From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
They call me Ben. We are joined with our producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. We are coming to you semi live as a hurricane is hitting the US, the southeastern US, part of which we are based in, and we wanted to get this out as long as we have power. We talked a little bit about the because we're super cool and superant not boring.
Yeah, we got stories. How's that about the weather? No, it actually is appropriate this time. It's kind of a little scary. And we talked about how interesting and non exact a science meteorology kind of is. Yeah.
Well, if you look at the radar right now, guys, I don't know if you've noticed this when it's showing like if you go to weather dot COM's radar that they display right it will show you the storm systems moving north through as you said, the southeastern part of the US. But it doesn't show the hurricane. And when it's showing you the past up until now, the hurricane pops on screen when it shows you the future, like
what's coming, what's about to happen? Even though the storm system is displaying in the past is like right near or around the hurricane. It's the weirdest thing.
What does it mean that? What does it mean?
I don't know.
It means there's a weird Venn diagram and people are portraying it differently, which is not great for the populace.
Well, it makes me wonder in the future if the AI systems that have been used for weather prediction, for these types of radar systems, right look at what's happened in the past with the radar and then use these intense supercomputers and systems deep learning systems to predict what's going to happen.
What if those.
Systems start not making up storms but start displayingcinating Yeah, I mean we've talked about.
How those systems can have weird stuff.
Pre crime, pre natural disaster crime.
I'm just happy that all the weather people on TV are having a moment to shine. You love to see it. They don't get their due.
I love it. I love meteorologists. They get a tough time because sometimes they predict the possibility of disasters that people don't fully understand, and they get a hard time either way. So they're doing great work. Just like the octopuses that are training fish to hunt with them. That's a true story. They're not doing it. The fish, I mean, are not necessarily consenting to this because the octopus will beat them until it hunts with them.
I remember my octopus teacher. I saw that.
Yeah, right, So check out the news on that.
We're going to talk about some very heavy things, some very disturbing things, discoveries, updates, bands, just you know, folks. At the end, toward the end and the third act of this weekly Strange News segment, we are going to talk about state sponsored murder. But there's so much strange news. We have so much on the way.
And we've returned.
We're going to hit a couple updates, guys, and then have a brief thought experiment about a story Ben that you brought to us last week. The whole world was watching. I think, So here we go. First of all, do you guys Remember that giant cargo ship that crashed into and collapsed Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
Oh yeah, yeah bridge.
Yeah.
Well, the company that runs that, that manages that ship as well as owns that ship, is in the news again because the sister ship of the Bali that's the name of the ship that actually crashed into the bridge there, The sister ship, the Mayserk I think is how you'd say it, or Masersk m ae Rsk sal Toro, is now in the news because it has been boarded by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Environmental
Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division, and the Coast Guard Investigative Services because because just like the Dolly, it is alleged or believed at least by these investigators that the Maersk Saltro, just like the Dolly, basically has all kinds of major
issues on it. We're talking electrical issues, mechanical issues. That mean these vessels, this one, just like the Dolly, basically are giant problems floating around in the ocean that could cause a major incident, just like the DOLLI caused back in March. I'll read you just a little bit of this. There was a lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday, September
eighteenth by the US Justice Department. It alleges that the owners Grace Ocean Private Limited and the manager Senterg Marine or Centergy Marine Group, both of these companies out of Singapore, they recklessly cut corners and ignore known electrical problems on their vessels, specifically on the Dolli, and that is what caused multiple power issues which ended up causing the crash
that made a bridge collapse. They're saying that the same kind of things exist on this new ship or this it's not a new ship, it's a sister ship, but is now new to us, right, And the Justice Department is trying to get over one hundred million dollars from these companies to pay for all of the stuff that it took to get that bridge basically cleared out and all the debris out of the way so that the port could even open again.
Well, it seems only fair, doesn't that it was entirely their fault?
Well, it was, right, So there's a lot of litigation happening right now. Attorneys in offices trying to figure out, well, who actually is at fault.
And why and why was it not us? Right? I mean that's basically the things.
That happen after a disaster like this, because remember six human beings that were working on that bridge died when this occurred. And then if you think about the billions of dollars, Remember we were talking about that, the billions of dollars that the city of Baltimore and all of the companies that ship in and out of that port lost.
In revenue, right, like m Yeah, yeah.
Because nobody could come in or out for several months. It was just a big deal. So from March till June it was incapacitated.
Yeah. It's funny. A friend of mine staying with me who's a lawyer, and we were talking about this weather situation and the concept of theft, just joking around saying, oh, if my partner's art market is canceled due to weather, then that's technically like theft of her wages or her ability to sell. I mean you could argue that by the negligence alone, this company like defrauded people of their income, defrauded this company of its ability to earn.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Oh and just in a bit of hopeful news guys. The Dolly, which remember, was like smashed into that bridge and kind of became a part of the bridge there for a little while. It was successfully quote extricated and refloated, and as of Thursday, September nineteenth, it was on a new route headed to China for its first international voyage post bridge collapse. So at least that ship still working silver lining, I don't know.
In the end, this appears to be the Justice Department trying to get money back for a bunch of stuff that it and a bunch of other federal and state agencies went through to fix a huge problem. All right, We've got a second update, you guys. Remember that British tech billionaire Mike Lynch who died along with several of his family members and friends like his daughter, when his super yacht, the Baysian, sank off the coast of Sicily in August.
Yeah, well, it's.
Back in the news too for a bit of a different reason. And it is because I'm going to read you a quote from this article out of CNN. Specialist divers surveying the wreckage of the forty million dollars super yacht have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel over concerns that sensitive ata locked in its safes may
interest foreign governments. What what, So, we've got a super yacht down at the bottom of the ocean where it was found, right, that's where several people met their demise, unfortunately, including the uh one of the owners of that super yacht, Mike Lynch. According to quote, you guys are gonna love this, sources familiar with the investigation.
Unquote sources so helpful, aren't they?
Yeah, the Baysian this super yacht may contain highly sensitive data tied to a number of Western intelligence services. What sensitive information about Western intelligence services on a ship that was British off the coast of Italy? Interesting?
Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Initially?
Well, sure makes it seem like this was some kind of hit, right, But so why didn't they get the stuff? Usually if there's a hit because someone's sitting on important or classified or sensitive information, they you know, a person is killed and then the stuff is removed and no one ever finds it. I don't know.
It feels a little weird to me that there would be sensitive data like that on a ship that hangs out in international waters all the time, Why would you have that there? There are probably reasons.
Well, wasn't that part of the conversation? This seemed fishy, like maybe there was these were high value individuals or people that know stuff, and maybe this was some sort of orchestrated attempt to sink the yacht and make it look like an accident.
Yes, but you asked the right question there in NOL. Why would someone who targeted this ship and the people who were on it if they weren't going to take that stuff already? Right, if the goal wasn't to get
that kind of stuff. So the reason why that information's on the ship is because Lynch, Mike Lynch was associated with, according to see in, British, American and other intelligence services through his various companies, including the cybersecurity company that he founded, Dark Trace also guys his wife's company, ray Tom r E YTM Limited. Sorry that's the second name, ray Tom Limited.
That company owned the ship and this person, Mike Linch's wife, was also an advisor to British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. She was a science, technology and cyber security advisor, which means she likely had information, or at least had access to information that was highly sensitive. Who knows if she took any of that or stored any
of that. I think that's what these investigators are interested in, the potential that some of that stuff ended up on these, at least according to the authorities, highly secured drives, like heavily encrypted drives that exist in safes that are allegedly watertight, that are now at the bottom of the ocean.
Craziness. It's wild.
But the biggest thing is that law enforcement in these these investigative services believe that this information is so let's say actionable, maybe that Russian and Chinese services special services would be willing to go down there and attempt to recover it.
Ben, what kind of stuff do you think would fall into it and that level of concern for all of these other parties nol.
Do you mean as in, what would what kind of info.
Would do, what would lead to this level of hubbub.
Like, what would incentivize rival powers? Yeah, it's tough because it's the age of information war. So probably the idea is, or the fear is that something there could be leading to not perishable immediate intelligence, but leading to methods of collection perhaps even you know, the stinky side of it would be the idea of algorithmic patterns things that could be used to break encryption would be a great one,
especially given the context outlined earlier. I will say also to this point, before we get to to James Bond about it. Past a certain threshold of wealth, a lot of people kick it naturally with intelligence agencies like the tech bros. Are of great interest to the intel guys. And the other thing is if this is really a takedown, because we have briefly talked about the possibility of bad faith actors, and you know, whether this is an accident
or a manufactured event. There are fifteen survivors right from the original from the original debacle.
Oh yeah, yeah, lots of people made it off and got to another ship that was nearby that also happened to be a sailboat. Remember that a little weird, just on the idea of what could be in there. According to CNN, they talked to someone unquote who asked not to be named unquote, and that person said that the ship is thought to have watertight safes containing two super encrypted hard drives that hold highly classified information, including passcodes and other sensitive data.
There you go.
Yeah, So it's holding the keys to some doors exactlyctly. And that's that's what I mean when I say like methods and encryption breaking kind of things, and it's it is totally possible. It is highly within the realm of plausibility. We do have to also consider that you know a lot of people who are on this boat at this time did not know, you know, what was in these safes.
That's the point of safes in general, right Like, Unfortunately, the chef on the yacht, because this was a big enough yacht to have a guy whose job was just to be the chef, he probably died without having any idea of what was contained in here.
But to your.
Earlier question about the value of the information on these hard drives, we have to remember that international maritime law is a little bit different. I know, I sound like Charlie Day talking about bird law, but maritime law is a little different. So there are consequences for powers like Russia or China being apprehended tried to do a little scoot and boot under scavenger law. Even though scavenger law is.
Still kind of a thing.
You can get in trouble if you're obviously I will say spook it about.
Well, and if it's a crime scene, right, and in this case, it's a crime scene because it's under investigation there by Italian authorities. Who knows what's gonna happen, but they are putting all kinds of underwater surveillance and lots and lots of surveillance above the water because it is one hundred and sixty four feet below the surface of the water. So if you've got to ship up there,
who knows what's going on. You're not going to see any lights if anybody's got a submersible or something down there, or you know, a team of like essentially seals crazy town, y'all. So let's keep an eye on that for sure. Last thing I've got here is going to be super quick. Moving on to a hunch I've got based on the story you brought to us last week, Ben, I've been thinking a lot about the sorts of casual conversations that are being held in the upper echelons of every government
on the planet since last week. I imagine the most prominent thing they're talking about is how do we check every single device in our division, in this building, in the state that we operate in, Maybe even in the country to make sure that none of these devices have explosives in them, because what if there's an enemy of ours that has already orchestrated an attack like this, it just hasn't happened yet, and in that case, it would mean explosives are already in devices. There's just nobody sent
a signal yet. Right, Well, it just maybe kind of go down to what if they're thinking about vehicles rather than pagers, because we know from stories that we've talked about in the past that vehicles of all shapes and sizes are manufactured now at least this is the norm, manufactured in all parts of the world, and then those parts are individually shipped to a place where they're assembled
into the vehicle that you know and drive around in. Well, according to Reuters, the US government is very much interested in trying to prevent a specific country from sending both hardware and software to be included in any vehicles that are operated in the United States.
Oh gosh, who could it be?
Gee, I don't know who. What country makes a bunch of things that the United States uses? Say it in his access China? There you go, All right, that's exactly correct. This is out of Reuters. The US Commerce Department is expected on Monday. This was this past Monday that we're recording this so on the twenty third of September to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous
vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns. Guys, so on connected and autonomous vehicles, it gets a little weird when we talk autonomous is pretty simple, right, A vehicle that's going to operate on its own as a part of those ride share services or eventually the plans are to have like shipping being automated, at least to a large part. That's one of the things that I
was going to say, Nicola Tesla. It's one of the things that Tesla has been attempting to do for a long time, getting these very specialized trucks that could actually ship stuff all around the country and not have any humans on them, just doing their thing, their little robot shipping thing.
But it also made me think.
About guys vehicles that let's say, the Secret Service uses to ship around highly important individuals in the government. It makes me think about all types of human beings that are important to the US government. Continuity they get moved around on vehicles that have Chinese hardware and software in them. And if you go down, let me say the article. The article is titled exclusive colon US to propose ban
on Chinese software, hardware and connected vehicles. You will see a quote from Gina Raimondo r AI MND, who is the United States Commerce Secretary. She was speaking in May of this year, twenty twenty four, and she said, quote, you can imagine the most catastrophic outcome theoretically if you add a couple million cars on the road and the software were disabled. So let's think about that. In that scenario, there are a couple million cars across the United States that,
in one attack of sorts all become disabled at once. Right, some of those vehicles would be parked, some of them might be on roads, some of them might become obstructions, some of them might be ridden in by important people. That becomes kind of a scary thing. But if you look at the history of specifically the Secret Service in the vehicles that they use, they are primarily GMC vehicles, US made vehicles, but a lot of these vehicles have
Chinese hardware and software in them. Specifically GMC vehicles guys like Cadillacs, like the limos that presidents get driven around in all the time, they would be affected by.
This interesting I heard a piece on the radio a week or so ago about this exact thing, and the person that was talking, and the expert whose name escapes me, was saying how there aren't that many fully Chinese manufactured vehicles available in the US markets. But they didn't mention all of the systems that you're talking about, Matt.
Yeah, components that are inside these systems. Anyway, it just made me think about that. Guys, I just wondered if you had any ideas. But I know we're running along on time here, so maybe we'll save our thoughts for a different time and we'll ask what you think about these three stories. We'll tell you how to contact us at the end of the episode, but for now, let's hear a few words from our sponsor and we'll be right back with more strange news.
And we returned with another piece of strange news. This one starts off pretty sad, but stick with us, folks, it has a happy ending. Oakland, California, nineteen fifty one. A little boy named Louis Armando albino, six years old at the time, was playing in a park and was abducted. A woman on February twenty first, nineteen fifty one lured him away from the West Oakland Park where he'd been playing with his brother, promising him in Spanish Puerto Rican
Boy that she was going to buy him candy. And it's just gosh, that whole concept of like luring kids with candy is such a trope, But it's a trope for a reason. Troops are only troops because they were true at some point one hundred percent. So fast forward to the modern day. So the woman in question took this minor child on a flight to the East Coast, the entire opposite side of the country, and he ended up through whatever means, it does appear to be trafficking.
I imagined he was perhaps sold or there was a ve paid or something. But the good news is he was raised by a couple and does not appear that there was any allegations of abuse from this couple who raised him as their own. Officials and family members have not commented exactly where on the East Coast this took place. But fast forward about seventy years y'all to the modern day albino or albino. I think his has pronounced stayed missing.
His family members left behind never forgot about him. They kept pictures hung of him and their homes and the homes of their relatives. His mother passed away in two thousand and five, but apparently, according to other relatives, including his niece, never gave up hope, maybe not that they would ever be reunited with the boy, but that he was still alive.
Can you imagine the just the gravity of that burden to bear.
I cannot, you know, as a parent and as someone who's other kids in my life who aren't in mind by blood, it is just the most terrifying. The not knowing is the most terrifying thing. I mean, of course, obviously knowing that your child was killed is horrific in and of itself, but there's something about the games your mind plays with you for that long.
Imagine the mother fifty plus years, fifty four years of just knowing your son is gone, and then you pass away believing your son is just gone, but you never get closure in any way.
No Oakland Police. By the way, this reporting comes from an article by the Associated Press, and it was picked up and there's there have been other pieces, but I do think this is quite a good summation of the story. Oakland PD acknowledged that it was actions of the family that led to this case going from unsolved and cold as they come to being essentially reignited, you know, with some hope, and most importantly, the efforts of Albino's niece,
the now sixty three year old Alita Aloquin. Essentially what happened was the following. She is credited by police with playing an integral role. This is a quote from the Oakland Police in finding her uncle, and that the outcome of this story is what they, as police investigators, strive for.
So let's get to the good part. Oakland Tribune articles that reported on the disappearance reported the police and soldiers from a local army base, as well as the Coast Guard and other city employees, participated in a massive search for the missing boy all across the San Francisco Bay area. The San Francisco Bay and other waterways were dragged and searched looking for the worst, of course, you know body. His brother, Roger Albino, was interrogated multiple times, potentially as
a suspect. Investigators ultimately dismissed him as a suspect because he stood by his story about seeing that woman. This is the brother, by the way, who was with you know, Albino when he was abducted. So can you imagine that being your brother being taken you blaming yourself of course, as you would naturally whether that's true or not, and then being interrogated by the police blaming you for his disappearance, or maybe even implying that you had something to do
with it. So let's go back to Aliquin, who first got an inkling that her uncle might actually be still alive. That came in twenty twenty where she just for fun, as she put it, took an online DNA test. It's not mentioned exactly which one it was, but we've certainly seen these online DNA tests being the subject of a lot of criticism, a lot of controversy in terms of just the companies that offer these, just buying and selling
your DNA information, your data, and all of that. Certainly there is the sketchy side of this, but just the same, she took the online DNA test, which showed, thankfully, because this other individual was in the database, a twenty two percent match with a man living on the other side of the country who did ultimately turn out to be her uncle, Lewis Armando Albino, that six year old boy
who was abducted in nineteen fifty one. Pretty incredible. In early twenty twenty four, she and her daughters started to
search for this man. On a visit to the Oakland Public Library, she looked through some of the microfilms of the reporting from when the abduction took place, and she actually found one that had a picture of Louis and Louise and Roger, the brothers, which she was able to kind of look to as a sign that she was on the right track because this person that she was connected with looked like he could potentially be a match.
And she went to the Oakland Police with this information, and the investigators, you know, in what one could argue would be kind of like exception to what would normally happen. It seems in these kind of situations where someone comes with information on a long dead case, you often hear about people of being you know, pushed aside and not taken seriously. So kudos to the Oakland Police Department for taking this information seriously and opening a new missing person investigation.
Oakland police very recently last week is a brand new story said that the missing person's case is now closed, but that they and the FBI are still considering the kidnapping portion of it to be an ongoing investigation. Now that Luis has been found on the East coast providing DNA samples, it has proven that he is in fact the missing boy because Alquin's mother also provided a DNA sample. So with one hundred percent certainty.
Talk about a family reunion. And I love that there's there is some closure here, you know. Actually I went on mute just so I could I could hear this, hear the story in full, the noel. Do we have any indication there's something? A lot of the audience will ask, do we have any indication on possible identities or motivations of the original kidnappers all those years ago?
Now it seems like it might be too soon to know, but it does appear that they are interested in that very same question, Ben, in finding out what you know can be determined. You know, from questioning Louise and describing this woman who abducted him all those years ago, seventy years ago, I believe She's been described as having not that this matters today, but having worn a bandana, you know, some vague descriptions of her appearance. But again, seventy years ago,
chances are pretty good. With Louise now being in his.
Seventies, he's like seventy nine, rightly.
Yeah, exactly that this woman would be probably long deceased. But then the question does become ben, was this part of some sort of greater organization that perhaps God only knows still operating? You know, it does seem that there could be information that could be valuable even this many years later. So yeah, that's the gist of that story. I just think it's such a fantastic and powerful statement on never giving up hope, you know, as hard as
it might be. There's a quote from Aliquhen, the niece, saying when they reunited, we didn't start crying until after the investigators left. I grabbed my mom's hand and said, we found him. I was ecstatic. Aliquan went on to describe her mother and other relatives being reunited with Luis as well, saying they grabbed each other and had a really tight, long hug. They sat down and just talked. She said, discussing the day of the kidnapping, their military service, and more.
And it reminds me of one important point for all of us listening along. Statistically, unfortunately, some of our fellow conspiracy realist may have first hand experience with similar situations. Think of the horrors of the residential schools, Think of the cultural erasure that has occurred in the Western world
as well as many other parts of the globe. One thing about DNA testing and the DNA technology that has yet to be fully legislated is although it poses frightening implications, it also, as you pointed out, and all these amazing opportunities right for people to learn more about where they come from, learn who was lost, and maybe reconnect with those folks. And I think there's a great power and poetry to that. I'm curious, what do you guys think. Do you think that we have someone in the audience
tonight who may have encountered something similar. I'm thinking through my head, and I know we've had fellow listeners who have talked at some length there sent us correspondence regarding finding family they didn't know they had or that they supposed was gone forever. Do you guys think any body in the audience tonight might have a similar.
Story, highly likely, whether it's this extreme a case or something more like what you were describing, Ben, I think it's a lot more common than people might think.
Yeah, especially with some of the cases of what was it fraud where a doctor would impregnate multiple women when they would come in to you know, partake in IVF or something like that. You never know, all of us might have, you know, some kind of siblings out there.
Agreed, Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, there's a whole sticky wicket with the DNA testing for profit and you know what's being done with that information. And it was one of those things where it was such a shiny new thing when it was first offered and everyone was excited to participate in it without really thinking about the consequences. But we've also seen the flip side of that, the positive side of that with cold cases being solved. Matt, I believe you brought a case, No,
it was a Golden State killer, right. It was a case involving a DNA site that identified as a suspect for the Golden State killer and that was determined to be accurate.
Right, Yes, correct, Jedmatch I believe was the name of that company that did that.
There you go, So it's certainly something that we've seen positive things come out of. There's also, you know, of course, a dark side to data brokering and all of that good stuff that we've talked about at length on the show. So nice to hear a story like this is such
a sad beginning ending on such a positive note. So please, if anyone out there does have experience like this being reunited with long lost, possibly thought dead family members, please do send us your stories conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. We'd really love to hear it and share your stories on an upcoming listener mail if you are comfortable with that. In the meantime, let's take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back with one more piece of strange.
News, and we have returned. As mentioned at the top, this is the part of the weekly Strange News segment that may be disturbing and as such not appropriate for all listeners. Want to get that disclaimer out of the way. Will end with a fun thing. But before we get to this horrific story, let's get a little bit of paranoia in the chat guys, did you see that there was a new study confirming some of the world's most common smart TVs are taking multi second snapshots of what you watch?
Is this like Roku specific than them offering so much of the software operating system for a lot of smart TVs? I'm curious. Yeah.
For a while, NOL, I've been wondering why television prices seem to buck the overall trend of rising cost in electronics. Why the TVs yeah become the loss leader. It's because, Yeah, popular smart TV models me by Sam Sung and LG take snapshots of what you're watching every second, even if and get this, even if they're being used as external displays for your laptop or video game console.
Oh yeah, so much else snapshot like literally like a spot Yeah wow.
Windshot with associated metadata. I want to give a shout out credits very important where it's due. Shout out to Jeremy Sue over at New Scientist with this information. That's where we found it. Published twenty four September, Uh, just just this month. UH and this dumble one, but a fun update. We've been on this kick, as longtime listeners know with UH with drugs hidden in weird things.
What do we have? We had.
Fake watermelons, like paper mache, looking at square watermelons.
Oh, and then there was like the crates of something at the farmer's market.
Little guitar amplifiers at guitar Center.
Guitar amplifiers.
Yeah, celery squash. We got hugeless green beans, giant vats of jolopano paste.
What happened to there? Such, snuggle them in your butt like the old days, you know.
Right well, you can't do the volume. I guess people's parts are getting smaller.
Can't find a good drug mule these days.
You can't even get a regular mule.
The prices are crazy, so our quick drugs and stuff update. A German supermarket, not the authorities. A German supermarket discovered seven million euros worth of cocaine hidden in crates of bananas.
So if you.
Are living in Germany and you're getting a weird vibe off your bananas, get the to the local news.
There's a Ween song called Bananas and Blow, and I think that's appropriate soundtrack material for this story.
You know what, it's weird, no, because I'll hear people say a Ween reference and half the time I think they're making it up because the song sounds so specific. They've got some cookie stuff, okay, But every time I check it out, it turns out to be the case. And speaking of cases, this is the trigger warning three two one. A few days before we came to record this Strange News segment, the state of Missouri, despite overwhelming protest,
murdered executed a man named Marcellus Williams. This will be familiar to us because I believe in June of this year we talked about this a bit on Strange News. They had set the execution date the state of Missouri, and they set that date for September twenty fourth. Marcellus Williams was executed by lethal injection. Would I say there was a massive outcry. The crime for which he was executed was the stabbing of Felicia Gail on August eleventh,
nineteen ninety eight. It was a homicide. The two witnesses who placed him at the scene have passed away, one of whom I believe recanted their statement. We talked about some of the stickiness of that. The family of Felicia Gail also requested clemency from Marcellus Williams. They did not believe the case held water NA evidence did not match we talked about that was contaminated. Something that occurred between the time we first spoke about this and this evening
is it's unprecedented. The prosecution and the defense issued a joint statement saying, we believe this man is innocent. We learned about this initially through things like our friends at Wrongful Conviction and Lava for Good, our friends at the Innocence Project. What is astonishing here, and I'm sure a lot of us have seen this on social media, is that it appears that everything that would have led to reasonable doubt or an appeal right, or at least a
delay in execution, it was ignored. This guy was following through the correct steps of the system, but still every possible avenue is treated as though it didn't matter. Now, have you guys heard about this case? Have you guys seen this bumping around on the I.
Mean I remember it from the LAVA panel that I had not heard the execution took place until just now. It's heartbreaking.
I've just been seeing Maggie Freeling I think you said your last name.
Talking about it a lot.
Yeah, Yeah, one of the hosts of Wrongful conviction along with Jason Flum, I wanted to learn how this could happen, like what is the rationale? Because ultimately the governor could have given clemency right or the state Supreme Court could have responded to these issues. This is going to be disturbing. We will read in part the statement of Missouri Governor Mike Parson in his justification of this murder of what
I believe to be an innocent man. Governor Parson says in part, capital punishment cases are some of the hardest issues we have to address in the Governor's office. But when it comes down to it, I follow the law and trust the integrity of our judicial system. Mister Williams has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over fifteen hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction.
No jury, no court, including at the trial, appellate and Supreme court levels, have ever found merit in mister Williams's innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty, verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in mister Williams's innocence as such, mister williams punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court. And then he goes on, well, let's stop there. What
do you guys think about that rationale? Seen some headshakes.
Sorry, I'm reading the message from the governor there. It's just yeah, sorry, I'm still kind of processing all of it.
I mean same, it's given what we know and what we know about cases like this, and how so often justice is not carried out. For something to have this level of finality to it, I think is just like the ultimate head shaking kind of moment.
Yeah, yeah, And I love that point the the victim's family said, don't kill this person, not because you know, we're practicing forgiveness, but because we don't think he's the murderer.
Right.
The DNA evidence doesn't match. Further the uh there there was a shoeprint, fingerprints, hair found at the seeing, none of which matched Williams. I cannot overemphasize how rare and extraordinary it is for the prosecutor's office and the defense office to say, don't do this. Yeah, this is not how justice is supposed to work.
I wonder if it has anything to do with a severity like the brutality of the murder of Felicia, because she was stabbed forty three times. You know, when she was discovered basically by the crime scene investigators or the first responders, she had the knife still lodged in her neck, and you can imagine that that kind of brutal crime, at least in the beginning. I think it is the thing we talked about in the beginning, there was such pressure to find whoever the heck did that, you know,
something so terrible. Not that murdering anyone at any time isn't awful, but that kind of thing, it's just there's something inhuman about it. And I imagine that pressure was tremendous to put somebody behind bars for doing this. And I think it's that thing that you guys talked about on the panel with Lava for Good. It's almost like once law enforcement starts going down a path, and like a district attorney signs up for a case, it's like you can't take the wheels off the thing critical mass.
The case was reviewed by the not just the top legal boffins in Missouri, but by our own SCOTUS, the United States Supreme Court just hours before the execution, and the Supreme Court ultimately denied the request. So this did get all the way to the top judicial authorities in the land. However, I do take issue. I think we all can with another part of Governor Parson's statement, which we'll read part of it, let's figure out how we
feel about this. Parson, in co signing the state sponsored murder of an innocent man, said, I also want to add how deeply disturbed we've been about how this case has been covered. Mister Williams's attorney chose to muddy the waters about DNA evidence claims. Sorry, my tone is very snarky here, claims of which courts have repeatedly rejected. Yet, says Parson, some media outlets and activist groups have continued such claims without so much of a mention of the
judicial proceedings or an unbiased analysis of the facts. I would just implore the media to do their due diligence and not rely on the sole claims of individuals who have a personal or monetary stake in this case. Ah So he's also kind of saying fake news.
Is that what he's doing.
It's just a it's pretty half hearted deflesh.
It feels. Yeah, it feels incredibly unclean. You know, I might sound like a broken record or repeating what we said in June, but this just does not make sense.
Yeah, I just as a as a devil's advocate position. I'm reading this thing from the governor that was written. I think at least what Mike Parson is saying here is, look at all of these bullet pointed things that I've also included at the end of my statement. These are all things that, at least in the eyes of me and the people I've represent in my state, this is why we.
Are executing this person.
And it includes things like Felicia Gale's personal items were found in the trunk of mister William's car. And I don't know all the all the you know, details of the case. I didn't watch any of the stuff. I don't know anything about it. I imagine if there's a fact something like that, I don't know. I think you make up your mind sometimes with law enforcement.
That yeah, yeah, I see that, And there's a narrative, and I appreciate you looking at that. So you can find this statement at Governor dot MO dot gov. Again came out September twenty fourth, just a few days as we record, and there is you know, this is what
the governor sees as the justification for this. I would challenge the governor, however, to respond to the idea that this is spinning a narrative, given that some of these bullet points are based on witness testimony, one of whom Henry Cole was paid five thousand dollars to help spin the web, and Laura Asaro, who named Marcellus as the culprit is one of the primary sources upon which the conviction rests. Now, we're not saying anybody is perfect nor
a paragon of I'm thinking of synonyms for perfect. I lost my posaurus. Not only is it inconvenient, it's also inconvenient. Uh, what a dumb joke. The thing here is that we see inconclusive evidence, and when we're talking about something like the state exercising the power to end a human life right non consensually, then this is beyond the realm of reasonable you know, suspicion or probable cause. You have to know for sure if.
You're doing this, well, what is the reason to just go ahead and carry out that sentence? Rather than just hold, what's the big problem? Is it going to cost the state too much money for a prosecutor?
Don't you think it comes down to politics or it came down to somebody making the call, whether it be a governor or what have you. Like, I mean, just let's put it behind us. Is that kind of thinking? You know? I don't know.
As long as.
It's not a political move. Can you imagine, like it's a governor that's going to be up for reelection and wants to show that he's hard on crime.
That's what.
De Yeah, tough on crime is a big selling point in Missouri policy.
Yeah.
These are incredibly valid and disturbingly relevant questions. These are the questions that we shouldn't have to be asking, yet we must, because in a very real sense, there are conspiracies of foot. The justice system is in intense need
of repair in the United States. I think many of us listening tonight can agree the aspects of it are broken, regardless of where you find yourself in the spectrum of pro or anti death penalty, regardless of where you find yourself, and the idea of you know, mandatory sentencing or other policy things. Also, by the way, related to last meals to spend the human moment. Williams had chicken wings and tater tots and he was a poet because he had
been incarcerated, he had found religion. He was a religious leader in the prison system. And his last you know, you can find his poetry online and I'll say it objectively, he's very well written. And his last statement, which is terrifying that there's a form for this. They apparently gave him a form where you say, you write out your last statement, and it looks like a worksheet that you would get in grade school. And his last statement was
all praise be to Allah in every situation. And you know, we talk a lot about funny, weird stories. Who's putting drugs in?
What you know?
And what are the octopus up to this time? But the but but for this, I think there's something enormous at play. H Noel Matt. This is the third person executed in Missouri in recent history. The people involved in the system are telling or we're begging the system not to execute this man, right to at least re examine the case, and the system said no. And I think that's a dangerous precedent. Am I being an alarmist or as that.
I mean, No, I couldn't agree more.
Yeah, I think I think we got to take away the state's ability to kill people.
If you're gonna if.
You're gonna be killing people, gotta be a military there has to be a civil war, uh oh mas, or to be a different direction, buddy.
Yeah, I'm so up to my neck.
I was talking about this in group TEMs so up to my neck and weird Middle East news. That's right, there's more than American to the world. We can't wait to hear your thoughts on this, folks. We had some great correspondence about the death penalty when it may or may not be necessary, how to know a person's guilt or innocence, and the problems with the justice system not just here in the States but abroad. And we can't
wait to hear more from you regarding this. We don't want to end on a negative note.
So when talking about Russia's rules of engagement with nukes.
Sorry Thermobaric. Hey, Thermoberic is like tag and base write a nuke.
But here is something I thought would make everybody a little bit happier. As as we head out to the hurricane evening. That snowmobile guy we mentioned a while back who crashed into a Blackhawk helicopter got three million dollars.
Hey, I love to hear it.
You'll love to see it.
So adjusted for inflation, I think that's something like two hundred and fifty thousand. I don't know, depending on when you go to the grocery store.
But oh, but he did ask for nine and a half million.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's how the negotiation works, you know what I mean. Always ask big.
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Come oh, come on.
It's hard to believe it's a palindrome, but it is except for the comma.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
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