That's Messed Up: An SVU PodcastThis week, Liza and Kara recap the episode “Game” (Season 6, Episode 14) and dissect the Grand Theft Auto-inspired murders by Devin Moore.
SOURCES:
Wikipedia - Strickland v. Sony
Wikipedia - Devin Moore (murderer)
WHAT WOULD SISTER PEG DO:
Next week’s episode will be “Nationwide Manhunt" (Season 17, Episode 14).
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Of the Law and Order franchises. SVU is considered especially watchable.
We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the vicious felonies. These episodes are based on.
These are our stories.
Done done, Hello and welcome to That's Messed Up and SVU podcast.
I'm Kara Klank and I only as a trigger. We're thrilled you're here. We talk SVU true crime. Sometimes we have celebrity guests. Sometimes we just keep on talking like they're not here, and guess what, the episodes end up being longer. Still, so that's that's the truth. That's the truth here. That's Messed Up. Obviously we chit chat up top.
I don't know. I have nothing, Like what do I meant for me?
I want to lay in my bed, Like I just want to be well moistorized and in my bed.
And that's laptop burning my chest.
And yeah, and a joint burning my lungs and that's what I want.
And that's your Christmas miracle. Yeah.
Well, because my parents don't even know what a podcast is, I will say I'm going to surprise them this New Year's Oh yeah, I'm gonna fly on home.
You that's cute.
Because that's like your family's thing. You guys love New Year's together. We do, and we like so I like being a surprise. We like surprising each other with physical bodies arriving and not arrived.
Yes, And one.
Year we were we were like at Bucky's and I think you bought your whole family matching like sweatshirts or something, or T shirts or something to wear on New Year's together.
So yeah, we have like historic photos, like one year we all wore ties, one year we all wore like pajamas from Thailand. One year we all dressed like singers or like celebrities because I think I was trying to be Gwyneth Paltrow that year the Oscars.
So we yeah, we've like done themes. I love that.
I'm sorry to Tangent, but the way you just said singer reminded me of because I'm a singer. And did you hear this thing that a priest let Sabrina Carpenter shoot a video in his church and because of that, it led to the discovery that he gave two million dollars to one of Eric Adams's guys in New York City, like to Eric Adams Kingmaker as they say, which is like, I think, just a go like a guy who works for him and makes things happen for him. But like this was in the cut, did like twenty five Things to Love about New York or something like that, and this was one of the things.
I saw that, but I didn't dig deeper, and I am curious how Like so then the accountant or someone recognized the church and the video, Like what was it that got found out?
Like? How is what? I'm curious.
He's being accused of mishandling two million dollars in parish funds and he made unauthorized financial transfers to a former aid in Eric Adams administration, which is now under federal corruption probe. This is going to be a miss view episode, I know.
Oh my god. Also, wait, I'll say another thing that happened like today.
I think it all started on Halloween, Carpenter released the music video for her song Feather, which takes place partially in a Brooklyn church. Okay, so a bishop saw it and was like appalled that it had been filmed in a church, probably because Sabrina's you know, looking hot. It doesn't follow their policy regarding filming on church property and they were supposed to have like a review of the scenes in the script or something. I think because he didn't comply with like the parish's video filming policy or whatever. They looked into more shit that he was doing, and they found that he had given this two million dollars to the Mayor of New York's person, and the Mayor of New York is like under a lot of scrutiny for corruption and like not being not being a great guy.
But he made.
Any statements about it. I don't think so. I mean, I don't think so. But she did wear a shirt to Coachella that says Jesus was a carpenter, okay earlier this year. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think Sabrina has said anything.
But I just keeping hearing how many pop stars have stuff with the church, because now I'm thinking about Katie Perry, you know, stealing the nuns home as like this is so funny. I wonder where Madonna filmed her like a prayer music video. It's so funny how the same things are offensive for decades, like nothing ever changes.
People are just still mad.
At anyone being remotely slutty, and like, oh, Jesus, Yes is everything.
I don't know it so weird.
You want to hear some cute school gossip from Rosie. So you last year so graciously sat with Oscar for like forty five minutes to an hour.
I went and watched Rosie's.
Very gracious, so gracious, very demure of you and you. So they're doing it again this year, like another performance, but this year Rosie's in the dual language, so they're doing All I Want for Christmas is you?
In Spanish?
Toto loke kioto ries too right, And it's the exact same words as the English thing.
It's just in Spanish. Oh okay, it's just in Spanish.
Like they're like, they don't change the meaning really like you know, because sometimes they'll change the meaning a little bit so that the words fit better, like you know, lyrically. But a couple, like one mom in our class is saying that it's inappropriate for kindergarteners, and we're all like looking at the lyrics. I'm like, look, I don't speak Spanish, but I'm like reading the Spanish being like, I mean, I read enough Spanish to be like, I don't think there's anything sexual in here, everything's like I want to be close to you. I want to put my arms around you. There's like one part about lips or something, and I'm like, there's a kiss in every Disney movie, Like I just don't think this is inappropriate. And she basically put it in our group being like does everybody think this? Doesn't everybody think this is a little bit inappropriate? And this is not even like the kind of lady that makes a lot of problems, like you know what I mean, this is not a Karen. And everybody was like no, like nobody answered, and the few people that did answer were like no. And she's brought it to the principal today and it's like making the teachers lives miserable because they're just trying to teach these kids a very complicated song in Spanish and she keeps complaining and they keep thinking that they have to change it, but like it's.
One bitch, So I hope it doesn't work. I know it's on you, like you want your kid out of there, it's not yeah, don't let them do the performance. Then my fifth grade teacher wouldn't let us do Barbie Girl, Barbie, I'm a Barbie, Yeah, Barbie girl. He said it was inappropriate, and it's like, we're ten, we don't know that. Let us do the Barbie song. You fucking I can't listen to the Barbie song all the time. They've never been like, what does undress me wear mean?
You know what I mean?
Like, they don't. They don't know we're putting that on them. You're putting that on them? Is like me and this other one we're talking about this morning. We're like, you're the one giving your kids these ideas. Because then Rosie comes home and goes, yeah, I think we're changing the song because somebody said it's inappropriate, and I was like, no, I think the song is staying.
It's not inappropriate anyway.
It's a full, it's a full so annoying drama, but I'm sure they're gonna end up doing it.
Oh my god, but it is Christmas Eve. Everyone's stirring even a mouse. No, yeah, I know that's not how the real story goes. But what am I doing Christmas Eve? I'm hopefully getting drunk at the cellar and doing spots for the Jews in town and the people with no family. So we'll see or and some European tourists. I'm sure. Yeah, so I'm really excited for that Christmas Day classic American vibes with friends in New York City, And yeah, I'm excited. I did see one movie in my one of the streamers called Surviving Christmas, and I've never even heard of it or seen anything. But Ben Affleck's like a lonely, weird millionaire and he pays James Gandolfini two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to stay with his family and his old childhood home and do.
Whatever he says.
Wait why because he's lonely. He wants story live the magic of his youth.
And it's Catherine O'Hara and Christina Applegate also in it. I've never heard of this. Yeah, the star studded, what's going on?
I mean, it is weird.
It's weird. It's just weird. It's like weird that it didn't even become like a funny haha, bad movie, you know, like, and James Gandolfini is like beloved.
So I don't know, well, I saw. My goal is to watch it this holiday season.
I think you can accomplish that, and I really want to know. Well. The first review I'm seeing is this was a really tough watch.
Oh man, all right, so you know you're not supposed to be a bitch, right, but can I just tell you? So my TV's not working, like I came back from a town. It's like shaken up about like it's just it's glitchy. It's just not work. It doesn't work. I can call best Buy. They're like, listen, and then one time, you don't buy the fucking warranty, right, But they go, you have a manufacturing warranty for up to a year, so just call Roku. So I call Roku and the woman's like, no, you got to call best spy. I go, absolutely not. Best By told me to call you. I have a one year thing, Like I don't know what to tell. And then I go, give me a supervisor. I go, I'm not dealing with you. I go give me a supervisor. Supervisor gets on. He I send him the video and then he tries to let me think it's like the electricity. I go, well, no, sir, everything else is connected to the same electricity and it's working fine. And then he goes, you're right, it's a hardware issue. We'll send you a new TV. In three to seven days. Ah, So it's just like, what the fuck? So if I wasn't annoying, I would I never call Best Buy and then go back and it's like, what are we teaching me?
I just don't get it. People are like, don't be a Karen. But then like, there are certain situations where if you do not keep asking for the manager, asking for the next level of person, you do not get anything. Like I had to get a fucking my solar panels, I had to get a lean removed all this stuff. I went on Reddit and they were like, you need to keep asking for a manager or you're not gonna get anywhere. And that's what I did, and I finally got what I had to get done. Like but then people are like, oh, you're this bitch, You're this Karen.
It's like, I don't know.
If I just listened to her, I would have called Best Spy. They would have been no, called Roku bat like cause then I told the guy I go, and I've been told to the superrisor go, And now you want me to call Best Bike and he goes, no, you don't have to. It's some manufacturing warrantcy like you called the right place, and it's like then what what rigamarole is going on here?
And I don't you feel bad for people that like are more shy or maybe don't speak English or like you know, there's like harder like ways to communicate and be forceful.
It's like it sucks. Do your job. What do you fucking get?
Maybe they get punished if they give away free TVs and it's like I didn't want a free TV. I want this TV to work, or I thought someone would fix it, because now I have to have someone take it off the wall mount, you know, like yeah, I would have rather you guys fixed it.
I didn't need a it doesn't you were saying it doesn't turn on at all?
Well, and then if you plug it out and then back in, it's like per I mean I could show you the eight second video that I oh if I threw my phone away, but it's just like, yeah, it's not working.
Okay, Well no, because I was gonna say like like, yeah, if it was, you know, that's that sucks. If it was, Oh, I don't know. I was like, if it's partially working, someone will take it. Like if you wanted to, like you do buy nothing or something because like I would I've given away when Oscar.
Threw the phone at my TV.
It had like a full bars on the side, and I like put it on a group and people were like, I'll think bye nothing group.
Is truly like a TLC show for the you know what I mean, It's.
Funny that you said that because I was talking to Scotty Landis last night, who the host of Bananas. I was talking to him and Bridger, the host of I said no gifts, and I was like telling them about buying nothing groups, and they go, this sounds like a script, this sounds like a TV show, like these people, and I was telling them about all these specific people with like I was giving their names of people that live in my neighborhood. I'm like, this guy came to my house for a half a bag of ice. He came within five minutes this morning, the day after I said last week, the day after Thanksgiving, I had a pie and I had four loose potatoes.
I put it up.
It was they were out of the house before Jared woke up. Like, I'm using the buy nothing big time.
Baby.
I love it. I mean, it makes me just feel good to not throw things away. I think to like know someone else is getting good use out of it, so it's really it's really for me.
Yeah no, I mean if the half bag of ice is wasted, you know, it really is.
So the half bag of ice not as much.
But I was like, hey, anyone having a party soon, Like I've got a half a bag of like that big bags of ice, you know, but you know you're just helping neighbors.
You're just doing doing the uh mister rogers of it all?
Yeah, but yeah, I Christmas Eve, I don't know. I imagine when this episode comes out, I'll be frantically wrapping a bunch of shit I ordered from Amazon for my children.
Wait do you know yet?
Or but for them it's easy because they want so many things, right or it's okay.
So easy, like the only problem will be like don't order too much. Like I sometimes I'm like, is that enough? Like you know, it's like you want the bottom of the tree to look like big and like like impressive when they come out, But it's like we're doing it here. It's not like they're getting a bunch of different presents from different family members and stuff, so it's like they don't really need more than four gifts each, like they have so much shit, but I'm probably gonna get more, you know, but I want to get in books and like stuff like I'll get them some like used stuff probably that they.
Won't notice is used.
And then a couple of nice things from the Amazon catalog. The only thing Oscar keeps talking about, which I haven't even looked at the catalog, is a unicorn that shoots comfetti.
He's like, I want that, That's all I want.
Santa better bring me this unicorn that shoots cood putty like he's obsessed. So hopefully that's in the catalog and easy to find. Unlike the dinosaur that shoots toys out of its mouth, which was what Rosi asked for two Christmases ago and is not a real thing. It's like a thing she invented in her mind and I had to find something that fitted, but I did.
Anyway, I know, I wish we can, like you know, I'm gonna have to wait a long time to know how it all goes goes down. I mean, are you excited to do an La Christmas? Are you going to the show the next day? We were going to the puppet show earlier in the month. But I am really excited for Christmas in La. Like people leave town. There's no traffic, the weather's nice. We're taking the kids to some huge like light bright installation that's happening.
Did you do light bright when you were a kid?
No, Well, the kids like love that, Like a lot of kids museums now have like light bright esque shit, and so there's some big thing in Santa Monica.
I want to take them to the long Beach Canals if you can.
You can like go on these canals and look at all these lights that people do. I keep seeing these tiktoks of like the best La light displays, and like some of the neighborhoods are like hour an hour away, but I'm gonna try to find one that's closer and like take them on a little light thing. I don't know what else, but it's gonna be a long ass break, so we'll see. I'm probably gonna go. But my in laws are coming also for a week, so oh they are, yeah, exciting. Here Santa Claus, Here comes Santa Claus. My you know, my kids call their grandfather Vanilla for no reason. They just started calling him Vanilla. So they're just like Oh my god, Grammy and Vanilla are coming. We're so excited. It's like Oscar started doing it one day on FaceTime out of nowhere. He's like, hi, Vanilla. The only thing I can think of is my father in law has white hair. Maybe it like looks like Vanilla ice cream. Like I don't know why doesn't, but it was just like a grown man with a full life, and suddenly now you're Vanilla.
Are not wild? Yeah yeah, Vanilla.
So Grammy and Vanilla will be in town, and I'm excited to not have to fly and like go anywhere, but like I'll miss my fan but like you know, it's, uh, this is kind of we do every other year back East, and then every other year everybody kind of scatters to their people. So I think, like my sister will be in New Jersey and my brother will be in Ohio and YadA YadA.
But uh yeah, oh that makes sense.
Yeah yeah, and like because sometimes they'll strawitch it up with with like Thanksgiving and stuff. But I can't see myself really ever traveling for Thanksgiving. Like you said, three days is perfect and that's just not that's just like too much to do with the like four of us, especially with the airlines killing us on flights.
But let's uh, you know, off of this.
I think it's funny by the way that we are doing this episode game like right at Christmas when people are probably giving like tons of video games to people like and it's like the biggest time of the year.
I feel like for gamers to.
Like get games, but a lot of people do like games where they're a little elf and they're like, you know, achieving dreams in the forest. Not everyone is shooting them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure achieving dream Rosie's like already getting into Minecraft and I like want to die, But I guess they're actually just like architecture. Yeah, and it's it's educational Minecraft, Like they let them play it at school for like three minutes at the end of the day because it's got it's got problem solving and building and stuff. So I love For three months, I was like, whatever, it's like for three minutes. Like they're on the iPad total for forty five minutes a week, so it's not thank you. Also, by the way, to everybody who wrote to me asking me to read The Anxious Generation, I already have.
I already have it.
And I'm already I've already forming my plan for my children's getting my children phones.
So what does it say that you're gonna do? Like what did you learn or like or.
Well, I'm I'm pretty close to the beginning of the book. But the main things, the main takeaways were no phones until freshman year, no phones until ninth grade. You can before that do flip phones or little watches that text or whatever, but like nothing that gets on the internet before ninth grade. And then no social media till sixteen, which, by the way, Australia just outlawed social media under sixteen.
No phones in school. And there's like one more.
Thing that I always forget that's like the big takeaway, but it's pretty much all stuff that could be easily done if all parents just did it. Like if people just didn't give their kids a phone when they were seven, then there wouldn't be your kid wouldn't be coming home going well, Susie has a phone, you know, So.
Yeah, fuck Susie, Yeah, fuck that little Susie.
But anyway, hopefully you guys are not all wrapping cell phones right now for your five year olds and you're having a very merry Christmas.
And let's get on the way festive.
Yeah, and then now we're gonna just take you if you happen to be listening to us while you're ropping presents, or maybe you're going on a walk to escape your family. There, we're just going to take you through a brutal crime an a sociopath. So here we go.
Okay, we're gonna do the episode game today. And I always forget what this is and then it starts, and then I remember, I don't know, it's not it's not in my like, I don't think about this one a lot.
I for me, this one I've seen so many times.
It's just like I don't know why it's just come up on my USA Network marathons, Like it's just one of the ones I've seen so many times that like, even when it's when it was happening, I was like, I like remember lines from this, like I remember actual things people.
Are about to say. Oh yeah, so it's.
Crazy, Season six, episode fourteen, And okay, so we start out there's a woman walking, she's alone on a street. It's trouble and she's giving me Miley Cyrus vibes during the climb Slash can't be tamed Era, but she is a grown woman. So she's like walking on a cell phone and while she's on the phone, a black car comes just speeding down the street, straight up runs into her. She tries to grab her cell phone to get help, but the footsteps are now approaching her. She's crawling, she's struggling, and she struggles right into Finn and Stabler on the on the crime scene, a real flash forward situation.
This woman was in her twenties. Life's been tough on her.
Okay, no id, no purse, but we saw one earlier, so we know the purse was taken. And then she was run over and then Stabler asks and Finn is like, oh, this is the first hit and run and rape I've ever seen. So basically, the car drove up a sidewalk to hit her, knocked her down. There's a trail of blood and its smeared, so she was like getting dragged. She didn't get far and then she's covered in a sheet, so now we know she's dead. She's now also naked. We did not meet her naked, so they took her clothes and purse beat her to death.
She's m nightmare.
The nine one one call was an anonymous call, and so we need to like figure out who called. Munch is in the office and he's with like the nine to one one operators, and that's pretty exciting.
He's in the room.
We find out it's from a payphone uptown a quarter after midnight, and we're looking for the call.
We're looking for a call. It's a man.
So the boy Brigade, Finns, Stabler and Munch are listening to the call and it sounds like a cop because they're using the language.
It's like, call a bus. They're like, that's a cop. Yeah.
If you're a cop trying to do some business, don't say call a bus, that's sure. And if you're trying to frame a cop, say call a bus. Yeah. But the call happened on the Upper east Side, so it's like, how did that happen? This This all took place way downtown. So Stabler goes, well, maybe he ran her over, who fucking knows. But it goes straight to the credits with no information to be had, and now we're on the clear board in the middle of the precinct, gruesome photos of the scene. The Emmy has the DNA, so there's tons of fluids, so we'll see what's up. There's also a lot of black and pink fragments. We got to see what that is. And now Benson comes in with info about figuring out like which cop it was and who called nine one one, and Stabler's like, listen, whoever did this is on PCP or it's personal because this is so aggressive, And then Craigan asks Benson, when's the homicide course start?
And yeah, so I think this is.
Her maternity leave era as August was born, so it starts. Yeah, so she goes, oh, it started two hours ago, and we never see her again. So I love this kind of schedule. She comes in and has a meeting, a battered women, a conference conference, a homicide event, whatever it is.
She's out.
So but we got something on the payphone, but there's so many prints, but the caller wiped the phone but then left a perfect print on the disconnect button and it's a ten point match to an NYPD officer, and thanks to our little sexy crime tech o'hallerin, we have the name. His name's Tony Nasadorin and that's our caller. But he, unfortunately right now, is on a joint terrorism Task Force, and his rep is like, we can't risk blowing his cover, Like he can't, No one can know he made that call. This is the most you're gonna get, and the FEDS are gonna be pissed that even told you this much. But he's saying he didn't see anything. She's sorry, but she has to look at the bigger picture and she's not gonna help. Sailor's pleading like, please, this is all we have. She agrees to help, and she says this cannot go public or be used in trial though, and Craigan does agree to those terms, and we're at a walk and talk. She's explaining that they're working on a crooked Filipino businessman who wires funds to charities in the Far East that support terrorist groups. So that's what we're looking for, and we don't really get a lot of Filipino storylines, so I'm kind of excited. And they go to an under cover apartment. There's satellites and tripods, so you know, there's a lot of secrets and work going on, and we find out our caller and we're like, so, what does this Filipino man have to do with the case? Tony answers that they tapped all his phones and they caught him having a conversation with one of his employees. So the girl that he was talking to is an employee, and she's a working girl.
He is a pimp, she is an escort.
He's claiming no sex, no sex anyways, Okay, I'm getting out of myself. So but the whole attack is fucking recorded on this call because that's who she was talking to, arranging a ride from seeing one of the johns. So, because all the phones were tapped and recorded, Tony like heard the whole call and then the phone flew over and so he was hearing the whole attack happen. And he is a good investigator, I think, and does care. So he's like, I knew I had to do something. It went bad. Fan hates this fucking pimp and is like, I can't believe he wouldn't even help his own girl out, Like this is scum. We get the name of the pamp, Eddie Shaw. So they enter Eddie's office and he lies about being a pimp. But what are you gonna do? Yes, I'm a pimp officer. No, So he said, they're smart and respectable and it's all about companionship, and they threaten him with everything. They're like, we're gonna get I NS on, you irs, vice everything. So he agrees to talk pretty quickly, so we find out her name.
Her name is Melody Quinn.
And then they also go to arrest him, and then they also want a list of all the clients. So Stabler approaches one of the clients who's entering a cab and is just like, were you screwing this woman last night? And then we're talking to an old man and now a business guy. You know, it's just like we're going through a mirage of John's and they all had sex with her, but none of them have a sports car.
Well enough, you could say a mirage of John's, which I love. I think you meant a collage. But mirage of John's is great too, like a mirage that disappears in the in the in the desert.
Yeah, I'm okay with what I said.
Yeah, so so they all but they all say that they you know, they did not hit her, and you know, they're like, where was she? They're you know, they're just so then now that we've met all these clients and there's all this sex it's like, well she raped or is this just workges And so they have to figure that out, and for some wild reason, Kathy drops Dickie.
Off at the office, like because he's a twin.
So if Dickie had some sort of off day at school, so would his twin.
Yeah, Elizabeth had piano. I guess, I don't know.
We never know anything about Elizabeth, so I don't know what she's doing. Maybe they don't.
And Kathy was so fed up it's like, just take Dickie. I'm out of here, like I I don't I don't get And then he's like fully looking at the crime scene photos. It's just the bloodiest crime scene of this woman. Dickie's there, no wonder he went nuts, you know what I mean, being open to all of this, just looking at a bloody woman. But he's asking questions about the case. It's a real you know, follow your dad to work day. But the kid's about to actually crack the case with all these all these questions because he guesses that this is all based on a video game called Intensity spelled nten City.
So as like C I T Y in ten CIT.
Which I didn't notice until this viewing because I had my captions on, but normally I never I've been hearing about intensity for years.
Through this episode, I never knew was spelled like that, but.
I know it's uh, it is silly. Intense City is silly. I wrote ha haha afterwards because I did like the spell it. So it's a Grand Theft auto style game and Dicky goes like everyone plays it. Sailor is not happy watching his son play, but the Sun's like beating the game and he's beating the shit out of this woman and he robs her, and Craigan turns off the game and is like, fuck, I guess somebody's playing the game for real. So obviously we need Bed Wong on the case immediately, you know, he comes talks and obviously that you're gonna have ethical talk about fucking video games and violence and effects on people. And it's the classic Marilyn Manson Columbine chat that's been I think going on for ever. Rock and Roll, Elvis the Devil, I mean, you've been blaming stuff besides their bad parenting and religion for I don't know how long. I want to know when this kind of vibe started. Were they like Mozart's driving the youth mad, Like, I want to know, when, you know, do they need TVs to start blaming people? Were they blaming the gester, the gesters, the court gesters? So silly?
Yeah?
But when did we start blaming entertainment for kids for people's behavior?
Ye?
I interesting, Yeah, I want to know.
So if you're if that was by chance, you're you know, senior thesis, let us know.
And then we find and then.
They're like, oh, the purp can be from ten to fifty years old, really helpful. But I don't think a ten year old could you know, drive a car and do all this stuff be obviously I'm thinking about the little kid from the Little Kid from Trials.
He obviously does drive a car, but I don't think he's doing.
The rest of it.
No, no, no, I don't think he could you know, stomp a woman like this. Bad guesses though that whoever did this probably wants to brag about it because he's such a dork. So it's like, let's, you know, find out like the game company, the message boards, the whatever, and we're gonna like get to the bottom of a bit. So we go to tech Top Games and that's spelled different than you're thinking too. It's t e K top so and they can't even spell a full tech out there. That's like what hip companies are. They're like, let's just spell something wrong and then that means we're inventive.
Oh.
So, like they go to visit this dork and this guy was actually married to Christina hen Henderson Hendrix for Hendrix.
Yes, yes, so he was married to her for a while.
He's brother in law's with He was a brother in law's with I know he is brother in laws with Anthony and Tammanik. Like his is married to Anthony and Timmanick. Yeah, oh exciting.
So so he's the dork in charge of this company and he's like, oh not again. When he hears about the crime, he goes, come on, the games are fun cartoons, you know. If some couple of idiots take it too far, that's not on us. And Phil and Finn is like, well look at the look at the crime scene photos and then he kind of chuckles and it's like, what's so fucking funny, dork, and he says them lighten up, and then he goes, this sequence is actually an Easter drag, a hidden treat, and you have to be a good player, but not anymore because of all the internet. You know, you can read it off any fan sites, so anyone can get to the East drags. So we got to hit up these fan sites like see who's bragging about doing this? Monch stays to play the game and like figure things out while Finn runs to meet Stabler at the Emmy's office. She sadly died from a subdual hematoba, but she suffered before she died.
I don't know why I wrote, but it should be like, but she didn't suffer.
I don't know, and and would have been fine, but it's like, but don't worry, guys, she suffered slowly before she died.
I don't, Oh my god. Forty two points of impact, like what the fuck? And the kicking and stomping is a man shoe size nine, but the puncture wounds were a little bit of a puzzle to her.
But it's a heel. It's a fucking heel.
And then Melinda takes off a stiletto and goes a woman fucking stomps on her, and Melinda goes, I usually don't wear this, but I have an Emmy's dinner tonight, babe. You could change after work. You're wearing scrubs and the heels all day to go to the dinner. That is the most unbelievable thing s you has done. Besides you know, zoom in on a photo.
She looks good though they wanted to give us Melinda looking hot for like, you know, the eyeshadow.
I get the eyeshadow, I get even the outfit, but like you could be wearing seekers under your medicat like it is no one would wear the heels all day that you're gonna get hire to the party all day. I got to maybe good, Yeah, you're right, you're right. And then like you know, she got some new evidence last minute or something.
Now you can't be weighing spleens and shitto in stilettos all day.
No, no, no, no, it's just so cool we talk to her like to know, like what organs they used for that scene. And this is actually one of her most famous scenes. So this is really exciting.
Oh not yet. Later in the episode of My Bad I teased too far.
Anyways, I wrote like eight paragraphs of like she would not be wearing the heel, but like we have this whole conversation, you know, recorded by the authorities. So we have the tape, but we don't really hear a woman. So Joel de la Fuente aka Morales, a Taru friend of the pod. You know, it's going to take other noises away and see if we can find the woman.
And we do hear a woman.
Okay, and with a woman goes take her jacket, bitch, So.
Munch has something.
So back at the video game headquarters, they realize that a fan created their own scene that you can download off the internet.
But they said off the net. And I want everyone to know that.
I also haven't watched the Sandra Bullock movie the Net for a while, and I feel like I wonder how funny it is now like she's carrying around a floppy disk.
Yeah, I've never seen it. I gotta watch it. I definitely I have. Okay, anyways, sorry, I got wistful for some reason about old timey Sandra Bullock.
Okay, So, so this download first appeared late last night, and the tech dork is like the only guy that could do this. I know exactly who it is. It's Stu Davis. He was a programmer here. He used to work here, but we had to fire him because he put like sneaky bunnies that were fucking like bunny rabbits into children's games. So he's a little bit of a pervert and they had to let him go, but they kept him on as a tester. He just can't doesn't have control, and he's such a dork every I mean, he's denying everything, but there's a warrant, so they're gonna like fucking take everything they want, giant glasses. He has a frizzy bob like he's probably gonna play Bill Gates in a biopic or something. This is just like the perfect guy to put fucking rabbits in a kid's video game. So in the waste basket, just like the only thing in it is the newspaper opened to an article about the crime that just happened. He's like, listen, I got an email requesting to make this scene. I do it for money. I just I make what people tell me. I'm a dork. I'm a dork for cash. And we're like, well, who sent the email? You know, guns up, we gotta go get this guy who sent the email, who requested this scene to be made programmed of the crime that we just saw. So we're like guns up going to the person who like sent the email to make this video game. So then Finn grabs a framed photo and right away is just like, this is rue, dude, this is the guy and it's like or his cousin or friend or brother or friend from college, like or a frame he stole from a party when he was blacked out, like to assume the one framed thing is of the person who lives there. Is the guy is so is so thin stabler in this mess of an apartment, like melodies, driver's license purse is just right in the middle in the garage is a black sports car covered in skin and blood, and we get you know, o'haller and gets a call and they found the guy and the guy was actually run over and beaten to death too. So the suspect is now dead in the street, massive head trauma, but not murdered. He just jumped and he hit his brain on the dumpster edgeH oh god. No evidence of a push, no defensive wounds, and he was four times the legal limit of drunk. His you know, but his car was used. It was his car with all the fragments and skin and everything. But the shoe size doesn't match he was a shoe size eleven and the stomping happened with a shoe size nine. We get a classic Melinda moment. She uses a flashlight and there's glitter all over his crotch and she goes, this is booty dust, my favorite booty dust. So she goes, he had one last lap dance before the plunge, So let's go visit the strip clubs.
That's what you gotta do. So we go find the dancers.
They're outside hanging out and one of them was actually the receptionist in the episode Sugar, so if you remember us, this.
Is her baby.
Both of them remember this guy. They're like, oh, yeah, this sad dude. His friend tried to cheer him up. The friend was hot, they said, and then they kept ordering dom so they were drinking really expensive shit, getting wasted, and they're like, listen, you got to come in and do a sketch artist thing for us. So they go do that, and now there's like a lot of dorks names young voices brainstorming. They're all trying to figure out all these ideas are being thrown around, maybe like the youth main killers use the video game losers, but also it seems like this dead guy wanted to be caught, was just everywhere, and you know, maybe he felt guilty or something. But Finn gets off the phone. The crime lab brand tests on car residue and they're also listening to the tape and counting the steps in which door people came out of. I mean, a lot of good police work happening here. And you know, so now we know this Larry Tober guy, he's dead, but there are two other people. So who are these other people? Munch says that Taber got a bunch of calls from a cell phone belonging to someone named Luis Karnaki. She's only seventeen years old, so we gotta go.
We have her in cement room bars.
She goes, Larry's a loser and she doesn't like hanging out with him anymore. She doesn't have an answer for all the calls she made. She's like, I don't fucking know, but she's a very bad actress. And she pretends to like care be surprised by his death. That's not really working. Stabler walks in with a high heeled shoe and goes, this yours bitch, and they go yeah. She says yeah, they are, and they tell her about search warrants and the blue light and they blue light the boots and wow, it is shining.
And she's like, I don't know what that is.
But her voice seems worried, and they bring up They're like, it's gonna be a DNA match. All this shit on this boot is gonna like match with the DNA from the body and the car and everything, and you're fucking done. She's scared. Once the murder charge is brought up, like they're like, you're going down, she turns to her lawyer and goes, you have to help me.
So then her lawyer goes, I need an ada.
Novak walks in right in the nick of time, and he says if she cooperates, what does she get And Novak's like, uh, nothing, she's a murderer. And she goes, listen, I did the attacking, and but then throws Larry under the bus immediately and says, nobody else was there, just me and Larry.
Larry did everything.
Novak then puts the strippers sketch onto the table and goes not even him. She's worried. She's taken aback by the sketch. The guy looks like a deranged ken doll. She starts to cry. Her eyebrows are furrowed.
She then she does remind me a little bit of Shorty of Smarty Coulottes from Abaca.
A little bit. I'm getting this hat. It's vibe, little sharp angle lar face.
Also side note, Lisa, the track team of the high school that I live near is working hard and they are practicing right outside of where I am recording. So if you hear young teen boys screaming at each other to run faster, that is what's happening.
Lol. Love it.
But they have like a whole stadio. Like, why are they in your alley because it goes uphill. I think they have to like run up hills and stuff. I guess, I don't know. They're just in the alley really going to town.
Now, I know, La, it's really hard to find a hill, Okay, I don't know. You do have a nice, Sally, You do have a nice So you know, she's scared of whatever the drawing is of this dranged guy, and she goes, don't tell him, don't tell him. I just said anything, Please don't tell him. So this guy's name is Garrett Pearl. And when they go to arrest him, he is playing on his computer. Call him as a cucumber. He's like, hey, guys, what's up? As the police raight in, He's not worried. He's playing his games. He's deleting files, stay or rips them up from the chair. Temper temper, he says, And then he goes, anyway, whom am I meant to have murdered?
So you know, he's annoying, And then you know they.
They're like melody Quinn and he goes, it doesn't ring a bell and then fuck, oh no. One of the science cops are carrying the computer out of the room and the other one's like fuck. And then we hear status like status, we hear static, weird noises, and then the hottie dork smiles and the science cop goes, it was a degaussing loop, a degassing loop. Listen, you got to make your best assumption. But it's it's a powerful magnetic strip and it wiped the whole drive.
And that's why he's been so smug.
He knew the moment that they walked out with the hard drive, it would all be this.
Is the kind of stuff that I love learning about on U s few like I have always heard of these. I think about them all the time now when they go into different pedophiles houses and they're seizing comput I'm like, oh, be careful. I hope he doesn't have one of those rings that erases everything, like I this episode season six, and I think about it all the time in future episodes because who knew about this? Who knew that there was like some kind of special loop you could get that anytime someone passes it, it just wipes everything clean.
They're educating, Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. The perverse pedophiles criminals. They're always pushing, pushing the edge of technology and it is incredible little go getters. So we're in cement room bars obviously Finn and Stabler are there. They show him the crime photos. He acts like it's so awful, he doesn't know, and then he sees Stabler's marine tattoo and he tries bonding, and then to Finny just goes, were you a gangbanger before you were a cop? So this kid is you know, microaggression. But also Finn does look crazy. He's wearing like a dark red gothic style button down and three of the buttons are on button. He looks like a vampire gangster for sure. And he's like, damn cool, you guys have killed people. I want to know what it's like to kill people. How does it feel? I only do it in the game. I've killed hundreds in the game. But you guys, you did it for real. And they're like, we know you did it for real too, so stop. And he's like, you know, I oh, it seems like he would be friends with Michael Pitt's character. We haven't done that episode on the show. Yeah, but I think these two would be sexy little friend. They're like murdered by the numbers energy, which is also yes.
Yes, yes, but this guy has like the flat affect that just like, oh, nothing bothers me, like like cocky, smug, gross, like I he like makes my skin crawl, this character.
And he's a rich kid too, you know, yeah, getting Don Perry on at the fucking strip. Yeah, a stabler then goes but you won't know because you're gutless. You couldn't even face her. You had to use a car to knock down a woman. And they're just like making him feel like shit, and then they're like you snuck behind her to kick her. He scoffs, and Stablor goes, you're just this scared little punk. And so then Stabler like forces him up out of the chair and then kind of shoves them around with just his body, no arms, kind of like like shoulder shimming him against a wall.
Yes, and their noses like almost touch, like he is so close talking him here, like I swear to god, their noses have like a second of contact.
And you got to like and then he goes, you know, you got to stare them in the eyes. That's how I like it, so you could smell their fear. And the hot Doric is like stop, and Stabler says, we don't even need this little freak. We have a witness. And then the hatty goes, well she's lying, and they're like, well, how do you know what she said?
Huh?
And he goes, listen, it was Larry Tabbar And then we play the call and this guy is like shocked the call even like exists. Suddenly the smugness relaxes on his face and now Elliott has the smug smile and the guy goes, how did you get that? And then he starts screaming like it's Larry's fault.
He made me do it. Larry made me do it.
And right in the nick of time, we got a Barry Bostwick aka Oliver Gates walks in. Novak and Stalelor have a little chat. When Oliver pops out quick, he's gonna go with the mental disease or defect defense. Obviously the video games made him do it. Classic And you know, Larry is also an older man who got this hot young guy drunk, got him addicted to games, made him play for real. But you know, this guy the hot, he had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know the difference between reeal or fake. He's in a haze. But we'll see what the court decides. Right So, Novak and Craigan are talking like, ugh, video game stuff. You know, it's a hot issue right now, maybe it'll get the jury.
What are we gonna do?
But also, all of a sudden, the girl goes from having a public defender to a really good lawyer. And that's because Garrett's family paid for it. So this is a rich little kid plays video games with those little magnetic strips all day long, and a master manipulator. Very Beverly Hills Housewives, and so we do have an issue.
So even though we.
Like scared the guy with the tape and like we have the whole attack on camp at recorded, we can't use the tape.
We can't use it in trial.
It's only evidence like for the state, So we need actual evidence that they can use. So they have Larry in the video games, but that's it, and no one will let them have the tape, like I said, So they go to fight with the government, and the government guy is from Sex and the City. He's the guy that owned the nightclub. His name is William and with Samantha kept being like we will do this and will go here, and will go here, and then like ditches her and stands her up and then the server kisses her or whatever. So that's that episode. Novak is pissed. But we knew this going in that this wasn't gonna be evidence we can have. You know, the guy is not only a pimp but a terrorist, so it is what it is.
So they need.
Evidence to like figure this out since they can can't use the tape, and Bedie Wong's like, okay, I'll go play some site games with these guys and see if it's innocent pawnds or they're cold blooded liars. So we do a little back and forth for you know, they're both in orange jumpsuits, which I love, the girl and sexy guy. And the girl says she plays five to six hours a day. The most she's ever played is eighteen hours. The guy, he's just like kind of smart and smarty, so he's giving every answer that Huang wants, you know, like he's he's playing the game. And they're both turning it all on Larry. And the girl is so in love with Garrett and she's like, yeah, we have sex, like he's crazy about me.
We're in love. And then it cuts to him going, oh yeah, I've you know, I've.
Had better sex, Like I don't really like her, and so this is very Bravo style editing. So shady Bedie Wong comes out into Stablers like this manipulative little prick. And they're like, oh, they fucking killed Larry. Now I think that they got him drunk, they you know, made him do this. And they're like, well, what about Luis And she goes, yeah, she's desperate and she's in love with him. So it doesn't matter. She'll do whatever he says. And we think this guy fucking he did some shit. Ambadie Wong is like he's a narcissist and he knows for sure the difference is seen right and wrong.
He just doesn't care. Uh oh.
Stabler is like asking questions about games and influence, probably thinking about his own son.
You know, well, what's Dicky up to?
And that then Gates walks in and he has an emotion to submit Garrett for a neuropsych exam and he you know, this guy volunteered to do a pet scan while he plays the computer game to prove brain stuff. YadA YadA, bullshit, bullshit, and we're even letting Huang do the test so they can't claim bias. Later in court, Garrett is not stressed at all. He's excited to play. He plays up to forty hours a week. Well yeah, he's daddy, pays the bills, of course he could play forty hours a week. And then he starts playing this blood game, right, so they're taking blood from him. He's wearing a lot like an MIT thing, not MIT, what is it called MRI. He's wearing MRI gear. He's in this big machine and the brain is scans are coming in bead Wong looks intense and dopaminees increased. But it's like that can't be a defense, are you kidding me? Like dopamine increases all the time. None of us are like running over women in the streets. I mean a lot of us are, but not not us right now, and we're filled with fucking dopamine. So now we're on the stand. It like cuts to Huang right on the jury, you know, telling the jury all his findings that this guy felt high and euphoric, and it's like he took a small dose of speed, and Casey's like, okay, so did it make him less able to control his actions? And Huang's like, absolutely not. To the contrary, He's enjoying all of it. It's an enjoyable activity, and any enjoyable activity would increase dopamine, like sports or chess. And it's like, okay, dork chess. That was your example on the stand.
You know, when you get so fucking high playing chess. Oh so funny, that's what he thinks is going to relate to the jury.
So now it's Gates turning goes wow, dopamine, Okay, isn't that what makes like cocaine and heroin addictive? So computer games are just like that, and Huang's like, no, nice try, But you know, Gates tries to do a little bullshit dancing to try to fuck up Huang.
You know, he's doing lots of stuff.
He's comparing the life of a military like military violence to a cartoon game, and Huang's like, that's stupid. War and video games do not affect the person the same. And now Gates is yelling and trying to like make it the game made him do it, but no one is buying it. So during this, Garrett's still in the defense table and he stares down Casey and now he's on the stand doing his own little tap dance. He's like, I regret it all. I'll never forgive myself. I'm so sad. They keep cutting to the girl and she's I don't know what she's doing, but she's sitting there and Novak's gonna go at him now, and Novak goes, so you thought this screaming and kicking, you really thought that was a game, Like, we don't buy it.
How did you not know that was a real woman?
And he's crying being like, I didn't know what was real, what was everything was so confusing the streets people, it's from the game. And you know the girl had a short skirt. Larry said, get her, get the hooker. And then he starts screaming like impersonating Larry, being like, go hit her, hit her, hit her, and he's while he's talking with his hands, he's miming playing the video game. He's tearing up. I wonder how often he practiced this, and then Novak goes, oh, so you always do what Larry says. He goes, I wish I was brave enough to stand up to him, but I wasn't. I'm sorry. And we've see in little psychopaths that pretend the bullied is the bullier, you know what I mean. We saw it in Conscience, we saw Injustice and Novak. I believe in her. But Novak does seem shaken. She does she she doesn't have anything. She's shuffling papers around, and in the nick of times, Stable and Finn walk in. I am sure with new evidence, and the judge is actually tired. I think he has tickets to a Broadway show. He goes, hey, hey, guys, I'm done. Let's resume tomorrow. So she like zips to the guys so fast she runs on over and she's like, I am being killed here.
What do you have? Which I think is insensitive when it's a murder trial.
And and it's funny because this isn't even a sex crime for them to be involved in like she is. She wasn't like a sex worker and covered in jizz, but it was consensual.
Come you know what I mean? Like, like the fact that.
It has to be usive in this case is pretty funny. Yeah, not funny, not funny, but yeah, but you know they're better at it, so maybe thank god.
So now we have Tawber's computer.
Taru found a bunch of stuff with encrypted codes. But they're getting closer and closer, and they found out that there was something sent to Larry two hours before he jumped off that roof, and we need to find out what it was. And so they go to the little creep with the bunny rabbits, you know, the fuzzy hair man, and he screamed, I have nothing to do with this, and Novak's like, listen, once we encrypt this email that you sent, we know you sent it two hours before his death.
Your toast so speak now. So he's like, oh fine.
So he starts typing around getting everything back and unencrypting stuff, and he's so annoyed. He's like, I didn't know anyone would get hurt. Like he said, it was going to be just a joke. I'm a programmer, I'm not a killer. So the email video like pops up and it's very scott fully episode. What was that one called fucked up hammered hammered? Yeah, synonyms synonyms. So then so it's like video game footage, but it's using Larry's real face on the video game body doing the entire crime to the woman on the street. And then the voiceover is like, the cops are gonna get you.
You did this.
You can't hide Larry aw Larry, and so it's like, if this is the guy that's in charge, why would he be the one being taunted. So now we're in court. We watched it and yeah, it's fucking Larry, dude, you did this.
So who's scared of who?
And we have evidence that you gave the programmer one thousand dollars to Stu Davis to do this little computer thing, and the signature on the check this is old school, is Garrett's.
So we have the check. You paid this man to do it.
You sent this message and you know, like you're saying you didn't know what was real or not. But then you had all this admin, you did all this admin, you did chores, you did a to do list of little activities. So they're like, you wanted to push him over the edge? Is that why you sent it? And Garrett's like it was a joke, and they're like, oh, really, so kicking a woman to death is a game? And now you know, coursing someone to jump off a roof as a joke, fuck you? And she's like, you were scared Larry was going to go to the police, and so you prayed on him until he took his own life. And Novak is screaming, she's a star, and then she goes and you put LMAO at the end of the video. What does LMAO mean? And then yes, so laugh my ass off, you know, yes to admit it. So then it's like Larry's dead, Melody's dead, and you're laughing your ass off.
And that sets him off. You're rolling on the floor laughing.
And then he goes off his like nice sky routine. Everything he's trying to do to not be on the hook for this job all drops. He gets in Novak's face angrily and goes, you bet I am, and so that's not good. He basically said he's laughing at the deaths, and then he goes, because you're a joke and this whole damn thing is a joke. And they stare at each other for a while and she says nothing further. So then Gates is actually it's we jump to closing arguments, and Gates is doing a really bad job. Like you could tell he doesn't believe in it. It's not even worth the money of these video games. He's just like the video games made him do it. He's reading, he has his glasses on, he does he's he knows he's lost. It's pretty incredible acting because he's still trying, but you could tell he doesn't believe it in his heart and he hates this guy, like I just like loved this so much.
And then Novak kills it. She kills it.
In her closing argument. She's like, fuck these kids, they're bad. They knew what was up. And the girl is having a lot of feelings because obviously she's about to go to jail for a man like we say, don't do it, and just like yeah, they're they're both whatever. The jury guy he talks, he goes, defendant is guilty, the girl is also guilty. She cries, they're both remanded. Garrett looks at her with disgust and goes, oh, shut up, and then he goes, bang, bang, you're dead. And then they drag the crying girl out, and Garrett's laughing and goes, game over, you won to Novak And now Dicky's at the table he's playing a handheld games. Stabler you know, is like you come, don't play the game, and he's just hockey, So a hockey game he went to school. Leave the kid alone. It's like anytimes Stabler decides to be a parent, everyone has to drop everything that they're doing and suddenly run around this man who gives them no attention.
Yeah, eat food, stop playing video games, leave them alone.
So he's like, come on, let's play cards or scrabble, and they don't want to do that, and Dickie's like do you even want to play that?
Like what do you? Shut up?
And then Stabler goes, how about we talk and Dickie goes, okay, let's talk, and then it's silent because Stabler has nothing to say. And then that's like I said, let the kid play the hockey handheld game. He's had a tough day and he just looked at a dying woman. Helped you crack the case. There wouldn't even be a murder trial if it wasn't for this kid. I don't think they would have played together. They couldn't have done it without Dickie. And now he can't even unwind after a long day at the office. No, that's dick wolf baby, And yeah it's I don't it's not a classic episode, but there's twists.
I don't know.
It's so wild that you've watched this one a lot. It's like such a blind spot for me.
Yeah, it's like, I don't it's not like a favor anything. It's just I've seen it so many times. Like I remember his voice going sorry, she's play with us now or whatever, Like I remember all these things from it, and like Dicky being there and being like, yeah, it's like this, and like playing it for them and everything, Like, I don't know, it's got some classic elements, but let's get into the true crime of it all, shall we? The interesting thing is that six seasons later, in season twelve, they did do in the episode Bullseye, which we've covered, they had that couple that plays video games so much that they literally leave their daughter starving. Remember, and then we like researched the case in Korea or those people like so like show definitely like loves to talk about the video games of it all and everything. But it is interesting because this case happened right before the episode was made.
Devin Moore was eighteen year.
Old living in Alabama in June of two thousand and three, so like two years before this episode came out, less and year post nine to eleven if you were wondering, Yeah, yeah, yes, our usual countdown placing things in time against nine to eleven. So we're all just sort of getting our heads dropped around nine to eleven. It's that summer. He's just graduated high school. He's set to join the Air Force at the end of the summer. Random fact that's just in the information that his brother is Mookie Moore, a former NFL player.
I don't think he was ever big, but he played on a few.
Teams, but in the early morning hours of June seventh of two thousand and three, More was brought in by the police in this small town of Fayette, Alabama on suspicion of car theft. So this kid had no record, he had never been in trouble with the law. He is cooperating as an officer named Arnold Strickland is booking him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he grabs Strickland's forty caliber glock gun shoots him twice, one shot to the head. Another officer named James crump Here's the shots, comes running over. Moore stops him in the hallway, shoots him three times, once in the head. Then he continues down the hall where he shoots a nine to one to one dispatcher named Ace Meeler five times, once in the head. I think that was kind of interesting that in the episode they showed us a nine one one dispatcher like it was they were never in danger and it's not the same thing. But we don't always get nine one one dispatchers, so I don't know. It was just something that felt like a match. And uh, then he grabbed the keys to a cop car and he bounced. He killed three men in less than a minute. This guy was just like boom boom boom boom boom boom, like just killed all these guys so quickly. And if this sounds like an action movie or a video game, it's because it basically is. Moore had purchased Grand Theft Auto Vice City at the age of seventeen and had been playing it NonStop four months. At this time, Grand Theft Auto is hugely popular. I mean you know that that's what intensity is based on his Grand Theft Auto. Whether or not they can say it or not, it definitely is. By two thousand and five, it had sold more than thirty five million copies and had worldwide sales of close to two billions. So the game is popular when and for some reason. We know a ton of comics who do voices on it, right, Like I feel like I've known so many comedians that do you do you know people they maybe just haven't mentioned it to you, but like we have a mutual I would say, for enemy, who's a voice in GTA, Like lots of people have done voices in GTA weirdly, but they'll just be like I think a girl at a store that's like hey, and then like that's their only line.
But yeah, so when they caught Devin.
Moore, he's they get him quickly, he confesses quickly.
He said he killed the officers.
Because he didn't want to go to jail, and he told authorities once he was caught. Quote, life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime. So not great. The crime is exactly like a scene from GTA where a quote unquote street thug enters a police precinct and has to steal a uniform, free a convoy from jail, and escape by shooting police officers.
And then he gets away in a squad car.
And I will also say, this man's mug shot, it's like he's at a party. Like I've never seen a mug shot like this. He is grinning ear to ear, he is smising. It is like a cheerful mug shot. It's crazy. H He went to trial in two thousand and five. He pled not guilty, and the judge in the case would not let the defense bring forth evidence that grand theft auto had inspired his horrific crimes. Good and I'm so proud of that judge and his lawyer, Jim Standridge, tried to argue that he was suffering from PTSD and that he suffered emotional and physical abuse as a child at the hands of his father. He had been in and out of foster homes. He had had a really tough upbringing. But he was convicted and he was sentenced to die by lethal injection. But he is not dead. He is still on death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama.
And then in.
Two thousand and five, basically right as this episode is coming out, there's a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed in our Labama against Take two Interactive. So instead of Top Tech or whatever it's called, it's Take two Interactive. The lawsuits filed against Take two, the creators of Grand Theft Auto, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Corporation of America, Walmart, Game Stop, and Devin Moore the shooter allegend.
And this is yeah, this is a lawsuit.
So it's civil under Alabama's Mack manufacturer's Liability and wrongful Death statutes that Grand Theft Auto resulted in quote unquote copycat violence that caused the deaths of these three victims, and the suits sought damages against all the defendants in excess of six hundred thousand dollars and the case is called Strickland Versus Sony because Strickland was the name of the officer who's gunny took and his family I think was the first family to sign on, but eventually all three families signed on to the lawsuit of the victims. And this lawyer is named Jack Thompson, and he's a lawyer and a video game violence crusader, like that's his thing, and he brings the suit on behalf of Arnold Strickland's family and then eventually the other families. And Thompson told sixty minutes because they did a big sixty minutes did a big report that is in my sources of you know, like can video games.
Spawn this kind of violence?
And Thompson said, quote, what we're saying is that Devin Moore was in effect trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator, he bought it as a minor. He played it hundreds of hours, which is primarily a cop killing game. It's our theory that but for the video game training, he would not have done what he did.
And sixty minutes also, they can't.
I just don't like that they call playing video games training, Like it's not training, you know what I mean?
Well, that's true, but let me this is like what So they also spoke to David Walsh, a child psychologist who authored co authored a study about violent video games and physical aggression, and he he talks about a lot of the stuff that I feel like I'm reading about right now when it comes to cell phones with kids, is like the teenage brain is not fully developed. What David Walsh told sixty Minutes was, quote, the impulse control center of the brain, the part of the brain that enables us to think ahead, consider consequences, manage urges. That's the part of the brain right behind our forehead, called the prefrontal cortex that's under construction during the teenage years. In fact, the wiring of that is not completed until the early twenties. And that's the end of his quote. But basically the idea is that the lack of impulse control alone, because like it's so, it's what they say on the show all the time. They're like, well a million other kids play this game, why are they going out and murdering people? And these experts say that the lack of impulse control, combined with other risk factors like having a traumatic childhood, coming from a broken home, he's in and out of foster care. Like these things combined is what can lead to criminal stuff. Walsh also said, so when a young man is with a developing brain, already angry, spends hours and hours and hours rehearsing violent acts, and then and he's put in a situation of emotional stress, there's a likelihood that he will literally go to that familiar pattern that's been wired repeatedly, perhaps thousands and thousands of times.
So that's interesting. They actually got to the pre trial, which.
A lot of places, a lot of times when anybody's tried to sew companies like this, it just gets dismissed pretty quickly.
But they got to pre trial.
But on July twenty ninth of two thousand and nine, so it's like four years later of this of this civil suit. The court granted summary judgment to take two. I did have to text my friend Eric, who is a lawyer, to ask him what summary judgment is. And it's essentially when you ask a judge to make a decision about the merits of the case before it goes to trial, and the judge can be like, yeah, yeah, there's nothing. It's almost like asking for a bench trial. But usually you do a bench trial during the trial, and a summary judgment is something that happens before, so the judge can be like, yeah, this is a nothing burger, Like we can't you can't prove this case legally.
What are we doing here? So that's essentially what happened.
The judge he didn't throw it out, but he granted summary judgment to the take too, and so one family filed in a p but then the ruling was upheld and the case eventually kind of went nowhere. So that's where that's I think what it was mostly based on.
There's some other there's.
A couple other he ever made any statements from now that he's older, it's been a long time, Like, is there any update on.
No, he's like thirty something. He's like thirty nine. Now I believe he's been in jail. He's still on death row but hasn't been executed. And thirty nine and in jail, and it's like, yeah, so it's such a scary crime, but it's like it does it does make me worry about like letting kids play video games. And like letting them have phones and all this stuff that when their brains are still like developing. But you know, uh, there's obviously a million cases where people are inspired by GTA and violent video games and stuff. Like there's another case called the Micah'sorner case called Tromo, Like I yeah, this game was huge. Yeah yeah yeah yeah, Like a teen in Wisconsin, Micah Zorner. He stole around hundred cars before he was caught and he claimed it was all inspired by GTA. That was just car theft. There was another this case is this case is crazy? I started researching this and people have this connected to this episode. But this actually happened like four years after the episode came out. Oh not not four years, two years after the episode came out. So but I'm just going to talk about it really quickly because it's wild. After this kid named Daniel Petrick, who was also called Danny. It was a sixteen year old in Ohio who, according to everybody, is a good kid, loves his parents. Okay, then he gets into a skiing accident and he gets a staff infection, which actually puts him at home for a year recovering from a really serious spinal injury, and during that recovery process, he gets introduced to the Halo games. Okay, Halo, I will say with kids, I've maybe set four. I played it once. It's like one of the only modern video games I've ever played. Like me, it goes Mario and then it goes one time playing Halo.
That's it. I'm so not in the video game world at all.
But Halo is a gay our games about an alien war and it's rated M for mature and Petrick's dad was not down with the video game violence. He told him he had to stop playing it or he had to leave the house. So he like would move to a friend's house for the weekend and he would play up to eighteen hours a day, barely stopping. I feel like that's crazy because that's in the episode, and it's the episode came out first. So he bought Halo three and when his dad found it that he out that he did that. He took it and he put it in a safe with two guns that he owned. Oops, Daniel found the key to the safe.
Oh god, yes.
A week after his dad took the game away, he found the key, took the game back.
So scared of video games, and then put them with guns. I know, wouldn't you be more scared of the guns? This is so crazy? Yeah, yeah, or like, why does your kid know where the safe he is? Yeah, it's so bad.
So a week after his dad took the game away, he got the key, took the game back, took one of the guns. At around seven o'clock on October twentieth, two thousand and seven, again, a full year and a half after this ssview episode has aired, heard he walks up behind his parents while they are sitting on the couch and said, would you close your eyes? I have a surprise for you, and he shot both of his parents and then he put the gun in his dad's hand to make it look like a murder suicide and said, hey, dad, here's your gun.
Take it.
His mom died, his dad somehow survived, and he got sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after.
Twenty three years.
So he's currently at the Grafton Correctional Institution and is eligible for parole in twenty thirty.
So he'll be like he'll be like, yeah.
Thirty nine, almost forty or something when he's elliptible for parole. So fucking crazy and that happened after the episode. So anyway, there's a ton of different Like some people were trying to link this to like natural Born Killers, but I wasn't really I don't really think it was natural Born Killers related. Oh no, sorry, not natural Born Killers. These this other couple that watched natural Born Killers a bunch of times. They went out and killed some people because of that. But I wanted to keep it more video game specific. So yeah, here we are, and that's that's that. I mean, what, yeah, it's it's not it's not great that, but that like it's like, I don't think a kid like that, someone who's already a fucking narcissist and like a malignant narcissist with probably psychopath tendencies, should be playing eighteen hours of video games a day, because then he is going to do something nuts. But no, guest, today, let's move on to our post mortem. Wow, little Dickie saving the day on this crime. Honestly, I want everybody to know that we did try to contact the actor who played Dickie, but he's no longer in the game, and uh he uh yeah, I don't know. He just wouldn't didn't want to come on the pod. But I uh, I think Dicky was the greatest adversary for Christopher Maloney besides rapist and murderers. In the first twelve seasons of that show. He was like the only person that he ever I mean, like Kathleen had like whatever, Kathleen, Yeah, Kathleen had some shit, but like, but Dicky was always like I hate you, like it was.
He just saw through him. Like Dicky just was like, shut up, you loser.
Am a cab.
Yeah, Dicky was a cab except in the game where because Dicky's like I love.
To kill sex workers with cars.
I just can't believe that game really took off the way it did. It's like such an indictment of our society. I would say, right, like, oh, I can't wait to kill these hookers in this show.
I mean in this case, it's weird. Yeah, and like, I don't know.
It's truly was one of the biggest games ever of all time, still is beloved, and it is about murdering people on the street and committing cracks.
Because it's also just like it's so real, Like it's like you're going through a city and you're looking at human beings. It's not like Halo where I think you're shooting aliens or whatever and you're on like another planet or whatever, Like.
You're not you like Doom. So I don't know what's doom. What happens in that game. It's fucked that way. Look up Doom PC.
I played it on the PC, so well, now it's fatteristic.
No, but that's what I mean.
Like this is like this is like you're you could you wouldn't really be like when I get older, I'm gonna be an I'm going to shoot an alien with this like sodt off shotgun or whatever.
You know what I mean.
Like, it's not it's not real, like GTA is like real, you're driving a cool sports car, you're getting real money. You're like you're killing actual people. You're like you know, so it's just like so real. But you know, I think people should stick to the sims.
I never well, I don't know, you know.
I I loved the Simpsons game on and my phone, but then I spent five hundred dollars so I had I had to stop.
I had to take it off my phone.
But my community looked amazing, like I think one of the best I've ever seen.
Oh your Simpsons game was like Sims where you were building like a little Simpsons like land.
Yeah, you built the whole like you built Springfield, so like the Klicky Maar and then the parking lot and the flowers are on the parking lot, and all the restaurants on the boardwalk and like, and then all of them had little jobs, and then you'd put all of them and then you can like slowly earn through all of their jobs and get the characters. But if you spent real money, you could just buy any plant you want or whatever you want.
You know, Yeah, fun, that's fun. I mean, I'm sorry that you had to, but I loved.
When Luanne van Howen was in her little jacuzzi suit and it was just so cute. Oh my gosh.
Well, so look, guys, games are affecting people in different ways. You're either spending money you people, or you know, maybe you're fine have other devices.
I stepped outside my building for what an hour today and boom, I bought a newtrol. But I only buy trolls with baby eyes, and they are rare and I can't believe I found And I told her, I go, I like the baby eyed ones.
She goes I get it New York. Step out of your step right outside, you.
Get a cup of coffee, you get a baby, baby eyed troll.
There's nothing you can't find here. I am like sad.
Well. The reason I was saying is because in the window yesterday the store was closed, but I saw it in the window.
It was a stuffed Betty.
Boop christmassed out and like holding a heart that said Noel. And I was like, oh, I got to get that for a friend. Yeah, this is cute today. Gone, I go, gone, I go. Did someone buy it? She goes, it's vintage, babe. She's like, it goes fast. I'm like, oh shit, shit, you snooze, you lose on the boop. But she said that someone bought it for his girlfriend. I was like, all right, but I'll take the baby I troll. Yeah, I'm I am.
I will miss not being able to like go to New York at all a little bit in the holiday season. I do, like, even though like I go home to always go into the city a little bit.
You know, did you see that Betty Gilpin will be playing colas Sola's Park And oh Mary, what are your thoughts?
I'm shocked.
I mean she's talented, so I'm sure she'll kill it, and like she had to audition, so I know they needed may have a star to it. And I'm curious because Cole is so per like it's it's hard to imagine. I guess I'll say that I have faith, but it's hard to imagine.
The part is so cold.
But I sold it to Jared and he was like, Betty Gilpin is so talented and funny, like he worked with her on one thing and he like is obsessed with her, like how talented she is. He thinks she's so great. And I've liked her and stuff I've seen her, and I've never I guess I haven't seen her be like hilariously funny. I mean like she's dry, like she was very dry funny in like glow and stuff like that. And you're Jackie, but this could be her time to Shackie. Oh my god. Yeah, she's a nurse forgot. Yeah, like her character on Nurse Jackie is like so funny. She's like a rich girl, like kind of dumb doctor, which is funny. But I'm interested, like to hear what people say.
It's kind of cool. It is cool.
And they did some cool press and yeah, yeah, well I'm glad the show will keep going on, Like that's that's exciting. Yeah, oh, you know, I do have something else to say that's not about the episode.
Another Jean Benet.
We don't need it, we don't need it. I put it on and I was just born. In the first ten minutes, I go, get me out of here.
What what's it on? Is it on like Netflix or something? Yeah, there's a new Jean Benet.
And it's like, if you guys don't have new evidence, what are we doing?
No.
In the beginning, it's like and there's no better time to solve the crime. But now and it's like, I don't know, I'm over it. Like it's done, it's done. The mom's dead, Like it's done. ABC News says, progress being made. It's like, what do you guys talking about?
Like the last documentary, the last documentary that I watched of it a few years ago was interesting because they recreated the whole scene. There was a bunch of stuff that was really interesting.
They remember that one.
Yeah, like remember when they were like, oh, by the way, the DNA that was found in her underwear was DNA from a worker in Thailand. Where the underwear was made or something, or in Taiwan, Like sorry, I might be saying the wrong country, but like it's it's not the DNA of a criminal. Like it was found that the DNA in like the there was no like sexual element to her killing, and that was like new information, you know. So yeah, like so there was there was some new info. But now it's like how many years ago is that how you really found more info enough for like a it just feels like we keep trading on this poor little girl just because she was like a little beauty queen and like the little poster is shocking, you know.
It's weird. It's weird that there's another one. Like I can't wait till one day the news as we've solved it. Happy to that and then you can make a documentary righting the case. Yeah, but I just am not into more and more about it.
The thing is is like there's just like I mean what I'm like because it's like are you making it for perverts?
Like are you making this for perverts?
I know? But like every time I'm home for the holidays, I'm watching true crime shit with my family, so I can under I see why business wise, these companies are just pumping out more true crime docs for like the holidays.
That's so fucked up, Like.
That is the guard of the way it is, you know, like people are on Netflix, like that's when everybody was watching Making a Murderer was over the holidays, like when everybody like last year, well last holiday or maybe it was just the summer, and I was hold with my brothers when like two Lacey and what's the guy that you think that you you.
Tell you dare Scott? No, No, what's his name?
What?
Scott Peterson? Like to Lazy Peterson? Scott Peterson? Two Casey Anthony's like the year before. You know, it's like everyone's just making warring docs too with like it's it's nuts.
But I think, Jean Beney, we need to like give it a rest.
It's done. I just solve it and then like and watch another thing. But like he and the dad, maybe the dad needs money. I mean I don't know, yeah, yeah, well, oh god, I mean I don't know. Isn't the working theory that her brother did it?
I don't know.
Do we need to keep like looking like it? Does the dad want people to keep looking into like his son possibly doing it.
I don't know, no, because he could have flipped on his son a long time.
Ago, right, But that's what I'm saying, Like, but doesn't the dad give consent for these docks or does he not have to?
I don't know. No, he's in it. I saw him talking. Oh he's in it, That's what I mean.
Like I started it and then I was like, I don't want this, and I've been, you know, on a King of the Hill thing, so I just put that.
Back on nice. Well.
I think the bottom line from today's episode is you can play video games, but just like relax, like we don't need to be playing like you know, forty hours in a row or whatever that shit is, Like, keep an eye, keep an eye on what your kids are playing, and in that vein for this week's What Would Sister Peg Do?
But don't we want to, I say, because like I don't like when people shit on people that play video games, because it's like, you know, it's like watching too you know, any kind of hole.
It's like anything moderation, right, like don't go too crazy. Yeah, But we for this week's what Would Sister Peg Do, which is our weekly segment where we direct you guys to more information or you know, organizations that can provide help about anything that comes up in our episodes. We wanted to point you this week to Gaming Addicts Anonymous. I do think gaming addiction is real. People might need help with it as much as they would for other vices or you know, like issues that they have with other things. So similar to AA groups, this organization is quote a fellowship of people who support each other in recovering from problems resulting from excessive gameplaying. So the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop video gaming. If you want to find a meeting or find out more information, head over to Gaming Addicts anonymous DOTG. Thank you for that, and I will obviously post that our in our show notes and it'll be in a story the day this episode comes out and saved forever in our WWSPD highlight.
And next week we keep chugging on through Nationwide Manhunt Season seventeen, Episode fourteen, Get at it as always, thanks for listening, have an amazing holiday season. Sometime of rest or you know, overtime pay, whatever is happening for you these times, vacation, sunshine, snowy, you know, I hope it's safe shoveling whatever.
Happy Holidays to all of you. We love you, We'll see Monica whatever you need.
Bye.
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