Episode 229 - Five Nights at Rachel's

Accidents happen, natural causes take their toll, and history marches on. Unless, of course, you are dealing with the internet's favorite pastime: refusing to believe anyone ever actually dies normally.

This week, we are diving headfirst into the chaotic rabbit hole of death conspiracies. Forget the rich and famous—we are looking at the everyday mysterious exits, institutional cover-ups, and the sheer human need to believe that a botched life insurance scam or a rogue shadow government is behind every tombstone.

Grab your tinfoil hat and your favorite skeptical side-eye. It is time to ask: was it a tragedy, or are they currently running a cash-only laundromat in scenic Idaho under the name "Bob"

Research links below!:

Variety - "A Dandy, a Charmer, a Bar Room Singer, a Murderer and a Cocaine Cook for Augusto Pinochet: Mad, Bad and Sad Eugenio Berrios Is Profiled in Sandic Industria Title 'Black Cocaine'"
The Guardian - "Pinochet accused over murder of ex-president"
Panacea - "La identificación de los restos del Dr. Eugenio Berríos"
The Guardian - "Pinochet 'sold cocaine to Europe and US'"
The Guardian - "Chile court overturns convictions for 1982 murder of former president Frei"
Memoria Viva - "Eugenio Antonio Berríos Sagredo"
In Focus - "From Perpetrator to Victim: The Case of Eugenio Berrios Sagredo"

San Diego County - "Coronado Death Investigation"
Fox5 San Diego - "14 years later, Rebecca Zahau's death at a Coronado mansion still a mystery"
Greer & Associates - "Zahau Case"
Mainorwirth - "Key Facts About Rebecca Zahau's Mysterious Death"
People - "A Boy and His Dad's Girlfriend Were Found Dead at Calif. Mansion Days Apart. Was Her Death a Suicide or Murder?"

Speaker 1: Why upon their arrivalspeakable, I'm not they it's the gotta

worry about something. If I couldn't keep them there with

me whole, at least I felt that I could keep

their skeletons. Hello and welcome to the Bad Taste Crime Podcast.

I'm VICKI I'm Rachel. We're back again. We're bad a

very long, much needed break. Did you guys mess up? Dude?

I was like, well, actually this will be the second

episode actually after our long break. But this is the

first time we're recording after the long break. Yes, which

was very well timed. We needed it, I would say, yeah, uh,

just the month got very crazy and I was telling

Rachel on our way here that I had like a

full on crash out at work, like tears and everything, like, yeah,

it was not great.

Speaker 2: So it was very helpful of you to schedule it

during our break.

Speaker 1: It was, Yes, Yeah, I try to save the crash

outs for when I'm not having to like research, considering

love that. Yeah, how was your time? You know?

Speaker 2: It was pretty much the same run around after kids

in different locations.

Speaker 1: Yeah, in summer, family, summer stuff, seeing family, going to

the beach, fun, you know, fun, dealing with the heat. Yep,

I am fully in. Uh. At the time we're recording this,

it is literally the day of the World Cup final.

So yeah, I am fully in like World Cup fever

at the moment's gonna win. Run for so the World

Cup Final, it's Argentina in Spain. I want Spain to win.

I do not want Argentina to win, agree, But I

think there's a very good chance that they will. You know,

I think there's a lot of things at play. I

might buy in slightly to the whole match fixing thing

because it just all I mean, not to say they're

not a good team, but like, I don't know, there's

a lot of bullshit with Argentina. Yeah, there, yes, are

some of the most racist fucking fans and people like

it's a little crazy. Yep. So anyway, that's the state

of sports.

Speaker 2: There was without naming names, I guess there was a

I guess a famous person who got exposed for like

being racist, possibly like kind of in a Nazi way.

Speaker 1: Oh.

Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's really interesting. This is a

while ago, and I looked her up in her whole

families from because she's like kind of white and kind

of his ban so it's like, what's her like makeup

and stuff and her whole German family emigrated from Germany

to Argentina in like that time period. I was like, oh,

got it, got it, got it, got it, got it? Yes,

And then it turned out to be true. So I'm like, well, wow,

so that's not Yeah, no.

Speaker 1: They you're crazy. It's a little crazy. The problem with that,

that's a little anyway, we won't talk World Cup anymore.

My point is that I love him. He's so and

I like, let me be clear, it is not that

I am like attracted to him, like he's just not right.

He's just so funny and he is very good and

he's very sweet.

Speaker 2: I watched the whole video of him like helping like

the ball boys.

Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so he I saw a story of him.

He there was this because he's from Norway. Yes, I

think he might be half British. I think so too.

I think like his dad is British or something like that.

But he grew up in Norway from what I understand.

And there was this ancient manuscript yeah yeah, like that

was like a Norwegian like piece of history. Oh and

he purchased for like millions dollars and then literally donated

to his hometown like library so that his people could

feel more connected to like their Norwegian heritage and sort

of their history of the areas. I know, I'm like,

this guy is so cool. He's just awesome. That's always. Yeah.

So I'm really really hoping in the future not some

patship coming out. I know everybody I like, now that's like, well,

please don't fuck this up. Well, but it's all true.

I know it's what happened to anybody. But you know,

there's some gems that you're like, God, I really hope

nothing terrible.

Speaker 2: Ever real, for fucking real. And I'm the wrong person

to talk to.

Speaker 1: Because I store I know, I know, and then ruin

it for everybody do oh my gosh. But yes, So

that's that's it's basically been. My summer has just been

World Cup, World Cup and work crashouts. Well, we have

a work crash outs. I love it. I love it.

You gotta have a little balance, you know. You know,

it's true, it's true. All right, this is your first

time listening a special hello to you. Hello, we are

going to head over to the news. Let's go there.

Hold my hand. Food, We did be watching local news today?

We had fifty Our first story comes from Japan, Okay,

not our first story for the segment, the only story,

but the only one comes from Japan. So a forty

nine year old old woman named Messi Sakai was taken

into custody on Monday, July sixth, Okay under suspicion of

injuring the She had a well. It says she shared

it home with. I think it's a roommate, okay, if

it's a roommate or like a romantic partner, another forty

two year old woman. Her identity has not been released.

What they are alleging is that the victim had her

mouth sown shuts by soccer I what, and may have

had her mouth stone shut for like a full day.

She managed to This happened on June twenty ninth. They

are alleging that she then she used like needle and

thread and she somehow managed to flee the home. Flee

the property, went to a nearby store, but she still

couldn't speak, so she had to because she couldn't move

her lips, she had to write a note to like

the store worker asking for help. Oh my god. Yeah.

Who then called police that would be so painful, says

she moved in with Sacarai in April to five. Okay,

And basically they're saying that it seems like this might

be one thing in a string of abuses. Okay, this

did maybe not come out of nowhere. Yeah, maybe not

this bad, but the because this article from MSN talks

about police asking the victim like why didn't you leave earlier?

Like why didn't you flee before this happened? And the

roommate had just said she was in fear of her

ruby and yeah, you know, understandable. Yeah, so she couldn't

leave right away anyway. So she's been brought up in charges.

She has not been to trial yet, and it just.

Speaker 2: Is, you know, that's kind of how did she even

do that?

Speaker 1: Like that's so like, oh my god, I mean crazy,

you know how you sow a.

Speaker 2: Whole Well, No, I don't mean like that. I mean

how did she like manage to hold her down.

Speaker 1: Enough to do that? I don't know. That would be

so painful. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Wow,

couldn't tell y'all. Don't do that. All right, We're gonna

move on to Netflix and kill which this week is

an HBO and kill, but it's actually an ID problem ID.

So we're talking about big Girls wanted Escaping Paradise. Yeah,

very controversial controversy, and I have talked to a number

of people with very split opinions on a lot of

things the cult. So yeah, So this wealthy German Man

whose name is Stefan will Helmy. I love German names.

He makes a bunch of money, he moves to the US,

buys this mansion and then essentially creates a house for

larger women to come and stay and be themselves body positivity.

He is also attracted to larger women, so there's that aspect.

And they're live streaming and documenting all of this on

like TikTok and things, and so he's inviting women to

come out and we are talking like three hundred pounds

or larger is kind of what we're talking about here.

So this woman who is a photographer, a photojournalist okay,

who has done some work for like New York Times

and stuff like that, who is also a larger woman, Okay,

decides she's gonna go and document and she even says

in this documentary that you know, it was a little

selfish because she has also you know, these are your

time talking about women who have like struggled with body

image and self confidence and feeling good in their own skins.

It's hard to be big nowadays. People are horrible looking

for a place that they could find a sense of

community and to be celebrated, right, you know, and dealing

with other people's opinions and things like this, right, Like,

it's a struggle. But so that's why community. A lot

of people that go there go there is because it's

just sort of they talk about it being like a sisterhood. Yeah,

except it's this one guy. It's like fighting all these

women and he has his friend here. Yeah, he has

a girlfriend who lives there with him, and so she

goes to photograph. That's kind of the origin of all this.

So it very quickly becomes a sort of place for

fetishism content, which you know, us here we never want

to yuck anyone's young, right, right. At the same time,

so there's this concept called feederism, where the idea is

watching women or people eat large amounts of food like

with the with the end goal of gaining more weight. Yes, right,

this is feederism, and people will like go online and

buy food so that you could watch somebody eat it

and then like pay them for eating it type of thing. Right,

muck bang is like a nice term for this, Right,

it is one of these things that I just don't

connect with. I don't get it. I don't get it.

Speaker 2: I love a big lady very much, but it's like

it's and if it were like the buy women for women,

I'd be like, hell, yeah, I just this fucking creepy

guy jerking in the corner like you're a pimp.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's not necessarily again just about big women.

It's like the eating. It's like the act of consuming.

And they do talk about it as a very much

like a control thing absolutely, and so that they can

make money right off of that. Right. So, anyway, he

has this house, he's inviting all these women very quickly.

There are allegations of sexual abuse, expectations, exploitation, grooming. The

women that he are inviting. He is inviting are young,

they are not underage, but they're impressionable. They are like

twenty twenty one, twenty two, which they even talk about like,

oh so somebody says, oh, his sweet spot was like

twenty two. Ew and so there's things like that that's like, uh,

these are all adult women, so the question of consent

comes in and gray areas you can sent to simply

by being in the house. There's also this like they

would talk about, oh, you know, the cameras would go

off it was time for the hot tub, because everybody

would get in the hot tub and take all their

clothes off and there would be like sex happening, and

where's the line of consent for that? And you know,

so it brings in a lot of stuff. There have

been They talked specifically about two women who one of

which has died. His first girlfriend. She attempted suicide and

then later on she got very into feederism on like

the unsafe side of things and ended up in the

hospital with like pneumonia and passed from that. I believe

there's this other girl who used to be on The

Biggest Loser, Oh, which not in like the very very

early sort of wholesome days, but in the very like

exploitative later days that show, and she like is now

into like the feederism content. She is current in rehab

because she something happened she like lost the use of

her legs and had pneumonia and all these other and

I think was in a coma for like a little

bit and anyway, so bring this up a lot of issues.

I think it was very interesting. It's a little like

tough to watch just because of the exploitative nature of it.

It's like very cringey to me in that way. That's

like somebody is like shoving a camera in your face

while you're trying to eat lunch. Yeah, and they talk

about these mass trips to like heart attack grill oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah,

so for body positivity, right, But at the same time,

like I just feel like this is very different. He's

a pimp thing them, yeah, or like trying to accumulate

like a harem of women. Yeah, this is all about him,

and I just feel I mean, but at the same time,

I'm like, if that's what you want to do as

an adult, and I like, this is the lifestyle that

I want to live, because he very much in this

documentary like opens his home, comes in, he interviews in

the documentary and he shows footage and he does this

and that, and people who are currently living in Paradise

are like interviewed in the documentary and are you know

what I mean so like it does bring up some

interesting issues, yeah, and some interesting conversations about consent, about

the body positivity movement, about feederism and like fat fetishism

and you know things like that.

Speaker 2: Like I think that he should go to jail forever

and the ladies should keep the house and get all

the cameras out and just like have fun and splash

in the sea.

Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I think. He hasn't done anything illegal,

but I want him to necessarily. I don't like him. Okay,

so you are like Rachel's person. The thing is is

like even the sexual assault allegations, there have not been

like charges.

Speaker 2: I just think he's icky, gross.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want him. This is like Rachel's personal jail. Yeah, okay, yeah, okay,

five nights at Rachel's. Okay, that makes it sound sexy.

Five nights at Rachel's. My gosh. All right, we are

going to move on with the show. This is that

part of the show where we say content may not

be appropriate for all listeners. Oh yeah, this week we

are talking about Muido.

Speaker 2: Mine's said, Mine's got some child death, Mine's got some

sexual assault.

Speaker 1: Yeah, Mine's just kind of wild. Mine. Well, good, we'll

start off with the good one. Start off with a

positive one, do it. This is one of these times

where I was trying to decide on a topic and

a really good one got into a weird hole five

nights at Rachel Yeah, I got into a weird rabbit

hole of things and ended up in this kind of area.

So let me ask you today, we're talking about before

we before we go too far, we're talking about death conspiracy,

not like the charge of conspiracy to commit murder is

a very different thing. I'm talking about like murders or

crimes or deaths that have some sort of larger theory

about how they happened, who did it, what really happened?

Cover ups maybe, which is probably my favorite.

Speaker 2: Niche of true crime, because I love this, love this.

So let me ask you, how much do you know

about the history of Chili? Nothing and specifically it's dictators

A little bit.

Speaker 1: A little, A little bit, okay, but oh yeah, no

I do. Okay, So today we are not talking about

one of the dictators. I mean, we have to context,

but we are actually going to explore mostly the career

and death of Eugene Burrios and how he sort of

aided one of the most awful people, Dictator Pinochet.

Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a good one.

Speaker 1: Joy. So I'm also going to say this is going

to be a very like truncated history of like a

truncated version of Chilean history, truncated, shortened, condensed, like put

it in a trunk. Well, no, I don't know. I

don't know the origins of it. That sounds like it. Yeah,

but it's like a shortened version because there's like a

lot of terrible shit that went down, and there's also

a lot of moving parts to this, some of which

are relevant, some of which are not, some things that

I just didn't include for time's sake, got to get

to the World Cup. There's Yes, there's like just a

lot of shit going on. So I did try to

find anything about Eugenio's youth, Berrio's youth, but like there

is not really anything about it, and his history really

doesn't pick up until the late nineteen sixties, when he

was studying chemistry at the University of Concepcion. Yes, after that,

the next big break would come thanks to a little coup,

just a little one, just a little Yeah. In nineteen

seventy three, a guy by the name of Augusto Pinochet

decides to stage a coupe leading the military junta against

President Salvador Alande, and he sort of establishes not sort of,

he does establishes a dictatorship, his dictatorship that would last

until nineteen ninety. Not a nice guy. For the record,

you know, he's not great. We'll talk about it, but

he's not great. This does actually make him the longest

serving leader in the history of Chile, which is pretty crazy.

We should tell you about the instability, oh girl, like,

oh great, it's a whole mess. Yes, but we're not

really here to talk about him. Yeah, we're here to

talk about Eugenio Barrios. Let's do that. So, following his

successful coup, Pinochet establishes the secret police called the Direction

de Intelligensia Nacional, which is the National Intelligence Directorate or

it's often referred to as Dina DNA, which is what

you'll hear me call it a lot is dina. So

it was also, to those in the know, called Pinochet's Gestapo.

Yeah that gives you any indication on the level of

these like, yeah, again, not a nice guy, secret police,

not a cool dude. We hate him. Barrios began working

for DINA in nineteen seventy four under the alias Ermez,

where he would put his chemistry degree to use developing bioweapons. Okay,

Walter White Pinochet government, like, come on, dude, did you

have a more super villain type origin? I hate that. Yeah.

It was like he was like a biochemist. Ew Barrios was. Specifically,

Barrios was able to synthesize saren by nineteen seventy six, Okay,

and later produced anthrax and bachulism while at DINA for

the government's use. That's not nice, listen. They needed bioweapons,

they needed who else is going to do it? Now?

Something to keep in mind this is again when I'm

talking about like a lot of moving parts, there's like

stuff happening in the background. So something to keep in

mind is almost immediately after Pinochet took power, his spy

chief Manuel Contraras call the meeting of fifty intelligence officers

from countries around South America, which begins this full campaign

of political repression of left wing sympathizers from nineteen seventy

five to nineteen eighty three. It is also called Operation Condor,

And of course this was like literally run by the

dictatorships in South America at the time. They just all

got together and they're like, so we're, yeah, we're going

to deal with like all of these negative nancies that

don't like our governments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And

political dissenters is the term that I was looking for.

And this, as with many sketchy covert ops, was of

course backed by the US government who provided financial aid

for a lot of these South America No, yes, so

you mean to tell me telling the US supportiveness? What

color me shocked? So just keep in mind, as all

of this is happening, there is also this like secret

covert app happening with like all of the dictators in

South America and backed by the US government of sort

of trying to kill literally kill political opposition. Yes, because

it will come up again later. The whole thing's a

good Yeah, got our fingers and all the pies. So,

with all of this in mind, and shortly into his

tenure with Dina, Barrios helped to create the explosives used

in the car bomb that killed Orlando Littelier in Washington, DC.

He was a diplomat and a member of the Socialist

Party of Chile. Yeah, kill in a car bomb with

carbomb in the United States. Yep Let's mention. Barrios also

had ties to the torture and assassination of Spanish Chilean

diplomat Carmelosauria. So by the late nineteen seventies, this is

like I said, these are the highlights. Yeah, like there's

a bunch of other shit happenings. She So by the

late nineteen seventies, the Beagle Conflict kicked off. Are you

aware of the Beagle conflict? It sounds familiar. So this

involved eight This is all new to me. By the way,

I know literally zero about Chilean politics and their history.

So the Beagle conflict kicked off. It involved a border

dispute between Chile and Argentina about some islands off of

the southern tip of South America. This was like right

before the whole Falkland Islands thing, which is kind of

I think in the same area. This was also part

of the reason that Chile backed UK during the Falkland

Islands conflict. Anyway, Sneaky peepe. This conflict, this dispute sparked

war between the two countries between Chile and Argentina, which again,

like in the midst of this Pinochet dictatorship and this

Operation Condor, it just like invites some really underhanded, great

shit for dictatorship. Yeah. So during this it's reported that

Barrios worked on a plan to poison the water supply

of Winnos airas, Oh, which I don't think happened, but

there was a plan. Nice to do that, that's so nice. Yeah.

Oh did I also mention that Barrios allegedly manufactured cocaine

that was then sold to the US and to Europe.

Speaker 2: Yep, So there's that. Yeah, there was a lot of that.

Speaker 1: It just is like, you know, bioweapons here, drugs here,

like poison, so lot. So I'm sure, honestly, I'm sure

his life working for Dina was pretty great. I'm sure

it was. That is a very high government position.

Speaker 2: Was swel secret his feet up, I'm sure a little pineapple.

I'm sure the whole nine but should started sort of

started to hit the fan for him when the Chilean

court began investigating the car bombing death Oftelier, as well

as the assassination of diplomatic Carmelo Sauria. So once Pinochet

left power, the way I have seen it phrase is

that he left office in order to give way for

a democracy to be run in Chile. And I don't

know how true that is not at all. When he

left office, he was given what did they call it,

presidential immunity.

Speaker 1: Oh my god. Uh, such a thing that shouldn't exist.

That he would not basically would not be charged with

anything that he did while he was in office. It had.

It was at one point, I think I mentioned here

it was at one point overturned by the Supreme Court

of Chile that was like okay, no, no, no, no,

we're gonna get yeah, so heads up on that. But

when he immediately leaves office, they give him like presidential immunity.

They're like, you're a good boom yeah for the little

part of this. So he leaves in nineteen ninety Okay,

she starts kicking off. The courts are looking into these

murders of these really high out diplomats. In April nineteen

ninety one, Pinochet's government began Operacion Celencio in an effort

to cover up the many, many, many, many many crimes. Yeah,

it's just he committed while he was a dictator. Weep

under the rug Uh. Celencio was a massive effort that

involved tons of other countries YEP aid in order to

pull off, using an arm of the army intelligence agency,

the government sort of, they began like squirrelling people away

in other countries to avoid them having to give testimony

in a court of law. Yeah. In October nineteen ninety one,

Barrios's time came and he was taken from Chile to

Uruguay using passports from Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil out of

the worry that Operation Condor was still in effect and

somebody was from his own government was going to like

try to come and kill him right off that shit.

So once he was there, yeah, I'm like, okay, this

makes sense that that's because obviously he knew that there

was this secret plan to like kill any dissonance. Right.

So once he got to Uruguay, Barrios received protection from

the Chilean and Uruguayan military intelligence. And by protection, I

mean he was being held hostage. Oh got it very safe,

Like he was straight up kidnapped out of the fucking

country taken to your Aguay. So he got quote unquote protection.

Oh yeah, protected as fuck. But he was a hostage. Yeah, Yeah,

it wasn't all bad because he was able to stay

on the family estate of a Uruguayan colonel under the

alias to Lino or Anell Arelana. But in November nineteen

ninety two, Barrios escaped the estate and ran next door

to get help. The neighbor, it turns out, was a

retired navy officer, and Barrio shows up and is like,

I've been kidnapped by the Chilean and Uruguayan governments. Like

I need help, yeah, And so they decide to take

him to the police station because here's the thing is,

let's remember Barrios entered the country illegally using fake passports,

altered passports, so he was taken intostody because of that,

and they also were like, oh, you were kidnapped, like

that's crazy. Legitimately, but the colonel of the estate that

he was staying at discovers that he's missing. His name

was Eduardo red Dell Daalum. And he finds out he's missing,

he goes to the police station and demands that police

give Barrios up into his custody. He's like, this man

is insane, he's in the midst of a mental breakdown,

like he needs to wow, release him. Into my custody.

I'll take care of him, which they were like, yeah,

we don't know about that, because again, the police were

not necessarily on the payroll for this whole Uruguayan alliance

with Chile, so they were like, wait and see. Well,

then Uruguayan officials show up a little bit later and

the police they they were like, no, release him to us,

which they're like actual government officials. And so police gave

Barrios up to these guys and he was never seen

alive again. In the summer of nineteen ninety three, an

anonymous letter was sent around to various Uruguayan officials saying

that Barrios had never been in the country at all.

Oh so Pinochet sort of gets squirreled out of Chile

and while he's there, this anonymous letter starts showing up.

That's like, I've never even heard of this guy Barrios.

I don't know what you guys, because they're investigating huh.

He's like who Yeah, it's like, who is this I've

never heard of it here. But the fact that this

letter gets circulated was like kind of a mistake because

it clewed into like even higher government officials and made

them facious and then President Luis Alberto Lekaye decided to

call for an invest an actual official investigation into Barrios's death. Ah,

So they're like, wait, we didn't mention his so now

we have to look at like we didn't say that

who killed Barrios? We did say that? Oh you said that? What? Yeah?

What do you mean? So almost immediately the police chief

at the station where Barrios was taken and he was

like released into custody of the Uruguayans, he was dismissed

for not informing anybody what had happened. Yeah, kind of important.

He just let it happen bye, and then was like

all right, well, I guess I'm gonna go on with

my data. That was weird. But the Uruguayan military officials

that were involved in his detainment were also like rooted

out and dismissed. They were like dismised, Well, I didn't

have any indications that they had died. They might have.

I think they did get charged later, okay, but in

the initial and investigations they were like, we're investigating, but

in the meantime, you're fired.

Speaker 2: Job, that's your I wasn't sure if it was like

dismissal like into the bay.

Speaker 1: Oh no, not yet anyway, not yet at least because

the investigation lasted for like a number of years, Like

it was a long fucking time. Yeah, because again you're

talking about like government conspiracies and secret ops and just

having to unravel this whole yeah web of secrecy and

figure out where it untangles with like other existing assassinations.

Speaker 2: Like it's horrible and it like involves like real loss

of human life. But I bet that was like really

fascinating to be like an investigation. I bet that was

so interesting, I mean horrible, yeah, right right right.

Speaker 1: So, in April nineteen ninety five, Barius's body was discovered

on a beach of l Pinar. His hands and feet

were tied together, and he had two gunshot wounds to

the back of his head. Oh.

Speaker 2: Further autopsies declared, okay that he is.

Speaker 1: He fine, breathing, balk it off. Further autopsies declared he

had been placed inside a tide burlap sack. Okay, unclear

if it was him and the sack that like got

thrown into water, right, or if he was tied into

a sack transported and then dumped out goun clear Okay,

but he was tied up in a sack for some

period of time.

Speaker 2: I wonder how they knew that. Uh, probably burlap fiber.

Speaker 1: Like in the lungs or something in the lungs or

on the clothing or yeah, because it didn't necessarily he

was just found on a beach. I didn't necessarily say

that he was in the water.

Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking, Like, wouldn't that have been

washed away? Like how did they know that? That's impressed?

Depending like where on the beach he might not have

been hit by tide?

Speaker 1: Got it. Oh, if you're trying to cover up a crime,

that's not smart. You should put him in the water. Yeah,

roll them in there, whatever, wait till high tide. Barios

was identified by dental records and then later further confirmed

with DNA fingerprinting, like years later, once the DNA had

gotten there, right, Fourteen defendants were charged with various things

involving his death, including Pinochet. Now this was, like I said,

he had originally had this sort of presidential immunity for

crimes that the Supreme Court then overturned, which freed them

up to charge him for all of these fucking crimes,

plan which they did. He was charged with a lot

of fucking ship. Yeah, so he was charged with this.

Former directors of DINA, Hermann Ramirez Rerang and Eugeniokovarubayus Cove Rubius,

a number of other Chilean military officials, and one civilian.

All fourteen were charged. The charges included obstruction of justice, kidnapping,

and homicide. In August twenty fifteen, all fourteen were found

guilty and received sentences ranging from twenty five to twenty

years in prison. The one who received twenty years was

like charged with homicide. He killed himself two days immediately after. God, yeah,

getting his sentence. But of course, like it couldn't be

that clean for an episode about death conspiracy, So we're

gonna talk about it's alo one. In two thousand and six,

former DINA director Manuel Contreras submitted a judicial document to

Judge Claudio Pavez, who was investigating a separate assassin assassination

of Colonel Gerardo Hubert in nineteen ninety two. Okay, this

is what I'm saying, Like there's crossover between all these assassinations. God.

The document said that actually Burios was not dead, but

was alive and well working for the DEA and for

the uninitiated uninitiated. The DEA is the drug enforcement agency

in the United States.

Speaker 2: Yeah, what I thought he was on the beach.

Speaker 1: Where is he? Right? According to Contreres, the body that

was found in Alpinar was actually that of a foreigner,

and he alleged that Bear was seen attending the funeral

of a relative of his in two thousand and four.

He also said that Barrios was aiding in the production

of black cocaine. Of black cocaine, so it essentially is cocaine,

except it has other things in it to either mask

the color, mask the chemical structure of cocaine. Rug Yeah,

to make it undetectable, because you know, you see a

white brick, You're like, I see, oh, I see cocaine.

This must be oh no, powdered sugar.

Speaker 2: My bad, Like this is sand What do you even mean?

I'm running landscaping business.

Speaker 1: So he was alleging that Barrios was actually producing black

cocaine with Pinochet's suns, and that the money from that

was being placed into Pinochet's bank accounts abroad. And I'm

pretty sure that if this was happening between two thousand

and four and two thousand and six. I'm fairly certain

that Pinochet was still alive at that time. I don't

believe he is anymore because he was at that time

I think would have been in as late. I believe

he is good. Yeah, yeah, pretty sure that he's dead,

but he would have had like offshore bank accounts, yeah,

to put money in for what it's worth. The Uruguayan

government has flatly denied these allegations, and they've said thanks

to the dental records and DNA analysis done that they

are ninety nine percent sure the identification was correct. Cool,

but also who is providing that information? That's my question, right, Like,

if the government is providing that information, they could also

easily I.

Speaker 2: Don't trust none you hoos change dental records.

Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you're literally talking about a man who was

involved in secret covert ops. Right.

Speaker 2: They don't want that stuff to come out, so they

let him go. We are talking about Argentina, which is

where like all of the Nazis fled to. So we

know that governments have done this before and continue to

do that. That's a that's a conspiracy one.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And this was like so there was I forgot

to put it in here. There was this record called

that had like all of these secret ops listed it

the Terror Archives, which was this collection of documents that

was found in Paraguay that talks about the repression efforts

from their dictator, Alfredo Strassner and like his secret police.

But it also was the Terror Archives were also the

documents that proved the existence of Operation Condor. Oh okay

loops around and sort of had the evidence that the

US was like heavily involved, and the governments of Argentina

and Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador joined up later. Yeah,

like that. So there was like a lot of information

in these terror arcades that came out that was like, oh,

there was all the secret shit happening to me. It

is not especially at that time. Now it has become

I still believe things like this are happening. Yeah, I

don't think that is as big as a stretch, because we

have time and time again solid evidence that like our

government specifically is involved in things like this around the

world yep, not just in South America and other parts

of the world yes as well. But like, I don't

think that it is that big of a stretch for

something like that to be like the government fakedental records. Yeah, absolutely,

Like that is not a difficult thing to do.

Speaker 2: The thing is like people will will believe, Like you know,

I love conspiracies like this, and it's always funny to

when things like this happen and then people will be like,

well no, no, no, because they have the DNA. I'm like,

who has the DNA? Where people who were lying already Yeah,

I'm like, yeah, DNA can be conclusive. Absolutely, we're at

the point especially now. Yeah, it's like you show me that.

You know, I'm not a scientist, but like you show

me that, Okay, cool, ninety nine point nine to nine percent. Sure, sure,

But how do I know that a scientist did that?

And you didn't just make that on chat scheepetea right,

I don't know that, right.

Speaker 1: And you're talking about two countries who are immediately post

dictatorship as they're doing these investigations, so you know there

are probably you know, I think, especially in Chile's case,

like there was a large effort to get all of

that shit out at the same time, Like they these

dictators had secret police forces that are huge network right

the country that are not necessarily working for the current government.

You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: So, like, so to squirrel a guy out of the country,

like pretty easy, right, And I'm just I don't know,

you know, I'm not like I typically do not hop

on board with conspiracy theories at this point. A lot

of this isn't even conspiracy. It's just probable, right, I'm

being very good, right, but yeah.

Speaker 1: Like, no, it's true, it's true. Like that's the thing is,

like there is tons of evidence that it would not

be the first time that it's happened, right, with some

sketchy shit and some lying by various governments trying to

save their ass. Yeah, so what do you think you

think he's Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure he's alive. I'm sure. Well,

I don't know that he alive now, yeah, I he

probably would if he is not alive. I think he

if he was alive past when they passed the nineties,

when they said he died, he would not be around now.

Speaker 2: No, I'm sure, I'm sure, Yeah I would. I would

tend to believe what I think is kind of the

most obvious, which is that they're lying.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and what do you think the likelihood that he

would be working for the DA zero really he's not

working for no, d you don't think so? No. I

mean again, wouldn't be the first time that the US

has welcomed biochemists and fucking scientists from that is true.

Probably Islanes to work in one spirit for the government.

He was such like a big, a big actor in

that time, not like actors, but like, he was such

a big guy that I wonder if they would do

something so brazen as to like legitimately hire him instead

of being like, Okay, you go live on that island

over there and don't talk to anybody, you know, Like

I I wonder about that. I think that's a little

less likely, mean, but not impossible. And they took it

after World War Two? Oh absolutely that those were not

like small name you're right, dudes, Oh yeah, now that

I think that's because I don't even I mean, I

couldn't tell you who they were. I just know they

were right right right right. Let's see nazis working working

on for a US government post World War Two. Let

me let me narrow it down to not modern times.

A challenge, Oh Werner von Braun, yep, that was a

big one. Who else Operation paper Clip, of course?

Speaker 2: And it is so funny that this whole thing is

like also centered around Argentina, which is like Nazi bergm

no offense to the indigenous people of Argentina.

Speaker 1: It's not your fault. I love you, it's not. But yeah,

where I mean Werner von Braun is kind of a big,

big name that they brought to work on their own.

Speaker 2: These are just the ones that we know about delving

further into conspiracy. These are just the ones that we're

aware of. I'm sure that this, like importing Nazis into

the government is a lot more widespread.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, Oh my god,

long list it was. It was like eighteen hundred people

that they brought in. Trying to find names that I recognize,

but you know, German von German, German von German, Rudolph Brill, Budner.

Speaker 2: There is a thing I'm trying a lot. Have you

heard of that? Wasn't it the doctor? Wasn't it Mangola

Mangol or whatever? He was the one who like always

experimented on twins. Yeah, And there's a theory that like

he escaped to Argentina and there's a place in South

America where they hold the largest like population of naturally

occurring twins and they have a festival there where like twins.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, that's a weird coincidence. Weird, you know,

like what do you pumping into the water over there, Mangola,

he'd be dead now, but like, oh yeah, anyway, yeah.

Speaker 1: Anyway, So that is the story of you. That's a

good one. Weird and honestly, like there's, like I said,

there's a lot more to all of that. There's a hole.

Let me see if I can find it again, a hole.

There is this whole thing with what is there's like

an eye land that Chili had that was like a

cult compound something like that. I'm gonna have to I'm sorry,

not a cult compound. Colonia dignidd Okay are you familiar? No?

Have you never heard of that? I don't think so.

Speaker 2: It was like this, although in the beginning of the

episode was like I don't know anything about Chili.

Speaker 1: I do, Yeah, you do. In fact, so Colonia speaking

of Nazis, Colonial Dignidad was this colony in Chili, off

of Chili, on an island off of Chili. It was

an isolated colony established post World War Two by immigrant

Germans that sort of became this place for torture and

murder of dissonance during Pinochets. So it was sort of

like they're a little secret, was like for little Naziburg.

Yeah in Chile, ew and Pinochet was like, we'll send

all of our people there to be murdered. Great, like

we're we're so cool. Not. Yeah, it's basically been. It's

talked about as the state within a state sort of

thing and had autonomy to like run its own ship. Yeah, anyway,

this is what I mean, Like, this whole Pinochet time

period in Chile is buck wild. Yeah, and definitely dig

into it if it sounds even remotely interesting.

Speaker 2: There was interested in like even like the government now,

like the US government now looking into like South American

politics and our involvement in South American politics. Pretty good personally,

I think you should start with the Middle East, but

then you can go to South America.

Speaker 1: Anyway. They're linked to so fun Oh my god, that's

a crazy one. Thanks.

Speaker 2: Okay, put on your tinfoil caps and get ready to speculate.

Speaker 1: But it's not funny, is it.

Speaker 2: Today's case is horrible. When you first explained today's topic

to me, my literal first thought was of the case

I'm about to talk about, Okay, Like once you like

explained it out, I was like, oh, I'm doing this one, okay,

And I was like, they definitely have covered it because

it's not it's not a hugely famous one, but like

it's well known in like the true crime community.

Speaker 1: I would say yeah, because it's so ridiculous. Yeah. So

when you were like, no, you're good.

Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, which is crazy because as we know,

I am the tinfoil hack girl. I love a conspiracy.

I mostly I just think they're fun. But I love

like the investigative nature of it, and I love like

the you know, they're not telling us everything.

Speaker 1: Because they're not. Okay know.

Speaker 2: Yeah, But there's so many good ones. I'll list off

a few. Princess Diana totally murdered, totally murdered, they murdered

that girl, Kurt Cobaine totally murdered, they murdered him. Elvis

living on a secret base on the Moon. I wrote

a paper on Elvis in high school. Did you and

his death conspiracy?

Speaker 1: Yeah? So Si Serwin's class, Oh loved it. I did too.

He's so great. He's so great. He was nice. He's

not teaching anymore. Yeah, no he's not. He's doing I

say woodworking, it's not. It might be woodworking, it might

be smithing. It's something very cheah z. That's so nice

and still like coaching chess. I know he's the best. Seriously,

he is one of the teachers that I am still

friends with on face and he's doing well, and I

just he was a real inspiration for me in a

lot of ways. It's so nice. I agree. I agree

with you.

Speaker 2: Do you think anything about Elvis You think there's.

Speaker 1: Any like viable?

Speaker 2: Ah?

Speaker 1: I think that not as it's not. It's I think

it's more fun to imagine that there is fun. But

I don't think so. No, me neither.

Speaker 2: Yeah, the first two Kirkabane, Princess Diana, somebody murdered those

two people. But all this, No, he died shitten. He

had fucking colon disease, right right, It just be like that.

Some things are just obvious. Speaking of obvious, let's just

get right into today's case. This is the mysterious and

controversial death of Rebecca Za. How okay, okay. So Rebecca

was from Burma. She was born there. She was born

in a town called Pulam, which is in like the

Chin state in northwestern Burma now called Jainamar.

Speaker 1: So she grew up in Wait one.

Speaker 2: More time, say it Againyah, Myanmar, Hello me and Mar.

Speaker 1: Oh, it's like you said, I did. Oh, I really did.

I said it incorrectly and it's okay, I saying, did

you hear me? Try to pronounce all of those Chilean

names is pretty good? It was not good. I'm only

making fun of you to get and make myself at

least the truth. But I know how to say me

and mar that's fair. I knew it in my head,

but my head was I read it. It's like I

don't know where it's just like with yours, Like do

you know anything about Chili?

Speaker 2: And like no, I've never heard of is that. I'm

really into South American politics?

Speaker 1: Just full of beans.

Speaker 2: So Rebecca was born in Burma, mainly grew up around Nepal.

She did end up living like in Germany a little bit,

and then as an adult, ended up.

Speaker 1: Moving to the United States.

Speaker 2: Okay, her time in the United States was a little

fraud at first. In August two thousand and nine, she

was rested for shoplifting okay and not supposed to take

jewelry from Macy's.

Speaker 1: Is the thing? You know, they frown upon that man.

Speaker 2: Well, she pled guilty and then it was fine, and

then I guess not shoplifting anymore.

Speaker 1: She got married, got divorced.

Speaker 2: Uh sounds pretty average, pretty average doing a little stealing,

doing a little married, and divorce.

Speaker 1: Even even the shoplifting. I'm like, this is not really

a big video.

Speaker 2: Truthfully, she worked in ophtthalmology and then ended up quitting

that job and then well, a little bit before the

shoplifting charge, she started dating a man called Jonah Shacknai.

He was the CEO of Medicus pharmaceutical.

Speaker 1: He's kind of like witzy.

Speaker 2: Now, the thing was is she was dating him while

she was still married to the other guy. So this

is kind of what facilitated the divorce. Okay, I see,

so uh Jonah was a little handsome, but he was

also uh, let me see, what is it the ninth

highest paid CEO in Arizona. Okay, So like that's pretty

you know, not crazy. And it said, I mean like

this is like the twenty ten so it's like he

earned like six point four million dollars, whereas today it's

like whatever, like that's not that much.

Speaker 1: We're like a CEO. Well, and when you have to

narrow it down to state, it's okay, so you're so

you're like the lower class wealthy, Yeah, millionaires.

Speaker 2: But I'm sure he made more than nursing student. Oh malea,

oh one thousand percent. So you know, I'm not saying,

you know, maybe they didn't like each other, but you know,

he had a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

that's that's not that's still more money than I make.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I don't take anything for free. Man.

Speaker 2: So Jonah, this CEO guy that she's cheating on her

husband with, he had two previous marriages, and through those

marriages he had three children, two with one woman and

one with another woman. Okay, Rebecca's coming into this situation

with like little you know, bonus kids perhaps all right, right,

so this is this is a sad part. So there

she ends up getting divorced. She's kind of living with Jonah.

I don't know how like super official it was, but

like she's at the house all the time, right, and

she's his girlfriend. So on July eleventh, twenty eleven, oh

my god, it's eleven eleven on the clock, as I

said that, Oh wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 1: There's so many elevens. Okay, come on, conspiracy.

Speaker 2: No, No, that's just weird. It was like July eleven,

twenty eleven. I look up at the time, eleven eleven.

Speaker 1: I'm like, I would have been more impressed if it

was nine to eleven. Let's say, I always look at

the clock when it's nine to eleven, like every fucking

bay I I never forget.

Speaker 2: So silly belly. So on July eleventh, twenty eleven, eleven eleven,

Rebecca she had a teenage sister called Zena who like

hung out with her a lot. So her, her sister,

and one of Jonah's children, whose name was Max. We're

all at one of Jonah's. Like, so it's called the

Ocean Boulevard Beach House Mansion. Whoa, they call it the

Spreckles Mansion because that was that CEO guy's last name,

The Spreckles Mansion. Okay, it wasn't it. And he was

built for I think, like his father.

Speaker 1: Okay, so this is like a family home. No, I lied,

Oh just kidding. It was built for another guy whose

last name is very similar to this guy. Oh, because

this guy's last name is shack Nay not Spreckles. Okay, mommy,

the guy before was the guy before? Yes, yes, yes, mommy,

I like was.

Speaker 2: I like the name Spreckel me too. It's like spreckers

that pop.

Speaker 1: That stuff's good. I don't know, it's trying out. It's

like a brand. I'll show you that.

Speaker 2: But sorry about that. But so, so this mansion was

named for the previous guy built it or had built

which people but he, this CEO guy Jonah, used it

as like a summer estate. I would love to have

just like a summer mansion. But so obviously at this

point he must have really trusted this girl to leave

her alone with his young son. Now unfortunately that would

not work out too well. So Rebecca was in the

bathroom and she said that she heard a sound and

she ran out, like what's going on? And saw Max

face first on the floor in the foyer. They had

like a big I mean, obviously it's a mansion, thiseping

house with a very tall like like upstairs, you know,

and he had fallen from that height, fallen like.

Speaker 1: Over the second floor. Yeah, and fallen on his face. Okay,

so she okay, so she.

Speaker 2: Called nine one one sure said that he was unresponsive,

not breathing. He was immediately taken to Rady Children's Hospital

in San Diego. He did, okay, this was the eleventh

He died on July sixteenth. The cause of death was

so it said that he suffered injuries to his spinal cord,

that was the big thing, and then that affected his breathing,

which affected.

Speaker 1: His heart rate.

Speaker 2: So what actually ended up killing him was brain damage

from oxygen deprivation.

Speaker 1: Okay, okay, but it was as a result of the fall, correct, Yes,

we think important distinction. We think so.

Speaker 2: Investigators did rule his death as an accident. At first,

they were like, he must have just fallen over the banister. However,

you were just talking like, oh, okay, that was from

the fall.

Speaker 1: Well I didn't mean.

Speaker 2: No jump, I just meant injuries. No, I know, but like, still,

I'm glad you said that, because since it's obviously the

death of a child and the traumatic death of a child.

Even though they were like, this was probably an accident,

they still had an investigator come and look at him. Well,

not an investigator, he was a trauma doctor who worked

at the hospital, so he was kind of looking and

he went to police and was like I don't think so.

Speaker 1: He's like, he's like.

Speaker 2: So because when he fell, he had they they thought

that he had like a heart attack, which can happen

a lot with like traumatic injury. But he's like, it

really looks to me like he was suffocated prior to

his fall. He's like the oxygen Jepper is like kind

of weird. Yeah, like I don't know about that. Yeah, Okay,

so obviously very sad time. The day right after that,

July twelfth, Rebecca dropped off her little sister at the

airport so that she could go home all as scheduled,

and then picked up Jonah's brother, Adam, who I'm sure

came when he heard the news. They all had dinner,

I guess, a weird thing to do, and the child

was not dead at this time. He was still alive

in the hospital, so she was kind of running around

with the brother and the dad was at the hospital

with the child and the child's mother.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: The morning the next day, the morning of July thirteenth,

the brother Adam came.

Speaker 1: He woke up.

Speaker 2: I don't know if he heard a noise or what,

but he came in to Rebecca's room and found a

horrible sight. Rebecca was completely nude. She was hanging from

the balcony on her room. She was like hog tied

with her wrists and ankles bound and her hands behind

her back. Okay, hanging from the balcony, naked, alive or

done dead?

Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, this has taken a turn eye.

Speaker 2: So right after this kid falls all of a sudden,

now this girl. Yeah, so he called nine one one,

texted his brother, and before the police came, he cut

down her body. Okay, so, us I heard your little

inticke of breath. I mean, you are true crime people

are like, no, don't touch the scene. But I get

it though it is understandable. Yeah, that's one of those

things where it's like you don't know how you're going

to react, and like he might not have known that

she was dead and was trying to help her. You know,

until I tell you more about the case, we can't

we can't say, yeah, she was pronounced dead at the scene.

So they began this investigation because obviously they're like, well,

she's tied up, you know, let's let's kind of approach this.

This is the girlfriend a girlfriend Rebecca. Okay, So right

away in the case, like they're doing forensics on her,

trying to figure out if like maybe she was on

drugs or like what's going on. So right away they

were like, obviously foul play. But on September second, the

San Diego County Sheriff's Department said, oh, it's actually a suicide.

Oh yeah, okay, she did that.

Speaker 1: Sure. I'm like, okay, disagree, Okay, I disagree.

Speaker 2: So a big thing that I disagree with about is

when they did her autopsy, there was head trauma to

her full big instances of like very like traumatic head trauma.

So there were theories because of the way that she

was hanging off of this like great stone balcony. They

were like, well, maybe if she jumped, she could have

struck her head on the balcony. Like swung, but I'm

like to strike like four times, like you know, everyone's

played on a tire swing or whatever. You swing once

and then it just kind of slows down. Yeah, like

you wouldn't keep swinging. Yeah, what was there a monsoon?

What are you talking about?

Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, pretty weird. Yeah, that one is weird.

Speaker 2: So there's quite a few. This is one where, like

I've watched like a bunch of documentaries about this. There's

like a lot lots of cooks in the kitchen. So

it's like one forensic expert'll come on be like, yeah,

she totally could have hit her head on the balcony,

and then another expert will come on and say, no,

that's not possible, like maybe one impact, but then after

that it wouldn't be like enough to cause her death. Right, So,

her families, a house family ended up requesting a second

autopsy because they were obviously like, what do you mean suicide?

What do you mean? Second autopsy time? They found so

obviously she was hanging, so that's what they thought was

the cause of her death. But when they examined the

bones in her neck and found fractures there, there's a

big difference I guess between like hanging with a rope

and being strangled. Yes, like the I think maybe the

way that the bones break.

Speaker 1: Bones. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2: So he so this guy, this who did the second autopsy, pathologist,

doctor Cyril Weckt, He was like, yeah, no, this girl

was strangled. She did not kill herself, and he stated

that he thought that this was a homicide. Okay, also

found and because this opened up like to more investigation,

they were able to do. I don't know if they

were able to do a full like rape kit, but

they found that she had sexually assaulted before she died

as well.

Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, m hmmm, all right, so I guess there's

a thing.

Speaker 2: So this is like I always thought this was like

kind of dumb and racist because like the original like

San Diego police are like, no, no, no, it's a suicide.

We said it was. Shut up, no, we said it was.

We're trying to prove it. They're like, well, there's a

thing in these like crazy wacky Asian countries where she's from,

where when people kill themselves they will bind their hands

and feet so that they don't change their mind.

Speaker 1: That doesn't sound real, Is that really? No? Not really, Okay,

it's not really. They were trying to like put like

like put it on her, right, I guess, yeah.

Speaker 2: And they show in court at some point they showed

like video evidence of how it could technically be possible

to like like they had a video representation of a

lady like having her hands and feet bound in the

same way and was able to jump. But it's like,

would she have been able to do that with say

four head wounds?

Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? I don't think. So.

Speaker 2: There's a creepy little detail as well that I kind

of forgot about. So on the door, so like on

the door outside like so kind of underneath the balcony

where she was found. Yeah, so the door under that

there was a message, uh like spray painted there that

said quote, she saved.

Speaker 1: Him, can he save her? Okay? Pretty weird.

Speaker 2: Yeah, So the big like thing there was like, was

this a suicide note?

Speaker 1: Was this what?

Speaker 2: And they and the San Diego Police was like, yeah,

this was her suicide note. And of course suicide experts

were like it doesn't even make sense, like what does

this even mean?

Speaker 1: No, that sounds more revenge.

Speaker 2: And they they were trying to like victim blame her

so hard because they were like, but she loved to paint,

like she didn't paint a fucking bird, it's words.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like so what so what? So strange?

Speaker 2: So they're trying to figure out like what's going on,

like who's been in and out? So they were going

through like her phone records, and according to AT and T,

the night of her death, from like eight pm until ten,

she talked to her older sister on the phone. Hey

did my little sister get home?

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: Yeah, she got home, Okay, very normal conversation. And then

she got a text at ten forty eight pm from

this guy's got so many hoes from the the mother

of the child who is in the hospital and will

pass away her sister. Okay, so like the child's aunt.

So she texted Rebecca at really late at night. Sorry,

I thought you're gonna sneeze. She texted her really late

at night and said, I want to come to the

house and talk about the accident.

Speaker 1: Rebecca did not reply to the message.

Speaker 2: Okay, it's like a pretty weird thing to have like

late at night. And then there was like a voicemail

that was left later that for some reason, it said

that she listened to it, but that that was it.

And then they would not reveal who the phone call

was from.

Speaker 1: Okay, So I don't know.

Speaker 2: If they couldn't somehow or because again this was a

few years ago, right, twenty ten, So but yeah, oh

it was deleted, that's why. Okay, But like you would

think they would be able to like actually get it maybe.

Speaker 1: And then when they.

Speaker 2: Were doing like the investigation into the phone, they were

having problems. They were trying to use like all of

this forensic software. I guess initially they didn't even power

up the phone because they were like afraid they would

delete it accidentally. Like they were like being really like

anxious about it. But nothing, nothing really came of it. Okay,

So this was like huge. This was like huge at

the time, Like all of these newspapers were like going crazy,

everyone having like all of these mixed opinions. I don't

understand how there can be mixed opinions on that one.

Her family was obviously horrified. All of them came out

and said she had never been suicidal. She was always happy,

always smiling. The police were coming out and saying, well,

she was really depressed, and her family was like, no,

she wasn't. She was fine, She wasn't depressed. She was

like having like a really good time, like living with

this guy. She loved the children, and that she had

strong religious beliefs. They were brought up Protestant, which I

guess is pretty common in that area of Burma where

she's from. There's a lot of like forced Protestantism, And

she had talked before about how she thought that suicide

was wrong. Yeah you know, yeah, so they were all

like no, nahuh. Then the sheriff came out and was like, well,

it's unfortunate that they can't accept the results. It's just

like really unfortunate. Okay, it's like so sad. So this

whole time, like by twenty eleven, they're trying to reopen

the investigation. She did not kill herself. They launched a website,

Justice for Rebecca dot com, and they're they're just trying

to trying to get people to pay attention. Right, she

did not bind her hands and legs and beat herself

in the head and jump off this balcony.

Speaker 1: It's just not possible.

Speaker 2: There was like a big thing here, obviously, which you

would think, where Jonah Shacknay, her boyfriend and the father

of the murdered little boy or the dead little boy, whichever,

was using his wealth and influence to influence the investigation.

Speaker 1: Obviously.

Speaker 2: You know, he tried to sue because like this like

who was it, Like a lawyer, some lawyer of his

said like, yeah, he's actually like trying to influence the investigation,

and he sent him like a cease and desist, oh fuck,

but didn't actually sue.

Speaker 1: It was like kind of awkward.

Speaker 2: Yeah, So there ended up being kind of like a

civil case. Members of Rebecca's family filed a ten million

dollar wrongful death lawsuit. At first, it was, it says,

up until up to like fifty people. They ended up

narrowing it down to Jonah's brother, Adam, the one that

she had like picked up from the airport and had

been staying with them. Okay, because remember at the time,

Jonah was at the hospital with his son, so it

was only Rebecca and Adam in the house that we

know of, Okay. So they were like, we can't get

anyone to charge you with murder, we'll just get this

wrongful death yeah, lawsuit.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So in the civil trial, the jury found him responsible

and awarded the za Howe family of five point two

million dollars.

Speaker 1: Wow. They're like, yeah, actually, you fucking did that shit.

To be fair, the burden in a civil trial is

less than it isn't a criminal trial. Yeah, definitely, But

like they put, I'm just putting that out there for consistencies. Yeah, no,

you're talking fifty one percent versus ninety nine percent.

Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I would agree

with it. So this case has continued to kind of

live in the public eye and is still seeing movement,

Like the last thing that happened was February twenty nineteen.

Speaker 1: Uh, because he appealed. Adam appealed and was like, nah,

I didn't do that. There was ger misconduct, stop it. So,

which is also an interesting move because in civil trials, specifically,

if you appeal and the judge has the option of

being like yes and right, like they can be like, actually,

the sentence is upheld, and I think the judgment should

have been more even though he was it's risky charged

with the five point one million or whatever the judge was.

The judge in the appeal could come back and be like, actually,

I think you owe them seven point two and increase

the award, right, So you have to be like really

sure going into that, and.

Speaker 2: I guess he was, because what happened was this how

family entered a settlement for six hundred thousand dollars and

then the civil case was dismissed with prejudice and the

five million dollar judgment was vacated. Interesting, so now he

doesn't have to pay that, I guess.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: There's been no real updates since then, but this one

continues to be I've seen like on all of those

like you know, craziest true crime photographs, Like her death

is in like every single one because like they show

like the medical examiners like drawing of her and how

she was found hanging, and it's like as soon as

you see her, you're like somebody put her there. So

what is the prevailing theory on both of these?

Speaker 1: Do you think? So?

Speaker 2: Most people think that the child died because maybe she

wasn't paying attention like it was it was because he

was pretty young. I think he was like seven, Like

either she wasn't paying attention or like maybe she was

like drinking, you know, not paying attention to him and

he fell. Most people don't believe that like she pushed

him or anything like that, but that it was some

negligence on her part that caused him to fall.

Speaker 1: Because he said that he had They had found that

he had actually been suffocated prior to him, yeah, going

off the balcony, right, Okay.

Speaker 2: The only thing is she she's such like she has

no I mean she shoplifted, yeah, so what, but she

like has no like violent past or anything. She loved

the child like, so it's it's weird to me to

picture her doing I don't know why the hell she

would do that, you know, it's weird, so I don't know,

but he and then the family had her killed for revenge.

That's like the main theory.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of people arguing about like who

did it, Like whether the brother Adam did do it,

whether Jonah came home. There's that whole thing about she

had that that voicemail that no one knows where it

came from, and the text message from the wife's sister.

So it's like somebody could have come to the house

to have her naked where she could be seen from

the road. I think that that's clear, like humiliation, the

weird message spray painted. I think that someone in the

family had her killed and and and that was just

kind of it. But like they're dumb, like and they're

just using their money to get out of everything.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what's money good for if you can't

get out of crime.

Speaker 2: Well, that's true, but then like, don't commit crimes, just

buy an island and unless you're a Nazi I've seen, yeah,

maybe don't buy an eyelids. Yeah, but that one's that

one's a really frustrating one because it's one of the

more obvious, Like I just think it's crazy that anyone

can argue that there's not some some funck shit going on.

Speaker 1: There's not, Like the family is definitely weird. Like, I

do think there is something going on, because it's unusual

to have that many injuries and deaths within the same

time frame, because it was only just a couple of

days after you had gone into the hospital, right, Yeah,

So I think that's strange. And for them to not

connect the two is strange, and to not look more

into what happened to the child. Yeah like that.

Speaker 2: So they say that they the San Diego Police Department

continues to maintain that she killed herself, but nobody else

believes that. And that is the mysterious stuff of Rebecca

So hell.

Speaker 1: Interesting story, Yeah, interesting stories that fucked up.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't have to tell you things are bad.

Speaker 1: Everybody knows things are bad.

Speaker 2: It's a depression, everybody.

Speaker 1: Losing their job. Well, Rachel, that has been our episode,

sure has. Do you have any final thoughts before we

uh wrap things up here?

Speaker 2: I'm just readjusting my tinfoil hat. Maybe I'll make get

it into a beanie, a tinfoil beanie.

Speaker 1: So you just got to press the top down and.

Speaker 2: Utes that would be cute or like an Ae Lincoln hat.

Speaker 1: I mean there's lots of I always think of the

tinfoil hat episode of Futurama and yeah, fashions it into

like a security guards cap and like like various hats

to fit the various needs he has in that one.

Oh my god, yeah, what is that? Into the Wild

Green Yonder? I think was that that was one of

the like hour long h yeah when they were in

between work anyway, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, Well, if

you enjoyed this episode, you can find more just like

this at Bad Taste crimecast dot com, Taste, Bad Taste

Podcast wherever podcast. So forget what it's been a minute

since I've had to do this Bad Taste podcast dot com.

As is that you can find all of these episodes

and more. I think that's all were more. Yeah, Our

son and edit editing is by t Folman. Our music

is by Jason Zakshevsky. The Enigma, I didn't turn our

button on aggressive flicking, Damn I know the button. The

button wasn't not Geiger Counter. We literally like came in

after this and just had to settle back in. It's

like we've never done this before off our groove. Oh

my goodness, well this has been the Bad Taste Crime podcast.

We will see you in two weeks. Good five. I

think it was as if the wave that people washed

over was town another if the generics are fine or not,

but there's something about it doing damage to your stomach

lining after a long term use, and I think there's

a oh my god, God, damn, that was huge. Jesus,

did you think it was gonna be a low? What?

I didn't think it was gonna happen at all. It

took me by surprise. Who did that? Who's in here?