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Season Seven: Bill and Doug's Terrible Adventure
28 Plays38 minutes ago
In this episode, we talk about the road trip to hell murders in the Southwest United States.
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Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:01:00
Speaker
So this is part two of, a I guess, a couple of episodes on Douglas Gretzler and Bill Stillman. And if you haven't listened to the first one, you'll be a little lost by this one. So I would go back and listen to that first.
Initial Crimes and Escalations
00:01:17
Speaker
ah Where we left off, Douglas Gretzler and Bill Stillman, They basically have stolen a guy named Kenneth Unrain's van. The van has broken down. And they've attempted to abduct a a couple who stops to, by all accounts, probably just stopping to see if they can help them.
00:01:38
Speaker
um I don't see evidence that they were forced to stop. but I was going to say, it's just as possible that they you know somehow jumped in front of the car. I don't know. I don't know. End up shopped.
00:01:51
Speaker
So they ultimately have no vehicle. They end up stealing a brown Ford sedan from a parking lot in Mountain View. But to James Fulkerson's credit, he says, you know, I don't i don't have much say in this, but please don't hurt Eileen.
00:02:08
Speaker
And when he does this, it throws everything off. um They put them in the trunk. They drive around for an hour, but they end up releasing them in Mountain View, and they've stolen a new car, and they're going to get away that way instead of whatever they were planning on doing with this couple of teams.
00:02:25
Speaker
So they didn't take their car? No, it's a different car. Oh, okay. They steal a brown Ford sedan because they don't want to be linked to that. But then when they steal this new car, I had said they panicked, and you said you weren't sure if it would be panic or not.
00:02:41
Speaker
um did you have Did you want to go further with that? Not yet. I can sort of point it out as we go. Okay. Well, maybe panic is overstating it. But what they start to realize is that the path they've taken where they have Marsha, they had this woman Catherine that Marsha was in love with, they have this kid who drove them back to the people whose van they stole and they essentially abducted them named Robert Robbins.
00:03:16
Speaker
And they start to worry that Robert Robbins and Catherine and Mystides could ultimately link them to the disappearance of Kenneth Unrain and Michael Adshade, who they definitely stabbed and killed.
00:03:33
Speaker
So... Then they've got the problem of these two kids they let go at Mountain View are probably going to report them to the police. And so I think they started talking that through, right?
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, they're talking it through and they're they're deciding that the best way to not get caught for the crime that they've committed is to go back and commit more crime to cover up the crimes they're concerned about.
00:03:59
Speaker
Right. And I don't know. to me I'm not sure that that is as much panicking as it is just... Bad critical thinking skills? Well, because you know they thought they had a thought that they thought all the way through. it was just kind of a dumb one. Right.
Conflict with Stephen Loughran
00:04:16
Speaker
They're headed back to Arizona trying to figure out what they're going to do. So everything we just talked about took place on October 20th. By October 21st, they've got this new brown Ford car. They're headed back to Arizona. And when they get close to Monterey Bay, they pick up a hitchhiker.
00:04:35
Speaker
This is an 18-year-old kid named Stephen Allen Loughran. And he says, hey, I'll go to Arizona with you. And he says that he'll purchase gasoline along the way.
00:04:47
Speaker
So the three of them go back to the trailer park where Catherine was living. And Bill is told, hey, Marsha, she went back to Denver.
00:04:59
Speaker
So they introduce Stephen Loughran as their friend from California. And the five of them, so Douglas, Bill, and Stephen, Catherine, and then Robbins, they start taking drugs, drinking and smoking.
00:05:17
Speaker
By the early morning hours of October the 23rd, Bill is annoyed at Catherine and has no idea what Marsha saw in Catherine. All the topics are weird topics like white magic and astrology and reincarnation. And he just is decided this is nuts.
00:05:37
Speaker
He also can't stand Stephen Loughran at this point because apparently Stephen Loughran would only talk about sports. So by the afternoon of October the 23rd, Catherine goes to work at the playful kitten massage parlor and Robin drives her.
00:05:57
Speaker
So when this ends up happening, Bill gets in a fight with Stephen. Now Stephen is big compared to Bill Steelman.
00:06:11
Speaker
He's about six one he's over 180 pounds, and Loughran kicks his ass. So in response to this, Bill gets the stolen shotgun out and a sleeping bag.
00:06:23
Speaker
He orders a teenager out of the apartment and Douglas is following them. And the three of them go out to Superstition Mountains. So Superstition Mountains is this range of mountains that kind of surrounds the east side of ah Phoenix.
00:06:42
Speaker
And it's a pretty popular area that you would go if you lived in Phoenix and wanted to get away or go do something out nature. When they get there, Bill orders Stephen Lawford out of the car, tells him to hand over his wallet, and then to get inside the sleeping bag.
00:07:00
Speaker
Once Stephen gets inside the sleeping bag, Bill shoots him in the head with a shotgun. And Bill and Douglas go back to the trailer park.
Plan and Murder of Robert Robbins
00:07:12
Speaker
And according to Douglas, nobody asked about what happened to Stephen. So they spend the night there, and on the afternoon of October 24th, Bill has now convinced Douglas that they need to kill Robert Robbins.
00:07:38
Speaker
So... This is because they believe this kid is going she connect them to Kenneth and Michael's disappearance, but also because it's weird how he lives with this woman, Catherine, and is at her beck and call.
00:07:56
Speaker
And they worry that if he gets suspicious, he'll turn on men. So they decide that when Catherine goes to work, they're going to kill Robbins.
00:08:08
Speaker
And according to Douglas's long-form interviews, after the sun goes down, he strangles Robbins from behind with an electrical cord as the teenager comes into the trailer.
00:08:25
Speaker
They then shoot him once in the head to make sure he's dead, and they hide his corpse underneath a mattress in his bedroom.
00:08:37
Speaker
They realize they have to go pick Catherine up now. So they go to the Playful Kitten and Bill picks up Catherine. And he says that Robbins is going to be out of town for a few days.
00:08:48
Speaker
And they drive back. The following morning, so now we're to October 25th, the three of them drive in Robbins' Chevy convertible, and And the comment that is made to Bill is that Catherine is really glad that Ken and Bob are, quote, out of her life and that she needs to do some coke that afternoon prior to conducting a reading that will direct her future.
00:09:22
Speaker
So Bill attempts to persuade Catherine to go to work at the massage bar, the Playful Kitten,
00:09:29
Speaker
She
Continued Violence and Police Involvement
00:09:30
Speaker
refuses. And that puts a kink in Bill and Douglas' plan. Because Bill and Doug, as opposed to Ken and Bob, their plan was they were going to get rid of Robert Robbins' body that night.
00:09:44
Speaker
So, accordingly, plans change. And shortly after sundown, again, bill is watching as Catherine is conducting a ah seance at this little private altar she's got going on.
00:10:05
Speaker
And he shoots her in the head from behind. So it definitely determined her future. It definitely determined her future. ah Their bodies will not be discovered for another couple of days on October 28th.
00:10:19
Speaker
So within 24 hours of the discovery of the bodies, And the murders. Friends and neighbors in the trailer part know that, like, Catherine and Robert had some friends there.
00:10:37
Speaker
And while they're being interviewed by police, local residents tell investigators that two men named Bill and Doug had recently been staying in the trailer.
00:10:48
Speaker
and that they had left the trailer's residence and they had left the trailer in the early hours of October 26, and that they also remembered a young girl named Marsha from Denver who had been staying in the trailer until about a week prior to this.
00:11:06
Speaker
They get one good eyewitness named Monique, and Monique tells the investigators that Bill, from this Bill and Doug group, had claimed to hail from California,
00:11:18
Speaker
but that Doug had a very distinguishable New York accent. Both of them had been talking about traveling to San Francisco. And by October 31st, police had tracked down Marsha from Denver as being Marsha Renslow.
00:11:37
Speaker
When she is first approached by investigators, she refuses to cooperate. But when she sees crime scene Polaroids,
00:11:48
Speaker
of Robert Robbins and Catherine Musites, she agrees to cooperate. And she tells the authorities that Bill is Willie Stillman. And though she doesn't know exactly Doug's full name, she thinks his last name might be something like Grizzler.
00:12:11
Speaker
So this information that Marsha provides the police It includes details of robberies and carjackings that Bill and Doug had been committing along the way and how they had paid for motel rooms with stolen checks ah between October 9th and the 16th. Because remember, she's been with them this whole trip.
00:12:32
Speaker
So this information leads them to discovery of a motel receipt dated for October the 16th that has an address in the Bronx and the last name Gretzler on it.
00:12:45
Speaker
And that information is sufficient for the police to get warrants for the suspect's arrest on suspicion of robbery and fraud. And by November 1st, they do that.
00:12:56
Speaker
so Not long after police interview Marcia for the second time on November the 1st, Arizona investigators received a teletype from police in California that informed them that they had traced an abandoned green Volkswagen van that was linked to an October 20th kidnapping and robbery of a teenage couple to a kid from Arizona named Kenneth Unruh, who was missing.
00:13:28
Speaker
And they add that the teenagers had told investigators that their abductors were named Bill and Doug.
Discussion: Serial Killers or Murderers?
00:13:38
Speaker
Okay. This is a lot of crime in a very short period of time. Well, it's also very opportunistic. It is very opportunistic. And so in my mind,
00:13:55
Speaker
at least up until this point, do you think these people are serial killers? I do not. i think that they are asshole murderers. They're asshole murderers and they're kind of on a spree.
00:14:07
Speaker
like i mean, possibly, but I'm not even sure that. I don't think we call them spree killers either. I'm just saying we're kind of on a spree. There's no rhyme or reason really to what they're doing. And the reason I said, I didn't feel like they really panicked thinking that they could be linked ah from Arizona was because wouldn't panic require them to kill the couple that they had just let go in Mountain View? Oh, that's a good point. I mean, something about that... I mean, that's not their only mistake, but that is a huge one because at this point, you can't even chalk all of the murders up to having killed witnesses because we let some of the witnesses go.
00:14:51
Speaker
i think that... um You know, earlier it said that, let's see, that he was annoyed by the conversation that was being had, right? Right. I was going to say, I don't remember which one it was, actually.
00:15:08
Speaker
Do you remember? What do you mean? tell me He was annoyed by two different conversations. Right. He was annoyed by Catherine and Robert. Oh, what was Laughlin's first name? Stephen.
00:15:19
Speaker
Okay. So Stephen and Catherine, they're all, for one thing, This friend of a friend, I guess just graciously let them back into the house. Well, that's the other thing. I keep getting confused because they call it an apartment and then they call it a trailer. think it's one of the same. Well, think Robert maybe had an apartment.
00:15:41
Speaker
Okay. And then ah the the other two like were staying at Kenneth's place, which appears to be either a house or an apartment. And then there's the trailer park at Apache Junction where Catherine lives.
00:15:55
Speaker
Okay. And so somehow all of this is happening, but it seems like Robert and Catherine had to live together because that's why they were trying to convince Catherine to go to work so they could dispose of the body.
00:16:06
Speaker
Well, he was definitely like taking her around everywhere in his little Chevy convertible. Okay. And it seems like they are using murder as a weird tool.
00:16:26
Speaker
And maybe it is something that lends towards them being serial killers, but it's sort of like, yeah, okay, I can't even stand to listen to you anymore, so I'm going to kill you now. Yeah. Right.
00:16:37
Speaker
That kind of thing. And it is we have to keep in mind, this is coming from one of the perpetrators recollections, right?
00:16:50
Speaker
is I assume. where All of this is really coming from Douglas. Okay. Yeah. And so that's it's his recollection, right? Correct. Yeah, 100%. Okay. And that's going to have a skew to it, whether he's purposefully skewing it or not.
00:17:06
Speaker
It's going to be his recollection, which I don't think it's far-fetched for me to say he some of his recollections seem to be skewed.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah. i So, and I wonder about that because it is told from his perspective. um I do wonder, is it accurate or is it putting more on still own bill than we need to?
00:17:32
Speaker
And, you know, that's something to be considered. There's always a power dynamic in the very few cases where there end up being too ah killers working together. i at this point, I'm unwilling to call them serial killers. they may They fit the definition. And maybe this is what a lot of people consider to be serial killers.
00:17:57
Speaker
But it's not what I consider to be serial killers. They're not killing because they have this like psychopathic urge to. They just get annoyed with people and don't know how to deal with them. yes It's a weird situation.
00:18:11
Speaker
It is a weird situation, and it's a convoluted story from the perspective of, like, I believe a lot of it's motiveless. I believe a lot of it is just, like you said, asshole killing.
00:18:23
Speaker
um But it's a convoluted story because every time we get a new player, like there's a quick question of, like, are they going to stay or they're going to go And other than Bill and Doug, really, they're all going to go. I mean, we do have the couple that's released by happenstance.
00:18:40
Speaker
And it's because he humanized himself and his companion. Correct. And that, and it even says it that he was really irritated by that. Right. A hundred percent.
00:18:53
Speaker
And like, i think that might be the reason i have questions about the failure to get an erection thing, because like, is that from the humanization of it all? He can't see her as an object because she's Eileen and that guy loves her. Is that the problem?
00:19:08
Speaker
We don't have any other hint of sexual assault till that moment. Well, why would it be infuriating for for your victim to say that? Why is that infuriating? It's actually like what you should expect, right?
00:19:29
Speaker
I mean, not that I'm going to put anybody in that position, but if you were to threaten someone, it is not out of the ordinary for them to plead for compassion for themselves or for anybody with them. Right.
00:19:44
Speaker
So it's weird that that's the interpretation, right? Right. It is. I mean, this is, I i make no beef. This is going to be a very ah strange story.
00:19:56
Speaker
um So, We leave after Catherine's death, and like the police know who Bill and Doug are, essentially.
Fleeing and Further Crimes
00:20:07
Speaker
But when they leave, they take Robert Robbins' Chevy convertible.
00:20:14
Speaker
Now, Bill, according to Douglas' story, Bill convinces him that they're going to go to Tucson together. So they leave the trailer park in Robbins' Chevy convertible, and they start driving in the early hours of October 26th. Now, some of that part is verifiable because neighbors saw him leave.
00:20:31
Speaker
Well, sure. I just want to point out there that they went back because Catherine and Robert could potentially link them to the first murders that they committed.
00:20:42
Speaker
Right, of Kenneth and Michael. But then they took his car. Yeah, this is not – there are zero critical thinking skills being applied at this point by these two gentlemen. Neither one of them is smart enough to get the other out of the trouble they're about to get Does
00:20:59
Speaker
that make sense? Yes, I agree 100%. So they end up abandoning the car on Van Buren Street. Van Buren Street's an odd section of road. it goes through multiple cities in Arizona.
00:21:11
Speaker
They then travel to Tucson by bus. And the way they get their bus tickets is with money they stole from Catherine. So they end up arriving in Tucson on October the 27th.
00:21:23
Speaker
There's a like a cheap boarding room house on 4th Avenue. They're going to stay there for a couple of nights, specifically until November the 1st. They become acquainted with a young woman named Joanne McPeak, and Joanne is the younger sister of Susan Harlan, who owns the house.
00:21:44
Speaker
Now, for whatever reason, by the evening of November the 1st, Bill and Doug decide they're going to steal a car they're going to steal a car and flee Tucson. and shortly after they began hitchhiking, which is close to the University of Arizona.
00:22:02
Speaker
to This is a very large school in Arizona. it's I think it's the first that was established out there. They approach a Dodge Charger driven by a 19-year-old named Gilbert Rodriguez Sierra.
00:22:18
Speaker
He slows his vehicle down at a stoplight, and Bill thanks him for stopping, saying, we need a car. ah We need a ride. We need your car. So then they, at gunpoint, of course, they force Gilbert Sierra into the back of the car because, like, why would you let him out?
00:22:37
Speaker
And they have this whole conversation with him that's probably pretty similar to the conversation they had with the two teenagers they let go. Bill tells this bizarre story about being a hitman on the run and having just wasted a cop.
00:22:56
Speaker
Now, nobody knows if Sierra believes anything that Doug or Bill is saying. He's simply staring kind of blankly.
00:23:08
Speaker
And according to Douglas's story, he says something to them, but in Spanish. So at this point, Bill gets mad. He forces Gilbert into the trunk of the car.
00:23:23
Speaker
And they end up going back to where Joanne McPeak lives. Now, she lives there with a guy named Michael Marsh. They had been there earlier doing some drugs.
00:23:34
Speaker
And mit Joanne and Michael were convinced to accompany the two of them to purchase some harder drugs. And The story that Bill tells is apparently that we've got a guy in the trunk and he's a narc.
00:23:53
Speaker
So Joanne says, you know, that's crazy. We don't believe you. Bill goes through the glove box for identification before shouting to the rear. Hey, your name Gilbert?
00:24:04
Speaker
And Gilbert responds, yeah. Bill then asked Michael how to get to the desert saying, I got to kill this son of a bitch. Shortly after this,
00:24:16
Speaker
um they take everybody out to an area called Gates Pass, which is a deserted canyon. um Well, they take them out to Gates Pass, and there's a ah deserted canyon nearby.
00:24:32
Speaker
Apparently, Bill drags Gilbert out of the trunk of the car. They force him to take off his shirt, and then they order him to his knees, and Bill accuses him of being a pig or a narc.
00:24:44
Speaker
And he attempts to shoot him twice. On each occasion, the pistol misfires as he had the firearm covered with a T-shirt, like probably for sound.
00:24:56
Speaker
And as Sierra tries to run away, as Gilbert tries to run away, ah Bill removes the T-shirt and shoots him once in the back, which causes him to collapse to his knees.
00:25:08
Speaker
He falls down on a cactus, like a prickly pear cactus, and according to Douglas. And he then like rolls down into a ravine and Bill chases him down the ravine and he shoots Gilbert in the face and then in the temple at close range. And Douglas says that he was just laughing at this.
00:25:30
Speaker
He says that then Joanne, Michael, Bill and Doug, they get him into the car and they go into Tucson and they get some amphetamines from a local drug dealer.
00:25:42
Speaker
And then they go to this drug den and do the drugs. ah There they encounter a teenager named Donald Scott. ah The next day, Bill and Doug are going to wipe down Gilbert's vehicle and they abandon the vehicle in a parking lot.
00:26:02
Speaker
It's going to be about 12 hours from the time they leave him. ah but before Gilbert's body is found, and he is not going to be formally identified for a couple of days.
00:26:13
Speaker
um In fact, it's he's going to be identified on November the fifth By then, ah more nonsense has gone on. On November the 3rd, a young student named Vincent Armstrong, he sees Bill and Doug hitchhiking out close to the site of where Gilbert had been abducted.
00:26:35
Speaker
He stops to offer them a ride. And shortly after he does this, Bill presses a gun into his torso, tells them to keep on driving. And Vincent Armstrong panics.
00:26:49
Speaker
So when Vincent Armstrong begins panicking, Bill punches him and orders him to pull over close to an intersection. And he poll basically, he uses the gun to get Vincent into the passenger seat of his own car.
00:27:07
Speaker
And Douglas is going to drive. So shortly after Douglas takes over, Vincent Armstrong is going to throw himself head first out of the car to the pavement.
00:27:20
Speaker
He's going to be bruised, his glasses are broken, and he gets a bunch of abrasions. And Douglas performs a U-turn and turns back around towards him, and Vincent Armstrong goes over a wall on the side of the road, and he runs to the grounds of a nearby church, and Bill and Doug speed off.
00:27:40
Speaker
Dude saved himself. Dude saved himself. Broke his glasses, probably didn't feel great, but gets away and he gets to the home of an acquaintance and he reports the ordeal his ordeal to the tucson police department and they actually recover his broken glasses at the location of his escape um he is able to assist police in creating some of those identikit drawings which are they're like the facial composites that are made of parts that already exist do you know what I'm talking them about Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's almost like those old um like sticker books you could get as a child. Right.
00:28:23
Speaker
So after Vincent gets out of the car ah and saves himself, Bill and Doug just drive around in circles in Tucson until they drive by a condominium that's over close to Mind Street.
00:28:38
Speaker
They observe 28-year-old named Michael Sandberg, washing his Datsun car.
00:28:46
Speaker
Now, Bill gets out, and he threatens Michael Sandberg with his gun, and they force him to take him to his condominium, where his 32-year-old wife, Patricia Sandberg, encounters them as she is preparing food in the kitchen.
00:29:01
Speaker
Douglas presses a knife to her neck as Bill informs the couple they're going to be hostages until after dark, and at that point, they're going to be left unharmed.
00:29:11
Speaker
At Michael Sandberg's request, Patricia was given a Valium to help ease her nerves. She then prepared a sandwich for Douglas before Bill decided the two should adjust their appearances.
00:29:24
Speaker
So Douglas dyes his blonde hair brown, and Bill shaves off his mustache and attempts to disguise a black eye he had gotten with cosmetics from Patricia's Vanity.
00:29:40
Speaker
They then change into clean clothing from Michael Sandberg's closet and Douglas binds Patricia. So he ties her up with twine with her hands behind her back and he orders her to sit on the floor of the bathroom.
00:29:57
Speaker
Michael was then forced to lie down on the couple's bed before his ankles and neck were bound in a manner, which ensured that if he were to move his ankles, he would choke himself.
00:30:08
Speaker
So this is called hog tying somewhat. Um, moments later, they dragged Patricia out of the bathroom to the couch and she is further bound. Uh, Douglas walks into the bedroom and he shoots Michael in the head.
00:30:25
Speaker
He then shoots Patricia in the head through a cushion that Bill had placed over her skull to muffle the sound of the discharge. Uh, for what it's worth, Michael is a Marine captain and a student teacher.
00:30:39
Speaker
So Bill fires four more rounds into Patricia's head and realizes she is still alive. Specifically, according to Douglas's story, she is twitching.
00:30:53
Speaker
So Bill then takes a golf club and bludgeons her until she stops moving. They believe they're destroying any potentially incriminating evidence at the scene.
00:31:06
Speaker
They pack some of Michael's clothes into a suitcase. They steal the Sandberg's credit cards, a camera, and other things that they think are valuable. And they flee the scene in Michael Sandberg's Datsun, leaving the Firebird parked beneath a canopy close to the condominium.
00:31:27
Speaker
Immediately after leaving the Sandberg's house. They go back to where they were doing drugs earlier in the evening. And the only person still there is the kid they met, Donald Scott.
00:31:41
Speaker
They tell Donald Scott they want to go to California and he should go with them. He says, okay. So they drive to a nearby motel in Stanfield, Arizona, and they stay there the night of November the 3rd into November the 4th.
00:31:56
Speaker
The next night they stop overnight in another motel And they signed the register as Michael Sandberg, and they pay for their room with a forged check, because remember, that's how a Bill got started in everything criminal, ah that they had taken from the Sandberg's house.
00:32:14
Speaker
Basically, they're paying for this excursion with money they've stolen from the Sandberg's residence. So by the afternoon of November the 5th, they had gotten to Pine Valley, California, and Now, when they get here, which is basically San Diego County, Donald Scott doesn't want to ride along anymore.
00:32:35
Speaker
And they let him off at very close to Interstate 8 so that he can get another ride. They continue driving in the direction of Victor, California, which is going to be back up in San Joaquin County.
00:32:47
Speaker
And Bill is talking more, ah like the further along they get, the more he's talking about robbing the owners of the downtown United market.
00:33:00
Speaker
And tried to convince Douglas to do this with him because he says that the owners, Walter and Joanne Parkin, with whom he has gotten into it before, were
Mass Murder at Parkins' Residence
00:33:11
Speaker
wealthy.
00:33:11
Speaker
He explains that they live in this rural ranch house and it's surrounded by vineyards and that he thinks if they rob the Parkins' a house on Orchard Road and their supermarket, they could get at least $20,000. So by the afternoon of November 6, 1973, they've returned to Lodi, California, which is Bill's old stomping grounds.
00:33:42
Speaker
So they sleep at the home of one of his acquaintances there until shortly after 5 p.m., and Bill persuades a friend named Duff Nunley to call his 17-year-old nephew, Gary Stillman Jr.
00:33:59
Speaker
Duff convinces Gary that Bill's life is in danger, and he persuades him to give Bill his father's derringer without his father's knowledge.
00:34:13
Speaker
The two say thank you, And Bill and Doug are on their way again. They tell both the nephew and Duff that they are leaving the state.
00:34:27
Speaker
They then drive to United Market at closing time. They think they're going to find Walter Parkin alone on the premises, only to discover that the building has already closed down. So then they drive about two and a half miles down to the house on Orchard Road.
00:34:44
Speaker
At the time of their arrival, the owners, so this is going to be Walter and Joanne, they're not home.
00:34:56
Speaker
But the couple's two children, 9-year-old Robert and an an eleven year old his 11-year-old sister Lisa, they were being babysat by 18-year-old Deborah Earl, who was there with her 15-year-old brother Richard Earl.
00:35:11
Speaker
Bill and Doug are able to get on the premises by Bill making Debra think that they owed the Parkinson's money and that it just wanted to come in and leave whatever they owe them.
00:35:25
Speaker
So she lowers her guard just long enough for him to push past her. And then immediately he begins threatening the teenagers at gunpoint. With Bill shouting, now listen, we're only here for Walter, so both of you stay cool and nobody's going to get hurt.
00:35:40
Speaker
Is that understood? This is, again, according to Douglas. So Richard Earle is in shock. He's only 15 years old. And Deborah, who's only 18, they end up comforting the Parkin children who are crying And it's explained to Bill and Doug that Walter and Joanne went bowling and won't be back for a few hours.
00:36:05
Speaker
So all four of them are forced to sit on the couch.
00:36:09
Speaker
Prior to Bill and Doug coming into the house, Deborah Earl had telephoned her father telling her what was going on. And he comes over to the Parkins' home.
00:36:23
Speaker
So he's going to be held at gunpoint. And Deborah is now feeling terrible. And Richard Sr. had told his wife, so Richard Earl Sr., had told his wife, Wanda, that if he was not back home within 15 minutes, they call the police.
00:36:44
Speaker
So Bill orders Douglas to watch the the kids and the the teenagers. And he takes Richard at gunpoint to retrieve Wanda from their home,
00:36:56
Speaker
adding that if anything should happen, he should, quote, dust the hostages and get the hell out. And that's if he, along with Richard Earle Sr. and Wanda, are not back in 20 minutes.
00:37:11
Speaker
So
00:37:15
Speaker
just a couple of minutes later, Bill arrives back to the park and residence, and now in tow he has Richard Earle and Wanda Earle.
00:37:25
Speaker
This is a lot. Very quickly, this is a lot of hostages. We went from four kids to four kids and two adults. So the only thing we can really do to make this better is to add more people.
00:37:38
Speaker
At approximately 9.25 p.m., 20-year-old Mark Ling, who is Deborah's fiance, he arrives at the park and residence because the arrangement had been he was going to drive Deborah and Richard home.
00:37:53
Speaker
So he is then taken hostage at gunpoint.
00:37:59
Speaker
Walter and Joanne, they return to their home at approximately 10.45 p.m.
00:38:06
Speaker
All the adult hostages are then forced to hand over their money and jewelry. Joanne is allowed to put her two children to bed in the master bedroom.
00:38:17
Speaker
She told them to go to sleep while they were dealing with what was happening. Bill then orders the adult and teenage hostages, except for Walter, into a bathroom.
00:38:29
Speaker
Douglas binds the hostages with nylon cord that he had gotten out of ah the Sandberg's vehicle. The male hostages are bound first.
00:38:40
Speaker
So Wanda, Deborah, and Joanne are last. All of them are ordered to sit in a semicircle inside a large walk-in closet in the master bedroom with Douglas observing the hostages as Bill forces Walter to drive with him to the United Market to retrieve money from a floor safe.
00:39:02
Speaker
He knew that, you know, the parking was kept at the supermarket. So this part of the robbery gets them about $4,000.
00:39:12
Speaker
Then Bill drives back to the parking residence and And Walter is bound and placed in the walk-in closet. So all of the adult hostages are then bound together by their ankles.
00:39:23
Speaker
And then Bill and Doug gagged them.
00:39:28
Speaker
According to Douglas, once the two had wiped down the house, so they go along wiping any fingerprints off of any surfaces they think they've touched. He tells Bill, look, why don't we go?
00:39:41
Speaker
We got what we came for. Let's split. Let's just get out of here. But Bill refused. He said, I told you all along, no witnesses. I know you remember me saying that. So Douglas then shoots and kills the two children in the master bedroom.
00:39:56
Speaker
So that's Lisa and Robert Parker.
00:40:01
Speaker
Each of them was shot between the eyes as they slept. They then walk into the walk-in closet. got seven people in this walk-in closet.
00:40:11
Speaker
And they've heard the gunshots. So they're freaking out. ah Richard Earl Sr. was then shot in the head. Douglas then shot Walter Parkin, Richard Earle Jr., Wanda Earle, Deborah Earle, and Joanne Parkin.
00:40:30
Speaker
He reloads the gun, and then he shoots Mark Lane to death. And Bill Stillman has to shoot Richard Sr. again, and then they repeatedly fire into the bodies of all the either deceased or dying hostages.
00:40:48
Speaker
So Douglas says that at this point he consumed a slice of chocolate birthday cake and a bottle of wine that he found in the family kitchen. And Bill drank from a bottle of Seagram's and looked around the house for more money and valuables.
00:41:05
Speaker
They left the Parkin household at about ah between 1.20 and 1.30 in the morning with nine bodies behind them now. They killed nine people in this house.
00:41:16
Speaker
Right, and it was for absolutely no reason. i mean, but they wanted money but money, there was nothing particular about who they wanted to get the money from, except that because of his history there, Bill thought that they could net up to $20,000 in this situation, right? yeah.
00:41:41
Speaker
And it just so happened that you've got the two young kids, the two siblings babysitting, the responsible babysitter seeing something going on and calling her dad, getting ah the dad and the mom involved, and then the boyfriend of the babysitter showing up, and then finally the parents who they were initially trying to – show up that's how that all played out which is absolutely crazy now this type of thing it's getting into more of the like psychotic like crazy pants killing right this is definitely a mass murder oh yeah no question it's just it wasn't
00:42:34
Speaker
Like, they weren't going in to kill that many people. if they could have just got, like, if just the parents had been home and they could have gotten the money, they just would have killed the parents, right? So this was just a, it was like a circumstantial killing, I guess. I'm not trying to downplay the victims dying because it was very serious and it's awful. It's just where their minds, the killer's mindsets were, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:00
Speaker
They weren't getting thrilled out of this. They were clearly killing witnesses. It was almost like sort of at the end, which again, this is a recollection, but it was almost sort of like, don't forget, we have to kill the witnesses. Right. Yeah. And so it was almost like their deaths were an afterthought.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah this is This is so many dead people, and this is so terrible. um It's really what gets them on my radar, this part of the massacre. I mean, a lot of this is, is is like you said, kind of afterthoughts um or the result of plans not really being well thought out.
00:43:42
Speaker
By 3 in the morning, 18-year-old named Carol Jenkins, who was staying as a house guest and was apparently an employee of the Parkinson's. I'm not sure if she was employed at the residence or employed at the market, but she had been out that night.
00:43:55
Speaker
ah She has a bedroom in the residence. She comes home. She sees that there's some lights on that should have been turned off, but she didn't want wake anyone up. So she goes to bed.
00:44:06
Speaker
It's late. She immediately falls asleep. Four hours later, a couple of friends of Mark Lang have been called by his mom. And she basically has told him, look, he was supposed to go pick these kids up and come home. And we can't find him. So it's 7 o'clock in the morning.
00:44:23
Speaker
The friends knock on the door at 7 o'clock. and Carol Jenkins comes to the door. And the friends say, do you know where Mark Lang is? His car is here.
00:44:35
Speaker
And he says, look, i everybody's asleep, but let's go look. So Carol Jenkins goes into the master bedroom, Lang's friends are there, but they're in the hallway.
00:44:49
Speaker
And her intention is to ask if they know where this kid is, right? Correct. Like, why is cars there? What happened? and that It's noted in a couple of different places in the book, ah like how awful the scene was. One of the first responders in in an interview to the author said that the first sight he observed when he arrived at the property on Orchard Road was two distraught males in either their late teens or early 20s themselves chasing and attempting to catch and comfort a young woman running in and out of the house, flailing and screaming, oh my God.
00:45:30
Speaker
The officers entered the residence and immediately discovered the bodies of the two Parkin children in the master bedroom. Upon learning about the children's babysitter, her boyfriend and younger brother were accounted for.
00:45:44
Speaker
Investigators all drove to the Earl re residence at 740. They discovered that the house was unoccupied. There was a loaded shotgun laying out on ah Richard Earl's bed.
00:45:57
Speaker
ah One account says Richard Earl Jr.'s bed, another account just says Richard Earl. I'm not sure if it's dad or son, but either way, there's a gun on the bed, which is probably the result of dad saying, if I'm not back in 15 minutes, call the cops.
00:46:11
Speaker
The investigators then go back to the Orchard Road residence, and a sergeant named Stephen Mello searches the hallway leading up to the family bathroom, and he discovers the remaining seven victims inside the walk-in closet.
Police Pursuit and Standoff
00:46:28
Speaker
So investigators start in on trying to like unravel this massive mass murder. Cause you've got the entire Parkin family, the entire Earl family, Mark Lang and police find witnesses who are able to give them a description of the criminals, including the owners of the motel where the two had stayed the night of November the 5th.
00:46:51
Speaker
Uh, they had paid for the room with a bad check that was named, uh, to the Sandberg family and it was signed Michael B. Sandberg. They had the license plate of the Crean-Botson vehicle. It was an Arizona license plate. California Department of Highway Control contacts Arizona. They determined that Michael Bruce Sandberg, who resides in Tucson, it's his car.
00:47:16
Speaker
So hours after the discovery of the nine victims at Orchard Road, a Tucson investigator named David Erelanus, he secures updated arrest warrants for Bill and Doug, related to Catherine and Robert's murders.
00:47:31
Speaker
They now have fugitive bail set at $220,000 each. David returns to his office and he gets a teletype notifying his department of the nine homicides that have occurred in San Joaquin County.
00:47:45
Speaker
He is immediately contacted by authorities in California And he tells them who they're looking for. That's Bill and Doug. Tells them it's related to two recent murders over in Phoenix.
00:47:56
Speaker
He states that Bill is from Lodi, so his department is thinking that the two are returning there. And David provides a recent booking photo of Bill Stillman and copies of all of the arrest warrants.
00:48:12
Speaker
They hold a press conference November the seventh And they ah have the San Joaquin County Sheriff Michael Canlis come out to inform the media that the chief suspect in the mass murder is Willie Steelman.
00:48:28
Speaker
They add that his department had reason to believe he was also responsible for two recent killings in Phoenix. And they provide photographs of Bill to the members of the media that are there at the press conference.
00:48:45
Speaker
On November 8th, investigators are contacted by an individual who had been in the company of the two murderers for a brief period of time. confirmed They confirmed that Bill and Doug had been in Lodi immediately prior to the murders at Orchard Road. I don't know if this is the nephew or if this is Duff.
00:49:05
Speaker
But the same day, ah Donald Scott contacts authorities to state that Bill and Doug could be involved in the killings. And they had to tell them that they have discussed the robbery of the United Market that belonged to Wally Parkin.
00:49:19
Speaker
And he had been traveling with them just two days prior to this. So they issue arrest warrants for them in California. They put Bill's mugshot out ah and all the local papers start carrying it by the morning of November the eighth
00:49:37
Speaker
So after they leave this Holiday Inn, where they have checked in the night of November the 7th, Bill and Doug drive north for a couple of hours. Ultimately, their plans were to reach Nevada, but Bill decided they should probably lay low for a few days.
00:49:52
Speaker
They park the Sandbergs car in a multi-story car park. They buy new clothes. They check into the Clooney Hotel in Sacramento, and they pay for three days.
00:50:04
Speaker
Bill signs the register as Will Simon, but Doug Gretzler signs using his real name. On the morning of November the 8th, Bill purchases a copy of the Sacramento Bee in the lobby, only at to observe his photo on the very front page and to read that he and Doug are the prime suspects on 11 homicides.
00:50:26
Speaker
This ah panics Bill. Maybe he didn't panic when we started this episode, but he definitely panics now. He decides the best option is for them to flee California immediately.
00:50:41
Speaker
So they realize they can't go back to the car. bill decides that they should try and convince this young woman they know named Melinda Ann Koshula. This is someone they had met, I think, the day before at a massage parlor setting, um and that she should drive them down to Florida.
00:51:03
Speaker
So I guess in 1973, the thinking is, if we're not on the West Coast, maybe we're more invisible. I don't think that would be the same today. do you? i I think that every single time something they're confronted with something. And in this case, it's the mugshot on the paper, right? Right. they have They have to come up with something. They can't just say to themselves, yeah, there's no way out of this. Right.
00:51:29
Speaker
He's like, we'll just go to Florida. Right. Yeah. So as they're leaving the hotel to go see Melinda, ah a hotel clerk there, having seen the paper, realizes that Bill is walking across the parking lot. That is also Willie Steelman.
00:51:47
Speaker
He waits until they leave and he discreetly informs the police that they're nearby. Within minutes, multiple armed police have converged on the hotel, but they're gone.
00:51:59
Speaker
So Bill and Doug are at Melinda Koshula's apartment. She seems like maybe she's interested at first ah in this offer to drive the two to Florida, and then she declines.
00:52:11
Speaker
And she indicated that like maybe there's another way for them to do this down in Davis, California. And a couple of minutes later... Bill encourages Doug to return to the hotel to get their belongings.
00:52:27
Speaker
And he says, look, Ben, my picture's in the paper and they don't seem to have yours. So Doug is he sneaks back to the hotel. He's observed entering the hotel and getting into an elevator.
00:52:43
Speaker
Police then seal off the second floor of the premises and they have sharpshooters or snipers to cover every escape. um So as he attempts to enter the room, he overhears an officer talking in hushed tones on a telephone behind the door. So he flees to the fourth floor.
00:53:04
Speaker
because they've sealed off the second floor, they're staying on the third floor, and he's attempting to get up. He conceals the Derringer in a little portal above a doorway, but then he goes down to the second floor and he puts his hands up, and he just basically waits for his arrest.
00:53:24
Speaker
So at 10 a.m., they arrest Douglas Gretzler. He searched for weapons. He informs the police in a statement, man, I'm glad this is over. I've seen enough killing, and man, I don't want to see any more.
00:53:36
Speaker
He provides the police with the address where Bill could be located, adding that Bill was in the company of a young woman. He is armed and that he had sworn to, quote, never be taken alive, end quote, if arrest was on its way.
00:53:53
Speaker
So at 1050, the first of over 70 armed police officers arrive outside Cushula's apartment. Melinda notices that they're there. She becomes hysterical as a police chief shouts through a a bullhorn, Willie Stillman, this is going to be your last chance to give yourself up peacefully.
00:54:13
Speaker
Now, Steeling hears this message, but he initially refused to surrender. He claimed to Melinda that he was a victim of mistaken identity.
00:54:25
Speaker
And then he threatened to commit suicide. She talks him out of it. He agrees to surrender, but only if the media are present outside the apartment to record his arrest and after the police chief persuaded a disc jockey to announce live on a local radio station that he and Melinda Cushula would not be harmed if they exited the apartment separately with their hands in the air.
00:54:47
Speaker
The chief negotiator agrees to these requests. Two minutes after the terms of the Steelman are broadcast across the airwaves, the police fire a single-tier gas canister into the apartment as Melinda argued with Bill to honor his promise to surrender.
00:55:04
Speaker
In response, Bill shouted his intentions to surrender, but only after Kishula had been allowed to safely exit her apartment. The two exit the apartment separately after Kishula tossed Bill's gun onto the lawn.
00:55:20
Speaker
ah Bill was immediately handcuffed and manacled and placed on a police car shouting, guess I'm going back to Stockton. I guess I'm going back to Stockton. So.
00:55:32
Speaker
The money they had stolen is discovered in various places in their possession at the time of their arrest. It is traced back to Walter Parkin. In addition, Douglas was found to have the door key to the Sandberg's front door on his key ring. I think that's just because he had the car keys, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
00:55:55
Speaker
They searched the hotel room, and the police find that the two had um multiple firearms cartridges, including a Smith & Wesson.38 caliber revolver um that they were able to link to numerous homicides and this massive amount of ah death that's occurred, as they say.
00:56:19
Speaker
They find the Sandberg's checkbook. They find multiple stolen identification cards. um They find a lot of physical and circumstantial evidence that link the two to various crimes, very recently in Arizona and California, kind of all along this little journey we've been taking.
Evidence and Arrests
00:56:38
Speaker
um They find discarded shell casings along a highway. ah They turn out to, ah they say be forensically proven to have been discharged by the firearm in his possession at the time of his arrest.
00:56:53
Speaker
I think it just means they match um like what was that, the like the bullets that were at the scene and the gun that was on in his person They locate the Sandberg's vehicle. They discover ah bloodstained boots. They discover jeans. They discover a brown grocery sack full of wallets and purses and credit cards and driver's license and jewelry, most of which belong to the people that have been murdered in the mass murder of nine people at the park and residence.
00:57:23
Speaker
And I think that's enough for this episode. This is a lot, right? That's so much. um I think that's enough for this episode because it it's only going to get more interesting as these two are arraigned and are starting to face trial.
00:57:46
Speaker
You have any specific stuff to comment on how this went down and how they're arrested? No, but no, I don't. What were you going to say there? No, but what? Well, I was just going to say that it's interesting how It ended up happening. We don't know.
00:58:03
Speaker
Gretzler said, I'm so glad this is over with. Right. Yeah. And Steelman was like, I guess I'm going back. yeah And I guess Stockton was jail. Right. Or prison or whatever. Yeah. Is that right?
00:58:17
Speaker
And they had a very different situation. Reaction, right? Well, I mean, maybe not different, but like, it was interesting how they reacted. It tells me a lot. And to me, i think it supports sort of the theory that I've always had that like when one, when there are multiple perpetrators in this type of serial mass type murders,
00:58:49
Speaker
Usually one of them's steering the boat. Right. don't know. Is that the best way to put that? One of of them is in charge. Gretzler makes it seem like he was along for the ride, but he was glad the ride was now over.
00:59:05
Speaker
Right. and and And I will qualify everything that you just said with a lot of how we get here and the story that we have about all of this.
00:59:16
Speaker
It comes from Douglas Gretzler. And it doesn't seem like he was concerned at all about talking. Not at first, no.
00:59:29
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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