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Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome to That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. I'm Kara Klank and.
I'm Liza Traeger. We chat SVU True Crime. We have celeb guests and at first we do a little chit chatting, a little chit chat. What's up, Carol?
Not much recovering from my B day. I had a great time and thanks for everybody who wished me well on the Instagram and everything. That was really nice and made me feel good. And then I went to dinner with my husband and we went to this I went to this place. Like you know how everybody's like talking now about like quiet quitting, like doing the bare minimum. Like the hostess at the restaurant last night was like quiet resigning, Like she was like handing in her resume.
She could not have given less of a shit. Like when she was like the name and I was like, oh, it's under care, it's undercare, clank or whatever, she was like, okay, right, this way, and happy birthday to whoever, because there was like a note that it was someone's birthday in the thing. She just goes happy birthday to whoever, and.
Like kept walking. I was like, girl, well it's so funny. One of my friends she was saying, she's like this quiet quitting. It's like fuck you to capitalism and the establishment. But what people don't realize is like you're affecting regular people just like you, Yeah, like you being shit, I mean not a host like who cares, but in terms of like not doing certain work, like it affects regular people, Like you're fucking up people's lives. Well yeah, and if you don't want to do your job. Yeah.
And I was also like watching this video on like NPR's Instagram from this woman that's like yeah, and like also a lot of people of color like don't have the option, like women and people of color who get paid less and don't like have the same opportunities for advancement, like they actually have to do one hundred and twenty percent of work or they are not eligible for like you know, promotions and moving forward. So it's a little bit quiet quitting sometimes I think a little bit of a but.
It's also a fake I think it's a fake word created by like the newspapers or something, because it also seems like a normal thing where it's like you shouldn't be having to work above and beyond what you're supposed to, like you should clock out at five and live your life. And so it's not about quiet quitting. It's about like shifting boundaries. But also like if you don't fill out a form like our friends, like a bunch of stuff
with our friends. Loans were like at the hands of someone who like refused to look at the screen or look at the right email, and you have to and it's like you are fucking up regular people. Yeah, you can't do it. Yeah, Plus you work at a bullshit job. If you're selling Coca cola, no one cares. If you're in charge of people's loans getting forgiven, you better snap to it. Yeah, you better work.
But I also like read I also read this study this morning that was in my week. I get like a daily newsletter from this place Axios that I read every morning, and they had like a whole study about it that said, like like quiet quitting, whatever you want to call it, just doing your job to what is expected of you and not going beyond is kind of universally approved by like young people right now. And it's across ages. It's I mean, it's I'm sorry, it's across race,
it's across a political affiliation. It's like in the high seventies to the eighties, it's like like everyone's saying it percent between seventies and eighty percent of people are saying like, yeah, I just want to do like what is expected of me and no more.
And so that's kind of yeah, because we've been tricked to be like little hamsters in a wheel and it's just like it's all tricks, and I think people should not be like doing or I hate I hate when people are proud of like I never missed a day of work. I'm like, you shouldn't tell people that, Yeah, you're a loser.
You never heard the day of work, so that you came to work with a cold, you got other people sick, like, there's no way you.
I didn't even go there. I just went like go to the beach. No.
I know that too.
I don't care as much about the sickness. But that was wild thinking about like the nineties and people be like we gotta go or even me, Remember I did your show, Remember when you were running the show at bar Lubitch and I had as to other spots and I was like sitting in a pot.
You were like I was hanging in the corner and you were like, gotta do my spot. And I was like, Liza, We're okay, you can just go home. And you were like, yeah, but I'm up at the store after this or something.
But they also were like, yeah, you don't. Can you not do that again? And I was like, for sure, I've just been trained in this other thing and visiting, you know, like everything matters. I don't know. Yeah, Like but I fully had the flu and then I was bedridden for like a week in my airbnb there. This was years ago.
But well, my thing was that I would never call in sick to go to I would just go into work sick so that I could use sick days for fake days, like I would be like, I'm so sick today, I can't make it in on the days that I wanted to just like go horrible or around.
You go in sick, but then you go I'm not feeling good.
Yeah, you go to show your face and then you're like.
But I've said this before. I think on the pod the best way to get out of work is pink I. No one wants to be around pink I. No one. Everyone's discussing it by.
It so contagious, But you have to like what do you do? Do you rub your eye a bunch and then like wants evidence, no one cares you. Go, hey, I have pink eye.
I could come in with an eye patch and then they just stay high clicking with an eye patch. What I don't want you? What don't want you? But yeah, I saw a chart today. I don't know if it was a real chart. It was on Twitter, but it was a guy saying like that if your goals in life are like money, fame, youth, whatever, like it's a bottomless pit of agony and you'll never be satisfied. And so there needs to be more things in your life that you're looking for, not just like salary and job position.
And I always say this and the chart said it, but it's like time. People don't get free. Time is like the most valuable thing on this fucking planet. And I think the people that are so like money, money, money, I hate my family. I have to make money like they don't understand being like chiller about it, but like free time is the greatest thing. I think that you can have time to know.
I barely have any That was nice about my birthday yesterday, Like I had a few free hours in the afternoon and I just went and had wine with Lisa and it was like really nice. I never get to do anything like that, Like I never have free time, so it was nice.
Yeah, I just feel the boomers think they're the greatest generation because they killed the Nazis, and I'm not devaluing that, thank you so much. I think the Russians had a lot to do with it too, but they are truly the worst. Like they created every bad thing in our society,
like fake foods, microwave working all the time. Yeah, the mutes, all of that stuff, like the boot like you gotta buy a house and do this and do that and do this, and you have to do it this, so it's like all the boom and then ruining it for everyone else being like, well I did it, so you gotta do it, so I'm gonna make it harder for you. I mean, they are the worst.
I didn't know the Boomers killed the Nazis. My parents are boomers and they were born like the year that the Nazis went down.
Oh is the not or did the Nazi killers give birth to the boomers? I think that's what it is. Yeah, that's what it is.
But what are they? What were they?
What's the greatest generation? The greatest generation? That's what it is.
The fucking, the fucking self centeredness of that name. Like, wow, you're just the greatest generation. That's it.
That's because of the not. Yeah, they killed the Nazis and then when they came home, no therapy. I mean, oh, this will obviously quickly go into the patriarchy all of that there. But yeah, it's it's weird. But it's also weird to talk about any of this because, like you said, a lot of people don't even have the opportunity to not you know, to like think about self care, you know what I mean? Right, like se people are just
working so many jobs. But I don't know. I do want to say this morning, I was woken up very very early by the beautiful Highland Park parents oh tweets. They were so loud and I was getting upset, and then I was like just go look at them and When I stepped outside and looked at them, I was instantly smiling.
Oh, that's nice.
They're so pretty. It seems special. It seems like such a special treat to see, like green and red birds. I don't know, they're just really pretty. But they're so loud.
Yeah, and there's a lot of them. It's wild. Yeah, they're in Pasadena too. There's like the Pasadena parrots. I don't know if they're no one crew.
No, it's it is the Pasadena parrots. But I call them the Highland.
Park I think there's Highland Park parrots too.
I mean we have our I see them. I see them here. Yeah, if they're here, But I don't know what to tell you. Do you ever hear that that was because of a fire at a pet store? We talked about this before, Yeah, I talk about it all the time.
Is that what happened?
Yeah, they escaped the pet store fire, got it. I mean there's theories that it could also be like a smuggling situation gone wrong, a lah wildlife oh episode, and all these birds escaped. But I like the idea of escaping the pet shops surviving and they were endangered, like they were only a captivity type bird and then they've just like taken over another while our neighborhoods and wildlife, just like the little bird found in that girl's purse
in wildlife. Yeah, the macaw, the spicks macaw. Yeah, we did. We did recently have our live show in LA. We're in the time machine, you know, at this point it'll be long gone. But we had a good time at our live show. Thank you to everybody that came out in LA and San Diego. Good times.
If you guys are interested, we're touring all over the place. Washington, d C. On the sixteenth of October, Charlotte on the seventeenth, Raleigh on the eighteenth, Atlanta on the nineteenth, and then Huntsville, Alabama on the twenty second, and Nashville on the twenty third. So come on out and see us. That's messed uplive dot com are our ticketinos.
And I said I was going to take a break from getting tattooed, but I do kind of want to get tattooed in Nashville.
Oh, that's a fun idea. There's a couple artists that I like, And you said you wanted a Halloween tattoo.
And they would be they would make me very good Halloween tattoos. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I also want to really cursive sexy L.
But oh my god, that I was so obsessed with the cursive L growing up, Like when I was a kid, I used to just draw them constantly and I just was like, I love the L. I love the capital L, like cursive, and I'm would draw it all the time and be like, I'm gonna marry someone with the last name that begins with L. And I did, and then I didn't take his last name, so I don't get to write that beautiful L out No.
Ella's definitely the Curse of La is gorgeous. Yeah, ol is like it's just starts so many great words. Yeah yeah, because I think getting like love or lucky tattooed is like kind of gay in the bad way I'm saying it. But an L can mean it all, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's how I feel. And Lisa, like you can't get Lisa, but you can get it now. Yeah, lollipops, lions, It's just like all great.
Things, listeria. Yeah, like just everything good.
Because I know I was thinking of another thing and the only thing that came to my Oh, lemonade.
Delicious, lysol clean.
My mom would love that.
Okay, do you want to get going. We've got a great episode for you guys today, So don't go anywhere, all right. We are doing one of the best episodes, I think, a real barn burner, like they really wanted you to forget the maloney had gone away and they give you an episode like this. This is season thirteen. This is Double Strands, Season thirteen, episode four, uh from way back in twenty eleven, and we open on Ballerina
stretching very center stage vibes. A girl goes up to a blonde girl and is like, congratsung it the solo or like whatever it is. And the blonde girl is her name is Gillian Alexi, and I knew I recognized her when I looked her up. She's been in Damages. But do you remember she was in The Americans and she was one of Matthew Reese's undercovers, but then she kind of fell in love with like the Middle Eastern guy that she was undercover, like seducing, and then he
kills her. Do you remember when Matthew Reese has to go help like break her body and put it into a suitcase. On the Americans, this blonde woman because she got too she like she decided to like go. She was obsessed with the guy. She was like surveiling and then he killed her like in a he like choked her to death while he was in the room next door. Anyway, crazy episode of the Americans. And this girl is is
that is her from that? So I remembered her from that and she is very excited to show off her moves and she can't wait to show everybody what she can do. And the girl's like, honey, you're on Broadway now, bitch is better bow down. And so we find out that these are like Broadway dancers. And so we see through the window while they're stretching at the bar someone it's like a huge you know, front storefront window that they're at somehow at their ballet studio, and there's a
man across the street taking photos of her. Uh oh, not good. The next thing we see is this woman in her ballet outfit still and like a hoodie, walking alone at night on an extremely dark, empty street. I'm not trying to victim blame, but not a great idea. And someone gives her a whole like, oh, you look prettier when you smile. Bullshit, and she's kind of like ignoring him. But then he says Danielle, He says her name, and she like turns around like, holy shit, how does
this creep know my name? Just as she turns around, this fucking guy ambushes her, pushes her against a fence, and we see he's got a knife in his hand. In the next scene, we see a pretty graphic sexual assault happening in a wooded area. There's a bike nearby, and the guy keeps telling her like, look at my face, look at my face, so now, which is terrible because it's horrible.
Well, not only all of that, but if they're trying to get away with a crime, you don't want the victim to look at your face.
I know, it's very Again, we're not trying to tell people how to get away with crimes, but these guys are dumb. In the next scene, she is reporting her experience to Benson. They're sitting on a park bench and Danielle is like, I should have just smiled, and Benson's like, na, girl, you did everything right. You survived, which is the Benson mantra, I know.
But every time I hear Benson say that, now, I just remember you talking about that cat, like Mittens, you did everything you can survive.
You did everything you could Mittens. So yeah, So she basically is giving the mitten speech to Danielle and she's like, I've never seen this guy before, but he knew all about me. He was wearing late text gloves. Benson's like, did you notice any tattoos or anything? And she's like, he had kind of like a tai chi thing on
his neck. And this peaks Rollin's interest. And remember Rollins is like four episodes into the show's new She's the new gal okay, and she butts In, which you know, live does not like and you can see it all over her face and she's like, wait, what kind of tattoo was it? And she was like, you know, black and white and she was like, oh, the yin yang and she was like, yeah, that's what it was. Did he say anything and she's like, yeah, he said tell me you love me, mommy, And this is really getting
Rollins going. She's like obsessed and she's like, okay, how did he get away? And the girl goes on a bike and then Benson is like, can you excuse us for a second, pulls Rollins aside and lectures her about how in New York, I don't know how you do it down South, girly, but up here only one of us does the intake so we don't overwhelm the victim. And Rollins is like, I know this is insane, but
I know this guy. I know this purp. We had a guy with the same momo down in Georgia, a serial rapist who stalks his victims, has the same tattoo, would say tell me you love me, Mommy lives Like that's kind of a stretch, and Rollins is like, maybe it is, or maybe this guy's in New York City. Dunt dune credits. Indeed, yeah a lot. So now we're at the precinct and Amanda's giving everyone the lowdown. They called this guy the Atlantic Coast rapist down in Georgia.
He was a white male in his thirties with a yin yang tattoo who attacked women in Georgia, Maryland, in Virginia. He's a classic power reassurance serial rapist and there were fifteen rapes over nine years. But then nothing in the last three years, so they thought he was either locked up or dead. All his victims were young, fit, athletic women. There was always a bike planted in the woods. His
first four rapes. He didn't wear a condom, so they do have his DNA, and he also left a partial print on like a screwdriver in one of his attacks. And the kicker, this guy loves blondes. It's like not even like a preference, it's an obsession. And so Benson enters telling them how Danielle did the perfect thing. She pulled out a bunch of this guy's hair with the roots attached and she kept it so okay. So the sketch, he's like, hope you don't mind, Captain, I brought in Fujiita.
So we find out that Fujiita is this freelance artist who does straight up, like moody charcoal portraits of these perps, Like it's not the like weird guy with badis that looks like every single thing like this guy does, Like there's light on their faces. It's like full portraits. So you're gonna get an ID from this guy, even though Munch is like, oh, he's so expensive, as if he's
paying for it. And so when Benson tacks it to the board, you immediately see that on this drawing, like, oh, that's tr Knight from Grey's Anatomy, Like you can you can, like we haven't seen the actor yet, but you can tell it's this guy. And I think like tr Knight kind of controversially left Gray's Anatomy because he thought it was like after he came out as gay, and he thought Shonda Rhymes was like cutting his screen screen time.
I'm not really a Grays person, but I did discover looking up tr Night's biography that his husband is a ballet dancer, so a tie in anyway. Munch and Finner on the show Street, we see this guy's face is
all over New York. It's like up on screens, it's on newspapers, and Munch is like, for some reason going on this big brother rant about the violation of civil liberties, like they're going to take our DNA at birth and like put it in a library and YadA YadA, and like Iced Tea is like, yeah, like only criminals would care about that, and Munch is like, or people who care about civil liberty. He's like, you know, gets into his conspiracy theory. Shit, and then Munch is like, also
putting this guy's face out there. Now, we're going to have to manage all these crackpot calls that we get. So we cut to the precinct. The phones are ringing off the hook. Munch is on the phone with some looney tune who like is telling her him that it's a black man, and she's like, it's a white man, and Munch is like, it's a white man and hangs up. And then uh, He's like, can someone take over for me?
I'm gonna go chew glass. I really miss him? And they see, uh, they see a blonde woman has just arrived at us for you, and she's looking kind of nervous. So in a way, in a crackpot a bad word. I don't think crackpot is a bad word. I think it's crackhead. That's about.
Well, we can call people crackpots.
Man, we I think he said crackpot, because that's not I'm just wondering if we need to make crackpot merch like I love it. It says a crackpot is an eccentric or foolish person. So it's not even about it's not about somebody who has like a like a mental issue, health issue.
Right, crackpot, that's her new word, crackpot.
The word is fairly derogatory, but I don't think it's well that's what it says. Is it offensive. I don't think it's about someone having mental health issues. So anyway, So Benson and Rollins are interviewing this young blonde woman and her name is Lana. She says she was attacked two months earlier in Morningside Park but she never reported uh, and then she saw his face on the news that
morning and recognize the neck tattoo. So now, as the interview continues, we hear Benson and Laana talking, but what we're seeing is tr Night, the actor, teaching his six year old son how to throw a baseball. He looks very clean, He's in like a suit and he's like, here's how you hold the grip, buddy. And we see a woman behind with a friend and they're taping him on her cell phone and Lana is confirming that he said the same thing that tell me you love me
mommy line. They show her a photo that the mom sends in from the park as a tip, and she's like, that's him. So boom, boom, boom. We've got some id's already. Now we're talking to park Mom who was taking the video and her friend. And the one of these women is named Darlene Violet, and I used to do She used to run these casting sessions in New York that were like pay to play. Did you ever hear about these, Lisa, Like before I had before I had a manager and
agent and I was just doing comedy. Like a friend told me about these. It was like, yeah, you like, go and you can. You can audition for these casting directors but they get paid, and it's like it's I don't think it's like necessarily a legit practice and I don't know how much ever comes out of it. But I would go and like, do these like auditions, and I would like audition for I was like, I just
want to do comedy stuff. But then I would get and they'd be like, here is a scene from a movie about a CIA agent and you're hanging out of a helicopter and I'm like, yeah, this is not what I wanted to be doing, but okay, So anyway, I know this woman Darlene Violet, and they are like yep. He started bringing his boy to the park this summer and our kids play together. He lives across the street
from Darlene, so now we've got his exact address. And now they are at the home of Gabriel and Janie Thomas, and Gabriel is walking home with his son, and when the cops reveal themselves, Gabriel is pumped as shit. He's like shaking their hands. He's being extremely cordial for a potential rapist. They show him the front page of the paper and he's like, oh, that's got to be a mistake. And then his wife comes out and is like, honey,
what's going on. And they're like, well, we just want to know where your husband was two nights ago, and she says, oh, home with us, home with his family, and he goes, yeah, except for I went out for a bike ride at nine o'clock and I ride by myself and I don't take my phone. I just take like a little bit of cash, and like that's it. So again, very suspiciously forthcoming for a rapist. And he says he doesn't need a lawyer and offers to go
to the station to answer questions. No problem at the precinct. Tomorrow's like, I don't know, Rolins, your boy seems like he's playing it pretty cool for like you know, someone who's guilty, Like he doesn't even need a lawyer. He said he didn't want a lawyer, and Rollins is like, oh, really, he's already got one. And it's Sherry West. And we know Sherry West as a very forgettable blonde Ada. In season twelve, she was in four episodes as the Ada, and now she is back in season thirteen as a
defense attorney. So now Gabriel is about to do a lineup and Rollins is throwing shade at Sherry West, like, if you get this guy off, you're worth the money they're thrown at you. And this is the first time we've kind of really seen a lineup from inside of
the lineup room. I feel like maybe we have like I've never seen before where we're in there and like Finn is there going all right, step forward now, step back now, step forward, step back, and then you hear five knocks and then ice t tells them to go pick up their ten bucks down the hall, except number five you stay, and that's obviously Gabe. So I just hadn't seen it. Like, so inside of the lineup you know, and Gabriel is like still so confused. He's like, what's
going on? And Finn's like, you should have stayed down South, dude, your game was not ready for the big city. Two of your rape victims just idd you, and the guy Gabriel is incredulous, like he cannot believe it. And that's the end of Act one, and now the top of Act two, Daddy Craigan and the gang are talking to
Sherry and she's like, you've got the wrong guy. And Tomorrow is like, all right, let me go in and talk to Gabriel and get his side of the story, and Rollins is like, I would love to take the confession. Like Rollins is hyped on getting into a room with this guy, and Sherry's like, if you go in there with your minds made up, which is basically what they do ninety nine percent of the time on this show and in real life, she goes, I will advise him
to shut up. And so Craigan asked Sherry, like, give us a minute, and we see more of Rolins, like thirsty as hell to nail this guy, and she's like and they're like, look, calm down, we're waiting on the DNA and the fingerprint, and she's just like, put me in coach, like, let me take a run at. And while we're waiting, Craigie gives her a little taste of Manhattan's view and tells Benson tomorrow to take the lead
rollins you watch with me. So she gets benched and she's not happy, but she's like, whatever you say, Captain. So in interrogation, Gabriel is like, I'm squeaky clean, you guys. I've got like nothing, I've only got parking tickets or whatever. And they're like, what about this domestic in ninety four and he's like, that was an argument with a college girlfriend her a neighbor called the cops. It was fifteen years ago. It's not a big deal. And you do
see him get a little bit angry. He's like, I'd like to look up what your guys backgrounds, you know, And we find out that he is a pharmaceutical rep. He just got a promotion and he moved to New York City in June, and he moved there from Geneva, Switzerland, which is where he's lived for the past three years,
because that's where his company's headquartered. Before that, he was a sales rep in Georgia, South Carolina, and Maryland, and he's like, they're like, we're going to need your employment records because, as we know and they know, he's just put himself at the place of every single rape that's happened. And he's like, yeah, take my employment records, anything you need. He's still being extremely helpful coming out of the room. Benson's like he had the opportunity to exclude himself, but
he didn't. And Amarro's like, I thought he was supposed to be obsessed with blondes. He hasn't even noticed. Rawlin's it's like, okay, is that shade And she's like no, no, no, he likes submissives, like I'm too strong for him or whatever. And Craigan's like, let's just go check out the work records.
Guys like go go, let's dot our eyes and so so now the gang is all gathered around in the workroom and Novak's there too, and they're figuring out that Gabriel's whereabouts line up exactly with every attack, like every place that he was is a place where there was a rape. And then there were no rapes in Switzerland that they know of, Craigan's asking Interpol. Kraigan loves to ask Interpol. Interpol's probably not getting back to them about this.
And then he came back to New York City and there's been two rapes in three months, and they found in his bike bag a screwdriver and a knife, which fits the m O and Amarro's like, yeah, that's also what, like every bicyclist has in their bike bag. I didn't really know what bicyclists had a knife in their bag, but I guess you know, it is New York. Anyone else think it's weird? He just offered that all up, Like Tomorrow's like, why would he just tell us all that?
And Novak's like, is he always like this because he's new too, right, Amorrow's like a new guy also, and then Live gets an alert on her tiny twenty eleven iPhone and boom, the DNA is a match to the first four victims and Danielle. Because Danielle got the root, so we're able to link to these first four rapes
where he forgot to wear a condom. So Rollin says, I'm gonna call my captain in Atlanta and tell him the good news, and she's like grinning, But I'm like, isn't that Harry Hamlin who like assaulted you that you hate your captain? But Craigan compliments Rollins on a job well done. But you can see by Amorrow's face that like something about this is not sitting right for him.
So he goes and sees Gabriel in holding and he says, Gabriel tells Tomorrow like the DNA results have to be wrong, like something is up here, And Tomorrow's like, is there anything you want to tell me? Something you didn't want your wife to know or maybe you didn't want to say in front of you pretty attorney. And he says no, and Tomorrow's like, look, I saw these girls, Like he's basically saying, like they're all hot, like maybe they sent
you mixed signals. And I think that's kind of what makes it tough to know if we like Tomorrow, because when he says stuff like that, you can't always tell if he's like just playing the purp or if he kind of believes that shit a little bit, like no.
He's a t women can sells no he is.
But sometimes I think that's why people are are on and off about Tomorrow because sometimes He's like, I don't know. The girls seem pretty into it.
I don't know.
Sometimes he does say shit like that, but yes, there's no way that there can be mixed signals that lead to being raped at knife point. Let's get that out of the way. And he says, I've never even seen any of these victims before. That's what Gabriel says. He's like, I don't even know who they are. I've never seen them. And Tomorrow immediately plays the kid card. He's like, if you ever want to see Luke ever again, tell me everything right now. I'll make sure you do time in
New York where they can visit you. And Gabriel's like, I will not do anything. I will not admit to something I didn't do. And guess what, your rapist is still out there, and Amarro cuffs him. I don't really know why he's cuffing, and maybe to take him to arrayment. So now we're at arraiment and Gabriel pleads not guilty and Novak's like, no, son, there's DNA, and Sherry's like this is a family man, and the judge is like, yeah, sorry,
you are going to Rikers, sir. It does not matter that you have a family, and Gabriel is like exchanging looks with his wife and she looks pissed. Then he's like pleading with her like, Jane, I didn't do this, I didn't do this, like and she's like, I mean the wife looks like DNA. Don't lie, pal, that's like
what the look in her eyes says. So Amaro and Finn are now at like the processing area, I think where they're like about to take him to Rikers, and they're talking sports or some shit with one of the cops and then another cop comes running in and he's like, we got a bleeder. We got a bleeder. And they go and they find Gabriel in the holding cell, bleeding out on the floor in his court clothes, having cut
his wrists. And now Mar's like, you're gonna be okay, You're gonna be okay, and he's like, you tell my wife, I never raped anyone. Tell my son. So that is his like what he what we think could be his dying last words, is that he did not commit these crimes. And then Finn screams for a medic and that is the very dramatic end to that act. Next up we see Amaroon Benson talking to a doctor outside of a
hospital room. We see Gabriel through the window. It looks like he made it, and the doctor says, I haven't done a PsychEval yet, but he's lost a lot of blood, and Benson goes, yeah, we've seen this, like if a guy finally gets caught takes the easy way out. But now Janey, his wife, is at his bedside and he's asking like, well, what did you tell Luke And she's like, I told him you were on a long business trip.
And he's like very furious, like rattling his like his cuffs on the bed of the hospital and being like, I can't believe you think I could do this, And she's like I'm sorry, but it's like who could blame her? Like there is DNA like he was in all the
places where it happened. It doesn't look great. And how many women have we seen on like Oxygen and in true crime podcasts who are like I never saw a thing coming and he was a great husband and whatever, like the BTK Killer How to Wife the whole time, Ted Bundy's girlfriend ten Buddy had a girlfriend the whole time, Like it's not impossible for you to be married to someone you didn't know the truth about. So anyway, Amaro is trying to figure out a way that this guy's innocent.
He asked the doctor like, is there any way this guy could have like committed these crimes with no awareness of it? She says, I've never seen it, but there are psychiatrists who would say yes, and those are the ones he's going to hire to go on the stand. And they're like, what about the suic's side attempt as a way to bolster in insanity defense? And she said, we had a guy once try to chew his arm off to convince the jury that he was crazy, and
guess what, it worked, So who knows, you know. And the wife comes out and Benson tries to talk to her about Gabriel and like saying, I think he's going to be okay, and she's like, spare me that bullshit. You don't care about Gabriel, And she's just saying kind of like what I was just talking about, Like I can't believe I was married to someone for fifteen years.
I never saw any signs of this, And Benson's like, you know, true pet predators are really masterful at covering their tracks, and Janie's crying and saying his crimes make her sick, but she can't leave him. He has no Family's an only child, and his parents died within six months of each other when he was in college. And then she tells this whole story about how she had a miscarriage one time and Gabriel was right by her side, never even took time to wash the makeup off, and
they're like, what do you mean makeup? And she's like, it was Halloween. He was in Captain Jack outfit and his eyeliner ran when he cried, and so there, of course that's like ding ding ding alarm bells for tomorrow. He's like, Halloween of what year? And Tomorrow is like, obviously onto something and it was Halloween of two thousand and three. So now Amorrow is outside at some kind of like food cart flirting with Sherry Rest's Sherry West.
It looks like a waffle truck maybe, and he's asking her, like, you got any alternate theories of these crimes, and she's like, what are you gloating? And then Amorrow's like, I think you should look into Halloween of two thousand and three. We got a man in two places at the same time. So now at the precinct, Amorrow looks kind of tired and stressed, and Munch goes, what's bugging you, new guy?
I just I do miss Munch. I feel like Lisa and I have talked about this, but there's not as much funniness in the show since Munch went away, and he just can't believe that this guy. Tomorrow just can't believe that this guy could play him like that because he kind of really believes the guy, and he's like, why am I feeling this way that he's innocent when it's so clear he's guilty. Munch is like, I missed
the days where we didn't rely on DNA. We went with our gut, and I would say I think a lot of wrongfully incarcerated people who have been exonerated by DNA do not miss those days, mister Munch. I know that that's like a fun thing, but DNA is usually
pretty correct. So now Amorrow is talking to DNA tech Susan Chung, who is played by Karen sen Lee, and this is her first episode out of nine episodes she plays as this character, but she has also played two other one time roles on SVU episodes, and more recently, she played Christine Chang, the evil trafficker in The Counselor It's Chinatown episodes. So she is all over SVU this woman, but this is her first role as Susan Chung and
she has been in nine episodes as her. And she's telling Tomorrow, there's no way this idea is not legit. There's too many matching points. It would be virtually impossible. There's like not enough people existing in New York that could make it that there's another person that this belongs to.
And Tomorrow is like, yeah, but there's been like DNA lab scandals lately where people are trying to pad conviction rates, and she goes so all four labs in different states, including Hours, one of the best in the country, conspired together to take Gabriel down. You got a motive, and.
It's like, loll come on tomorrow, like you look really dumb.
You look so dumb right now?
Okay.
In Cragan's office, Amarro walks in with some interesting info. The victim from the Halloween assault says her rapist had a chip tooth and a long abdominal scar. Gabriel has perfect teeth and he was one hundred miles away that night at Johns Hopkins, and there are witnesses that say he never left, and Amorro's like someone could have planted his DNA and Craigan is like, and what stopped after the fourth rape? Like that's kind of you're pushing it.
And Craigan's like he can can tell that Tomorrow's really invested. And the Halloween things seems suspicious. So what do we know about the family. Benson and Tomorrow go to find out at the hospital. Gabriel tells them that he's an only child as far as he knows, and they're like what, and he's like, I was adopted, and he says he's never contacted his biological mom because he was never interested.
And he tells them that his adoptive parents were great people and he was raised right because he thought that they were trying to, like, you know, say that he was traumatized by his adoption and that's why he committed
these crimes. And so now we're at a halfway house in Trenton, New Jersey, and there's a woman sitting at a table just ripping butts indoors and there's a huge ashtray next to her like that's her full time job, is smoking SIGs inside and she tells them how she got pregnant seventeen around nineteen seventy five or seventy six. She couldn't even take care of herself, let alone two babies. And they're like, wait, twins, dun dun, dun dunn, here
we go. If the name of the episode didn't give you a little hinty hint, we're getting to it now. And she goes. Benson goes, so they didn't go to the same home, and the woman goes, yeah, back then they separated identical some crazy experiment, but they paid me a lot. Have you seen the documentary or heard of the documentary Three Identical Strangers?
You know it? Bitch watched it on a Delta fly.
Yeah, so it's this, This is it basically like at this I think those guys were a little bit older. Maybe they were separated in like the sixties, but.
And filled with tragedy. I mean, there's like ethics and science and experiments and you don't get to just like take and separate babies and see what happens like these those three men were.
Fucked, yeah, very traumatized, and it's just like you're not allowed to kind of like take people away from the only family.
Well, and the other.
Case that we covered with the twins, you know, the gender twins cutting off a dick and seeing what happens. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, yeah, there was more like.
Using twins as experiments is very unethical, for sure.
Super ethical. I did mention Delta. I don't know if uh. This weekend at one of my shows, there was a Delta pilot in the audience. It was exciting. I walked on stage and pointed at him and went, I'm Diamond bitch, and it was fun. But the cops were actually called that show. There was like hecklers, a full fight like we saw like cops. Yeah, because this guy was heckling one of my friends and wouldn't stop. So the security
was like, hey, you gotta stop, and he wouldn't. And then it was a full like I went to just get paid and I came back and a guy was shoved against a wall two security guards that are all x NYPD, just like a full punch knockout, and then the cops said to be there and asked all these questions after it was Jesus, it was really wild. New York.
Never a dull moment.
Yeah. So anyway, Yeah, that waitress during right after the fight, this comic was like, Okay, my set will be back. I'll get them back. A waitress dropped a whole tray. Oh yeah, just walk off stage.
Forget it. Forget it. Call that subtle wash. So this woman says, this biological mom says that she has heard from one of the twins, and she's heard from Brian, and he came to visit her twenty years ago. She doesn't know where he is, but she says, I read about him in the paper. He had it tough because it turned out that Brian's adopted parents the mother killed the father, drugged him and burned him in front of Brian. And she's like, I think it happened in Richmond, maybe Norfolk,
so it's somewhere in Virginia. And then he came to see her again a couple months after the trial, and he was looking for a relationship and she said, I already gave him up once. He should have taken the hint. So she's not exactly mom material. And she definitely told him that he had a twin, and he said he always knew something was missing, so and.
That mom is such a bitch, Like she's like, ah right, the violins are playing. I don't give us yeah yeah, yeah care. He has this brother and someone was burnt in front of him at Hugh and he's like John Mira's vibes.
He's not asking for like money, He's just like, hey, could we like maybe visit once in a while and have a relationship. And she's like not interested. I've got some more cigarettes to smoke. I really have to go. So now we're getting the low down on the whole murder of Brian's adopted dad. It was nineteen ninety two. The mom got the death penalty, and that Brian's name is Brian Smith and Munch is like, good luck with that,
and there's got to be a million Brian Smiths. Iced Tea is like, oh no, there's one hundred and twenty six Brian Smiths in New York. And Rollins is like, guys, they're twins. Let's check out the birthday. So they find one match and this is a guy who was a provisional for the Parks Department. He started that job this year. As the photo downloads, we see bump bum bump, bump, bump, bump bum. It is tr Night again. It is the
same fucking guy. There is an identical Twins situation happening here, and the squad is shook Amorrow, like, let's go get this guy, and Craigan's like, we gotta fill in Novak. There's some issues here, hold on, like cause you know, there's all kinds of I don't know, not double jeopardy, but like different kinds of reasonable doubt things so that they have.
To check on.
So Amara is like giving Rollins kind of like and I told you so face, and Rollin's just just like, I mean, who could have imagined that?
Yeah, it's like obviously she's a dumb bitch for other reasons, but like, how you're right, Like how do we know that there's a hidden double Twins somewhere? Right?
And we've seen plenty of like buttoned up guys, but I mean, Amaro just had a feeling about this guy. And so they go see Novak and she's fucking lit up. She's like this is the definition of reasonable doubt, Like this is fucked Like, we're never gonna be able to get anyone on these rapes now. And they're like, no,
Brian's plan has been to frame his twin. He's followed him city to city and she's like, yeah, but like, we cannot prove which one did it if they have the same DNA and like the same tattoo and like identification from victims. And they're like, what if we catch Brian in the act. Let's let him think that Gabriel's on the loose again. And then Lovak's like what and terrorize New York City And they're like, we set a trap and we've got the perfect.
Little blondie to do it. Rollins is like, put me in the game.
So in court, I.
Wonder if Rollins knew that this would be the beginning of her long stretch of being bait.
I meantly bait. I feel like she's probably one of the only detectives that can like jog continuously in the park for a long time. She's so in shape. So in the in court, the judge is releasing Gabriel on two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bail. He's kind of like, on second thought, I do release you on bail. It's because we've already seen him be denied bail, so now he's getting out on two hundred and fifty k bail and you're confined to the state of New York and
you have to continue psych treatment. And so now in holding Gabriel is very confused talking to Tomorrow. He's like, if I'm free, why am I not at home? Like what's going on? My lawyer won't even tell me what's going on? And Tomorrow is like, you'll know everything once we have it sorted out, just like sit tight, and he's like, do I have any choice? And the answer
is no, you don't. Okay. So now the top of the final act, we are on Rollin's jogging through Central Park with her perky little ponytails swaying in the breeze, and she's asking through an earpiece, like do we have eyes on him? So we're watching this trap in motion. Amorrow is nearby and he's like, you know, he's been watching you for four days and all he's done is snap a few picks. Maybe you're not his type after all, and Rollin's okay, yeah, She's like fuck you. She's like,
I'm your type for Amorro. And so Rollins stops to stretch and we see Brian staring at her and he does. He is the same as tier Nite, but he's got like more of like a sort of emo haircut, and he does look like he's wearing eyeliner. I don't know if that's real, but he has like a darker under
eye situation, and they think she's hooked him. He starts following her on his bike, and Tomorrow's also on a bike following, but then he like runs into a nanny and that completely throws his entire thing off track and he loses Rollin's and she's still jogging and I'm like, wow, this must have been a very exhausting scene because I'm sure they shot it more than ones. And she's like NonStop jogging. Maybe it's because I just hate running that
this is really triggering me. And Tomorrow asks her to update her location, but all we hear is static and he and then we see her like jogging through a tunnel. We see him right behind her. She can obviously feel him right behind her, and then just coming out of the tunnel, he skids his bike right in front of her, stops her, knocking her to the ground, and like before we know it, he's on top of her with a knife to her neck and Rollins is like, so so down, so down. I'll give you what.
Yeah, I think she's scared, Like is this going to be traumatizing for her? Or is this just like, oh, part of the job, Like that's what I was wondering.
I think it's like at the time, she's probably just like running on adrenaline and is like, I know I can talk this guy out of it, or I can like stop this guy until someone comes to help me. You know, it is kind of wild. This is all happening in broad daylight too, Like I feel like it seems most of the attacks have been at night, but this one is broad daylight, and it's hard to find places in Central Park where there's truly like nobody in the middle of the day, like it's very populated, but
you know, here they are. And Amanda's like, I got that, like it's okay, it's okay, I'll give you.
What you want or whatever.
And he's like, look at me, like doing the same kind of shit, like look in my eyes, and Tomorrow finally gets there surprises him. When he sees Tomorrow, he like looks up and then Rollins punches him across the face and gets him off of her then Amorrow jumps on him and just starts punching the fuck out of this guy, and Rollins is like, enough enough, and then afterwards she's like and then eventually, you know, he gets off of him, and she's like, what the fuck, Tomorrow,
are you like trying to blow this case? Like stop with your stabler bullshit? We just got rid of one stabler, we don't need another one. So at the precinct, Rollins is like begging to be able to question this dude, which Novak is like, in no way is that going to happen, Like he had just attacked you, and a defense attorney will have that completely thrown out, like anything
you say to him. So then we're in interrogation with Brian and he's trying to say, oh, she came on to me, like in the tunnel like and Finn's like, oh really, so why the knife, Like we've got you dude, like you don't like whip out a knife when a woman comes on to you. And so Brian says, you don't even know the half of it. And he says, but I will only talk to her the blonde, so and Finn's like there's no way, and he goes okay, lawyer,
so he knows what's up. He lawyers up the second that they don't let him talk to his little girlfriend and they're outside talking to Novak about it and everything, and they're like, so if he doesn't talk to the blonde, he walks and Benson like pushes for Rollins to get allowed in there, and then they allow it. So she's in there now and he's like, you look so much prettier when you smile, like he does that to her and it's like, ugh, I think like that should be
in a legal phrase. And now Rollins is laying down her signature flirtatious interrogation style. This is where we're seeing the beginning of it, right, And she's like, I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. I'm a Southern girl. I named you.
I've been obsessed with you, like I always thought I was your type.
Like it's a whole thing. She's really going in laying it on thick, and he's like, hell, yeah, you're my type. And she's like you're the best and he's like I am the best and it's freaky, and then she's like he's like, but you teased me in the park. And he's like, oh, like all the other girls. And the guy's like, oh, no, that was my brother, Like he kind of knows, like he's walking the line of like, you know, I'm awesome at what I do, but also
I didn't do anything. And then she explains that the whole follow your brother in pin rapes on him theory, and he's like no, no, no, you said that. That's not me. And then she goes, why don't you lift up your shirt and he's like what. She goes, lift up your shirt for me, baby, I want to show
you something. So she's really like laying it on thick and he lifts it up and we see the scar that other victims have talked about and she's like, yeah, see, the thing is your twin doesn't have that scar and he also doesn't have a chip tooth, and we have victims that saw both of those. And he's like it was dark. Witnesses make mistakes, you know that. And she presses him on that Halloween rape and is like, you know what, your brother was one hundred miles away that
night with witnesses. And she brings up the screwdriver with the fingerprint and she's like, that's kind of sloppy work for you. And she's like, cause you you know, twins have the same DNA but different fingerprints, So like, once we get that fingerprint back comparing it to yours, it's not going to look good for you. But you knew
that and that's why you started wearing gloves. And so she starts talking about how he had it so hard in his life and he was with this kind of crazy family where there was this murder and Gabriel had this nice family, great parents. Now he's married, with a good job and a beautiful son, and like that's not fair.
And then she brings up what his biological mother said about giving him up and about him not taking the hint the first time, and he's like, she's a drunk whore who cares, and Rollins is like, well, she sure made time to take care of Gabriel. She made sure he got a good home, she sent him birthday cards. Like I don't think any of that's true, but like she's, you know, she's leaning into it, and he insists. He's like, no, I had good parents. I had good parents, and Rollin's
is like, yeah, dude, your mom's a murderer. Like so it don't try to like run that game on me. And he insists that it didn't break him, and she says that would break anyone, and she's she really gets it's like vulnerable with him and is like, I just think no one's ever really listened to you. I want to hear your whole story, not just these mistakes. I've
got all night. I'm not leaving you, and she says, look at me, look at my face, like kind of repeats his words to him, and that's like the next that's the last we see of like this horny little interrogation scene with Rollins, and we cut to Gabriel in his holding cell and they tell him it's over. You're free, and he's like what happened? Like what is going on?
And then Amaro's like, we found the guy and they lead him to the two way glass where they show him his twin brother inside the whole, inside the interrogation room. He's obviously shocked. He's like, I didn't know, and then Amarro goes he did, And that's Dick Wolf Baby a complete classic in my opinion.
Damn no, it's an amazing episode, and even though I've seen it so many times, I'm stressed every time I watch it.
Yeah, I'm like, come on, why do you think he did that? Like he like the whole thing was based on framing his brother for it, So like, why do you think he did that that Halloween one? Like, if you know your brother's one hundred miles away, why did you do that?
Well? Maybebe if he did arriage was a.
Last minute thing and he didn't know they were going all. But did they drive one hundred miles to Johns Hopkins? I guess so it's a great hospital. You're right, that's probably what happened.
I didn't say it. You just talked to yourself. I did not even say anything. But also, maybe he is super calculated. But then like, let's say he sees a hottie. Yeah, and a crime of opportunity opportunity versus like planning. So but I'm also basing on the true crime that I'm thinking of, where he didn't there was no rhyme and reason, So like, you know, maybe the urge is just too big to murder and slash.
I mean, race, I cannot wait to hear about this. I have no idea about this.
Well, there's a couple case. Everything is nuts. It's as nuts as the episode. Let's let's do that. We'll get into the commercial. We'll see you soon. Okay, we are back. There's two cases, and I love that.
I love when they just mash up two cases perfectly into one beautiful SVU omelet.
I think these are well mixed. I mean, obviously the twin case is overwhelming, but then the other one has lots of stuff and it's they're both really really fucked. The other case had a name, you know what I mean, the East Coast Rapists. So yeah, it's like, if you have a name that means I guess you're there, should be prolific with a negative connotation. Yeah, because you've got our famous, notorious notorious there we go, all right. So
the first case is Darren Fernandez case. And in two thousand and one, Darren Fernandez attempted to break into an apartment in Dorchester, which is a neighborhood in Boston. Dorchester. Yeah, and he smashed the window to get inside. Amateur move because the person now inside is alerted that someone broke their window. And also he cut himself and left blood
everywhere as he fled. So and when the police found him in like a chase, he was still bleeding, So the police analyzed the DNA from the broken glass they found, and he was a match for genetic material found in two unsolved sexual assault cases, both of which were committed within a few blocks of the apartment Fernandez had tried to break into. Fernandez was convicted of attempted breaking and entering and also eventually convicted of one of the sexual assaults.
So then the other cases, though they only had DNA evidence, no other evidence, and that's obviously a huge issue because his DNA matched his twin brother, Damien. So how do you convict someone for a thing where the only evidence is DNA. So there was DNA found on the pillowcase, and it could be either brother, even though the other brother is like chill, But again it's the reasonable doubt situation.
And so also so during the first assault, the victim noticed the tattoo that his brother did not have, so it was easier to convict, and the tattoo said twins
with a z oh my God. So the second assault, though no witnesses or accomplices or fingerprints, and then Darren nor Damien had an alibi to cover the time of the assault of that one, so it was just kind of difficult, and the police couldn't place either brother at the scene of the crime, and the DNA that damned Darren in the other trial had only established reasonable doubt in this one, and so the case went to trial
anyways in two thousand and four. The jury, after four days of deliberation, could not decide, and it was a hung jury in a mistrial.
Oh my gosh.
Then there was a second trial several months later in two thousand and five, which also ended up in a hung jury and a mistrial. But those deadlocked cases the victim did not testify about the tattoo, and the jurors were never told about Darren's earlier conviction. THESS tattoo is huge. Why would that not be it? No, there's like so many of it is. It's strange, Oh my god, go on, but we hear this shit all the time where it's like people's past arm brought up. Yeah, things just it.
It's people, human errors, people do bad jobs or don't care, like don't think about it, or something was suppressed like I don't fucking know. Yeah. The prosecution brought up now though, that Darren was working as a painter near where the
assault occurred, but that again is still not enough. So two thousand and six, Holy shit, Fernandez goes on trial for a third time, and this time the prosecution for the first time was able to present evidence that they weren't able to before, which was that he had committed four break ins in this in the victim's neighborhood within
a year and convicted of one sexual assault too. In August of two thousand, the victim of that assault, who did not testify at the previous two trials, took the stand this time around to highlight the similarities of her attack that like shared with the case. Damian Fernandez also testified at all the trials and that he was in Worcester, Worcester worst I knew it wors just tester as a
sauce right. Damien Fernandez testified at all the trials that he was in wor Worcester what is Worcester Worster where he lived during the time of the attack. The jury finally returned with a guilty verdict, and five years after his initial arrest, Darren Fernandez was sentenced to fifteen to twenty years in jail on top of the ten to fifteen year sentence he was already serving for that first
assault that they were able to convict on. He won't begin serving the second sentence until he has finished serving his first sentence. And then some article I found this has nothing to do with anything. What if conjoined twins commit a crime? What do you do?
Like, only one of the twins does the crime?
Yeah, like, what if you're at a bar and you're conjoined by whatever body part? Use your imaginations and.
Then one of them smacks someone with a beer bottle stabs? Yeah, what did you do? I have no idea. That is wild. He's a great question.
Conjoined episode. So I guess the next case is the bigger case since there's more info.
So this is just like Darren. Darren had the twins tattoo, Like Darren was the one that did it.
Damien. Damien is just the guy.
Damien's just like I didn't do anything, but I guess I like, but he just his existence is providing reasonable doubt for his brother who's a criminal.
Wow. Yeah, so it wasn't like two shady brothers or someone helping, or that Darren even did this maliciously to frame the brother or any adoption. I think he's just like a criminal, and it's just hard to prosecut if the DNA is the only evidence you have, if there's double the DNA out in the world.
Do you know Jermaine Fowler is a twin?
No?
I didn't.
Yeah, he's a twin and his brother, his twin brother has gone to jail. And I think he's made like a lot of jokes about this too, like that his brother could be like committing crimes like and getting him busted for shit. I think I think I've seen Jermaine do that material.
So yeah, it's like not as dramatic as the episode, but it's just the existence of twins does fuck shit up? Yeah. Now, this next case that s you found inspiration, I would say, is the Aaron H. Thomas case aka the East Coast Rapist. Born in August of nineteen seventy one. Thomas, of course the son of an officer. Okay, so he's a DC
officer's kid whose nickname is Big Don. And then the mom was a career Geico employee, which is like such a like a brand name that's not it could be like she worked in insurance that they had to write that she worked at Geico, and then they're like fifteen minutes or more could save you money on your car insurance. And this is like, uh, this research was actually really annoying to do. And there's a lot there's so many dates and crimes. This is a really like notorious psychopath.
So lots of dates, lots of different things, lots of conflicting information, but like in some things, they said that Aaron's father was a doting father figure, fun loving companion, but then also jealous, violent, prone to sneak out at night and pray on the vulnerable and hide his actions from everyone, like what okay, But also Thomas recalls being beat with like thick police uniform belts and his father like slamming him into walls and stuff. So like, I
don't know, I guess that's like most abusive people. They're like nice sometimes and then full yeah, lunatics. Some family members described the screaming matches like lots of screaming matches, constant turmoil in the childhood, and they the brothers and like the family said that Aaron Thomas was like a class clown, fun like silly kid. But then his brother, who's this military guy, was like, excuse me, no, he
was a volatile child. And always found his way into trouble and then like he was it's like he was oblivious to any consequences. And then they go into this thing where it's like, I can't believe they call this guy a class clown and funny. He beat a kid with a chain from a playground swing. Once he super glued his brother's hands to his bed, and sometimes he would sneak sleeping pills and like poison his brothers with sleeping pills to see what happened. He one time start
lit fireworks indoors and started a fire. He tried drowning the family dog. So to me, it's just like strange. They're like, yeah, it was a fun family life, good dad. Actually he beat me with a belt, and then it's like, oh, class clown es, and then it's like, okay, he drowned. He almost drowned the family dog. And the brother said it was always something that he had lack of control and odd behavior, and as a teen he spent two weeks at a psychiatric facility after setting a girl's hair
on fire. Oh my god, he said, accidentally. But it's like what, yeah.
Not with that record of other things that you've done that doesn't really ring true.
It's just hard because like we're obviously compassionate to kids, and juvenile detention sucks and the system is so fucked. But then it's also like, why was this guy ever let out of anything? Mm hmm. He's doing all the classic things that like criminals doing, like sociopaths. It's like, it's just, yeah, some people are like but he was. He's street smart, tough, physically chiseled, and unpredictable, or is
his vibe. He also found love, of course, he had a girlfriend, like obviously he really bonded with her son. And the girlfriend said all the time that though he had a nearly insatiable sex tribe, and if you didn't give it to him, he took it. And she said that to the Post, the Washington Post, and sometimes when she was able to fend off his advances, he would leave for hours, and now she thinks that that's when
he would go rape. So yeah, gosh. Three of his rapes were actually within a half mile from where the couple lived in Forestville in nineteen ninety seven, and then three other rapes were near their other home in Alexandria in nineteen ninety nine and he's a careless guy. He left DNA at thirteen different locations, which I think just like shows how bad police are. Like so much DNA everywhere, because this is the nineties, DNA was used. Yeah, this
isn't like nighttime. Stalker guy loved One said that he hinted several times he had done terrible things, but was never specific when pressed further. So he committed a number of rapes in Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island since nineteen ninety six, and then even earlier. They just haven't caught him. But he claims that he started attacking people in nineteen ninety two ninety three, but the ones that
he's charged for from nineteen ninety seven on. His crimes span nearly half of his life and gripped the region with fear that comes from knowing there's an unknown man lurking in the darkness, attacking strangers who were doing everyday tasks like walking home from work, waiting for a bus, moving out of an apartment, or even sleeping in their
own bed. And the rapes began when Thomas was a young man living in a burnt out pet store in Forestville, and he called it a joyless addiction, like he couldn't stop, and then compulsion.
It's like he has to do it, but he's like not even getting anything out of it.
No, And later on, like in the trials and all of that, the mom remembers like to his sisters and stuff, she would be like, be careful, don't walk home and all this, and then she realized that like her son was who she's been scared of all these years. So like while telling her daughter, like don't walk home through the park at night, it was to protect her from,
oh my gosh, her fucking brother. And so I thought that was pretty eerie, Like just like you're you're so scared of this kill like rapist and it's your fucking son. He said, there's no happiness. You're going after something that in the end makes you feel like garbage. He talked a lot to the Washington Post. He's a real chatty kathy but also delusional. I can't pinpoint this guy, really.
He said he didn't know the victims, that they didn't know him, and even though he ruined these women's lives and they remember the attacks and very vivid and horrifying detail to him, he's like, I don't even remember their faces. He's like, I don't have any true memories.
So he's like the opposite of like all these guys we've seen that are like, oh, yeah, my first crime was this place. I remember the girl exactly. Like the guys that really like fantasize about like the actual crime itself. This guy feels like it was just like a compulsion. Yeah, he's not even remembering anything about it.
Wow. No, And later he goes, I didn't really even hurt them. I didn't try to, Like he really is like diluted. He's like, I love helping people, like he is sick. But his first attack that was linked by DNA occurred February nineteenth, nineteen ninety seven, in Forrest, Phille, when he was riding a ten speed bicycle. He pulled up alongside a twenty five year old woman who was walking home from her job at a fast food restaurant.
He started chatting her up, and then he pulled out a gun and forced her into the nearby woods and raped her. And what's extra interesting about him and sometimes he wouldn't even use guns. It would be like umbrella like umbrella handles and ripped off things that felt like guns. But weren't. Yeah, so people were scared and thought it was a real gun, but it would just be like
plastic pieces off of other things. So how he started, you know, he was living in this pet store at that was abandoned and bird down because he was kicked out of his parents' house in Fort Washington. So he was homeless, jobless and penniless and living in this pet store and you don't know, he saw sex worker walking down the street, he got her attention, and then again it's like the classic. He basically like would find people in more public spaces, lure them into the woods, and
then rape. And he said he felt like an animal, but he didn't care. So throughout his like it's not a career. Throughout his spree, he straight up adducted. He like raped a woman who was in the process of moving from her Lesberg apartment. He bound her with rope, threatened her with a screwdriver before stealing her clothes and leaving her naked and on top of the screwdrivers. He used handguns, knives, broken bottles, and then like the fake weapons.
On four occasions he attacked more than one victim. In the same incident, he began targeting women along Fairfax County's Route one corridor, a busy area of strip malls and apartment at buildings, and then continued to Leesburg and then
again in Fairfax and Prince George Counties. In two thousand and six, after four years of no known attacks, a young girl in Cranston, Rhode Island, saw a stranger poking his head through a sliding glass door that led to like the back deck, and then he ran away, but the DNA left behind matched this rapist. Oh shit, so it was about to happen. But I don't really know what made him run away, but he ran away, but
the evidence was there. The following January, Thomas raped a New Haven woman as her infant son slept in a crib in the same room. And then this one's really really fucked up. He in two thousand and nine, on Halloween, attacked three teenage tricker treaders in Prince William County, Virginia, which was the last in a string of at least thirteen attacks linked to him throughout like all of these states.
The attack on Halloween, he took his girlfriend's car and she assumed he was just running errands, and then the rapist forced three teenage trick or treats into the woods at gunpoint and sex and it was a fake gun and sexually assaulted two of them, but the third one was able to frantically text and call for help. And one victim told the post that she was praying and
she was like, I thought I was gonna die. I mean they straight up like you could tell, like they had to drop their trick or treating bags of candy, Like this is how young they were. They were just like out getting candy and had to like leave their candy behind to be ushered into the woods and this like fucked up thing. And after the girl called for help and texted, Thomas heard a lot of footsteps and realized like, oh, people are coming, so but he was
able to get away. He straight up like cops were all over swarming and he just calmly like walked away and got into his car and drove away from the scene. Jesus, yeah, he just like chill, and he went back to his girlfriend's apartment and went to sleep. Was not affected. He would attack women and then he would watch the news
for coverage of his rapes. So in the late nineteen nineties he were members reading about a man on a bicycle attacking women, and he would be like, wow, I'm the man on the bike Psycho.
He told them, it's truly wild because it's like you don't remember the attacks, you don't remember the specifics, but then you like want to look up so that you can have this weird sense of like fame in your own head. That's so strange.
No, he is strange. He's not like anyone we've really had, or he's like an amalgamation, like he's like a lot of different pieces, but nothing really clicks, because we've had other people who refuse, who like refuse to acknowledge how horrific what they did was. Yeah, but he admitted to doing it, like I don't. And then it's like he couldn't stop, but he didn't care, and then he would go to sleep but like to watch it like it
is kind of pretty strange. He told The Washington Post that his attacks emerged from his time as a desperate homeless person, and that's what gave him all of these urges because he felt lonely and lost. And I'm like, yeah, when I'm lonely and lost, they eat fast food, Like I don't know if like you have to go raping and living in burnt out pets.
Yes.
He actually spoke to the Washington Post a lot and was very open. He admitted to faking a split personality for a while. At first he blamed it on this guy named Irwin who lived inside of him, and then he said, I was just making that up. Oh wow, He said he knew what he was doing all along,
and he knew it was wrong. March fourth, twenty eleven, he was arrested in New Haven, Connecticut, and he immediately told police that he had the right man, but wanted to dispute what he read about the case in the newspapers in the internet. So there were just details he wasn't really happy with, but he admitted to doing all these killings. They were able to arrest him because they
matched his DNA to a discarded cigarette butt. A tip came in from someone who knew the suspect, and the authorities secretly picked up one of his discarded butts he so then they found out that he was a thirty nine year old trucker. When they took him into custody in New Haven, the detectives predicted this case would be solved through a tip because they had, like they already cleared hundreds of suspects by this point, like hundreds of
people were cleared. They were really investigating, and they just like needed a tip. And forensic files is like this too, Like it's usually not even detective work.
It's like a tip.
It's one tip. You heard about the one where like a couple was fighting, so the woman called and was like, actually, I know my ex killed someone. I got into a fight, and she was like, I'm going to fucking turn you in, and then she turned him in. Fuck.
No, Yeah, it was It's.
A fun one. Fairfax Detective John Kelly said he had long suspected it was a trucker because a lot of the attacks were near truck stops and it would have matched like the route traveling up and down Interstate ninety five. March fifth, twenty eleven, Jaylor's reported that he tried to hang himself in jail, but it didn't work, and then again he said that he just couldn't find work or a place to stay, and that's why he started doing
it around nineteen and twenty. But even though he was admitting things, he's still delusional and said to the post. I just went to a woman, scared her and she gave me sex.
Like I don't know, but yeah, like he doesn't understand like how it works.
Detrimental it is because he doesn't even remember shit about it. He's not even getting pleasure from it in any way. It's like not like yeah, so since it doesn't affect him, he doesn't realize how it affects these victims or something.
Yeah, he's just like looking at it is like purely transactional, like like he robbed someone for like their purse or something. You know.
Yeah. He admitted that he would walk the streets notice good locations that would be good for an attack, scouting escape routes, and taking advantage of an opportunity when a woman would come along. He said he would jump out and take the women from the sidewalk into the woods, and that matches like many given accounts given by the victims. He would trail these women and learn about their personal
lives and then attack them at night. And then he said he just couldn't stop because I figured it out, like wow, it's that easy, and so it like really seemed easy to him, So that's why he didn't want to stop. Aaron said that it was a relief that he was arrested because he really didn't like living the life that he was living and it would be an end to his sickness. But it's also bullshit because after the media was like intense, he would stop for a
while or he would change his appearance. So he did try to evade arrest. So for him to be like, oh, thank god, finally am caught is like, well, yeah, he tried to not be caught. He would also commit these when he was mad about other shit in life, So he did have a sunde and he went nuts and like went on a rampage after he was charged in an incident when he smashed his girlfriend's bathroom window after
a domestic assault at the house. There was always like something that kind of sparked him to go commit these crimes in his life that he couldn't handle. Not to minimize all this, but it's like such a trend on the internet to be like just go to therapy, Like why aren't men just going to therapy? Like why are you doing this? Authorities chose Prince William County to prosecut Thomas first because it was the jurisdiction where the most
recent attack occurred, and it was the most brazen. The three teenage trigger treats from Halloween two thousand and nine really kind of shocked everyone, so that's where they decided to do it. He pled guilty to abducting and raping a woman who was in the process of moving out of Releasburg apartment. He was sentenced to two life terms in prison on top of the more than three life
sentences for the Halloween two thousand and nine attacks. So they gave him like so many life sentences they couldn't stop and they wanted to do it in Virginia because there's no parole in Virginia at all. But also if you have five life sentences sentences, then yeah, they're going to be up for parole anywhere. So like March first, twenty thirteen, he was sentenced to three life terms in prison plus an additional eighty years for the Halloween attacks,
which he pled guilty to in November twenty twelve. So he ended up being indicted on six counts of first degree rape and multiple related charges from other places, which total fifty four charges. At least.
He pleaded guilty to everything and didn't make like these poor victims like go through trials, you know, tiny silver lining time it is.
But a lot of the victims did speak at the sentencing. Yeah, yeah, and that's when he said he like realized for the first time that maybe there were effects to his crimes, but not until the sentencing thing. So then in June twenty fifteen, he pled guilty to three more rapes that happened between nineteen eighty seven and two thousand and one and got more life terms. And like I said, it's
like really complicated, there's just so much. And then Wikipedia there is a chart of seventeen victims and their like stats, location, weapon, and like what happened in the attack. So if you wanted to just see like a very simple graph of the victims and details, I would suggest going to that Wikipedia. And a lot of the victims I noticed were black, and I wonder if that, like only two weren't, And I do wonder if that's why it took so long to catch the guy.
And he is black as well, right, yeah, yeah.
I just wonder if they were white, if it would be quicker.
Yeah, because he was really at large for like fifteen years with a lot of DNA out there before they got him or like fourteen years.
Yeah, and I mean, I guess you can't do paternal like I'm sure his dad's DNA was in the system. I don't know, and he was at that psychiatric facility as a kid, Like, you don't fingerprint and DNA people when they burn a girl's hair on fire.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
So that's where Munch would come in saying, yeah, you can't take everybody's fingerprints and big brother them and all that blah blah blah.
Yeah. And then Thomas told Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horn that he needs help and treatment to figure out why and how I ended up like this. I have to be punished, and I know I need to be punished. So that's that. Horn. The jud was very poetic and he said that in quotes, what you did to her is the same as if you had taken a knife and drive it right through her heart. Instead you drove it right through her soul. So wow, a poetic judge.
And then another added weird thing is that when the detectives left the room after interrogating him, he said out loud to himself, oh shit, you ain't never coming out,
so he knew that. Yeah, And we also have to remember that his memory is so unclear and he's so careless and wild out there, like with all these committed crimes that surely there's probably others that aren't reported, and like so many pieces and parts of this puzzle that will remain unknown, according to Major Mike Strahan, head of Prince George's Police Criminal Investigation Division. So he's like, yeah, there's just so many probably victims, pieces evidence all over that.
But he's in jail. He's never getting out.
So yeah, I don't see somebody with like from what you've told me, I don't see somebody like this ever being rehabilitated or ever.
You know. No, And he's like a liar, Like we have all these different types of people, but he is careless, wild. There's no rhyme or reason he's not I don't know if I would say not smart, but like leaving evidence places.
Yeah, but and wild that he just didn't get caught for so long, like really because he was doing things it seems like willy nilly, just like in a bad mood, going out and committing crimes, you know, and then walking right into the car and driving away calmly from a forest preserve after being the one that did it, And it's like, what is it because these women were black? Like yeah, or was it really a super hard case and they couldn't figure it out?
But it's like you knew he was a trucker. You went through hundreds of people and couldn't find him. I don't know, Yeah, maybe he was good at it, maybe the careless like it's kind of it's like, it's not like this, but sometimes when you don't know fantasy football and you play, you just end up doing really well.
Like I don't know, yeah, oh, I mean I like we'll do I'll like do pools like that based on the colors of uniforms and like I'll end up winning at the office pool and everyone's like fuck you, you know, because I'm just like, I don't know, I like the light blue.
Yeah, but if you want more, he talked to the Washington Posts a lot, and I'm actually shocked we don't know more about him because so many victims. Yeah, but and he had a name, you know, like usually when someone has a nickname for killing, we get more attention. But I don't know, but I do think that as you did a good job taking two of these equally in a good way. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, they took a lot from both to both cases. Thanks for looking into both of those cases. And we have a great guest. Everybody, don't go anywhere, all right, everybody. Today's guest is an actor who can be seen all across the Law and Order Extended universe. She's played a judge on Original Recipe, a dead body on Criminal Intent, the deceptive Christine Chang on SVU. And that's only a few of them, but you know her from today's episode
and several others as DNA tech Susan Chang. Please enjoy our chat with Karen Senlee.
We're so happy you're here.
Hi, Kan, so happy I have you do? You do a lot of podcasts?
No, this will be the first ever.
Wow, you're on our second podcast. You're our second podcast, virgin. I hope that you enjoy this experience. It should be pretty painless. So did you know, like so you would you were like a Law and Order staple.
You've been in all Like you've been in four of the franchises. You've been like you were a couple parts on SVU and then you came back to start the role as Susan Chung with this episode Double Strands, and you know, like going into this one where you were playing Susan Chung the DNA expert, that you were going to be recurring or did they just keep bringing you back.
Yeah.
You never know what they're gonna do. So it's always a nice surprise when they say are you available on such and such a date range, you know, and you go yes, absolutely, and then you try to clear everything out of the way and you hope that actually happens. Sure.
Yeah, I really love that character. She's kind of funny and dry, and she brings like some lightness to the crimes. You know, it's science. It's sadness that she does make us laugh.
Okay, Yeah, I do love when she's just like, really, this is a conspiracy, okay, like it really puts uh, really puts old Danny Pino in his place.
No, sweet, sweet guy, sweet guy?
Is he sweet?
Yeah? Yeah? There? You know, all these folks are nice, you know, they really are, and it's it's just sort of like they're there to do a job that also just relax. You know. Kelly Kiddish even has her dog there. Yeah, you know, and you know, she's got a guitar when she's not doing anything and she just hangs out. So you know, they make it their home, you know, in the in the holding areas. So because she put in long hours and you don't know if you're going to see your pooch in a while.
Yeah, who did you get most excited to see on set?
Well, Marishka is both exciting and intimidating at the same time.
I can imagine Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because she just is such a pro y.
You know, it's in her bones, in her blood, and just her presence. Everybody's got to bring up their a game, you know. And she's also really generous too. She's very open and really like she's going to give you everything she's got and wants the same from you. So it really does bring out the best in everybody who's working around her. Honestly. Yeah, it really sets the tone of the of the show.
Yeah, for sure, we wanted to talk I mean, we obviously want to talk about this episode double strands, but we really want to talk about like your whole all your roles on the show, and we were we couldn't believe we've already covered this episode Counselor's Chinatown. But you played this iconic villain, Christine Cheng in Counselor's Chinatown, and you've got to have like a you got to have like sort of a big monologue and like a big
moment going against Marishka, like an interrogation. So how we just wanted to ask about that, like what was that out?
Like it was?
It was really interesting because I'll let you know, Warren Light all right, he wrote a play called No Foreigners Beyond This Point, and it kind of touched on some of the issues that actually is in the play. In her monologue about being in China. He went back to China to teach English before it really was open, and so some of the experience of being in a communist world. He brought into that script a little bit sort of like an acknowledgement of the kind of persecution people were
going through. So if there's a little hint of that in there, you know, when she talks about how she had to come what what you know, kind of obstacles she had to overcome to get here and why she left. You know, so because it's of course a repressive country and there's a lot of persecution of teachers in those days, so there's just that little hint. But then of course she doesn't do exactly the right thing, so it really it was bag you know, that's a tribute to that experience.
I think think in that character that you know, people from China experiencing that kind of world and then coming to the States. Yeah.
Yeah.
He was there for about a little over a year, and it was around the time that the Gang of Four was being arrest They had been arrested, so it's just after the Cultural Revolution and they were brought up on charges. Chenka Amatstong's wife was on trial. Wow, big deal in those days, and everything was censored. Of course you had one television. You had the trial on TV, and everybody was, you know, watching what was going to happen.
Yeah, and she is such a dynamic character because she has that experience in that struggle. But then also it's like, but now you're keeping other people down, you know, like now you're exploiting people.
Well it was the accountant, the accountant, right, my fault.
But also just like it the it's like a twisted character too, because she is doing this monologue knowing she's going to get off She's like, I'll make you think it. I mean, it's really masterful. It's really fun. And you got to be arrested, like at a big event, and that's kind of a bingo card moment we like to call when we're at like a fancy, fancy event and the cops come in to get you. That was fun.
Yeah. Yeah. And oh, by the way, the man who plays my husband in that as his name is Henry Yuck. He was also in the play oh book that Warren Light wrote. Yeah. Oh, so he was sort of like bringing back some of the crew that he knows from theater because you know, he's very you know, I want to say faithful, committed to the theater community here in New York. I mean he wrote plays side Man.
Yeah no, And I remember in Pandemic there was this whole interview with him where he said, we're going to try to give as many actor theater actors out of work theater actors.
Jobs on SVU as we can. So I know that's like a big Really.
We're in the theater community are very grateful for him.
Yeah.
Yeah, no. I mean Lisa and I love to talk about how when we go to theater in New York. We love looking at everybody's bios, like seeing who's been on SVU, like, you know, so a big link between those two worlds.
Did you start in the theater? Do you do theater?
I did? I did. I started a small theater group. I actually took an acting class. I moved from modern dance to theater because I wanted to speak, yeah, and try on different shoes because I actually was really shy when I was young, very very shy, and so it kind of had a way of helping me kind of come out of myself, you know, and just sort of explore the world. So add a little you know, theater group where we built the sets, painted stage, managed lighting the whole nine yards.
That was my.
Apprenticeship before I ended up going into more film, television and that sort of thing. Yeah, but I still go back to theater whenever, you know, it comes up and there's there might be a play. I'll be coming up in the in January.
So okay, awesome, Oh but you can't you can't say yet.
Well, you know, I haven't been officially offered.
The job, Okay, so I'll just like I'll just say out.
You know, there are several theater companies in New York that have really nurtured Asian American actors. Pan Asian Repertory Theater is one. They're the probably the oldest My Theater Company and NATCO National Asian American Theater Company. So if you are looking for some Asian talent, those are the places to go. They are doing wonderful classical works and
new works, and that is where the incubator is. And they also MAYE also has a writers group, so many of those writers are now having their works produced not only in New York but regionally, which is telling me America is accepting and open to Asian American stories all over and not just New York Lower East Side.
That's awesome. Yeah, thank you for shouting out those groups. I'm sure because our listeners will. We have a lot of leaders see that out. Yeah, totally.
Well, you know, I'll plug once upon a Korea time right now. Okay, that's playing at La Mama.
Oh amazing.
Yeah, and that's MAYI. So check them out because you're going to find some really fine actors out there, a lot of good talent. Yeah, And I'm self thrilled because this is you know, you're talking about a couple of generations, a generation of actors where you know, in the i'd say sixties and seventies, Asian actors couldn't get an agent because there wasn't enough work. They're just like they didn't want to represent you because they couldn't get you work.
But that has changed over the last i'd say ten fifteen fifteen years. Yeah.
Yeah, we talked to B. D. Wong and he was saying, how, you know, being in productions that are all Asian or so, it's so incredible, but then it also makes them angry because it's like, why can't this be happening all the time? And so he talked about how it's this double edge like good and frustrating thing.
We talked about it with him. But you know, it's changing slowly but surely, and I think it's, you know, a nice kind of evolution.
Well, I want to know, you've been a Judge and Emmy all these different kind of iconic parts. What would you like to come back to SVU or Law and Order as if you got to come back again?
Oh boy, you know part.
Of that, Well, it's always fun to play the sort of the bad bad guy, you know, And uh, but I don't mind having a steady job, even if it is just the you know, but they're all all challenging, and you know, I also was a dead body.
No, my gosh, no, what episode?
That was my very first Law and Order.
Original criminal criminal.
Yeah. It was called shin Wazari and I am the person who is murdered and they have to solve my murder.
Where where were you shot this?
We shot this in Chinatown on a very hot day. Uh, lots of people around. And I'm walking along the street with my child and we're shopping and I suddenly see a man who I recognize as being sort of a murderer. I want to say, yeah, a murderer during Tiana men that period of time. And so I start to run towards him, and I didn't trying to get somebody's attention to stop him because he was sort of, you know, a bad guy, and and I lose him in the crowd,
so I give up. I start walking back and I get my child and I try to call my husband, and two seconds later, I get shot in the back.
Oh no, oh my god.
So I'm lying on the ground and Vincent Dianafrio is like, Okay, what's happening here, you know, but they they try and solve my murder out of that. That first That was my very first episode, that.
Episode wildly okay. I'm usually I see you all day, but I've seen that one.
So you okay. So but there's a whole scene where they're looking over your dead body, like you're lying there dead, because we haven't talked to anybody who's played a dead body quite yet, and I would. I just very I've always thought I was a kid been interested in like the breathing, Like do you when they yell action, do you just like hold your breath for as long as you can or breathe shallow or what you?
Okay?
Yeah, yeah, I was face down, that's number one, okay. And they put a cloth to protect me because it's kind of dirty on city streets and when and also, you know, the interesting thing is I had never been shot before, so they had a squib on my person so that the explosion would burst out. Oh okay, So it's all timing and everything. So they shoot me, and of course I fall face down and that's where my body is. They're discovering me. So when they do do
a little bit of a pan it's it's really brief. Yeah, you're basically trying to hold as still as possible, but because I am face down, it's a little easier to breathe. Yeah, you know sort of yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was really interesting. I've never had that attached to me in my back and.
So explain what that is because I think I know, but I just we explain like what that is, Like it's a little like vest or something that you wear under your clothes.
I think it was like some kind of patch okay that bursts on a signal so that while you're not actually being shot with a propellant, sure there's an explosion that will give you the impression that you've a person has been shot.
And the squib is like on a remote or something so that they press it and it goes, Oh, how many takes did you get?
I think we did just one one and done well, so we hear that was it? You know. Yeah, these guys are so such a pro that everything's really quick. You're lucky if you get three shots through, you know, three takes in a scene. Yeah, it's it's really quick, and that everybody's got to be on their game and really paying attention to what's going on. So, you know, I I often tell younger actors like, just be aware, be very on your mark, and pay attention watch what's
being happen. You know. I sort of like try to mentor people and go, this is what it's going to be, you know, that's the way TV is. Stage is going to be really different because you get to play around and move around. But camera work is very specific and you really have to kind of learn how to play to a camera what's going on around you. And it's more challenging when you're outdoors than in a set, and even within a set there are always you know, other
challenges as well. So there's limitations of space, space kinds of things. But you have a lot of distractions on in the in the city noise for one, a lot of moving parts, people going by. When I tell you, China Town is a very tough place to shoot because older Chinese people will not take anybody telling him you can't go here because we're shooting. They just will not listen to you. They'll just walk on through and your
SHOT's going to be like okay, hold yeah. So I feel sorry for the pas that have to kind of control the crowds.
Have you ever had a standout moment with the public interfering or doing anything wild?
No? No, But but I will say one very funny story. This is like way back in the days when I was starting out and I was doing background work. I did two long fu oh okay, and the scene was We're at a nightclub and the guys are all gathering. This is including Robin Williams. Okay. But and I forget the name of the guy now who's deceased anyway, Patrick Swayzey,
Patrick Swayzey. So we're on a little break and we're exiting the building and I'm walking down this set of stairs and the crowd outside has gathered and they're just worring, roaring, and I'm like, oh, and I didn't realize he was behind me and they were roaring for him, and I'm like, what's going on? So, if you want to say, the reaction was really I kind of got some of his.
You got to feel that swayze blow for a minute. Well, so you you described like how the SVU set you know, she sets the tone, and a lot of people have told us that, Like, but since you've been on like now OC and criminal intent and original do you see like a difference between the sets when you go to do and I know it's been like different time periods and things change, but like, do you see a difference when you like bop from show to show you know what?
Not really because the family is very you know, they trade a lot of people, so they know each other really well, you know, and it's all familial. They know they're where, what they have to do, what not to do, and it's it's quite an operation. I I it's incredible, you know. I don't know if anybody's ever seen the call sheet.
Let us see the cat.
This is a call sheet from that day. I'm such a memento person. So this is the call sheet. Wow, okay, And this is how many people are involved.
I know, it's like wild and our listeners can't see this obviously, but it is like there's people, I mean people, yeah, yeah, you know, And.
And it keeps the city alive. This is like one of the major you know, income streams for the city. And when when COVID hit, it was like, oh my god, we're talking about an entire industry that's going to be like so mess up, you know. So yeah, this is one day, one day.
Yeah.
Are there other things you have stolen from the set from a mento?
Huge theft?
No, no, no, I'm a mental person too, so I'm wondering. I always like to grab a sign or something.
No, but I did get the suit from Chinatown. It's Chinatown counselor. I was doing that suit that I wore. Yeah, and it's a really beautiful suit, the sort of plumish kind of Yeah. Yeah, it's really lovely.
Have you worn it?
Oh? Yes, Oh, I've wanted for other auditions when they're looking for someone high powered. Yeah, it totally fits the bill. Yeah.
We have a classic question we actually have been asked for a while. What are your go to craft serve snacks? Oh?
Yeah, oh gosh, it's always gonna be Cheetos.
Yes, even with the dust. Yeah, it's bold. I like that Cheetos.
And when they had Crafty in the morning, my go to breakfast would be a grilled cheese with tomato and bacon.
Oh yum.
That was like that'll hold me for quite a while. But now now we don't know that kind of it's all boxed whatever number one, two, three or four. You know, it's sort of sort of sad that way. It's like, oh gosh, I kind of missed those days.
Yeah, I wonder if it's going to go back now that things are getting a little bit more.
Calm COVID wise, Who knows.
I'm sure, yeah, you know, money, Yeah, I think if that's gonna happen, it's not gonna be for a while, honestly, you know. And there they've sort of gotten used to now the setup of how to make things a little bit more efficient in terms of all that. So it'll be a while if that does ever come.
Back, you know.
Yeah, we all just adapting.
That's it.
Yeah.
So aside from the play, that is maybe any other any other projects coming up that you are working on or.
Well, there's a group called Hedge Pig Ensemble and they're in Brooklyn and they are trying to bring attention to people to plays that are rarely done, and they have been doing readings of plays that are in the cannon. And so I just shot a short scene from a play called and the Soul Shower Dance, and it takes place in the nineteen thirties and it's an immigrant family, Japanese immigrant family Japan working in the farm in California.
So it has just a little bit a slice of history in it, and it was a play that Pan Asian rep had actually done years ago. But it's one of those plays that gives an insight into what it was like for immigrants of that time. So that's one little thing that that I just shot.
Amazing.
There's a Law and Order Organized crime where Susan Chung is Actually it makes another appearance. I know that'll be coming up sometime in September. It's part of the there.
The premiere is it the three crossover event?
There's a crew that's.
The premiere.
Okay, how everybody keep their eyes peeled for you on the premiere episode?
And you know, the heartbreaking thing is we were shooting the first day back from their break, Okay, that's when we shot it. And the next day was that the day that guy got shot?
Oh yeah.
I was like, oh my god. You know, I couldn't imagine that happening on the day that we were starting, you know, and it actually was the day after. So it's a little a little scary of what we're going through in terms of guns in the city. Yes, no, yeah, but anyway, so that's going to be the Crossover.
That's all right.
Yeah, we're gonna keep it Eye the Crossover. Susan Chung is back, okay, but you're in the OC part of the crossover or the s V part of it, the OC the OC okay.
Yeah. So now I've I guess I've done all of them in some to some degree.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you know what, the Law and Order original was back. I'm sure they're gonna be knocking on your door for that again. Like you're just you're just like up on the wall of the casting people's office. I think, Well, Lisa, do you have any more questions? I feel like this was awesome. I mean, thank you so much, Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
Oh, it was great. It was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for asking.
Yeah, I hope your first podcast was okay, beautie, Yeah, she was so sweet. Given work plugging all yeah, all that Asian American stuff. Guys, goes check that out if you're in New York. She has got the hook up.
What do we think double Strands a classic? I don't really know that. There's a whole lot of post mortem we can do, Like, hey, if you're a twin twins should be illegal. Yeah, if you're an identical twin, just like keep an eye on what your fucking twin is doing. But I guess it's like if you don't know you have an identical twin, I don't know what you're supposed to do to stop them from framing you for murder.
Also, I think we have learned something. Stop doing experiments on twin baby, Yeah, triplet's let them live, Okay, Yes.
That shit's fucking like that I did so weird.
Well, there's just ethics and experiments, and you need consent, Like there are standards and practices. You can't just like take a baby. And I guess the parents can have the legal right, but they shouldn't. They shouldn't be able to like put their childs to be experimented on. We
did when I was a sociology major. We went to the schools and did experiments on the children without their knowledge through like activities, like we set up games and activities, but then we studied the way they behaved and then did a thing about it. But we pretended it was just fun in games, that we were just chilling.
Well, the mom in this episode, I think ethics aren't really a huge part of her life, and I think she just wanted the sweet sweet cash from giving her kids away, so she made it happen. But yeah, like I don't know, in that movie Three Identical Strangers, they really kind of made it seem like, I don't know, there was like some anti Semitism. There was a little
bit of anti Semitic stuff. Again it's the doctor who like separated those triplets though I felt like in that doc but there was like a weird vibe.
Yeah, but everyone hates Jews, so it's like you could say that about everything truly. So, but I have met certain women throughout my life. Throughout my life that like want to marry a Jew. Like I remember someone had a mazoza necklace and I was like, oh my god, I didn't realize you're Jewish. It's like I'm not, but I'm trying to marry a Jewish man. And so like there are there is a subsect of I think people that want to I didn't know that.
That was like that was like a fetish for something. So Jewish women, well.
I don't even know if it's like just straight up fetish, but it's like I think they hear good things about Jewish men, like they're nice to their mothers. They can you know, like, yeah, they're calm. Yeah, they're not going to fight like that unless they're Hasidic. Then it's like truly, you know, put a woman in a wig and shut up. So it depends how jew you want to go.
Yeah, that off with the Hasidic.
I haven't read the article. I should read it. The Times did a huge piece about the Hasidic schools and how they're like failing the children but also using public grant money. Yeah, and then not teaching their children's skills.
They would just like kids that don't know how to read. Yeah, it's like not good, not good.
Yeah, I didn't read did you read it?
I didn't read it, but I've been here. I've been hearing people talk about it and like, you know, I've been seeing comments on it and everything.
I just wonder what the solution is. I mean, they shouldn't be able to take public money. I mean nothing religious should exactly exactly.
That's what I was just going to say. I was like, I have a solution.
If you don't want your kids to read, that's fine, but my money should not be going to you. Yeah, but your kids should be taken away from you. That's abuse? Is that not abuse? Like not giving your kids like a full chance at education? Is that not?
Like?
How? Yeah?
But I don't know, like like sometimes like some of the sects of that are so closed off that it's like they can claim their homeschooling like you know, I don't know what they're.
That should be illegal too.
But what we can do is just say no more, you don't get any more funds from the state, you know.
Yeah, it's just I mean, it's honestly, I just want to be so dumb. I just want to be so dumb, like the weight of the world. Just sometimes it's like it's just fucked.
Yeah.
It's like people are mad at the student loans or like anything or like children getting free lunch. But then we're like the Catholic Church got pp pp whatever loans. I have to pay back my small business loan I didn't get. I didn't qualify for the PPE. I had a SBA, So I owe all my money back that I got from COVID. Oh really, yeah, for my small business. But you can do it on a payment plan or something.
It's not going to like oh yeah.
The interest. It's not predatory. It's not like student loans, Like the interest is not predatory at all, and I think I'll be able to pay it off pretty quickly, but like it's still it's just not It's just like the things that as a call sure that is like people have issues with, or what the media is like telling you to have issues with, are just so non consequential to Like I don't know, the Catholic Church getting millions, millions of dollars. It's like, fucked, it's crazy.
I feel like there should not be any money given to any religion and for anything.
Absolutely not, Like you choose to be religious, you get no government money.
They already get tax breaks, Like that should be enough.
That should be the gift, you know, you get to follow the reptions. Yeah, and they're using the money for just court cases. I don't know. It's just like weird what we decide to be mad at or not. And that's what I mean, Like I want to be happy, go lucky, chill, enjoy my life, grateful, and then like one thing will be said and then I just spiral into like yeah, fuck, what do you do? What do you do?
Like it would be so easy, Yeah, if you were just like a super stupid person that just didn't process anything going on around you.
Yeah, I would love that. I would love to just be like being on Summer House Like that seems great. I love to just go to things they don't even care about recycling on Summerhouse. Who cares they do whatever? Wait, why did you bring up recycling?
Oh, just like you know, the planet ending and like, you know, like the shit we've talked about before.
I'm just joking. Well, it's just funny you said that because they do recycle at the end of every party, and we watch them recycle.
Oh my god, I never watched the show. I'm sot Summer House. I stand corrected. I know you guys are recycling icons, and I apologize.
They're just always picking up the cans after the party.
Yeah, but do you think they're chatting about Ukraine? Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't think they're I don't really think they're getting into that kind of shit at Summerhouse. I think that that's a sort of a fun zone.
No, but I've probably talked about this before. I mean, I think any of our consistent listeners will have to just know that we will be repeating things. But you watch the MTV show back in the day called Rich Girls, Right, Yeah, I think so. I don't have a super clear memory on it, but I think I watched it, so it meant a lot to me. Casey's nodding, so it was Tommy one of Tommy.
Hill, He'll figure okay, yeah, yeah.
And then her friend was less rich, but like her dad owned like a luggage company and it was like luggage wears, and they were out to lunch or dinner and they were getting drunk and stuff. But they were just talking about like I mean, people in the Midwest, they don't wear cargo pants for like fashion, but they need the pockets because they're in the fields working. And I loved.
That they need those loops for their hammers. Yeah, I love that.
That's so funny. But I don't know, but I'm sure that happens to all of that. But we're also getting more information than we're supposed to, Like we shouldn't be thinking about all.
Dated with information. The twenty four hour news cycle is the devil.
Like I don't know, I shouldn't know everything that's happening, but it's like everywhere you look, there's just like catastrophes and then we're you know, but then we gotta be happy. Yeah, all right, well we don't have anything.
At least you don't have an evil twin who was trying to frame you for multiple rapes. So also, even if you think you didn't do it, and you know you one hundred percent are innocent, get a lawyer.
Get a lawyer. Stop going to talk to the.
Top dot hops alone. Don't do it.
I got nothing to hide. Get a lawyer. It's just like ridiculous tr and night being such. Also, don't get neck tattoos if you're being casual. Yeah, fucking eight ball on his neck? Was that like? What? Oh? No, yyanyang? It was a yin yang.
A neck tattoo is wild. Let's get into our what would Sister Peg Do? Segment?
Guys.
This is our weekly segment where we direct you towards a book, an organization, a article, something to help you learn a little bit more about what we talked about in today's episode. And for today's What would Sister Peg Do, we'd like to point you to a really interesting article in The New York Times about the recent advancements in DNA testing. And the article is called one twin committed the crime, but which one a new DNA test can
finger the culprit. I don't really like it when we use finger in that way, but this is a good resource and it's written by Carl Zimmer. It explores some new DNA sequencing techniques that could potentially pinpoint genetic mutations in DNA that would allow for scientists to differentiate between identical twins. So pretty interesting and hopefully we won't have any more double strand situations going forward with this new technology. But an interesting article. It will be in our show notes.
It will be also, as always on our Instagram under the what would Sister peg do the WWSPD highlight where we save all of those little babies.
All right, thank you so much for that. And next week's episode will be Maternal Instincts. That's season seventeen, episode six. We're pumped you guys, listen watch along with us, and we'll see you next week. I that's messed up as an exactly write production. If you have compliments you'd like to give us, or episodes you'd like us to cover, shoot us an email it that's messed uppod at gmail
dot com. Follow the podcast on Instagram. At That's Messed Up Pod and on Twitter at Messed Up Pod, and follow us personally at Kara Klank and at Glitter Cheese.
As always, please see our show notes for sources and more information.
Thank you so much to our producer Kacy O'Brien, and to our mixer John Bradley and our guest booker Patrick Cotner, and to Henry Kaperski for our theme song and Carly gen Andrews for our artwork.
Thank you to our executive producers Georgia hard Start, Karen Kilgareff, Daniel Kramer, and everybody at Exactly Right Media.
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