Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder the miniss Right, that's my line, I can say it, you.
Got it, I did fine, you did it. I'm proud of you line.
Then the minisod and it's a very special minisod. We've just announced that we are bringing the wonderful podcast Disgraceland onto the Exactly Right Network.
We are so excited. Jake Brennan is finally here, joining our Marvel universe with us. That's right, and Disgraceland and Hollywood Land to amazing podcasts. Most of you probably have listened to them. They've been around forever. They're amazing. But now they're here with us.
Jake's here with us.
We're so excited.
So we're going to read you some hometowns that have to do with like the music world, just to kind of give it the little homage to Disgraceland.
Yeah it Disgraceland is about musicians behaving badly in criminal ways, and Hollywood Land of courses about celebrities doing the same. So we picked some stories to reference that.
Yeah you want to go first, sure, Okay, We're starting off strong with a hardcore true crime story.
Yeah, hello, Murderino Sisters.
Here it is taking all of our willpower not to fangirl over the mere thought of you reading our email, So we.
Will try our hardest to cut to the chase.
Our sister got married this summer in our hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Imagine a year filled with the flurry of bridesmaiding events and group texting leading up to our sister's big day. Finally, after a stunning wedding, it was party time. We were excited that our sister hired a local celebrity named DJ Freeze to host her reception. Think famous like every childhood school carnival, every high school dance house, DJ to or
Grimy eighteen and up nightclubs famous. At the reception, the bridal party toasts and the speeches drew on and on. We snuck out to find the wedding coordinators and discussed adding an hour to our venue contracts so we could have more party time because the speeches went so long.
Really, nobody wants that so boring?
Who cares?
Nobody cares?
Talk about it privately, please.
We had to talk separately to our boy, DJ Freese since he was on a separate contract. What I thought started as a schmoozy, Hey, what would it take for you to work an extra hour? Conversations soon went downhill. DJ Freeze was dramatically offended by my cash offer and threatened to tell the bride and groom. Luckily we were able to save the day, but it turned into me slapping too many hundred dollars bills into Freeze's hand and
telling him your music sucks like the immature adult I am. Luckily, the party went off without a hitch, and our sister never knew what a dB DJ Freeze was to us. Thirty six hours later, our phones illuminate to a flurry of group texts. What could the bridesmaids possibly have left to discuss? Well, apparently murder h that Monday morning. I fucking remember this happening. Really that Monday morning. The headline
read cold case cracked. Suspect arrested in connection to nineteen ninety two murder of Christi Mihrak rewind to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, December nineteen ninety two. Christy Mihrack is a twenty four year old elementary school teacher who lived in the apartments about one point five miles from her childhood home in the same complex. As many of our friends, she had a classroom of students awaiting her arrival to school.
On that last day before the holiday.
Break, the school principal discovered her body as he visited her apartment after many phone calls went unanswered.
She was twenty twenty four, so sad.
She had wrapped a book for each student as a Christmas present, and the gifts were found scattered around the room where her body was found. After thousands of tips came in and interviews were conducted, the investigators were left without any leads and ultimately the case went cold. Christie's family continued to fight to keep her story in the forefront of our community. They used to have billboards along the freeway begging our community to continue to come with
any leads. Then, in May twenty eighteen, twenty five years later, the case was cracked wide open thanks to our new favorite crime solving method, ancestry DNA oh Wow. This break came less than two months after the Golden State killer conviction using ancestry DNA, and it is our understanding that at this time this was only the second case in the United States that has been solved.
Using this method.
Wow.
Within only two days of receiving those ancestry DNA results and conducting interviews in Lancaster, investigators were able to locate their only suspect, now forty nine year old Raymond Row aka DJ Freeze. Once Raymond Row was identified as her suspect in May twenty eighteen, undercover agents surveiled him almost immediately at an elementary school carnival in Lancaster where he was working a DJ gig. The agents were covered chewing gum and a water bottle that Raymond Row had discarded
in the trash. DNA tests on these items soon proved that he, in fact was a match to the mystery DNA found on in and under Christie Merak's body twenty five years before.
Wow.
This break in the case emerged for the investigators just hours before Raymond Row showed up to DJ our sister's wedding.
No wait, did he know?
No?
Oh, so that was like the cops knew, but he hadn't been Yeah.
Oh, I think after Raymond Roe was arrested less than two days after the wedding.
Yeah, yeah, he would have known.
It has not been determined if or how Raymond Row knew Christy Mehrak before murdering her. He lived in the same town, just miles from the crime scene for more years following the murder than Christy Mehrak lived her life in its entirety.
Isn't that the creepy thing, Like same thing with the Golden State Killer, where they just sit in their own neighborhood and just their living regular life.
It's baffling.
It's so upsetting, and it's so like, yeah, I'm fair hiding and plant siet.
Yeah.
Police arrested him at his home without incident and he is currently being held without bond in the Lancaster County Jail. Well he awaits trial SSDGMAA.
Wow, I know.
And so this email was actually sent in October twenty six, twenty eighteen. Oh so a long time ago. Yeah, some updates. The story is still unfolding. But Raymond Rowe DJ Freeze pleaded guilty in January twenty nineteen, but less than a year later he began appealing his conviction. And this is
from Lancaster Online. Rote testified at an August twenty twenty one hearing that he and Marrak had a secret relationship and the day she was killed, he said they had consensual sex and she was alive when he left the townhouse.
And so he's appealing his.
Latest loss in a bid to have DNA testing done on other items at the scene.
So that's the update.
Wow, slowly but surely you're going to convert me to liking cold cases, because when you start an email like that and people start telling that story where it's like, please tell me that they found it, Please tell me that it's over.
I know, and there was like less than nothing as far as evidence goes back, you know that they had as he wasn't a suspect. I don't think he was just nobody in her life. Yeah, so the fact that they found him is just purely because of DNA and investigative research.
Yeah, the cold case heam.
Wow.
Okay, this is also you know, true crimey, but definitely a different direction. The subject line of this email is I almost got fired for refusing to serve R Kelly and one of the it's a great email that has a lot of interesting tidbits in it. But also Jake covered R Kelly on Disgraceland his episode one seventy nine June of twenty twenty four, and the title is R Kelly Superstars Super predators and a twenty year reign of
sexual terror. Wow. So if you have not heard Disgraceland's coverage of the R. Kelly You Know journey, I guess we could call it episode one seventy nine. Go listen to that. It's episode one seventy nine. So this email starts, Hello, all, I've been in the fire. I'm dining service industry for almost sixteen years. Naturally, many celebrities have dined at establishments
that I've worked at. I won't name names, but just note that Patty Smith is a sweetheart and just to now double plow, just Gracelind has an episode that's all about Patty Smith. It came out April seventh, so you can go listen to it now. Wow, he does it all. Okay, So back in July of twenty nineteen, I was working in the Gold Coast of Chicago in what they call the Viagra Triangle, which is essentially where rich old men bring their mistress out.
Oh my god, gross shower.
It's a bleach bath. Please. So it says R. Kelly and his group of lawyers came in to dine in my section. His bodyguard or manager had overheard the conversation I had with a matre D about my refusal to wait on a fucking predator and blue up on me.
Good for you.
He said something along the line of everybody's got to eat, to which I replied, if I ran a bodega, I wouldn't sell him ramen noodles. Let's not bring Rochmond middles in it, and they're just as good as any fucking steak and bodegas. The matre d told me to go outside and cool off. What a classic matre D move.
Go cool off?
Okay, how about you, coola, Needless to say, Yet another employee serve the table. Also in my section was a group of men who had repeatedly asked to take pictures with him. The undistinguished mister Kelly refused photos due to bad press at the time, but instead decided to pick up their check because he knew I was their waiter and it would be an excuse for me to approach
him again after the scene that was made earlier. Dude, I handed him the check to sign, which he did, but he had written a zero on the tip line. I opened the book, holding the check in front of him, saw that he had stiffed me, laughed and said, yeah, that sounds about right, and walked away. His entourage complained to management about my behavior to a point where I was almost fired, and they waited outside the restaurant and followed me to the train, calling me multiple derogatory terms
the pinnacle of class. Though I no longer work at this establishment, and I highly doubt he listens to your show in prison, I relish the fact that this story helped me have a dialogue with my wonderful girlfriend I met only a few days before. This incident drew us closer together. She introduced me to your show, and when we go on road trips, one of us always ask the question, you want to listen to the girls? Thank you both for all you do, stay sexy, and please
remember that tipping twenty percent is bare minimum. Yes, sincerely, Hayden.
Wow, Hayden, Hayden.
Standing up fighting the good fight all alone.
Appreciate you. That's fucking awesome. Yeah, twenty two percent is my minimum now.
I mean yeah, Yet, Also, the excuse everyone's got to eat is disgusting.
Come on, seriously, I have one more? Where are you going? All right?
Two?
More?
Yeah? No? No, I sorry, I was not going anywhere. I just tell you to see what I was doing.
David Bowie's a rest story in Rochester, New York.
Oo.
And so David Bowie was covered in disgrace Land on episode seventy one.
So check that out.
It's called David Bowie, the Occult, Cocaine, Orgi's arrests, exorcism, a weird flirtation with fascism, and a dead body. That's the Disgraceline episode.
It's so good. Yeah, I listened to that whole thing and it's great.
And you know David Bowie's mugshot, right, you've seen that everyone.
He was only snorting cocaine and eating red peppers at the time, like that was his diet, that was his thing.
Hi, Georgia and Karen, I'm originally from India, but I've been living in Rochester, New York for four years now. What a weird switch to go from India to Rochester, New Upstate New York.
A little bit chillier, I would say, in upstate remark.
The city has a lot of history, home of Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass began publishing the north Star newspaper here, and of course George Eastman but after the demise of Kodak, nothing exciting has really happened here today.
I was looking through a local.
Boutique I want to say, Bouquet so bad and found a wallprint of David Bowie's mugshot dated March twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six.
Had to google the backstory.
Back in the day, famous people held concerts here must be nice. Bowie performed at the Community War Memorial and headed back to his hotel room for general merriment. With him was his bodyguard, Iggy Pop, and three girls, one of whom was a local he had taken a fancy to during the concert.
Iggy Pop and David Bowie together, We're just.
Going to go hang out at the at the Higott.
Zero percent body fat. Let's just do so much cocaine.
One hundred percent cocaine, zero percent body fat, so many red peppers.
As they were hanging out, three police officers showed up at the door. Bowie opened the door and was instantly knocked backwards by the officers trying to get in. The entire party was busted for possession of half a pound of marijuana. Turns out, two of the girls present at the party were undercover, acting on a tip that they would find cocaine in his hotel room, and police had set up shop in the adjacent room, listening through the wall using a stethoscope.
The fuck come on, Rochester, bring reggae please. We thought you were good than that.
When one of the girls asked where she could score some, which is entrapmentt for sure, it was reason enough for them to barge in Guys Enjoy. Although no cocaine, there was ample marijuana to make the arrest. Bowie and company were held in Monroe County jail for a few hours, but let go on a two thousand dollars bail each so that he could drive on to his next concert location. Apparently Bowie was afraid of flying. After his American tour, he went back to England on a boat. Oh shit anyway.
In May nineteen seventy six, the charges were dismissed after a grand jury declined to indict Bowie because they're not fucking narks. At the time of his initial hearing, a reporter had asked you if he had any sour feelings about returning to Rochester after the arrest, to which Bowie had replied, certainly, not absolutely not, needless to say, he never performed in Rochester again.
Of course, stay sexy.
And only reveal your stash to the trusted sale pronounced sale, she her.
I mean, such a good story. Yeah, I'm sure they did that to anybody that coming through town for whose hair was like longer than her chin, who.
Was like a feminine man. Yeah.
Yeah, that crazy, those crazy rock and roll boys. I told you that. My dad and I one holiday break, we're watching the Bowie documentary and I just kind of flipped it on and left it there, and he he was flipping around. He left it there, and then I was like, he's not turning it, so I was just
staying quiet and watching it with him. And he watched it for like a half an hour, through all these crazy stories and performances, and then he in one shot he's walking on stage barefoot, and my dad goes, oh, he's barefoot and changes the channel. That's what gets him off.
The bar foot was barefoot to live it.
Too far, dropping acid, dressing like a spider from Mars, none of it. It's all fine with Jim.
He can't he just can't tolerate bare feet.
Oh look at this, I mean I think it's gross, but you're on board. Okay, Well, now that we're in true rock and roll worlds and I'm not going to read to the subject line, and I'll tell you about the disgrace lined episode that this connects to a can't This just starts. When I was a very punk rock teenager in Boston in the late nineties, I worked at a fancy punk goth clothing store on Newberry Street. We worked on commission, and whoever greeted the customer first was
their salesperson throughout and got the sale. One day, the store was empty on a Friday afternoon, and this middle aged couple came in. They weren't in my section, but after fifteen minutes, no one had gone to help, and the man was holding a bunch of pants to try on. I went over and introduced myself and offered to start a room for him. He had a British accent, and he told me his band was playing in town that night and he was looking for clothes to wear on stage.
We got a lot of musicians, so I didn't really react or ask any follow up questions. Instead, I just started offering him more pants. I remember specifically complimenting him on his Diamond Star earing. He shopped with me for about thirty minutes and then went to the dressing room, where I explained that we had a three item per room limit. Who was it? Okay, but I would stand outside the and just swap things out with him. His wife and he both laughed and said, you think I'm
gonna run off with something? He said, you think I'm gonna run off with something in a joking manner. I responded, also in a jokey way. You never know. So I stood there as he tried on pants and opened the door to hand them back out and get new ones. After he bought about five hundred dollars worth of stuff and they left, My manager came over with the sales receipt and said, dumbfounded, do you know who that was? Got? Okay,
some guy whose band's playing tonight, I answered uncertainly. He then showed me the signature, very clearly written, Ringo Star. One of the Beatles was gonna shoplift some pants from their store.
Okay, go on, I just don't speaking. Okay.
I could not have been more embarrassed, but I hope he enjoyed not being recognized and being treated like everyone else got it, Actually.
I fucking doubt it. You're a beetle.
Well, but maybe for that very reason, Like since ever since he was twenty eight years old, Yeah, no one's treated ever treated him like that, I bet, unless they're trying to be cute.
Or was he like, oh no, I've lost it. I don't know, solastened because it wasn't the Beatles.
Oh maybe the Traveling Wilbury's there you go. And then it just assigned Erica and then it says ps his boxers.
Was what he saw his boxers.
PS's boxers were white with a blue pinstripe, and he and his wife were both incredibly nice. You just gave away at the most secret piece of information you possibly could, and they're like, but they're such lovely.
People, that Ringo star Wars boxers. Oh my god.
But like I feel like the nineties, if it was someone like you didn't really know in a band and a big band, but ring Ghosts, I feel like everyone recognized from ghostar back then.
I guess you'd think so, but maybe that she was punk rock. That's what she was, punk rock, and like our generation would maybe.
We're the cutoff. Wow, that was so entertaining.
So if you want to hear more about Ringo Star, go to episode one to eleven of Disgraceland, because that episode is called Ringo Star busted by Mexican Federales, threatened by French Canadian separatists, and the King of Feel.
Anywhere Boxers and white box boxers over bies.
That's our addition to the show.
Okay, this one is about Taylor Swift, who was covered in Disgraceland on episode ninety three. Hey KG, thank you for being my ear drum besties these past eight years and counting. In twenty ten, I was in a college a cappella group called the UCSD Tritones Tritones.
The name is a musical pun on.
Our mascot, King Triton, Oh Tritones Perfect.
One casual day about cash was a serious day?
Is this uc San Diego U No, Yeah, SD CSD Yeah India the Tritons. I want to see that mascot.
One casual day.
About halfway through the school year, we receive an email from someone claiming to be the business manager of none other than Taylor Swift. They asked if we were interested in being backup singers for Taylor's upcoming performance at the American Country Music Awards, but it was a secret act since we the choir would not be revealed until the end of the song for dramatic effect. We all thought, yeah, right, there was no way this email slash opportunity was legit.
Well it totally was.
Turns out they were looking for singers around her age and they found us via video we posted to YouTube singing a te Swift cover of You Belong with Me?
Pretty sure? Is that the same song from the fucking first one? Different song? Damn it? That would have been cool, Pretty sure.
The video was terrible quality by twenty twenty four standards and was taken in a poorly lit lecture hall, but it did the trick in helping us get discovered.
Yeah it did.
A few months later, in April, we a random collection of college kids, had the gig of a lifetime at the forty fifth Acmas in Last Vegas.
We did our best.
To keep it from our friends and family, who mostly found out from watching us on national cable TV. Says Hello twenty ten so cool. I will say, Taylor is truly a class act. We had to record the bas track on Easter weekend due to limited studio availability, she took the time out of her holiday to call in from Nashville to say hi and personally thank us for our time.
I mean, that is classy beyond belief. There's so many celebrities and people who let everybody else do work like that, right.
And like you're lucky to be working with me. Yeah.
No. Then after the performance, she did her best to give as many of us individual hugs before being whisked away by her security team.
I wonder how many people are in that choir.
Probably a lot, just like it's a choir.
Yeah. We also got hugs from her super sweet mom, who at the time said she'd never missed one of her daughter's performances to date. And then that emoji that's about to start crying the little you know. Oh, and there were a ton of extra bonus lob sightings from the night, including Reba, Carrie Underwood, Matthew McConaughey, Kristen Bell, share An ll cool Jay who introduced us by name NBD.
For Trytones, the try Tone Ladies and Gentlemen. Fourteen years later.
This is still by far the coolest thing that has happened to me, well up until the birth of my baby Boy six weeks ago, Stay Sexy and Trust Sketchy emails from people claiming to be business managers question Mark, Chelsea.
I mean, I love that story, Chelsea, so exciting.
That did happen to me and ally with Food Network in two thousand and nine, Hey, we likedre video on Facebook.
Do you want to make more videos like fuck you creep? It was Food Network, but.
It was actually Food Network, Fuck you creep? Did you say the words fuck you creep?
No, just did respond I would.
Love it in an email fuck you great.
Hey.
That happened when I was, of course very young, and I got a call on a Saturday, can you come into audition for Seinfeld? And I immediately said fuck off, whoever this is and hung up the phone. And they called back and were like they were laughing, but they're like, oh, we understand why you would do that, but it is actually because they were calling me directly and normally that's
not how it went. And I couldn't stop laughing. And then I had actually a very good audition for the first word I said, but I got a laugh and then distracted myself and then didn't remember the last of the rest of my single. Line. But the good news is it the character in the line didn't make it.
To the line. Give it to us now, like the she could do.
You know how Lane danced weird. So we're back at the same staff party where she's going to dance weird again, and I am the cater waiter who comes up and the line I got to laugh on because the first thing was you're just offering people floutas floutas, and so I went floutus and I did it with a fake accent, and it got a laugh in a room that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were in, and there was literally like, to me, in my mind it was like thirty writers,
but I bet you it was ten. But it was a huge Sirifel writer Seinfeld writer laughing.
And so then.
I gave it a nice pH and then the casting dictor said, whatever the next line was, I think it's a Lane's line, and then I was just kind of blanked out because I was like, man, that was awesome.
I did it. Who was the line?
It was something like, remember, hey, remember the lady who danced crazy last year, But I'm saying it to her the whole.
Joke and never eaten a flower? Does it get I mean, I can't.
I can't look at them. It gives me acid stomach and holy shit, I know. So okay, here's my last one. The subject line of these email is trash Grandma shushed at noozies. So there's no Disgraceland episode connecting to this. But talk about a punk rock Gramma. Okay, Hi, Karen in Georgia. My Nan is the best kind of trash grandma. She has always been sassy, independent and brutally honest growing up. If we complained about being thirsty, she'd say, drink your
spit ew hungry, bite your tongue. These are my people. She pulled out my first tooth with slightly rusty needle nosed pliers. You get the picture. In around twenty twelve, my family and I all went to see Newsies on Broadway. Do you remember that musical? My poor Nan has always had bad hearing, which caused issues when watching the show. She couldn't hear anything that was happening, and she kept loudly whispering to my sister, what did they say? And
what's going on? And who is that? We kept telling her that she was whispering too loudly, but that only made things worse because then she would yell, what did you say? Oh God, it was pointless to try to get her to be quieter. And it must be really hard to not be able to hear what's going on around you, for sure. That's a nice little parenthetical of empathy. At some point, people around us started to notice, including the man in front of us who started shushing her.
He eventually got so frustrated that he turned around and yelled, please, just please.
Oh I want to rate this man, but I feel for him.
No, I was him when we went to see Hamilton, a full family that was like, hey, do you ever see it? Like full voice conversation.
That's not okay, but like a little old lady.
A little old lady's different. But this was like every member of the family, now, fuck you all making small talk back there, And I did a full leaned forward and turned my upper body like a horror movie as a far around as I could, and I was like, will you please stop talking?
And they say.
The father was like, I'm so sorry, and he got them all together and they did. Only then do we realize that the man who had been shushing my nan was none other then star trek Legend. George to Kai, No, you can't hurt George to Kai, No, please don't infuriate George. Of course, my trash grandmother just responded, excuse me, Who the hell does he think he is? George to Kai, that's who. That's what they wrote.
I love it.
My nan is ninety years old and has pretty aggressive dimension now, but this story always reminds me of who she is at her core, which is a blunt, hilarious, badass woman who has lived a long and wonderful life. Stay sexy and hug your grandparents if you still have them.
Grace, Oh my god, Gracie. There couldn't have been a better person to like that, to surprise you with the you're crying.
It's so it's like a sketch on TV, because George Kakai is like the chillest, greatest, like lovely person, right, and he you pissed him off. You know that he's gonna be funny like hello, like that whole character of Georgechicai, and you pushed him to the brink. Newsy's, which is the award winning Newsy, the winning news everybody loves, Everybody's favorite I'm trying to listen to the newspaper musical Grandma.
Well, that was a just Graceland.
Make sure you check that out, Hollywood Land to subscribe, great review, all the good things that help so much.
We're so excited to have Jake Brennan on this network.
That's right.
Tell us your your fucked up musician stories, whatever they are.
Yeah, we'll start doing disgrace Land right out from under him. Great idea, stay sexy and don't get murdered.
Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Ah?
This has been an exactly right production.
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
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Goodbye,