Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
Why don't you ask him how many people he's raised him and how many people he's murdered?
Why didn't you bring him to justice?
Hi?
This is episode three hundred and fourteen of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals it the worst monsters sometimes don't need a bunch of dubstep. I'm your host, Mike Boudet, or sometimes it's the Bidet, or sometimes it's just that nazi or that racist or that misogynist over there, the one that hosts that show that nobody likes. Anyway, I'm here not to talk about politics, but I'm just going to play some jams today, because you know what, that's
all I've ever wanted to do. I just wanted to be a DJ, just wanted to play some tunes.
You know.
Well, people listened and praised me for So that's what we're doing. That's nice, isn't it. Gotta love that jazz guitar.
Oh yeah.
They say that when you get tired of what it is you're doing, when you when you get sick of it, you should probably stop doing it. Well, the people would say that are fucking morons because you still have a mortgage and some electric bills and whatnot. So here we are again, and we're going to tell you a murder story. Yes we are. Unfortunately, somebody has to die for your entertainment, you fucking weirdos. But uh, it is what you've come to expect when you come here, or isn't it. I
guess that's my fault. I guess everything is my fault. I keep doing bad things. I'm such an unempathetic jerk. You know, I would probably just quit deleet my show, right. It would throw a parade. Actually, that's a good reason to keep going. November twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, it was just after four o'clock in the afternoon in Lake Worth, Florida, at the Try Rail station. An employee was frantically pacing in his booth as he called nine one one. A crisis was looming on the train tracks.
You know, my name's Charlie and I'm calling them Try Rail and I'm here for one of our passing trains. Reported that just north, about one hundred feet north of the seventh Avenue North crossing in Lake Worth, so we have a crossing there just west of I ninety five. There's somebody lying down about ten feet.
East of the east.
Tracks, lying on the ground. We don't know if it's if it's a body, or if it's a you know, somebody just sleeping or whatever. I do have security on the way. One second, wait, all go ahead.
As the caller was on the phone, one of his colleagues came into the booth. He had more to report on this mysterious body.
So we shot everything out, all right, See the radio that was about that something.
Yeah, that's okay, exactly right, right, So seventh Avenue north and world well on the railroad tracks, the Tryrail tracks.
The body on the side of the tracks was covered in blood, his legs and arms splayed out. It wasn't clear whether he was dead or alive just yet, and no one could get close enough because the trains were still rolling into the station one by one. Panic set in as the Tryrail employees tried to figure out what had happened. If he'd been hit by a train, this could be a major problem. Terrible optics. We know how
important pr is these days. The crew had no choice but to call an emergency and try to shut things down as quickly as they could.
And is he breathing? You?
You know what I do?
Okay, Okay, So I'm going to get the terminated.
But near the Triro seeking.
Near the triro track, there's a meal covered in blood. Okay, sar east the west side of the track. He's kind of the track, Sure, Charlie.
Is he breathing? Sure?
Did you know if can you ask your guy there down the radio?
They just call him.
This came from a passing train.
Uh, that's all they had.
First They said, you know, it looked like maybe a body or somebody sleeping there. And then the second train just went by. And you heard what I did from the disk backer about this MT Just get there.
Your guys from east and there get breathing. Another call and he said that the guy spuntily deceased and he's uh got hit.
By trains kept rolling through the station. Those calls flooded in. At the same moment, another passenger dialed nine one one from his cell phone.
I'm taking the train down from the West Bombach station down. There was a dead man on the side.
Of the train.
I saw him from the window. To gu go, was a dead guy on the side of the road. Yeah, an office right now on the train on top to him.
Okay, have been here on the trains?
No, No, he was running on the ground, was looking out the windows, were going into the Lakeport station, just above Lake Wart station. There was the man here. He got shot and before he got hit by the trains. Okay, so this is that's the lake Ward Tirol station, above the Lake Wart station along the tracks where we're slowing down coming into station or the dead manerside to call blody double feedo.
Passengers had gathered around the collar. How could they not after miles of gravel and green bushes. They rolled into the city station and just as the train picked up speed again. There it was a bloody mess just off the tracks.
It looks like I would grow up in tracking. Got hit by the north down train.
I stand up when I need to get the panetics on the line.
Okay.
The train kept going. The body was now a memory in the distance, but that image was unshakable.
Get talking to the opposite here on the train. There's already people on the way to take care of it. Dude, sir, there is no address. I'm on the am Kink train hitting out hit above blake Work to date hit. There was a man on the other side of the track. I went looking out the one day he said it. From what I could say, he was early mess up. Can you tell me? Are you just north of Lakeworth Road?
Actually no, I'm on the train with just north of Blakeworth day along the train tracks, along the train track on the on the north out side of the train, on the other side track. He was playing ate up and he was a mess up exactly, I mean literally, probably can't go off the train.
Passengers talked in groups, trading half formed memories of the body they thought they saw as the train sped on. Meanwhile, tri Rail employees were still on the phone with nine one one, trying to make sense of it all. What most passengers didn't know is that this wasn't just a one off tragedy. In cities across America, the edges of public infrastructure like train tracks, underpasses and wooded areas, I've quietly become home for those with nowhere else to goose.
That's another call.
What's another call that I guess all that he was read by the tracks for your driver said, yeah, about ten the east of the tracks. We do have a train drop a shruckdown at this time?
And he didn't say if he could sell about some how old this male was.
A description or anything like that. I'm not a fanic nothing.
The Palm Beach sheriff arrived at the train station. They hiked up the tracks towards the bloody man. The closer they walked, the more obvious it became. This man hadn't been hit by a train. He'd been butchered. He lay sprawled on the cobblestones, blood soaking the rocks beneath his head. His blue eyes stared skyward, frozen in fear. The victim had a fatal stab wound to the neck, the source
of all the blood. He also had defensive wounds on the fingers of both hands, a laceration to his left hand and his stomach, and a slice to his right jawline. It was brutal. His T shirt, his khaki shorts, his bare feet. The man looked like someone's middle aged dad who'd wandered off the beach and walked straight into hell. Blood covered every inch of them. His officers moved up the tracks. They spotted a pair of sunglasses. A few steps later, they found it a four foot long broad
sword slick with blood. Think of a brave heart. The officers paused. The sword was ornate, It had a woven silver handle with two floral designs at the edges. It looked like something out of a Scottish museum. Yet here it was lying on the dirty rocks by the train tracks, covered in blood. Nothing about the victim fit the weapon, but the blood, the sword, it all pointed to something very deliberate. That's when officers heard it, voices drifting from
the trees just beyond the tracks. So they started walking, and as they did, they found themselves following a trail of blood towards the sounds. In the brush. About seventy five feet north of where the body was found, the police discovered a small homeless encampment. The camp wasn't accidental, It was laid out with intention. There was distance between the tents and shared resources. This wasn't just survival, it
was strategy. In twenty seventeen, sleeping in public was criminalized in Palm Beach County, a place where lots of very wealthy people live, so the people here stayed out of sight and far from the law. There was one large tent on the far north side of the camp, tucked away in trees like a little plastic cottage. About twenty feet down from that was another tent set up in the same neat and organized fashion as the first one.
The police drew their weapons and announced themselves. Two couples emerged from the tents with their hands up and shocked faces. After things cooled down, the police started recording.
All right, who who would like to speak with me? So you're pick all right, how about we go this way Europe? All right, Hi, I'm Paul. Excuse me, I'm Paul. My hands are dirty, Okay, I'm sorry. Can what is your first name? Tasha?
T A s h A.
Can you tell me who resides in this location?
As far as I know, it's just Robert and I on this first heads okay, and it's greed and it's got like a black tarp uh that's got the bis queen plastic piece on.
Top of it.
And then pretty good distance away you have the walk and path through in between as a generator.
After the generator is the white and blue tag. Okay.
So your tenant is the furthest north north, okay.
All right, So then you pass a generator who do you get to next?
I get to which I thought her name was Gladys?
Okay, today what's her name? That's how close we stay his names. And then I know Kenny because he work with Robert. He lives with Carol.
According to Tasha McGraw, the camp was quite spread out. Tasha and Robert Pellettier shared a generator with another homeless couple, Carol Thompson and Kenny Schmid, but that was about all they shared.
Robert and Tasha, Carol slash, Gladys and Kenny. And then who else is here?
I know that somewhere this way there was a guy named Chris, and I only know of him because.
He is I guess, Jarrett. This is what I was told.
That was my guess, because he spends hours on and yelling get.
Out of my ask get out of my house. I said, no, I you know, and I mean he.
Does it continuously until he wears himself one passes out.
The man with turret syndrome. Chris lived far far off in the brush, away from the two couples who shared the generator, but he was loud, always screaming and making a fuss, so Tasha heard him even if she didn't see him.
So, Tasha, I'm sure you know why we're here.
I have no idea, Okay, all right, I'll be honest with you, being a woman.
Uh huh.
I am curious and probably should be smiling because there's the characters here, which means there's probably something serious it's happened.
Okay, So you have no idea why we're here.
I heard somebody yelling earlier.
One it was Chris. Probably I lose shot at top. I was holding clothes, maybe three point thirty, and I could be Robert would be if I looked in my phone, I could tell you exactly what time I heard Kelly, because I was texting at the time that they yelling. And I said to Robert, I think Chris has gotten out, okay. And we came to the door and listened, and he said, I see it. He's like, I think it's just Chris and doctor cleaning.
Life at the small encampment was relatively calm, except for Chris. Though his tent was far away and hidden beneath some brush. He still came out, but he was one of the people that Tasha stayed clear of. She'd only been on the streets for a few months and still had a job. She went to. All the couples at the camp were living a pretty normal existence beyond the fact that they were homeless and living in the woods and houses made of nylon.
These four people, Kenny and Carol and Robert and I stay away from the the you know, he is hanging out in front of the store.
None of us shrink or do drugs. We can't. We get we work, break, we.
Eat, We have a generator at the TV and all those things, because that's what we spend our money on, not on drinking and drunks.
Okay, my car was.
Just recently Toad and I've been back here for just a few months.
Okay.
I leave that four in forty five in the morning. I work at the labor.
Hall and I'm likely to get by.
Six or six thirty at night. I'm working in Belglade.
So wow, Okay, is there anybody else that you know of that stays here or lives here or anything like that? No, Okay, does anybody ever have any people over?
No? Okay, I would never bring anybody.
I have to say. If all this is true, Tasha is pretty incredible. She's got some serious spiritual serenity. We could all use a piece of She is homeless, living in a tent in the woods. Her car has been towed and she clearly can't get it back. But here she is making the best of it, still getting up at four forty five am to go to work. I mean that's admirable to the public. Homeless encampments soften conjure images of chaos and danger, and although that's true to
some extent, that's not always the full story. People like Tasha are holding down jobs, folding laundry by flashlight, and doing their best to live quiet, invisible lives.
What does Chris look like?
As far as the only way, the only way I know what he looks like is because they described it to me, and I remember seeing work.
He ass some kind of tattoo on his forehead. I believe the tribals on his forehead.
It look like a propeller.
I think it's more like a tribal thing. It could be a propeller. I know it's not a tear drop, but it's right smagg center of his forehead, and it's not tiny, it's big.
It's a good site too.
I think I know Chris, and that he had longer hair, and he always more Spandex shorts.
The officer knew Chris from the streets. It was hard not to. He looked like Iggy Pop if Iggy Pop wore spandex and hiking boots and rode a scooter around town with his mullet blowing in the wind. What a sight. Chris had a big tattoo in the center of his forehead that looked like a swastika or maybe a plane propeller. Nothing says I want to be homeless forever than a tattoo on your face. He wore a snake pendant around his neck and a thick gold Superman ring on his finger.
Most days, he didn't bother to put on a shirt. While one officer talked with Tasha, a few others made their way down to Chris's tent. When they got to his spot, they noticed a large sword hanging by the door like a do not enter sign. The camp had become sort of a no go zone, not officially but practically. Police didn't patrol it. Why would they. Until this moment, they hadn't even known that it existed. As the officers got closer, they could hear Chris inside his tent. When
he finally came out, he was screaming. He attacked me, He attacked me. Chris's hand was bloody and so swollen it looked like a baseball man. It had been wrapped up in a bandage that was soaked with blood. The officers cuffed him. As they sat him on the ground, they suddenly noticed the trail of blood that they had originally he followed. It led straight to Chris's tent. How's that for detective work. It was a strange irony, a crime,
this loud in a place built to be silent. If it hadn't spilled onto the train tracks, the world may have never found out about it. Off the tri rail tracks in Lakeworth, Florida, passengers on various trains had noticed the dead body of a middle aged man out on the tracks. Train traffic was halted as the police investigated what happened to this unassuming victim who looked like he belonged at a Palm beach casino instead of butchered by the railroad tracks. Next to the victim's body was the
murder weapon of four foot long sword. If I'm not mistaken, that maybe the first sword murder we've told on sword and Scale, which is kind of weird. Following the blood trail from the victim's body, the police discovered a small homeless encampment where three tents were set up. Two of the tents were inhabited by couples, and the furthest tent was owned by a man named Chris. A very wild man named Chris. He was known on the streets for
his erratic behavior and ridiculous appearance. The police took Chris up to the Fire and Rescue to get his hand injury looked at, and while they did, the other officers continued to question the couples at the encampment. They started talking with the other couple, Carol and Kenny.
Okay, so Carol, what's been going on today? How the day start out? What's what have you been doing?
All?
Well?
As normal, we always wake up to Chris screaming home.
He wakes up screaming. Is that a normal occurrence? He's schizophrenic? Okay, at least that's a peel so normal day.
Well, day, we went to dunkin Donuts, came back and this is what Mara were intent watching TV when the Shris who showed up.
Carol and her husband spent most of their time shuffling back and forth from the dunkin Donuts to their tent. Inside, they had set up a makeshift kitchen and bedroom where they tried to stay away from Chris's chaos. As Carol put it, he was unstable, but over time the chaos became routine. So when he knocked on their tent, and I say knocked because I don't know what else to say, when he knocked on their tent asking for an ACE bandage, she didn't think much of it.
You guys went to dunkin Donuts today, you were here watching TV?
Yeah?
How long ago would you say that he came up and asked for an ace bandage? I don't know what time it is, Okay, it's five two hours ago, maybe two hours ago? Two hours ago?
Okay? Did he What was he wearing? Do you know? He had no shirt on? And I think sweatpants. You know what color sweatpants? I think they were blue? Okay, I'm only I'm blinded more, I show no problem.
So, but he asked for an eight spandage for his rich medium and his spandish and you left them?
Oh? Really?
Yeah? Are you guys close with him?
Does he talk to you or is it just kind of like a I mean you guys obviously know him, or I mean we try to averread him. Okay, okay, it's those problems. Would you say he's does he scare you or at times?
Jesus? Okay?
Got it?
How about before that, did Chris say that he was having any conflicts with anybody?
Did he ask he has intercomfist with people inside his head?
Oh?
Okay, He's always yelling at somebody to get out.
He's gonna kill him. He's always always yelling at somebody to get out. Trespassing. You're doing this, you're doing that. They're all diagnosed.
I don't know if he stagnosed schizophronic, but I'll tell you what if he isn't definitely run? Does he take any medication?
Excitements, Tasha, I thought Chris had Turets syndrome, but Carol assumed he was schizophrenic. Needless to say, none of these people were mental health professionals. Put it that way, Chris woke the whole camp up every morning screaming about trespassers or people who were trying to hurt him. He lived in his own head, which was a dark neighborhood that he could never crawl out of. But even his chaos had rules. He stayed mostly to his corner and others
stayed to theirs. There was a kind of internal logic to the camp, full of invisible boundaries and unspoken understandings. But still Carol was scared of Chris. Tasha was too. Being the two women in the camp, Chris made them nervous when the men weren't around. By the way, who's the Karen responsible for getting rid of mental institutions? Remember when all these people were housed and cared for, but then something happened and somebody got hurt, so we got
rid of all of them. I know one of you Karens out there was responsible, at least one of your grandma Karents with a PhD. What a fucking idiot. Just because a patient dies in the hospital doesn't mean you get rid of all hospitals. These so called experts really are useless, aren't They probably should have bottomized her instead of taking doctor Karen's advice.
All the men back here, which would be Kenny and Robert, told him, do not come this way. We have women that live here.
We don't want to see you and since, and he's respected that and made away because I'm new.
For the most part, Chris kept to himself and stayed clear of the couple's area, but whenever Chris did come knocking at their tents, the men would deal with them. Residents told police that earlier that afternoon, Chris had barged into the camp asking for an ace bandage. Carol's husband, Kenny, had given him one.
He asked you for an eighth bandage his right hand, then for one of his hand. I went watch camp tells of one what hand on? No problem?
After that?
After we ate was watching TV one other and the train stopped right okay, and then took off again. I figured, okay, he's playing stupid games again and train and stop because that's the one time they stopped.
I don't know if you caught that, but listen carefully. Kenny said that earlier that day he heard the train stop near their camp, which was one hundred feet north of the station itself. He assumed that it was because of this little game Chris usually played. He insinuated that Chris would often go to the train tracks and get close to the train, causing it to halt like a
suicidal game of Chicken. I guess when you're homeless, you got to entertain yourself somehow, even if usually it's at society's expense.
What does Chris look like? Describe nothing?
Tall, maybe six too, skinny, long, dark hair.
Weird okay, long dark hair, very weird. Okay? What makes him weird? He gets fine?
Okay, He's got like twelve He's got a whole family of invisible friends.
It was hard to take anything Chris said with any credibility. He was always ranting and raving, fighting with the so called invisible friends in his head. Then Carol remembered something strange about Chris coming over and asking for a bandage.
Christie, come over to our tent before you guys did come up? Okay, said somebody who's tried to rape him. Somebody's tried to rape him. It's something we've heard millions of times over.
He did say someone tried to raping Oh okay. When he was getting the a spanies, I said who, he said out? Okay, Yeah, what I'm saying. I live with him next door, screaming at all hours, and knives about him. His ghost was sticking something glass or mouth or something.
Wow.
Though, the officer was shocked. Carol and Kenny were unfazed. They'd heard rape accusations from Chris many times, mostly about the ghosts who were trying to shove things into his backside orifice. So like every other outburst from Chris, they turned their backs and zipped up their tent. I mean, what else could they do? But now there was a man who had been stabbed to death in the place that Chris liked to go and try to halt the trains.
According to Kenny, the only man who had weapons in their camp was Chris.
Does he have any weapons or anything is a weapon?
He's got all kinds of swords, knives, staring stars all wow.
Okay, I don't worry about him.
Does he have any well, you say, knives and throwing these stars? He have like swords and they got swords all kinds oh geezh. Any kind of sword, remember, any one specifically? Any kind of swords like big swords or anything like five big swords.
When the police investigated Chris's tent, it was filled with weapons and a few cats, poor things. Chris has display knives, samurai swords, throwing stars, and other exotic weapons all over the edges of the inside of his little home. He had a blow up mattress, a makeshift kitchen complete with about nine bottles of vitamins, a boombox, a television, a DVD player, a microwave, and a little matt at his front door. Have cozy. Maybe this was a tent in the woods, but it was also his home and most
damning of all. Inside chris tent, they found the sheath to the samurai sword that had been used to kill the victim. Chris's real name was George Christopher Livingston. What a name sounds like some sort of old timey explorer instead of a homeless nut. He was fifty one years old and had been on the streets of Lake Worth for years. In fact, Tasha's partner Robert, had known Chris for a long time.
Tell me about Chris. Well, I've known Chris for the better part of I don't know, for four or five years now, okay. And he's always been somewhat less than cohesive.
Okay. Have you been living with him for four or five years? I've just known him. I've never lived with him.
There was a time a few years back when the radio station was all wooded areas we stayed there.
Chris burned that down, so we got jettisons from that. I remember that.
Yeah, Chris had burned down the last encampment Robert lived in. It was such a big fire that the officer remembered it too. Chris was always in trouble with the law, but it was never anything big enough to get him behind bars. Unfortunately, it was just a hindrance, a drain on society. The man needed some serious help. He was
mentally unstable. Stories like Chris's aren't rare. Untreated mental illness, no steady psychiatric care, and a legal system that sees the need for help but not the kind it can give. According to court records, his own parents had kicked him out of their home due to repeated violence, which is how he ended up on the streets in nineteen ninety eight. Things spiraled from there. In twenty twelve, he'd been arrested in Boyton Beach while hanging around a children's park with
a large hunting knife. When the officers took him off the premiss and searched him, he asked why they didn't also take his taser. It was stuffed into his spandex shorts.
And around that time.
You know, we'd have conversations from time to time, nothing terribly extensive, but you know you can tell he's not playing with the full deck, he claims.
You know, who have been struck by lightning.
And there was a time I'd come home and find dead raccoons laid out of my doorstep, you know, like the health you know.
Oh, I thought you could make a nice fat out of him.
Can you imagine so other than Chris and you and Tascha, who else lives here in this in this woods?
Here?
Kenny and Carroll are here? Okay, Dave Beckett. I don't, to be honest with you, I don't venture much past my own tank. The only reason I know Kenny and Carroll is because we have a you know, a business arrangement sharing the.
Generators, a business arrangement. Imagine living in the age of AI and you have a business arrangement involving a generator.
So the other person that you mentioned, Dave, what's stayed less him? And you know that for sure, not with a degree of certainty. Okay, but that's the name I've heard, okay, reference to him? What's on more than one ocasion?
Okay?
What is Dave's not Dave's story, but about how old is he? Can you describe him at all? Well?
He similar to my look a little shorter, okay, but he's got the gray beard. Where's a ball camp all the time? About how old? Early in the mid fifties, I would.
Guess Dave had been in and out of the camp. Like Tasha. He worked at the Labor Hall. In case you don't know, the Labor Hall is a temporary staffing agency that helps people pick up blue collar work throughout the area.
One was lesson he saw Dave dick well or have you even seen him dack? See, I'm not sure it was Dave that I saw Chris encountering.
Okay.
I know at one point we had gotten back from the beach. I guess sometime between one thirty and two thirty, Tasha and myself thank you.
I was going to say, who's willing?
All right?
Tasha sad between in that area, and.
We went into the tent and pretty much sorting through clothes that decided what to take to wash and whatnot.
At one point I.
Had to run to Sitco and get some gas for the generator. But at some point after we were home, I couldn't nail down a specific time. Two people I recognized. The second one was Chris ran past the tent. Okay, it appeared that Chris was chasing somebody. I thought it might have been Dave, but I wasn't.
Certain to see what the guy was wearing. And he was chasing like a blur build into like a.
Well.
The reason I'm not entirely certain Dave is because he was wearing I don't know one specifically, but it was brighter colors than I'm used to seeing him. He's usually a camouflage or a darker colored Okay, you know, but it seemed to me like he might have been wearing a T shirt. It was light and come maybe I don't know if it looked like it was light blue with orange sleeves.
The dead Man on the Tracks matched Dave's description perfectly. The gray beard, mid fifties, bright blue shirt with orange sleeves.
I thought it was Dave. Ran past the tent first.
Now, Dave's more often than not drunk, so it wasn't with any real speed that he ran by the tent, more of us, and then you know, three seconds behind him came Chris, just yelling, yelling something like I was going to marry her.
You raped her or something. I don't know. I don't know. It wasn't a big commotion, but it was enough to catch my attention. Tasha and I both stood up and what the hell's going on?
Right?
We walked out, and we actually walked as far as the train tracks here and could see down here some altercation. But it didn't look it didn't look too violent or too serious. It just looked like a couple of guys shoving each other. Okay, anybody look for me. Well, I could see one of them was Chris. We saw one of them ass well, one of ri it's wearing.
We have to put this into perspective, because I know what you're thinking. If you heard two men rush past your home screaming at one another, you'd probably follow the noise to see what was going on, and if you saw them getting into it, you'd contemplate calling the police. But Robert and Tasha were homeless and squatting in the woods during this time. In twenty seventeen, there was an ordinance that made it illegal to set up permanent shelters
on public property. Though their camp was hidden deep in the woods, it still wasn't allowed. Robert and Tasha didn't want to bring any attention, let alone the police, to their encampment. This is probably why they just all did their best to ignore Chris's outbursts and roll with the punches. The idea that you would call the cops for help concerning anything was preposterous. You don't do that when you're
breaking the law yourself. It's the wild West out there, which raises a broader question about the growing homeless population. Encampments are now a major issue in cities nationwide. For years, most advocacy groups and academics have followed the consistent philosophy provide housing regardless of sobriety or mental health status, and homelessness will decline, But the Cicero Institute challenges that view.
The public policy think tank argues that the housing first model has failed and instead supports banning unauthorized street camping and reallocating funds from permanent housing to short terms shelters and treatment programs. Here's Devin Kurtz, public safety policy director from the Cicero Institute.
Criminological literature, there's a lot of talking about, oh, well, this is a very visible population, which allows it to be you know, policed more than the other communities, and there's some truth to that, but there's also this this sort of wild West component where if you get an encampment that's far enough out, there's you know, no one coming to help, and there's no one surveilling it.
So these have at times.
Become you know, no go zones for law enforcement, and it ends up until there's a fire or until there's a murderer. It's sort of just spt in its own.
This encampment in our story had definitely become a no go zone. The cops were unaware of it until the murder occurred. But how do you police something that's buried deep in the woods and no one even knows it's there. The Cicero Institute's hallmark policy is the prohibition of street camping. Most nonprofits are very unhappy with the fact that they have passed encampment bands in nineteen states and the.
Framing by critics, and they usually come and they protest the hearings and they protest our office as they did a couple of weeks ago, and this criminalizes holmossness and ultimately leads to mass incarceration of them and saddles them with criminal.
Records, etc. Etc.
The reality could be further from the truth. This is trying to respond to the obvious need for a community to regulate the existence of encampments in our community. If there's a camp on the sidewalk in front of your house or in front of your business, obviously there needs to be some mechanism by which law enforcement and the city and county and the state can ensure that is
dealt with in a way that is certainly compassionate. But I would argue that we're not experiencing a homelessness crisis that's particularly unusual, as much as we are experiencing a crisis and unsheltered homelessness. What we're seeing in certain states is this population doubling.
Robert, Tasha, Carol, Kenny, and Chris were a part of this unsheltered population, tucked away in a no go zone of society's fringe. The crime happened in there, hidden the world, and if the victim's body hadn't been left by the side of the train tracks, maybe nobody would have ever known that this happened. In fact, Robert was the only one who witnessed the fight begin.
What was occurring when you saw them standing there.
Well, what I saw was whoever the other gentleman was possibly gave with us back to defense, Chris shoving them against defense.
There was a shove back. Okay, did you see anything else?
A little you know where they grab each other's elbows, and you know who I thought was? Dave ran that way and Chris came back this way, and Kaus and I went back into the tanks. Okay.
A few minutes later, Chris showed up just outside the tent, asking if we had an ace bandage for.
Him that he could call.
Okay, did he have any any blood or anything on him?
I didn't see any signs of blood. Well, okay, does anybody here in this camp you carry any weapons.
Other than Chris?
No?
Okay, what does Chris have?
Well, Chris has a cachet of weapons in there, swords, knives, an assortment of knives, Chinese throwing stars, Okay, a collection he's rabbit proud of.
Everyone knew about Chris's tent of weapons. It was almost as infamous as he was.
Did you see him Chris using any of those weapons tonight while this incident.
Was going on.
When he ran past my tent, it looked like he had like a MARIAI sord possibly in his hand. Again, I didn't get a really good look. I'm just speculating, but he had something that had some length to it and was silvery in color. Chris had chested yes.
When Dave walked away from my Again I'm not sure it was Dave. I'm just guessing. But whoever it was that walked away back here.
When they walked that way, they had something in their hands too, But from where I stood, it looked like it might have just been a stick.
If you saw a picture Dave, would you be able to say, yes, that's him, Yes, I will.
That's when the officer brought over a picture of the victim and showed it to Robert.
Yeah, that's Dave, Okay, so without the beard.
Robert had said that Chris was screaming when he chased Dave past their tent, something about a woman he was going to marry, and that David raped her. But then Chris had told Carol and Kenny that someone had tried to rape him. It was all just the mumblings of a man who spritally needed psychiatric medication. But Dave Beckett had been slaughtered to death with a four foot long sword. Dave may have been a homeless drunk, but he was still a person who lost his life and the police
had to find out why. In his years of being homeless, Chris had been charged with a few misdemeanors for carrying illegal weapons. Maybe this whole murder was a manic episode, a full break from reality where the hallucinations took the lead. Or maybe David pushed him, provoked something dark that needed to finally come out, because that's the thing. For as crazy as Chris was, his criminal record was pretty minimal, and every time he was arrested for something, he cooperated
and just mumbled incoherently to his imaginary pals. Chris did what Chris did. He rode around on his scooter and his spandex shorts, talking about the ghost in his asshole. He was out of his mind. The women were frightened of him, because well, why wouldn't you be? I mean, I'm frightened of him. Wouldn't you be frightened of him? If you lived in the woods in a nylon tent, next to a screaming man with nothing but a thin layer of cloth to protect you. The potential of danger
was there? But Chris had no track record of physically assaulting or sexually assaulting anyone within the homeless community. He just had zero social awareness, like someone freshly released from an asylum dropped into the world without a map. Dave, on the other hand, had a reputation.
I always caught him, Dave. I did not saw you as last name.
I know him.
He worked out of the labor hall with me since twenty fifteen. I heard he lived in one of these tents bad here.
I have.
I've never seen him back here except for my very first day, three to six months ago. That's when Robert came out and said, you are not welcome here to Dave.
To Dave, okay, why would you not welcome because I'm here, okay, And he has a bad reputation. And since that day, I have never heard he is.
Even we've passed by getting our Chucks cash because we all had to go to the same place to get our Chucks cash.
He won't even look at me. He looks away. They wanted the people that when women.
See him, they make the hair on the back of your next stand up, okay, And that's when you want to back away.
And so that's why I never spoken.
Throughout the Lake Worth homeless social circles. It was known as a sexual predator. Many women had been assaulted by him, and these rumors circled around the streets. According to the court records, Dave had been in trouble with the low since two thousand and three. He's got two felonies under his belt, one for drug possession and another for driving with a revoked license, as well as a bunch of
misdemeanors for trespassing, theft, public intoxication, and indecent exposure. In twenty eleven, he was arrested forget this, possession of a Burmese python without a license and improper caging allowing escape. Now, a Burmese python is one of the most terrifying snakes on the planet. It's also one of the largest, and for some reason, they are infamous in Florida. Now, I don't know why this man had a python or what he was doing with it, but it fits, doesn't it?
In any case, the records are sealed, but you can just imagine a homeless guy with a python. What a sight. Anyways, the python was a rare one, but most of Dave's just had to do with indecent exposure and even masturbating in public. One time he was seen masturbating on the side of I seventy five. That'll wake you up on the way to work. Then Tasha told the police something that made them question who the victim in this whole thing actually was.
It was a rumor, and this is all just a rumor that he almost I have a friend named Robert Crofton, and different Robert. He goes by vou that there was a rumor maybe six months ago that he had beat up Robert Crofton and sent him to the del Ray Menie and her way to beat him, and that was just a rumor.
Tasha said that Dave had raped and beat a male friend of her so badly that he had to be hospitalized. Was Chris actually a victim? A target of ace? Sexually aggressive, drunken deviant. Dave was dead, so his side of the story died with him. Now all that was left was Chris.
When the body of Dave Beckett had been discovered slaughtered on the side of the tri rail tracks in Lakeworth, Florida, HeSE had followed the blood trail to a small encampment of five people, two couples and an infamous, unhinged man everyone knew as Chris Davi had been murdered with a four foot long sword. As police interviewed the residents of the encampment, they discovered that Dave and Chris had been
seen fighting down by the tracks earlier that afternoon. Chris had told the other residents that David tried to rape him, but no one took it seriously because Chris was always saying things of that nature. But Dave had a reputation as a sexual predator and had even recently beat and raped another homeless man, sending him to the hospital for treatment. Now it was time to hear what Chris had to say. After paramedics took care of his hand, he was ready to start talking.
So basically, I'm called it.
I'm expected with the sheriff talkers because you've been detained for quite a while.
We were handcooked.
I'm going to read your Marinda Wanting all right, have you ever been reading Marinda Wannings? She liked the legal leens by Noda. You know me mind, if I just do my job and the detective Oliver you can call me Sean, call me Dick. Where're going out there?
And the rug to make you have a right to landslide it. Yeah, but I'm going to be actually verbad him into a policy because it's in Mini versus Arizona.
Yeah.
The nineteen Serienz Chris stated the exact law that created the Miranda warning Miranda versus Arizona. In nineteen ninety six, the Supreme Court ruled in Miranda via Arizona that police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them. Ernesto Miranda confessed to a crime without knowing he could stay silent or ask for a lawyer, so the court said that violated his constitutional right. This decision created the Miranda warning.
The rights you've heard read over and over and over for the last ten years on this podcast and for the last sixty in the real world.
How did you give it? The point where he was entry with the sword twenty twenty, Focus at your sword.
It's out of your.
Tentpole one day, Wison expirdess. Even when you did it to me, I did it too, almost along ago. But he didn't want to do with this, I say, and I'll get it to your ed.
You gave me, George, somebody that majority told me that you were great.
Now I tried them out, but I'll try to make some time. I try to like a symbolic gesture, and yeah, that a man that own.
Chris admitted that he was skeptical of Dave, but he had been hanging around and he'd given Dave the sword as some sort of symbolic gesture, like here's my weapon from my collection, protect yourself on the street, that sort of thing. But then Chris told detectives that he was scared of Dave because Dave did weird things that made him crazy. Chris felt like he needed to stay away.
Say you told me earlier and I had to never premeditate slaying man do to reverse psychology guy.
When I was injured, I couldn't help.
Him anymore when he had injured his sales, because I know behind decided.
I turned my back on when he saw when he and the injuries occurred.
To me, I would know long in a fan Namatau.
But it obviously wasn't the end of his statement. Chris kept trying to explain that Dave was a sexual predator. He had raped and hurt other women on the streets, and Chris was fed up with it. Then he heard some woman that Chris had declared he wanted to marry. This is what Robert heard when Dave and Chris came running by his tent earlier that day. But Chris's story was bouncing back and forth as he tried to explain himself.
His main point was that Dave was secretly gay. Chris knew that Dave had raped other men in his tent. Then he started coming on to Chris, and that changed the course of their relationship.
I was essentially her asked how he the comments about my jimetaria where it was pretty for man. I knew that he was one sexil. He's had many unstian I am not. He has a prohivision. In the state of Florida, it is not legal and numerous man has did.
Haven't realized you're claiming something in the stats time, I am. I feel the right now.
Explain I didn't.
Why didn't you haven't been able to explay not on So they explained it because I do not have to explain myself.
Do if in your self defense?
Remember what Tasha told police Gene, a man who had also been raped, beaten, and hospitalized by Dave. Without this rumor from Tasha, Chris's self defense could have been viewed as pure fiction, the ramblings of a crazy person, something the voices in his head told him to say. But maybe there was some truth to all this. Maybe this time Dave had tried to rape him.
You said you can yourselfing, would you asked you a questions? If you're to answer, you put yourself on the shore?
Why don't you ask him how many people he's raped him? And how many people he's murdered? Okay, well what does that look me look like? What does that make, especially rape and murder myself? Doesn't I use somebody else?
How many?
Just because they did that to someone else?
Is?
Why didn't you bring him to justice? I always known the person of jurisdiction. I don't were you born in Florida?
I don't know who care?
I mean, that's a good that's.
A good start with Dave slipped through the cracks.
It happened.
How many other people are twenty five years of cracks? Yes, hey, he's looking at his system is not perfect, and I agree with that system is not perfect. But you're blaming self defense in all the askers. I don't want to claim anything. I mean, I'm going to be incriminated either way by you to particularize other's here as very different. Yes, okay, I didn't realize he's dead. I didn't realize anything about it.
Man.
I just feel a little defend myself and other people you equally, as my sales out of your life would have been threat this little moment.
Chris had slipped through the cracks when it came to his mental health, he should have been institutionalized or at least seeing a psychiatrist, given a couple of pills or something. But Dave slipped through the cracks when it came to his sexual crimes, and Chris was angry. Maybe he wasn't just a crazy man yelling at the moon for no reason. Maybe he knew something about the man he killed that justified his actions.
Have given you a chance to.
Put the sword on the other foot. That's my advice to do.
Well.
I can't. I didn't.
I don't live your life.
I didn't.
I didn't know that is I didn't live that.
Okay, you do.
What is your question that will help you disposed clarify?
He did not consider it I murdering.
Need for this a true I was not premedicated or soul impulsive would have been like an actor. You know what a credible credible threat is. It only requires a criminal content for it. Yes, an aggravated assault or a felony. Right, and once he saw you running after swords, he didn't have this or you don't know what they know.
We've got statements from them.
They saw you running after him with Okay, well there is the aggressor why were you after.
Him the sword?
After this? Where did that?
I took it back?
Where did that happen?
And then he took it back? Actually when I took it back and then I gave.
It to him.
But the detective needed to decipher the facts based on the physical evidence. The evidence was a dead man slaughtered by sword and an assailant with a giant defensive wound on his hand.
You said he fell on his sword. He had the sword.
I gave it to him, okay, when I said, look, he's not going to ease it on me and you or here, and I'll turn my back on him and West. I don't know if he ran after me or what. I don't know what happened. See, That's what I'm talking about.
Hope.
You know your journal and when someone when your.
Life is threatened.
You're going to react, but you don't remember exactly late how you do what you do, but you're alive, makes you're fighting for your life.
How annoying is this guy? I mean, why why?
Why?
Why is he out on the street? Oh yeah, Karen, and are virtue signaling out of sight, out of mind?
Ain't that right?
Karen?
I'm not gonna be murdered in my sleep by then?
How are you?
How are you fighting for your life?
But where I just told you a lot?
Right?
Okay, I'm consistently when i'm when I get stressed out, I began to wait internally because all an injury happened twenty two or three years ago. I was swept all light mean and told and you're clausing it to hemorrhoids and it's internally building.
Now, that's not good.
This guy thinks his hemorrhoids were caused by lightning. Lightning.
I'm not saying that you're you're you're in a miscondo.
You're talking.
You don't understand, you're in your handhead by baba intent. That is criminal And it wasn't ill will against me because what it have to do, I wasn't what could be exactly do your appear anything and everything he could to suade me from other than a heterosexual being a homosexual.
Body or ing whage the things.
He didn't walk out, and he's exposes in Italian you're anate right in front of me. I want to ask please, as many times I ask him, he never respected. West said that please do not wear we wall. I expose you're urinate.
He does. If I'll never respect anything in.
The woods, right, you go deeper in the woods.
I don't know.
I don't obsess myself with any kind of sensaire de man, especially when it this is Thomas sense at.
How passive is this cop? Yeah, I know I'm bitching a lot, but my God slapped the cuffs on him already. I mean, I'm all for due process and it's off defense. But perhaps maybe mister Garrison here is better suited for a career track in botany rather than law enforcement. I mean, Jesus, man, grow some assertiveness. This unassertive detective was not going to get a straight answer about anything, not mumbling the way
he was anyway. Chris said that Dave had tried to rape him and was making sexual remarks, but the truth about how the sword was passed between these two men was unclear, and without a witness we saw every inch of that murder, there was no real way to figure out what exactly happened. Then Chris said this about Dave, which mirrored exactly what Tasha had told the detectives. She and other women felt, I know, and okay.
You ever feel when you when you can turn her back on someone because they feel like they're looking over your should or a girl they.
Want that sport, you can feel her that stuff.
That's what's going on.
My role by one of the people of that when women see him, they may they are on the back of your neck, stand.
Out there, okay, And that's when you want to back away. And so that's why I never spoke.
When he swung the swords, and I don't know what happen because the sword's air in.
My hand.
How do you get the sword? You already said that you took it back from him. You said he swung at you.
So when someone's trying to kill you, you're adrenaline doesn't allow you to decipher every critical fact.
But they never got confused.
You never ate the sword, give my sword, you said you didn't you said, you tried to give it to him, and then you took it back, and then from that point on you've never said that you gave me back the sword.
I'm not trying to complicate this, it's simple.
Would just be truthful, That's all I asked. Be truthful, don't try it doesn't be competent. You got accept responsibility for your actions. You understand that you're a grown man. Now I'll defend him, I said, okay, how you have a sword? How are you defending yourself? It's your sword and running after him? We're running after him a sortance.
I gave it back to him.
Chris couldn't remember who had the sword first, or how it all unfolded. Maybe adrenaline and mental illness blurred all the details. His life had always been driven by fight or flight instincts. How could you really, I believe recount events when he lived each day assuming the world was against him. But what he did explain was that ever since Dave had started coming around the camp, he had been making sexual advances towards Chris, and then it finally
hit a breaking point. The officer wanted to know why Chris didn't just pack up and leave his answer was simple. I was here first. He said, yes, Chris adlone Dave the sword. That much was true. But when they got in that scuffle down on the tracks, Dave swung at him with the blade and Chris lost it.
I don't know whether it was the blade, his face or both. Look, once I was threatened, once he swung.
At me, that was it. I knew they intended.
It's oord. Where were you when he spent it?
Further, I mean bet winging the tents, your name of my key?
How did you get that to her attorney? Would you?
But why why would Chris give someone who he deemed a sexual menace a sword? Was he ever really playing with a full deck?
Little David?
You have not told me to deal with you. You saving what justifications you've had to use a sword on?
Say?
You said don't anger? You will say that again? You were not there, so and I did not tell you that's what happened.
So you all, I know he's dead. You know it's your sword, and you're injured.
To clink the sword put you and you have David blood on, you have dag blood probably an atten.
I don't ask to ask you a questions. I mean you're asking all these questions. I'm asking you one question you have. Are you a homosexual?
Doesn't matter? Okay, that's what I hear.
If you are, you know what, it doesn't matter to me these questions you ask me anymore, and I don't mean it in disrespect.
Fine.
If you wasn't answer yet, have nothing to say and I will not answer.
I want my attorney, then paramouch and you're a detective Oliver, Yes, okay, I'm.
Sending your pat you don't want you want to?
Well, I can also have you take any custody.
I told the United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of Defense. Wonder why this went on for twenty five years. Why they didn't serve I death wanted their self and execute him. I do not know, but I do not have to disclose and hit more information to you. Hold on, so you should respect that it because as a man, I respect you and your profession.
Goodbye.
This guy's got a real problem with gays anyway. Why does he talk like Eugene Porter from the Walking Debt?
Take do you know what goodbye means?
You still didn't answer, by I don't want to the Jurisdiction anymore, remove yourself from poll eas County fourth week.
You think I'm a kidding.
Were dismissed? Relieve have you said it a dozen times?
Don't speak to.
Me anymore.
If you feel like.
Talking again to rouse may aggravate me and cause internal bleeding again.
Lead inside.
I'm bleeding in the neck, end of chest now thanks to you the portrait cook.
Do you understand plain English? If you understand, yes, No.
People come to sleep.
It happen to maly more job, we'll.
Be putting a little bit more allowed it. I don't want to hurt you. Can you go in and you already did, can be moving any further? People, I don't want to hurt you, right, I'm serious.
I don't want to hurt you.
Be and leave and let her do her job.
That's when Chris turned away and let the female officer put him in the squad car. He was done talking. He was done trying to explain what had happened. The stress had caused him quote unquote internal bleeding from his previous injuries. How exhausting are these nuts? I mean, I know how our audience just loves to be perceived as compassionate, But at what point are you willing to admit what
a drain on society these people are. They provide nothing, not a single benefit whatsoever to society, yet they demand everything from it. It's just so insanely tiring. Crazy people can just they can just drive you crazy. You know, it's contagious. There isn't a lot of great data on homelessness and crime, but according to Devon from the Cistero Institute, AI is slowly helping us get there. If it were me, a simple avatar would do.
All the work.
Slap chop it, I say, but that's why I'm never getting elected anyway. Here's Devon arguing that statistics don't always match the cultural narrative.
But in terms of heart data, the best we have is a report from San Diego District Attorney's office that did an analysis They re leased it two years ago on almost diess and crime, and they found that un sheltered homeless people to those people who were living on the street, were hundreds of times as likely to commit crimes.
Like arson, robbery, etc.
And they were dozens of is likely to be victims of similar crimes including homicide, sexual assault, robbery, etc. So what we're seeing is the case that you described. If two homeless people getting into a anti social spiral ultimately an interaction that led to one of them killing the other, that is the majority of the violence that we're seeing in homeless encampments. There's this rhetoric by activists that's, oh, people are coming into these humblest encampments and they're robbing
them and taking advantage of them. Well, those people tend to be other homeless people.
The narrative around homelessness has long been rooted in the idea that housing is a human right. What a dumb idea. Obviously, some karen came up with that. Who's never had to compete for limited resources? Somebody actually has to pay for it. Oh so I get to work twice as hard to subsidize someone else's generator based business arrangement. Okay, sure, but that better mean we put all these people in a locked facility and never let them out. I mean, would
housing alone have helped someone like Dave or Chris? Giving Dave a bed wouldn't have stopped him from sexually assaulting people. Maybe a temporary shelter might have limited Chris's stockpile of weapons and kept it from growing into the unregulated arsenal it became, but both were deeply disturbed individuals, misfits with serious mental health issues. They needed more than a roof
over their heads. Sure, others at the camp would have gladly taken housing, but are they representative of the unsheltered population at large. I mean, we don't really know. The data just isn't there. It's hard to track a population and constant motion, both by nature and by necessity or illness. Then there's the darker question no one actually wants to ask, do we even care that Dave was murdered? I'll be honest.
I don't think I even need to be honest. You might actually be able to guess what I'm gonna say. The question is, will you be honest, Karen? How much do you actually care past the virtue signaling tweet or the dollar you handed to that stinky man outside the Starbucks so he'd leave you alone. Until the Karens of the world with the ability to vote start being honest with themselves, actual tangible solutions that don't involve rotating blades
will continue to remain out of reach. Dave Beckett was anknown sexual predator with the public New was only the tip of a likely much uglier Iceberg. Did Chris, in his own twisted way, do society a favor. Don't you dare roll your eyes, Karen, because ultimately, whose job is it to manage adults who are incapable of managing themselves? Christ and Dave weren't just homeless. They were rejected by their families, shunned by their peers, even outcasts within the
homeless community itself. The sad truth is that most people living on the streets aren't victims of circumstance. It's a great story to tell, and it keeps getting perpetuated by media, But those people put themselves there through their own actions. That may not be true all over the world, but here in America, the land of opportunity, you have no excuse for ending up homeless unless you want to, not
permanently anyway. That's just an uncomfortable fact that Karens who want to feel good about being lazy and shitty to everyone around them refuse to accept. Why demand accountability when you can just virtue signal feel good about yourself. The humans in this camp and many others like it, were pushed so far to the margins. The only people left to deal with them were each other, and this time
it ended in murder. So the question lnkers, if society had stepped in sooner, not just with housing, but with real accountability instead of virtue signaling, would Dave still be alive? I think you probably already know the answer to that. Well, I'm going to get a lot of hate mail this week. It's a good thing. I don't read any of it. As a matter of fact. Why do I even have an email address? Haven't gotten anything other than Nigerian scammers
and carts for the last ten years. Way that's gonna do it for another one of these silly murder shows you guys seem to love for some reason. I hope you enjoyed that one. We'll be back before you know it, probably over the weekend with another one. They just keep happening, folks. People are shit. Speaking of which, head on over to our store to support us if you want to. We've got some people are shit merch which we can't advertise on YouTube because that's a dirty word, and all kinds
of other stuff. Go check out store dot swordscale dot com if you haven't signed up for plus. That's where you get all the goodies, extra episodes, commercial free, lots of good stuff in there, so go check that out at Swordinscale dot com and download our iOS or Android app. We've made lots and lots of improvements. It's way better, much more stable, got a lot more features in there, so check it out if you haven't in a while. And I think that's gonna do it. That's my sales pitch.
Thanks again for joining us, Thanks for being a plus member. If you are, we love you guys. Well, I don't love anyone other than myself because I'm a narcissist.
But you know what I mean.
I appreciate you so just our staff. Oh I almost forgot. This episode was written by Miss Barbara Way, one of our producers here that's been with us for a long time. She's great. That's gonna do it. Thanks again. Until next time, stay safe and stay out of the homeless camps.
B