Episode 579: The Society Gang Killing

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?

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.

It's morbid, morbid in the morning, kinda heyo, it's like the late morning, yeah.

Almost afternoon, Yeah, how are you? What's up? I'm good.

Yeah, it's Ghost movie week, ooh, so I'm excited, that's pretty exciting.

Are you guys going to see it? who's going to see the ghost movie? What is it called right here right now? Oh yes.

I knew that, hell yeah, because we've been singing in the pod lab right here right now, I know.

Not even the ghost version. No, which is funny. yeah, which is funny.

But yeah, I'm very excited, I'm very. I want to know what happens to Papa. I'm excited for you. This is like, I haven't seen you this into a band since Linkin Park, yeah.

It's true, I feel like your love for Linkin Park is, yeah, it's translated into this very much.

I used to love Linkin Park. Yeah, Chester was my guy. Yeah, because I remember when you got the you got like some like movie set for Christmas.

Yeah, it's like the behind the scenes of like, their tour, yeah. And this kind of reminds like this new right here right now coming out reminds me of that, yeah.

You're right, it is a little bit, it's like the updated version. Yeah, I'm excited.

I'm excited for you, and John's excited, because, remember, in case you weren't here for the beginning of the lore, John's the one that introduced me to Ghost. He found them out of Nowhere a couple of years ago on Like a Jimmy Fallon show.

No, Jimmy Kimmel, it was. It's a I like, actually. It's like a sports podcast, he listens to one of the guys, it's a huge sports fan or ghost fan. He's a sports fan, too.

Yeah, but he's a ghost fan and he talks about them. He, like, talked about them a lot. And John was like, Oh, I'm just going to check these guys out. So then he just started listening and he was like, Holy shit.

Wait was the first performance that you saw from like a Jimmy show? Yeah, he showed. The first like live performance he showed me was the Um. Oh my god, what's his name? Jimmy Kimmel?

Jimmy Kimmel That's who we're talking about. Yeah, okay. I was like, Am I insane?

That's where he found them though. Got it, got it, got it. He just showed me that performance.

Cause he was like, Hey, look at this. And they were in like, full like, call me little sunshine garb. Yeah. So I was like, this is as soon as the camera panned over to them, and I was like, I'm sorry, what?

I was like, This is the greatest thing I've ever seen, tell me everything, and he was like, I knew you would love this. Within a week, she was hooked, I mean, within that moment, she was hooked, but within that week, I think you had listened to, like every album.

Every single album, and John and I sat there for like hours and listened to albums over and over again, all the albums. In fact, I think when Tobias was on, I mentioned that. And he kind of, like, roasted me for a second. And was like, considering the albums only like this many minutes, that's shocking. And I was like, I listened to all of them.

Okay, okay, every single one. I was like, Okay, I'm just trying to tell you, I'm a fan.

I'm a fan-a-lo, I'm a fan-a-lo, I'm a faust, I like that you're a fabian.

That's good. Oh no, it gets more fun as it goes, but yeah, I'm very excited about it. I hope everybody else is really excited about it.

Yay, and we can talk about it afterwards, so there's going to be a lot to talk about, it sounds like.

Gather around everyone, like all the theories that people have come up with. And now I know it's been so fun to see. Like, like, I've got into like the Ghost subreddit, and they have such cool theories. Oh, nice.

And like, people are really like, it's very interesting to read in there what people think is going to happen. You can find cool shit on there sometimes. Oh yeah, for sure, that's the thing.

I was like, Oh, this is, I love this, this is the complete opposite, like this is the antithesis of ghost. I would say I've been really into Survivor lately.

So there's a lot of survivor subreddits, too. Oh, there you go, that I've gone into, yeah, and just like, learned about different people.

Where people can be really like, fascinating and they have good theories. Yeah, and you're like, huh, all right?

I like that they talk about the gameplay, strategies and that kind of thing. Yeah, I love that. I could never, ever go on, survivor.

No, I would die within a minute. No, no, no part of me has enough hubris to say that I would survive, even I wouldn't survive. The boat ride out to the island.

I could do the boat ride and or the helicopter ride, but as soon as I had to start exerting myself, No. And then, like the they all, obviously like the first night. You just like, figure out what you can do for a like, tent kind of thing, like you don't get a tent.

No, so they make a shelter, but they all wake up covered in like the gnarliest bug bites you have ever seen in your life. No, it's wild.

Nothing about it is something I not. One part of me believes. I could do it and couldn't even make the trip out. I couldn't not like they'll eat like one portion of rice per day, I'm too hungry, eh?

I'm a baby, I need four hour feedings, babe, I'm too hungry, I need snacks, I need my coffee.

My little drinky drink, I need my snacky, I need my treat, I need my ollipop, yeah.

I get real, um, I turn into a big cunt when I'm hungry. Who doesn't you know? who doesn't I get hangry?

And I'm not great at group projects. No, I'm terrible because, and that's the other thing. I end up I'm like a control freak, so I end up taking every. I'm like, I'll just do it because I can do it better and then I would end up dying.

I just, it's not even me being like, I need to do it, I just like working independently. Hey, you know, some people are like that, yeah, and that's okay.

Yeah, yeah. So that's how we feel about Ghost and why we wouldn't be good contestants on Survivor. You know, just a little little quick little intro of what's going on, just random.

We don't do these, these longer ones all the time anymore. No, but people like them, they do. I think we got shamed out of them for a little while, yeah.

But now we, we realized that, like, you know, it's okay every once in a while. Yeah, just go for it. But anyway, if you have something to say, you know what, that's the thing.

I don't have anything. We had some stuff to say I had to tell you about Survivor and Ghost is happening in a couple of days, so you know, it's timely.

Big, exciting, exciting things. Okay, but yeah, I have a I have an interesting case today. I hadn't heard of this one. And then I was like, doing some research for, like, some old timey-er cases, because we're just having a lot of fun with those lately. Oh, yeah.

They are, they're a lot, they're a lot more, um, they. They feel better to research, they feel better to research. They also like the some of the details that, like, you'll end up finding, yeah.

And then you can kind of go down a rabbit hole, a little rabbit hole, something random, that's the thing. This one, in and of itself, is just a wily story from start to finish.

So it captivated me, and I hope it captivates you. So it's, um, the society gang killing is how it's known. Yeah, I don't, you know. It sounds familiar, but I think I think it's just like, that's that is a cool like. This is not a cool thing like the case.

No, but the title, the name sounds like a movie, you know, like it's very cinematic, that title, yeah, so I think I maybe have like thought.

I heard it before, but I actually haven't. They probably, honestly, this could be a movie like it's not, but it could be so. It starts with Phil Kenimer, and he was born in. I think it's Medill, Oklahoma. You can yell at me if it's not.

Medill He was born on July 26th, 1915. He was the youngest child of Franklin and Lily Kenimer. It was clear from a very early age that Phil was really, really like, incredibly smart, he loved to read.

And most of the time, he would choose books that were very advanced for a child his age, so that was good. But he also had a tendency to behave in really, uh, basically, he would, he would behave in ways that people would later describe as peculiar. Um, seems like a nice way to describe some things.

It is when he was five years old and this is like a trigger warning, and this is pretty intense. He wrapped a curtain cord around his neck and jumped out of a second story window of the family home. Like, seemingly in an attempt to end his life at five years old. Oh my. Fortunately, the curtain ended up tearing from the window during the fall. So, and he actually also landed in a very large pile of sand, so he wasn't hurt.

But it was obviously like, insanely frightening for his parents, Franklin and Lily. And it's just like, unfortunately, this is what, like, 1920. So you're not necessarily bringing him to a psychologist. Or, you know, kind of looking further into why this happened. And he was five, five years old. I feel like at five, it's like, Do you even have a conception of that?

Yeah, I don't know, like, Wow, maybe that's very upsetting, but it was, yeah.

And in the years that followed that incident, Phil kept displaying strange behavior that confused a lot of the adults around him. Like I said, he was said to be a very bright child, like he was really advanced at reading, but his teacher said that he struggled to focus in school. He was usually very defiant, and one of the things that they most commonly said about him was that he rarely finished anything he started.

He would start up any kind of project, but he would never follow it through. I feel like so many people are like that, there's a lot of people like that and there's like, I think every and this might not be him. But it's like, I feel like everybody goes through little periods, that they are like that a little bit. If things are overwhelming and like, stuff's going on, I'm not saying that's what happens with him.

And you're kind of trying to figure out, like, what it is you like to do or want to do. And so you just start a bunch of shit, you're like, I'm going to organize my entire, you know, upstairs. Yeah, and then you get like a quarter of the way in and you're like, that was a good try.

That's a D right there. I'm just like, I'm not finishing this, yeah. But as an Oklahoma State Supreme Court justice, Phil's father, Franklin had a pristine reputation to maintain, so he was constantly frustrated by his youngest son's behavior.

Like, he was like, you really need to get yourself in check because we're kind of a prominent family, we're kind of a big deal. Yeah, I don't know if anybody told you, but now. When the family ended up moving to Tulsa in 1930, Franklin was really hoping that the change of environment and the structure of an urban life would help Phil gain some self-discipline.

But the move did literally nothing to improve his behavior. No, it usually doesn't. I feel so. Now, at a complete loss, Phil's parents decided to send him to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. It's a college prep school, and it was known for its very intense discipline and aliens.

Yes, yes, exactly. It's Roswell, No. This was just a few months into their move, so obviously things were pretty bad at that point.

Yeah, like they were like, Oh, you know, maybe the change of scenery will help. I think things like, really popped off, and they were like, we can't do this anymore. We need help, we need someone to intervene.

Unfortunately, though, it seemed that even the Military Academy couldn't tame Phil's defiant spirit. Just three months after his arrival at the school, Franklin, the father got a call in the morning informing him that his son had run away during the Christmas break. Oh shit, yeah. Obviously. It's not unheard of for kids to run away from boarding schools, especially ones that have a reputation for being strict disciplinary schools.

But Franklin treated the incident with kind of a surprising amount of alarm and seriousness for that time. Immediately after he got the call, Franklin sent his court clerk to New Mexico to locate Phil. And he alerted the federal postal authorities to be on the lookout for Phil. Oh wow. And it ended up being one of those postal authorities that contact or that located Phil after 10 days. And he was able to find him. Because Phil sent a letter from Galveston, more than 700 miles away from Roswell, asking a friend to send him clothes and money.

So he, he like, really got as far away as.

Yeah, like, that's kind of impressive that is, but....

Shows he has at least a little bit of something you're like, he definitely, like, got it together to do that, exactly. But despite his constant desire to get away from the school, Phil was eventually convinced to return. And the following year, when he was 17, he found no. Uh, he found another reason to stick around.

15-year-old Virginia Wilcox As the daughter of millionaire oil magnate Homer Wilcox, Virginia had lived her entire life in high society. Phil himself was captivated by her beauty. But his own strict upbringing and his father's expectations made him feel a closer bond to Virginia. Who kind of grew up with the same thing. And he decided he was in love, in love.

In love, so they went out a few times to dinner in the movies. But Virginia decided pretty quickly that Phil wasn't really her type, and she was like, Hey, like, I've had fun, but I think we'd make better friends. Yeah, cool.

We love a straightforward queen. Yeah, she let him know. yeah, let him know. Not easy.

But completely heartbroken, Phil struggled to accept Virginia's decision and continued to pursue her. Sending her gifts and flowers all the time and even asking her for a date two years in advance. Whoa, And she was like, I don't really know what part you didn't understand of. I'd rather be friends, but....

That's a lot, yeah. Now, most teenagers obviously would be, like, understandably, devastated by their first heartbreak. But Phil's reaction to the rejection went beyond the bounds of reason, his lawyer later told a jury. Never a boy had a date with Virginia Wilcox without Phil threatening to kill him if he didn't treat the young lady with every respect. Whoa.

Yeah, which like, I mean, at least he was doing that. Yeah, if you're being hyperbolic, that's great, but....

Yeah, like, I'll kill you if you don't respect her, and it's like, Okay, that's. I don't know that he was being hyperbolic, I was gonna say.

Even when he had been sent to a different school in Durant, Oklahoma, he kept sending letters, kept sending gifts nearly every day. At this point, yeah, that's too much. Phil, that's a lot. He was spending his entire allowance on these items that he sent to Virginia, and actually even borrowing more money from his friends when he would go above his allowance.

Wow, just all to send her gifts and that kind of thing. So eventually, he concocted a plan to take a train to visit Virginia, thinking he'd be able to convince her just to go out on one last date. And after that, his plan was to end his life and make it look like it was a hunting accident. Oh, jeez.

I know he's down bad, it is sad. The trip and the date never happened, but the plan alone clearly spoke to his obsession with Virginia. Yeah.

So in early 1932, Phil ended up joining his mom on a trip to San Angelo, Angelo, Texas.

I can't speak, thank you. And they stayed there for a few months. While Lily received some medical treatment, she was having some health problems. While there. Phil's mom enrolled him in 11th grade at the public school.

That's the thing it sounds like. He's lived like a thousand lives at this point, He's literally in 11th grade, he's a junior in high school.

Yeah, it seems like he's like a grown adult at this point, doesn't it? Not quite yet. But if she had hoped that the new environment was going to improve Phil's erratic and impulsive behavior, she was proven wrong.

Almost immediately, he started acting out. He was running away from home on the regular, sometimes he would get as far as Louisiana, one time he even got to Florida.

Another time, he got as far as New York City before being tracked down and returned to his parents. Damn yeah, he was just running away all the time. Finally, in 1934, just a little way into his senior year of high school, Phil decided to drop out, much to the displeasure of his parents.

To some, his personality was just flat out defiant, and it seemed like he was just being this way to be this way. But others who ended up studying his behavior later would describe him as an impulsive fantasist, like he was constantly in this fantasy world. He had these grandiose dreams and ambitions that he spent almost all of his time thinking about. But then, when those dreams didn't become reality fast enough, or they actually required a serious investment of time that he wasn't willing to give, if that's when he would give it up.

He'd abandon them, he'd move on to something new.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then 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 coverup?

If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a coverup 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 f***ing 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, yeah, well, yeah.

Oh, 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 ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

Now, kind of, as an example. After dropping out of school, he wanted to become a writer, and his parents were actually supportive of that, and they encouraged him to pursue it. But they were like, you also need to make some of your own money in the meantime because you just dropped out of school. We're not going to just support you blindly, you got to help us out here. So their insistence triggered a series of short-term jobs that Phil inevitably got bored with.

He quit just a few months later, including an advertising business he started with his friend that he hoped would lead him back to Virginia. When that didn't pan out after a couple of months, he was like, never mind, but wanting to be supportive of his son's ambitions. Franklin Kenimer went so far as to arrange for Phil to take a position at the Daily Oklahoman, a local newspaper, and even paid the salary out of his own pocket.

Just was like, give him a job. I'll literally pay his salary, but don't tell Phil, I'm paying his salary. I just want him to realize he needs a job. But that also fell apart after just a few weeks when Phil lost interest and quit the position. Phil, get it together, I know.

Now, Franklin and Lily might have had high expectations for their kids, but nobody could say that they didn't support them in their dreams. It's actually possible that Franklin was too supportive and maybe too permissive when it came to his son. Investing a ton of time and money in the hope that Phil would just eventually find his place in the world. When that job at the Daily Oklahoman fell apart, Franklin again used his connections to arrange another job for Phil. As a messenger boy at a law firm in New York. Hoping maybe that change of scenery would do him good. But unfortunately, after just a few weeks in New York, his parents found out that Phil started getting involved in criminal activities. Trying to quote, organize two rival gangs in Harlem to come together under his leadership, what the fuck?

He was like, what if we just unite and have one gang and I'm in charge? I'm the leader of everything. Like, What the fuck, Phil dude, your dad has paid your entire way, your whole life. What could you be in charge of?

Yeah, let's be real. So. Fearing for their son's safety, Franklin and Lily insisted that Phil leave New York, which he did agree to do when his father again used his connections to secure yet another job for Phil. All right, you gotta, you gotta cut the, uh, cut the cord here, cut the umbilical cord. I know this time, uh, this was at a law firm in California.

Not surprisingly, that job lasted only a couple weeks, until Phil got bored and left, and after that he went back to Tulsa. Oh man, yeah. So, for most of his life, the chaos that really just kind of swirled around Phil. Earned him a lot of the attention from adults around him, especially his dad, who kind of managed to keep him from suffering any consequences. Yeah, which, like, you get it, you're, that's your kid.

Yeah, like you'll do anything for your child, right? Or you should. But like I mentioned, Lily, the the mom there wasn't in great health, and eventually her illness was taking up a lot of Franklin's free time.

Oh, dear. And he didn't have the time or the energy to figure out Phil's life for him. Yeah, so he was like, I gotta focus on your mom, yeah.

Now, without a job or any real ambition, Phil became really depressed. He started drinking heavily. And he was spending a ton of his time with a small group of equally privileged. Yet hella delinquent friends, Hella delinquent, Hella Delinquent, that'd be a good band name.

Yeah, so for months, he bounced from one job to the other, spending his evenings at the High Hat Club, which was an exclusive social club for Tulsa's wealthy and elite young people. Wow, the high Hat club, the high hat club.

His life was full of activity, most of it was built pretty much around heavy drinking, but he remained unfulfilled. He occasionally chatted with girls at club functions, but he was still really obsessed with Virginia, was writing to her consistently at this point, like, Years later, dude, give it up.

Inviting her to club dances? No, thank you, sending her stuff all the time, and she was always declining his invitations. And being like, you don't need to keep sending me these gifts. Yeah, like, I told you a million plus times.

Nothing is going to happen here. So, crushed by the constant rejection, he still expressed his thoughts of ending his life or plans for running away to join the French foreign legion. But he never acted on any of those plans. In the spring of 1934, he took a job at the Freight's insurance company, where his friend and coworker Preston Cochran introduced him to. 23-year-old John Goral Jr. John was a dental student from Kansas City. He actually grew up as the son of a prominent local physician. So he knew what it was like to have or to come from a wealthy family with these high expectations. And they kind of bonded over that.

Just kind of like how he and Virginia originally bonded. But unlike Phil, John actually always followed through with the things he set out to do. That little difference, yeah, just a little bit. He graduated from elite prep schools, he completed programs at local universities. He did a lot of good things, but he also had a little bit of a wild streak, or a lot a bit of a wild streak.

A lot, a bit, yeah. Like Phil, John occasionally quote flirted with criminality. Partially as a means of earning money when he was in school, but also just for the sake of keeping things exciting. On September 12th, Phil got a call from John asking if he wanted to meet him and another friend, Ted Bath, for lunch at the Brown Derby Cafe in downtown Tulsa. And Phil was like, Yeah, totally.

So they all got together. And John explains that he figured the three of them would work well together and suggested that they brainstorm some kind of idea to make a little side cash. It didn't take long for Phil to realize that whatever business John had in mind, it was not of the legal persuasion. Hmm, shocked, yeah.

So Phil suggested a low stakes robbery of a local beer bar, which he assumed would have a large amount of money on hand after a Saturday night. But Ted shot the idea down, insisting that some kind of place like that would definitely have guards. Yeah, so it would be difficult, absolutely.

So they kept brainstorming a little bit more, and eventually, Phil and John came up with a new, deranged idea Oh, fun. They decided they would throw this big party and invite a bunch of young women from prominent local families and just supply them with free alcohol. And once one of the women was sufficiently drunk. They would lure her away to a private room and take nude or lurid pictures of her, and then use those pictures to blackmail her family. Into paying a large sum of money so as to avoid any scandal should those photos get leaked to the press, what the fuck?

You just, you sit there and you're like, how did three people come together and say, yeah, and just be like, Yeah, I'm interested in that. This is fine.

Yeah, I should say two, because one of them was like, I don't really know about that, but like, you all sat there and had that conversation. Well, that's what I'm like. One of you should have been like, This is fucked up, guys.

Like, no one in that room was like, This is real fucked up, like in that moment, exactly. So they threw out names of girls they knew, wealthy girls they knew, but none seemed right until Phil suggested one Virginia Wilcox stop in his mind. Phil would later say that his plan was to intervene during the scheme and save Virginia from the extortionist. Making him look like the hero in her eyes, and not he, thought that would be the way to win her over.

Or that she'd, at least, he's even more fucked up than I thought. Oh, he's super fucked up. He thought that would either win her over, or that she would owe him something, and the owe would be like to be with him. It's like, Phil, get it together, No?

Like, get it together. This is outrageous. That's all. Assuming that he. She never learns that he orchestrated the plan to begin with, like, Are you kidding? which, of course, she's going to find it out.

Yeah, of course, Phil didn't mention his ulterior motive to the others. But it was just as well because Ted decided, Thank goodness, there was like one moderately normal person sitting at the table. This wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to get involved in, good for Ted, I know.

He might not have been interested in the extortion scheme Ted, but John Grohl remained convinced that it would work. A few days later, he proposed a new plan to two other friends, one of whom worked for the Tulsa World newspaper. Rather than just trying to exploit the girl's parents, he added. On another step, he said, Why don't we kidnap a girl and hold her for ransom? Yeah.

With their connections at the newspaper, the kidnapping could get a lot of press coverage and increase the pressure to pay the ransom. But the other two people that he proposed it to wanted nothing to do with that plan. Yeah, because that's fucked up. And they were actually so put off by it that they went and told Phil, which immediately concerned him. Which, like, if you're that concerned, I don't understand why you didn't just go to the fucking police. Yeah, I'd be like, the fact that you even came up with that, you should be arrested.

Exactly. But from Phil's perspective, exploiting Virginia's father for money seemed like a relatively harmless scheme. Absolutely, exploiting somebody's parent for money by endangering their child is a total, very harmless, yeah.

Yeah, very casual, yeah. He's like, taking pictures, and you know, putting somebody in a horrible position is one thing, but kidnapping them, that's too far, yeah.

That's a little too far. Yeah, he figured that one thing like, that's fine. The gang would get some money, he would come out looking like a hero.

And, most importantly, nobody would get hurt. But he felt that John's new plan seemed far more serious and consequential, and like the kind of plan where somebody could get hurt. So now he was concerned for Virginia's safety, and in mid-October, he told her brother, Homer Jr. about John's new plan, but Homer didn't believe him.

Oh, because, I mean, I would look back and say, Homer, like, even if you don't believe this, maybe mention it to somebody. Well, that's the thing I get. Why you don't believe it. Because Phil has shown that he's a little unhinged here when it comes to your sister.

Yeah, and he barely knows Phil. I get that, but it's like, but you should at least tell someone and be like, I don't know if this is bullshit, yeah.

But somebody told me this and it's like, I can see. Like, you barely knowing somebody as an argument for why? Like, you wouldn't trust them and be like, Oh, maybe that's like foo-foo. But also you barely know them, so you don't know what they're capable of. So you could see it going both ways, yeah.

But because he barely knew Phil and had no reason to trust him, he was like, I feel like this is just another one of Phil's attempts to get Virginia's attention. So he ignored the rumor. No, you should say something not wanting to worry anybody. No, worry people, yeah.

That's that's what I say now. The next month after John went back to school in Missouri, Phil got a letter from him saying that they that John had made some connections in the city and he figured they could get some easy money. So he wanted Phil to meet him in Kansas City. Convinced John was talking about the kidnapping plan, Phil decided that he needed to go out to Missouri to find out what John was up to. So he told his parents that he and a friend were going to go on a camping trip for a few days. And then he packed a small bag and booked a flight to Kansas City.

So he arrived there on November 21st, 1934, and he checked into the Phillips hotel under the name Mr. Copeland from Chicago. Mr. Copeland is here. I'm Mr.

Copeland from Chicago just feels so like so detective movie. And then he set out to find John, who was drinking at a local cafe with a group of young men. Surprise, surprise, shocked.

John introduced Phil to the gang as Bob Wilson. Oh, excuse me, he's Mr. Copeland from Chicago, okay?

Actually, get your facts straight. And then they ended up the two of them stepping away to a corner of the room to discuss their plan. According to John's friends, who would later actually testify at Phil's trial, the meeting was very tense. Phil had wanted Virginia to see him as a hero, and in order to do that, he needed to be in control of this entire scheme. But John's plan was a threat not only to Virginia's safety, but to his entire goal.

According to his friends, the interaction between John and Phil actually left John a little bit shaken. On his way to the bathroom, John stopped at the table of his friend, Dick Oliver, and he said, Take a good look at this fella. If I'm killed, Bob Wilson's the one who did it. Damn, it's like, If you're killed, Phil is the one that did it.

Don't you want the person to know what this guy's real name is, not Bob Wilson, who doesn't exist? Like, I'm just not getting this phone. But a short time later, Phil and John excused themselves from the group again and went into a private room to keep discussing their plans. And Phil decided as long as he could stay in control and keep ahead of John, he could still keep everything on track to achieve his objective. Virginia's heart. But John threw another wrench in his plans when he introduced another conspirator, Everett Gartner.

Like Phil and John, Gartner came from an extremely wealthy family and he was kind of considered like a playboy. He spent most of his time flying one of his two airplanes and just pursuing women. I mean, yeah, Everett Gartner seems like he would do that, yeah.

You know, it's going to be West Egg, but I feel like, Yeah, it absolutely is. Yeah, exactly. But John roped Gartner into the plan because of his access to airplanes, which he hoped to use to transport Virginia.

So now they're kidnapping this woman and putting her in a fucking airplane, and then it actually gets crazier. This is a nightmare, it's insane. So the three spent some time discussing their plan, and Phil repeatedly tried to convince John that they didn't actually need to kidnap Virginia.

He said We could just send an extortion note. But John pointed out that it was pretty unlikely her father was going to pay anything if Virginia wasn't actually missing or in danger. Wow, which like solid point, but still deranged, really deranged.

So Phil kept trying to persuade them that it was a bad idea, that it was going off the rails, but for whatever reason, he eventually relented. And together, they wrote an extortion note where they demanded $20,000 in $5 and $10 bills. Today, that would be about $460,000. Holy shit, the note read. Failure to comply with our demands will result in certain and painful death for one or more of your children.

Jesus. After signing the note yours in expectation, John Doe Goral added a postscript that read Strict silence, even in your family, must be observed. I hate these two, they're horrible. What nasty little shit.

Now three, because Everett's in on it. Oh, I forgot about Everett, that fucking idiot flying the plane, yep. So after a few days in Missouri, Phil eventually caught a ride back to Tulsa with one of John Goral's friends, Floyd Huff.

There's so many names in this, the names, and they're so like old Timey, too. They're so old, like Floyd Huff.

That's.

Come on, that's not real, are you joking? But along the way, it became clear to Huff that Phil, who had been drinking heavily, was not happy with their extortion plan.

As Huff drove, Phil drunkenly rambled about Virginia, telling him this bizarre story about how he'd come to Kansas City. Actually with a plan to kill John. Which could very well have been true, actually. Because at one point, Phil pulled out a large hunting knife that he packed in his bag for protection. Just to prove to Floyd Huff how serious he was. Jeez and Huff said If you're so adamant about protecting Virginia and stopping John, why not turn everything over to the police and be done with it? Like, finally, somebody with half a fucking brain here, yeah, and he's literally sitting there.

Being like, this is stupid, well, it doesn't even sound real to him. He's like, This is like, this is stupid. I doubt this is real. And if it is, tell the fucking police.

Yeah, and it doesn't.

Don't sit here with your sob story about how you don't want to do this. When you're not doing anything to change it, to stop it in any way, Phil agreed Sure, that could have worked.

But in all reality, he had another, far more elaborate plan in mind. In truth, he probably still believed that he could have used the opportunity to save Virginia and win her back. Which is why he didn't do exactly what Floyd Huff recommended. The other problem was that had he reported the crime to the police, he probably would have been implicated as a co-conspirator. And he didn't want to face those consequences. Yeah, let's just go through with it, yeah.

And see what happens there, we'll figure it out after. So, instead, he explained that he had a plan to stop John by. This is real. Taking him up into an airplane where he would knock John unconscious and then parachute to safety. While the plane, with John behind the controls, plummeted to the ground below, you could just call someone, probably.

You don't have to do all this like what the good news is? Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this plan was foiled when they all got too drunk to rent an airplane. Wow, and then Phil had to come up with a new plan.

They're really killing it, yeah, he said. That was my original plan. FLOYd This is my new one. Wow.

Now I'm going to lure John to Tulsa, where he would drive him out to a remote area and pretend that the car had a flat tire. And then he said he was going to kill John and leave his body there, okay, Floyd Huff assumed that this, too, was drunken rambling and didn't really think anything more about it, so he didn't call the police. Everybody's really just like taking people, yeah.

That's why I said, half a brain, Yeah, yeah, as far as anybody could tell. The plan that John, Phil and Everett had laid out was for Phil to return home to Tulsa to mail that note to Homer Wilcox Sr. Then he and John would kidnap Virginia and wait for the money to arrive. But by the time Phil got to Tulsa, he couldn't bring himself to put the note in the mail. So instead, he showed the extortion letter to his friend Jack Sneddon, Preston Cochran and Sidney Bourne, hoping that the exposure would be enough to get John to call off the plan. And if that didn't work, he said, then he would bring the note to the police and put an end to the scheme for good.

It's like, I don't think you ever were planning on going to the police. You definitely were never planning on going to the police. You would have done it about 15 plans ago. Exactly so.

On the evening of November 28th, Phil placed several frantic calls to the home of John's parents, where John had arrived earlier that day. He was home for Thanksgiving break. Because, remember, these are all like teenagers or people in their early 20s, like fresh into college, or like, barely out of high school. Wow, now. So he kept calling John's house over and over again, said he needed to know whether John still intended on going through with everything. But each time he called, John was out, so he just kept leaving these frantic messages for John to call him back. That's probably fine.

And John's mom was like, What the fuck like, who is this kid? Yeah, that won't alarm anyone. No, not at all now. The following day, after eating Thanksgiving dinner with his family, Phil finally got a phone call from John, who presumably indicated, Yeah, the plan was still on.

After hanging up, Phil went to his father and asked if he knew of a kidnap and extortion plot. If it would be a good thing for him to capture the criminals. And Franklin, Kenimer later told the jury I told him it was a good thing to catch such people. Yeah, like, Duh, I, you weren't, like, a little concerned with how stupid of a question that was?

Like, I'd be like, what was the reason for that question? You know, the answer? I think he was probably used to Phil just saying like, crazy, fuck shit. So he was like, So he was like, Yeah, yeah, that would be a good idea. Yeah, you dodo.

Like, what he's like, can you not ruin Thanksgiving? So after dinner, the two went down to the drugstore, where Franklin bought some cigars and they returned home. The next time. Judge Kenimer saw his son was around 1am, and by then John Goral was dead.

John Goral John Goral.

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When it comes to the murder of John Goral, there was only one person who knew what really happened, and obviously that's the person who committed the crime. And his version of events should be viewed with at least some skepticism, according to Phil.

After returning home from the drugstore with his dad, he went back to the store by himself, where he ran into Eunice Ward and Hazel Williams. The two women had made plans for a double date with John and his friend Charles Bard. So they told the clerk to relay a message to John that he could pick them up for their date at the hospital where they worked. Phil was at the drugstore when John arrived, and the two made plans to get together later that night. To discuss the extortion scheme, the amount of times that they've had to discuss this plan and scheme, that's all they talk about.

It's wild, they're just going through the same plan. And it's crazy that nobody heard them talking about this. And I don't know, went to the police about it because they talked about it everywhere, every single day.

Every day, all day, every hour, all day, anytime.

One of them was like, Hey, have you heard that new picture show that's coming out down there? They were like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the extortion scheme, there was no changing the subject between these two. No, there just wasn't.

All day so later that evening, around 8.30 p...m. Phil met up with some friends at a local cafe and told them that he had made plans with John later that night, saying he planned to put an end to the kidnapping plot, so literally, anybody that knows Phil knows about this plot, yeah, but I don't even. They probably just think he's talking nonsense because he did talk a lot of nonsense.

Phil, though, even took out the large hunting knife out of his coat pocket again and showed it to them as proof that he was well protected. Should things come to violence, he said explicitly that he didn't have any plans to kill John, that this was simply a matter of protection. But it's worth noting, during his testimony at trial, Jack Sneddon I think it is one of the friends that Phil met at the cafe actually contradicted Phil's account. Yikes. He told a jury it was later in the evening, and Phil actually did say that he planned to kill John.

Oops, and showed them both the extortion note as evidence that Virginia was in danger, so oops. Like completely different stories there. Phil left his friends at the cafe that night, telling them, Well, it's either Goral's life or my life tonight.

You'll read about it in the Morning Paper. Wow, yeah. And then he's like, I had no intention of, no intention of killing this guy.

And then he walks out and he's like, One of us will die tonight. Bye, see ya deuces now needing to kill. Some time before his plans with meeting up with John Goral. Phil left the cafe and went to the Quaker Drug store, where he ran into Sidney Bourne, an acquaintance he knew from school.

We've mentioned him before and more recently from the high Hat club, they had always gotten along pretty well. So Sidney didn't ask any questions when Phil asked him for a ride to the location where he was supposed to meet John. A little after 11 p.m. Sidney's car pulled up to 19th and Utica Street, where Phil got out and walked to John's car.

According to Phil, he and John started driving. John became irate when he learned that Phil hadn't yet mailed that letter to Virginia's father, Homer. And he said he then told John there isn't going to be any extortion. Explaining that the scheme was coming to an end right then and there. Or he was going to be turning over that letter to the police. And if that didn't work, Phil said he had every intention of killing John right then and there.

He said at the mention of police, John pulled a.

22 caliber revolver from the driver's side door and pointed it at him, Phil. He later told a packed courtroom He had the pistol right in my face. He pulled the trigger, the gun failed to fire.

Testifying in his own defense, he told the jury I struggled with him and I thought we both had the pistol. The muzzle had changed directions, there was an explosion, so whether he had intended to kill him or not. The bullet hit John in the head and then Phil fired again, shooting John in the head for the second time, and the second shot killed him. Wow.

Now, with its driver no longer in control, the car swerved off the road and jumped the curb, coming to a stop on the median between Victor and Forest Boulevard. Stunned by what had happened, Phil wiped his prints off the gun, put it back in the holster and then dropped that on the passenger seat before fleeing the scene. Whoa? Then he walked the two miles back down to the downtown area and rather than going straight home, he stopped into the Sunset Cafe, which is a small bar on East 18th Street.

And inside, he found his friend, Tommy Thomas, Tommy Thomas, Tommy Thomas. And sat down next to him at the bar, where he wasted no time telling Thomas what he'd done. This just happened, Thomas laughed, not believing that his friend had actually killed anybody and just found somebody to give Phil a ride home.

There's two ways to look at this. Phil is like, Hey, I'm going to kill this guy and everybody's like, shut up Phil. And then it's like, Hey, I killed that guy and everybody's like, shut up, Phil.

Nobody thinks you did that. What you could look at is, like, is two ways, like one, you're a liar and no one believes you, or two. That, like no one believes you would kill someone. Which is like, you want that? Yeah, that's kind of a good thing.

But I think this one is more like, you lie all the time. I think it's very much that he's just constantly talking nonstop bullshit and that you kind of are one of those people who spins yarns. Yes, and we don't actually believe you've done any of this stuff.

And that's why I don't think anybody took the extortion plan seriously when he was telling them about it. Which, like, Still, you should take it with at least a couple more grains of salt. You'd rather overreact than underreact. Maybe somebody would have ended up in jail instead of dead on a street corner.

So 17-year-old Wesley Cunningham was on his way home from the movies that evening when he happened upon John Grohl's car stalled on the median, just a few minutes away from his house. Thinking that it might have been some local drunk passed out behind the wheel, Wesley pulled over to the side of the road to investigate. It was after midnight and actually snow had started to come down heavily. So the headlights of his car barely provided enough light to see what was happening in the car. But when he finally reached the driver's side door of John Grohl's Ford, Cunningham realized it was not somebody drunk and passed out at all, but a dead man.

He later told police I saw a man very pale, with blood running down his face. And after realizing what he had stumbled upon, he raced the short distance home to tell his stepdad about what he discovered. And it was then that they called the police to report the death after making an initial evaluation of the scene. Patrol officers first believed that the young man in the driver's seat had actually shot himself in the head while the car was still in motion. Which would explain the hole in his head and the fact that the car had jumped the curb. But that theory quickly fell apart when they discovered that the gun was not laying on the floor or in the driver's hand, but was in fact back in the holster and lying on the passenger seat.

Yeah, that was dumb, yeah, given that it would have been impossible for the driver to shoot himself in the head twice. Also, I was going to say, that was the first thing I thought, I was like, he did it twice.

Yeah, he has two holes in his head, but there would be no way that he could shoot himself in the head twice and then put the gun back in the holster. So the case quickly shifted from an assumed suicide to a presumed murder. It didn't take long to identify the driver as John Grohl, and a notification was made to his parents. And remember, I think this is like the day after, it's either the day after or the very day of Thanksgiving.

So they refuted the idea that their son would have committed suicide. His father said John was in the best of spirits today, and while they were certain that John hadn't died by suicide, everybody seemed to be at a loss. For who would want to murder him, or why. He'd only been home for the holiday break a little over a day, and, as far as anybody knew, he hadn't gotten into any altercations with anybody.

So at that point, his death really presented quite a mystery now. According to the coroner's office, he had been shot in the head twice with his own gun and the second bullet was the fatal wound. But he didn't really have any other insight outside of that. So, in the meantime, detectives started reconstructing John's evening, starting from the moment he left the house to pick up his date.

Detectives quickly deduced that John had been killed a little before midnight, about 45 minutes before his body was discovered. Which meant that whoever killed John had done so in a pretty short amount of time. Between when he dropped his date, Eunice off at the hospital, and when his body was discovered. Because, remember, he also went on a date that night? Moreover, when they searched his pockets, they discovered all he had on him was $1.50, which included the 50 cents that his friend Charlie loaned him earlier that evening. So they all knew that robbery wasn't likely to be the motive.

Now, as detectives worked their way through John's friends and acquaintances, trying to find any clue as to identify this killer, they eventually reached his friend and roommate back in Kansas City. Dick Oliver I don't know if you remember that name from earlier, possibly there's been a lot of names. When Oliver was told that John may have committed suicide because it was before, they kind of really knew the gist of everything. The young man immediately refuted the assertion and explained Just one week earlier, John had introduced him to an associate. He called Bob Wilson and told this guy if he was ever found murdered, Wilson was surely the killer.

Bob was the guy sitting at that table, why did he say, Bob, I know? The problem, of course, like we were just saying, is that Bob Wilson was not the killer's real name. So while investigators now had a potential suspect, they were no closer to finding.

Actually, Phil Kenimer. Dick Oliver also wasn't the only person who suspected that they knew who killed John Goral on the afternoon of December 1st, when Floyd Huff learned of his friend's murder, he also remembered a conversation with Goral's friend, Bob Wilson. Because that's how he knew him, too, during that long car ride back to Tulsa, just one week earlier. In a statement given to Kansas City police the day after John's murder, Huff told police. How about how Phil, who he knew as Bob Wilson, had told him of his plan to murder John? And now he was actually scared that the killer was going to come back and kill him too, Floyd Huff said. He gave me his name, address and telephone number.

I'm not going to leave here until that man is arrested. He's like, Fuck that now. When pressed for more information, he produced a piece of paper from his jacket pocket that read Phil Kenimer, Phil Tower, Building, 40219. Shut the fuck up. So it's like, Yeah, he told you his name was Bob Wilson, but then he gave you his fucking address and listed his name as Phil Kenimer.

And you didn't look at it? I don't know, man, wow. Floyd went on to tell Kansas City police everything he knew about the alleged kidnapping and extortion plot and Phil's rambling plan to stop John and save Virginia. And although Huff's story was outrageous and really would have been difficult to believe, it was also extremely detailed. In a way that made it more credible than kind of the usual fabrication people were used to hearing.

So investigators now knew their killer, Bob Wilson, was in fact Phil Kenimer, the teenage son of Don't forget, a federal court judge. Man. Poor FRanklin Yeah, I know now. While detectives in Tulsa and Kansas City were putting together the pieces of this mysterious death, on November 30th, Phil Kenimer was in Rogers County on a hunting trip with his father. Just acting like nothing had happened.

He just killed a boy, he literally just killed a guy. When they concluded their hunting, Phil asked his father to drive him to the train station so he could return to Tulsa. To quote, transact some business at a bank. That should have been Franklin's first red flag of, like, what business do you have? Yeah, he was probably just happy that his son wanted to fucking conduct some kind of business.

So he was like, Yeah, sure, and the next time he saw him a little after noon. The following day, Phil was in the company of a Flint Moss, a Tulsa criminal defense attorney. And together, why did they all just have like one initial, like one initial?

All defense attorneys, I know all of them. You're so right. A.

Flint Moss. And so he shows up home with this attorney, and Phil and this attorney. Sit there and tell Franklin exactly what happened a few days earlier. Oh my god, Franklin is blindsided, yeah.

Franklin Kenimer later told a jury I told Phil to go as quickly as possible and surrender to the sheriff. I had no doubt at all that Phil was irrational and irresponsible that night. So he's like, maybe we can get some kind of, you know, and he's like, go turn yourself in right now, yeah, so when a.

Moss and Kenimer Phil Kenimer arrived at the sheriff's office on the afternoon of December 1st. The lawyer presented his client for surrender, and the deputy at the front desk didn't take either man seriously and thought it was a joke until Moss made his official statement. He said Phil came to my office early today and told me he may have been compelled to kill Goral and in order to preserve his own life. So, the surrender and confession was immediately picked up by the police, or, excuse me, by the press, who clamored for more information. But when asked directly why Phil had killed Goral, Moss said I've said as much as I can regarding that. Why does everyone assume that Phil is just a silly, goofy guy?

He's just the silliest of gooses, I don't know, always talking about murder and kidnapping, but never actually doing the murder and kidnapping. Not only like, not just his friends, but even the sheriff's deputy, whose job it is to take confessions, like take a statement about a crime that has been committed.

And this man is standing in the fucking presence of a criminal defense attorney, and the sheriff is still like, You're the silliest of gooses. He's like, You guys came in here just for some lOLs. Yeah, he's like, Wow, it's not open mic night tonight, like, What the fuck, it's not open mic night tonight.

Nobody's believing, like, he's literally running around town, being like, I killed John Goral, and everyone's like, You're hilarious. Go away, That's so funny, Phil, let's get you a ride home.

And also it's like, Guys, John Goral is dead. Maybe someone should take it seriously a little bit. Maybe you would think, I think the sheriff's deputy was like, you got to be fucking kidding me because you're a federal courts kid, like, judge's kid, like, he's telling you what he did, bro.

Yeah, so Flint. Moss may have been determined to remain tight lipped around his client's actions, but Judge Kenimer didn't make the same effort. In a statement to the press immediately following his son's surrender, Judge Kenimer said I never dreamed such a thing could happen. I always instructed my boy never to touch the hair of a human unless it were a life and death struggle. Oh, that hurts my heart.

I know when he says, My boy, yeah. John Goral Sr. and his wife also prepared a statement for the press, where they acknowledged that their son had indeed been friendly with Phil Kenimer.

But as far as they knew, the two hadn't spoken in some time, Mrs Goral said. The first time I ever heard of Phil Kenimer was last summer. When, for about a week, he would come by the house for John, accompanied by another boy, the friendship was short lived, it just spurted up and then suddenly died down.

I never heard much of Phil again until Thanksgiving Day. Oh my. To the readers of the Tulsa newspapers, the Goral murder had all the makings of a perfect and perfectly irresistible scandal. Extortion, kidnapping a beautiful young woman, friends turned enemies, and, most importantly, a mysterious motive in the absence of an obvious motive. The public and the press wasted no time speculating about what could have led the son of one of Tulsa's most influential judges to commit murder.

They wondered if it was a thrill kill like the Leopold and Loeb murder a decade earlier, or if it was the act of Quote. A band of well-to-do hoodlums who planned robbery and extortion, a gang of well-to-do hoodlums, which they kind of were. I guess, yeah, it just wow.

Yeah, the language back then was wild. But the prosecution was less interested in speculating on the motive than they were determining whether Phil was mentally sound at the time. He committed the crime just days after his arrest, County attorney Holly Anderson reached out to Dr. Felix Adams, superintendent of the Eastern Oklahoma Hospital. For the insane is what it was called back then, is what it was called.

I was like, I'm not saying that to be clear, I didn't just add that little moniker onto it at the end. No, no, no. And he asked if the doctor would come to Tulsa as soon as possible to interview Phil and advise on his competency. From an outside perspective, a mental health evaluation seemed like the wisest course of action.

In his statements to police, particularly those who had made their way to the press, Phil's only explanation for the murder was that he had to do it in order to save his own life. So it kind of sounded like, why did you have to do it, especially when John was driving? Yeah, exactly, that takes away from that a little bit.

It does a little bit because you're in like, he's got to drive, yeah. So it's like the life or death situation gets a little. Of course, you can be in a life or death situation, and that's in that scenario, but it's a little harder to grasp. Yeah, it definitely is.

And the case also hinged heavily on testimony from people like Floyd Huff, whose story about Phil's plans for grandiose intervention in the kidnapping plot hardly sounded like the actions of a sane man. So I think he's sane, he's just out of touch. I think now, like 2024, like we've seen so many cases like this, but think about it, it's like 1930..

People are like, what the fuck? I think they're probably looking at it more. Like, that guy's crazy, you know what? I mean? like, he's talking crazy, you know, like, not like clinically clinical sanity.

Exactly, I think it's like, yeah, he can't be in his right mind. He's saying that kind of stuff. And it's like, No, he's not in his right mind, but like, that's his mind, that is his mind.

And it's a sane mind, in my opinion. I think the same thing, yeah. But the story became even more scandalous and mysterious a week or so later, on December 10th. When Sidney Bourne, the young man who drove Phil to meet John Goral on the night of the murder, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

What? According to the press, Bourne was, quote found in his motor car, shot through the head with an automatic pistol near the spot where Goral was killed. What? Despite the county attorney's emphatic statement that the death was an out-and-out suicide and quote couldn't be anything else? Bourne's death gave credence to unsubstantiated rumors that John Goral's death was part of a scheme perpetrated by a gang of wealthy young criminals. Only 20 or so minutes before Sidney Bourne was discovered in his car. He had been desperately trying to reach Phil Kenimer by phone, but the guards at the jail refused to let Phil take the call.

Oh, shit. Which some people felt was evidence of a larger conspiracy. So not wanting to waste the opportunity. Phil's defense attorney, A. Flint Moss, a.

Flint moss, a flint moss, I feel like I'm saying, like a singular flint moss. Yeah, like a flint moss.

Yeah. He made a statement to the press indicating that Sidney Bourne might have had some information that could have exonerated Phil Kenimer. Oh shit. Even Phil weighed in on the news, telling reporters, I don't believe and will never believe that Sidney Bourne committed suicide. Whoa.

I couldn't find anything to say, he didn't, but who's to say, who's to say? It does seem pretty likely that his death really was a suicide, but the reason for him wanting to end his life remains a mystery. Yeah, it seemed that since Phil's arrest, Sidney had actually been incredibly anxious and fearful.

Author Jason Morrow wrote Whatever the reason, Sidney Bourne's fear was certainly real to him, even if it was found later to be blown out of proportion. I think the theory is that he was motivated by a fear that he was going to be roped into the case and kind of face some serious consequences. He drove him there because he drove him there, exactly.

But ultimately, Sidney's death presented a problem for the prosecution. Because he was really the only buddy that could place Phil at the scene, being the one who drove him there, yeah.

So, with one witness dead and endless rumors swirling around the case. Holly Anderson knew he needed to get a hold of this case and get Phil to trial as soon as possible. Or there was going to be a greater risk of a tainted jury pool or possibly even an acquittal. So, given those circumstances, Anderson became very vocal about his desire to go to trial as quickly as possible. And he actually even expressed his desire to skip the grand jury altogether. Damn, he told reporters. I'm opposed to any grand jury at this time. It would do no good.

In this particular case, a grand jury could not obtain information from outside the county. For one thing, we have done that already and have the case under lock and key. So, indicating his intent to go to trial in mid-January, he said Sergeant Maddox and I are satisfied that we know the facts behind the killing of John Goral.

And while there was some question as to the legality of skipping the grand jury phase, he felt confident that they could move forward with the information that they possessed. Wow, now. One of the key aspects of the case that captivated the public was the perception that young people, particularly actually those from wealthy, elite families, were out of control. Out of control. Oh, like, people were like, What the fuck is going on?

They're wily, they're like those kids from the purge. Yeah, exactly, that's all I think of.

Is every time? Like when they're standing outside the door and he's got the mask on. And they're all just like skipping around out there. And he's like, we're like, you, like, they're. That's what I think of. Is that group of kids so chilling? That first one is so good, guys, we saw that for my birthday, remember, like, years ago?

Yeah, that's wild. I think it's a great concept it is. I haven't seen that since then, yeah.

I haven't seen the other ones either, I haven't either. We should do those for scream, we should all right.

Noted All right, but yeah, wealthy, elite children are out of control, yeah.

Now, the case against Phil at least appeared to give that panic some credibility. And in the weeks leading up to the trial. The youngest member of the Wilcox family, Homer Jr. was arrested after it was learned that he and a friend had been shooting out streetlights on the night of Goral's murder. For which he would ultimately be tried and fined, that's what it is. They're all, they're rich and bored, exactly.

They don't have anything else to do. 100, yeah, but everybody was like, Oh my God, it's out of control, they're out of control.

And it's like, maybe they were, maybe. But at the same time, Phil started telling the press an elaborate story about a gang of youths involved in criminal activity in Tulsa. All of whom were involved in the plot to kidnap Virginia Wilcox, stating his belief that Sidney Bourne was killed.

To quote, seal his lips and prevent his giving defense testimony. Phil urged the sheriff's office to arrest and prosecute the supposed members of the gang, who he privately named sheriff. Price told reporters. We haven't got enough on any of those fellows to arrest him. You can't take that fellow's story at its face value, yeah.

If we know one thing about Phil, it's that not a soul on this fucking earth believes the shit that comes out of his mouth. No, not a soul. The thing was it was kind of like a half-truth because there were a lot of people involved in this extortion ring. This motherfucker must've lied and said it's the boy who cried, Wolf, because it's like, you're not totally lying here, but not a soul believes you.

That's the thing. And they never will, and we won't. But there was also no evidence to support his claims of a grand conspiracy, either to kidnap Virginia or frame him for murder. It's clear now, though, that what Phil and his attorney were most likely trying to do was leverage the sensationalism and the rumors around the case in order to lay their groundwork for the defense.

Yeah, definitely. The well-to-do gang story had the potential to create enough doubt to win an acquittal, and if that didn't work, Afflint Moss could still use the story to support an insanity defense. Yeah, it's a smart strategy.

Yeah, you got to give credit where credit's due, I guess. In early January, Phil presented five handwritten notes in coded language, which he implied were further evidence of a conspiracy. The notes really just seemed like nonsense. But they supported the defense's increasingly obvious plan to submit an insanity defense. Afflint Moss told the press I have not seen the notes, but Phil told me about them Sunday in a way that indicated he was boasting of his shrewdness.

As far as I've been able to learn, these notes contain nothing incriminating. And then he went on to speculate the notes strengthened, rather than weakened, the defense's theory that Phil Kenimer was unbalanced. Okay, I'm just really going for it. The defense team did the best that they could to stall the fast-approaching trial, but aside from winning a change of venue, they were unsuccessful at delaying the inevitable.

The press, meanwhile, continued their intense focus on the case, touting it as the sensation of the decade. And without a doubt, the most sensational trial in Tulsa for a decade or more. Wow, that's crazy now. Rather than focusing on the facts of the case and without any new information. The press coverage shifted towards the members of the prosecution and defense teams and their histories of having faced one another in court before. That was kind of the new story, which is really less interesting to me.

Yeah, but Phil's defense team was being led by his primary attorney. You know, a flint moss, you know, a flint moss.

You know that guy, you know him. But also included other well-known and widely respected lawyers who had taken on the case as a favor to his dad, Judge Kenimer. Among them, none stood out more than C..B. Stewart.

We have more initials. Look at C, a formal federal judge from the quote unquote territorial days, who had more than 50 years experience practicing law. Given the highly notable players involved, reporters and spectators eagerly anticipated a very exciting trial. Phil's trial began on February 11th, 1935, at the district of Pawnee, Oklahoma.

Shut the fuck up, we're in pawnee, baby, except it's a different pawnee, I know, but it's still pawnee.

But still, Pawnee, Oklahoma, Oklahoma. I was so excited to say that that's exciting.

It's so great. But as far as spectators expectations were concerned, it did not disappoint. It was very rich. With flowery, dramatic rhetoric, notable witnesses, the trial was a theatrical display that dominated headlines across the state and actually even around the country. At this point in time, when opening statements finally began on February 13th, things had settled a little bit in the courtroom and it appeared like a lot of drama had ended.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Tom Wallace laid out the state's fairly straightforward case to the jury. He said Phil Canamar had initially agreed to engage in an extortion plot and kidnapping of his former girlfriend. Which I'm like, can he even really call her that? you really can't? They went on a few dates, but, he said. After a change of heart and a failed attempt to bring the plot to an end. He murdered his former friend John and more or less admitted that to the police upon his surrender.

And investigators had collected sufficient evidence and testimony that supported this version of events, while everything seemed to be on track within about an hour. The courtroom was thrown into disarray when one of the state's first witnesses, apartment owner Edna Harmon, told the judge. She, quote, didn't want to testify because threats had been made against her. This is wily, it's wily as fuck.

After hearing Harmon's statement, Afflint Moss jumped out of his chair and shouted, That's not the reason she's afraid. That's such an Afflint Moss thing to do. He said. She's not scared because of that. No way.

I know this guy as the owner of a building where Phil Kenamar had supposedly rented a room. Harmon told the police initially that she overheard Phil talking about the murder with another young man, and that's why she was called as a witness. Her statement about being threatened, though, came as a shock to the defense and the prosecution. With Moss demanding that a mistrial be declared and accusing the prosecution of hiring her to lie on the stand, he said I can prove by a Tulsa attorney that she tried to sell u.s. testimony in another case, I can show you the letters.

She asked us for as much as $2,500.

Shut the fuck up, Edna. So, after sending the jury out of the courtroom, the judge ultimately regained order and her statements were stricken from the record. But no mistrial was declared. They said Edna, get out of here, they said, Edna, get out of here.

You're not allowed to quote anyone. Girl, what the hell, Edna? you gotta go, babe, you gotta have her name on a list or something. Seriously not allowed to testify.

So, though it didn't derail the trial as many would have expected, it would. Edna's dramatic claim of threats being made against her and her family and the uproar it caused in the courtroom set the tone for the trial. Where everybody seemed to be determined to give the biggest performance of their lives while they were testifying, this is the 20s, it is, it's like they're still in the 20s, in the 30s. yeah, it's like, still, very 20s.

It's very muhahaha like that, you know, it's very 20s, muhahaha, muhahaha. I don't know.

You do one just like that, you do one. What is it? What kind of thing am I doing?

Just a sound effect of the 20s, Just a sound effect what people did of the 20s. I feel like it would be jazz.

Jazzy, like da-da-da, there you go, Okay, yeah.

There you go, I like it now. Under no obligation to establish a motive, Holly Anderson and the prosecution rested their case without really ever explaining why they believed Phil had killed John. Cool, they were just like, Ah, he just did.

Yeah, I don't know he did it, we know that he admitted it.

Yeah, he said he did so now. While the prosecution didn't have any theories as to motive, the defense absolutely did. In one witness after another. Flint Moss probed into Phil's history, providing many examples of strange behavior going back as far as childhood. All in an attempt to sell their belief that, although he had murdered John Goral, he had only done so because of profound mental illness. It feels intense.

It is from his position behind the defendant's table. Phil leered at his former friends as they testified, many on behalf of his insanity defense and occasionally shouted at them. Before being brought back into line by the judge or his attorneys, which sounds like he's leaning into that as well. When I said everyone was giving a performance of their lifetime, I meant absolutely everybody. But testifying for the defense, Franklin Kenimer told the jury about his son's difficult social history. The many times he'd run away. And all the other trouble that Phil had caused his parents. Starting when he was very, very young.

Yeah, it sounds like he's just he's a troublemaker. Yeah, I don't think he's criminally insane, he's a troubled kid.

I think he's just troubled, exactly, but I think he knew the difference between right and wrong. But as an example of Phil's bizarre and erratic thinking, Judge Kenimer told the court. On some occasions, when he was moody and depressed, he thought the French Foreign Legion would be a good place to be banished from decent society. Virginia Wilcox herself also testified on Phil's behalf, emphasizing what she and many others felt was Phil's obsession with her and his unwillingness to let go of their relationship.

Also, Have you seen the picture of her? Have I seen her? She is? I mean, she's a vision. Oh damn, she's gorgeous.

She's beautiful, Yeah, she's really pretty. I get why he was obsessed.

She's beautiful, she really is. Yeah, I feel like Phil would have been like a pretty normal looking dude if he wasn't so wily, yeah.

I mean, he's definitely not for me, he's not for Virginia. Yeah, he wasn't for Virginia, No.

Virginia's a beauty. She wasn't into it, no, and she was very clear with him. That's the other thing.

Yeah, she didn't tell him along the way, she was kind, but she was direct and said it's not happening. I'd like to be friends and he would not let it go.

That's fucked up, that is fucked up. But while the behaviors described by many witnesses who had known Phil well almost certainly sounded bizarre and supported the defense's assertion of mental illness. What they lacked was any testimony or documentation from any psychological evaluations that confirmed Phil's supposed insanity. Yeah, like everybody up there that knew him could be like, Yeah, he's fucking crazy.

But they don't have a degree in this shit. Exactly. You can say anyone's crazy exactly. Phil had been evaluated.

He actually had been evaluated by several psychologists in the months leading up to the trial. And only one famed psychologist, Dr. Carl Menninger, was willing to testify that Phil was, quote, mentally ill, irrational and believed his own omnipotence on the night he killed Goral, however, before Dr. Menninger could answer.

When directly asked whether he believed Phil was insane, the prosecution successfully objected, arguing that the doctor, having not heard the full extent of the evidence, couldn't possibly know that fact. In fact, when he was cross-examined by the defense, the doctor admitted. Were it not for the fact that Phil had killed someone, he probably wouldn't say he was mentally ill. See, that's the thing, that's the one thing you can say that you can't pinpoint into a rational mind.

Exactly so. After nearly two weeks of sensational testimony and dramatic court romantics, the jury retired for deliberation a little after noon on February 22nd, with the judge's instruction. That they could either find Phil Kennemer guilty of manslaughter or guilty of first-degree murder, the latter of the two likely resulting in his execution. After nine hours of deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom that evening to announce their verdict that Phil Kennemer was guilty on the first-degree manslaughter. I had a feeling that was going to happen. Yep, of John Goral Jr. When the verdict was read, the court erupted in excitement, with several spectators applauding the decision.

Although they had encouraged the jury to find Kennemer guilty of first-degree murder, when asked of his opinion on the result, Holly Anderson, the prosecutor, told reporters The state of Oklahoma is entirely satisfied. Yeah, like he's still being punished for what he did. Court resumed the next day for sentencing, and Judge Hearst sentenced Phil to 25 years in prison. Damn. In his closing statement, he addressed the sensationalism and controversy surrounding the case, particularly the frequent insinuation and assertions from the defense that the case was being pursued as a vendetta against Phil's father.

What it's like? No, no. The case was being pursued because a man died and because he admitted to doing it.

Exactly. But the judge said it was suggested that the state wants to punish you to injure your father. It was also suggested that you might not be given the same trial as anyone else. In my idea, the son of a federal judge and the son of a peasant should be treated alike. Yeah.

When asked for a statement, Phil shook hands with several reporters and said So far as the closing statement of Judge Hearst is concerned, it was fair. I deeply regret the occurrence of this tragedy, not in its ultimate effect on me, but its effect on the innocent parties involved, my family and that of Goral. As for his opinion of the prosecution, he said Gentlemen for the state are no gentlemen. I mean, I don't agree with you.

You also just talk shit about your own dad. Yeah, like, So what? hmm, okay.

Yeah, you're like, Hmm, now. Immediately after the trial, Phil's defense team filed several appeals for motions for a new trial, but they were all rejected and the original verdict was upheld by higher courts. Yeah, it feels fair, it feels fair to me too, I agree.

In his early years at McAllister Prison, now known as Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Phil tried multiple times to get parole, but he was unsuccessful. Finally, in 1938, he successfully lobbied Governor E..W. Marland for a temporary parole of six months. During which he was confined to his parents home in Arizona to spend time with his mother, who was dying at that point, Oh, that's sad. After Lily Canamar had passed away, Phil again tried to get his temporary parole extended. But by then, the state had a new and much less sympathetic governor who denied the request.

That must be so much worse. To come out and then go back and then have to be go back, have to be go back in. I just said, Wow, have to be go back in is the worst. We didn't have coffee.

We didn't have coffee, I need another coffee. But yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, to have to go back in after being out, yeah, that'd be rough.

That would be so hard I feel now. Phil appealed to the governor's office again in 1943, and this time he was successful at winning parole. On the condition that he would join the military and be sent to the front lines to fight in World War II, Damn. He accepted that condition and ultimately became a paratrooper with the C battalion of the 460 Field Artillery 517th Battalion Regimental Combat Team Damn.

After the invasion of Normandy in the summer of 1944, his battalion parachuted into France. On August 15th, 1944, during which Phil and another soldier were shot down by Nazi machine gun fire. Whoa, just before being so, he died like fighting in World War II. Holy shit, I didn't see that coming.

Yeah, crazy turn. It just gave me chills. But just before being sent to Europe, he gave a statement to a reporter from the Tulsa World, where he said, Whoa?

Yeah, and that is the end. Wow, that gives you the chills it does.

Like, that's a wild end, it was a wild case through and through. Because when I started reading it, I was like, Oh my God, they're going to go after Virginia. Like, I ultimately thought that something was going to happen to her, that's what I thought this was going.

You're glad nothing happened to her? Yeah, and like, you don't see that coming, you didn't want anything bad to happen to anybody, yeah.

Yeah, it was a wild one. Wow, yeah, old timey.

These kids, these purge kids, these wealthy, rich, elite kids, are the judges. And that kind of thing with the masks and the white dresses, you know, skipping outside your house, skipping outside your house on purge night.

It's these kids, it's these kids. I tell ya, Wow, yeah, that was a crazy one.

Crazy one. So yeah, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you do anything like this. Because, oh my God, don't hire extortion people and don't hear about extortions and not stop them and get into cars and hurt people.

And yeah, don't do any of that and don't be the kind of person. Where when you actually do something bad and you're like, Hey, everybody, I did something bad. You've lied so much that no one believes you. Yeah, just stop lying right now, just don't do bad things and don't lie so people believe you.

Please, yeah.

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