Episode 471: Joe Metheny

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Morbid Hysterical, A new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna, and this is morbid.

Morbid, yep, yep, yep.

How are ya? What do you want to do today? I want to record music today. Okay, that's what we did yesterday, that's what we'll do today.

Yeah, we are on TikTok too much, that's accurate. I think everybody relates to that statement or sentiment, if you will.

I think so, I think TikTok is everybody's place. Do you think that it is low-key taking over our brains or something? Yeah, for sure, absolutely.

My brain is fucking crazy anyway, somebody take that shit over, somebody take the wheel of my brain.

TikTok take the wheel, TikTok take the wheel. Wow, that one went somewhere. I went into it far too confidently. That's okay.

We love blind confidence. Thanks girlie, we love it. thanks for being such a supportive partner.

I try you do a good job, I give it a shot, at least, good job, you know, it's the beginning of the week.

We're wild, we're crazy, we're kooky. I'm coming off a vacay, baby a vacay. Well, not really. I'm coming off of a long weekend.

I am coming off of a weekend of many kids birthday parties. Yeah, that sounds fucking terrible. That's where I am right now. I was at Universal this past weekend, I was living my life.

It looked like fun, it was great, it was great. How were your kids birthday parties? You know, they were kids birthday parties.

That answers that. But the kids had fun and that's all that matters. Hell yeah, so there's that, but I have a case today that's just really gross.

Oh, this person is a very gross person. They usually are, they usually are this one. Just like it's like, it's just there's a lot here.

And he's a liar, he's one of those that lies a lot about what he did. SaNTA FALSA Liar Yeah, this guy is definitely a liar, and he also, he lies so much. That it was like, interesting to scrape together the facts of his life because he is such a fucking liar.

That gets tough sometimes, yeah, so Dave and I did our best to make sure you always do. We did our best here. But I think this story is really sad.

It's another case of people targeting sex workers and people that they think will not be missed. That's nice, you know, one of those terrible things. So we are going to talk about the case of Joe Matheny. I don't know if I know this one.

I've heard it pronounced Matheny too, but I think it's Matheny, that's what I've heard more. So I'm going to go with that one, but he's terrible. So we're going to start you off on December 15th, 1996, the year that Ash was born.

Yeah, and also the year Scream came out, I wasn't here yet, though. you weren't here yet. Well, no, you were.

It was December of 1996.

Yep, you're right, I was here. Wow wow, guys.

I didn't want to correct you on that, but you were like, the world will. I felt compelled to, you know, in my head, I was like, you were in fact here.

In my head, I was like, Oh, December of that year, like I wasn't here yet, but that's the very tail end. So I was like, and you're smack dab in the middle.

But I was only like six months, so I was barely here. You didn't know what was going on. For sure, it's not about me at all. So bye.

But there we go. Just 1996. On that day, December 15th, Baltimore Police discovered Baltimore, Maryland. They discovered the body of 23 year old Kimberly Spicer. She had been buried under a trailer on the property of a pallet factory in the city's southwest side.

Later that same day, police did arrest a suspect, Joseph Roy Matheny. He was a man who actually lived and worked at the factory at the time, he was living on the grounds where Spicer's body was discovered. And it didn't take long, when they arrested him. To suddenly start connecting the dots to other murders of women in the Baltimore area as well. I was worried.

You were going to say that what's wild is? This is only a fraction of the things that he confessed to. Oh, right here, he confessed to a myriad of awful, awful things, and do you think all of his confessions are for real?

No, OK, I don't. No, which is like a whole other set of gross that like, he just came up with these things and was like, I did them, claimed them.

Even like, they're fucked, yeah. So let's talk about who Joe Matheny was, so you can get an idea of what we're working with here, OK? Joseph Roy Matheny was born March 2nd, 1955, in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was one of six children He was born to parents Audra, Earl and Jean Matheny. I love the name Audra. it is a cool name. it's just like a cute name.

Yeah, Audra. I think one of the girls in Girls Next Door was named Audra. wasn't she? Yeah, there was an Audra around there, for sure. Now. After he was arrested, Joe did claim Joe Matheny claimed that he had been raised in a very abusive home.

He had a terrible childhood, he was very neglected, very abused by his parents. And he said that he was like, shuffled around to different homes. Almost like a foster like situation by his parents. Now, according to his mother, she said that Joe was a very normal boy growing up, He was smart.

He was nice, he had a good childhood. There wasn't anything of note if he was neglected, she said. And this was this was her own words, She said. If he was neglected, it was his own fault, huh?

Which I was like, that's, that's questionable, that that statement, that was a weird way to word, that weird way to like. If he was neglected as a child, that was his own fault, I feel like that's like, that's exact opposite of that.

But she claims none of her children were ever abused, they were never placed in homes. I could not find any records, and neither could Dave to indicate that he was placed in any kind of homes. Growing up. I also. We couldn't find any reports that said that there was like any phone calls to any social services or anything like that. This was the 50s, of course, and like the early 60s.

So keep that in mind. But from the sounds of it, he is, he is kind of exaggerating how bad his childhood was. That's what, that's what this seems to be, the collective thought. What if he has, like, a pattern of exaggeration that he lies about everything, so that he very much exaggerates a lot about his life?

So, I mean, he even claims at one point that he has a son, He doesn't. That's a weird thing to lie about, yeah. When he was young, for a time, the family lived in West Virginia.

And this is where Joe's father worked as a laborer, and he ended he. At first, he was the only income for the family. Which, especially of the time period, that is very common. Yeah, but unfortunately, when Joe was only six years old, his father died in a car accident. Oh man.

Yeah, and it was in Terra Alta, I believe, West Virginia. Now. Obviously the entire family, this is six children, that's a lot of kids to provide for, yeah.

And like, obviously the emotional toll was outrageous. They're all reeling after the loss of their father, who, by all accounts, he. He claimed mostly his mom with the abuse stuff, like he didn't really claim it, like he claimed it against all of them. But like, it seemed like that. He was just like a working hard kind of guy, like took care of his family, the father.

Yeah, and the kids were really devastated by it. So, while also dealing with this emotional toll and with grieving their father, Audra Matheny, the mom had to now start working full time just to support all six of these kids. Out of nowhere, you know, like a very sudden switch and everything. So see, that's kind of to me him being shuffled around to different homes.

Yeah, different people probably watched him, while his mom provided for the family. That's what it probably is. It was probably that kind of thing because she worked as a waitress, she was a delivery driver for, like, a food service.

She was a bartender, she would take any job. That poor woman, it seemed like she was really like working her ass off to keep this family afloat, yeah.

And although they, you know, they all agree, they weren't able to afford anything, you know, that we may take for granted. Most of us like, very, like, even the smallest of luxuries. Yeah. She kept her family afloat. During this time, they were able to pay their bills.

Good, and she was able to feed her children, and that's like the most important thing, so they weren't neglected in that way. And she was quoted as saying, It was very hard on me.

I had to work to support the family and I did everything I could to keep my kids together. Yeah, and so not only did she lose her husband, which like, like, I can't imagine right there. Then you have to leave all your kids who you're used to being home with.

Yeah, and work your ass off. Yeah, she was going through a lot. And now they are going to be shuffled around to different people, babysitting them or them taking care of the little ones.

Right, like, at least, you know, it sounds like she at least tried to support this family as best she could. Yeah, that's a lot on your plate now again, by most accounts. Like neighbors, friends, all that, he had a very normal childhood.

They all say it, they're like, this wasn't like a crazy family, that everybody was like, what's going on there? Yeah, he was a good student in reality.

Like, he didn't struggle in school, he stayed out of trouble. yeah, wasn't a troublemaker, didn't get in trouble with the police.

Didn't get in trouble with teachers. That's interesting. Yeah, none of that. He was a relatively average kid.

Just nothing of note, nothing of note poorly, and nothing of note like, spectacularly, yeah. In Joe's version of the story, though, he says that he made it only to eighth grade, and then he dropped out and he received his high school equivalency. And that's not true.

It's not true. He has a diploma. Yeah, he did, he made it through school. Like, what?

And when he turned 18 in 1973, he joined the army, and his mom is like, Oh, yeah, he did. He joined the army and he was stationed in Germany.

Joe says that he was sent straight to Vietnam in the final years of the war. And that he spent nearly two years studying physics and serving in the artillery unit. And then that it was during this time that he claims he this is when he began struggling with a heroin addiction. Okay?

She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence that she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police cover up?

If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.

I'm like, stop around, she's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls with a diagnosis.

The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah, it's hysteria.

It's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely?

Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical?

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

Now this is untrue. Like the service. Yeah, he did not go to Vietnam, by all accounts.

Went to Germany. Nobody can say that, but again, I don't know why he says this. It's just like you served. That's impressive.

Absolutely, why are you trying to make it something? It's not, you know? But either way, this was a lie. And Joe's time in the military, though, like no matter what it was, definitely took a toll on him and on his relationship with his family.

Yeah, and I think that was really common, yeah, and this was actually when he was done with the service. It was actually the beginning of a 10-year like period where he didn't speak to his mother.

Oh, wow, yeah, like his mother and him did not speak, so that is interesting, so that's that.

That's the thing. There's things there that we don't know, we don't know what happened there. By all accounts, it wasn't a wildly, outwardly abusive home. But no one ever knows what's going on.

No, behind closed doors. You look at any of these things and it's like, you can find out horrible stories and be like, what? I just passed by that house, it looks like a normal house.

Oh yeah, like, I don't hear anything, I don't see anything, so who knows, right?

He lies a lot, so I'm sure it's an amalgamation of lies and truth. Yeah, he sounds like pathological. But during his trial, later, when he was arrested for his crimes, he actually told his attorney and the investigators that both of his parents were dead. But then a reporter tracked down his mom and she was alive.

So yeah, he said. After he was arrested in 1996, his mom actually said he just kept drifting further and further away from me. Which could be a number of reasons, you know now. It's unclear exactly when he returned to Baltimore, Maryland, from West Virginia, but he was arrested by Baltimore police in April 1988 for drug possession.

So he did struggle with addiction, okay, he was found guilty for that. he was fined $100. The arrest for possession kind of shows the beginning of this very consistent struggle with addiction and legal troubles that we see in his life from here on out.

He seems to be in a constant state of struggling with this. In 1988, he began working for Joe Stein sons.

And sells wooden pallets. His employment history was never really consistent. He was a truck driver at one point, like there was a lot of different things. He would kind of disappear for long periods of times from this job, but Stein sons, the owners of this pallet company, they liked him.

They had a soft spot for him and they always were willing to hire him back every time he left. There's always that one. Have you ever, like, worked somewhere where that's been the case? And you're like, how does this person get away with what they get away with? And I get, like, reamed the fuck out.

But there's always that person that they just have a soft spot for. Yeah, that this was Joe. And this is what's wild about him. Because when you read about him and what he's done and things he's said and his confessions, he's a fucking monster, a monster of the highest order.

Was he able to, just like, turn something on? Do you think, like a charm, that's the thing? I have no idea what his deal is and I can't even begin to speculate on it because I have no fucking clue. Because people liked him.

Yeah, I mean.

His social relationships for the most part, and in his like workplaces, people liked him. Like these people hired him back all the time, right? They weren't thinking he was some awful guy and being like, Oh, we're just....

Because if he was acting out there, then they would just be like, cool, like it's easy to be rid of him. No fuck off. If he just leaves, we can be like, we can't hire you back, you just left.

Right, but it's very strange. But he would show back up to Stein sons looking for work, and they would just hire him back, and actually later, after he was arrested. Later, one of the co-workers there said He was a joy, just kidding and carrying on. He made the day pass by.

Wow, so he's one of those guys that you're literally like, you made my day pass by quicker, like you. Look forward to working with him, which is like, on the other side of the planet, to what he says and does. That's so weird.

On his other like side of him. But that's the thing. It's like, I always think of that Ted Bundy thing.

Like regular in court, and then you see the switch and you see the eyes go like, animalistic. These people that do these kind of things, they can switch it, and that's how they find their victims, you know?

It's so scary because they charm their victims into like an unsafe situation or a situation where they can get them, it's true. But also because he was constantly struggling with addiction and his work history was in flux all the time. So was his housing status. He never knew where he was going to stay.

Right, he never could keep something for a long period of time. He'd sleep on friends couches a lot, stay at a lot of shelters, a lot of like encampments, like anywhere he could. And he did have a lot of people who would take him in because of his personality. And it was usually, and this was around the Baltimore area.

And at the time of his arrest, he was actually living in that small trailer on the Stein and sons property, the one where Kimberly Spicer was found. Oh wow, so he was living on the property of where he was working because they were allowing him to. Yeah, and apparently it was so like it was the situation he was in. Where he, quote, ran an extension cord from the Stein's main building to power his stereo, television and air conditioner.

So that's what, like dire straits, his situation was in now, while the owners of Stein and sons may have felt comfortable enough to let him literally live on the property. They did start to grow a little more apprehensive of this decision as we went into the mid-1990s. So they were letting him live there for a while, like on and off, like whenever he needed to. Once we hit those mid-1990s, they were starting to be like, Oh, I don't know. This is when they started noticing a lot of changes in his personality. Because this was immediately following his release, after a year in jail, because he was constantly in legal trouble. For, you know, drug possession, stealing, like all that stuff.

And he had come back to work because they had allowed him to come back to work. After a year in jail, and co-workers seemed to think that he made a very hard switch in that year in jail. He was drinking a lot, he was using drugs more often, he was engaging the work of sex workers a lot more often. Like, just seeming to be on this, like, really different path than he was before.

Like a spiral, like a downward spiral. I think. It seemed like he was always trying to get to a better place, but now it seemed like he was just fully diving fully into this. And there were other, like bizarre changes like that he would do like he made a 15-foot high barricade around his trailer, made of old pallets. That's weird.

Yeah, and also like, that's not your property, you can't do that. Yeah, like, what are you doing? And it wasn't just co-workers that were, you know, initially kind of like, enamored by his personality and how kind he was. Which is very strange.

He made a lot of friends outside of work, like very easily socially, he was very much able to make people like him. According to Connie Snow, who worked at the Southside bar in Baltimore, where Matheny often picked up women and actually picked up at least one victim of his. She said He was so mannerly saying, thank you and please all the time. And he was a regular there, and he would often just be going there to, you know, have a drink, play some pool, hang out with people. Connie Snow's sister actually ended up being murdered by Matheny in 1996..

Whoa, just to show you how much he can manipulate, wow, and how easily. She thought he was kind, polite, never had any reason to worry about him, and her sister ended up being murdered by him.

Oh my god, yeah, that's horrific, it's awful. So, like much of Joe Matheny's personal history and his confession that would later come, like I said earlier, it's really hard to tell the facts from his lies.

It sounds like it. By his own confession, his criminal history began in 1976, where he said he unintentionally killed a man during a bar fight in Baltimore. Okay, this killing was followed by the murder of, he said, two sex workers in 1988 and 1989..

Now you can find some stories that connect a little bit with these dates and the places. The names you can't really connect. Like, he didn't know the names, so it didn't. It's hard to connect them to him. Yeah, I don't know if they were trying to connect them with actual cases, but that's what he claimed later.

Okay, and I know they did go back once. His confession came and tried to like, identify these cases that he was claiming and try to line them up with real cases, right? But the first documented murder committed by Joe Matheny happened February 22, 1994. Okay?

This is when he killed 28-year-old Toni Lynn in Gracia.

So he preyed on Toni Lynn because she had been struggling with drug addiction herself, and she hadn't been seen by her family since November of the previous year. Oh, man, and her father, John. She had been trying to get clean in the months leading up to her death. Like she was really trying hard, like she was doing her best.

That's even sadder. And days after her death, police would, days after he came across her, excuse me. Police would find Toni Lynn's body dumped by the side of Interstate 95 in Baltimore when they examined her. Unfortunately, she had been sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled. Oh my God, and then he had just dumped her along the interstate.

That's so fucked up. And when he saw his victims, it was just like, Trash, just dump you where I can. Yeah, it's so sad.

Now he waited about four months until he killed again. This time it was early July of 1994, and he killed 39-year-old Catherine Magathiner. Like Toni Lynn, Cathy had struggled with drug addiction throughout a lot of her adult life. She had had a couple of arrests on her record, and it was mostly for sex work. This was in South Baltimore mainly.

Okay, and according to Joe Matheny, on the evening of July 2nd or 3rd. He met Catherine, or Cathy, as people knew her on Baltimore's south side, and convinced her to come back to his trailer on the Stein Lot. They made a transaction once there. He said that they engaged in sex while she was partially clothed, but during his confession, he said that he wouldn't say whether the sex was consensual or not.

So that tells me it was not, and he also wouldn't say if it was transactional, nothing about that, so to me, that says it wasn't. Yeah, and if you see his behavior later with other victims, he's wildly aggressive.

Wildly aggressive, he does not like being told, No, I see this not being even a transactional thing, yeah.

Which is awful. But, he said, about an hour after they'd gotten to the trailer together. He said that he had attacked Catherine, choking her with his hands until she passed out. Oh my God. Once she had lost consciousness, he wrapped an extension cord around her neck and strangled her to death. Oh my God.

He then dragged her body to a wooded area only about 40 feet away from the trailer, and buried her in a shallow grave. That's so sad. And remember, this is a trailer on his work property. Yeah, it's like, not even his.

And then he just buried a victim's body 40 feet from this trailer and then eventually underneath the trailer. And people are coming to work, yeah, now. When he came back into the trailer. He went through her purse, he took whatever money he could find out of her purse, and then he gathered up her clothes and the purse. And he took them to different areas of the woods and buried them in a small hole, like several small holes.

And then he covered those with dirt and just left. Now this is like, really gross and rough. What he does next? Because he returned to her body several months later and exhumed her, and he told investigators. Quote I dug it up and took the head out. I just took the head and threw it in a box in the trash.

What? And notice that he's referring to it as it, Yeah, that's what is like, disgusting, yeah, and that's true.

Yeah, took her head off and put it in a box and threw it in the trash months later. Yeah, how fucked up is that?

And like, why? Like, what possessed you to do that? Also? I just looked up a picture of him.

Yeah, he's foul and there's one like Mugshot, a very big guy, too. He is over 6 feet tall and I think he was like 450 pounds at one point. Like, he's a very like, he's an intimidating guy.

Very intimidating. And one of his pictures in prison is like, this Is it? the one with his tongue out? Yes, it's so scary, it's really foul.

Like, I can't imagine coming across this man when he was like, violent, yeah, it's that must have been horrifying. Like, if you look at him up, it's like he's just really a gross person, especially when you know what he's done, yeah.

But yeah, that's. And you were asking, like, was that true? When investigators exhumed her remains two years later, the skull had been taken away from the body. So he did.

And he had left only the mandible, so he'd removed the head from the mandible up. And the mandible's like the bottom half of your jaw, the bottom jaw. Yeah, so he took like the top of her teeth up.

So I mean, it's easy, I guess. When it's skeletal, these does it like unhook. It's like, easy to take that part off, you know, but it's like, ugh.

It's very bizarre, I just hate it. So ugh, now at this point, he was kind of developing a victim type, yeah.

Obviously right, but his next act deviated from this. Okay, because in the summer of 1995, he was living in kind of like a large, informal, unhoused community.

And it was under the Hanover Street bridge. This is along the banks of the Patapsco River in Maryland.

In court documents, they call it quote a lawless community where knives, axes and other weapons were kept. That's terrifying, yeah. Among the men living in that camp were two 33-year-old men named Randall Brewer and Randy Piker. And apparently there was some kind of dispute between Joe Matheny and these two men.

Mm-hmm. And on the evening of August 2nd, he bludgeoned them both to death with a woodcutter's axe. Oh my god, yeah. And then he piled the two bodies on an old mattress in one of the darker parts of camp and just covered them with an old blanket. Some trash, whatever he could find.

He is terrifying, it seems like his temper is outrageous. And just like his temper seems to like, grow and grow, the more he does this. And then it just explodes, wow.

Yeah, now, obviously he did not hide these victims bodies very well because they were discovered a few days later. And he was arrested and he was tried in a court for the murders, but in July 1996, a jury acquitted him of the charges.

Wow, because, quote? The evidence was not only insufficient, it indicated he was not the actual suspect. And after looking at the evidence, I guess the jury felt the crimes were actually committed by another man who lived in that encampment, named Cowboy. And detectives actually found the weapon used in the murder and it was in possession of another man who lived there, named Larry Amos. And they said he had actually stolen that axe from someone and used it to kill another man, Everett Dowell.

Yeah, Larry killed somebody with it and then had that axe in his possession. So when they said lawless, they meant lawless, they really meant it.

Like, damn, so that axe being in possession of cowboy there doesn't really mean anything? Yeah, because it looks like this axe is just traveling to other people to do awful shit with. So I don't know.

I don't want to connect him definitively to it, which kind of doesn't shock me, considering like, no one saw it. And it could be, I mean, it could be anybody. And that axe is traveling around to everybody. And that clearly like, people are willing to kill in that community. So it's like, wow.

Who knows if he did it or not, but it looks like I think he did because of what he's done. And he claimed to have later. And not that he's not. He's a liar, so who knows? But like, considering what else he is proven to have done, I would be surprised by it. Wow.

But he claimed This isn't, it's just a weird case. He's a weird guy. yeah, a gross, monstrous guy, and it's just a weird case.

This must have been hard to put together. It was because I could see that we were trying to figure out. Like, I want to tell you what was reported, right? But I want to make sure you know that, like some of this, is not real.

So, like some of this, and you're going to hear a very spectacular claim that has no actual evidence to back it up. But it's the thing that is really like what everybody looks at for this case. When you hear it, you might be like, Oh, okay, like, I might know what this is. I think I know where we're headed because I saw some pictures that were really untasteful, I'd like to say. But when he was arrested for Good in late 1996, he claimed that he had murdered those men. And he said that he did it because he wanted to steal $300 that one of them was rumored to have had at the time. Now, when he was arrested, he also confessed to drowning another man from that same area near the river, but investigators were never able to find a body or connect him to it.

But he waited only four more months after his acquittal before he killed again. Now, on the evening of November 11th, 1996, 23-year-old Kimberly Spicer got into an argument with her mother.

And I guess Kimberly had struggled with drug addiction as well. And I think her brother, and this is really sad. Her brother had actually passed away of a heroin overdose only the previous week. Oh, oh, my God. And I think that her mother and her were in an argument or a dispute of some kind while talking about that, probably talking about her addiction and her struggles. And maybe that was like a source of contention. So they fought and then. But she and her mother said, we would argue a lot.

Like, it was a little contentious at that time because of what was happening. And she said, but. And she would leave the house, like storm out of the house. But she would always come back, and so it wasn't this like wild thing that she stormed out of the house. And she did. She said she would always leave, but she would always come back.

And her mom, Kathy Price, said that, and that night she left the house and went to the south side bar. That's where she ran into Joe Matheny now, according to Joe Matheny's confession. I want to make sure that you know this. He convinced Kim to go back to his trailer on the Stein's lot for a transactional sex.

And when they got there, he stabbed her 26 times in the face and neck with a black handled knife. And then he said he wrapped her body in a red tarp and hid it so he could figure out what to do. And did he say what, like, why? All of a sudden, he decided to stab her that many times.

I have. He doesn't really provide a lot of information about why he does these things. At one point, he says, He really, he just likes killing people. It sounds like it, yeah, does he say, whether or not he's like, under the influence at any, during any of these things?

Every once in a while, he will. I don't think he really uses that as a say. It was just sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn't. Yeah, I think it's just like, incidental if he was, wow.

Now, two weeks later, Methanie lured 37 year old Rita Kemper back to his trailer on the night of December 8th. When they got there, he tried to have sex with her and she refused him. She said, Absolutely not, and she had come there just to, like, hang out. She was like, No.

And they apparently had met before Rita Kemper and him. Like they had moved in the same kind of social circles a little bit, right? So they knew of each other like he knew her.

Like, she felt comfortable going back to his home. Yeah, exactly. So she just thought, Okay, I kind of know this guy, so like, that's fine, No. But that night, she said, and she said like, he was like a normal guy.

Like, I've never seen him lose his temper. I saw him the way that everybody else saw him. Which is like, this funny guy and like, he's just a jovial guy. It's so scary that somebody can present that way and then be this. And she actually said his nickname in the group of friends was tiny.

Cause he's such like a big guy, wow. And so she referred to him as tiny when she talked to him.

Talked about him. And when she testified to a jury later, which, by the way, she gets out of this, Kemper told the jury. That that night she just saw a totally different guy, she said. You could see evil in him. Whatever Tiny wanted to do that night, he was going to do.

Oh my god.

Experience in person the unsettling true stories.

Podcast at Exhibit C Live presents Dr. Death a closer look. This live tour experience brings you face to face with accounts of doctors who caused irreparable harm. The system that failed to protect their patients and the heroes who stopped them. You'll hear from me, Laura Beale, reporter and host of the Dr.

Death Podcast, along with our panel of experts and whistleblowers, it's hosted by Suspects Matthew Scher. It's an important evening with one of the most iconic of all time. Don't miss your chance to be part of the conversation. Exhibit C Live presents Dr.

Death A Closer Look. Tickets go on sale August 9th, so get your truest true crime fans together and get tickets before they sell out. Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole.

And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time. The impact on victims and what's left once a facade falls away? We've covered stories like a Shark tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills. An active lawsuit filed by Larry King and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women, instead selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

For Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.

Now, according to Rita Kemper, she genuinely thought. She said, I believed he was trying to kill me. I believe that probably was. He was screaming at her. Scream all you want. I'm going to kill you and bury you in the woods with the other girls. That's what he was saying to her.

Can you imagine being in that position? And she said, and surviving, exactly. And she testified, saying that after they got to the trailer, he slapped her in the face twice, demanded that she take her pants off, was basically going to rape her.

And somehow, he was distracted for just even a second by something and managed to open the door and run out the door. Thank goodness. But he chased her. Oh my God, and he's a huge guy.

Imagine this guy running after you. It reminds me of, like, Texas chainsaw massacre. Yes, like how leatherface like, runs full speed, and it scares the shit out of me. Yup.

Because he's like, this big guy, yup, it's the same kind of thing. He chased her, caught her, No.

And started choking her and dragged her back inside the trailer. Holy shit. Then he ripped her pants off and was about to sexually assault her.

He got out of his grasp and escaped out an open window whoa, and just ran for help. Holy shit, she is incredible.

RIta Comper Now it's pretty unclear whether she immediately went to police to report this assault, or whether, like it was investigated sometime later. Like, it's a little unclear about that, okay? But Methanie's clearly escalating violence against sex workers and people he considered vulnerable in the Baltimore area was clearly like at the height at this point.

Like, at a teetering point, and this is when it was going to come to an end. Because. An anonymous employee at Stein Sons called police and said that. Joe Methanie quote approached him and told him that he killed a girl and needed help burying the body dude. So they acted on this tip. And investigators searched the area around Joe Methanie's trailer on December 15th and discovered the body of Kimberly Spicer buried under the trailer. Because, remember, Kimberly Spicer was the one where he had hid her quote unquote until he could figure out what to do.

Right, and it's just like, it's like unthinkable, like truly unthinkable. And it was Catherine who was buried 40 feet away from the trailer, right?

And now he's gone and asked another co-worker to help him bury Kimberly Spicer's body somewhere, but no, she was found. So they were able to go into the trailer as well at this point because they had due cause, they said. Search warrant, search warrant, and so they were able to get some evidence of a potential crime scene inside as well.

So, the detective in charge of the case, Homer Pennington, said. Quote furniture had been removed from the suspect's trailer and attempts had been made to clean up bloodstains. I bet. And they believe that this was definitely the murder site. So after they had discovered Kimberly Spicer's body, that was obviously grounds for an arrest warrant and they arrested him out.

And they arrested Joe Matheny and also Joseph Stein, the owner of the Stein Sons company, on suspicion of murder. Because they were seen leaving a company Christmas party together that evening. Oh so, and it's on his property too, exactly.

So you're fucked, so Joe? Matheny was charged with first degree murder and was held without bail. And Stein was charged with being an accessory after the fact of homicide, and he was suspected of helping dispose of evidence even.

The charges against Stein would eventually be dropped pretty shortly after investigators learned that he was completely unaware of the murders. Any illegal activities that had taken place on that property he didn't know about, and he didn't help destroy evidence, he did not destroy anything.

According to the investigation, they found nothing all right, no evidence that he had any idea. Well, that's good that he was literally just trying to help this guy out by letting him live there.

And he had no idea. Days later, though, after a search of the property, they found a 25 caliber handgun, and Stein was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a handgun. Lee So, apparently he's a felon dating back to 1985 because he was charged and convicted of arson in 1985..

So, although there's no evidence of him being like a continuous felon, of like just constantly committing crimes, then he did do some arson. Once. He had a 25 caliber handgun on his property, and you're not supposed to be in possession of a handgun as a felon, so that's a problem. So that was interesting. But once Joe Matheny was charged with murder, he was just ready to confess.

And he seemed very eager to tell all his stories, all the violent crimes he'd supposedly committed over, you know, two decades. At this point, he provided detectives with details on the murder.

And he also confessed to the murders of Catherine Magaziner and Tony Leningracia, and would later lead investigators to Catherine's body. Less than 50 feet from where they had discovered Kimberly Spicer. So sad. Which must have been also a little wild for investigators, knowing that they were within 40 feet of another murder victim's body when they found Kimberly spicer. And had no idea, no idea.

Now, and he led them there, like, eagerly led them. There's pictures, yeah. By the time the interview had concluded, Joe Matheny had confessed to a total of between seven and 10 murders. He fluctuated, including Kim Spicer, Catherine Magaziner, Tony Leningracia, Randall Brewer, Randy Piker and a third man he claimed to have drowned at that encampment that he was staying at. And also the man outside the bar in 1976 and three sex workers he claimed to have picked up on Washington Boulevard in 1988 and 1989..

He would pull some of those off, sometimes put them back on, admit to this, many admit to that, many throw these ones on. So it really fluctuated the amount of people. But they were really only able to find him at that time. That he had definitely committed murder against Kimberly Spicer, Catherine Magaziner and Tony Leningracia. Okay? In addition to those three murder charges, he was also charged with the kidnapping and assault of Rita Kemper. A few weeks earlier, and during his interview, detectives asked him whether he had intended to kill Kemper.

Absolutely. And he said, Yeah, I don't know really what I was going to do because she got away.

What that is so haunting, like, just so callous, just like, Yeah, I was going to kill that human being, yeah, but I didn't know what I was going to do.

She got away, so so I guess I killed her. No, you couldn't like Jesus again. The announcement came as a shock to everyone who knew him.

That's so crazy, like no one was ready to hear that he was this awful monster. It's so scary to think that people can turn it on and off so easily. Yeah. Another bartender, named Lisa Reynolds, who works at a bar or worked at a bar, called The Bordeaux Wine Bar and Restaurant.

It was a restaurant and bar that Matheny went to often to also drink, play pool, all that stuff. Yeah, she told reporters. Everybody liked him.

And even the lawyer who defended him on the axe murder charge, like the one of the two guys in the encampment, was like, shocked by his confessions? Was like, I don't know if I believe them, like, they don't line up, he said. I found him to be very honest and direct, he has a sophisticated sense of humor and he always was very, very respectful of me.

He was never rude or violent. That's so insane, yeah, now. Joseph Stein's daughter Lisa, however, had other feelings about him and said I suspected he was guilty, but I wanted to believe he didn't do it. It's interesting that it seems like some guys are like, he was such a good guy.

Like, there are women that said it. Yeah, because there's Lisa and Connie, the two bartenders who were like, she was great, right? But it is interesting that the daughter was like, Yeah, I saw another side of him. Yeah, well, she's just like, I suspect he probably did it, but she's also like, I hope he didn't, yeah.

Because like that sucks right now. After his arrest and the confessions, he agreed to lead police to Catherine Magaziner's grave. Like I said before, and although he was cooperating with the locations, like he was like, Yes, I will lead you to these bodies, he was no help with identifying these women.

In his first confession, he admitted to strangling a sex worker to death and burying her body near the trailer. That's what he said. But when they asked her name, he said, Haven't got a clue, and that was Catherine. That's so sad.

Yeah.

And maybe, I mean, because of, like, his constant drug use, maybe he didn't. No, I think he just didn't care. You think that's what it was? Yeah, I don't think this can be like, I don't even think it's like, cloudy, like, whatever.

I think he literally just didn't care, like, didn't even learn her name. Yeah, because the way he's like, I haven't got a clue. Why would I give a shit about that like it was said like that?

Right, like, very like, why would I have her name? Like, just brushed it off, like, move on, he's just gross.

Yeah, now, because this is such a strange case and was such a strange case at the time.

Because he's not giving them anything. And unfortunately, he has picked a couple of victims that didn't have direct ties with their families at the moment. So it was hard to identify, right? So, Baltimore investigators called in the assistance of William Rodriguez, who was one of a very small number of board-certified forensic anthropologists in the county or in the country. It's such a cool job.

It really is, and Rodriguez, such an important job, too. Rodriguez had also worked as a medical examiner for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and had worked on some really high-profile cases where he assisted in identifying like victims of mass casualty cases, one of these was the 1994 crash of U.S. Air flight 427 that went down near Pittsburgh. Those kind of things where mass casualty events happen like that and people have to be identified, I can't imagine the daunting task of that.

Yeah, and he also worked on the case of a crash of two Black Hawk helicopters during the Iraq war in 1994. Wow, so. He was an expert, and he was also an expert on decomposition and the effects of the natural environment on decomposing human remains like the body farm.

This was a perfect case for him to be put on. Because Catherine's remains had been buried and reburied in the woods for two years because he had exhumed her. Yeah, so this put the investigators at a disadvantage when it came to determining what damage was done by methaney and what damage was done by the environment and natural causes. Days after the remains were exhumed, Rodriguez was able to identify Catherine through dental records matched to whatever remaining teeth were in the lower mandible that he left. He's a rock star.

Seriously, and thank goodness that that lower mandible had teeth left on it and that it was left there because it helped identify her now. Joe Methaney's confessions.

With very detailed accounts of the violent sexual assault and murders that he committed on these women. But as they investigated some more of the claims, they started to wonder how much of this is truth and how much of this is exaggerated. Right? They were able to say he is violent, he's a violent monster.

Clearly, he's a violent sexual offender, he's a violent murderer. But then there were other things like this is where it's going to get kind of wild.

At one point, he told investigators that he had partially cannibalized some of the victims and had even served some of these victims. Remains. To patrons of a food stand that he had, mm-hmm, he said. Quote I cut the meat up and put it in some tupperware bowls, then put it in the freezer. I opened up a little open pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches.

They were very good, the human body taste was very similar to pork. If you mix it together, no one can tell the difference. Jesus Christ.

Of course, everyone seized on to this part in the press, because who wouldn't? yup, why wouldn't that shock? Literally everyone? yup.

But it should be noted here that there is no evidence of him having a sandwich stand of any kind. Yeah, maybe he did, yeah, because he wouldn't go through the process of getting a permit and everything, but I could find nothing.

That said, nobody who said they went to that stand, nobody who saw that stand, no business having to do with that stand. Nothing who knows, right, he absolutely could have.

And he sounds capable of it. But I think this is one of those things that he said to shock people. Because all of the victims that were found were intact, aside from the mandible being left right. That's what it seems like. So I don't. He could be trying to say these are the other victims that you can't find the bodies of.

And then you would also think that he was living at least in that trailer at the time, they would find evidence of that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but I think it's him lying because the other thing is, he didn't other than that trailer. It doesn't sound like he had a set up home.

So where was he really doing? exactly where would he have been able to do that? So I think it's just him lying. what a fucked up thing to lie about.

A really fucked up lie. And I think he said he would have kept going until Rita Kemper got away, like he would have kept going after her. And he said, and this is like, really gross, he said. Everything was going pretty good until I ran out of my special meat, so I lured another bitch up to my trailer.

I got her in there and started to rip her clothes off and knocking the hell out of her. She was screaming, but there was no one around to hear her except me, and I just kept on laughing at her. And he's talking about Rita Kemper, and she said he was screaming in her face. Scream all you want.

Oh my God, so that is true. That's like a nightmare now. This is how he described her getting away, by the way.

And that was my mistake. She ran out the door before I could get to her. There was an eight-foot chain link fence with barbed wire on top of it. Around the front of the company, there was a stack of wooden pallets next to the fence, about 10 feet high.

That bitch scaled those pallets like a monkey and jumped the fence and ran down to the main road. Where some guy in a pickup truck picked her up and took her to a nearby gas station, where they called the cops, Holy shit, that's his, she scaled a 10-foot pallet, yeah.

Good for her.

Cops were on the way, but I didn't run. I gathered her up her clothing, grabbed the keys to the gate and went out and opened it. Soon as I step out the gate, a cop car pulled up. And the cop jumped out and pulled his gun on me and told me to get on the ground. And that's where it all came to an end, but that's not how that happened.

Right, I was like, Wait, I think I missed that part exactly. That's not how it happened, but that was part of his confession. It's also like, Hey, the cops, um, they can talk to each other and check each other's call logs.

And he supposedly ended his confession with this very crass ending. He said, Well, that's my story. Horrible but true. So the next time you're riding down the road and you happen to see an open pit beef stand that you've never seen before. Make sure you think about this story before you take a bite of that sandwich. Sometimes you never know who you may be eating.

Ha ha, Jesus, yep, now. Within days of his arrest, his defense attorney, Margaret Mead, told reporters, I don't know if what the state is calling a confession is really a confession, which makes sense for a defense attorney to say. But also like, Yeah, probably not. And she said that Matheny was depressed, confused and under a lot of medication when he made that confession.

And as far as she knew, any crimes committed were done. Quote Under the influence of heroin, cocaine or alcohol. Doesn't mean he didn't murder people and sexually assault them. You still can't murder people like that doesn't fix that, it's always against the law.

What's funny about this is, she said that then in relation, so she said that in relation to the confessions about the murders of Catherine, Tony and Kimberly, she said. I have no reason not to believe him. That's what she told the later reporters. So she said, the confession is bullshit, but I have no reason to not believe it. I don't know if the state, what the state is calling a confession is really a confession. And then she said, he's depressed, confused, under a lot of medication.

We can't really believe him, don't listen to what he says, but I don't have any reason.

I love him and then she said, I've always found him to be forthright and honest. You just fucked yourself, ma'am like, what like you?

Literally what I feel like, the defenses that we're talking about lately. Like some of them. I'm just like, you wrote that down, like, Yeah, like, what? Then? I'm like, what's that meant to just confuse people?

Maybe it's just like a tactic to confuse people, but I'm like, I don't know if you should confuse people like. That's just going to have a mistrial that's not going to win your case. But she also insisted that Methany insisted he adamantly denies that Joseph Stein had any knowledge or participated in any of these crimes. Okay?

So he's saying like he had nothing to do with it. That's also his bro so well, and he. He constantly allowed him to work there, allowed him to stay there, so of course he's going to. I don't know if it doesn't sound like there's any evidence to connect Joseph Stein to any of these crimes, so I'll say that.

It sounds like he was legally cleared, yeah.

So, just to clarify all the claims that he started making in his confession. Investigators were pretty confident, at least about his confessions to the murders of, Uh, Catherine, Kimberly and Tony Lynn. So, on January 30th, Joe Methany was indicted for the three killings, and a trial date was set for March of For in March of 1997. But by the time the arrangement came in March, the detectives have been unable to find any evidence conclusively linking him to the murder of Tony, Lynn and Gracia. So they had forced the district attorney, Patricia Jessame, to drop the charges and the third murder because they didn't have sufficient evidence. Even though he confessed to it, and he that was, he did not lead them to that body.

No, he did not. Oh, okay, okay, yeah, now. Despite confessing to the killings, he did plead not guilty to the murders of Catherine and Kimberly. And a trial date for that was set for July 8th, 1997..

We're only going to be able to get them on the two. That's sad. So, in a press conference following that arraignment, Jessame, the district attorney, indicated that she intended to seek the death penalty. This would be the first time it was invoked in Maryland since 1993. Wow.

According to Margaret Mead, the UH, the defense attorney, she said the district attorney's office had originally offered a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in exchange for a plea of guilty. But Margaret Mead said that was not a reasonable plea guilty. Yeah, she, she was not going to allow him to plead guilty.

Okay, like, Okay? She's like, Yeah, let's just go up against the death penalty, let's try that, okay.

So July 8th was not his trial because his attorney petitioned for a change of venue, they said. Quote I think with the facts of this case, it would be better off if this were in another jurisdiction. But don't worry, because while he was awaiting that trial, he went on trial for the kidnapping and assault of Rita Kemper in November of 1997. The prosecution for this case went about it by showing the jury that Methany was a violent, unpredictable predator. Who lost it when Rita Kemper refused his very aggressive advances? And they claimed he was had every intent on killing her, and they were 100 right in my opinion.

Abso-fucking-lutely. But his defense just said, and I quote. Prosecutors were taking a simple dispute between Methany and Kemper and having it blown up to include attempted murder, kidnapping and attempted rape. I'm sorry, but if a simple, motherfucking dispute ends in me scaling a 10 foot, uh, pallet and then hopping over a barbed wire fence. Also, nothing simple about that. He later confesses to it. He didn't confess to it at this point, but he confessed to it later. Like late, like he definitely did this.

He definitely did. It's exactly how Rita Kemper said it happened, it's how she said it happened. And up until the point where he says the cops showed up, yeah.

It's exactly how he said it, their stories kind of match up.

On November 17th, after a very short deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the attempted murder of Kemper. But found him guilty of the assault, kidnapping and assault charges. And he did get 50 years in prison for this, this is before he even goes on trial for murder. So he's already in there, he's already in there for 50 years.

Holy shit. I'm very interested. As to why they didn't find him guilty on the attempted murder. I think maybe they just couldn't get I. Attempted murder. I feel like, is a tough one, It's a hard one to prove, yeah.

Um, this may have led to how they found Methany on Sunday, March 22nd, in his jail cell. This sentence. Prison guards found him unconscious and bleeding heavily from a wound to his neck. He was transported to the University of Maryland Medical Center for treatment and he lived. I saw that.

But after multiple delays, he finally did go on trial for the uh, kimberly spicer murder on April 23rd, 1997 in a bench trial in the Baltimore Circuit Court. Also like, way to make yourself look guilty. Yeah, like we already know you are, yeah.

Exactly, the prosecution's case was pretty much the same kind of thing. Methany was a violent predator who, when refused by any women, just took what he wanted aggressively, however he could. We see that, and they used the confession as some of the most damning evidence against him.

And it was played in full for the court. That must have been horrible to hear. Yeah, on the tape, he he can be heard saying I killed her. I'm a very sick person.

I need help, okay, yeah. And after that, prosecutors called Detective Homer Pennington to the stand. And he testified that Methany was alert and cooperative at the time of the interview and gave interviewers every reason to believe he was being truthful about the murders of Catherine and Kimberly, Yeah.

Now, after the kidnapping and attempted rape and murder trial of Rita Kemper, his defense team probably knew this wasn't going to go their way. Probs, so they went about it by just kind of mitigating any further and previous damages that they could. And um. Meade told the court that there were quote mitigating factors in Methany's history, like his drug addiction and being raised in a supposedly abusive household. And this led him down a path. You know of addiction and violence, and the hard relationships with women, basically going on that whole train.

It's like she got. Plenty of people grow up in horrible, horrible households, plenty of people struggle with addiction and don't murder people. Exactly. After three weeks of the trial, Judge Clifton Gordy found Methany guilty of the first degree murder of Kimberly Spicer. Um, because he, he, uh, forewent a jury trial, ah.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole bye. And although the district attorney's office did want that death penalty. Judge Gordy said that they quote, had failed to establish that Methany robbed Spicer or sexually assaulted her while she was alive. Either of these things would have made him eligible for the death penalty. What a wild world we live in.

Yeah, it's wild to me that, like, murder doesn't constitute the death penalty alone. You have to be sexually assaulted while you were still alive. That's why the death penalty is a wild thing. It is weird, it's a wild thing.

I didn't realize that was part of it. It's it's a weird, at least in Maryland, I guess, weird scenario, yeah.

Now that the Kimberly Spicer trial was done and he had been found guilty and got life, the trial for Catherine Magaziner was upon them. And the death penalty was again going to be sought for this one. So, on September 25th, Joe Methany actually chose to rescind his not guilty plea and entered a guilty plea to the murder of Catherine. This time, he opted for a jury for the sentencing phase, which is interesting. Oh, he's really thrown everybody around, yeah.

During the sentencing hearing, the prosecution said that Joe Methany had committed a capital offense, which constitute constituted capital punishment. He said he murdered Catherine, stole her clothing and purse, and had later buried, had buried it on the Stein Lot, and they provided evidence. They played his initial confession, where he not only admitted to murdering Catherine, but also said he took her belongings and later desecrated her body. All which was done for quote, a sense of power, and because he got a rush out of it, and he did say this himself during his confession, he said. His murder rampages started as revenge, he said, but ended up as quote. A passion for the taste and overwhelming sense of power that one gets from taking another's life.

Wow, after, Yeah. After four days of testimony, the jury deliberated for just two hours and then sentenced Joe Methany to death, along with a concurrent sentence of 10 years for the robbery. Which if they were going by the requirements laid out to them by Judge Gordy, I guess right. With this sentencing, standing before the judge at sentencing, he told the jury. Quote The words I'm sorry will never come out, for they would be a lie. I'm more than willing to give up my life for what I've done, to have God judge me and send me to hell for what I've done.

So he literally said, You will never hear me say I'm sorry, because that would just be a lie. I'm not sorry, Wow. In a press conference after the hearing, his defense team told reporters that his statement to the jury quote belies his feelings of guilt and self-hatred. But he got what he wanted.

Okay, good try, good try with that one good lie. So in 2000, Joe Methany's death sentence came under mandatory review by the Court of Appeals.

That Constitution thing. And although the justices agreed with the conviction, they said the prosecution had failed to present sufficient evidence to support the claim of robbery as an aggravating circumstance deserving a death sentence. That's also happening a lot lately in our cases. Yeah, it is, it's a factor, but it's not an aggravating factor.

It's true that is, that's funny now. The issue wasn't whether he had killed and robbed Catherine, like the justices were like, Yes, we agree with all that.

It was if he robbed her, but whether he had murdered the woman in the commission of a robbery, which would make.

And they reviewed the case, and the court determined that he had taken magazine or his belongings after killing her. But it was done primarily to get rid of evidence and to take what little cash she had as an afterthought. It wasn't the primary thing, or like, we were just saying, an aggravating circumstance now. In the final report, Justice James Smith said Methany was charged with robbery only because the body and the clothing were found in different locations. Another person who had killed their victim but buried the victim in her clothes would not qualify for the death penalty.

So, as a result, all his convictions were upheld, but the death sentence was vacated and this case was sent back to the lower court for re-sentencing. Which he did end up getting sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, so he was quickly transported to Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland. He later, during more confessions, would claim he had a six-year-old son with a girlfriend. And one day, while he was at work as a truck driver, she took him and he never found them.

And he later said This girlfriend ran off with another man, took their six-year-old son with them. Eventually, the six-year-old son ended up in social service custody because of neglect and abuse. And he went off to find them and kill them. Like the man and his girlfriend and anyone who got in his way. So this was his way of being like, this is why I did this revenge. And in his confession, he said he killed three men and four women.

On his way to this revenge, he said Two men I chopped up with an ax under a bridge in South Baltimore. This is because, he said they were two men who did drugs with his old lady and they wouldn't give him any information about her. So he killed them, he said. Quote I was found not guilty for them because they couldn't prove I did it.

He then said Under that same bridge, I killed two women and one man who was fishing and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I weighed down their bodies and put them in the river. I showed the police where I put them about three years later, but they couldn't find them, so they couldn't charge me for them. He claimed he was. It was a very busy night for him that night. Five murders in seven hours, exactly.

Ash just did a face like, No, I was like, I don't think so. I found no record of this man ever having a child, by the way, yeah.

It sounds like he's just trying to be like, I am such a doting father and that's why this all happened. He did not have a child. Yeah, Joe Matheny does not have a child, not one he knew about.

That's for sure now. On the afternoon of Sunday, August 5th, 2017, guards at the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland discovered Joe Matheny unresponsive in his cell around 3 p...m. He was pronounced dead a short time later, and an investigation was launched to determine the cause and circumstances of his death. But to this day, there appears to be no cause of death that has been released to the public, huh?

No one knows what happened there, nobody knows. No, we do not interesting. So that is the wild and horrifying and disgusting and confusing story of Joe Matheny.

That was a particularly brutal one. Yeah, really sad. It's just upsetting, and it's so sad that one of the victim's mothers was like, she always came back.

That's the thing like she did leave when we would have an argument, but always that's so sad. Yeah, because she probably was just waiting for her daughter to come back, and then she finds out what exactly what happened to her.

It's like, Oh my god, yeah, so wow, that was a really rough.

It's just a case that makes you feel really gross afterwards. Yeah, it's just bizarre. And the fact whenever these people go after people who they deem to be unworthy of being missed, yeah.

You know, that's when it really is like, ugh, it's such an unsettling case, too. Because as much as he is a liar, I do wonder, Well, you just don't know that's the thing that's.

The problem is, you don't know the bounds of his lies, and especially where he. It's like, Albert Fish. Yeah, well, and especially where he lived in that community for so long.

And like, Yeah, you know, like, there's truths in there.

He definitely is exaggerating a lot of it. I don't believe there's any human meat burgers anywhere. No, I don't think so either, you know, I don't think that's a thing that's so gross.

And just fucked up. I think it was him trying to be like, extra gross, well, and I think that, and him to further terrify people. Exactly because he was like, every time you go to a fucking meat counter, like, think of me.

It's like his little way of being, like, I'm the boogeyman, you know? Like, No, I don't even believe in hell, but I hope he's there. I hope you're somewhere. Terrible, yeah.

Purgatory or something? Yeah, yeah, or somewhere really clean, because I think that would stress you out more.

Yeah, you know, just in like a weird, like white cubicle. Yeah, just that's it.

With nothing in it, with nothing in it, just drive you crazy. Ah, yeah.

Wow, well, terrible story. That was interesting. I commend you for being able to put that together.

Thank you, you're welcome with the help of Dave. oh and Dave. I commend Dave always.

That's my best friend, that's my best friend, that's my best friend. He's a real bad bitch he is.

It's true, Dave's like the baddest bitch, he is the baddest bitch, You hear that, Dave? Well, guys.

You guys are also the baddest bitches, and we love you. We hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird.

If I have to tell you not to keep it this weird, you should get your priorities in check. Baby, don't be a duck.

What?