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Season Seven: The Highway to Hell Murders: Fear and Loathing in Arizona
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In this episode, we talk about the road trip to hell murders in the Southwest United States.
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Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
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Transcript
Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Surprising Crime Stories in 2026
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:01:01
Speaker
You know, it's interesting how in 2026, stories can still be new to me.
Defining Serial Killings
00:01:07
Speaker
I don't know if you ever, like, come across a story and you're like, why have I not heard of that? I do that all the time. and I like to think I have a pretty good understanding of, like, serial killers at this point.
00:01:21
Speaker
And sometimes I read something and I have a question about it, and by the time I'm really done... I'm like, wait a second. Is that, are we really calling that serial killings?
00:01:36
Speaker
So this is referenced in other stories. There's a book about this case ah that people can read. It's very difficult to find. I did, find I finally found it. They come up in some of the John Douglas books, you know, the ones where he talks about multiple different killers.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yes. They come up in three or four of those. They're actually featured quite a bit. i was surprised when I like got to looking for them. They're featured in Rethinking Serial Murder, but they're in a bunch of those like encyclopedias of, and insert a word there, serial killer, mass murderer, spree killer, the worst humans.
Case Introduction: Gretzler & Steelman
00:02:15
Speaker
like They're mentioned in a lot of those books, but ultimately, they're not for some reason, they're not really considered I don't know, man. This is difficult for me. like We'll talk about it, and then we'll we'll talk about what we consider them to be. The book that was difficult to find is called Where Sadness Breves, which is kind of an odd story.
00:02:39
Speaker
And if you were alive in 1973, there's a good chance that you saw us in the news. I was not alive in 1973, so I went back in time on newspapers.com and read a lot about it.
Gretzler's Early Life and Family Dynamics
00:02:51
Speaker
But this story is it's It's pretty fascinating because it does one of those things that I always wonder whether it's like an actual thing. And that is it pairs up two people to be quote unquote serial killers.
00:03:07
Speaker
And I just have a hard time when more than one murder of a serial killer's murders is attributed to accomplices.
00:03:18
Speaker
it you know It happens, which I totally understand. little the The motives here are a little different. But it is two people, and ah we're we're just going to tell you guys about them. I'm hoping that I can um use this example to try and articulate better what I constantly try to explain whenever we talk about this. That's ah that's probably, like some of the source material here goes that same direction, and that's probably the question I have for folks following along at home. So this is the story of Douglas Edward Gretzler.
00:03:54
Speaker
and Willie Luther Steelman. Before I sent you like a couple of links to them, had you ever heard of them before? i had never heard of them before. Yeah, it it threw me off that...
00:04:05
Speaker
that They've been, in my opinion, their convictions alone merit like looking at them and telling a story about them. Their classification as serial killers is very odd.
00:04:19
Speaker
um and So let's just do some background on these two guys, what you would find in like the summaries if you go looking online. The first guy, Douglas Gretzler, he's born in May of 1951 up in New York. He's born in the Bronx.
00:04:36
Speaker
He has an older brother and then two younger siblings. His dad is like involved in the local school district. and They call him the president of the Tuckahoe School District.
00:04:54
Speaker
I think that's the equivalent to like a school board commissioner today, like the head commissioner. um Mom's a stay-at-home mom. In the early 50s, this whole family moves out to the suburb Tuckahoe.
Struggles with Family and Drugs
00:05:10
Speaker
So people, if you don't know what that is, ah along the Bronx River, there is a village, is what they would classify it as, in Westchester County. And they this village is called Tuckahoe.
00:05:27
Speaker
It's... probably 15 minutes from midtown Manhattan. I think it's got about five or 6,000 people there today, maybe a few more.
00:05:37
Speaker
ah you can get there on the Metro North and, um, there's really not a lot more that like people would know about that area. Uh, there's a couple of names. If you look up like notable people, it's like, they're not people that like,
00:05:50
Speaker
ring a bell for me. They put some guy on there named Tom Creevey as notable people from Tuckahoe. He's apparently the PGA championship winner for 1931. And I was like, that, yeah, we're just going to count this. Like, it's just and kind of an unknown little place.
00:06:06
Speaker
Um, So dad's providing for the family. He's working. ah People in the community know the family. But while dad seems to be a good dad to like the the outward face, it he appears to have like some pretty strict ah authoritarian and disciplinarian ah methods in the household.
00:06:26
Speaker
He wanted you know his kids to obey him, and he wanted them to like achieve, I think, academically and athletically. um It's rumored that he subjected them to physical and mental punishment. but It's talked about in a documentary about them. um It is mentioned in some of the news articles.
00:06:45
Speaker
ah We get quite a bit of conversation from douglass Douglas Gretzler over the years, and he said that his oldest brother or the oldest child of the Gretzler children was the favorite of his father's and that all four were subject to differing levels of abuse.
00:07:07
Speaker
um He talks fondly of his younger sisters, Joanne and Diane, And he says that ah basically the oldest brother was smart and he was popular and it was very hard to live up to sort of the example he was setting. And that seemed to fuel like some of the way dad treated everybody.
00:07:27
Speaker
ah They give the contrast that, um, he doesn't graduate the Boy Scouts like his older brother did. As far as Douglas Gretzler doesn't do the same ranks as Mark Gretzler. And he's a C student, sometimes getting Ds.
00:07:43
Speaker
um He got a good report card. And this one example he gives to an author that talks to him for a long time. He runs home to show his father and is ah his father looks at it.
00:07:54
Speaker
And think Gretzler says he's 10 or 11 years old. And he's so excited like you know to show his dad this report card because he's gotten a good grade. And his dad kind of tosses it aside and says, I think you can do better.
00:08:08
Speaker
So you've got this kid, and he's he's attempting to please his dad. But at some point, puberty's going to kick in, and he he stops really trying to to please him, and he starts trying to make him mad.
00:08:24
Speaker
Because he realizes when he makes him mad, he gets time with his dad and he gets his attention. So he's skipping school. He's not home and he's supposed to be. He sets up a drum kit in the family's basement and loves to play his drums.
00:08:42
Speaker
I just want to point out, just in case it's not like completely obvious, which it probably is, that you know the nineteen fifty s and sixty s were a very different time. Yes. And so just keep that in mind, ah absorbing this. ah You know where I'm headed.
00:08:59
Speaker
ah So ah by 1966, Douglas Gressler is 15 years old, and he starts smoking pot. So his dad discovers that he's smoking pot, and he blames everything in Douglas' life on Douglas smoking pot.
00:09:18
Speaker
Basically, the reason that you don't get good grades and you're good-for-nothing kid is all because you're smoking pot. At one point, they get into an argument, and Gretzler's dad grabs him and slams him into a wall.
00:09:35
Speaker
Whatever happened here causes the two of them to like go down to the ground. So it's a very physical confrontation between this 15, 16-year-old kid and his dad.
00:09:47
Speaker
And after this time period where they had this argument over everything that's happening, Douglas Grutzler said that his father never failed to remind him of being an, quote,
00:10:03
Speaker
of being a quote, utter disappointment, end quote. um Once they discovered he was smoking pot, they started taking him to family counseling and they went with him trying to improve family relations, but not much came in that. On August 16th, 1966, the family has a major tragedy. Mark, the oldest son,
00:10:25
Speaker
He commits suicide by shooting himself in the head in his bedroom at the age of 17. His father, a couple of days before this happened, he had found that Mark had stolen and upcoming exams answer sheet.
00:10:42
Speaker
And he had handed copies of these answers out to some random students. So he's a senior, he's about to graduate, and the school didn't expel him, but they banned Mark Gretzler from participating in any senior year activities.
00:11:00
Speaker
He leaves a suicide note, doesn't really explain why he's doing it or what particular thing is his motive for ending his life, but he does include a thank you note to his aunt for lending him a gun.
00:11:15
Speaker
And several months later, ah and and they don't say like if this is ongoing or if this is new. Norton, who is the father, Norton Gretzler, um he is spending all his time in the basement drinking.
00:11:36
Speaker
And he approaches Douglas. And basically has this horrible conversation that you really only see in like movies and and bad after-school television dramas, where he essentially says to to Douglas Gratzler, why did Mark kill himself? Why why couldn't you have killed yourself?
00:11:58
Speaker
So this has a profound
Marriage, Family, and Crime
00:12:00
Speaker
effect on 15-year-old Douglas Gratzler. And he begins extending his drug habits out of the marijuana realm. And this applies to the 60s being very different. He starts taking mescaline and LSD. And because you know he's doing this. And the idea behind those drugs, ah they are... Hellucinogens.
00:12:25
Speaker
Well, they're a very... They are hallucinogens. They are a very different type of drug from weed, but they're still not the heroin, cocaine type drugs. I don't know that much about... At first, i said I thought that said mezcal, which is like... That's a drink with a water. And so it's not the same thing, but um I'm pretty sure... These are both psychedelics.
00:12:49
Speaker
And they're chemicals, not plants. Correct. Okay, that's what I was... ah Well, so mezcaline comes from a cacti. But it is altered. Right.
00:12:59
Speaker
It is altered in order for people to take it. And LSD is it's a semi-synthetic hallucinogenic drug. It's ah it's a psychedelic drug. Right. And ah theirs also would have, I don't know much about ah those types of drugs, but they have a mind-altering effect.
00:13:17
Speaker
No? Right? Yes. Yes. That's the whole idea. Yep. I just want to i want to say this because i feel like it's important. um Other than the drug use, Douglas Gretzler goes through high school. He's a member of the football team, the baseball team, the basketball team. And if you see any of the documentary footage of this kid like afterwards, um he's also a drummer. He loves music.
00:13:47
Speaker
He is not a bad kid. and And I want to make sure that like I explain that part because the feeling you get reading about him and hearing about him is that he is overwhelmingly average.
00:14:03
Speaker
And there is nothing wrong with that. I am average in a lot of things. And this guy cannot get out of the position of now technically being the oldest child since his brother passed away. He finds himself in sort of a new pecking order.
00:14:20
Speaker
probably also being the bane of his father's anger because his older brother has passed away. And he like, he is totally fine except for feeling like he is causing all the family's problems in in being average.
00:14:38
Speaker
Right, and... i I'm pretty sure it's sourced. I don't know exactly where from, but this is recollection, right? We're getting the accounts of what happened after we're eventually going to talk about where it comes from, but yes. Okay. We don't know. and obviously you think about, you know, 16 year olds, ah the other information that's been put out there.
00:15:02
Speaker
Like, we don't know how much is, you know, for effect. How much of it did he interpret a certain way? How much of how abusive his dad really was? All of that is sort of it's It's a subjective point of reference, right? yeah Yeah, it's not presented as like some crazy amount of abuse. It's presented as a father who has four kids and he's trying to keep them in line, wants the best for them, is terrible at communicating that to them. So he falls back on, I'm seeing them, I would say abusive tendencies. It may be outright abuse, um but it is from the recollections of Douglas Gretzler and the people around him. Right, and sometimes, and I'm...
00:15:48
Speaker
I say this from a little bit of experience, but not really. But sometimes we can imagine our parents are being harder on us than they actually are being. And sometimes we don't realize how hard our parents are being on us. Right. You can either way. Complete, you know, <unk> disregard for what they have to say.
00:16:07
Speaker
Either way, you can tell he's struggling. i don't know. it may come up. I don't know if it, the, the escalated drug use had more to do with, know,
00:16:18
Speaker
his brother dying or, you know, the other issues he was having, but it did both of those things put a lot of pressure on him. Well, you've
Instability and Legal Troubles
00:16:28
Speaker
been in the shadow of a tree for all this time and suddenly the tree gets chopped down.
00:16:32
Speaker
Right. But the tree committed suicide because he got caught stealing the answers. with Basically. That's what we would think. Yeah. Why he was such a great student all those years. Yeah.
00:16:46
Speaker
i You know, the way it reads in some of the papers of the time, it varies from, and not the time that it happened, so it's it's already five, six years out by the time we read about it, from when it happened. it's It kind of reads like it was a prank kind of gone wrong or gone too far.
00:17:05
Speaker
Which sounds like something that would have been fed, right? Right, and but but they also don't expel him from school. Well, I think that the logical, for somebody who is worried about image, which it sounds like the father is, he's very worried about how his family is perceived. He is the president of the school system or whatever.
00:17:28
Speaker
It would be, ah it's not surprising that he would say, oh, that was just a prank. It had no real bearing on anything. Except... We all know that it had enough bearing that he ended up committing suicide because he got in trouble for it. not Right. He wasn't even expelled. Right. He wasn't even expelled. But that could do, now that you say it that way, that could have to do with who his father is.
00:17:54
Speaker
i'm That's what I'm saying. Like his son could not face the disappointment right that he had caused his father. And how sad is that? It's very sad. Because there's nothing about stealing test answers and passing them out, prank or no prank, that should end in suicide. There's nothing about that. I mean, kids shouldn't do that, but also it should not cause one to kill themselves. so that's that's something to consider.
00:18:23
Speaker
Right. ah There's a popular comedian. i don't know if you remember this whole thing. Back in the 1960s, I want to say it's Sherry Lewis that had Lamb Chop.
00:18:37
Speaker
I remember that. I don't know who it was. I think she's doing that bit from like a show in the early 60s. So Douglas Gressler gets the nickname Lambie.
00:18:51
Speaker
um He's not super popular at school, but he does have some friends and acquaintances and everything I've read about what his friends and acquaintances say about him. They all have positive things to say. So he's going to graduate in 1969.
00:19:06
Speaker
He's not going to college or to community college. Instead, he's going to become an auto mechanic and he gets a job at a local car dealership.
00:19:18
Speaker
In 1970, He moves to Florida. He just does one of those things where you're getting away. And he meets a young woman named Judith Isle.
00:19:29
Speaker
ah She's also from New York. She's from Manhattan. They began dating. And shortly after they began dating, they announced that they're engaged.
00:19:41
Speaker
In 1970, they get married in in Miami-Dade County. ah they get married in february down in miami-dade county But they do something odd. They buy an apartment in the Bronx, New York, and move back.
00:19:55
Speaker
So Douglas Gretzler has trouble getting a job. He would take a role, usually some kind of menial labor. it doesn't have the education for like what you might think he would be doing. And within a few days of being employed, definitely within a few weeks, he would quit the job.
00:20:18
Speaker
And his wife is working full-time in a local bank, and she cannot figure out why her husband will not just take a job and stick to it. By 1972, Judith gives birth to a daughter.
00:20:34
Speaker
And initially, Douglas and Judith are into the whole parenting thing.
00:20:41
Speaker
He gets tired of constantly having this small person who is Entirely his responsibility and his wife's responsibility. According to all the reports that we get, he's never abusive or directly neglectful.
00:21:00
Speaker
But what he would do is he would make his plans around his wife's schedule so that he can do things that basically leave her at the house having to take care of the baby.
00:21:13
Speaker
And they do end up getting into financial difficulties because of the way he works for a little while and then quits. And once they start getting into financial straits,
00:21:27
Speaker
He turns to what is described as petty crime, and that appears to be how he supports himself. But I will tell you that this is more from observations and from where sadness breathes, like their interviews that they did and the commentary that is said about Douglas. We don't have a lot of police records about Douglas Gretzler.
00:21:50
Speaker
So he was getting away with those crimes. Right. He's getting, he is getting away with it and we don't know exactly how they're going. um as far as him getting away with it, we just know that like, he's not going to court over it.
00:22:05
Speaker
Um, and that's kind of a big deal in my opinion. Like it means that he's probably not commit committing anything big enough to like, we look at and we go, oh he, these are the early days, but I guess given the outcome, probably, is the early days of whatever's happening with him.
00:22:20
Speaker
Well, we have no idea. it was It's just something that's been said, but you know no arrests were made, or if they were made, there weren't records of them. Yeah. So on his birthday in 1972, he inherits a trust fund of several thousand dollars and immediately spends the majority of 1967 sports car.
00:22:46
Speaker
And what he doesn't spend on the sports car buying it, he spends fixing the vehicle up. He does not spend very much money on his wife or on Jessica, his daughter. By the fall of 1972, he is working in Tuckahoe at a concrete factory.
00:23:04
Speaker
So he has this job for several months. By December 26, he abruptly walks away from the job.
00:23:16
Speaker
And not just the job. He also waits until his wife leaves the apartment with their baby. He packs a duffel bag full of clothing and some toiletries. He jumps in his little MGB sports car, and he heads west.
00:23:31
Speaker
In his mind, he's decided he's going to relocate to Colorado. ah By December 27th, we know that he arrives in Casper, Wyoming.
00:23:42
Speaker
He takes a bunch of under-the-table or low-paying jobs. And by June 28th of 1973, he is arrested for a minor traffic infraction and for vagrancy, for just bumming around.
Introduction to Willie Steelman
00:24:01
Speaker
About eight weeks later, he decides he's done with Casper, Wyoming, and he drives down to Denver, Colorado. And that's going to be where we end up picking up with him ah in 1973 in Colorado. But we've got to tell you about somebody else.
00:24:21
Speaker
And I hate doing these dual stories like this, but they are interesting. It's just weird to like to drop off at a particular point and have to pick up with another person. we don't tell you about this guy, this is all going to be really confusing.
00:24:34
Speaker
So the other half of this pairing... from Douglas Gretzler is a guy named Willie Stillman. He goes by Bill.
00:24:45
Speaker
He is born ah few years before Gretzler in March of 1945 out in San Joaquin County in California. He is the youngest of three kids and their family had come from Oklahoma 1935 to California.
00:25:07
Speaker
Now, the dad in this family, he works as a foreman at a farm. The family has little money, but they are very close. The parents are constantly working to provide for their children.
00:25:21
Speaker
And because they're constantly working, the responsibility for raising Bill falls to his 14-year-old sister, Frances. So he spends his childhood and his adolescence in Lodi. He attends Lodi High School.
00:25:38
Speaker
During his school years, he is not popular either. He's a little bit more of a social outcast. But by all reports, he's not bullied by other students.
00:25:49
Speaker
When Bill is 13 years old, his dad dies. And Bill is going to drop out of school shortly after his dad dies and start committing petty crime.
00:26:01
Speaker
His mom is trying to make him either get a job or to do all the things you're supposed to do as a teenager, graduate high school. And they are constantly at each other's throats.
00:26:15
Speaker
And anytime she brings it up and is like, look, we need to get you in school. We need to get your future together. He gets into arguments with her to the point that he is threatening her.
00:26:30
Speaker
So about a year later 1959, mom gets remarried. Now, mom gets remarried now She remains close to her youngest son, but she is still mad that like he is not doing what he's supposed to be doing.
00:26:47
Speaker
And just like with Gretzler, we have a brother here and that's Gary. So we have Francis, we have Gary, and then we have Bill. He's the youngest.
00:27:01
Speaker
Mom is constantly asking, why can't you be more like Gary? So by March of 1962, Bill's mom and her new husband, they persuade Bill to join the United States Navy.
00:27:18
Speaker
He does it. He enlists, takes the oath. But within a few months, his service is terminated. And in the fall of 1963, Bill is going to relocate to Denver and he's going to live with his sister, Frances.
00:27:33
Speaker
But Frances... gets sick of how Bill treats her and her children, and ultimately kicks them out. So he's going to go home and live in California with his mom.
00:27:46
Speaker
Now we can, we can trace him at this point, like his years between 18 and 21 through the California youth authority. And we know that in January of 1965, he's about to turn 20, he,
00:27:59
Speaker
so he's about to turn twenty he is convicted of three counts of forgery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor or involving a minor in a crime.
00:28:11
Speaker
So he's still young at this point. And they, at first they keep him in custody with the California Youth Authority. He's kind of past their age limit, but he's he's not quite 21. They ultimately send him out to the Pine Grove work camp and he's gonna be there for seven months in 1965.
00:28:32
Speaker
So following the release from this work camp, Bill obtains employment as a field hand.
00:28:41
Speaker
He meets a 15-year-old girl,
00:28:46
Speaker
and they're going to get married in Reno, Nevada. And pretty soon he's going to quit his job. And both of them, so Bill and this 15-year-old girl, are going to move into his mother's home.
00:29:00
Speaker
By December 1965, so keep in mind, he spent most of 1965 in a work camp. But by December, a warrant has been issued for Bill's arrest because he's been going around cashing stolen checks.
00:29:16
Speaker
So in January 1966, he gets arrested on these check-stealing charges. And he's going to be held in custody at the Stockton County Jail.
00:29:30
Speaker
He is going to attempt suicide during this time, and not long after he attempts suicide in January, his 15-year-old wife, her parents, they go through the process to have Bill and this girl's marriage annulled.
00:29:53
Speaker
By February of 1966, they move him over to Stockton State Hospital, primarily because of the suicide attempt. But he ends up classified as mentally ill, and they transfer him to the Atascadero State Hospital.
00:30:10
Speaker
Now, he does well here. According to the paperwork, he has quote-unquote remarkable progress. That's from where sadness breathes. And because of that, they move him back to Stockton State Hospital.
00:30:26
Speaker
He is going to be essentially convicted of this forgery conviction for the stolen checks that he's been cashing. And he's going to get 14 months to be served at the California Men's Colony.
00:30:41
Speaker
So California Men's Colony is in, it's ah just outside of San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo County, California. um It's an all men's prison.
00:30:54
Speaker
And it turns out that Bill is kind of a model inmate. The structure that's provided to him during this time like He gets no infractions. He is granted parole after being there for only two months, which is kind of unheard of during the 60s.
00:31:10
Speaker
So he gets out on September 16th of 1968, spent all his time in the hospital, quite a bit of time ah pre-trial, and then he ends up in California Men's Colony in 1968. And then just as quickly as he gets there, he's out of there, and he's returned over to Lodi.
00:31:27
Speaker
So in the book, they talk about these long interviews with his sister. And according to the sister, he was basically telling people he had turned his life around.
00:31:41
Speaker
But she says it kind of sarcastically because within three months of getting out of CMC, he is arrested for supplying LSD to two 16-year-old girls.
00:31:54
Speaker
Now, he's going to not get a huge punishment for this, he's ultimately sentenced to 43 days imprisonment, and he's fined $625.
00:32:06
Speaker
While he's incarcerated, and I believe this is by a pen pal arrangement, he becomes andquit ah he becomes acquainted with a young woman named Kathy Stone. So when he's released by the spring of 1969, is moving in with Kathy Stone.
00:32:25
Speaker
He also becomes acquainted with a young woman named Denise McKell. They're going to end up married in June of 1969, and they're going to relocate from Sacramento over to Mountain View.
00:32:40
Speaker
So the next couple of years are kind of a blur in his life. I assume psychedelics become a big part of things. But he's routinely arrested for a variety of offenses that aren't deemed serious enough to keep him in jail.
00:32:57
Speaker
And basically, he ends up with either dismissals or he's able to pay a fine, ah similar to the the couple hundred dollars that he got charged for the LSD, which And he sort of skates by without really going back into prison, which I think is a mistake.
Gretzler & Steelman: Criminal Collaboration
00:33:17
Speaker
But by 1972, he's basically existing in kind of a full-blown state of addiction, in my opinion.
00:33:29
Speaker
So he loses a job that he gets as an orderly at the Vista Ray Convalescent Hospital in Lodi, where he's making about $320 a month, when he's caught forging prescriptions.
00:33:41
Speaker
So his new wife leaves him on New Year's Day in 1973. She informs him that she like cannot continue to enable him and does not want to live in a way that they're constantly being broke and on the verge of eviction.
00:33:59
Speaker
And basically she feels like at this point like the money she's earning is financing what she describes at the time as a heroin addiction. I don't think I would want to live that way either.
00:34:11
Speaker
No, no, yeah. So that brings us to 1973.
00:34:20
Speaker
And in August of 1973, Bill is going to go to Colorado. The reason for going to Colorado is that he is coming to visit Frances. And Frances lets him back into her home.
00:34:34
Speaker
But, and i I would say this is kind of their usual deal, he outstays welcome really fast. So once she tries to kick him out, he refuses to leave.
00:34:49
Speaker
She has a room in her house where she basically says he said he could stay there. um There's no furniture. The idea was that he would contribute to rent and he would maybe find a local job.
00:35:05
Speaker
and Francis gets really frustrated with her brother freeloading off of her. However, his oldest niece, Terry, really likes hanging out with Bill.
00:35:22
Speaker
So over time, Bill, hanging out with Terry, becomes acquainted with a 17-year-old named Marsha Renslow.
00:35:32
Speaker
Bill tells all these crazy stories that ah The description was of bravado and crime, but he's basically just telling stories of the things that he's been doing, and he's making them sound kind of fantastical and magical.
00:35:48
Speaker
So the local kids are kind of impressed by this older guy. He's not that old, but he's getting there. um By the time we're doing all this, he's 27 turning 28. So he brings...
00:36:03
Speaker
so he brings ah these kids in and out of the home. He brings the kids in and out of the home. And sometime in September, Bill ends up meeting Douglas Gretzler.
00:36:19
Speaker
The story is the two become acquainted through Marsha Renslow. And the the way they get kind of into the accomplished business is Marsha Rinslow is gonna ask the pair to steal motorcycle parts for her one evening in September of 1973.
00:36:44
Speaker
So Douglas Gretzler, where we left off with him, was he had arrived in Denver, he was trying to get work. Basically, he had two goals. One goal is he's gotta keep his little MG that he has wrecked his marriage over running.
00:36:59
Speaker
The second goal is he's gotta find drugs. So he and Bill become friends. Now, according to the long-form interviews Douglas Gretzler does, he basically says that Bill's in charge.
00:37:17
Speaker
And he is the older of the two. He's older by 16 years. And that's the story that he's going to tell. But the two of them talk about, like,
00:37:31
Speaker
a couple of different odd things that criminals tend to do. And that's like fast cash, meaning they can get drugs doing little crime. Uh, Bill teaches Douglas Gretzler how to snatch purses and checkbooks and they kind of get into the forgery business.
00:37:47
Speaker
And the other thing we're talking about is a big score. They're never really going to get to a big score in what they're doing, but they end up beating a teenage boy. They steal a shotgun that he has. And They start like plotting between the two of them to try and commit more serious crimes and not get caught.
00:38:11
Speaker
Now, at some point, they make Frances crazy, and she ends up abandoning her home by September 30th. um It's believed that the reason she leaves is because Bill had stolen her purse.
00:38:31
Speaker
And so she takes her kids and they move into a an apartment and she informs Bill that like she can no longer afford the house and the house is going to be taken away. I don't know if it's foreclosure or eviction, but ultimately the house is going to belong to someone else pretty quickly.
00:38:48
Speaker
I think that she stopped making the payments because her brother wouldn't leave. but I would believe that actually.
00:38:57
Speaker
Um, I've, have you spent much time in Denver, Colorado? No, i I may have been to the airport there. That's it. ah Winter in Denver, Colorado is very long.
00:39:09
Speaker
So from like the end of September till late February, it has the propensity to get pretty cold. Yeah, I believe that. I think that's its reputation. Yeah.
00:39:20
Speaker
So being homeless in um Denver, Colorado is not super attractive to even Bill and Douglas and Marsha.
00:39:31
Speaker
So Bill ends up announcing to Doug and Marsha that he wants to move some someplace warmer.
Crime Escalation: From Theft to Murder
00:39:42
Speaker
So that's that's all he comes up with, is we're going to go someplace warm I'm not exactly sure how much time has passed, but... um Marsha is still young, right? Like, this is this is all happening so fast. This has all happened in 45 days.
00:40:00
Speaker
Marsha's 17. Right, and Marsha could probably go back home. she just doesn't. Yeah, I don't know if she has a home to go back to. They don't talk about her as much.
00:40:10
Speaker
Right. But, so Bill tells Douglas, like, if you want to come with me, come with me. And, like, he's not going to turn down a girl going with him.
00:40:21
Speaker
So Marcia basically says, can I come along? She wants to find a friend that she was in touch with up to a certain point that lives in the area that they're going. According to the reports, she was infatuated with someone named Catherine Mestides.
00:40:37
Speaker
I don't know much about her. The reading that I found on her was that in 1972, so a year prior to all of this, Catherine had moved down to Phoenix, Arizona, and she had adopted a whole new name. She was a masseuse and occasionally did sex work.
00:40:55
Speaker
And the truth appears to be that Marsha Renslow on her motorcycle will go along. She is not interested in Bill or Douglas. She's interested in hooking up with Catherine.
00:41:08
Speaker
So the three of them do leave Denver and they head down to Phoenix, Arizona on October the 9th. They stop one night at a motel and...
00:41:20
Speaker
While they're there, Douglas Gretzler accidentally discharges a firearm through the window in the motel. So the following night, October the 10th, they all end up piled in Douglas Gretzler's MG. You know what an MG is, right? Yeah. it like They're like Porsche-style cars. They're small.
00:41:42
Speaker
But it's a small, it's a little car. And the three of them are in this car. By October 13th, they've gotten to a town called Globe. Globe is in Gillette County, Arizona.
00:41:56
Speaker
And Bill robs a nude sunbathing couple of $5 at gunpoint, at least according to Douglas. A couple hours later, they pick up a hitchhiker when they're close to Tempe, Arizona. They drive the hitchhiker to a secluded Orange Grove. They take ah the hitchhiker's clothes. They pistol whip and rob the hitchhiker.
00:42:20
Speaker
So the ring that they steal from this hitchhiker, when they finally get into Phoenix, they get about $60 for this ring. So they spend a night um the night of October 13th at the Stone Motel, and basically they're going to drive the next day to the address of a man whom this mysterious Catherine had relocated to Phoenix with.
00:42:46
Speaker
His name is Kenneth Unrund. And Marsha... had been keeping up with Catherine, so she knew where Kenneth lived. On the morning of October the 14th, they arrive at Kenneth Unrein's address, but they find out that Catherine and Kenneth had broken up.
00:43:07
Speaker
So at Marsha Renslow's request, Kenneth provides them with the address of a trailer park where Catherine now lives with a 19-year-old named Robert Robbins.
00:43:22
Speaker
Whether he did this intentionally or not is kind of unknown, but ultimately, Kenneth gives Douglas, Bill, and Catherine the wrong address.
00:43:33
Speaker
So two days later, on October the 16th, they're out of money, they're mad about being lied to, and Bill decides that we're going to go back to Kenneth's house.
00:43:47
Speaker
They drive to Kenneth's house, which is off 18th street. Um, there is a 19 year old kid there named Michael had shade.
00:43:58
Speaker
So they force the two of them, Michael and Kenneth at gunpoint to drive to Catherine's apartment. Everybody gets drunk and Doug's does some drugs.
00:44:10
Speaker
And then, Kenneth and Michael, they exit the residence and they go home. In their absence, Catherine tells the the new guest, so Marsha, Douglas, and Bill, that Kenneth had been abusing her physically.
00:44:34
Speaker
At this point, Robert Robbins, the younger guy, he drives Douglas and Bill back to their motel. And essentially Catherine and Marsha stay at the trailer park for several days.
00:44:51
Speaker
According to Douglas, he later finds out that Marsha never gets up the courage to tell Catherine that she's in love with her. And by October 22nd, Catherine ends up purchasing a plane ticket for Marsha to go back to Denver because they have not seen Bill or Douglas for six days.
00:45:14
Speaker
Now, remember what we said. They left, and they go back to Kenneth's address. They don't have good plans. The only reason they went there was because that was literally the only place they knew to go.
00:45:27
Speaker
Well, that's why they go to Catherine's. But once Catherine tells them that Kenneth Unreign has beaten her up, They have other plans. I'm sorry. i i went back further. What I mean is when they went to the address they were given and it wasn't hers, right only other place they knew to go was back to where they had gotten the bad address from, right? Right.
00:45:51
Speaker
And so it's interesting because based on what we know, it's like they had no other plans if Marsha wasn't involved, right? Right. and this is where everything turns into just outright chicanery.
00:46:07
Speaker
They get to Kenneth Unrein's address on 18th Street, and they force Michael Adshade and Kenneth Unrein into Kenneth's Volkswagen van.
00:46:20
Speaker
And Bill tells them, we're driving to California. They're not bound on the way. And according to like the story that Douglas is going to tell people later,
00:46:33
Speaker
They alternate between Douglas and Bill driving versus sitting in the passenger seat, essentially holding a gun on on the other two guys. By the following morning, they all reach Oakdale.
00:46:47
Speaker
So when they get to Oakdale, California, which is in the San Joaquin Valley, Bill is going to go get drinks for everybody. And they drive around aimlessly for a couple of hours.
00:47:00
Speaker
And finally, Bill tells... Douglas to park the van close to a a creek called Little John's Creek. Little John's Creek is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. It's about 30 miles outside of Modesto.
00:47:18
Speaker
ah It's sort of the middle of nowhere. And they order Kenneth and Michael out of the van and they tell him to walk down to the creek bed. At this point, um,
00:47:32
Speaker
And this is from Douglas' story. i don't know if this is true or not. He says the captives were like, what's going to happen, man? What are you guys going to do to us? And they bind the two men with some microphone cable that's in the van and some rope.
00:47:47
Speaker
And Bill informs them that he and Douglas are going to leave them and that they should wait an hour before attempting to free themselves. And it appears that Bill and Douglas leave them.
00:48:02
Speaker
But instead, they actually just walk away and circle around and come back. And Bill partially strangles Kenneth before stabbing him to death.
00:48:13
Speaker
And then he walks down to where Douglas has Michael Adshin to assist Douglas in strangling and stabbing him. They then take their clothes off their body and they pull the bodies under Bush's and cover them with brush.
Motives Behind the Crimes
00:48:30
Speaker
So we've moved from let's get out of town, go someplace warm, we're committing a bunch of petty crimes to abduction and murder at this point. It's an interesting transition. Yeah, and ultimately, i don't think it has any real motive.
00:48:49
Speaker
Do you?
00:48:52
Speaker
I don't. Revenge for him having beat up? Well, it feels like that's why they put it in there, but they didn't really know the people enough to really do that. Right? I don't think. No, they don't. I mean, it's a weird story. They're just kind of wandering around California now, and we suddenly commit this murder.
00:49:13
Speaker
Double murder, nonetheless. Right, and they drive off in the car. out the van. Yeah, they drive off in Kenneth's van. Yeah. And... I don't know. It's interesting.
00:49:23
Speaker
So at this point in time, we have Douglas and we have Bill. They're driving around in Kenneth's van. They go to visit someone that Bill kind of knows in a town called Clements, which is in San Joaquin County.
00:49:38
Speaker
By October the 20th, so just a couple of days later, Kenneth's van ends up broken down close to California State Route 1. A couple driving by stops, and...
00:49:52
Speaker
It's like partly do you need help, but then it becomes, hey, we have a gun. You're going to take us. And they order the two of them to drive them down to Santa Clara, but then they tell them to stop before they get to Santa Clara in a town called Marshall, which is in Marin County, California, and it's located essentially on Tamales Bay.
00:50:18
Speaker
So at this point, the male hostage is a man named James Fulkerson. He is bound. He has ah the essentially a gun to his head. And when he realizes what's about to happen, he says, look, I know I don't have much say in this, but please don't hurt Eileen, OK? Don't hurt her.
00:50:37
Speaker
And this messes with Bill and Douglas. It really messes with Bill. So at this point, Bill unties him. He drags him to his feet and tells him that he was going to blow his head off.
00:50:52
Speaker
So they put him back in the trunk of the car and they drive off with Eileen. And now James Fulkerson's in the trunk. They stop about an hour later and Bill has every intention to rape Eileen Halleck.
00:51:11
Speaker
But he cannot get an erection. And he's unable to do it. So they rob them and they release them in Mountain View. And they have stolen this car for their getaway.
00:51:27
Speaker
This is the weirdest series of events that Douglas describes here. And I can't tell if it would be super common among like serial predators or in like like this is where some of the anger and the rage comes from, like not being able to get an erection when you're trying to rape someone, or if it's more about like they're not really those type of predators?
00:51:50
Speaker
I think it could be either one, but the fact that it's mentioned that hes that James Fulkerson said, I know I don't have much say in this, but please don't hurt Eileen. I think that that was like reverberating in his head. And that's why he couldn't do it.
00:52:07
Speaker
Yeah. And that's why it's pointed out here. But they ah were let go, right? Yeah, yeah. they're They're just teenagers. They let them go. At this time, they they keep moving.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah, so they steal the car, but they've let the kids go. And I think that that shows quite a number of things as far as the dynamic of what's going on here, because the van broke down.
00:52:34
Speaker
and if the motive for killing the initial victims was to steal the van, i mean, it kind of seems unlikely, but now that has, that has expired, I guess, because they would need to do work on it to have it run again. Yeah.
00:52:51
Speaker
They end up with this couple, The couple, ah the male of the couple unnerves them. They end up just robbing them and releasing them. And now they're on their way in the new vehicle. So is this about transportation? Possibly.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, this is one of those things. like It seems to be about transportation, drugs, and money. i mean, that's where it's looking.
Reflection on Criminal Dynamics
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I think this is a like at this point, they just panic.
00:53:20
Speaker
Essentially, this is a good, like this moment in time where they can't kill this kid because he mentions Eileen's name. Essentially, he humanizes her and then they have trouble yeah except getting an erection to to do anything else to her.
00:53:38
Speaker
And they've got this new car and they're headed a new direction. They're starting to panic because they've realized that they're racking up a criminal record. And I think that's a good place to end this episode and to pick up next week.
00:53:55
Speaker
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00:54:06
Speaker
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00:54:20
Speaker
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00:54:29
Speaker
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00:54:39
Speaker
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00:54:50
Speaker
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00:55:02
Speaker
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00:55:20
Speaker
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