[SPEAKER_00]: Warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. [SPEAKER_00]: California 1983, a hitchhiking couple murder their driver in view of other motorists. [SPEAKER_00]: A high-speed chasin sues and ends in a dramatic crash, the murderous couple inside Michael Bear Carson and Susan Carson are swiftly placed in handcuffs. [SPEAKER_00]: The couple then confess in a five-hour press conference to three murders, but they claimed they shouldn't be convicted.
[SPEAKER_00]: They should be thanked. [SPEAKER_00]: The reason? [SPEAKER_00]: They claim to be warriors on a holy mission sent to exterminate evil specifically witches. [SPEAKER_00]: And their story isn't over. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the show, I'm your host Michael. [SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm joined by a very special guest, Darren Coil, a filmmaker. [SPEAKER_00]: How are you doing? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm well, Mike. [SPEAKER_00]: How are you? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing pretty well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited you're on. [SPEAKER_00]: You pertain to this topic because you are a filmmaker, but a lot of your resume has some true crime content, television shows, documentaries of that nature. [SPEAKER_00]: So I consider you a bit of an expert, is it safe to say that in sort of true crime, [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little uncomfortable with the term expert, but I do have many years of experience producing true crime TV shows.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do know one or two things about that genre, if you will, and some of the ins and outs of law enforcement and investigation and that kind of a thing. [SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: Tom, what could you call it? [SPEAKER_00]: You're an educated individual when it comes to true crime, because I'm sure you've picked up even if just subconsciously some like mental sort of things that may recur within potential serial killers or killers or domestic violence or things of that nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm sure you pick up on that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Literally within the last calendar year, I've worked on three different shows all under the umbrella of people magazine investigates. [SPEAKER_01]: There's the flagship show, then there's an offshoot show that's called surviving a serial killer. [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's an offshoot of another offshoot that's about cults.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I worked on all three of those shows over the last year, so I definitely have my brain as in tune with serial killers as well as cults as well as just your average non-serial killers. [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, it's a genre that I started working in [SPEAKER_01]: probably 15 years ago. [SPEAKER_01]: And I really like it. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I know it might be weird to say, but I like working in a genre where the stories are real, the people are real.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have real world consequences. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not like a game show or like a home makeover show or whatever where, you know, they're [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the stakes are high and and those are really compelling stories to tell and it's something that I that I like doing and and I've been, I've been blessed to have been able to do it as a as a job for a while now so do you have any favorite in terms of just the story itself that you found so compelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, one story that, and it's a very California, very LA story, really. [SPEAKER_01]: With so much of the story we're going to be talking about today, is the Rani Al-Kala story. [SPEAKER_01]: He's a serial killer in the 70s. [SPEAKER_01]: Very prolific. [SPEAKER_01]: He was, people call him the dating game killer, because he was at the bottom. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he won, like the woman picked him, and there was recently a movie that came out about that. [SPEAKER_01]: So the Rodney Alcala story, I think, is one of the truly bakers stories that I've written about and covered in produced an episode about
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were also two of his survivors trusted us enough to tell their story and just hearing the survivor's stories is like really enthralling and really inspirational in a way where like they, you know, this happened, you know, 50 years ago and they're still dealing with it, but like they've come so far and they've been able to kind of get over that and [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's it's it's amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: I I very happy to have met you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this genre kind of gets people kind of poo poo the genre a little bit, but I do think it's fascinating and I think it's important to share these kinds of stories. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's, and I think it's, and I think that's because there is so much sensationalism in that genre, which I try to stay away from myself. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the stories stories are important. [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous people.
[SPEAKER_01]: that work in intelligent and general, a let alone in true crime, and that has definitely caused it to get a bad rap, but [SPEAKER_01]: But I do believe it has merit and if you can see past the sensational part of it and go to the real story and the human story behind it, I think it's quite compelling and quite moving in certain cases. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see if I can segue that into today's topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So talking about compelling real stories, Darren, we have the Michael Bear Carson and Suzanne Carson story today. [SPEAKER_00]: This is solved. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the true crown cases and just stories, I cover my show in general, are unsolved. [SPEAKER_00]: But just because it solved doesn't mean it's not very compelling and interesting, there's a lot to think about with this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you had not really heard about the them until I mentioned [SPEAKER_00]: And you immediately wrote me back or like, oh, I looked into it a little bit and it's kind of like Bonnie and Clyde and it kind of is in an interesting way, but I think with a lot more hallucinogenic drugs involved, you know, I shouldn't have said Bonnie and Clyde because they at least were like robbing banks and yeah, exactly, there was another aspect to it, yeah, one actual case that I know of that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: very similar is B.J. [SPEAKER_01]: and Erica Siffrit, which I realized was was not in the 70s and 80s, but that was in [SPEAKER_01]: ocean city Maryland and they were thrilled they were a thrill kill couple. [SPEAKER_01]: They would like go out and like meet up with another couple bring them back to their apartment, have some drinks, but then torture and kill them and they and they did it for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I looked at these folks and I thought, oh, they're thrill killers. [SPEAKER_01]: I think [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you'll have your opinion may not change, but I think you're going to get more to it when you hear those story today. [SPEAKER_00]: I know you've read a little bit about it because I think there's another aspect of this that that goes beyond just thrill kill, but I think that's part of it. [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll get into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me start here and I'm going to begin with Susan Susan Barnes. [SPEAKER_00]: She was born in 1941, she grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, and most of the accounts of her early life take almost like two different paths. [SPEAKER_00]: There's are two different roads that she's living at the same time. [SPEAKER_00]: On one hand, she's living this very normal American life. [SPEAKER_00]: She gets married to a business man. [SPEAKER_00]: She has two sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's from a successful family. [SPEAKER_00]: Scottsdale is relatively conservative and she's living that that I'd [SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, she started having these experiences when she was young, hearing voices and having visions, and she interpreted that as a psychic ability. [SPEAKER_00]: And then here she is growing up, 60s and 70s come around. [SPEAKER_00]: So the counter-culture movement is emerging, the hippie movement, new age movement is really growing in the 70s.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she immediately is attracted to all of these things and really dives head first into this to this world. [SPEAKER_00]: She started taking hallucinogenic drugs and she was seeking something spiritual. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, [SPEAKER_00]: She would often read a lot of various religious texts and not just texts but also opinions or analysis of the Quran, the Bible, et cetera, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's a detail that matters because it shows that she was trying to reshape her identity a bit. [SPEAKER_00]: She was born Susan spelled the way you think it is actually USAN. [SPEAKER_00]: But she changed it as an adult to SUCA and while she allegedly was on some kind of drug trip, but she changed that one little letter and took off from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, it's like, it's a very minor thing to change a letter, but I think it shows shows something going on within her where she wants to live in this different reality, or live in it created different mythology, even potentially. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, something just as simple as a name or even the spelling of a name might seem cosmetic, but to them, it's everything. [SPEAKER_01]: They're a different person now, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that was that was our whole goal with that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know when this starts. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know exactly sort of what year she started going down this rabbit hole. [SPEAKER_00]: But while she's married and has kids, she starts experiencing episodes her behavior becomes very erratic. [SPEAKER_00]: She gets divorced and is not estranged yet, but she obviously sort of taken away from her children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her children convinced her to see a psychiatrist and she did for a little while. [SPEAKER_00]: but she thought that the doctors and the drugs that they were putting her on were hurting her psychic abilities and she saw that as like this evil evil thing trying to take this power away from her and so she just left and she became completely estranged from her children.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she fell fully into the drug scene, which I know when I'm talking about Scottsdale Arizona sounds very different. [SPEAKER_00]: They were like, oh, if the drug scene of San Francisco or New York, but like there is, there was a drug scene, and she was a big part of that and partied a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: And she, I should also mention Darren, she came from a wealthy family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was able to live off of an inheritance without having to get work and just party and do drugs all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: and she started to develop her own religious spiritual doctrine that she would call Islam. [SPEAKER_00]: But just to be very clear, this is not Islam. [SPEAKER_00]: This is like her own very crazy interpretation of it. [SPEAKER_01]: And this is all before she meets this other person. [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you know, it just to mention it though like it's undiagnosed mental illness tends to go down that path of, you know, murder and other, you know, bad things. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's so many times when you just, when you just wanted that [SPEAKER_01]: wish that they had sought, you know, a doctor or something like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of bums me out that she actually did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she was like, no, you're stopping the voices in my head. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, yes, that's the point here. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like maybe she had some schizophrenia going on or something like that. [SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly what I think. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, elicit drugs on top of that. [SPEAKER_01]: uh it's just like a recipe for disaster. [SPEAKER_00]: It really is and you mentioned it that this is all before she met Michael.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm gonna turn to him for a second. [SPEAKER_00]: So he was born James Clifford Carson. [SPEAKER_00]: I am gonna try to just call him Michael for reasons we'll get to in a second but just not confused the audience but he was born James Clifford Carson in 1950. [SPEAKER_00]: So he's about nine years younger [SPEAKER_00]: And he doesn't have quite as a dramatic story that you read about a Suzanne does before he meets her.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he did sort of find himself in his teenage and adult ears getting into like pulled into activism in a way. [SPEAKER_00]: He was a bit into that counterculture movement himself. [SPEAKER_00]: and he did start to take hallucinogenic drugs as well and it obviously those those things can have an effect on you especially if you are dealing with some mental illness of some kind. [SPEAKER_00]: He eventually marries a woman named Lynn.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved to Phoenix Arizona and he has a daughter named Jennifer but in Phoenix. [SPEAKER_00]: the marriage falls apart. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's at least one violent episode that's on record where he hit his wife, just one. [SPEAKER_00]: But that was a bit of a breaking point. [SPEAKER_00]: In a 1977 Lynn Leaves with the daughter, they move away. [SPEAKER_00]: and Michael begins dealing drugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think mostly marijuana, but he may have been dealing some other drugs as well, and he started to flow into that same kind of party ecosystem, the same circles as Suzanne. [SPEAKER_00]: So on Thanksgiving night, 1977, they're both at the same party, and the story goes that they lock eyes [SPEAKER_00]: Susan approaches Michael and declares that Alla has named him Michael, because again, his real name is James.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he, Alla has named him Michael, because it's in relation to the Archangel Archangel Michael, who fights evil. [SPEAKER_00]: And James literally just changes his name on the spot, apparently. [SPEAKER_00]: He just starts going by Michael. [SPEAKER_00]: He's mesmerized by Susan.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go back to her place at [SPEAKER_00]: They take drugs and Susan explains that she's been traveling around and these like mystic realms and astral planes for thousands of years and she's been waiting for a soul mate and now she's found him. [SPEAKER_00]: And the relationship was immediately a tense intense and Michael would follow Susan and do whatever she wanted him to do from that moment onward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, this is a kind of common story in a way where like these two people who are just partying way too hard and with undiagnosed mental illness, they find each other and then crazy meets crazy and then they go off into the world to do bad things and obviously you've got the [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: I love all I said that so light-heartedly. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just go ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is kind of crazy how many murder stories happen or start with illicit drugs. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: There are so many, so many murders are involved. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have kids, but I tell all my [SPEAKER_01]: 90% your child will avoid crime, if you just literally just keep them off drugs. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not talking about weed. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everything else. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you can avoid that, you will avoid crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a parent myself, I probably have said something like that to my son, there is this interesting thing, I have many friends that have a lot of experiences with hallucinogenics and that even kind of seek it out sometimes and talk about it very positively.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are for all of those relatively positive experiences, there does seem to be a percentage [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a small percentage, I don't know, the stats behind this, that it, it seems to have a huge change in their personality afterwards for the worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that is because of an undiagnosed mental illness, like you said, maybe it's something else, but I haven't gone down that rabbit hole I haven't studied that, but it is interesting that they have Michael and Susan have this hallucinogenic route that I do think. [SPEAKER_00]: had an influence helped fuel this psychosis that they're on. [SPEAKER_01]: And what, so at this point, they're still in Phoenix, is that right? [SPEAKER_00]: They are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So essentially, they're building this identity together and Susan talks to him about your a warrior with me. [SPEAKER_00]: You've been chosen to take on a role to fight in evil. [SPEAKER_00]: This is sort of unseen evil that no one else can see, but Susan. [SPEAKER_00]: and they're building a sealed identity. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the thing that attracted me to this story. [SPEAKER_00]: Is this really interesting almost like two-person hive mind or one-one mind from two people?
[SPEAKER_00]: It has its own rules, its own language, its own enemies, very much like a cult, but it's just two people. [SPEAKER_00]: And they don't want anybody else. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just the two of them. [SPEAKER_00]: And clinically, there's a term called Foley of Du, which I'm definitely mispronouncing. [SPEAKER_00]: That's my style there, and I just mispronounce everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not on purpose, I just don't care about it, but it's an older label now, I don't think it's used as much anymore for what modern sources describe as a shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a rare situation where delusional beliefs are transmitted within an unusually close isolated relationship. [SPEAKER_00]: typically with a dominant or primary and a more suggestible or secondary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this situation, Susan is the dominant Michael is the secondary, the suggestible. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I just find this very fascinating. [SPEAKER_00]: So in 1980, so it's three years after they made, they moved to hate Ashbury, the district in San Francisco, the hub of hippie culture and at a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: They meet a young woman Karen Barnes, who invites Michael and Susan to live in her apartment and this seems very hate Ashberry to me where you're like you're just on a party or at a party you're probably doing drugs to people are like, yeah, we're moving here, but we don't have a place to live yet and someone's like, yeah, just live with me, come on back to my place and that's exactly what they do, but it was a deadly mistake on Karen's behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan would start to teach Karen about this religious mission she's on these beliefs and Karen at first sort of took in some of it. [SPEAKER_00]: She was very interested in it, but then things got weird, Darren. [SPEAKER_00]: Karen was asked to join their relationship, a sort of a polyamorous relationship with them. [SPEAKER_00]: She was much younger than they were.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forget how old she was when I think early 20s and she [SPEAKER_00]: And so Susan goes, Michael, Karen's a witch, and she needs to die. [SPEAKER_00]: And not only is she a witch, she's the biggest witch in all of San Francisco so we have to get rid of her. [SPEAKER_00]: So in early 1981, Karen is attacked at home. [SPEAKER_00]: She's struck on the head with a pan, it crushes her skull, and then she stabbed 12 times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or sometimes in some newspaper accounts it says 13, so it's 12 or 13 times. [SPEAKER_00]: that she's stabbed and then her body is hidden in the apartment and Michael and Susan leave town immediately they just disappear. [SPEAKER_01]: Probably the the first smart thing that they've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, if you can call it that, but yeah, for their own sake, it's a smart thing that they've done there are I think it's Susan herself that said that she always knew Karen was a witch like she had she had like noticed it when she first met her and so this was like part of a plan. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do believe the stories I've heard later that she tried to get her involved with some sort of polyamorous relationship and Karen was like, no thanks. [SPEAKER_00]: It's no thanks and then Susan was just like offended. [SPEAKER_00]: So she called her a witch and we need to kill her. [SPEAKER_00]: So they leave San Francisco, they move throughout the Pacific Northwest, I'm kind of truncating this, they do kind of move around a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the Pacific Northwest, they live in a secluded cabin for quite some time, and this kind of helps their dynamic grow even closer, because they're just stuck together with more isolation where this delusion can continue to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually they leave the cabin there in and they go to Humboldt County, the, especially in the early 80s, this is where a lot of marijuana was grown still to this day, it has been now it's more legal than none of it was legal and it was quite a scary place to live, but they worked on a marijuana farm and a gentleman named Clark Stevens was 26 years old. [SPEAKER_00]: He grubs the couple the wrong way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read in an article that he drank a lot and was kind of gruff and kind of rude and Susan did not like this. [SPEAKER_00]: She thought he was in a front to Hala. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, this is her version of Hala. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to people to think that she was a true Muslim. [SPEAKER_00]: She was not this is her own sort of version of things that she created and probably probably changes all the time too and evolves her beliefs.
[SPEAKER_00]: but she thought Clark needed to die because he too was a witch. [SPEAKER_00]: So she tasks Michael with the job of killing him. [SPEAKER_00]: So Michael shoots Clark in the head. [SPEAKER_00]: The couple then cover his body and manure and burn it in the woods of Humboldt County. [SPEAKER_00]: and then they immediately leave town again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to say the authorities when they found or sort of backtracking here to San Francisco Darren, they found Karen's body and the police were investigating Karen's roommates. [SPEAKER_00]: They were the prime suspects. [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is they Susan and Michael didn't use their real names. [SPEAKER_00]: And no one knew where they went. [SPEAKER_00]: They just left town. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the early 80s. [SPEAKER_00]: It's still the modern era.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's like, it's much harder to find people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the police are essentially chasing ghosts, because [SPEAKER_00]: They've got the wrong names and they don't and for all they know these people are living next door or they've moved to Alaska and also I should mention this to I'm going to back up a little bit while they were traveling around before they moved to San Francisco, they got married at Stonehenge in the UK, which is just a perfect mystical ear ear place for a couple like this and.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's around that time that Susan starts referring to Michael is bear or Michael bear. [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure she had her own reasoning behind that. [SPEAKER_00]: We can all come up with our own guesses to what bear meant. [SPEAKER_00]: But. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if in San Francisco, Michael was going by Michael Bear, or if he was going by Michael Carson.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, it's a little name change where it's going to make it hard for the police to hunt them down. [SPEAKER_00]: And also they were living with Karen that didn't fill out an application to live in this apartment. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no [SPEAKER_01]: there's no paper trail. [SPEAKER_00]: No paper trail whatsoever. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's why authorities haven't found that it's not because authorities aren't trying. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just it's tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very, very, very tough. [SPEAKER_01]: At least work was with much different back then. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now you're just going Instagram and you're like, hey, look at that there. [SPEAKER_01]: There you go. [SPEAKER_01]: I do want to point out that this I don't [SPEAKER_01]: After they had been caught in all that stuff, but like, they described themselves as vegetarian Muslim warriors. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: They do.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you, if you already don't like vegetarians, this is going to really help your case. [SPEAKER_01]: There's people, not only did they call themselves vegetarian muslim warriors, and that they had yogic and secret mystical powers, but apparently they claim to be pacifists, which is kind of funny. [SPEAKER_00]: And they see themselves as, again, they're holy warriors, they're, they're the good guys in their mind. [SPEAKER_00]: They're saving the world from an internal darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1983, the couple, they're living in California off the grid, as I've mentioned. [SPEAKER_00]: They were living somewhere where they didn't even have a car anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: It would have to hitchhike to get around. [SPEAKER_00]: And one day they're hitchhiking and they flagged down a guy named John Hillier. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you will see it spelled Hellier. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's Hillier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you just pronounce it Hillier and they've mispelled it in newspapers from back then. [SPEAKER_00]: but John picks up the couple from the side of the road in a pickup truck. [SPEAKER_00]: Suzanne sits in the middle of the bed of the truck or not the bed, but the seat of the truck and the Michael is in the passenger seat. [SPEAKER_00]: And as you might imagine, this is the early 80s, my grandfather had a late 70s pickup truck and we would always ride together in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a lot of room on that seat for three people. [SPEAKER_00]: So John's leg touches Susan's leg. [SPEAKER_00]: Susan immediately is offended by this in claims that John is a witch, and she tells Michael to take care of them. [SPEAKER_00]: So a fight breaks out in the truck. [SPEAKER_00]: The truck is sort of pulled off the side of the road right next to a fruit stand in my view. [SPEAKER_00]: The fight falls out of the truck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Michael has a gun, but it's knocked away in a scuffle and John is trying to protect himself. [SPEAKER_00]: The worker at the fruit stand watches this whole thing, drivers driving by or seeing this fight happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't read this until like a very random article yesterday where I was like I'm going to try to read even more like articles back from when this happened, but apparently Susan took a knife and snuck up behind John while he's trying to hide from Michael who's I think gets the gun back off the ground at his pointing at Adam and Susan stabs John.
[SPEAKER_00]: that doesn't kill him, it's Michael that eventually is now able to get close enough to John to pull the trigger and shoot John Hillier in the head. [SPEAKER_00]: By this point, because of Passersby, the police have already been called. [SPEAKER_00]: So Michael and Susan jump in John's truck.
[SPEAKER_00]: They speed away the police are already in pursuit, and they have a high-speed chase that goes through two different [SPEAKER_00]: until the truck loses control and crashes into a ditch, Michael and Susan are immediately arrested. [SPEAKER_00]: While they're in questioning, they talk about religion, they talk about fighting witches, they talk about being vegetarian, what was it, vegetarian Muslim warriors? [SPEAKER_00]: There you go. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're on a holy crusade.
[SPEAKER_01]: And their shared mission is to exterminate individuals, [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: Authorities are not connecting Michael and Susan yet to the killing and humble county or Karen and San Francisco, but Michael writes a letter. [SPEAKER_00]: In the letter he talks about brags, even, about killing the biggest witch, the most influential witch in San Francisco describes it, talks about it, and the authorities are like, wait a second, that's Karen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never found her killers. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, we found their killers. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're also able to attach them to the killing and humbled county. [SPEAKER_01]: Just to demonstrate how much of a different world life was 50, you know, 40 years ago, is that, [SPEAKER_01]: And if you have kids and you want them to stay out of crime and keep them off the drugs, the other thing I'd number two thing I would say is don't hitchhike and don't pick up any hitchhikers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was far too, it was very common back then. [SPEAKER_01]: probably led to lots of people getting rides to where they needed to go, but they're off. [SPEAKER_01]: It also led to lots of fights and murders and various other crimes. [SPEAKER_01]: So like, I know this is back in, I don't know, 84. [SPEAKER_01]: 83. [SPEAKER_01]: 83. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Just so parents tell your kids, stay out the drugs and don't you check or pick up hitchhikers for that matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and it's like, one of my nightmares is either having to hitchhike or being with somebody that's like, oh, there's a hitchhiker. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's give him a ride and just like, oh, it scares me. [SPEAKER_00]: It scared me my whole life. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a good reason. [SPEAKER_00]: One. [SPEAKER_00]: So after all of this information comes out authorities are able to connect Michael and Susan to these murders. [SPEAKER_00]: They're charged with three murders.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are willing to confess, so to speak. [SPEAKER_00]: But they're not going to share any more information they do right away unless they get some press. [SPEAKER_00]: So they convince the authorities to let them have a press conference. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually going to have you read a quote, Darren, if you can pull up an email, I send you.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK. [SPEAKER_01]: The Carson's, he's 32, and she refuses to give her age, [SPEAKER_01]: For the Hilliers Lane, quote Susan ordered each killing, said the heavily bearded Carson, as his brunette wife sat with a half smile on her lips. [SPEAKER_01]: He describes her as a yogi and a mystic with knowledge of past, present, and future events. [SPEAKER_01]: Susan kept her gaze on her husband's face, sometimes putting her left hand on his right as he spoke.
[SPEAKER_01]: She smiled a lot and occasionally stared at the others. [SPEAKER_01]: The Carson's specifically asked that a reporter from the Chronicle hear their lengthy discourse. [SPEAKER_01]: The reporters were present for the entire five-hour press conference. [SPEAKER_01]: They claimed to be Muslim warriors and said this to played a part in their killings. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's from San Francisco Chronicle article from 1983.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to point out, and I'm not sure if it came out in the five hours of the press conference or not, but they did have apparently a manifesto, which was their belief system I'm going to assume or at least part of it. [SPEAKER_01]: They also kept a list of targeted individuals, including political figures and celebrities, such as Ronald Reagan, who at the time was the president of the United States, and of course, Johnny Carson.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these were people that they were essentially targeting to, I'm assuming, kill, because they believe them to be witches or some other negative entity. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm, I'm curious, do you know if they like broke out the manifesto during this press conference? [SPEAKER_01]: It was like, here you go, boys, let me, let me make some Xerox copies of it for you. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they broke it out, so to speak. [SPEAKER_00]: I think they ramble the information.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they quite wrote it down in a specific manner. [SPEAKER_00]: I do know that there are some letters they've written, but it's not like one document, I think it's a couple. [SPEAKER_00]: And if listeners, if you can clarify that for me, that's all I found for some letters and then just that the manifesto essentially is just them talking during the press conference, because it was like you read five hours long.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody set through it because they wanted as much information from these individuals as they could get in case there's even other murders. [SPEAKER_00]: So so they did that, but that is my understanding, but if people have more information when I clarify that email me a study of strange at gmail.com. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you brought up the the Johnny Carson and Ronald Reagan. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to add one more thing just to their their beliefs or manifesto here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is actually a quote from the California newspaper at the same time quote, which craft homosexuality and abortion are causes for deaths at Michael Bear Carson Carson last month wrote the Chronicle columnist Herb Khan complaining that his [SPEAKER_00]: I just love that. [SPEAKER_00]: I love that comment. [SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to put that there. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that is, so they share all this information. [SPEAKER_00]: They're shared more of their beliefs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They also talk about how Susan is the one that has the ability to see the witches and she communicates that to Michael. [SPEAKER_01]: I do have to say that I'm a little surprised that they're considering the manifesto and this belief system that they've clearly bought into 100% and she's like the leader and she's gifted with these powers. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm surprised they A did not try to get followers.
[SPEAKER_01]: to give them money or do their bidding or whatever, especially in Northern California in the 1970s and 80s, that was kind of a thing. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, cults or just kind of groups that like all had, you know, all cut from the same cloth and all kind of like living the same lifestyle. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of surprised they didn't at least have [SPEAKER_01]: a handful of people who were following them.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the fascinating things, this whole that phrase that I definitely did not say correctly earlier about this shared psychosis. [SPEAKER_00]: So me, I'm curious if, especially Susan, because she definitely is like the type A. [SPEAKER_00]: She's the leader of this little duo. [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if she kind of had what she needed. [SPEAKER_00]: She had her one devoted follower. [SPEAKER_00]: I bet there's a ton of sexual attraction there as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have that kind of combined with it. [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that was enough for her. [SPEAKER_00]: She could kind of control her own reality. [SPEAKER_00]: She could control her own beliefs because she knew that Michael would always follow her and whatever she said, whereas when you get a group, there's always a chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know in cults you develop this sort of hive mind where [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't happen as often, but you still risk somebody disagreeing with you or taking the other followers away or getting into certain sort of interterm oil. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just curious if maybe she was satisfied with like this one devotee that was also her husband or lover. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess also part of me is kind of wondering if they had this manifesto in this belief system and all that, like, did they have a plan?
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like, I mean, if you're hitchhiking throughout the state of California, that doesn't sound like a plan, that sounds like, or that sounds like a plan C or whatever you might say like, yeah, I'd be kind of curious to like know if they, you know, if they had some sort of like, all right, you know, we're going to hunt witches and we're
[SPEAKER_01]: our causes just we are what we're you know we're vegetarian muslim warriors and we're looking for witches and we're gonna start in northern California and work our way down or work our way east or whatever like I would be curious to know if they had some sort of like actual geographical plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that I mean that's a great question and I don't know the answer for that if they did have a plan I don't think they shared it when they've talked about all of this and the one thing that makes me wonder if they didn't have a plan is the fact that their killings really are there's a bit of the thrill killing aspect to it, but it's also very like oh that I don't like that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's a wish killing so that it's very like spur of the moment and that to me doesn't show people that are necessarily thinking three four moves ahead they're just kind of reacting to a situation but right and I could be wrong I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I almost want to say that like, thrill kill might be too simple explanation, but like, I kind of feel like to a certain extent, yeah, there's a thrill to it, or also just like, I'm gonna do whatever I wanna do and if that guy pisses me off and I'm gonna get my husband to go kill him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then afterwards they can say, well, it's justified, here's our beliefs, here's our manifesto, so we, [SPEAKER_01]: The only joy we got out of this is knowing that we made the world a better place because we're a vegetarian Muslim warriors, and we were just doing our job. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a way to justify it afterwards. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would be curious to hear what, you know, a psychologist or a psychiatrist would have to say about it. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, 100%.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're trials, by the way, get a little interesting, Darren, on top of all this intriguing aspects of their lives and their murder spree. [SPEAKER_00]: So they confess? [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry. [SPEAKER_01]: I do feel the need to mention that the press dubbed him the San Francisco Witch
[SPEAKER_00]: Which got it you got to say they were just they sold a few newspapers with that headline it goes to show you that clickbait has always existed just different forms of media right it goes back to the beginning of human kind Yes, the San Francisco which killers which is also the title of my episode because it should should do quite well so regardless of that they they they're trial started in 1984 and even though they had essentially confessed [SPEAKER_00]: in the press conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were like, hey, we should be, we shouldn't be arrested. [SPEAKER_00]: We should be thanked for getting rid of evil and killing witches in their trials. [SPEAKER_00]: They both plea not guilty. [SPEAKER_00]: And let's just say that they, they were still convicted. [SPEAKER_00]: And the jury did not fall for any of their shenanigans. [SPEAKER_00]: And they were both put away for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the story continues because in the mid 2000s, the case has resurfaced because they were allowed to come up through parole and both have been denied parole, but what's interesting to me, and maybe it's just me, but I'm fascinated with this. [SPEAKER_00]: is neither one of them has meaningfully abandoned their ideology. [SPEAKER_00]: They've showed no remorse for the killings whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even though they're separated, they're still seem to be synced up in their beliefs, even still to this day. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's been 40, 40 some odd years now. [SPEAKER_00]: And that to me, just really [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, and just to put my psychiatrist hat on for a moment, please. [SPEAKER_01]: My understanding of your sub-conscious is, your sub-conscious doesn't know reality. [SPEAKER_01]: It just knows what it hears.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's one of those things where if you say something enough, [SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's a bold face lie or just has it's just a completely delusional, you know, thing, you eventually will believe it and and then that cycle feeds itself and I can't imagine they have too many voices of reason in prison telling them, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: or helping them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love it if they were actually seeking like professional treatment in prison, but I'm assuming that they're not. [SPEAKER_00]: I doubt it. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if they're certain, but I doubt it. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, eventually, just like after telling you, telling yourself that the murders were justified and you were a Muslim warrior, then you're just, you're going to keep believing it. [SPEAKER_01]: um and so and it's yeah it's bizarre. [SPEAKER_00]: It is bizarre.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you one little footnote to this case that I think is great and that's that Michael's daughter Jennifer Carson. [SPEAKER_00]: She has spoken publicly about this, about finding out that hey your father was a killer. [SPEAKER_00]: and the effect that has had on her. [SPEAKER_00]: She is now a doctor. [SPEAKER_00]: She's a mental health professional and an advocate who has worked in crisis support.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just think that is, you know, a very positive thing that's come out of this and for her. [SPEAKER_00]: So that is the San Francisco which killer's Darren [SPEAKER_01]: I will, all right. [SPEAKER_01]: So when this whole story comes out in 84, I think they're trials 85, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It starts in 84. [SPEAKER_01]: So it starts in 84. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: So this hits the press, they're the same as Cisco Witch Killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, you know, they're getting a lot of attention. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're being tried for three murders, but those are the three that we know about. [SPEAKER_01]: There's probably one or two that we don't know about, and anyone in the state of California that's working a case of some drifter or some body that was found in the woods outside of Baker's field or wherever.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the timing lines up correctly, these two killers are all of a sudden suspects in all of these other murders. [SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's true or not, but I mean you can't, if you're a detective working a case, you can't deny that that's a possibility. [SPEAKER_01]: So all of a sudden, these people are suspects in probably, I'm going to say, 15 to 20 other [SPEAKER_01]: There's probably a bunch of cold cases that have not been solved from the 1983-1984-1985 time or before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I guess they got together in late 70s. [SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, we're talking about a good, I don't know, six or seven years that they were together and doing their shenanigans. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, I, I, I have to assume that they're on the suspect list now today in 2026 or a dozen a dozen, a dozen, on the South cases. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I even read an article from recently talking about their referral where someone, I forget which, which law enforcement agency talked about, looking at them as potentially being connected to other cases, but they didn't have anything [SPEAKER_00]: so I do know that people have thought about it and rightly so. [SPEAKER_00]: And look, I did have to truncate some of their story today because I like to try to get things correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't always do it, but there are so many different variations of accounts about where they traveled, like before San Francisco, after San Francisco, before humble, after humble, [SPEAKER_00]: and they are not always consistent when they've talked about it and reporting on it is not always consistent. [SPEAKER_00]: So I just kind of tried to be like, oh, they just went around California. [SPEAKER_00]: I tried to keep it vague.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't say anything too incorrect because it's so hard to confirm. [SPEAKER_00]: I bring this up because that also shows we don't know where they were at certain times for certain. [SPEAKER_00]: So if there were those killings that like, oh, this could have been just a hobo passing by on a train that killed somebody. [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, yeah, that could have been them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are unreliable narrators, exactly clearly, because I'm pretty sure that they both have undiagnosed mental illness, they have used lots of drugs, and they can tell you something, and it's 50, 50, whether it's actually true or not. [SPEAKER_01]: They also apparently did some traveling throughout Europe at some point in there in the store. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, they did. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and God only knows who they ran into while they were there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I would definitely say that they are officially serial killers and there's probably some truth to the fact that there are other bodies that we just don't know about. [SPEAKER_00]: Darren, thank you so much for being on the show today. [SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate it. [SPEAKER_00]: Your insight, I think, was very invaluable to this. [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything you're working on right now that's coming out and he shows you want to promote any movies?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you have a movie doing the festival circuit. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you get? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's funny, I mean, my career is kind of like a two-headed monster, one of which is be working in true crime and producing true crime, you know, shows. [SPEAKER_01]: And then my movie-making monster head is making like comedy, like scripted stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: It's very, you know, the two of the very different, I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but I will say that I recently worked on, as the Super Rising Producer worked on a three-part series for the Investigation Discovery Channel under the umbrella of people magazine [SPEAKER_01]: presents cults and there's going to be three two-hour specials each two-hour episode is about a different cult. [SPEAKER_01]: And I believe they're going to start airing them as soon as March.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a couple of weeks, so if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, that sounds like it's right on my alley, go and check out investigation discovery and look it up. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it will also air on HBO Max, so you can keep an eye out for it there as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I think it's going to be a part of investigation discoveries like [SPEAKER_01]: They have like a whole week where they have like a whole doc feature thing where they just where they roll out a bunch of new feature length shows and movies documentary stuff about various true crime aspects obviously like cults is kind of like a weird aspect of true crime because like
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a murder investigation, it's not a serial killer, it's like a cult and it's like difficult to like really Put your finger on and define something as a cult and it's like alright, well, then even if they are cult, what are they doing that's illegal? [SPEAKER_01]: And then you have to like figure out, all right, well, there's physical abuse, there's mental abuse, there's fraud, you know, there's all kinds of things that happen. [SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, I'm talking too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're interested in cults, it's honestly like I feel proud of what we've been able to put together in such a small amount of time for these different cults. [SPEAKER_00]: And I need to do more cults in the show. [SPEAKER_00]: I've only done a few. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm always fascinated with the cult. [SPEAKER_01]: They're out there. [SPEAKER_01]: And offline, if you're looking for some suggestions, I can certainly give you a show. [SPEAKER_00]: Please, please do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please do. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for having me, Michael. [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate this. [SPEAKER_01]: This was, I don't want to say it was fun. [SPEAKER_01]: But it was a compellingly, you know. [SPEAKER_01]: thoughtful and good time, so thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: And I love your podcast, so I'll keep listening. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to a study of strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: Support the show by subscribing to our sub-stack, which can be found through the support tab on our website is studyofstrange.com. [SPEAKER_00]: There you'll find additional content and get episodes early without commercials. [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, stay curious and stay strange.