Of the law and order franchises, SVU is considered especially watchable.
We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the vicious felonies.
These episodes are based on. These are our stories.
Done done, Hello, and welcome to That's Messed Up n SVU podcast.
I'm Kara Klank, I'm Liza.
Traeger, and every week we talk about an episode of SVU, the true crime it's based on, and then we have a guest from the episode, and yeah, we have another great one. As always, it's good to be confident. I've learned that from drag Race. We just had a fun little trip.
We just got to go on a little trip to Palm Springs with a couple of our vaccinated pals.
Yes, we had a blast. We did. I did follow one time and my knees are bruised.
But at LISTA was in front of a whole group of people I didn't know.
You know that that made it better.
And I did get a pinch nerve that made me unable to walk for most of the weekend. But you know what, good company makes anything better.
It is tough to be a parent. I yeah, I don't you need a vacation from the vacation. Not to sound like I'm eighty eight, but well no, I mean it's true.
It's like I'm like, is there not a daycare option during this trip? Like I'm with her now, like the entire trip, and she was being a nutball, but she was having fun.
She's obsessed with Lisa.
As we've already mentioned, the obsession only grew deeper over the weekend. She's like, Lisa, put on your bathing suit, Lisa, put on your hat.
My favorite was my friend was holding my phone and Rosie went, is that Lisa's phone?
Give it to her? And I was cute.
Well, I think what we're getting is that she's a fucking bossy bitch. Like she's not even like I don't She's just like thinks she knows where everything should go.
She also said a kiss, which to me is she.
Has an abacus at home. So she does say I want my avocus. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to get her prepedic case she gets into a competitive Montessori school.
I just have to look up what that is, job, Rosie.
She recently also started calling things spooky, so she like picked up a book today and there was a bug on the back of the book, like a picture of a bug, and she goes, is this spooky bug? It's just like really cracking me up that she I don't know where she learned that. I certainly I don't prefer to things as spooky day to day on a non Halloween uh setting.
So I don't know where she's getting at, but it's cracking me up. I have a Beanie Baby ghost.
Maybe I'll surprise her, Oh my god, because that's spooky, spooky, fucking Beanie Baby girl.
Yeah, that's the thing.
My exes have gotten me really great gifts in the past, and I keep them all. But it is weird or it's not weird. I get good gifts from people that I've dated.
I can't tell if.
You would be easy to shop for, of course, because you do a little bit of different things. Yeah, but I feel like if you miss with you, it's a big miss. It's like a like a whiff, like I would I would be like humiliated.
But what would you get me that would be a miss?
Like I don't know, like if I got you some Simpsons thing and you were like, this is really fucking lame, and it's from China, and it's like, nobody ad buys this.
I don't know.
This is a nightmare I'm working through right now.
No way, I would be excited about everything.
And you know that I was gifted from three separate people Simpson's bagoo bags.
Oh yes, and I've used them all. Yeah.
You certainly don't get it. You don't get mad when you get a double gift.
That's no, no, no, no. Or also maybe I'll talk behind your back.
But I would never accumiliate anyone in Publand in front of them.
Well, thank god, well, thank god for that. Okay, Wait, I wanted to read this message that we got from a listener because I thought it was wild. Because we you know, you guys send us a lot of memes and tiktoks of people dancing to the SVUS theme song, Thank you so much, we love them.
We also get a lot of lawn and Order.
Yes, like there are so many like plum and Order or like lawn and Order, like lawn companies and plumbing companies. And I'm like, are you all living in the same city or are They're just like multiple of these across the country. And I think this is the second one is the answer. But somebody was responding to us talking about dancing to the theme song and said, my husband and I binged SVU in twenty ten, twenty eleven, and we,
of course dance like maniacs to the theme song. I love that, I love one s FU can bring a couple together. During one such dance off, I hit him in the balls and he was obviously in pain. The pain lingered and his testicle became swollen. He went to the doctor and it ended up being testicular cancer. He has since fully recovered with no further issues, but dancing to the SVU theme song quite literally saved my husband's life.
Wow. I thought that was worth a read.
I mean, wow, guys, make sure to give your husband a little ball tap every once in a while, make sure everything's good down there. I guess that is a good story. Yeah, I thought so, and I'm surprised. I'm glad he's okay. Also so that I can't believe she remembers the year that oh, because of the cancer.
I'm sure.
I was like, damn, they really pinpointed the exact year they marathoned, but obviously other things were playing.
She has a journal of all the nights that they danced to the theme song.
Yeah.
It's also now that we're living so close to each other, is I am scared everyone will get sick of me?
No, what are you talking about.
I kept going to the Joyce's house popping in and they have full jobs, and he just kept being like, I'm on a conference call.
I'm like, just to pop in. Rolled me a joint. That's my goal. Actually, to the.
Way, wait, who is that? Like what is that like Steve Erkele or like what what characters? Aim GiB Yeah you're a gimbler. You're an arkle?
Yeah, Aunt Jackie, Yeah, listen. Hopefully one day I'll I'll book one of those Patton Oswald side King of Queen's.
It's like my dream. I want to be a buddy. Yeah.
Yeah, you as a crazy You as like a crazy wacko neighbor I think really works calling all casting directors.
I mean, you have the goofiest neighbor. I still have never met him.
Oh so, my neighbor drunk dialed me twice over the weekend while we were in Palm Sprinks. I was like, why are you calling me? And he didn't say why, Like I texted him and said is everything okay? And he's I'm like, I'm out of town, and he said, no problem, I'll keep an eye on your house. And I'm like, but you still haven't explained why you called me on Saturday night. He never calls me. And then it turns out I found out from his wife that he thought I was having the baby. And that's fine,
but why are you calling me? You think I'm having the baby and I'm picking up a phone call from you, like in between bushes, like.
No what After one of my sister's births, like some casual friends just showed up at the hospital and were quickly turned away. My sister's like, are you out of your fucking mind? We don't want to see you. We go out to dinner twice a month. This is not a true friendship. I was actually obsessed with those friends because the husband looked like Edward Norton, Oh, which was a thing for me a decade or so ago.
Wow, that's complicated with the American history acts of it all, But as a.
Joe, I had a joke about that that he looked the hottest. In the Nazi movie, I forgot the punchline, but there was one for sure. Because I bought all this gear of his and so then I had all these buttons with him as a Nazi.
Cool.
That just did it more for you, That just made you. It was like more forbidden. Like but like the bad guy in school.
No, the tattoo, it sucks.
But yeah, I liked the muscles and there was an epic sex scene in the start of that movie.
But I think the racism should have affected me more.
But I also would rather This is controversial, but I would rather a cover up of a Nazi.
Tattoo than a giant Jew letter tattoo. What which is fucked up?
Like if I met like a dude and he had a giant hamsu on his body, I would be very turned off, even though I do have Hebrew letters tattooed on the back of my neck.
But you are really just an enigma wrapped in a riddle.
Erica Jane, I mean, like what it's I don't know. There's something about giant.
Oh.
Actually we have a friend, Noah has Jew letters on top of his penis giant.
But it says like I am the soul in the light. I have to text him.
Like he has a like and he's like like above his pubic bone, kind of yes over his stomach, like an opposite tramp stamp, and it says like no thyself and hebrew above an opposite tramp stamp is the best way to call back that place. A reverse tramp stamp.
Well, there's there snatch patch and vadge badge, because I have a badge badge.
I've never heard of those words. You have a tattoo right there over your lady parts.
Yeah, I got it when I was sixteen in a person's apartment.
Oh wow, I've never seen that one. You wear high waisted bathing suits around me.
Yeah, I'll get naked more often. It's weird.
I haven't seen it because you pee when we're on FaceTime all the time, so it is weird that I haven't seen that.
Yeah.
Sometimes I'll be calling her as I'm sitting down to pee and it's like, could you not have waited a.
Can I get to consent first? Ask?
I'm gonna always say yes, but just you should get consent.
And I get offended.
When I'm talking on the phone and someone's like, well I have to go to the bathroom.
I have to go, and.
I'm like I'll come with you, Like well, why are you hanging up on me? This doesn't have to end, But what does have to end is us talking right now.
I know, but I just wanted to say.
We watched old seasons of New York Housewives on our trip, and like a fine wine, I mean, it never gets old.
Yeah, we watched the original Berkshires. We watched the Berkshire's pre Drinda with Heather. Yeah, when Ramona said, is that your house or your garage? She's such a nightmare.
She is.
But also I learned from you guys that the women keep shitting themselves on that show because they're on laxatives for dieting purposes.
Yeah, they're all like trapped in like nineteen eighty three. I didn't know that either, you know, but that's why there's a rumor that Ramona shits during sex. They shot on multiple vacations. They always blame like the local cuisine. It's like, I've been to Columbia. The water's fine. Like, you're not shitting your pants there a little tom tom ache from I don't know, something that you're not used to, But I don't think you're shitting fully on the floor.
That's because you're taking laxatives. Yeah.
So I don't know if anyone else knew that, but I like to learn that. Do we not have any other palm Springs highlights? Except I fell? We watched Old Housewives. I mean I ate Oreos, which was like great, No one should buy oreos. Ever, once you pop, you can't stop.
Oh well, I got us our tarot cards read.
Oh yeah, oh my god, that was on.
I should give a shout out. I did this as like it was our friend's birthday coming up. Her birthdays actually today was her birthday coming up, so I did it as sort of a birthday gift to her and to all the girls. I got everybody like a zoom tarot reading. And her name is Kristin Rand. She's a stand up comedian who does tarot readings, and she's so fucking great and we're gonna put her link in the This was like a perfect You could just do this for fun for yourself, or you could do it as
like a little group party thing. I love her and I'd love to give her a little shout out.
She was very good.
A few of us left the casita with tears, so that was well.
She gets to the real shit. She told me some interesting stuff about my coming baby, but I'm not going to reveal it here. We'll see what happens once I have the baby.
No, she was really good. That was a really nice gift for us. And now here's different.
Hold on and our friend mad trying to end it, Hannah, I was gonna say, our friend Lane made a crab hushpuppies that were Michelin's star level.
Yeah, I mean the best hushpuppies, not dry at all. He's a talent. There was a delicious dipping sauce with it. Oh my god, so good. We ate well on that trip. But now let's dive into today's episode because it's a good one. All right, Let's get into today's episode, which is Vulnerable. That is season four, episode three, so kind of an early guy. We open on a couple of sleep in their New York apartment, being awoken by someone rummaging outside in their kitchen. The guy tells his wife
call mine one one. But this episode is so old that they actually just have a cordless phone and it's not on the cradle, so people aren't fully addicted to addicted to their cell phones quite yet. He grabs a gun, she grabs a bat. They head to this kid to their kitchen, where they find this sweet old lady rummaging through the fridge and she's like, is that you itsy?
My favorite part is the woman goes, who's itsy? And then the guy says, who's this? Like I just love that so much.
The chettle bit of comedy.
It's a woman here, yeah.
Which we recently have discovered that the man is Bobby Kelly with hair, who is a New York City comedian that both of us have I think worked with tangentially.
He's very funny.
Yeah, very funny guy. Wait, so actually.
Bobby Kelly Sorry, that was Bobby Kelly hair.
Yeah, I checked out his IMDb.
Oh my god.
Yeah. Well wow. So now we've got Benson and Sabler on the scene. They don't know this old lady's name because she's seen Isle. Whether she knows it or is withholding it, we don't really know yet. She climbed through the window of this house. Olivia walks in. We've got a very short dude. It's like a little longer than her pixie, but I would say it's a traditional quote unquote boy haircut very short. And then she goes right
into like very sweet. Olivia Benson, caretaker mode, tries to get Granny Doe to open up, which is what they've been calling her, Granny Dough. She just keeps saying that she needs to talk to itsy. Benson pretends that she's actually spoken to Itsy, and then the woman opens up
and confesses to being raped. Olivia pulls down the woman's night gown a little bit in the and they discover, like pretty horribly that she has about nine cigarette burns all over her chest, and Stabler goes someone used her for an ash tray, and then we're out of the cold open.
I'm also thinking I might get Granny Dough tattooed on my body.
I really like it.
Just unidentified old ladies.
Let's Belisa trigger promise.
Well one time, I'm actually glad I didn't do it, but I was gonna get Lucy Lucy Apple juice tattooed from Beverly Hills, and I'm glad I didn't.
He Yeah, I'm really really glad you didn't do that. I was talking to you about that, and I think we all made the right decision. So we're at the hospital and the woman treating Bess is a beautiful young doctor who tells them that basically this woman has no abrasions, no fluids, but they did do a rape kit. They have to wait for the results. They said she had twelve raw burns on her breasts and genitals. I didn't
catch that the first time I watched that episode. I watched it a couple times and oh my god, so awful. The doctor says she probably has Alzheimer's, so no short term memory, and she doesn't think that she'll come around with any more details about what's happened to her. Benson is a shock that Granny Doe hasn't been admitted to the hospital, and the doctor is essentially like, I'm triaging her, like she doesn't need immediate treatment, she needs long term care.
And she also has a very short haircut, so it's kind of like the Battle of the Pixie cuts these two. They bring this old woman back to the precinct and try to talk to her.
There.
She's confused and accuses Olivia of stealing her purse, which I think is kind of a cute moment. The woman eventually begins to recount her rape, and she says that the man who did it stays in her house because he lost all his money investing. He drinks every night. Then she gets kind of lost mid conversation, starts eating a cracker and is like, what happened? Like you know, it's sad. And then Munch weighs in and is like when the steel trap starts to rust call Kavorkian and
I sees, like, consider that done. So these two freaking these I don't want to see Lucy and Affla.
Who are they?
Like?
Like, stat freaking freaking fac is that the term?
I don't know Tom and Jerry, so h, Munch and Finn head to h They meet this nerdy gay archivist. I mean he doesn't say he's gay, but he's really into Census Bureau information and they track down the family who used to live in that apartment, and it's a family with three little girls, Lilith, Isabelle, and Milly. They go speak to Millie. She's out gardening. She says both
of her sisters have passed away. But then when Benson mentions the name Itsy, she remembers that her sister Isabelle and her best friend Bess McIntyre went by Itsy and bitsy, which is so cute. I think She also reveals that Bess used to climb into the window in the middle of their night at their apartment to kind of escape from her quote unquote funny uncle. Which I've heard that phrase before, and it's the it's very unfunny, but just an uncle who was molesting her.
Yeah, there's like memes I see all the time where it's like, instead of telling your daughter to put on clothes or to stay away from funny uncle, don't fucking invite him into your home. Like right, reject the funny uncle.
Sure.
Back at the precinct, they speak to the old woman and they confirm that she is Best. She admits that the rapist she was referring to was her uncle and that he lost all his money in nineteen twenty nine when everybody did. So now we're basically getting the picture that she was molested as a child, and that's what she's been recounting. But you know, obviously those cigarette burns are not from nineteen twenty nine, so she, you know, she needs to we need to figure out where those came from.
So Benson's like, who's hurting you now?
And unfortunately this best just loses the threat of the conversation again. She just can't really keep up. A blessing from Captain Craigan is that the rape kit comes back negative. Long comes in having just spoken to Bess Love his diagnoses all the time, always waiting for Houonk to open his mouth and tell us what's going on. He says. The attack that just happened to her recently triggered the memories of her childhood assault.
So she went looking for her childhood.
Friend and they're like, well, who is she running from now? And Huang says, I doubt she'll ever be able to tell you. So the good news is her rapist uncle was arrested and sent to jail for five counts of rape and was killed in president in nineteen fifty seven, so it's not like he's still hanging around. Huang says, we're looking for a sadist, someone who enjoys the torture, and he's not sure if it's sexual or anger based. It's somebody who's young, socially stunted, and chooses old women
because of feelings of inadequacy. So Finn looks up Best Is Social Security and finds the assisted living facility where the checks are going is called Jubilee Towers. So obviously they head to Jubilee Towers. Olivia is like pretty upscale for a nursing home, and then the employee swoops in and corrects her and says, it's not a nursing home, it's an assisted living facility. This is Hope Garrett, assistant administrator, played by legendary actress Mary kay Place. I love her Upset. Yeah,
I'd been watching her since I was a kid. She's so funny.
She plays Maria Bamford's mom and Lady Dynamite. Go look up her work.
She's so so great. She tells them the bus isn't missing from their facility. She was released two weeks ago to the custody of her son Joe Sherman.
Sorry, I was in like a trance because I was like, where did I just see her?
And you know, I got very obsessed.
Last week with Bravos Scripted showed the Impostors and she's on that.
She is in that. Yeah, Okay, that was thrilling. Whatever. Another Lea's the trigger wreck.
They come at you, They come at you from anywhere, and you just got to be ready to grab them.
Well, what I loved about it is it is like suspense and undercover and spies and grifting.
But it's casual.
It's not like as intense as like The Americans or something.
It's like a Bravo version of the Americans.
Yes, so it like gave me the suspense I needed, but also like the silliness and like kind of I wouldn't say bad writing, but because I want a season three, you know.
Yeah, I love how you tweeted when a season three coming out, and everyone tweeted you that show was canceled three years ago. Okay, so Benson is stable to show up at the home of Joe Sherman, Bess's son. The super lets them in. He's got a beeper and he's got a lot of information. Okay, He's like, this is not his apartment, it's best's apartment. It's rent controlled. It's three hundred fifty dollars a month. Mister Sherman is an
off again, on again smoker. Since she's been back at his house, the repomen have stopped coming and the deliveries have started. Here's a big screen TV, a couch chairs, media center. There's a professional camera on a tripod that's just I don't know, ready to go in case someone gets the mood to photograph. But so anyway, the super knows a lot of information. He's one of my favorite kinds of characters, just like my super in New York would have known nothing about me, and they're always like,
what's their relationship? Like it's like a little up and down. They always kind of know what's going on.
I mean in New York, I had full on carbon monoxide poisonings time and time again, and my super said, how dare you call nine one one?
You're a dumb bitch. That's what my experience in New York was like.
Yeah, but Stabler's going through all the guy's stuff CD, DVD, stereo video, gott a TiVo, which is like supposed to be impressive. It's very two thousand and two. In this apartment, they find Bess's room. There are restraints on her bed, which is I mean, just creepy. Joe Sherman then barges in. He's played by Jay Thomas, who's been in a ton ton of stuff. He's won he won an Emmy for a character he played on Murphy Brown. And he just has like that really great like slimeball look sort of
like slick Rick kind of look. He doesn't even know his mom is going. He's like, where is she? Like, he doesn't even know she's gone missing. Meanwhile, she's been to like six locations with Benson and Stabler and he has no idea his mom's even gone. They bring Joe to the precinct. He says he doesn't smoke. They show him photos of his mom's bruise wrists, and he's like, she's never bruised before, And he says he uses the
restraints because she wanders that night. I know my grandfather had Alzheimer's and my grandmother had to build a fence around the property to keep him from wandering off. So you do have to take precautions, but I don't know that restraints. I don't know what the moral and ethical implications of restraints are, but it doesn't feel right. He denies being the one who burned her and says he
didn't leave her chained up all day. He says the housekeeper comes in the morning, makes her breakfast, wakes her up, takes care of her. But Maria didn't come or call, and he says he pulled her out of Jubilee Towers a couple weeks earlier because they were draining her she was paying seven k a month, and I guess if she pays three fifty a month at home. He's like, that's sixty seven hundred dollars that could be going into my pocket, you know.
And I know seven grand is a lot, but they probably feed them and all the medicine and their activities. It kind of seemed like a normal price too.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know the prices of nursing homes and assists of living facilities, but I do know that they can get pricey, especially in manhatt Like like anything in Manhattan, it's going to be more, you know.
Yeah.
So Joe's like, I'm leaving and I'm taking my mother with me, and Benson's like, my ass you are. So she pushes Cabot to find a charge. She's like endangerment something. So Cabot gets a protective order to place Best back in Jubilee Towers and also freezes all his mother's accounts and assets. So Joe's like pissed because obviously his mom is his cash cow. They check in with the housekeeper Maria. I have to say, this episode has a thousand scenes.
So I try to stay with us, like they literally go to so many locations full tank of gas used on this episode with the NYPD. So they check it on the housekeeper Maria. She said that she showed up and then no one was there, so he assumed that he had taken his mother to the doctor or something.
And you know, they ask about the burn. She says, no, that's not something I've ever seen, but that he does speak harshly to her when he gets stressed out, and that this past Monday, he was very stressed out because he was having a party and everything needed to be perfect for the party.
Let's get into the party.
Benson and Stabler go visit Joe at his office for who the fuck knows incorporated. I mean, I don't know. It's like this random office, Like he has a secretary. You have no idea what he sells or what he does. He's pissed that his funds have been shut down. He's like, this is a startup business and my mom is a
key investor. He refuses to give the names of his investors who are at the party, like even though one of these people could be the person who burned his mother's genitals, He's like, I'm not telling you who it was they are giving me money for my new business idea.
What an insane person?
They think maybe, oh maybe Best came out and embarrassed him at the party or did something that caused him to punish her.
But you know he's not given up any information.
So we cut to Munch and fin a great scene of Munch and Finn just digging through trash from Joe's place in an alley.
You know, I just can't. This is the most far fetched thing, and I love it. There's no way fucking iced tea is getting into a garbage cam and digging through trash and does no one pick up the tra It's like, do cops do this? I do want to know how often they are fully going into dumpster dives.
Well, this is what's crazy. They're going through it. And Munch goes, oh, we got lick magazine, we got a hair dye for men, and some kind of anal ointment, and then Finn goes, will you just keep looking for the guest book? The guest book, Like I had a guest book at my wedding and like twenty people signed it. Like guest books are so antiquated, and if you had one, would you throw it away? In the trash the night
of the party. What a weird thing. That's just such a weird piece of writing that got put in.
I am going to add trash police. That's how they caught the Golden State killer. They got a Kleenex out of his trash can to get his DNA.
But it was just a trash can.
Well, no, it is trash can behind Oh not a dumpster for a full building.
Yeah, they're not going into like they're treating it like a hot tub. I feel well, I guess.
Also, Maria told them I threw away three bags with yellow ties. So they're looking for these specific three bags of trash. So it's a little bit. It's not a full dumpster dive. It's like they're looking for these three bags of trash.
So but and you would think they would put on like a hazmat suit, like some little booties. They're truly like he's in a leather jacket. Yeah, there was just no prep for the garbage dive.
It's just wild my issues that they're looking for a guest book anyway, and.
In New York is it looked like it was an alley. I've never seen a dumpster in my life in New York.
No, that's so true, and there are no there really aren't alleys in New York. There are alleys in Chicago. And that used to always kill me because I told you the one time I ever saw lawn Order being filmed, it was trial by jury. It was outside of my apartment and a couple doors down for me, there was a little space between two apartments, but not anywhere that anyone would ever go unless you want, like going to
just throw trash away. And they were like pulling a suspect out of there, and I was like, I love how they have to just find.
Alleys because there just aren't a lot of alleys in New York.
Well, because one of the hardest things moving to New York from Chicago is I am a frequent.
Pierre and alleys are very helpful for that.
Yeah, if you pee in New York, you got to pee in between cars and you just got to get to her. Yep. I'm a very outdoor, big outdoor pier.
Okay.
So yeah. So then as they're going through the garbage, Munch finds like a big, like newspaper wrapped bunch of cigarette butts. I can like smell this scene when I'm watching it like just old butts garbage, and so that's like the sort of jackpot find that they get. Now we're at the forensic tech's office. She is a very strange person. I don't know if she's ever been on the show before. She has a very sultry voice and delivery, and she's a forensic tech, but you can tell she
probably does Broadway. I don't think this is how lab techs talk, but maybe I don't know enough of them. She's like, I've been testing your cigarette butts.
Like she just has a very like she's in a murder mystery or something.
Yeah, exactly is in a murder mystery, but very clue. It's very clue. So they think they're not going to find anything, and sexy tech is like, not really, ninhydront and shows them how she sprays this stuff called ninhydron on the butts and it can pull fingerprints. So now Finn and Mount are at a car dealership questioning a salesman who was at the party. He basically says I never saw the mother, but he spills that Joe is hawking a horse racing program that's his new get rich
quick scheme. He's also had like a Lama ranch and all these other crazy ideas, Like his ideas are habitual failures. And he said that, oh, his mother was his principal backer until two years ago. She caught him off, Joe went broke. She moves back in. Suddenly he has the money.
Again.
We've already kind of established this, so I don't really know the point of this scene. Like they could have just said, hey, we talked to a guy who told us this, and it would have been like saved you setting up a full scene at a car dealership. But whatever, everybody needs those scenes for their reels. As I've said before, Joe shows up at the precinct. He's pissed at the that the cops are going around talking all his investors. He's like, my investors are pulling out. You guys are
ruining me. And they're like, we pulled your financials and he's like, the only thing I take from my mom is rent and he's like what about all Olivia's like what about all these checks made out to cash? And Joe looks at them and goes Andy and they're like, who's Andy your partner or whatever. He's like, no, my college dropout son. He's like him and his deadbeat friend showed up uninvited to the party and he needed a place to sober up. They go to New Jersey to
question Andy. This scene is so funny. Andy is shirtless on his bed, looking like he's having a seizure. But I guess he's just listening to music. He's just banging his hands on the bed and listening to rock and roll. I don't know what's going on, and so they obviously like turn up the music really loud on his headphones to get his attention because he doesn't notice two full strangers have walked into his room and they're like, we heard your college drop out. He's like, is that what
my dad told you? Of course I had to drop out of college when my dad drained my college fund that my grandma set up for me. And he's sort of trying to be like, my grandma's the only one that cares about me. I love her. I would never hurt her. But he does admit that my grandma gives me presents or whatever, which I think is referring to these checks.
Listen, that's what grandparents are for. I'm sorry, it's to give your grandkids money in presious.
Sure, but I don't think when your grandma seen now you go in and make her sign checks to you, like five times a month, that's a little bit much.
Listen.
I'm on Andy's side. I don't think he's pushing her to it. I think she would want to do this.
Okay. I like Andy, she.
Doesn't even know her own name when the cops come to her, and you think that the son should just be giving five times monthly gifts. Okay, we disagree, and that's what's going to happen. It's okay, uh okay. So they're like, what about the guy that you came to the party with And they're like, He's like, oh hol And they're like does he smoke?
Yeah?
He does. He doesn't know if Hal was ever alone with his grandma because he kind of passed out a little bit. And it turns out How.
Works at Jubilee Towers.
Baby, So the next scene is not great. We open up on How fighting with a sad old wheelchair bount man and he's screaming at him like leave me alone, and Benson and Stablers show up and the old man's like he's trying to kill me. They question How, and How's like this guy's a troublemaker. Like, there's so many troublemakers. I got a lot of work to do. And they're like, what about Best And they're like, Noah, Bess is a dream,
he says. And we see her outside just in the courtyard, chatting with Munch and Finn and Hal denies doing anything to her Best and he's like, I gotta go. I've got lives to save. It's like, you are an orderly at a nursing home. I mean, I'm sure you have the opportunity to save a life, but you are not God. Okay. So at the top of act three, they're speaking to Hope Mary Kay Place MKP about Hal's record. He's worked
there a year, he's only had one serious complaint. Who is mister Jackson who accused Hall of trying to suffocate him. But mister Jackson is senile. We investigated, we didn't find anything. And they're like, why would you hire Hall? He like, does not seem like a people person, And she's like, I mean it's a very low paying job. Not a lot of people are into wiping adults butts for you know, their profession.
Minimum wage, Yeah.
Minimum wage. So Finn and Munch go talk to mister Jackson, and he seems pretty with it.
I will say he's amazing.
He's painting, and when Munch and Finn walk up to him, he goes, you the nude models, I amazing. He says Hal is a serial killer, that he pinches him all the time, and that so one time mister Jackson bit him and how cut off his oxygen and said, you're gonna die, old man. Then he goes a little bit left and tells them that Hal stopped doing it because the clan rooms the hall at night, and calls them
the sheet people. So we get that he's got moments of lucidity, like I truly believe what he says about Hal. But then he veers into thinking that the ghosts of the clan are in his room hauls at night.
So but no one can say that they're not. I guess that's true. I guess that's true.
We cannot be sure that clansmen are not roaming the halls of the ghosts.
We can't just deny that there's ghosts chasing You're right.
I don't want to be a ghost denier. You're right, you're right. The next scene, we're at this beauty parlor, we get these funny too old ladies gossiping. They're very funny and cute in New Yorky. And then this one lady explains that when she woke up after she had had surgery, so she's like, we get the idea that she's been a little bit doped up from her surgery.
She thought she was being sofcated she started clawing and then it stopped, and then hal was standing there scratched and bleeding, and then he said, oh, no, you're hallucinating. So that's sketchy. So they basically are they're painting this picture of how now at the precinct where they're like, he pinches residents, he hides their dentures. All the victims are doped up or senile, so he's obviously picking and
choosing who he's messing with. And then Cabot shows up with this suit that was a negligence claim against Jubilee Towers for ten million dollars. It was settled with an NDA, and everyone at Jubilee Towers is named in the suit, probably including Hope, including how everybody we've met.
So far, Hope, and how seems like a sitcom?
Yeah, that's true. A psychotic A psychotic sitcom set at a nursing home. Dalia Brown is the name of the woman who died in the suit, and Cabot is already working on an exhamation order, So right away we're getting a dug up body. They exhumed the body. Warner's doing her things. She's like, the skin is in perfect condition. Unfortunately, I didn't really know this about undertaking or embalming. Is like they flush out all your blood and replace it
with formaldehyde. I guess I kind of knew that. I just didn't know all your blood.
Did you?
Now?
Watch Six Feet Under? No, I need to watch it.
I know, I know. Everybody tells me it's like the greatest show on Earth. My sister's obsessed. But that takes all blood toxicology out of play now because her blood is gone. She checks for other toxicology. Nothing's there. And the death certificate said cardiac arrest, which she says is what Emmy's put. We put that when we really don't know what happened, but we don't suspect foul play. But we heard in our episode of Lost Traveler that sometimes
they don't even put that. Remember, there was a person that died and they just didn't even have anything, so I thought that was interesting. Melinda did notice a puncture wound on the woman's arm that was not noted in the report and was like a fresh puncture wound, so good ie. Elliott and Olivia are back talking to Mary kay Place about how they settled with Dalia's family. They checked her records and her last meal was delivered by
somebody with the initials hs hal Shipley. And as they're waiting for Hope to give them more information, there's a code blue and there's this actress who goes quick get the crash cart. Really bad, sorry, really bad extra work. I'm sorry if that's somebody's aunt or grandma or something, but that was not great. And it's room four ten, which is Bess's room. They go to Bess's room. Hope is leaving the room and she's all flustered and she's like,
you were right. It was Hell. I saw like. I called him into my office after I spoke to you, I fired him. He was furious and he stormed out. I was worried about Best, so I came to check on her. I saw how leaving the room and Bess was just low pulse struggling, so I started CPR on her. Olivia, as they're wheeling, bess Out notices that she has a fresh needle mark on her arm. All the elements are coming together, So they track down How while he's taking a smoke break and ask him to account for his
whereabouts for the last fifteen minutes. And he's like, I was in a stock room taking inventory, Like he has no he's not sweating this at all.
Now I feel I get the vibe from him that his parents didn't believe in him.
Yes, that's very very that seems very accurate. And he either like come down for questioning to the station and he's like, am I under arrest? Then no, and then Stabor just like kicks his chair and he's like, okay, I'll come. What like, okay, you were right, you don't have to go. And then I wrote in my notes
Olivia grabs his butt. But what I mean is Olivia takes his cigarette butt that he throws out, so she grabs that for you know, fingerprints, DNA, etc. How's fingerprint is a match for one of the butts at the party. And then they say to him, but how many butts had seared flesh on the end. But we actually found out earlier from the Sexy Csu tech that all flesh would have been burnt off the cigarette because cigarettes burn at like eight hundred degrees or something crazy, so there
wouldn't have been any flesh. But they're just bluffing this skuy and I love it because they're like iced. He goes, there's not any flesh on these cigarettes, and Craigan goes oops, just a great Craigan moment. Cop games, so they're like that sucks. No confession, no plea bargain. So then Holse starts to just sort of like, you know, give it all up. He admits to burning Bess. He said Andy owed him money, and they're like for what. He's like, nothing to do with this, and the cops just let
that go okay. So he's like, I can't. I kept seeing Andy getting money from Grandma Bess, like pulling out the checks, and so he thought he would go back in and try it. When he did, she yells rape, just like she used to do at the home when he'd help dress her, which is obviously a response to her childhood trauma as well. So he goes over to quiet her. Down. He's smoking a cigarette in the old lady's bedroom. I don't know. He's got a lit cigarette
in his hand that accidentally burns her. She starts screaming even more and he snaps and he goes, I'll show you rape. And that's when he continues to burn her and pulls up her night down and burns or in all this like horrible stuff. I feel like that's a really crazy snap and he should go away for a long time to jail. He says he never saw her that whole day. He never saw Bess and that when she coded, he was in the stock room and he can prove it. So they find out that hal was
stealing drugs from the drug computer. If you ever watched if you ever watch Nurse Jackie, you kind of know that they get these like hardcore drug computers that dispense the certain amount of drugs so that people cannot abuse these machines. So he was inputting all these fake nurse codes at at the time that best coded, So he does have an alibi for the moment of that she was you know, quote unquote attacked at Jubilee Towers. They're poking around and they find out that Hope has a
little bit of a reputation for saving patients. She has saved besides Best, two other patients. Meanwhile, we see that Joe is pulling Best out of Jubilee Towers.
Andy's there too.
He's like, I'll bring you some other brouchers for other nursing homes, Grandma, And meanwhile Best keeps telling Joe to shut the fuck up. She's like, can somebody shut this man up? I hate him like her own son. She's like, stup, make him stop. And he tells Olivia that the protective order has been dropped, so he's allowed to take her out, and Olivia says, oh, I heard the misappropriation of funds
investigation is just beginning. So then Hope walks in and she tells Joe how Bess is one of her favorites and nothing's going to happen to her while she's here, and then we kind of see Olivia. We get a close up on Olivia just noticing like something is off here. So then she starts talking to Hope about, oh, you've saved all these patients except for that one man who died, and Hope's like telling this very sketchy story about how she tried to revive the man. He was already dead,
but she started doing CPR on him. Anyway, It's just a very it just feels like she's lying. She's kind of switching back and forth between details, and we go back to the precinct where Olivia is like, this woman's a wacko. Something's up, and Huong is explaining malignant hero syndrome, which is when someone sets up a dangerous situation in so they can swoop in and save the day, like a fireman setting fires. It's essentially like Munchausen biproxy. It's
just not with your own kid. It's like you're endangering somebody else and then saving them.
Being a hero is intoxicating because one time our friend Mike Joyce, he lost his glasses in the ocean and I was like, I'm going to be a hero right now, And in the fucking ocean, I reached down and I found his glasses and I put I put my hand up into the sky and I swear, I mean, I'm this is this was six years ago. I'm still talking about it. It did feel amazing, and I did save the day. I just understand people that want to be heroes. Because it does. It does feel good.
It does feel good, but yeah, don't put people in danger. So best is talk. Screen shows that she had epinephrine in her system. So this is Wong looking at the file being like, why does she have epineffrin in her system? And that's what they give you when your heart stops, and I believe that's also what's in like an EpiPen when you get you know, sung by a bee or
have a shellfish reaction. Wong said that she wouldn't have needed that because if CPR got her heart started again, we wouldn't have needed that, and it was not noted in her chart that she was given that, so that would definitely speed up her heartbreak and mimic a heart attack.
So that's very sketchy. We look into Hopes passed a little bit and she was a nurse, so she would know how to administer something like epinephrine, and she worked at Oak Glade Nursing Home and her license was revoked fifteen years ago for gross negligence for failure to dilute
potassium chloride doses. We're back at Jubilee Towers and Elliott and Olivia bust In on Mary Kay Place Hope giving a tour, and they said, well, how's princes weren't on any of the syringes, but we found your prince on one of the syringes of FB at the nurses station, and she's like, why are you trying to embarrass me? People can hear you, So it's you know, that's sort of like a I think that's like an interesting line that they put in about how she really cares how
people perceive her. You know, she wants to be perceived as the hero. She just want to be embarrassed. You know, she's very into this upscale assistance living facility that she works in, in her reputation and all that. So they arrest her and then in the final scene, we're at trial.
Melinda Warner is testifying that she examined the records of twenty two deaths between nineteen eighty two and nineteen eighty seven at Oak Glade, the old nursing home she worked at, and found evidence of potassium poisoning in seven of them. It wasn't originally discovered because people expect the elderly to die, and I guess autopsies are only performed in one out of twenty five If anyone listening knows that there are more current stats on that. Let me know, because that
seems like that seems like not that many autopsies. I mean, I know people are, you know, eventually die, but I don't. Families want to know why. I don't know. So and when when cells die, they release potassium, so it would have been undetectable. She found it by examining ekg's and basically discovered, she says, a bunch of medical mumbo jumbar, but in Layman's terms, said that it all showed that
all of their hearts were beating too fast. None of them had kidney disease, so the potassium was deaf only introduced to them from an outside source. Someone administering a lethal dose. Hope interrupts with like a big thing, like, doctor's fuck up all the time, you have no idea? I cover their asses. And then Warner also reveals that in every single one of these seven cases of death,
Hope Garrett was the administering nurse. She totally flips out and is like they were at death's door, and then she goes to Cabot, I help people.
What do you do?
You stupid bitch?
Is the great I just love the line.
It's so good.
We love Cabot too. This is a great Cabot episode. She's so gourge and perfect and basically Hope is just having a full breakdown. Her lawyer's telling her to calm down. They have to take the jury out. Hope is freaking out, and she's like, I didn't kill anyone. Maybe a few of them wouldn't pull through for me, but I have saved hundreds. And she's screaming all this as she's being escorted out by the bailiffs and then created by Dick Wolf.
I think, you know, that's actually my dream role now on SVU. I want to be carried out by a Bayliff. Yeah, after a breakdown. I think that's a freak attack until.
You carry it out.
Yeah yeah, yeah, that's I could see you handling that easily.
Thank you.
But yeah, so that's episode I I'm sorry if I rushed through it. They just literally went to seventy five different locations in this episode, and there was just a lot going on, but ultimately, you know, heartbreaking because there really is so much elder abuse that goes on with poor elderly people, and Lisa is going to take us into that world, I believe as soon as we come back from.
The break, all right, welcome back.
So we're going to be talking about a murderous fucking nurse. Is Kristin Gilbert And this takes place in about nineteen ninety five is when the investigation and like this starts. And I watched Snapped and I've never seen Snapped, so it's pretty thrilling.
And there was one.
Investigator they started like, he was called in around two thousand and six and he was really excited. He goes, I'll never forget it because it was a leapier and I just like a grown man being thrilled that it was a leapyer. So Kristen worked at a VA hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts, and it's like a super chill town.
Yeah, Northampton I've been to many times and it's very it's like lesbian folk rock capital, like very cool. It's like where Smith is there, I believe Smith College. Like there's just a lot of great It's just a cute ass little town.
Yeah. So the murder rate is basically zero.
There's a murder like one every two years, but all of a sudden, the death rates spiked and it was all because of the veterans hospital very suspicious and doctor Greg Blackman, one of Kristen's coworkers, said, it's pretty alarming the amounts of codes and deaths because usually they expect veterans to get better and leave. It's not It's not a place like I said, it's a chill fucking town,
chill hospital just coming in for help and leaving. So to get a little background on Kristen, there was a few professionals and they said, like it's kind of classic for women killers, where she was just obsessed with attention. She liked being the center of attention all the time, no matter what it took. She once lied that and said her mom was an abusive alcoholic. She was just always like making shit up. If boyfriends broke up with her, she said she was going to kill herself.
You know, I don't know if we all know someone like that or not.
I definitely do, But yeah, she's a chronic liar and manipulator, and with people like this like no attentions enough and they'll do whatever it needs to do. That which is using why she would become a nurse, because nurses are usually very selfless and caretakers and it's just about the work and the patients.
So that is very strange for someone of that nature maybe.
To set herself up to be a malignant hero syndrome person.
You know it. Maybe.
So in nineteen eighty eight she graduates nursing school and that's when she starts working at the VA Center. She's also married to this guy named Glenn, Glenn Gilbert.
She had two boys.
On all accounts, she liked being a mom, and she was just kind of like a basic gal, you know, a nurse, married mom, whatever, living the life in Northampton. But then shit got wild because her and her husband would fight, and then she chased him around with a giant knife and he had to lock himself in the
room until she like she had a chill. So we realized something was wrong, and the marriage just kept getting worse and worse because usually with people that love attention, when you fall in love, that's the intoxicating fun part, and then when you know it's just like a marriage, it gets boring and people like this get bored.
I'm not married, but.
You know it's not as thrilling, you know, it's not like all that oxytocin or whatever rushing to your brain all the time. So the husband started realizing something was up. You know, her craving for attention got pretty strong, and she began an affair with the hospital security guard, James Ferrell, and that's when Glenn filed for divorce, and so she was just like fucking the security guard and they had a really great time. And right after the affair began is when the deaths started to occur.
So it all came together.
The first victim of this deadly deadly nurse was Stanley Jigadowski. He was sixty six years old and a veteran of the Korean War, and doctor Blackman, who I mentioned earlier, looked at his charts. Everything was fine, he had a healthy heart, and he expected him to be fine.
And then all of a sudden he codd and his.
Heart stopped beating and he was dead, and it was just you know, the doctor actually was like crying when talking about it.
He's like, we weren't supposed to lose him.
And he's like a very passionate, empathetic dude, like he was like, what, you know, he was very upset by this. And so February eighth, nineteen ninety five was the second suspicious death, and it was a much much younger patient. It was a thirty five year old man, Henry Hudon, and he had the flu. So they brought him into the VA hospital and they were gonna like charge, you know, it's just a flu. They were just going to deal
with it and everything was going to be fine. He did have a head injury from when he served, and so he was diagnosed after that with paranoid schizophrenia, but outside of that he was in very good shape with no physical conditions. Again, doctor Blackman checked on him. Everything looked fine. He went downstairs and within the hour there was a code and he was in cardiac arrest and so they began CPR and he came back and so that was amazing.
And then Kristin out loud says, I wouldn't.
Be so happy, and doctor Blackman said, what do you even mean by that? And she goes, Wow, he's a schizophrenic, And so that's pretty alarming, Like not only is that a statement, that's pretty fucked like in general, like you wouldn't want someone that has schizophrenia to live, but as a nurse and a caretaker and you're in charge of their well being, to be like, it's a shame we saved him, Like let this person die.
As a nurse, you should never be quantifying like people or like calculating people's like quality of life and their like deservedness to live right, like everyone you have to try to save everyone.
Yeah, that's definitely it. Because when my dad had heart surgery, he was kind of causing problems on the floor and I talked to our friend Lindsay was a nurse, and she was like, they're all fucking annoying.
Don't worry.
I never give worse care when someone's annoying, all right, annoying patients, And so that helped me because I was like, are the nurses gonna smother him? Like he truly was causing a lot of problem this summer at the hospital. So doctor Blackman thought it was definitely fucked up. And then he went into cardiac arrest three more times in a six hour period, and then the third time his heart finally gave out.
I know, it's really upsetting.
And in this episode of Snapped, they talked to Henry's sister, who of course is so upset, and she go like, with all this, I mean, we find out it's obviously this woman, Kristen, We're not living in a mystery right now. I'm not hiding deets. And the sister says, that's what's
so tough. It's like when you're at war and you're in the military, you know who your enemy is, and it's just so much more fucked up here because you're expecting good healthcare at this VA hospital and it's just so fucked up that you don't know who your enemy is.
And you're literally, like, to quote the title of the episode, you're vulnerable, like you're in the hands of these people and like they have your life in their hands.
I'm very impressed. How you put that together? Kara very impressed.
So February ninth, ninety six, a year later, a forty one year old Kenneth Cutting comes in and he has sepsis. He's an army vet, husband, parent, and his heart was totally fine.
You obviously get the pattern.
All these people are very healthy, and Kristen says to a supervisor, if this guy dies by eight pm, can I go home early so I can go.
On a date.
So she said this to her supervisor, like if this guy croaks, can I go party? I just don't know how she like, why it's kind of shocking that no one is doing anything with all of these comments being made. I don't And then later that night there is a code and he died of cardiac arrests forty one years old and no apparent reason for death, and she got.
To go out and with this.
So, like every time there was a code, her boyfriend who is a security guard, but all the security guards and everyone at that hospital is trained in CPR and like, you know, resuscitating people, that's part of it, and he is a first responder, so the boyfriend would always be in there, so like Kristen was always first in the room with these codes, and the boyfriend would run in and she would like get on top of these men to give them CPR and was putting on a show
for her boyfriend, Like she liked the attention of this guy watching her try to save these people. So it was also like a weird, kinky game on top of murder, like that she it was all for attention from this guy as well. And what was annoying is like when the news of all of this came out, the media spinned it as like this romance and really focused on this romance when it's kind of a side part to all of this. But yeah, so she did it to
fucking flirt, which was fucked up. Witnesses say that she would openly flirt right in front of the struggling humans Jesus Christ, and when he would do CPR, she would make comments how she liked the way his muscles moved.
Classic flirting. Sick o sick oh for sure.
And the experts that study this case, they say that the murder, like the deaths, is kind of a side effect. Like it wasn't like she was trying to murder. It's just like kind of what happens. It's a side effect of getting the attention, which is I don't know how to.
Maget about that fat I mean, it's similar to the character I don't think she was from the show. She wasn't trying to murder people. She wanted the hero worship and everything.
Yeah, and so a lot of the coworkers started calling her Angel of Death, but it was just ingest and they thought she had bad luck and they didn't really believe she was killing patients. But then four weeks later, the fourth death occurs under Kristen's care. Edwards squire a World War two veteran. He had a seizure from alcoholic withdrawal, and you usually give them valume and they get better. But later that night he stopped breathing from a heart attack.
And you don't just go into cardiac arrest from a seizure, right They let us know that.
And FYI, I'm that's a crazy nickname to give a nurse Angel of Death. I don't care if it's like in jest. That's fucking nuts, Like you're not like, oh, we call Bernie here the incinerator on the fire at the firehouse, you know, because he's always involved in these really really deadly fires. Like it's just fucked up it is.
But this, this final one, made the other nurses realize this, it wasn't just some bad luck and something's going on. So one nurse started looking for evidence, and what she found shocked her. She checked the hazard's box and inside she found three broken ampules for epinephrine with such a strong dose they would never use on that floor of the hospital. I guess those are for really like intense cases.
And this dose of epinephrine did not belong. And epinephrine is a synthetic heart stimulant, for those wondering, And I did practice how to say epinephrine many times before we sat down here today. So three other nurses went to the supervisors after all this, and that was the tipping point. And then this is when investigators got involved with the case. So this is where the leap ear comes. In February twenty ninth and nineteen ninety six, this main investigator gets
a call. They start matching the deaths to her schedule. When she worked evenings, there were spike and deaths. When she worked in the day, there was a spike in deaths, and the deaths followed her and James, the security guard, started to believe these rumors and so he didn't like it, so Ardie, so when the criminal investigation heated up, he said peace out, Gal and ended that relationship. Gilbert obviously did not take this well and said she was going
to kill herself. Kristen started to panic. She had no husband, no friends, and no boyfriend. And experts believe when a person like this, who believes they're in control, starts to get cornered and things start cracking, they tend to do something extreme. So what is Kristin Gilbert going to do?
September twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six. She calls the VA Medical Center and says, there are three explosive device is in the building and they're going to explode in twenty five minutes and I'll see you in hell.
Oh my god.
So she calls in a bomb threat, and a bomb threat is a serious thing, in case you.
Didn't know, in case you were unaware.
That's not cute, not cute that I want to use that term more often. I don't say that enough. Not cute.
So they evacuate fifty acutely old patients in the cold, and it's a lot of work to get everyone out.
Luckily nobody died.
There was no bomb, but this bogus threat was like the big break in the case. And what she didn't know was she was under surveillance this whole time. So the person following her saw her go to the payphone and make this call.
Who, in my mind, is just Stabler. It's just Stabler's in the car following her.
Yes, go on.
After the bomb threat, they got a warrant to search her home. So a DA was quick on their feet, and Kristen was alone in there, and she they said that she was like dumbfounded and was like whatever, I don't know, you're not going to find anything.
But she's just not that smart. They found everything that they needed.
They found the jacket on her bed that she was wearing when she made the call that she was id'd in by the surveillance guy, and inside the jacket there was operating instructions on the device to change your voice the like.
The call is coming from inside the house machine that you can use.
Yeah, it's actually amazing. It was a talk boy. I don't know if you remember that toy.
Yeah, yeah, talkboy.
So then they find the talk boy in a box in the kid's bedroom. So they have the talk boy, they have the instructions, they have the jacket, and they took a bunch of journals, computers, medical books, they took everything from there. And they took a drug book that was dog eared on the page explaining epinephrine, which is circumstantial, but you know, yeah, they were happy to find that. So they had all the evidence for the bomb threat, but they needed evidence to.
Get her on these murders.
But because of the bomb threat, she was sentenced to fifteen months in federal penitentiary. She was sentenced to fifteen months in federal penitentent I can't say it penitentiary.
In a federal penitentiary.
Fifteen months in a federal penitentiary, I can't say it penitentiary, penitentiary, penitentiary.
This all stays in penitentiary.
Okay, fifteen months in a federal penitentiary in Connecticut. You should be a speech therapist. JK, you're very good at this. Please don't go to CLS school again. So in there there was a suicide attempt and she got a psych evaluation and they figured out that she was borderline personality disorder. Like I've said earlier, loves attention, craves chaos in an arena. They can manipulate to their advantage. Use whatever they need to draw attention to themselves, pretend to be victims, whatever
it takes to keep the focus on themselves. Jail time kept her so they can investigate and do more interviews and just be free to dig deep. Victims' bodies became the number one piece of evidence, but all the bodies had been laid to rest, but without this evidence like they needed the body evidence like in the episode of SVU. They needed to prove the epinephrine was in the body
or they didn't have a solid case. So authorities decided to exhume some of the bodies and it was worth it, and they found what they were looking for, lethal amounts of epinephrin in the body. It also showed them that all these patients had good hearts and without the bodies they wouldn't be able to bring upon charges. So very
happy that they were allowed to do that. And this case got a lot of extra media attention because since the VA Hospital is federal property, she could get the death penalty, which is not allowed in Massachusetts.
Wow wow, Yeah, she would be.
The first defendant in a capital felony case eligible for the death penalty since the nineteen fifty. She did plead not guilty and they say Kristin Gilbert had no reaction at all in the courtroom to what anybody said or did.
She was deadpan and cold.
She was found guilty of four counts of first degree murder and three counts of attempted murder.
Damn.
She got life in prison, but not the death penalty. She is currently serving her life sentence in Fort Worth, Texas. After her conviction, she maintained her innocence and began a federal appeals process, but she dropped that when after a recent US Supreme Court ruling would have allowed prosecutors to pursue the death penalty if she was granted a new trial. So didn't seem worth it to her.
Wow, So she was like, if I go for it, I'm probably going to get convicted again and I'm going to get the death penalty.
Wow.
Wowow.
Yeah. So that is the case of Kristin Gilbert.
Wow. Fascinating. I mean, I there's another SVU episode with Jane kerk Kowski where she is sort of an angel of mercy where she's killing like people that are on their death with the air embolism.
Yeah, this is like such a different thing.
It's like, oh my god, the terror that people must go through having like a fucking heart attack that she brought on for them, is that's really that's really bout.
Yeah, And you know, Kristen doesn't look anything like Mary Kay place, but I imagine Mary Kay the whole time, Like I can't. I just yeah, I imagined her doing all of these murders.
Wow, Lisa, amazing work. That was a really crazy story. And now let's get to our guest, all right, we are so excited for our next guest. He's truly we had the best time talking to him. You've seen him in the Cameron Diaz movie In Her Shoes, You've probably seen him as Franklin Winthrop on OZ, and he's literally been in every seed drill you've ever heard of, Criminal Intent, YPD, blue CSI, et cetera, et cetera. Guys, we're so excited to talk to the worst assisted living employee of all time,
Hal Shipley, Mister Andy Powers. Can we just ask a quick logistical question because we weren't sure exactly of the dates, but did you work with Christopher Maloney on SVU first or when he murdered you on OZ?
Like just a few months right after he killed me on OS he busted me on SPU.
Oh okay, cool, So the SVU was kind of a little reunion.
So were you guys pals?
I wouldn't say we're pals.
I mean he's a pretty intense guy on set, you.
Know, that's what we've heard. We heard he stretches a lot.
I owe him.
The only time I ever worked with him on OZ was that episode where he kills me because I had murdered his lover's father before that, So we filmed the scene in the gym, and then I think that day we walked over to the closet where he kills me and I had to make out with him spits on my dead body and yeah.
And then a few months later he like puts me in handcuffs in SBU.
Wow. So I watched OZ way too young, like in junior high. That was watching.
Yeah for sure, and yeah it was such a fucked show.
Did you do you have memories working with JK. Simmons.
Oh?
Yeah, I love JK.
He's a nice guy, real, really nice guy, down to earth.
He was a lot of fun to be around him.
And Rick Rogers where he looks like he has that energy.
I would love to hang out with JK. Simmons.
Yeah, he's just sort of that non plus eternally non plus gu Yeah, you know.
And there's a lot of OZ SVU overlap. I think there's something to it or is it just New York actors booking it all?
I think at the time that you know, back then there were fewer actors in New York because there were fewer shows.
I think about my.
Time in la Is like before and after in New York, And.
Before I went to LA which.
Was like two thousand and one, there were like eight or nine shows, not including soap operas, filming in the entire city. And when I came back, there's you know, thirty you know at any given moment, you know, either in production, pilots or something like that. Like to the point that there was literally only three or four places that you could have a studio in New York, and now there's thirty. There's like all over Brooklyn, parts of Queen's.
There's still the West Side where you know, Law and Order has their stuff, and now there's stuff up in Yonkers, you know, so oh wow.
Yeah.
We shot Odds in a dilapidated naval yard in Bayo, New Jersey, like it used to be in the Chelsea or Chelsea Market, and by the time I got there, it was you had have like, you know, special you couldn't be a felon I think or something because it was technically still a military base.
And like there were pigeons all over the place about your head and it was pretty it was pretty weird. Wow.
Yeah, I unfortunately have never watched OZ, but I did check out some screenshots of your character and that looked like a pretty I mean, can I just say what it says about your character?
It says that you are a.
Convicted a convicted rapist turned neo Nazi cross dresser.
Yeah, it was they were trying to cover a lot of basis.
That's an epic description.
It was pretty awesome. It's the only thing, you know, It's the only thing.
I don't really get recognized anymore. But when I when I did, it was only from that.
It didn't matter what I did, it was it was that.
I can't believe they recognized you without the pigtails they do.
It's crazy.
Well, just to bring it back a little bit to SVU, So before you did us view like or and then you were on another episode like more recently. So are you a fan of the show? Do you watch it at all?
I mean or?
I do, and my wife loves it and she watched it.
He's watching it all the time, So that means I'm watching it and she's Actually I've been grandfathered into a friendship that she has with Raoula Sparza and his wife.
They've been really close for a long time.
Oh that's exciting. Well, you should tell your wife to listen to our podcast, she'd probably love it.
Oh I did, I did. Yeah, she's excited to hear it. She's downstairs right now.
But our listeners are very horny for Raoul.
Yeah. Yeah, yes, he's a sexy man.
Yeah, they love that. How was doing this episode with like a lot of older actors, Like, you know, it's sort of a different that's kind of a different kind of set. You were like at this nursing home set with all these like when we first meet your character, you're like having a fight with an old man over like a tray or something.
Yeah, it's interesting because some of these people have been acting for fifty years, you know, and they want you to remember it.
And now that I'm getting older, I understand the attitude.
You know, they don't you know, these these folks have been theater actors since you know they heyday of experimental theater in New York.
In the nineteen sixties and stuff.
So I just remember them being, you know, very intense, having that kind of layover of like Lee Strasberg stuff, getting a new character to throw something at me or you know. It was fun, but I only had I think I only had this scene with that one guy like I said, it was a long time ago.
I guess that's true. I guess we never really see you together with the main woman of the episode.
That's Jane Powell. Yeah, she's from The Birds.
Right, Yeah she I didn't get to meet her, unfortunately, but I hear she was nice.
Your characters are so like in twin but you never actually see you two together.
Interesting.
Yeah, I was kind of remiss about that. I wanted to see her.
It was my mom always talked about that movie being so terrifying to her, and I didn't get to meet her.
She's great, She was great.
And then you were on Zero Tolerance recently playing a terrible person.
Do you remember it was the ice guy.
Yeah.
So that little girl is so freaking cute. And then she just the most amazing actress.
How was she crying like that?
She could just turn it on.
I haven't worked with kids all that much, but she took a minimum of minimal of coaching. You know, she just kind of had you know, a lot of times they had people on set for kids to kind of tell them where to look and you know, how to do things.
But she kind of knew she was up to and she was really focused on trying to eat more pizza, and.
They kind of like they wanted they didn't want to like sugar, you know, to like crash from eating too much for the shots and stuff, but she would they would just start filming and it was there.
I was I was really jealous and I was like, I can't do that. That's pretty awesome.
And then did you notice any changes on the set from being like season four? And then I think was it season twenty was zero tolerance? Like was it the same vibe or have things changed now?
Things have changed? You know, people are tired.
It's such I mean, it was a pretty well oiled machine when I worked on it the first time, but the second time, it was just people can do it literally their eyes closed.
You know.
They like Ice Tea was really funny the second time we did it. He's just sort of this spectral presence that's never around and somebody will ask like, okay, where's iced Tea, or you know, we've got to shoot, and suddenly he's there and you don't remember when he left or how we got back.
And he's just there.
And he's like half asleep, and then he just kind of wakes up and does his lines.
And he does it like one or two takes and he's done. Wow. Wow, Yeah, it's really interesting.
And then this is another crazy question for this being so long ago, but was that a real cigarette you were smoking or what do you smoke on set?
Oh? No, that was real back then? I was I think it was.
I mean there was, I think yeah, because I can't I'm allergic to like all the catnip and crap they put in the fake cigarette.
So I was still a smoker, I was saying.
I was telling Lisa, the fake ones are almost worse, Like they hurt your.
Throat a lot, they keep you from smoking.
Yeah, they're awful, but they're orange too or something.
I was still a hardcore smoker back then, so I had no problem, no problem. Yeah, you need another take, I'm in.
Yeah. And you got to flip your shit and like kick stuff. That was fun.
Yeah. Yeah.
You can tell you're a good actor because you really are coming across like a very nice sound to earth guy. And your character was like psycho, like I mean, he just was like I just snapped. It's like snapping is one thing. Burning an old lady all over her body with a cigarette is quite another. Like you you really, but you really gave us the character so great job.
Well, thank you. Yeah.
I mean if somebody actually does that, don't hire them, you know.
Yeah.
Well, and now we have a game.
You've been on a lot of cop shows, so we're gonna ask, like, if you needed help, what police group would.
You want to show up to help you.
You get to choose from Third Watch, Criminal Intent, CSI, Blue Bloods, NYPD Blue, or SVU.
I think I'd go with with with NYPD Blue, Okay, showing up.
He's so tough, he's so tough. He's a sweetheart, but he is so tough.
He has that Chicago like toughness that just exudes from him. And when I shook his hand, it was like a rock.
With fingers, you know, it was I remember, it hurt, you know. And and he's much new.
You think he's like Danny DeVito small, yes, and he's not. He's almost He's like almost six feet tall, and he's stocky and really really really strong. So I probably vote I probably ask him to come because he kind of bends the rules, so he would probably, like, you know, vehemently come to my defense if I had to call him, you know, versus someone who goes just.
By the book.
Yeah, it's a great answer.
He's got Stabler vibes for sure.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you for talking to us. I don't know if you have any last minute SVU memories you want to share with us, but this has been great.
You can throw in an OS one for me.
You'll probably edit this out.
But the odd story is that when he killed me, he had this idea.
To jerk off over my dead body.
I'm sorry, can I say that on your podcast? That so the you know, the ads quickly got like a nudity waiver like.
Sent over so he could sign it.
And then after he kills me, I think they cut it from the episode. But when he kills me, my eyes are closed because I'm there dead with my my neck broken, and he jerks off on my dead body and he spit on me.
But I didn't know he had spit.
I'm just hearing the sort of activity going on, and so I got up, and you know, and you know how you're just kind of like checking your person when you get up from laying on the floor. And my hand touched my leg and it was wet, and so I didn't think it was spit. And I looked at him and I was like, oh, did you And he instantly, like the whole crew like burst out laughing at me over that because I was convinced for a second that.
He went all the way.
I don't think we are going to got that because really hard going to love that story.
Okay, good, but also for but he'd have been nude on that show so much?
Do you have to sign a clause every episode that you're nude?
I guess so.
I mean, I'm not Chris Maloney. Nobody asks me to take my clothes.
Hi, welcome to our post mortem. I do I have I'm obsessed with Andy Powers.
I will say that I know you. Did you ever ask did you ask him the question about the boy band?
Or did you not? I don't know.
We when we were coming up with questions for him, you were like, I want to ask if he's ever been approached to being a boy band. No.
I probably got embarrassed, but he was great.
And the tidbit with thinking Maloney came all over him is a gift that will never leave us.
The blogs need to pick that up. With Maloney's butt doing what it's doing in the press, I think we need to hear about that. I guess from this episode, I learned that there are psychotic people working in all kinds of professions. I mean, and like stripping off killing people so that you can save them and feel good about yourself is truly, that's another level it is.
Yeah, I think I learned that if a nurse makes little jokes about the patients dying, she should get a review.
Yeah, yeah, that's red flag city. Yeah. I don't think it should just be let go. So I think I learned that. Yeah.
And if you're like dating a woman who is you work with, and she gets turned on by you doing chest compressions on people, or tries to do chest compressions in a sexual way for you, I know she sounds like freaky and fun, but I think you need to move on.
I would say, like, don't bring a friend to a party that's gonna burn your grandmother's crotch.
You know, I don't really feel like the show gave that enough weight. He's like, I just freaked out and then I burned. It's like on her chest. Maybe I could almost get that, but then you I just I can't. It's whatever.
I mean.
Also, if you go into a garbage can maybe wear some booty, I would say that, and.
Be kind to old people, for fuck's sake.
Stop trying to get your grandma to write you checks and shit when she doesn't know where she is.
No, my friend, Ken, you still have a funny joke where it's like some old lady was like, you pray on the elderly, and he went, ma'am, everyone prays on the elderly. And I always laugh about that. But yeah, people are so not nice to old people. It's really fucked up. And the whole living assist like that whole like nursing homes and is that I don't know what to say, what is it?
I mean, well, there's a different I mean there is nursing homes and then there's like assisted living. Like assisted living is you're a little bit more independent and like you can kind of go on and like do your day. You have like your own apartment and stuff. This is probably more of a nursing home actually, now that I say it so.
For me, it's just so twisted that it's like a money making thing and people are cutting corners of like the end of someone's life, trying to fuck them over, and it's just really sad.
I don't like it at all.
Definitely, and I feel like this one is a little bit I haven't actually seen it, but have you seen that movie? I care a lot.
No, but I watched Tricksie and Katia watch it on their Netflix show and talk about it.
I want to watch it. But I think that this also has to do with like elder abuse and just kind of timely this episode, like talking about this episode because that movie's been getting like award nominations and stuff.
I hated it. I hated it so much. I'm so curious after you watch it.
I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna watch. Just watch Tricksie and Katya watch it. I think it's enough.
They show you the endding, they show you all the good stuff. They show you some Diane Weese highlights.
We also learned that Bess's son, the actor Jay Thomas, has passed away, and we were talking harshly about his character in the show, but a very great actor and we hope he's resting in peace.
And also the woman who plays Bitsy Bitsy or It's the main ways Bess, she was like in Freda's Stare movies. She is so she was very acomplished so many credits and was like a dancer in the heyday of that kind of movie.
Still alive, I believe yes.
Okay, So Annalise edit it so I didn't talk about her in the past tense.
She is killing it. Don't be too.
Nice, Yeah, too polite, too fake, too friendly. Something's up under there, you know what I mean? Does that don't make sense?
No, what a part are you talking about?
Like Mary Kay place was very much like, Oh, I'm just here to take care of everyone.
That's shit, that's not I don't trust politeness. I don't. I don't need that in my life.
If you're putting on some kind of nice act, you got a lot to hide and I see right through it.
I hope you helped Jared pick out a home for me one day, because sounds like you're not going to take any shit.
No, I'm I no, hopefully not. I mean my parents constantly like, please don't put us in a home.
My mom's been saying, please don't put me in a home my entire life.
To me.
We used to volunteer at a nursing home together and she'd be like, please don't put me in here.
Please.
It was like one of the nicest ones too. It was like a nice one in my town. No, it's fucked well. It was a great episode and we learned a lot. Now let's move into our what would Sister Peg Do? Segment? This is our weekly segment where we point you towards some resources, books, articles, people that can help give you a little bit more information about some
of the topics that we've touched on today. So the character in Vulnerable Best, I don't believe she actually is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but we are going to direct you to the Alzheimer's Association to an info sheet they have about abuse, types of elder abuse, signs of it, how to report it. The website is www dot alz dot org, where you can obviously donate and learn more about Alzheimer's, but the specific link to this info sheet will be in our show notes.
And my little cousin in California created a charity called Care for the Givers Project and it helps support caregivers of loved ones that have Alzheimer's and dementia. So it's about like self care and caring for the people that care. Because his grandpa died this past year.
That's really cool that he started his own organization. We'll put both of those in our show notes, so you'll have all that info there.
I think you'll be excited about this. Yeah.
I didn't even plan on this, but here I am just being a great a relative, the best cousin of all time. All right, and next week's episode is going to be Identity. You've called and we are responding. It is season six, episode twelve, Identity. You can obviously get that, as we always tell you on Peacock on Hulu, buy the DVDs and yeah, email us, message us, keep talking to us.
I did get a message from someone saying I love the way you say peacock, and I'm like, I gotta go.
That's like I called you out this weekend for how you say vodka. You say vodka, but you are Russian, so I think you probably are right. That's all for us today, guys. We'll see you next week. Bye bye.
That's Messed Up as an exactly right production.
If you have compliments you'd like to give us, or episodes you'd like us to cover, shoot us an email at That's Messed Up pod 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 SBU super fan and our incredible producer Hannah Kyle Kragon.
And to our sound engineer and personal hero Analie Snilson, and to.
Henry Koperski for our theme song, to.
Carly Jean Andrews for our artwork. Thanks to our executive producers Georgia Hardstar, Karen Kilgareff, Daniel Kramer, and everybody at Exactly Right Media.
Listen, subscribe, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're an ad advertiser interested in advertising on our show, go to midroll dot com slash ads Done.
Done
