Willie's intro. But you don't have Willy today, it's me. We want to only Mike Allen Senior in for the great American Willie Cunningham today. I'm in for him today, tomorrow and Wednesday of next week. So I'm going to try to do a good show for you today. I think we got a pretty good lineup. At one o'clock, we're going to talk to a guy by the name of doctor Robert Marbitt. He just finished producing a documentary
on the fentanyl crisis. And you know, I know it's a holiday season and don't want to bring anybody down, but take my word for it as somebody who's in the systems, it is a real problem. We will talk to doctor Marbitt at one o'clock. Two o'clock. This is going to be interesting. We're going to do a deep dive into the John Bennet Ramsey case with JT. Townsend. He has just been all over this thing and he's got a timeline and a lot of interesting kind of
takes on it. There is a great Netflix documentary out on it. I saw it about a month or so ago. If you're into that stuff, you got to give it a try. So pretty good show lined up for you. I think, well, you know, obviously we're just getting out of Christmas. I hope you all had a good Christmas. Mine was good, but it was kind of interesting. And if you don't mind, I'll share it with you, and
if you want to share with me. Seven four nine, seven thousand, one eight hundred, the big one are the numbers. I spent last week in Mexico Port of Aarta. I love going to Mexico. This is probably, and I don't know, thirty forty years about my twentieth time down there. Just absolutely love it. So went down there last week. It was a great trip. It really was. Weather was in the mid eighties every day, not a drop of rain
at all. And it's kind of interesting here in the Christmas carols when you're sitting out by the pool drinking a beer in December, but you know, they celebrate Christmas. Obviously a lot of Catholics down there. It was just interesting seeing that. But I gotta tell you too, I was dreading. I've never flown around Christmas time. Like I said, I've been there a million times, but not around Christmas.
It was near perfect. I mean, nothing went wrong, we flew from Cincinnati into Houston and from Houston into Port of Aarda, and I was in Port of Aarda I guess about ten years or so ago. And man, it has grown. I mean it's grown by leaps and bounds, and that's one thing I was kind of hoping that didn't but it did. But at any rate, the flight was great. TSA. I mean, I can't say enough about those guys. They take a lot of grief and I've been on the receiving end of some discourteous, if you will,
comments from them, but they were courteous, efficient. It was just impressive. On the way home, It's something happened that has never happened to me before. From part of our Arta to Houston, we actually got there a half hour early. I don't know how the pilot did that. He must have had his foot jammed on the accelerator, but it was just it was nice to go through all that without any glitches. So TSA takes a lot of crap, but well, I'll tell you, I can't say enough about them.
And that's just not on this trip. It's been on just about every trip lately. And by the way, just kind of by circumstance. Last night I watched on Netflix a great movie about TSA. It's called carry On. It's a drama. It's not a real life thing, but it's really good and it's all about what some bad guy wants to do at an airport and if you get a chance, you ought to watch it. One downside though, however, and this has only happened to me one time before, came home and brought a little bit a case of
Montezuma's Revenge with me. And for those of you that might not know what it is, that's just look it up because I don't want to talk about it too much. But needless to say, it kind of put me on the sidelines for a couple of days. So I missed Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day as well. But I'm up and at them today feeling a lot better. So you know the thing with Monozumer's revenge, it's don't drink the water. Well I didn't drink the water, but
I mean you can get it anywhere. They can be transported through food and anything like that. But still a great trip, but it kind of put a damper on the holidays. I kind of have a theory about Christmas, though, this is what I believe, and I really believe this. Christmas is great and it's fun when you're a kid. I mean, there's just nothing better when you're a kid. And then it becomes great again when you have kids.
How much fun it is to watch them tear open their gifts and you know, knock each other on the head with whatever they got, And it'll be fun again if I ever have grandkids. Other than that, I mean, yeah, it's a holiday to hook up with family and friends and things like that. But I don't know, just a little bit too commercial, starts way way too early, and I don't know. That's just my thought. Hey, I want to ask you, and I want to hear from you.
Seven four nine, seven thousand, one, eight hundred, the big one are the numbers your best Christmas gift ever? Best Christmas gift ever? And I'll start off with mine. I probably was maybe I don't know, nine ten years old and I got from Santa Claus to with my mother and father. And if you're in my age group, you'll remember this a swim stingray bike with the banana seat and it actually had a shifter in the middle of it.
That was a big deal back in those days, and I was not expecting it at all, And boy, I tell you what, I was kind of the envy of the neighborhood for a while until of course I trashed it. But that's my best Christmas gift. And I've got a lot of good ones since then, but that's mine. And you know, if you want to weigh in with yours again, seven four nine, seven thousand, one eight hundred, the big
one are the numbers. How about Christmas traditions? Every family just about has a Christmas tradition, and my family's no different. I want to tell you about it. It's kind of funny. Okay. One year, when the kids were young, pretty young, we didn't have a lot of money for Christmas gifts. It just kind of worked out that way, and you know, we got the gifts and thought, hen, that's not going to look like too much under the tree. We better
do something. So I went to Big Lots and got the kids a lot of cheap, cheap toy as well, kids being kids, you know, they didn't notice that. I kind of kept that tradition up. I don't know if you shop at Big Lots, if you ever have and the people there are just so nice and so friendly, but they kind of have some off the wall and unusual things. So usually on Christmas Eve I'll stop in there and kind of try to find the goofiest things. I can wrap them up like they're real gifts and
exchange those on Christmas Eve. And it's kind of gone over well for the last, oh my goodness, probably about thirty years. So, like I said, I'd like to hear your Christmas tradition, your best Christmas gift ever? Seven four nine, seven thousand, one, eight hundred the Big One. Give us a call and let us know. Hey, we're going to take a short break, but we'll be back. Mike Allen in for the Great American seven hundred WLW. Hey we're back,
Mike Gallon in for the Great American. Willie Cunningham. And you know, just telling you about my great Christmas tradition of going to Big Lots to buy goofy gifts for family members. My great friend Kurt Hartman, lawyer extraordinaire, just sent me an article out of the useless A Today, Big Lots plans to close all stores. See full list of locations around the US. Just a couple of sentences here, America is preparing to say goodbye to another big name
retail chain. Big Lots is planning to shudder all of its locations following months of store closures and a September filing for Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection. So you know what, I can just cross another thing off the list that I used to like that is gone. Yeah, the big one lately is Frishes and I don't understand that. I know the mayor family sold it, and well, i'll tell you what you talk about good stewards of that restaurant
chain and that tradition. They sold it to some out of town concern and just want the hell in a handbasket. And I just hate to see that. Also, and this is very, very very important, Hussmand's potato chips. Man, I love their potato chips, especially the barbecue, but they are long gone now too, So what are you gonna do? I guess it's progress, but not really. Hey, getting back to the topic of Christmas, and again would like to hear your comments. Seven four nine, seven thousand, one eight hundred.
The big one are the numbers. Christmas shopping, or as they like to call it now, holiday shopping. I pretty much did all of my Christmas shopping this year for the first time online through Amazon, and a lot of that was because I was going out of the country for a while. But I'm going to continue to do it. You know, I'm one of these guys. It takes me a while to buy into technology. It's just kind of the way it is with my generation. But Amazon, I mean,
they are absolutely amazing. There have been a couple of times when I've ordered some kind of obscure things on Amazon. Maybe I don't know, early afternoon, by the time I go to bed, it's already there. Now that's not everything, or even close to everything, but still they do a great job, I think, And boy, what a great way to avoid the nonsense of the shopping malls in the box store, which you know, talking about things going out of style. They're going the way of the Dodo too.
I think at some point it's just so much easier now. The one thing I haven't had to do yet, and I've been told that this actually goes pretty smoothly, is to send something back through Amazon. Supposedly they got a relatively simple process to do that, and I'm sure at some point I'll have to deal with it, But the malls themselves, I can't. I just can't do it anymore. Yeah, I'm also too last. What about two or three times grocery shopping? I just have Kroger bring it to me.
I hate going to the grocery store. So as much as I bitch and moan about automation and things like that, it's making people's lives easier, even old farts like me. But the malls in the box to, like I said, they're going the way of the Dodo bird. I think, although you know, you look out the window here where we are, it looks directly on the parking lot of the Kenwood Shopping mall, and man, there are people coming in and out of there and have been, I don't
know since Thanksgiving. Christmas starts way way too early these days too. Hey, good, we got a call here Mike and Alexandria. Hey Mike, how you doing good?
Mike, Hey, glad to hear you every Saturday on your show.
Thank you.
I just had a story. You were talking about all the franchises and stuff that are closing. Yeah, my dad's a Westsider. Went to elder hell Y Ben been gone about twelve years now, But he used to when I was growing up, Mike. He used to eat so back in the day when husbands have the big.
Bags, the four bags or small backs.
Inside of them.
Oh yeah, he would eat a bag of chips, trout, French onion dip, and free burger beers almost every night.
How did he get free burger? Now? And my day burger was pretty darn cheap. But how did your dad get it for free?
But he didn't get it for free. He drank three of them.
Oh I thought you said free. Okay, there three of them.
I'm sorry.
And and that was his kind of routine, huh.
That that was his evening after dinner and stuff.
And he owned his own he owned his own business, so.
He worked a ton of hours.
Yeah, but I'll never forget that.
So that's pretty fun, you know. If you remember husbands too, remember they used to come in like a kind of like a big drum if you like had a party or something like that. But I don't know, I mean, you know, people are probably thinking, now, you know, get over it, Mike, But a lot of things that you grow up with are gone.
Yeah exactly.
I just I just.
Wanted to I don't.
I rarely call.
In, so I appreciate that, give you that story.
I appreciate that. Thank you, Mike.
Hey, you have a good happy New Year.
You too, Thank you. By bye. I'm glad he called Burger beer. My goodness, I haven't heard that brand uttered in quite a long time. Uh. And you know, back in the day, we would occasionally and bibe and Burger when we couldn't find the Hootie. And I'll tell you one thing, it was cheap. It was really cheap. At some point, I think in the seventies Burger merged with Hootipol, and Hohodipol was making Burger, and you know what, they
hung in there quite a bit. Linda from Springboro, got just a second here to Linda, what you got.
Hello, Yeah, I'm getting off of speaker.
Just some moments, okay, all right.
So hey Linda, Hey Linda, Linda, can you hang on through the news because I want to talk to you and I don't want to give you short shrifts, So hang on and we'll get to you right when we come back. Mike Allen in for the Great American seven hundred WLW Well thirty eight News Radio seven hundred WLW Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham today and tomorrow as well as next Wednesday and next Thursday and Friday. I'm
in for Sloaney. Anyway, we were talking about Christmas traditions, things, all things Christmas, I guess, and I want to get back to Linda here from Springboro. Linda, thanks for hanging in there.
Oh that's all right, thank you.
I want to let you know that it is easy to do returns from Amazon. Really send packaging that you can reuse to send things back. Or actually I'm on my way to the Cools to go ahead and return a guest that I got for a daughter that doesn't fit and I've already ordered the right size, so so it's incredibly easy. They sent me, uh uh that one of those codes QR codes, whatever they are, and that I will they'll scan there and that shows that, hey, yeah, they have started the process of a return.
So incredibly easy. However, I will tell you that I I also.
Think it's very important for us to get out there and shop. Maybe not during Christmas time was so busy, but those are big box stores because you know, some of us are traditional sizes. Also, a lot of sizes are different depending on a brand name. And what I'm speaking of is clothing, shoe runs and that sort of thing that that that you're just you need to try something on, you need to feel the fabric, you need to write how it's, how it's made, and and that's
what is frustrating. I'm tall, and so it's that's always been a difficult challenge for me in terms of clothing. I have large feet for a woman, and so wear size eleven, and so that can be a challenge because those often sell out first as soon as they come in.
To a store.
But so I do utilize them when I know a particular brand I have that the shoes work.
But I would never order close through Amazon. But you know, it's a great company.
I think it's a great compliment, compliment to.
Our big box stores.
But please, we need to get out there and shop at our Macy's and our Coals and our you know, and our discount drug stores and also our regular pharmacies and that sort of thing.
We need to have them.
My concern is if we just go to online purchasing and we close down too many of these big box stores. Right now, there are free returns, are there going to be free returns if they have us over a barrel, because their choice.
Sounds like a lost sight ranking.
Well, no, I'm not going to go that far, but I'm going to say we really.
Need to think in terms of that, you know.
So I like that that there is a diversity of choices for people, you know, during COVID, I certainly when I had it and when I didn't have it, there were times I've glad that I could order things I need it to be delivered to me. I've had things delivered to a daughter. I've ordered a Chris's gift for a daughter that lives in San Francisco. So it has its place, but there's definitely we've got to preserve our big box stores.
You have to.
And I wanted to ask you if you had seen Macy's has a place now at Rookwood where I think it's where bed Baff and Beyond used to be, and it's it's a department store in the traditional sense, but a very scaled down one. I went in there and I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed like they had a pretty good selection. So hopefully they hang on, because that's somewhat of a local company, or at least it used to be.
Yeah right, yeah, way back to the Chilitou's days, was a beautiful Christmas windows that my parents would take us to see when we were a little myself here. So, yeah, I want to this is off topic, but I do want to say something real quick, because I listened to your news in the meantime and do frequently. And about the bridge, I'm glad that I'm not having to deal with that. I don't get down to that area. However, safety comes first, so people need to think they want
to hurry and get this done. I think it should be expedited, but it safety has to be number one.
Absolutely. I wanted to say, all right, I appreciate it.
I'm trying.
That.
Okay, thank you so much.
All Right, you're welcome. You know. Linda's right, And you know I use that route, the four seventy one south. Well, I'm not using it now, but I do frequently. And you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. But yeah, one thing I can't wrap my mind around. Why would you want to burn a bridge down? Number one? Number two? How in the hell do you do that? I guess that must have been one heck of a fire, and I'm glad they charge some people on that and we'll
see what happens as far as a possible conviction. But it's kind of hard for me to wrap my brain around how you do that. But it is a mess and we do have to just kind of be patient with it. And you know, I'm known in many circles as mister Patients, so I don't have a problem with it. And if you believe that, I got a bridge to sell you anyway, Let's go to Dick from Dayton.
Hey, Dick, Hey, Merry Christmas.
Mark you too, buddy, Mike.
How are you doing, buddy?
I'm good, I'm good. What you got for me?
Oh?
I just wanted to tell you of a big shop where I've been going to the swift stores and since.
The Bengals are doing good in Ohio State, I've stocked up in all the jerseys and I say, with four or five bags, I've only paid like five or ten bucks.
How about that.
That's pretty cool. You know, you'd think, like you said, with them doing well, that there wouldn't be too many out there at the thrift stores. But that's a great idea.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I've always well my family, as you probably know, my musical and my uncles.
I used to go up to Cleveland and.
We played for two or three days and my aunt would buy me like all CDs and stuff like that, and we played for a lot for my family. And I'm down here now, I've been retarded four years from low So I'm a little bit bummed out because I'm going to try to go tomorrow to play, you know, because it's part of my life music.
As you there, where are you gonna play? Can you tell us where you're gonna be?
Oh?
I'm usually at uh well, the strummers play in Beaver Creek and then I go and Xenia and then uh, let's see the Henry banjo will start up and another week because it's.
Here in the Dayton area. But sure I get, you know, and I played the dulcimer a little bit. But but everybody loves it, you know. They always say we can count on Dick. Debbie always says, we hear Dick promoting us. So h it's a good little band.
You know.
It sounds like and I tell you what, you can get a heck of a lot of music out of a banjo. As you well know, I.
Play actually mandolin, but I played the banjo, yuke and the ukulele banjo, and they're pretty Oh.
Okay, I didn't know there was such a thing.
They've got the blue oh the bluegrass Ben Joe. Oh boy, you can go down the fingerboard and hit his loud Mike.
You know, I'll.
Bet that I'm beat.
I tell your son, I said, Mary Christmast and everybody.
Okay, I appreciate it. I'll pass it on, okay, bye bye, right, okay, thank you, Dick, you know, And I wanted to mention something about this, but of course I forgot. I'm sitting here, you know, kind of thinking about what I'm going to do in the next segment, and what do I hear is my son doing a spot for his new law firm. And that's I wasn't expecting it, and I don't know, I just thought it was kind of cool. I mean, I'm so proud of that young man. There's just no
way I can explain it, but that was kind of cool. Hey, let's do this. Let's take a short break and then come back. Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW. Hey, we're back. Mike Allen in four of the Great American Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW. I'm going to get back to the phones in just aminutey. We've got Steve from Marie Mont Definitely got to get to him. Just a couple statistics here about how much money people spend on
Christmas and how and what they're spending it on. This is from Capital One Shopping Research, so I'm assuming it's legit and accurate. The average American spends around one thousand dollars for the winter holidays, most of it on gift giving.
American holiday shoppers will spend listen to this, folks, and estimated nine hundred and eighty four point three billion dollars on Christmas in twenty twenty four, and projections indicate I don't know how they do that, but by twenty thirty we'll be spending in this country one point to two
trillion dollars. Pretty amazing when you think about it, and including travel and entertainment expenses, the average consumer spends one thousand, six hundred and thirty eight bucks throughout the holiday season. And we were just talking about this buying things online holiday shoppers in the United States are expected to spend two hundred and ninety eight billion bucks shopping online. And what would you think, just what would you think the
percentage would be? Fifty, fifty, sixty forty. It's actually thirty point one percent of holiday sales in dollars since twenty twenty four, and that is going up because it's just so darn easy. Hey, let's talk to Steven Marie Mount. Hey, Steve, how you doing.
What's up, Mike?
I just want to say you can get you off for prayers up for an officer that died yesterday.
Oh.
Absolutely, Andrew Lee Lansing. He was a correctional officer. I'm gonna retire. Correctional officer did twenty one years. So that's why I'm calling.
I'm glad he was.
Working for Christmas morning and he got attack. My an inmate at Ross Correctional.
I read that, Steve, and I am so glad you called. Absolutely.
I used to work every holiday and I just feel sorry for the poor guys family.
Isn't that something that unfortunately is on the rise in this country and maybe even in Ohio.
It's terrible. I don't know what you can do to stop it. I mean, you don't. You can't have solved inmates. You've got to give him, you know, a good laid way and stuff. It's just a problem. We've got to get around and talk about how to solve it, you know.
I mean, you're right, because I mean it's just something that you can't stand for any law enforcement officer, which they are, who is killed in the line of duty obviously or injured.
Yeah, he was sixty two.
Oh my goodness, My goodness.
So I retired as like sixty about the same age, three or sixty four or something, and it just to get older. You can't. How can you handle a younger guy. You don't have the strength, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, you know, I'll tell you what. I get into the prison sometimes visiting clients, and I so much admire the job that they do, and also in the local lock ups as well. I spent a lot of time at the Hamilton County Justice Center.
In Hamilton County. They got a lot of problems done there too. Well, they're doing a better job though.
You know what. And I just I look at the individual deputy and they just do an outstanding job under difficult circumstances. So I am so glad that you called in and recognis.
Yeah.
I just want to remind you about the people working the holidays that are incorrect or prison police officers and stuff. It's a tough.
Job, it really is. I'm sorry, Okay, it really is. And we definitely will say some prayers for him, or at least I will.
Thank you, Mike, appreciate you, love your show.
Okay, thanks Steve oh Man. I am glad he called because I saw that this morning and thought about mentioning it, but of course forgot. I'm telling you, like I said, I get over that Hamilton County Justice Center two or three times a week. And you know, I mean, being a cop in today's day and age is hard enough, but that job where you don't get outside, you're dealing not exactly with the kremme de la creme of society. And I don't think those guys make very much money
at all at all. And you know what this is probably isn't going to be real popular with some of my Republican friends. But and I love Jim Neil, but I think the sheriff, our current sheriff, does a pretty a darn good job. On that, on all that stuff, and it's just a tough job. It's a difficult job that they have to perform under very very difficult circumstances. So I'm glad he recognized that corrections officer, you know,
And we talked about this on my Saturday show. There is a move a foot to get on the ballot. I don't know if it's going to be the November ballot or May ballot, whatever, a proposed constitutional amendment to get rid of qualified immunity for law enforcement officers. Qualified immunity is where if a police officer acts in good faith and injure someone, even kills someone, and he was not outside of acting in good faith, he's got that immunity. And that doesn't mean that the victim's family is not
taken care of. You sue the munition. It's a palady that that police officer works for, not the police officer privately. We got four states that have it now and it has just been a disaster and it's the worst thing that could possibly happen to cops. And we don't need that now. We don't we need more cops. And I'll tell you what if you think recruiting is difficult. Now, if they pass this thing, which I don't think they're gonna do, it's even gonna be worse. And we got
to take a break for the news. But when we get back, we're gonna get serious. And I always say this, but I've had fifty plus years in the criminal justice system and I've never seen anything like what we're going to talk about, and that is the fentanyl epidemic. You know, if you're not in the system, I don't think people really realize that we had a crack crack epidemic in the eighties and early nineties and that this is nothing
that is nothing compared to this. When we get back, we're going to talk to a man, doctor Robert Marbitt, and he did a documentary produced it. It's called Death Incorporated, and it's all about fentanyl. And I think you're really gonna want to hear what he is to say, and we'll talk to him when we get back. Mike Allen in for Willy Cunningham seven hundred WLW Preddios seven hundred WLW Mike Allen in for the Great American Willie Cunningham. On the day after Christmas, Well, it was like I
was telling you before the break. Of all the challenges that we face in this country, this is one that is just not being talked about enough. And I'm talking about the fentanyl crisis. I'm old enough to remember, and I was in the system back in the year eighties and early nineties when we had the crack epidemic, and that was an epidemic. But man, it is nothing like this one. And here to talk about it is doctor Robert Marbitt. Doctor Marbitt served as a White House Fellow
under President George W. Bush. He has most recently served as Executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness. He served on that from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one. But here's why he's here. He has produced a documentary that's getting rave reviews and it's called Fentanyl Death Incorporated. It's scheduled to be released sometime in January. Doctor Marbret, thanks so much for joining us this afternoon.
Thank you so much for having me. And when you go through that crack, you know cochine, Yeah, you can go all the way back to the angel dust, PCP, black tar plus crack cocaine K two spice. We have never seen anything like fittanol, And you're absolutely right, world's history.
And the problem doctor marvid Is, I'm sure you know is that people seem to be shrugging their shoulders, people who are not in the system about this. We got a lot of problems in this country, and I don't know, I don't think this one's getting the attention that it should. But tell us about the documentary and where we can see it and when we can see it.
The documentary will be out in first quarter of twenty twenty five, and it will probably hit some theaters around the country, select theaters, and then we will go to streaming. You can go see it right now at Salem now dot com. That's like a web based not a traditional television streaming. And let me give you one stat that will just really put how bad this situation is and
how we've never seen anything like this. In the last five years, more people have died in Fitnel than in America than all the US military fatalities of all uniform branches of government plus the intelligence services all added up for the last hundred years.
Wow.
So World War Two, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, a few un actions, the several different global War on terrors. Add all that up for the last hundred years, it still doesn't beat what's happened to fitnel in the United States in the last five years.
That is absolutely chilling. Well, let me ask you, I mean, why do you think that people, not everyone, but a lot of people are just kind of shrugging their shoulders at this.
Well, I think that it comes from the leadership the last four years. The White House has been asleep on this issue, whereas President Trump elect, who's not even in office, is already talking about it and talking about it heavily. The fact he got the Mexican president to give him a call and, by the way, start cracking down on the cartels, right, and same with our northern border, with the biker games up in Canada, and got a Premier Trudeau, prime Minister of Trudeau to come down to see him
in mar A Lago. We've already had more action and he's not even in office yet.
Wow, let me ask you something, because I've listened to and watched an interview that you did, and I think I heard you say that there's more fentanyl coming from the Canadian border than there is from the Mexican border. Am I right about that.
Yes, and that's happened in the last really eight months. That's a new thing, and it's interconnected with the Southwest border. Part of it is we have pulled so many agents to the southwest border to deal with what's going on there that has left the northern border open. And here's a crazier deal. We have border agents on the northern border sitting at their desk, at their station, but they're
not patrolling their districts. So they're at their computer and they're processing people coming across from the southwest border.
Wow, and so quote.
They're on station, but they're not out patrolling. They're not out doing what you need to do to really keep a border. And my deal is this shouldn't be a political issue. This should be common sense. We should have as a sovereign country. We should know who's coming across a border and what are they bringing with them, and if they're bringing the most lethal chemical drug elis drug we've ever known to the world's history, we want to know about it rather than just letting them walk it across.
You would think, you know, and like you said, hopefully we do get some action when President Trump gets into office again in about a month or so, I got to ask you this, what I see is just so much misery and heartache that this drug causes. In one year, doctor marbat I, and I'm a criminal defense attorney in my day job, in one year, I had three of my clients die from fentonyl overdoses. And these were not dealers,
these were consumers. These were users, And you know, and that kind of made me take a pause here and think about what the heck's going on. I just and I know I'm maybe fixated on this. I don't understand why the general public isn't up in arms about this.
Well, you got a lot of four or five things in there, and I think the big thing we need to do is that the mere fact you have me on your show is a help in getting people to understand the magnitude of death. Five years ago, when I started seeing fentanyl and I was President of Trump's first Homelessness Art, I was saying fentanyl on the street in San Francisco, a little bit in La Portland and Seattle.
That was sort of about all I was seeing. And fast forward in the last six months, I've sat down at every single dinner, I've sat down with or every single sort of business meeting I've had, somehow they say, hey, I hear about your movie. Let me tell you about my nephew, my niece, sadly, my son or my daughter. Five years ago, you didn't have that. Now, almost everywhere I go, somebody sits down and tells me their story about a very immediate relative that is dyed, not addicted,
not taking, not using, has died. And I think the more that message gets out. And here's another scary stack. The fastest growing death rate for children zero to five is fentanyl zero to five, zero to five, fastest growing rate of death rate there. And you sit there and go, they're not calling a dealer, they're not addicts. They're just getting fittonyl what's called fitnyl poison because finnyl dust is so dangerous. And let's put in perspective, two grains of
salt equivalent of fitnel will kill most people. Three grains will kill anybody, or one fifteenth of a rice green. And so you can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't taste it, and it's sort of like dust, you know, And so when you have a bunch together you can see it but a deadly amount is almost non seeable. And so if somebody leaves some fentanyl dust on a park bench, a restaurant counter, it's some bad actor comes into somebody's home and left it on a side.
And then you put your hamburger down, your sandwich down, you pick it back up, your debt. And also the dealers are starting to make pills that look like skillets. They're colorful pills, they look like they're candy. And so this is not just about addicts anymore. It used to be I get that, but and that may be part of your answers. That's the stigma. Well, they were addicts, they add it coming to them or something like that. That is no longer the case. Now we have cross contamination,
we have lacing, and we have poisoning. And if it wasn't for everything else, just the fact that this is the fastest growing death ray of children's that were before that should be astonishing enough to stop it, or in another way to think about it, it's a seven thirty seven going down every single day in America, and we knew what happened when two Boeings went down. They stopped the whole fleet in the world. And we're not acting like our house is on fire.
Yeah, and we're not. We're not, and we absolutely have to and hopefully your documentary will get a lot of people's attention. You had mentioned lacing. I read something not too long ago that on the college campus, that's something that's going on quite a bit. Can you comment on that.
Absolutely. And there's two sort of sides of this. One is contamination, which generally when you have a contaminator and they may be doing weed and something more simple or innocent if you will, Still it's a drug. I get that, but they don't. They're not going there and taking thinking they're getting fentanyl. And because of the distributors or the wholesalers or the producers, last Thursday, they're producing fentanyl and on Friday they're putting packets a weed together and they
don't clean the table, so it cross contaminates there. Then you get the crazy stuff like up in the h Kensington area up in Philadelphia that's sort of the epicenter of this part of the crisis, where they're purposely putting it in with horse tranquilizers, So you have a mix of horse tranquilizer and fentanyl together and and you see it and you're just like, how can we I mean, horse tranquilizer is bad enough, but then you add fitanel to it, and so sometimes it's purposeful, but most of
the time the person and often the dealer doesn't even know fentanel's in it. That's what's so how pervasive this is, and part of it is it's such a small dose as lethal. You know, you basically can't see it or measure it by unless you're a scientist and you're in a lab right of the proper equipment.
I'll tell you what. Weed is now legal for recreational use here in the state of Ohio. I have not seen a case yet that actually was discovered, and the Coroner's office here does the testing and they do a great job. I haven't seen any cases yet where weed has been laced, either accidentally or intentionally with ventanyl. You're saying that's happening around the country.
Too, absolutely, And I think the difference is the states where you have a state operated or state overseeing regulated dispensaries, you are not seeing it there. But in the states that you have no official legality in your getting it off the street, that's where it's really happening the most.
Okay, Okay, I wanted to ask you too, with your background, not necessarily criminal justice, as from what I have seen, what caused you to get involved in this thing and do the deep dive that you obviously have done on it.
Well, I've been involved with homelessness for four decades, right, and I have a master's in criminal justice from the criminal colleges, and so I've been around the sort of intersection or the nexus of the illicit drugs and homelessness for a very long time. The difference on what happened on Fitnel is you had a two prom problem happening initially, but part of it was what was happening on the
streets within homelessness. But there's another one. I think we absolutely have to be honest about it and talked about it. When Purdue Farm went around and not just Purdue farmat but it was others. But yet there's the one that's most known. They went around and said that these new synthetic opioids are non addictive, that they wouldn't get you addicted and they would be fine. Well, it turned out not only was that not right, it was almost exactly
the opposite. One of the most dangerous drugs and everybody was getting addicted. So when all those lawsuits occurred, an FDA and everybody got involved in the state attorney generals started saying, all right, we're going to not do these prescriptions. You had millions of people using the synthetic legal opioids through prescription through their doctors, hundreds of thousand addicted. And the cartels from Mexico they're horrible people doing horrible things,
but they're good business people. They understood they had an addicted community ready to fill the supply, and they brought the supply up. And that's really Phase one of the Finnel crisis was a criminal justice replacement from the drugs. You know that you were seeing the precursors from China going through the Mexican cartels, and all they did was backfill the supply for everybody addicted. Through the Purdue Pharma problems.
Wow, I didn't realize that. I mean, Perdue Pharma did some as you well know, some serious damage with that. But that makes sense.
There's a direct tie between the how, and I think in retrospect, when the history gets written about it, somebody's going to say, well, if we knew that many people were addicted, and government was complacent because they authorized it. I think people are going to come back and say, why didn't we spend that money for treatment and recovery as people are coming off that, rather than just leaving an open market wide open to the cartels to backfill the supply.
You know, you bring up a good point, you know, talking about where the supply is going and things like that, and treatment, which I don't think we have enough treatment in the system. We really don't. And from what I can see, it's not always successful, and more often than not it isn't. Can a fentanyl addict be rehabilitated from that addiction?
In your opinion, Yes, and it's hard.
It's not easy. I don't want to be polyannish about it. But you can and we have and I know successful people, and more importantly, I think we have a moral obligation to absolutely try. Yes, our country, and I'm going to talk real philosophical is sort of a person that's worked in the White House three different times.
We got we only have about a minute doc.
Okay, we've made it real easy to get high in America and hard to get treatment. You need to make it easy to get treatment and hard to.
Get high in America. You know what, I've never heard it said like that, doc, but that makes a heck of a lot of sense. Really appreciate you joining us one more time, sir, if you could tell people how they can watch the documentary.
Feitinal Depth Incorporated. It'll be on multiple platforms in about three months, and right now, if you want to stream it through a web based program, you can go to Salem now dot com and the title of it is fitnal Depth Incorporated.
All right, sir. Again, really appreciates you weighing in on this. It's extremely important.
Thank you so much for caring about the fetnel crisis. I really appreciate it.
All right, thank you, sir. All Right, that was doctor Robert Marbitt. That's kind of sobering, isn't it. I mean, you hear these statistics about how damaging and how dangerous this drug is, and some people kind of shrug their shoulders or don't believe it. I mean, there it is out of the horse's mouth. And we shall see with the border situation, with the new president coming in, if he can at least somehow stop the bleeding. I guess
we'll see. Hey, we got to take a break, but we'll be back Mike Allen and for Bill Cunningham seven hundred WLW Berne, we are back Mike Allen in four the great American Willie cunning In. I should say Mike Allen Sr. As opposed to Mike Allen Junior, whom you can hear on Sunday nights here when there's not a football game. You know, some more statistics. And I'm not trying to bore you with this stuff, but I think
people are genuinely interested in this. And by the way, at eleven o'clock and I think we're going to have him for a full hour, we're going to talk to JT. Townsend. JT has done an incredibly deep dive into the John Benet Ramsey killing witch. And I didn't realize this till I read it from some material that JT gave me. It was twenty eight years ago last night that little girl was sick, so my elder math is right, she'd be thirty four years old. Now. It's just so tragic
and what a screwed up up investigation. And JT said he will take calls, so I know there are a lot of people out there that are interested in these kind of things, and here's your chance. Okay, back to the boring. I don't I mean interesting statistics. Gift cards I don't know about you. I get them and I give them out too. It's some people say it's kind of a cop out, and in some ways it is, but you know, you think about it, like I've given out gift cards for Amazon. Well, what are people gonna
do with it? They're gonna get whatever the heck they want. So at the end of the day, it's I guess it's a little bit more personal than giving cash, but it's almost like giving cash. But anyway, I use them. I buy them for some of my gifts, and we use them when they come to me. Get this, though, I didn't think it would be this high. Seventy one percent of holiday shoppers planned to purchase gift cards in twenty twenty four. This was done I think in November
seventy one percent. And again, this is good, this is good research Capital one shopping research seventy one percent. So I think a lot of people are doing what I do, and a lot of other people is lightening their load of gift giving. If you will by giving gift cards, fifty three percent of gift recipients. And this surprises me too, fifty three percent of gift recipients want to receive gift
cards in twenty twenty four. Holiday shoppers purchased an average of three to four gift cards during the twenty twenty three holiday season. Like I said, mine were all Amazon except for one. But here's the thing that I could not find statistic on. You know, I've been given gift cards for like restaurants and things like that, and that is a big part of these gift cards as restaurants, and I haven't used them. I just haven't had the chance.
It might be a restaurant that's pretty far away. I just wonder how much, let's just use the restaurants as an example, how much the owners are making on these things just simply by you know, them selling them and the person not showing up to redeem them. Now, the older ones that I've had, when I have tried to use them, I have not been turned back once by
somebody saying, hey, sorry, you waited too long. But I wonder about that if you have any knowledge of that or carred away in four nine seven, eight hundred The big one are the numbers. Okay, this one is interesting. I think this is what people want, what they want to get for a Christmas gift. Uh, this is in billions of dollars. So the preferred I'm sorry, that's a
different statistic. Preferred holiday gifts in twenty twenty four. I just told you fifty three percent gift cards, forty nine percent, apparel, books and media twenty eight percent, cosmetics. He could give cosmetics for a Christmas gift. Cosmetics twenty five percent, electronics twenty two percent, home goods twenty two percent, jewelry twenty percent. I would have thought that would have been more sporting goods seventeen percent. So that's what people want, and fifty
three percent want those gift cards. So hopefully they're not going to say that was kind of a kind of insensitive. So anyway, that just gives you an idea. The bottom line is we're spending a heck of a lot of money. Hey, let's do this, because my voice is wearing out a little bit. Let's take a break and then we'll come back. Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW.
Hey, Mike McConnell, here reminding you if you overslept, or if your head was encased in plaster, or you're being chased by dinosaurs on some remote island. The reason doesn't really matter. Just know if you miss my show, you can catch what you missed the Mike McConnell Show on the Mike McConnell podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Just in time for the new year, the new and improved free iHeartRadio app is finally here. It's everything eleven forty eight. News Radio seven Drew Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham. Right before we broke, we were talking about gift cards and I don't hit in front of me anymore, but I believe it was fifty three percent of Americans said that's kind of what they wanted for Christmas. Let's talk to Hank in cold Water. He wants to talk about it. How you doing, Hank, Hello, Hank? Yes, how
you doing? Yes?
Mike.
First of all, I want to tell you how much I appreciate your show, especially on Saturday mornings. I think I've been the best thing b LW did.
Thank you.
The thing with lef cards, I don't think, and you probably more knowledgeable about that than I am. There's no expiration date. They might put it on there, really that's not that doesn't work.
Now.
I think there's something that they passed oh few years back that there's no such thing as an expiration date. They might put it on the card, but it doesn't work.
They gotta honor it now, you know what I'm gonna. I'm gonna dig down into that, Hank. I appreciate you letting us know that. I kind of thought at some point they would expire. But I gotta think, especially restaurants, they're making some money on this because they're people that just you know, they for whatever reason, they don't redeem them. And you know what, if they don't redeem them, it's.
On them, right, I know, I agree, and I don't think you can do that anymore. I think they got to honor them.
I do too. I mean, but that's the trend. I mean, the trend is to shop online and purchase get cards. Guess why, because it's easy and we've kind of become a little bit lazy I think in this society.
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, I appreciate the call. Well, thank you, okay, Hank. Yeah, I mean, if you don't use them. That's on you. Having said that, I've got you know what. I actually went out years ago and bought actually one of those little index card boxes with alphabetical separators that I put the gift cards in. And there are some I know that have been sitting there. One restaurant in particular, I won't name is across town. It's a great restaurant, but I just I haven't had the chance to use it yet.
So we'll see how it plays out. But it sure seems like that is kind of the kind of the trend that we're seeing. Oh, I'll tell you this has been It's been an interesting holiday for me, Like I said, spending a great portion of it out of the country in Mexico and then coming back coming back to Mana Zuma's revenge and if you don't know what that is, look it up. It ain't fun. But I am in the tail end of it. I'm very happy to be here, and I'll be very happy to be here tomorrow for Willie.
Hey wanted to let you know before we break at eleven o'clock and we're going to have him for the full hour and he's accepting calls. JT. Townsend. We're going to talk about the John Benet Ramsey case. And it's relevant because twenty eight years ago, yesterday, Christmas Night, nineteen ninety six, she was brutally brutally murdered a six year old little girl. And new documentary out on Netflix that I think is shedding some light on this. I don't
know that well, I do know. I don't think it's going to lead to any kind of conviction or anything. But in these kind of and JT. I'll ask him about this. Sometimes people just want answers. So anyway, we will talk to JT. Townsend when we get back. Mike Allen in for Okay, we're still going here. We're gonna get a Bengals report in just a few seconds here.
So that's why I have to ramble on. You know one thing, there is no way that I can get through this whole show without just a little bit of politics. Axios came out with something a couple of weeks ago, Democrats more likely to reduce family time over politics. Listen to this who says that they will reduce time with family due to political differences. And this is something that, without getting into detail, I'm dealing with in my family. Well, no, surprise.
Democrats leading the pack at twenty three percent, Republicans all the way back at five percent, doesn't surprise me a darn bit. And again with respect to Democrats and the left in particular, it's arrogance. You know, they think they're right about everything. Doesn't surprise me at all. All voters twelve percent and independence eleven percent. And I'll tell you something that is something that's going on in a lot of families, and you just heard it. You just heard it.
Overwhelmingly more Democrats are saying, hey, I don't want to spend any time with you over the holidays because you voted for the evil Orange Man. And it's really just a shame. I mean it is, I don't know. It doesn't surprise me at all. And again this is from Axios. Listen to this too. Democrats are are almost five times as likely. Let me do another one. Democrats are now much more likely to view Republican Party as a serious threat to the country then they were in twenty sixteen.
Of course, that was before Trump was elected. It was fifty percent back in twenty sixteen versus eighty one percent. Now, you know, you want to talk about a threat to the country, maybe Democrats in the left in general ought to just kind look to the other side or take a look in the mirror. I guess Republicans more likely to view the Democratic Party as a serious threat. Republican but it's only six percent. That was twenty sixteen. It's kind of up there in twenty twenty four, sixty nine percent.
And I'll tell you what. We've stayed off of politics today for the most part. Will be back at it Saturday. There is so much going on, friends, And I said, and I meant, I meant that this election, the twenty twenty four election, was the most important election in my lifetime. And everything went it could have. We could have we could have beefed up our majority in the House somewhat, but everything went pretty darn good. And guess what, it's
our turn and we got to come through. I don't understand, I swear I don't understand the backbiting and the going back and forth with Republicans over all this budget stuff. It would seem to me to be an exercise in being able to count. And we're running the show now, and it looks bad for us to be divided on those things. And it's going to be really interesting too to see Trump's cabinet picks. If he gets every one of them through, I don't think he ever would have
got dates through after what's coming out on him. Anyway, Now we got to take a break, but we'll be back with JT. Townsend Mike Allen in for Willy Conningham seven hundred WLWA Mike Allen in for Willy Cunningham, and I will be tomorrow as well and next Wednesday. Well, I'll tell you, like I said before the break, the John Bena Ramsey horrible, horrible murder. She was killed twenty eight years ago from last night Christmas Night in nineteen
ninety six. There is a new Netflix documentary which is excellent. I saw it I think about a month ago. That's raising questions and there are a lot of questions that still linger about this case. Did an intruder murderer bent on kidnapping or molesting her? Or was she killed by a family member, either with malice or accidentally. Some people think it was accidentally. Was this a personal cause homicide? Was it a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong, a lust murder,
a conspiracy or all of the above. Here to talk about it today and take your calls if you want to. Is true crime historian extraordinary j T. Townsend. JT is the author of many books. His last one, Summer's Almost Gone, It was about the brutal, brutal murder of the entire three member brick A family back in nineteen sixty six. I'll tell you, I say it every time he's on, and I mean it. It was one of the best books I've ever read. I read it in one weekend,
couldn't put it down. So if you're in too true crime, Summer's Almost Gone is the book that you should get. But we're not talking about that today. We're talking about John Benney and JT. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. My call is a pleasure to be on with you.
You're hearing me, okay, I'm hearing you loud and clear. But I did tell one little fib there, JT. I do want you to bring us up to date on the brick And murders, if there is anything to bring us up to date on. I had John a couple of weeks ago, and it didn't sound like there was.
It's coming down to DNA and whether there is enough evidence in DNA left to run another test. I've spoken with the coroner. They seem to be reluctant to use what little they have left to make another attempt. But we're still working on that, and I will be offering a coupon code to buy Somemmer's Almost Gone here at the end of our at the end of our time here.
Okay, make sure you remind me JT because I will. I want to get that book in as many hands as possible, because, like I said, it's excellent. Let me ask you this, getting back to John Beney, I really, I mean obviously I read things about it, but didn't take much of an interest in it until that Netflix documentary. What interested you in this case?
Oh boy, I tell you, Mike, this is really one for the books. I think what got me initially was the fact it was a statistical aberration. The FBI did a study of seventeen hundred child kidnappings for ransom of the nineteen nineties, and in only one case was the victim found murdered in their own home, and that's John Benay Ramsay. Really one case out of seventeen hundred where the victim was found murdered in their own home, and then I just I saw that, and I'm like, wow,
this really does stand alone. And then you look at the numbers. About only six percent of child murders are committed by strangers. Family members commit about fifty four percent, family friends maybe another twenty percent. So it appeared, at least initially that this was an inside job, as most
of them are. But you've got this wealthy family and an elite, upscale neighborhood, and you've got the police and the prosecutors at odds, you've got two separate investigations going on, you've got very little cooperation, and then you have at the heart of it, this beautiful child. This spawn her murder, spawned epic media coverage, sessive national fixation, Her picture was everywhere. Yeah, I guess that's when I started getting interested in it. I have not seen the Netflix.
Oh yeah, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it sometime. Well, I thought it was very well done.
I thought, you know, I'm gonna have to watch it. I'll be honest with you, Mike, Uh, I think Netflix sucks at true crime really. Uh, Stephen Avery, The Making of a Murderer, That that big case of the guy who murdered Teresa Hallbach at his uh at his Junkyard car lot.
I didn't see that.
Uh, well, this was a big sensation a couple of years ago. Everybody now thinks this guy is innocent, and I've looked at that case. Uh, he's been convicted of it. They had tons of evidence to suggest he had done it. They had his nephew link him to it and then recan't. But Netflix was all over this. They used confirmation bias, They started with the idea he was innocent and then build a case around him. So I'm not real thrilled with how Netflix does true crime, but.
It seems to me that that documentary has kind of put this thing back in the public view, for better or worse. I mean, you got this thing down cold. You provided me with pages and pages of research that you did, so I don't know. Maybe this will kind of spawn some kind of additional investigation or do they Is there any way that this thing is going to be kind of brought up again.
Well, I don't think it's going to be solved, and we've got to We've got two warring factions here now, Mike. We've got all the circumstantial evidence that suggests the Ramses were involved. But now apparently we have DNA evidence unknown DNA found under her fingernail and underpants John Benet's that indicate an intruder. So we're really seems like we're at an impasse. Mike, I tell you you're a prosecutor. I really am sad about the denigration of circumstantial evidence as a
valuable evidence. I mean, how many times you know, direct evidence somebody saw defendant enter a house, they saw him stab somebody BINGO. But if you see the person enter the house, you hear screaming, and you see the guy leaving with a bloody knife, that's circumstantial and you need to have an inference and interpretation and an implication because it's not obvious that this is direct evidence. But you know, I I like a writer. I used to like Edmund Pearson.
He wrote about the Lizzie Borden case. He had a great quote about circumstantial evidence. When seven or eight clear items of circumstantial evidence point directly to the guilt of a person, that person is innocent nowhere but in the detective novel. Yeah, you know, and you begin to think, how could someone be this unlucky to have this many coincidences and circumstances pointing at them and still be innocent.
Well, it's the criminal defense lawyer to point out and sometimes say, with not one hundred percent accuracy, if you will, that circumstantial evidence is not very valuable in the real world. It is. It is, absolutely if you have enough of it, you can get a conviction. I've been on both sides of that fence, and I just think there's a lot of circumstantial evidence here. I'm gonna wait till the end to ask you this sixty four thousand dollars question your thoughts. JT. Townsend.
And you've done so many of these things. Uh, and summer's almost gone. I've talked about that, just broke it down, the investigation, the mistakes that were made, so well, just give us your thoughts in general on the investigation of this case.
Well, Mike, this has got to be that's got to be the most botched criminal investigation I've ever seen. Crime scene protocol, Mike, secure the scene, separate the witnesses, search for evidence, secure and collect evidence. It was like a Roman circus at that house.
Unbelievable.
The Ramses called all their friends, people came over there were like twenty people in this house. The protocol separating the witnesses and clearing the scene was not done.
Yeah, I tell you. And it just goes on and on and on, and you talk about everybody trapesing through the crime scene. It kind of reminds me of Brica. But that was nineteen sixty six, and right, investigators, I weren't I guess as well trained then as they are now. It's hard to believe how badly they screwed up that crime scene.
Oh it really is. You know, we can almost start at the beginning of this thing. Mike Patsy Ramsey's nine one one call. Yeah, and we've seen this before. I think of Ryan Widmer with his wife in the bathtub and how he immediately said, oh my god, my wife fell asleep in the bathtub and drowned.
Yep.
Will you try and out your your your alibi here, buddy? You know how about my wife passed out? I don't know what happened, But Patsy immediately said on the nine one one call, we have a kidnapping. How about my daughter's missing?
Help Because they hadn't discovered the body at.
That point, they had not discovered the body Police respond, Mike, she is dressed in the same outfit she had on the night before at a party, exact same clothing, hair and makeup flawless. And it would imply this woman didn't go to bed the night her daughter was murdered in her house.
Yep.
And it just, you know, it just kind of goes on from there. Her language in the nine to one one call is very unusual. She expressed no concern, none for her daughter at any time, what John Bennet might be going through. And she says things like she is blonde. I'm not sure what that had to do with anything. The phrase I am the mother, not I am her mother, I am the mother. I mean that sounds like she already knows John Benet's dead.
Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And what you're saying is absolutely right. It's not what you would normally expect you'd get on a nine to one one call from the mother of a child who's missing.
She should have been hysterical, and yet she said a couple of times, help me Jesus. She seemed to want a lot of help for herself. There is no concern for her daughter's welfare, expressed at any time during this nine to one one call. And I find this odd. She talks about the ransom note and we need to get into that. And she said it says SBTC Victory. Well that was page three. But she told the nine to one on operator that she hadn't actually read the note.
But somehow she was able to quote page three on the nine to one one call without having read the note. And more that note, I have never seen a more bizarre clue in true crime history.
Yeah, I agree with you, And as you accurately point out, in those kind of cases kidnappings, if you will, they don't write a three page note. It's probably three sentences. I've got your daughter, I want X amount of money. If you don't give it to me, she dies.
Don't call anybody that of thing. So if we've got a kidnapper, it's a short note. If indeed this is an intruder pedophile, we've got no note. Now I've got the note. I've got the note up on my screen right here from my PowerPoint. This thing is is just you know, I could probably go on and on just about this note.
Well, tell us about it in general. We got about three minutes before we have to break for the news, so I wanted to get into that too.
JT tell us about what we need to it's probably the most valuable clue DNA notwithstanding, and I understand today the CSI effect. Everybody's like, well, what's the DNA say? What's the DNA say? I'm a circumstantial evidence guy myself. We talked about the note being so long. They call themselves a small foreign faction. Who calls themselves a foreigner?
Ye?
Are you a foreigner to yourself?
Bizarre?
Yeah? And withdraw one hundred and eighteen thousand from the account, why not just say get the money, you know? And why such a small amount? Bring an adequate size attest shay case, and I advise you to be rested. Why are they concerned about that?
Well, and you point out too that the one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars amount just happens to and maybe it is a coincidence, coincide with what John Ramsey the boss that you've got that's.
Weir bonus, and then we've got the we've got the she dies as mentioned four times. That's absolutely from the movie Dirty Harry.
I know exactly got you're.
Talking to a stray dog. She dies John Don't try to grow a brain. That's from the movie Speed. John Maney is never mentioned by name. They're warned not to contact anyone or Jean Benet will be beheaded. They contacted everyone, yep, and the note said the kidnappers would call between eight and eleven. Yet the officer on scene said, no one seemed to be expecting a call. But Mike, here's the one. Here's the one, and that gets me the most. The kidnapper used the phrase, and hence, yeah, that is now
that is incorrect. It would be hints and hence is a duplicate nation, a double negative, so to speak. That's incorrect. It's very uncommon. I mean, Mike Coffin, you say, and hence when was the last time you used that word? But three days earlier, in a Christmas card that she sent, Patsy uses the phrase, and hence.
They got strong JT. I really do.
I mean, you're not going to get an indictment on that, but in the court of circumstantial evidence, and hence she puts it in a Christmas card in three days later. It's on the ransom note yep. And some of the other verbiage at tahe deviation. There's a lot of educated kind of words there, yep in this thing. And there was a practice note on the pad where it was written. It was Patsy's pad. Five of her fingerprints were on that pad. The pen used to write the note was
put back in a cup on the kitchen counter. Mature an intruder would put it back in the cup.
No, hey, listen, we got to take a break for the news, but we got the whole next segment, JT, can you hang in there with us?
I will hang in.
Okay, great, thank you, Yeah, and we will finish talking with JT. Towns and about this case when we got back. And if you want to ask JT a question, he said he would do that. Seven four nine, seven thousand, one, eight hundred. The big one are the numbers. Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham seven hundred WLW Hey, we're back Mike Allen in for Willie Cunningham on the day after Christmas. And well, this has been an interesting segment. We're going
to start it up again. We are talking to JT. Townshend. JT is a true crime historian about the John Bena Ramsey case relevant for any number of reasons, but one is which is she was killed twenty eight years ago. Last night, she would be I believe thirty four years old now, JT. We have a couple of questions, and I promised the callers I'm going to get to them. But there's a couple of points that you wanted to make. First.
Well, let me let me sum up out the note. You know, they've never they said the handwriting was similar to Patsy. No one's ever specifically indicated she was the writer. Colorado Bureau of Investigation expert claimed the twenty four of the twenty six letters in the alphabet from the ransom note matched her own handwriting. But here's the thing. I've never heard anyone say this, Mike, but me, and I'm looking here. Write at the note. She wrote it with
her left hand. It's very wavy on the first page, and then it gets better as it goes on. And if you're write with your off hand, you're going to see that wavering in the letters. And I don't understand why anybody didn't really take a look at that that you could have written it with the off hand, because it certainly looks at it when you see how squiggly the characters are in that. And if she wrote the note, Mike, why no got either she killed John man Ay or
her husband did, or Burke did, or some combination. And this is that note is classic staging, trying to divert the police away from the real criminal.
I got it. Anything else you want to get across before we.
Take callers only John Ramsey's unusual behavior. At no point during this vigil waiting for the kidnapper call was he seen comforting his wife at all. And he was actually caught on the phone with his pilot trying to fly his family to Atlanta. And the police were like, hey, John, we haven't even found your daughter yet, we haven't even heard from the kidnappers, and he's trying to fly them away from there.
Well, and let me do this. Let me ask the first question here and then I'm going to get to the callers. Can you tell us tell the callers in me just exactly how John Benet's body was discovered and where it was discovered.
Well, it was down in the basement, and Mike, that thing was a labyrinus down there. I don't know how a stranger could have navigated in the dark. You know. She was found in a room way off to the back. She was tucked in with a blanket. There was a garret around her neck. She had a horrible skull fracture, but because of death was strangulation. It's almost like someone struck her in anger and then she was finished off and the staging was then done.
I'm just wondering how they missed it. I mean, you gotta think the cops would have done a thorough search, or even a perfunctory search of it, wouldn't you agree?
You know, they left that one. They left that one detective there all loan to manage a house full of like fifteen people, Mike. They had victims' advocates there who write down the kitchen counter.
I saw that.
After they fixed coffee.
It it makes me angry to see how much they screwed this up.
Yeah, and John Ramsey disappeared for a while, and when he came back, he sat in a different room from Patsy. I think it's possible he had found her body previously and didn't mention it. When they finally said, well, John, will you search the house again with your friend here? He went right to the basement room where she was, and people said in that house, you could get lost in that house even if you were familiar with it.
And that comes through in the Netflix documentary. Let me do this, JT. Because I, oh, we got a number of questions here and I promised i'd get to him. Let's see. How about Leonard? I think he was first. Hey Leonard, you're on with JT. Townsend. What's your question, sir?
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. I really think that we follow the league detective the hitch. After that, he honed in with.
Laser focus on the Ramseys, never had off, wouldn't let anybody else, and you're the case. And then I think that Jesus, who which family member would kill a child with a garat that was made on the scene out of a broken hate for USh handle Good. That investigation never went further than those two parents, which is really what they teach them in the investigative schools.
That's stint Okay, thank you for the question, Leonard. Your thoughts on his question.
Well, we'll speak to that. He's talking about Steve Thomas, the lead investigator, and I've read his book, Jean Benet. I think it's the best book on the case. And they ran down every single tip they could. They checked out numerous pedophiles, people involved with the pageant situation. The biggest problem with his investigation was the prosecutors investigators were funneling evidence to the Ramsey attorneys. Mike, I think you
can appreciate this. They asked Ramsey attorneys asked to see all the evidence, in other words, setting up like a trial discovery situation. And they weren't even arrested. And yet they gave them copies of all the evidence, right, And normally that's something to do with trial, Mike, as you.
Know, absolutely, and discovery you further contaminate the evidence it.
They gave them copies of the ransom note, they gave them everything, and the prosecutors investigators just seemed to you know, the caller just said they centered up on the Ramseys. Well, the prosecution investigators centered up on anyone but the rams right, right.
And there were two competing investigations.
And you competing investigations, no cooperation whatsoever. And I want to make this very clear. The Ramseys hired attorneys two hours after Jean Manet was found, but it took them four months to sit down for a police interview. Yeah, and Mike, come on, if could have been my daughter or your daughter, we'd have been camped out at the police station, no question about it.
Let me get back to the I got to get these callers, Jacobs, go ahead, let's talk to Jim in Mason. Jim your question for JP Townsend.
Yeah, very interesting program.
My question is.
Were was there ever a request for lighte detector tests for the Ramses? What was their response? Good question then, and then secondly, I've seen interviews with the father.
In the last five years.
It would be interesting if one of those interviewers said to him, would you be willing to take a lie detector test today? And I would be interested to see his reaction, how he respond have some experts there on speech, movements of the eyes in that and then his actual response.
Your response, JT. That's a good question.
Good question. A lot of controversy about the lie detect There's Steve Thomas indicated several times their attorneys were approached about taking polygraphs, and the Ramsays indicated their willingness, but they never actually took them. And just like handwriting, analysis is not an exact science, Mike, as you know, polygraphs are not admissible in trial. To my knowledge, they never took polygraphs, and as time would pass, the value of
the polygraph obviously diminishes. I do know that a stress analysis of the nine to one one call that Patsy made indicated consciousness of guilt based on her voice, her diction, the things she said. And that's maybe the closest thing we have in terms of closest thing to the time of the crime was her nine one one call, which was just very odd. Absolutely, we should have been screaming, what the hell is going to happen to my daughter?
I agree, that's not how a mother would respond the.
Way, Absolutely not. She never even mentioned her by name.
We got Tom and Cole Rain. He's got a really good question, and I was going to ask you, but I want Tom to ask. Hey, Tom, you're on with JT. Townsend. Well, thank you.
I by the way, I read your book on BRICCA and it was interesting.
I've got a couple of copies. I saw you talk at the libraries.
Also.
Oh, okay, My question is this.
I've got the feeling that the brother and John Bday were had pineapple in their stomach right, and that there should have been.
Sharing it and he got the son, got upset and hit her with a flashlight, and then they didn't want to lose both kids.
They already lost their daughter, they didn't want to.
Lose their son. That's my comment.
Okay, wow, good question, Tom, Thank you for that. And I was going to ask you to, like I said, JT that sun at least at the time, there was just a lot of things not normal with him.
Is that a fact. Let's talk about what he just said, because I just about believe the very same thing. Jean Benet had pineapple in her stomach undigested. She ate that pineapple within twenty minutes to a half hour of her murder, and they found a bowl in the kitchen with the pineapple. Three fingerprints on that bowl, Mike, two of them were Patsy's and one was unidentified. And the flashlight was there. Now, they were never able to tie the flashlight to the
skull fracture. But you're thinking burke her fighting over the pineapple, hit her with the flashlight. And again, like he just said, Patsy didn't want to lose two children the same night. Because let's review here, she didn't go to bed that night, she was fully dressed and ready to go when the police got there. And it would have taken a while to have written that note. But her fingerprints were on that bowl of pineapple, and Mike, she denied feeding her
daughter that pineapple. So the kidnapper or the pedophile is feeding her daughter pineapple and spending all that time in the house writing that note. Yep, that dog don't hunt for me.
No, and I get that. I do. Let me ask you. I wanted to ask you about the conduct of the boy in later interviews. I guess he was awful cavalier about.
It, wasn't he boy? You know, I saw the interview with him. It was about a month afterwards. They would not let him be interviewed immediately. And the thing he said about John Benet, how she made him mad all the time. And then he said, I don't think about her anymore. And you know, he's an eight year old kid and his sibling is murdered in their house. He should be frightened. Yep, he wasn't.
Yeah, there's sometimes right about that kid.
And I understand. Burke had a problem with smearing feces around the house, and he would often do it in Jean Benet's bedroom. Now we're getting into the whole bed wedding thing. You know what could have triggered the blow to the head, and that was a nasty skull fracture, but that was not the cause of death, So what
could have done it? I think the truth of this case lies within the residence of that house, not unlike the Lindbergh baby kidnapping of nineteen thirty two, And there were five people in that house, Mike, and I've been in that house. I guarantee you the truth of the Limburg baby was the five people in that house.
Absolutely, And maybe someday we'll get into that one too.
Oh, I'd love to.
And we're running out of time here, unfortunately, JT. I did want to ask, y'all. I'll just ask it like this, And you've looked at a lot of these things. Was this the most screwed up, damaged, damage, really in a very harmful way crime scene that you have ever seen, because I've seen a few of them too, and without.
Question tho you have.
It really was. And this is Boulder, Colorado, not a huge jurisdiction. You got to clear that house. All these people that the Ramsays called. I love that you call anyone will behead your daughter. They call twelve people and people descend on that house. You clear the house, You put the husband upstairs, you keep the wife downstairs. You start questioning seeing them separately from each other. And they were never questioned separately. And you know about that.
Oh, that's like they teach you that the first damn day. Yeah, that investigat.
Basically interrogation oneh one. They never got a chance to do that. And it was a screwed up investigation, a compromise crime scene from the start. But I think the Bowlder PD pushed off in the right direction, concentrated on the parents, and they didn't count on the prosecution investigators helping the Ramsey lawyers. I still I said it earlier. There's no discovery during an investigation. You don't have to give them anything that's right that I found that they gave them everything.
That's that's malpractice, that's insane. Unfortunately, we're out of time, But I got to ask you this one question, ask Ques and if you want to take a pass on an ironer, stand there'll never be a conviction in this case in my opinion, too long. It's just not going to happen. In your heart of hearts. JT. Townsend, Who do you think is responsible for this horrible crime.
I've really come down to Patsy me staging it. I think Burke perhaps started it with the blow to the head and Patsy did the staging. It's the most logical conclusion at this point.
Yep, I couldn't agree with you more. Unfortunately, we're out of time this.
You got to give me thirty seconds.
Oh that's right. I told you to remind me. I'm glad you did.
I am.
I'm running another special on Summer's almost Gone, Cincinnati's most notorious cold case, the Brick and Murders. Go to www dot JT. Townsend dot com. Put in WLW in the coupon ten dollars off. All books will be signed by me. And if you're a Cincinnati native, especially if you're on the West Side, you've not read this book? What's wrong with you?
No, it's like I said, and I know I sound like a broken record. One of the best books, one of the most easy reads that I've ever had. And we got to do this again. JT. I think it's really been helpful.
Well, I think you're on I think you're in for McConnell next week. Yes, I'm available.
Okay, I went again.
Everybody WLW in the coupon code ten dollars off. All right, brother, thank you and Mike as always. I love being on with you man.
Thank you, and it's mutual. Thank you. JT all Right, JT. Townsend man. He knows this stuff inside out and maybe we can do something next week. Hey, I am out of here, but Dan Carroll follows me. He's in for Eddie and Rocky. I'll be back tomorrow. Mike Allen seven hundred WLW. The countdown at twenty twenty five is in Bull Switch