This seems very cherry picked, what you're going to be bothered by. But it is kind of funny. I'm like, okay.

But he came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was return to independence and make Sharon an honest woman. Marry her.

Yeah.

Mormons pick that part.

Why not? Yeah.

So in early October of 1956, James took a leave of absence from Brigham Young University, packed up the few belongings he had headed back to Missouri, intending upon doing the right thing. On October 17, James, his father, and Sharon went to the Jackson County Courthouse to apply for a marriage license. Now, having secured her future with James, Sharon's attitude underwent a noticeable change. According to author James Hayes, who wrote the Sharon Kinney story, quote, she no longer shared complicity in the pregnancy, but blamed the child on him alone. She angrily reminded him that his lust interrupted her college and hinted at having been through this before with another man.

What?

Sharon has been around, baby, and she's.

Just got so, like, I'm just like. Again, the high level of manipulation here is just, like, really sinister because she.

Is a 16 year old woman running around like she has seen some shit, been through some shit, and it kind of sounds like she had been through some shit.

That's the thing. And I know I was, like, getting on James here for Cherry picking what he was going to follow in his religious and moral beliefs here. Yeah. Which I stand by. That's very cherry picked because you were having sex with an underage girl. So there's your first moral cherry picking whammy. And two, you are fucking before marriage. That's your second moral cherry picKing.

But whammy.

I also believe he is clearly being high level manipulated here, which is like, a wild part. So there's, like, a lot of things going on here that I'm just like, this is all wrong.

Oh, it's wild. It only gets wilder.

Damn.

So she's saying that she's gone through this before. She's upset with him now that he's back, when it seems like that's exactly what she wanted. And as she's filling out her portion of the paperwork, she starts mumbling all these kinds of shitty things about his father, Haggard, who is right there, literally standing right next to her.

What?

And she's openly berating James for allowing his family's beliefs about virginity and religious purity to rob her of the traditional church wedding that she thought she was entitled to.

What?

But it's like, isn't this what you wanted? But now you're upset because this is what she wanted, but it's not her version. I think she wanted him to marry her, but I think she wanted it to be this big fucking bash in a church.

Yeah, she wanted all the.

She wanted attention there, but it's like you're in a fucking pickle right now. You're 16. You're pregnant by this Mormon guy. He's going to keep this hush hush. He's not going to give you this big, huge wedding that you think you're entitled to.

Damn.

And we're going to pretend like you got pregnant after this courthouse ceremony, and.

It'S like, she's not pregnant, and she's not pregnant. Exactly. This is all just a lie. So it's like the lie is keeping you.

The lie that you.

From most of this. The lie that you made up. What the fuck?

She's reaping what she's sown, and she doesn't like it, but she thought she was sewing exactly this. Damn, it's wild.

This is just, like, so much. There's so many layers of just, like, wrongness here.

You know those potatoes that people make where there's just, like, 60 billion layers of crispy potatoes? Yeah, that's the story, but not as scrumptious.

Yeah, this is not delicious version of that.

It's like they've, like, ratatouille. No, they've gone bad at this point. What did the cheese do yesterday? It's coagulated.

Coagulated?

Yes, this is the coagulated version.

It is. Every layer is just yuckier.

Yeah.

Moldy, even.

Because, you know, the cheese goes in the potatoes, but it's bad after a while.

Yeah. This is just because the manipulation is wild, but it's by a 16 year old. So it's like, the power dynamic here is so weird because it's like she's a younger young lady.

She's six years younger than him, who.

Is much younger than him, where they shouldn't even be in a relationship to.

Begin with, but not mentally.

That's the problem there. Like, the first problem, and then it's like. But then the manipulation is coming from the person who shouldn't have the power in that. Like, very strange.

It's a weird.

I don't know. I'm very upset by all of this.

You will continue to.

I think it's all fucked up.

Personally. It is. But the next day, the marriage license was approved, and the two were married in a small ceremony held in the Kinney home. Not the big wedding that Sharon had hoped for. Now, believing he'd done the right thing, James packed himself and his new wife into the car, and the newly married couple returned to Utah.

Of course they did.

Where he was like, I'm going to continue my studies because I have my future.

Yeah.

And now he was more determined than ever to, quote, unquote, make something of himself and support his new again.

Like, he's. He's got this strange set of ideals. So it's like now he's being pulled in several different directions. And he's probably feeling like, okay, now I really got to finish this because I'm going to be the provider of this child that doesn't exist. Exactly. Yeah.

Now, when they arrived in Provo, James and Sharon moved in with James'friend temporarily while he worked to find a place of their own. But unfortunately, any hope that James had of Sharon settling down now that they were married was immediately dashed once they settled in Utah. Shocked from the moment they arrived, Sharon complained about absolutely everything, from their temporary accommodation, which was pretty cramped, to the fact that he never had time to take her anywhere because he was studying just everything. And her constant negativity and cruel comments made it impossible for him to focus on his studies because they were always fighting.

Yeah. It's just. This is abusive.

Exactly. And in late December, after just two months in Utah, they ended up moving back to independence, which is exactly where she wanted to get away from.

No.

And the second she got away from it, she sabotaged.

That's the thing. That's what I mean. She doesn't know what she wants.

I don't think she does.

She not. She thinks she knows what she wants. She doesn't.

That's the thing.

She wants power. She wants control. But it sounds like she wants chaos as well.

So it's like, I think she's somebody that thrives chaos without recognizing it.

Yeah.

Now, back in Missouri, James and Sharon moved into a small house next door to his parents, which his father.

Gave.

Them a home to live in. And Sharon is constantly talking about how much she fucking hates this, man, oh, man. She also hated living next door to the in laws. She looked down on them. She constantly mocked them for their conservative ways and their deep held religious beliefs.

Which is like, what the fuck is it to you, man?

Well, it's like, also, this is the person that you chose to trap.

That's the thing. It's like, this is the family you married into. You know what you were getting into. The beliefs they held, they weren't hiding.

No. Like, that's the thing. Now, while James's father had already realized what kind of person Sharon was, and that's exactly why she didn't. Like, I was going to say from the jump.

Yeah.

But his mother refused to believe that any kind of young woman could be so cruel and calculating.

Believe it, girl.

According to Hayes, James's mom, quote, believed in storybook relationships and thought that a mother and her son's wife should be close. She sounds like a very sweet.

I was going to say, I mean, yeah, that sounds delightful. And that is absolutely, like the ideal.

Well, and Sharon's mom barely ever made time for her in her childhood. And once they came back to independence, James and Mom, Sharon's mom still wasn't involved. But James's mom went out of her way to be kind to Sharon. She offered to pay their bills when they fell behind, she would take Sharon on shopping trips, she'd take her out to lunch.

She sounds like that's like your ideal mother in law.

Are you kidding?

Like, she's acting like a mom. Like stepping in, being like a mother figure to you.

And when you're not necessarily the nicest person to her husband or her son.

I was just going to say you've been a shit tastic person to her son and her husband.

But she's trying.

You're mocking their religious beliefs, you're mocking everything about them. And she's still being kind to the. That's the way that know are supposed to be. Exactly. To people.

But Sharon, she was like, fuck you, Sharon. Now, not long after they resettled in independence, Sharon started filling her days, spending what little money James was making at the time, which quickly turned out to not be enough to satisfy her spending habits. So as a result, she set out to find her own job to subsidize her constant need to spend money. Now, even though she was very skilled at nearly every job she tried, she worked in a print shop. She was a babysitter. At one point, she was a legal secretary, a hotel receptionist, and she was great at all of those things. But every time she started a new job, she just got bored easily. And the second she got bored, she quit and spent zero time.

She has no staying power for something. She's not going to stick it out.

Even if she's good at it. She's mundane to her.

If she's bored, it's not going to happen. Exactly. Even if it's a good thing.

Even if it is. And when she was working and making money, she also insisted that the money she made should not be considered family income. Instead, she thought of the money that she made as hers to use as she pleased. And even with her own income, she continued to spend money recklessly, usually charging things to James's account instead of her own.

This is dysfunctional.

It's the definition of dysfunctional.

I mean, you do what you want with your bank accounts in your own homes, like, that's your business. This is dysfunctional.

This is not.

Well, bitch. Because everybody is not happy with this arrangement.

Because it started out on a lie.

Yeah, I mean, isn't she still claiming to be pregnant when there's no actual pregnancy or child? You're going to have to fess up.

No, she doesn't.

No. Okay.

Actually, Lord, we're there. Okay, guys. And just quickly, trigger warning for mention of pregnancy loss. One afternoon, several months after they settled back in independence, I think she realized, like, I'm not pregnant. I'm not going to start showing anytime soon. So I got to do something about this. She decided she was tired of the pregnancy ruse since it had served its original purpose of getting James to marry her. So she was like, man, I'm done with this. So James came home that evening, and this is so sad, he found her in a panicked state, and she told him that shortly after he left work that morning, her body, quote, began to reject the baby. So she's claiming she's faking a miscarriage.

Which is, fuck this bitch.

I can't even.

Yeah, fuck this bitch.

Honestly. So James was confused, and Sharon used the opportunity to gain even more sympathy from him by making it seem like his high security job at the Bendix Corporation had put too many barriers in place for her to reach him. And that's why she hadn't told him sooner.

She's literally manipulating him by saying that it's basically like your fault that she's.

Saying, I'm suffering a miscarriage since you left for work this morning. And the reason you don't know is because I couldn't reach you. So this is your fault.

That's so fucking sinister.

If you are able to fake a.

Miscarriage and carry on that lie to the father, quote unquote.

Unquote, something is deeply, deeply wrong with you.

Fuck you, is what I say. On another level, you're faking a miscarriage. Fuck you.

Fuck you into oblivion.

Yeah, that's fucked up.

So in January 1957, not long after ending the pregnancy scam, if you will, Sharon learned that she was pregnant for real Z's this time. And in the fall, she did give birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, which they named. I think it's either Dana or Dana.

Dana.

Two N's. I would say Dana.

Dana was my first instinct.

Okay, cute name. Now, from the outside, Sharon seemed to be a devoted mother, constantly doting on her daughter, really living up to every responsibility of domestic life. She actually even started going to church with the family. And at first second, it seemed like she was embracing the Mormon lifestyle. But like her attempts to hold down a job, she quickly got bored with the life of a homemaker. And just went back to spending excessively.

She's got to stick to something, girl.

She's something. She sticks to scheming.

Well, there you go.

She's steady scheming.

She's steady scheming.

Now, by 1959, she'd given birth to another child, a boy, which they named Troy. And the family moved into a newly purchased home in a subdivision. And the new baby and the new house seemed to occupy Sharon's attention for a little bit, which made her, at least temporarily, less abusive towards her husband.

Oh, nice.

That's great.

Yeah.

But the baby in the house also gave her a reason to spend more money. And in response, James actually took a slightly higher paying second shift at the Bendix Corporation, which left Sharon alone with the children in the evenings and put more emotional distance between her and James. With James working in the evenings and the children having gone to bed, Sharon found herself with way more free time than she'd had in years. So she said, I'm gonna look up my old high school boyfriend, John Baldi. Now, unlike her life with James, which was filled with constant arguments, emotional distance, you name it. Her relationship with John was exciting because it was the forbidden fruit.

Because it was not this one, that's why.

And she reveled in the thrill of infidelity. Sneaking around behind her husband's back to meet John at cheap motels in the.

Backseat of his car.

And where James had become increasingly immune to her domineering personality and manipulations, John was easy to manipulate and control because this was new. And that made her feel powerful now. Even though Sharon eventually grew tired of John, too, and only turned to him when she couldn't find another man to entertain her for the night, he was falling for it now. By 1960, life in the Kinney house had deteriorated to a near breaking point. It seemed to James that Sharon was never home, which was mostly fine by him, except that she wasn't really living up to her end of the domestic bargain.

Yeah, that he's working and she's not doing anything.

Remember, this is a time where a man worked during the day and came home to a hot meal, and his children were fed, so he could no longer expect a hot meal when he came home. And instead, she was just leaving him out frozen meals. And that was not the only thing that she was absent in. She was absent from the children. They were being neglected on a regular basis. Their basic needs were more often met by babysitters than their own mother.

Yeah, it's like, I'm sorry if you're going out to fuck other men and leaving your children to be neglected. That sucks. Exactly. That's not cool.

Yeah, and that's the thing. James was being like, okay, you're not with the children. I'm not getting hot meals. Where the fuck are you? So he caught on pretty quickly to the fact that she was cheating on him. But he had no idea to the extent which he was right. And as a deeply, deeply religious person, he knew that divorce would have been discouraged by everybody in his community. And he was right. Whenever he brought the subject up to his parents, his mom would typically encourage him to work out their problems for the children's sake.

That's never the way to go, Bill. No, it's never better.

I understand that that was Just the way it was back, but I know.

It'S like a religious thing. It still is now a religious thing that you don't get divorced. You just suck it up and have a horrible marriage for your children.

Well, and people always say, like, for the sake of the children, the children are not going to thrive in an abusive house.

They see everything. Kids know when you're arguing and when you're not loving each other and not having a respectful discourse, if anything, it's.

Better to look at them and say, sometimes these things don't work out. And your father and I respect each other enough to not continue.

Yeah. Just never for the sake of the children, never really works out. Not that I've seen it.

Well, and it didn't.

Yeah, it didn't at all.

Now, as the weeks went on, staying with Sharon seemed more and more impossible to James. And finally in mid March, he actually did bring up divorce to Sharon and she agreed that their marriage had reached its end. But her terms for a divorce, I knew this was going to come outrageous and unacceptable. She would have bankruptcy.

Yeah. I was going to say there was no way she was just going to be like, let's amicably divorce.

No. And honestly, her idea of the terms of this divorce are so disturbing to me. At least according to Hayes, she was willing to go along with the divorce, but only if James gave her the house. Dana and a cash. Fuck Troy.

She's going to say, only one of your kids. I would like this one.

She wants her daughter. James can have the boy.

Oh, how fucked up. I hate this a lot. Yeah.

And it's also like, oh, yeah, you love Dana so much you're leaving her in, baby.

Yeah. You're neglecting her too.

And James was, uh, splitting the children up is out of the question.

They're siblings. Like, you're just going to split them.

That's so, like, this isn't the parent trap, friend. And so he was like, no, that's out of the question. And with the idea of divorce seemingly being moved away from, his parents were relieved. In fact, after giving it some thought, Sharon herself even decided that she didn't love because she wasn't going to win.

Oh, guys, come on. Everybody involved here except for James, I'm like, get out of here.

This poor man. Honestly, this poor man.

Yeah, at this point, it's like he's giving it his best shot. Here he is.

Absolutely. And the thing was, so Sharon, they talk about the divorce for a little bit, but then she's realizing he's not going to agree to her terms. And then she realizes that her terms aren't even really good enough for her. It would get her out of marriage, but a $1,000 was not enough to live on for very long, and it definitely would not sustain her lifestyle. And the salary that she was working for, temporary jobs really gave her little pay. So it wasn't going to be a win for her. But there was another way that Sharon could get out of the marriage, and it almost guaranteed that she would get everything she wanted and more.

Oh, no.

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I feel like that's not a heart attack.

No. It's very unclear why she says heart attack.

Yeah.

I don't know if she thought they were going to come faster. Yeah, I think they would still come pretty fast. If you said he was shot.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Strange.

I don't know if maybe she didn't want something recorded on the 911.

Yeah, maybe not.

I don't know. But at the time that they got there, he was still alive. But unfortunately, he would die a short time later on the way to the hospital. So it was not instant, which is really awful. Now.

This is so fucked.

Sharon told the officers that he'd gone into the bedroom a short time earlier to take a nap. And then a short time later, while she was in the bathroom getting ready to go to church like a good woman, she heard their two year old daughter, Dana ask loudly, how does this thing work, Daddy? How does it work? And then she said she heard the shot ring out.

I'm sorry. She's blaming this on her two year old daughter.

She is blaming this on her two year old Daughter. And not only that, she's going to get away with it.

Shut the fuck up.

She's gonna get away with blaming it on her two year old daughter. For a little while, at least.

I'm without words.

Without words. Now, James had always had a fascination with guns, and he would take them apart to clean them. But Sharon said that he was also forgetful and careless with them. According to her, he would sometimes leave them lying around the house.

Oh, that's fucked up.

It is on the kitchen table next to the television, where the children could easily reach them. And the officers did note that his gun belt and ammunition were lying next to the bed, which did seem to support Sharon's claim. But then her statement was also confirmed by James's parents. He was an irresponsible fucked up, and.

That'S just the truth of it.

But still, the death did seem suspicious. Accidental shootings did happen, but not typically with a two year old.

Yeah.

And investigators wondered why James would have laid down to take a nap with a loaded pistol lying next to like, you can be an irresponsible gun owner, but I don't think it goes to that pretty far now. And you can't be like I'm saying there are irresponsible gun owners now. Unfortunately, there wasn't much evidence to prove or disprove Sharon's claim. Yeah, the 22 caliber pistol was taken from the scene, but it was covered in so much gun oil that it was impossible to get any fingerprints off.

Of it, which is interesting.

Then the lab technician also didn't bother to test either Sharon or Dana's hands for gunshot residue.

What the fuck?

No idea why or. Excuse me. I do know why. They believed at that time, this particular lab technician believed that those tests were unreliable.

Why wouldn't you just do it anyway?

Couldn't tell you.

I feel like it's better just to do it.

And also, how is that unreliable? You either have gunshot residue on your.

Hands or you don't. And it's like, it's better to do it and then argue about it later than to not do it and be like, well, I guess we'll never.

If you do test their hands and Sharon has it on her hands.

Boom. There you go. Yeah. What? Wow.

But the only other test that they did was to determine the pull necessary to fire the gun, which was smart. Now, knowing that the pistol required a 3.25 pound pull, they returned to the Kinney house with a similar disabled pistol to find out whether Dana actually had the strength to pull the trigger. And they did find out that she did. She was able to. In fact, not only did she possess the strength to pull the trigger, but she also knew how to release the safety catch on the gun.

Why the fuck did she know that.

A two year old.

Why did this two year old girl know how to release a safety on a pistol?

I do not know.

I'm just trying to think of my kids at two, and I'm like, what is going on here? This is wild.

You would think of a two year old. You don't want to think of a two year old with a gun. But when you do, you would think that they'd be like waving it around.

That's the. Don't. This is just so strange. This is very strange. It really is.

And I don't know if it's a thing where Sharon taught her how to do it so that she could shoot her father.

Oh, my God.

Or if maybe she just saw her dad shoot the pistol all the time, maybe. And, like, that's why.

Yeah, I honestly have no idea.

I don't believe that Dana shot her father.

Seems highly unlikely to me.

I believe that Sharon did.

Yeah.

Or that if Dana somehow did shoot her father, it was because Sharon made it happen. She was set up. But in their statement to the press, Sergeant Herman Davis of the Kansas City police told reporters the bullet had entered from the rear and lodged just under the skin between the nose and the right eye. Now, Davis continued that this was consistent with the position of the gun, which was, quote, lying flat on the pillow when it discharged, leaving a crease where it cut the cloth. And powder burns were on the pillowcase. So the press were also made aware of the working theory that two year old Dana had accidentally shot her father while he was aslEep. And they did stress that their tests confirmed James could not have fired the shot himself.

Yeah.

And the investigators actually never bothered to ask Dana whether she'd fired the gun or not or any other questions about the incident.

I'm sorry, what?

They just felt like the evidence supported that. What Sharon had told them, there was no evidence to the contrary, and they were ready to rule the death and accident.

No one ever said to this two year old, who they claim walked into a room and was like, daddy, how does this thing work? Daddy.

And then pulled the trigger.

Took the safety off and pulled the trigger. No one was like, you know what? We should ask this prodigy if she actually did that. Just ask her.

Kids will tell you shit.

Oh, yeah, kids will tell you everything. I'm sure any preschool or kindergarten teacher knows. They know everything about what happens in your house. Your kid's going to tell them everything, 100%.

Have you ever seen that meme where it's like, my mommy has two boyfriends?

Yeah.

It's like, literally me. Like, what?

Yeah. Why wouldn't you ask that child, did you fire this gun in your parents room? There's a way to ask where you're not, like, daring her, making her feel like she did something.

They should have brought some kind of expert in.

Yeah, bring a psychiatrist in. Like, a child psychologist that can ask in a proper way, 100%, to get the proper answer. Like a real no, a shoddy police work. It's also, you couple that with the fact that Sharon called and said he had a heart attack. And it's like, why the fuck wouldn't she have said? And an accident happened here.

Couldn't find anything to say that they really ever questioned that.

This is so bizarre.

It is.

What the fuck?

Maybe she was having an affair with somebody on the police force.

What the hell's going on?

She was having lots of affairs.

Yeah, that's complete speculation, by the way.

But with the autopsy complete and the cause of death listed as accidental, officially, Sharon was free to collect on the various life insurance policies that had been taken out in the years before James's death, including from the Veterans Administration, life insurance, and homeowners insurance.

Wow.

And with James dead, the balance on the mortgage for the house was wiped out and transferred to Sharon. She received roughly $29,000, which today would be like receiving $300,000.

God.

So she cashed on this. Now, if it weren't for her reckless impulsivity, Sharon Kenny might have never become a suspect in her husband's death, but she was arrogant and narcissistic and constantly looking for something or someone to validate her and prop up her self esteem, which is what led her to Walter Jones. Now, after cashing out on all those insurance policies, she wasted absolutely no time spending the money. And actually, long before James'death, she'd been pestering him to buy her a Ford Thunderbird. She really wanted a Thunderbird. And he refused because he was like, one, we have two children. That's not necessarily a family car. And two, those are fucking expensive, and we don't have the money. But now, with James out of the way and her pockets flushed with cash, Sharon went down to the Rudy Fic Ford dealership on April 18, 1960, and she was helped by one Walter Jones. Now, Walter was said to be a handsome guy with a big, friendly personality. He had all the charm and persuasiveness necessary to succeed in car sales.

I was going to say car salesman he is.

In fact, at the time, Sharon only intended to get the air conditioner in James's old Nash fixed. But Walter quickly and easily talked her into trading in the old car, her husband. Her dead husband's car, for the one that she had dreamed about.

Her new car.

Yep. And soon she was making regular visits to the dealership.

If you catch my. If you know what I mean?

It's like Globe Motors and the Sopranos. Now, it turned out while Walter may have been a good car salesman, he wasn't really a great person.

No.

At the time he began his affair with Sharon, he was married. Married to his high school sweetheart, Patricia.

Everybody chill the fuck out.

No, you're all too much. The most they had gotten, him and Patricia. They had gotten married right out of high school, just before Walter enlisted in the Marines, and they relocated to California. Now, after he was discharged, they moved back to Missouri. But by then, their marriage was doomed. In fact, Walter's affairs began almost immediately after they married and continued up until he met Sharon in the spring of 1960. And Patricia. Excuse me. Her choice to stay with her husband was only because of their two children and her desire to work things out for their sake.

That's still a thing. Like we were saying, it never works out. It really doesn't. I haven't seen many things work out when that's the motivation. No, but you can also understand people's motivation for thinking that's going to be a good thing. So I want to make sure you guys know, we know why people do it. There's a lot of evidence to prove that it doesn't work.

And again, of course, there's an exception to every rule. Of course, that could work out.

And this was a different time, and that was much more the thing back then, much more than is now. Now it's usually more to do with morality things and religious things. Right, but that was like the.

Yeah, like back then, it wasn't just religious people. Let's not get divorced. Societal. Exactly. Now, Walter's marriage was, of course, always a source of frustration for Sharon. Not because she was in love with him, but because as long as he was married, she wouldn't have total control over him.

Exactly.

So. Now, determined to break up the marriage, Sharon relied on a strategy. A strategy that had worked for her in the past. And in mid May, she told Walter that she was pregnant with his child and demanded that he end his marriage.

She's the worst.

She's not pregnant, by the way.

Yeah, she's the worst.

She is, and she'll only get worse.

Fuck Sharon.

So the news came as a surprise to Walter. But he was hardly ready to give in to those demands. He was already cheating on his wife and two children. You think he's going to marry you.

And do the right. Exactly.

By that time, his infidelity was actually not really that much of a secret to his wife, which had led to several arguments between him and Patricia, who by then had threatened to leave him and take the children multiple times, which, like, go, girl. And faced with the possibility of losing his wife, and kids. He actually started to reconsider his relationship with Sharon. She was controlling, manipulative. She could be cruel. And now he'd actually begun to resent how dependent he'd become on her for attention and the money that she occasionally provided with all those life insurance payouts. And to add to all of that, during the week of May 27, while Sharon had been away on vacation, he spent more time at home than he ever had while he was dating Sharon and realized how much he actually missed his wife. When Sharon. When she was gone and he actually went to spend time with his wife.

What a guy.

He was like, wow. I actually miss you. I remember why I married you.

Romance.

Can you fucking imagine?

What an asshole.

So given that, he decided that when Sharon returned in a few days, he would end the relationship and really begin working on repairing his marriage.

Okay.

But unfortunately, he would never get that chance.

Uhoh.

On the evening of May 27, 1960, John Boldes. I'm sure you remember that name. Sharon's high school, high school boyfriend and side piece called the Jackson County Sheriff's Department to report that he and his lady had taken a drive out to the Lovers Lane area just off of Phelps Road, a little outside of Independence, and they'd made a horrible discovery. At first, Boldes told investigators, the couple had thought the woman, who was illuminated by their headlights, had just fallen asleep in the wooded area. But after getting out to investigate, they had found four bullet holes in her head, stomach, and both shoulders. He was calling to report that he had found a body. Now, when investigators arrived on the scene, they found very little evidence to work with. The woman, who would later be identified as Walter's wife, Patricia Jones.

What the fuck?

Had been shot four times, and at least one of those shots had been fired close enough to leave powder burns on her skirt.

Oh, my God.

Now, there was a surprising lack of blood at the scene, which led investigators to strongly consider whether she'd been shot elsewhere and dumped in the woods. And her clothes seemed to be disarranged, but they hadn't been removed.

Okay?

And there wasn't any other evidence of a sexual assault. She had not been sexually assaulted. It appeared to investigators that Patricia had been killed elsewhere and dumped in the woods, and the scene had been staged. But as far as a motive, they were lost. Now, the next morning, Walter was brought into the sheriff's office for questioning, and he explained that he hadn't seen his wife the previous morning. And actually, he had filed a missing persons report when she failed to return home the night before. He even offered to take a polygraph test to prove his innocence.

Damn.

Now the case took a surprising turn when investigators learned that Baldiza's girlfriend was none other than Sharon Kinney.

Holy shit.

The woman whose husband was killed just two months earlier.

What the fuck?

Sharon's explanation for the death of her husband seemed a bit suspicious at the time.

Yeah, it did.

But without any evidence to suggest anything otherwise, investigators had no choice but to accept her statement. But now her proximity to two murders in a two month span raised those earlier suspicions a bit higher. And to add to those suspicions in his statement to the sheriff, Walter admitted he'd been having an affair with one Sharon Kinney for a little more than a month and also mentioned that one of his wife's friends had seen Patricia and Sharon together the day before Patricia went missing.

What the fuck?

She was spotted with Sharon not by just, like, a random eyewitness, by one of Patricia's friends.

Sinister. This woman is sinister as fuck.

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So that's a little bit confusing. So Sharon contacts Patricia and says, I know your husband. He's having an affair with my sister. And I want to tell you about it because I think you deserve to know. And that's how she gets her into.

A car with her. Sharon sucks big time.

Now, Walter's statement, and my grandpa, that's an insider. His polygraph examination didn't rule him out entirely, but it did go a long way toward removing him from the suspect list.

Yeah.

Sharon, on the other hand, did little to get herself off of that suspect list and pretty much everything to get herself onto it.

Yeah, that's not shocking.

Walter had agreed to that polygraph exam, and he actually signed a written statement to his whereabouts. Sharon made a verbal statement, but she refused to sign anything and refused to take a polygraph examination. In her verbal statement, she claimed she had only gone, quote, on about twelve dates with Walter, which, like, that's a lot.

He's still married with kids, my friend.

And your relationship has only been going on twelve dates, two months.

Yeah.

Standards. She said that she called Patricia Jones and met with her that Thursday afternoon to break off the relationship with Walter. But it's like, no, you didn't.

You said, he's having an affair with yourself. Like, what the hell? You were setting her up.

Yeah, exactly. The officer who took her statement recalled Sharon saying, I'm very fond of Walt and I didn't want anything to happen to him and his family. So she said she called Patricia and told there was something she needed to tell her about her husband, but that she needed to do it in person.

So you're fond of Walt. You don't want anything to happen to him or his faMily, but you're going to tell his wife that you guys have been having an affair.

You're going to blow up his entire family by saying that your sister and him have been having an affair. Now, Sharon's story was that she had borrowed her father's car that afternoon. Dodge, perhaps, so that Walt wouldn't recognize her car when she dropped his wife off at home, and that she picked up Patricia at the location where she was last seen by her coworker.

So that was Sharon, like, honey, you did it. You're admitting it. Like, you're not getting out of this, I hope. Please tell me.

Once they were in Sharon's car, she told Patricia that Walter had been having an affair with her sister, and she wanted her to know because she felt it was inappropriate and needed to come to an end.

Shut the fuck up, Sharon.

Shut up, Sharon. Now, after they'd said, you know, it was awful. I can't believe I had to tell her that. And then I dropped her about a block away from the Jones house, which. Why would you drop her off a block away?

You're in a car that he doesn't recognize. That's the whole reason you had that car.

Exactly. But she said she then looked in the rear view mirror and, quote, saw Mrs. Jones talking to a man in a two tone green 1957 Ford.

So she got out of the car, and immediately, this other guy's like, whoop, whoop.

Here I am.

Absolutely. That makes total sense. Yeah.

According to Sharon, it came as a total shock to coincidentally happen upon Patricia's body, where she and bodes were out at the lover's lane that evening.

Yeah. Isn't that wild that you talked to the wife of the man that you've been having an affair with that day you dropped her off, and then. Oh, my God. You just stumbled upon her dead body.

Later that day, you happened to discovers it.

Whoa. Buy a lottery ticket, Sharon.

Now, as far as she knew, she said that Patricia was, quote, upset but not mad after she informed her of the affair. So she couldn't imagine what could have happened to lead to her death.

No, of course you can't, because nothing else happened. You killed her. No way.

There's that now, also, you went to.

A lover's Lane with your boyfriend.

She's in.

Grow the fuck up.

She's in her early 20s, but, like.

Grow the fuck up.

Honestly. Well, you have two children.

What are you doing? Shut the fuck up. It's wild. We went to a lover's lane. Shut the fuck up.

Dave makes, like, little notes sometimes, and he was like, I know it may seem weird that they're in a lover's lane, but please remember that she is in her early 20s, because it's also crazy to be like she is in her early twenty s. And all of this in your head. You're like, jesus Christ, you're 35.

What are you doing? Grow up.

But she's young still. She's done a lot.

Yeah.

The autopsy determined that Patricia's cause of death was the gunshot wound in her head, and they placed the time of death around eight or 09:00 p.m. On May 27, just a few hours before the body was discovered. But unfortunately, the three bullets that they retrieved from the shoulders and the head were so badly damaged that they couldn't be used for a match to the weapon. And the fourth bullet had entered Patricia's stomach and exited out of her back and then presumably got lodged somewhere where she'd been killed. So with no other leads, detectives went back to the woods where the body was discovered and started searching with metal detectors, hoping to find that fourth bullet. Now, a team of investigators spent all day searching the woods for that fourth bullet that passed through Patricia's stomach, but they had no luck finding it or any other additional evidence.

Yeah, because I don't think it happened out there.

It gets a little hairy. Okay. And you'll see where in part two. But in the meantime, Walter and John Baldisk were both brought in for additional questioning, and they both were given a polygraph examination, which they passed. It was then that Walter admitted when he learned that Sharon had been with his wife the night she went missing. He did not call her like he had said originally. He actually went to her house and confronted her in person.

Oh, damn, Walter.

Yeah, it gets worse. According to Walter, when Patricia's friend said that she saw her with Sharon, he went to Sharon, and after putting a knife to her throat, demanded that she help search for his wife.

These poor children.

I know.

Involved in this kind of shit.

You just hope that they weren't around seeing any of this. Like, hopefully they were with her, the.

Babysitter that's raising them. Exactly.

And James Kenny's parents were still very involved in their lives. But within an hour of that incident, Sharon and Baldis discovered Patricia's body in the woods. How convenient. I love that.

Walter shows up, puts a knife to your throat, tells you to go, you better find my wife. And you're like, cool. He leaves, and you're like, hey, John, you want to go to a lover's lane and just hang out?

And John's like, yeah, sure.

And he's like, absolutely. And then you just stumble upon it. You're like, wow, good luck for me. Fortunately.

And it's like, clearly, she led you to a certain area in this very clearly.

Patricia.

We all know that.

We all know that she clearly led.

You to the location where she knew your headlights were going to, of course, illuminate Patricia.

Oh, my God. That way, she could rid herself of the issue of Walter being like, find my wife.

Right?

And also be like, oh, she's gone. That's crazy.

I saw her get into a car with some random ass, man.

Wow.

Now, the good thing, investigation wise, was that each new revelation seemed to lead to some other piece of critical information about the case. Because when Baldiz was asked about Walter's story, he admitted that he and Sharon had indeed gone out to the woods, not for intimacy, but to look for Patricia.

I was going to say, yeah, so.

That'S how that explains that. And that wasn't all he told investigators. According to him, a couple weeks before Patricia's murder, Sharon had, quote, talked him into going to the sheriff's office to try to get James Kenny's pistol back. But obviously, they refused that request.

What the fuck?

But it's like, okay, is that the same police department, like, investigating this death? Because. Would you not have that on note that some random man was like, I need James Kenny's pistol back.

Are the police okay here? No, the answer is no. No, the answer is not well, bitch.

They are not well.

Like, what? You're not even asking. The fact that they didn't even talk to that two year old to be like, hey, quiet. Let's see what she says about whether she shot her dad or not. Just give it a shot. Not doing that. And then like this, they're like, oh, yeah, how crazy. We don't have that on file. It's like, what the fuck? This lady's obviously got a lot of shit going on around her. Maybe like, keep an eye. When she asked for a pistol back.

You would think that was involved in a murder. Or when her lover comes in and asks for it.

Come on.

It's like, maybe make note of that. While the detectives continued questioning Walter and Vildes, a team of investigators switched their attention from the wooded area where Patricia's body was located to an abandoned farm building across the street. And on the morning of May 30, investigators searching the barn found two blanks with bullet holes and powder burns, leading them to suspect that Patricia may have been taken to the barn and killed before being dumped in the woods.

Oh, that's fucked up.

And they believed that could account for the chunk of time where she was missing between when she was last seen by coworkers and when she was discovered in the woods. That was a theory. Now, the search of the barn didn't give much in terms of new evidence, but as investigators were starting to feel like they were losing momentum, a coworker of Sharon's from the photo processing plant that she was currently working at came forward to police with what he thought was vital evidence. According to this coworker, a few weeks before Patricia's body was discovered, Sharon had pressured him into buying a high standard. 22 caliber pistol for her.

How does she convince people to do these things?

She has a way with.

She's manipulative.

She's got a way with men. Some women just do. Now, when detectives confronted her with this information, Sharon, quote, explained she wanted the weapon for protraction on her trip to Washington that she'd taken with Baldis just days before the murder and claimed she left the gun with family in Washington.

Okay.

Now, although their physical evidence was weak, the circumstantial evidence against Sharon Kinney at this point was substantial. She'd been having an affair with the victim's husband. She was the last person to be seen with Patricia Jones. She was the one to find the body in an out of the way location.

She had to go and find it.

She had gone out of her way to obtain a gun and then lost said gun.

Yeah.

She was refusing to make any sworn statement or submit a polygraph exam. And on top of that, her husband had died under similarly mysterious circumstances just two months earlier, after which she collected on insurance policies that not only gave her a clear title to the house, but also solved any financial problems. It may not have been a slam dunk case, but she definitely looked guilty.

This is wild. And it's also so weird that we chose cases this week that had to do with insurance payouts right in the nick of time before financial ruin.

That is weird.

Like, that's the exact thing with the OC case.

That is very strange. Very weird. But on the evening of May 31, just hours after Patricia Jones's funeral, deputies from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department served a warrant at Sharon, and she was taken into custody and charged with the murder of Patricia Jones.

Good. Get her.

And that's where we're going to wrap for part one. I'm so sorry, but in part two, there is a lot to cover. Like I said, part two is going to be a little bit trial heavy, and you'll see why. But once we get through the trial part of it, which if you're like me and that's not necessarily your thing, we're going to get through it together and it's going to be worth it. Because then we go into a whole slew of other wild shit.

Damn. I don't know how this can get more wild, but here I am.

You know what? I was saying the same thing as I was writing this. And then I was just like, it got more wild.

It got more wild.

It got crazy.

Yeah. Wow.

So we hope you keep listening, and.

We hope you keep it weird.

But it's so weird that you try to stage your husband's murder like your two year old did it. Because that's just really fucked up and weird.

Fucked up.

That's so wild.

I can't get over that.

Just wait.

Blaming it on her two year old. Just wait. It's wild.

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Slash Survey hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast, American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history. Presidential lies, corruption in sports, corporate fraud. Our newest season looks at Aaron Hernandez, a rising pro football star who shocked the sports world when he was arrested for a brutal murder in 2013. Fans, media, and Hernandez's own family couldn't understand how a beloved and respected player for the New England Patriots, with a $40 million contract, could commit such a heinous crime. But there had been warning signs all along the way, and they pointed to a much larger health crisis among current and former NFL players. Follow American scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge American scandal, Aaron Hernandez early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus.