Email: paranaughtica@gmail.comTwitter: @paranaughtica Facebook: The Paranaughtica Podcast Who the hell killed the Dardeens? We all want to know. Today, we will take the train on up to Ina, Illinois where we’ll look into the unsolved murder of an entire family in 1987 – a family that seemed to liked by everyone in town. They were quiet, reserved, modest, and very active members of the local church. So why the hell were they murdered?Well, we will most likely never know. The killer, or killers, apparently left no clues. As far as the public was aware, the police had nothing to work with. This is a particularly brutal murder involving a husband and pregnant wife, and their 3-year-old son.****If you’d like to help us out with a kindly donation, it would be extremely appreciated. If you’d like to do that and you’re currently listening on Spotify, you can simply scroll down on our page and you’ll see a button to help us out with either a one-time donation or you can set up a monthly recurring donation. If you’re not listening on Spotify, you can: Ko-Fi: Help us out by donating to the podcast through either a 'one-time' donation or a monthly donation. You can find our Ko-Fi at our Facebook page! Paypal: Donate through Paypal to help out the show! You can find our Paypal at our Facebook Page!What do you get out of helping us out with the show!? You get consistent quality content, and also some super cool stickers. We’re also working on other merch, such as coffee mugs, t-shirts, etc. with awesome original artwork. Podcasting is not easy, folks. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. We are forever grateful for our faithful listeners and supporters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
I don't know what's funnier, though, like the cherry pies or the VHS tapes.
I don't know, dude.
I guess it depends on which VHS tapes they were in their original cases, like Jungle Book or Oliver and Company.
Yeah, those big foam cases.
You're like brave little toaster.
Just imagine you're this woman, right?
You just leave Bed Bath& Beyond or something.
Actually, it's Bed Bath& Bankrupt.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yes, yes.
You know.
Now that I think about it, every time I've gone into one of those stores, which is maybe like three or somewhere between three and 30 times or something, there's never been another customer, dude.
It's always just me in there.
And then the lonely teller person's just standing there behind the counter, just watching me.
Like, is he going to be done anytime soon?
Is he going to...
Keep inspecting every knife.
Just looking at me as you're doing it.
Yeah, she's looking at me like, bro.
And I'm over there like, how about this plate?
How about this plate?
Yeah, this is nice.
Yeah, it's just me.
Maybe that's just me.
No, man.
Same here.
Same here.
Every time I've gone in there, same story, man.
It's no joke.
I still never bought anything.
I mean, pretty much I just go in there to see and I'm like, what's the beyond?
Yeah. And then I feel like it just doesn't quite deliver.
So I just leave.
I just leave.
I've never bought anything.
I walk around, look at this overpriced shit, and I'm like, wow, how is this even a business?
So imagine you're this lady who just leaves that store, and you're walking to your car, and then you notice there's an old copy of Dumbo.
Like, laying there under your car.
Right. Yeah, man.
Like, what the hell?
Like, why is there a VHS tape under my car?
Exactly. And, remember, this happened in 2018, so it just makes it that much more suspicious.
Yeah, you're not expecting a VHS tape under your car, man.
No, hell no.
That's my point.
And if you're young enough, then you're not even gonna know what the hell that is.
You'd probably be like, oh, is that some kind of board game?
Or what is that?
Oh my god, what is that?
Disgusting rexangle thing.
Yeah, right.
It's all...
Brown! Because there's no way this dude had a brand new mint copy of any of those VHSs.
They're all like super old and falling apart for sure.
The guy also used what?
Like McDonald's cherry pies?
Oh yeah.
He'd place those in the ground too, right?
Like the VHS tapes?
Yeah, he used a variety of things.
He'd put VHS tapes, cherry pies from McDonald's, even a laptop at one point.
All just to get these women to like stop what they're doing.
Bend over or pop a squat to pick these objects up just so we could watch from afar through binoculars.
It's so creepy, dude.
It's so creepy.
All so we could watch from afar through binoculars.
Oh my god.
So one of these women, the one who found the laptop actually, she called the police.
Hunter Biden?
Yeah, that's how it all went down for sure.
So she calls the police and says somebody threw this laptop under my car and somehow this guy was arrested for aggravated stalking.
But he's a habitual offender as well, so they gave him a habitual offender enhancement on top of that.
Damn, man.
It wasn't even his first time.
No. Exactly.
No, he was actually arrested in 2007, actually, for doing the same thing.
I just don't understand.
Yeah. Can't see the type of actual satisfaction the person would get from doing that.
I mean, I know that's not...
These days, that probably seems kind of tame compared to what people do.
But at the same time, it's still just beyond me.
But what do I know?
I just work here.
Apparently not what this guy knew.
But he put cherry pies directly on the ground, like expecting these women to bend over and pick them up and eat them.
I mean, to be fair, I'd probably pick it up and eat it.
It's just like a fresh, warm, steamy apple pie.
I'd look around a little bit and be like, oh, nobody's here.
How did this get here?
That's so good.
Don't even think about why it's there.
It's like, ooh, apple pie.
Ooh, a pie.
Oh, a pot.
So fucking weird, dude.
Oh, here's one under this car.
Man. That shit reminds me of that video of the gym security guard who would sneak behind unsuspecting women and smell their sweaty ass cracks.
Ew. Remember that shit?
No. Saw that video, right?
No, I didn't actually.
And I don't need to.
But thanks for telling me that.
I mean, if that really happened, I'm not surprised.
It's horrible.
It's so gross.
That's just...
Ew! And she catches him.
So the video is like, he does this three or four times and finally she catches him doing it.
Almost fully upside down looking up at her butt, like smelling it.
And she's like looking, looks down and sees him.
She's like, what the fuck?
And he jumps up acting like he fell and like picks up his phone.
Man, it's just ridiculous.
Oh, wow.
That is...
All recorded.
Everything's recording.
No, that's so terrible.
And you're just that guy from like that moment on.
Yeah. Yeah, I can't even imagine.
That's heavy stuff, man.
Yeah. Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to another fantastic episode of the Paranautica Podcast.
It's a pleasure to have you all tuning in and supporting the show.
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And now...
Before we go any further, we must present to the anticipating world the sleek, perfectly curved segment that everyone has freshened themselves up for a night on the town with.
Got that toothbrush, hair curls are in, baby powder in every crevasse, and I think we're ready.
And now, we give to you the latest edition of the Cutting Edge Trey for Trey!
Really spearheading the industry with this one.
Very innovative and refreshing.
It almost went Seinfeld.
Yeah, put a little Seinfeld.
We can't do that, man.
We've got copyright infringement here, so we've got to be careful on that.
Anyway, our first story is out of Sky News' website, so thank you news.sky.com for this story.
Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg cage match.
Whoa, man.
Coop, have you been following the story on this?
Fight of the century, man.
Yes, dude.
This is fight of the century.
Yes, absolutely.
Apparently, from what I'm hearing, the guys are super serious about doing this one.
Yeah, yeah.
It's true.
Apparently, it started off with just an offhand remark from Elon Musk.
He just tweeted this thing.
You know, he's quoted as saying...
I'm sure Earth can't wait to be exclusively under Zuck's thumb.
Then he followed that up with, I'm up for a cage match if he is.
LOL. Big smile on his face.
He's probably just messing around at first, but then Zuckerberg obviously saw that.
He heard the press.
It's Mark Zuckerberg.
He's the king of social media.
Of course, he's going to hear that.
He knows what's going on in everyone's life.
He just posted on Instagram, send me a location.
Musk replied back, Vegas.
Octagon. And that was it, dude.
It was on after that.
That was just...
I see that as an escalation of the anger between them.
First, it's like a little joke, right?
From Musk.
And then Zuckerberg is like, send me a location, motherfucker.
And then Mark's like, Vegas, bitch!
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Just a couple of billionaire whales.
They just can't...
I mean, the publicity is great.
Obviously, we're talking about it.
We're not the only ones.
Everybody's talking about it.
The world is talking about it, bro.
This is huge.
Yeah, and people are asking Dana White.
They're like, hey, man, is this really going on?
And I guess Dana White's been in regular contact with both of them, and there's an outline of plans that are in the works, and things are being drawn up.
And it's just going to be an exhibition match outside.
It's not going to be like official UFC, obviously.
I don't know if people know this, but Mark Zuckerberg, he's a jiu-jitsu fighter, man.
He's not just a fighter.
He's getting gold and silver medals at tournaments.
Yeah, dude.
In his first ever, he won gold and silver.
Exactly. This dude is serious.
Musk, he admits he just does not work out, dude.
No. He doesn't do shit.
He doesn't do anything.
He does what's called the walrus.
Yes. And that's when he just lays on top of his opponent and does nothing, is what he said.
That's what we have to expect from the Musk.
Yes, from the Musk ox.
He's also 52 and Zuckerberg's 39, bro.
That's a pretty big difference right there.
True, yeah.
And there's the height difference.
Zuck is 5'7", Musk 6'2".
Yeah, but...
And Zuck is also 145 pounds when Elon is 230?
Yeah. It's huge.
This is like early UFC when there weren't any rules and they were matching people completely different.
Yeah. So this is perfect.
Totally. I mean, the thing is, 5'7 in jiu-jitsu?
Good luck, bro.
That's all I'm going to say.
Yeah. He can walrus all he wants, but I think Zuck's just going to choke him out.
Yeah. Zuck's going to run circles around Musk and definitely toy with them.
And I'd like to see him just toy with them.
For a long time?
Yeah, well, I think he'll probably, honestly, because he's the more experienced, he's probably going to wait to see if Musk sets the tone.
He's probably going to wait to see if he comes at him just fully swinging or if he's just going to be smiling and laughing.
I have a feeling once those guys get in there, it'll just be man on man, dude.
I hope.
Once the first punch is thrown, it's over.
I hope it goes legit and it isn't just a big act.
You know what I mean?
Agreed. I'm pretty sure both of them are going to get the best trainers and train for six months or whatever.
They'll probably have all the padding, though.
They'll do all the padding.
Chin patting and elbow patting.
Maybe. We'll see.
I hope not.
They'll probably wait to see what the other person does.
I'm not doing a groin patting.
Nothing. We're doing bare knuckles.
No patting.
Bare ass.
Bare knuckle bare ass.
They're naked?
Yeah, bro.
There might be a little grappling.
Mostly grappling.
A couple naked billionaires scrapping it out in the cage.
There's a chance that the fight might happen in Rome's Coliseum.
You hear this?
I didn't hear that part.
That's fantastic, though.
Yeah, dude.
The Italian Ministry of Culture absolutely, 100% offered the 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater to the fight.
Whoa, dude.
That would put a whole other historical spin on it right there.
It would be amazing.
Literally, where blood was shed of so many people.
The only thing, though, if they did do it in the Colosseum, It cannot be a violent fight.
So, yeah.
So let's not do it.
Let's not do it there.
Our second story of Trey Portray comes to us from www.rooters.com.
Apparently there was some cocaine found at the White House, man, by the Secret Service.
How about that?
Indeed. Yeah.
I say it was Hunter's.
A lot of people think it was Hunter Biden's, but apparently on Sunday it was discovered in a cubbyhole in the West Wing entry area.
This is a place where visitors put electronics and other belongings before going on tours.
So, you know, there's a chance that somebody brought it in and forgot it, but I doubt it.
The kind of people that visit the White House?
Like, probably not.
Yeah, who would go in there?
Unless the whole plan was like, I'm gonna go plant this.
And see what happens.
But it's like, why would you risk your life, your livelihood, to bring cocaine into the White House?
They say it was discovered by the Secret Service.
I think it'd be hilarious if the Secret Service was like, like one of the guys was trying to, he knew it was there.
And he was going to go try to hit up the stash, but then the guy he was working with that day was like, whoa, man, what are you doing?
What is that?
And he's like, oh, I found this here.
Just started this whole chain of events that they now can't unstart.
Yeah, for sure.
But of course there's cocaine in the White House.
I mean, come on, man.
The White House has been through all the decades and all the people with money.
You know there's going to be some drugs around.
Dude, how could there not be?
Every administration does.
Cocaine in that White House, man.
Every administration.
I'm sure there's all kinds of stuff that happens there.
It's kind of crazy.
People think it's a big deal or whatever.
But check it out.
They're like, whoa, we're not sure if we're ever going to know who the suspect is.
But it's like, man, it's the White House.
Heavily surveilled.
How are there no cameras?
How are you not going to find who...
It would be a little embarrassing if there were that many blind spots that they wouldn't be able to identify who placed a baggie of something somewhere, especially if it was in a visitor area.
I think if they're going to go with that rhetoric, it probably has more to do with whose cocaine it is.
They're like, oh, we're never going to find the suspect, but they know exactly who it is.
Exactly. And it's kind of ironic where this comes out right after Hunter Biden's laptop photos come out.
The 4th of July video comes out.
Man, this is like all fingers are pointed to Hunter Biden.
Totally. And they're trying to blame it on the dog.
Major. No joke.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how crazy it all gets.
But yeah, more on that as more details emerge.
You know, this just happens.
I'm sure we're going to be hearing more about it in the coming weeks.
It's probably going to get swept under the rug.
Yeah, or we'll never hear about it again.
And all these articles will disappear off the interwebs.
Exactly. But our last story of Trey for Trey comes to us from www.theenquirer.com.
specifically from the Philadelphia Inquirer, not the National Inquirer.
This is a true story.
But apparently, the King Sessing Mass shooting suspect told police that the rampage was an attempt to fight gun violence.
How do you fight gun violence?
By creating violence with guns.
Yeah, exactly.
So the gunman, this guy is accused of killing five people during a rampage in southwest Philadelphia on Monday night.
Apparently he told police that this was almost a cry for help, but it was more of like a mission that he was on so that the police would address the city's growing gun violence issues.
And apparently he was told that, quote, God, quote, would be sending more people to help.
So I guess he thought he was doing everybody a favor.
Well, his mind was not in the right place.
I don't know how you'd think he'd be doing people a favor by killing five people and wounding however many others.
Yeah, apparently he was arrested wearing full body armor, ski mask, he was carrying an assault rifle and a ghost gun just down on South Fraser Street.
And a ghost gun, by the way, is a 3D printed gun, so it's not really traceable.
There you go.
Yeah, thanks for filling us in on that.
For those of you who are unaware of what that is, that's a thing that we do now, apparently.
Yes. Make your own guns.
But yeah, he was just kind of firing at random at first.
The firing just spanned several blocks, and it struck people, including children.
Jesus. And it's just, yeah, it's just so ridiculous, this guy.
It's crazy.
Yeah, he was screaming, running through the streets, pulling the trigger, and he was screaming, hurrah, it's time to go to war.
That doesn't sound like you're fighting crime as you're shooting a freaking...
I don't know.
What do you have, an AR-15?
I think so.
I know it was an assault rifle.
And unfortunately for Philadelphia, it's now one of the deadliest shootings in decades.
And everybody's stunned and saddened.
He was arraigned on five counts of first-degree murder.
And there were some other related charges, of course.
And he was held without bail.
Yeah, it's just going to be an ongoing thing.
It doesn't sound like he's very mentally stable to me.
That does not sound like a stable human being.
We'll see if it does what his goal was, you know, like sparking some kind of response to the growing gun violence issue, but I doubt it.
I'm sure he's just another crazy guy who decided to kill some people at the end of the day.
Yeah. Yeah, well, we're going to follow it.
We're going to keep up on it, as with most of these random stories that we like to talk about.
Yes. But yeah, we'll learn more on that as details emerge.
And that's it for our trade.
Portrait. Man, it's that segment that really keeps the fucking platelets flowing, you know what I mean?
I agree, I'm clotting up all over the place.
That's not good.
So, now, let's get into our story here.
Let's get into it.
You want to get into the story?
Let's get into it.
I want to get into it, man.
Let's fucking get into it.
At approximately 6.30pm on the 18th of November, 1987, police officers from the small, idyllic town of Ina, Illinois in the United States would arrive at the residence of Russell Keith and Ruby Elaine Dardene after responding to a call from Russell's concerned parents.
Upon receiving no answer after knocking on the door, the police would enter the residence.
Inside, they would find yet another crime scene that the town of Ina had been plagued with for the past two years.
But this was one of the worst that the town of Ina had ever witnessed.
Inside, the police found the bodies of 30-year-old Ruby Elaine Dardene, who went by Elaine, 3-year-old Peter Dardene, and newborn Casey Dardene.
All three had been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat and left on one of the beds lying next to each other.
Russell Keith, who went by Keith, was not there.
Nor was his red 1981 Plymouth.
This raised many a brow of the eye.
This was, without a doubt, one of the most disturbing and disgusting crime scenes that any of the responding officers had ever seen in their careers, a fact that would resonate with most of the citizens of Ina, or Jefferson County, for that matter.
So let's give a little background on Ina, Illinois.
Technically, Ina is a village which is in Jefferson County in the southern part of the state.
The Cherokee natives would settle in and around Ina around 1840, and they were said to be survivors of the Trail of Tears, one of many deplorable actions on the part of the white man against the Native Americans since day one.
According to bestplaces.net, Ina is a unique experience.
It's a small, rural town with a population of about 800 people.
What makes up the total population are mostly employees of the Big Muddy River Correctional Center, which currently houses around 1,084 medium security inmates who are all male.
Currently, the average cost per inmate at that facility is about $30,380 per person.
Unique experience indeed.
So Ina technically has about, from what I'm gathering here, from what I'm looking at, 1,893 residents apparently.
Correct, man.
Yeah. Because the Illinois census does count the inmates as part of the populace of Jefferson County.
And bestplaces.net continues, the town has an old-fashioned charm that can't be found anywhere else.
Only in Ina.
Yeah, except for Rikers and, you know, remember those other well-popular...
Leavenworth. Yeah, Leavenworth.
Yeah, there's a similar charm that you can find there.
Similar charm at Leavenworth.
So, they say Ina has a lot of outdoor activities like fishing and swimming at nearby Rend Lake.
One can also hike and bike around some trails.
And for those looking for a wild nightlife, well, ha-ha, there's that too.
Oh yeah, do tell.
They say that there are local bars and some family-friendly restaurants.
Nothing says a wild nightlife like family-friendly restaurants, you know.
Oh, and Ina is apparently the 7,808th largest city in the United States.
It has everything only a small town or village would have, and absolutely nothing anything larger than a small town or village would have.
Now I really need to go.
You're really selling it.
You sold?
Yeah, I'm sold, man.
Let's go.
Let's get the tickets.
I've got a couple brochures here, so.
But yeah, that's about all the pertinent information that is absolutely crucial to this story.
All right.
Well, I feel more informed.
Thank you.
What's more important as it pertains to the Paranautica podcast is that Ina has not been immune to crime.
Oh, crime.
Yes. Ina has had his fair share of newsworthy crime.
We should mention a couple of these bigger ones.
Yes, definitely.
Let's go back to 1927.
When Reverend Lawrence Height was having an affair with one of the congregants, Elsie Sweeten.
Well, with a name like that, I mean.
Yeah. And it said she was very attractive.
Yeah. I mean, maybe in 1927 standards.
Right. And I can only imagine what that would look like today.
Yeah, man.
I'm thinking maybe probably something along the lines of Donatella Versace or Jocelyn Wildenstein.
Oh! That's too much Botox for one face, my friend.
All right.
All right, man.
Okay, so.
You have to pick one.
Which one would you marry?
And which one would you have a lifetime secret affair with?
Probably go marriage-wise with Donatella.
I mean, my clothes are going to be fantastic.
True. The estates are going to be incredible.
There's a lot of places I can hide.
Jocelyn Wildenstein.
Yeah, man.
I just can't go down that road, bro.
Man. Sorry, man.
Nope. Can't do it.
Wow, it's just too much to look at, dude.
Yeah, I wish that I hadn't.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Wayne Dale, for putting this here.
Wayne, we'll have words.
Fucking dick.
So anyway, Elsie was married and had three children, as did the Reverend.
But none of this stopped the two lovebirds from affairing it up hard and not really trying to make it a secret.
Or if they were, they were doing a horrible job at it.
Residents would routinely see the two locking their sin-riddled tongues.
Both Elsie and Haidt couldn't stand to see each other with their partners.
They could only see them with each other.
It just had to be.
The two then devised a plan to take out the only thing that stood in their way, their partners.
And so it would be.
Well, works every time.
The old rat fest.
On July 16th, 1924, Elsie's husband, Wilford Jack Sweeten, sustained a minor injury to his arm while at work in a mine.
The next day, the two went for ice cream and other items.
Wilford almost immediately became sick, and then Elsie would start complaining of the same.
Later that day, Wilford left to have his arm looked at.
When he returned, Elsie left for a while, but when she returned, she found that Wilford was very sick and laying in bed.
So she called for a doctor who came and suggested he was suffering from tomaine poisoning, which is a cooler way of saying food poisoning.
Wilford continued to vomit and all that, and a second doctor was called in.
He too thought it was tomaine poisoning.
He gave Wilford some morphine shots and called it a night.
But by Monday, July 28th, Wilford would die.
Killer food poisoning, I guess.
Yeah. And the reverend would officiate the funeral.
Oh, that's so cold, dog.
Just the guys, like, rest in peace, Wilford.
Fucking your wife.
God, dude, I hate that shit.
That's so messed up, man.
I can't stand it.
After that, he and Elsie would start hanging out more often, and Height's wife was the next that needed to be erased from their picture-perfect romance.
Height had some...
Height had some ham...
Goddamn. Whew!
Are you tired of some ham sandwiches?
Haidt. Haidt had made some ham sandwiches on Saturday, September 6th, for he and the wife.
But as it turned out, he wasn't too hungry after all.
But his wife, Anne, she was a bit bigger, and she ate plenty.
Unfortunately, the sandwiches had arsenic in them.
She immediately became ill, and by Tuesday the 8th, Anne was paralyzed from the neck down and was vomiting blood.
By the 12th, Anne was dead.
Now old Reverend Ready Hands Height and his mistress, anywhere, anytime else, he could live happily ever after, huh?
Well, not quite.
The coroner ordered Anne's stomach contents to be analyzed, and when the results came back, Height was arrested for her murder.
Not all that long afterwards, suspicions really started to spread around town, and Wilford Sweeten's body was exhumed.
And it, too, was analyzed.
Again, the results pointed toward another murder.
Both bodies tested positive for excessive amounts of arsenic.
Eventually, both Height and Elsie would confess to the murders.
In his defense, Height would state that he had killed Anne out of mercy because, you know, she was suffering from so much misery and stuff.
Of this, he said, In her own confession, Elsie would say the following,
I noticed in April of 1924 that Lawrence Hight had affection for me.
My husband had for some time been treating me with lack of love.
And about three months ago, Reverend Hight suggested that he get some poison to give my husband.
And he would do the same with his wife.
I don't know when he poisoned his wife, but she became ill and died.
And I suppose that he had poisoned her.
So the Reverend was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Elsie Sweetin was sentenced to 35 years.
Man. They got got.
Yeah, but on May 10th, 1927, only two and a half years after beginning her sentence, she was given a new trial on the grounds that she should originally have been tried separately from Lawrence Height.
This time, the jury would find Elsie not guilty of murdering her husband, despite her confession and obvious guilt.
And then, on March 28th, 1952, Lawrence Height was released on parole after having served 27 years.
He still served 27 years, but...
It's a long time.
Man, I mean...
But Elsie, that's bullshit.
Yeah, I don't know what happened there.
That just seems not cool.
She killed her husband.
Killed her husband, man.
Cold-butted.
So that was a pretty high-profile case for Ina.
The next one was only a couple of years before the Dardene family murders in 1987 and is arguably the worst Ina has ever seen.
On November 8, 1985, 18-year-old Thomas Odle killed both of his parents and all three of his siblings.
After murdering his father, he then waited for each of his family members to return home one at a time.
He was sentenced to death by lethal injection, probably one of the worst state-sanctioned methods of execution, but that was later committed to life in prison in 2003.
And that's all we'll share about the Thomas Odle case because we are going to cover that shit pretty fucking soon.
Yeah, so keep your ears perked.
But yeah, deathpenaltyinfo.org reports on an NPR review of more than 200 autopsies of prisoners that were executed by lethal injection.
And the study found that, quote, regardless of the outward appearance of a tranquil death, 84% of those executed showed evidence of pulmonary edema, which, for those of you who don't know, is a fluid buildup in the lungs that creates a feeling of suffocation and drowning that experts have likened to basically waterboarding.
And then that's an end quote right there.
And then Dr. Joel Zivitt, an Emory University anesthesiologist who examined the autopsies, added that it's clear that lethal injection creates a circus of suffering.
End quote.
Yeah. End lethal injection.
End the death sentence, actually.
Did you know that the lethal injection has the highest rate of botched executions?
Absolutely. It's at 7.12% of all executions of lethal injection.
And NPR goes on to say that more than a third of all of the executions in 2022 were botched.
Jesus, man.
And you can't tell me that the prison officials, such as like the warden and officially the doctors and government officials who hire those doctors who administer these executions, you can't tell me that they are not aware of what these drugs do to a person, especially not in this time of day and age.
They certainly know what these drugs do to a person.
This isn't the 1900s.
Oh, absolutely.
And again, these drugs are pencuronium bromide, which we kind of call Pavlon, which is used to cause muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest, potassium chloride, which theoretically stops the heart, and midazolam for sedation purposes.
Right. And thankfully, some of the makers of these drugs have either refused to sell them to the prison system or have just stopped producing them altogether.
So thanks to that.
Yeah, finally some people are kind of coming up who...
Don't agree with it anymore and are taking a closer look at it.
And, you know, they're trying to do the right thing, which is don't give these drugs to people.
They're not made right.
They're not made well.
It doesn't work like you think it does.
No. I mean, again, just use high doses of barbiturates.
If you're going to go with this whole death sentence thing, just do that.
But continue with the story.
It seems that the Odell murders had signaled the beginning of a series of homicides in and around Ina, particularly in Jefferson County.
In the two years from that point on, up until the Dardeen family murders in 1987, there were 15 homicides, including the Odles.
Preceding those murders, crime was fairly tame with mostly some robberies and thefts and a couple of domestic cases.
Today, according to areavibes.com, crime in Ina is 91% below the national average.
And in 2021, there were five reported cases of theft and five reported cases of property crime.
To me, that sounds like the same person just committing the crime of theft and property five different times.
It was probably just the same individual, and they were like, oh, that's a good stat!
We had five thefts!
And it was just the same person in the same string of thefts.
Oh, right, man.
Like some dude just stripping some wires in houses or buildings or something five times.
He got caught five times, so they charged him with theft and property crime.
Yeah, exactly.
We have ten cases!
Yeah, you guys have one case with five instances.
Five counts, yeah.
Anyways, that's just my own cynical view.
So now let's talk about who the Dardines were.
And remember, Russell Keith Dardine, husband and father, was not at the crime scene, nor was his car.
Yes, the red 1981 Plymouth, for those of you guys who are playing trivia.
Russell Keith Dardine was born June 22, 1958, and originally from Mount Carmel, Illinois.
While Ruby Elaine Cowleen Dardine was born on August 10, 1957 and originally from Fairfield, Illinois.
The couple had always gone by the middle names, so Keith and Elaine, respectively, and that is how we will refer to them from here on out.
They moved to Ina, where they rented some land from an older farming couple.
On the land, they had placed a nice little mobile home that they had purchased that they could indeed call home.
Keith and Elaine already had a boy named Peter who was three years old at the time.
They were also expecting another very soon.
They had decided that if it was a girl, she would be named Casey, and if it was a boy, he would be named Ian.
Keith had been training to become a treatment plant operator at the Rend Lake Water Conservancy facility, and Elaine was working at an office supply store in nearby Mount Vernon.
Both were hard workers and made sure that they made it to every shift that they were scheduled to and routinely looked to cover other shifts when available to get that extra time in.
But life wasn't all about work for the Dardines.
They still made sure they had time to play.
Oh yeah, boy!
Let's get it started!
Let's get it started in here!
Who let the dogs out?
Hell yeah!
Yeah, man.
That just happens automatically when I hear play.
It's just like, you know, press play.
Let's get this party started.
Yeah, you know.
It's been a while since I've changed up the old disc in there, so...
When Keith and Elaine weren't working their butts off at work, they were rocking their butts off as members of the musical ensemble at the small Baptist church in Ina where Elaine played the piano, and some may have said she was a natural Ray Manzarek at the doors.
Maybe even John Lord of Deep Purple.
Oh, hell yeah, dude.
Killing it!
With a sweat-soaked bandana, lights just frying them up.
I love it.
I love it.
While Elaine was over there tickling the ivories, Keith sang the lead vocals like Steven Tyler or even Janis Joplin.
Wow! This church was epic, man.
Yeah, bro.
The congregation would always end up causing hundreds of dollars in damages.
On accident, mind you.
Just due to how mesmerizing and enchanting the music was.
Really made the congregation squirm and wiggle their bodies in fantastic emotions that even they didn't understand.
I don't understand it.
I just can't picture this.
At all.
I really can't.
Well, we don't know for sure if that was their exact style or performance.
Oh, okay.
But it would have been really freaking sweet, man.
I mean, I would have bought tickets and probably would have become a full-fledged Southern Baptist in the process.
The point is that a large part of their lives was dedicated to the church, and they would attend and be active members of the community on top of both of them working hard at their respective jobs.
They were well-liked by most of their neighbors and presumably most of the churchgoers.
They had good friends and a loving family, particularly on Keith's side.
After the Thomas Odle murders in 1985, there was a rash of other homicides.
Because of this, the Dardines had started to feel a little unsafe in Ina.
Part of their insecurities were due to the fact that Elaine was about eight months pregnant.
Keith had grown pretty worried, by most accounts, and had become very protective of his family, and rightfully so.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, if this kind of stuff is going on in a small area, you just no longer would feel safe there.
No. You know?
And on one occasion, a young woman had come to the door and asked to use the phone, but he suspected that she was trouble and posed a threat to his family, so he yelled at her to get out of there.
Oh, yeah.
Like, kind of...
Go on!
Get! Get out of here!
Go, get!
Get! Shoo!
Go on!
Get! You know, just trying to get her out of there.
And therefore, they decided it was best to get out before the crime got any worse.
Keith and Elaine made it clear to Keith's parents that they wanted to move, and according to Keith's mother, he wanted to move back to Mount Carmel, even if he didn't have a job lined up yet.
He is said to have told her that he regretted having even moved to Ina in the first place, and even cited the rise in violent crime as the reason.
Therefore, the couple put their mobile home up for sale and just hoped for a buyer.
And I should point out here that they had only purchased the mobile home about one year prior to this too.
And due to the seemingly random murders and attacks, a lot of people started arming themselves and the people started to get themselves all worked up about alleged Satanists going around doing all these killings.
Yeah, I'm sure I would have thought twice or three times about...
Arming myself up, getting some weapons, maybe adding a couple extra locks on the door.
You know, like one of those old medieval, you know, you have that bar of wood that comes down over the doors at night.
I don't know.
I'd get a mace.
You know, the ball with the little spikes on it.
Yeah, just stand out on your front lawn at night with the sun going down.
Swinging that shit.
Singing it over your head.
We're the safest!
Come get that, you Satanists!
Soon, though, the police would rule that out as a motive, as well as many other motives, such as drug dealing, gambling, other illicit behavior, and marital infidelity.
But we'll get into all that Satanist stuff in a minute here, but let's get back to when the crime scene was discovered.
Sure, okay, so we know that Keith did not show up for work on November 18th, 1987, and we know that he was a hard worker, and a worker who always showed up on time and completed his shift, so this is mighty suspicious.
Right. And due to Keith's uncharacteristic behavior, his supervisor called his parents, who could only tell the supervisor that they had not seen him either.
As the day burnt on, Keith still hadn't shown up or called.
Keith's parents would then call the police right around 6.30pm that evening, and Keith's dad, Don, he would meet up with the police to give them a spare key to the residence, which would actually prove not to be necessary because the back door was wide open.
And this is when the police made the grisly discovery.
On a waterbed in their bedroom, Elaine was found bound with duct tape and gagged.
She had been beaten to death with a baseball bat.
It would be found that her skull had numerous fractures.
Next to her was three-year-old Peter, also beat to death and left with skull fractures.
And next to them was infant Casey, also beaten to death with the baseball bat.
The killer or killers made it look like the three of them were tucked in and sleeping, despite...
The gruesome blood splatters and disfigured faces.
Wait a second.
You said that Elaine was about eight months pregnant, but you never said anything about her going to a hospital or giving birth at all, so...
Yeah, so Elaine was right around eight months pregnant, and whoever beat Elaine to death caused her to go into labor and give birth to Casey right there as she's being beaten to death with a bat.
Then, whoever this was, again, used that bat to kill baby Casey.
Brutal. Fucking brutal.
So dark.
That's terrible.
The bat used was said to be a birthday gift from Keith to Peter earlier that year, and it was left at the scene.
But as we said earlier, Keith was nowhere to be found, and his red 1981 Plymouth car was missing as well.
So what does this tell you if you're a detective looking at this for the first time, Scott?
I mean, if you're just assessing what you're seeing, like bare bones from the get-go, you're going to think Keith did it.
And then drove away, you know, left the scene.
Right. He's acting real uncharacteristic.
They probably thought he just snapped.
They're going to try to track him down.
He's in a very obvious car that would probably be easy to track.
So you're thinking, all right, the husband did it.
Let's go find him.
Yeah, yeah.
Remember what you just said.
That's a good point.
It's a very obvious car.
So just remember that.
Yeah, exactly.
So the entire town was at a loss.
Immediately, a total of 30 detectives were set to task full-time on the case.
The police started a statewide search for Keith and began speaking with anyone that had ties with him.
A team of armed officers arrived at his parents' house in Mount Carmel looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found.
The police were sure that Keith was their man.
Friends and family of the Dardines simply could not believe what the police seemed to believe.
They couldn't understand how it could even be possible that Keith could have done this to his own beloved family.
He was a real family man.
There's no way he could have done this.
Nobody had a word of negativity to say about him.
He was a very loving husband and an extremely loving father.
The townsfolk were certain Keith had not done this.
First of all, I just want to point out how rare that is because usually everyone's like, he did it!
You know, like in all these cases.
But I mean, to be fair, in a lot of cases they do.
But this is like one of those ones where everybody was on his side.
Like from the get-go, they were just like, no, there's no way.
But still, so where is he then, though?
Where is he?
So, the next day, hunters had been out walking through a wheat field looking to take down a deer.
Apparently, this wheat field was not far from the Dardene's residence, maybe about one mile.
Unfortunately for the hunters, a deer would not be found that day, but what would be found was Keith's dead body.
Ah, man.
Yep, that will curb the expedition, for sure.
As soon as the investigators took one look at Keith Dardene, they instantly knew that he was not the killer.
He had clearly been murdered himself.
Keith's body was also badly damaged, but not like the rest of his family.
It was found that Keith had been shot three times, once in the skull and twice in the face.
I tried to find the exact caliber, but all I could find was that the injuries came from a handgun.
And on top of that, his genitals had also been mutilated and his penis was severed.
And I'm not sure if his penis was even found.
But the severing of Keith's penis is what leaves us with some questions.
One, was it cut as part of torture or a means to extract information or make an admission of something, such as a sexual crime or maybe suspicion of homosexuality, whether the admission was forced or not?
Two, was it cut out of jealous rage?
As in, was there a female involved here, or a male, who wanted to be with Keith, but he wouldn't leave Elaine, and this was the way to make him suffer?
Three, was it cut simply to emasculate him?
Four, was it cut to be added to some sort of fucked-up dick collection some maniac has, if this was a random killing done by some serial killer?
You mean, like, the dick collector?
Imagine having that name.
I don't think so, because I don't think a person would like to have that name in the headlines.
Like, ugh, the dick collector strikes again.
I don't know.
Not to make light, but...
I don't know, man.
Yeah. That's a pretty sweet name, though.
Sure beats the Weepy Voice Killer.
Oh, well, I mean, hands down.
Be the dick collector all day, because I heard of that, for sure.
Yeah, you said it, man.
Say, I think there are a few dicks that need some collecting down there at 35th and Sydney.
Oh, I hate you.
Alright, man.
Well, moving forward.
Keith's red 1981 Plymouth would soon be located.
It was parked nearly right in front of a police station in nearby Benton, Illinois, about 11 miles south from the Dardeen's home.
Upon inspection, the investigators would discover blood splattered in the interior.
How much, we do not know.
This was presumably Keith's blood.
Investigators would get to work and the medical examiners would conduct autopsies on all four bodies.
They couldn't determine who was murdered first, but they could determine that all four had died within one to two hours of each other.
They found that Elaine's, Peter's, and Casey's bodies had been dead for at least 12 hours before they were discovered and Keith had been dead.
They couldn't determine whether he was killed alongside Elaine and his children and then moved, or if he was taken away alive and then murdered either in the car or in the field.
What investigators could determine was that whoever killed the Dardines did not feel that there was urgency to leave the crime scene.
It was determined that the killer, or killers, took their time to not only place the dead bodies into the bed, But they had time to clean up the crime scene a little bit before leaving.
Okay, quick question here.
And I know that in cases like this, or just in general, where there's a female involved, and I mean, it sucks to have to even ask this question, but was Elaine sexually assaulted in any way, or were either of the children?
I mean, did they investigate that?
Of course, and I will point out here that there was no evidence of sexual assault on Elaine or either of the children.
The only portion of this event that was close to being sexual in nature was Keith having his genitals mutilated and or severed.
I say this because you're right.
Determining, you know, if sexual assault occurred is always a concern in pretty much any case involving a woman or children.
True. Yeah, you're right.
And I think most people probably tend to overlook that fact.
Like, it seems like, you know, people tend to believe that only a woman or child would be sexually assaulted, but they don't realize that men are also victims of sexual assault at an alarming rate, and everyone is a potential victim.
Luckily, this is getting a little bit more attention these days.
And another point on that, too, is that, yeah, sure, not all women report a sexual assault or rape to authorities.
And for a variety of valid reasons.
And I'm probably going to blow some minds here with this next fact I'm about to mention.
Oh, shit!
Minds are about to be blown.
Watch out, people!
Watch out!
But that is also the same for men.
In fact, it's said that five in six women don't report being raped.
And four out of five men also don't report being raped.
True again.
I mean, historically, men are taught to hide their real emotions, such as sadness and fear, and, you know, like, remain strong and macho.
Stoic and unmoved, or at least present themselves like they're that way.
So to admit that you were taken advantage of or raped or sexually assaulted, I'm sure that that would be difficult because of breaking that social role and whatnot.
Plus, I mean, just a traumatic experience in general.
I mean, true.
But back to what I was saying in regard to men admitting to being sexually assaulted or raped, there's also some self-blame and a lot of self-doubt, I would imagine.
It goes against this entire persona that we're taught to embody our entire lives.
And then on top of that, there's also this feeling that you might be ridiculed or not believed or looked at differently.
I mean, you know, this could cause irreparable harm in many areas and in your job, relationships, family, and friends.
And this is true for both men and women, of course.
Not only that, but take the socially skewed but socially acceptable perspective that, well, for example, if you're a young boy and, say, your quote-unquote hot teacher keeps you after class and gives you a blowy or a handy or a bobby or a toey or a dibby or a dabby or a givey or a bubby or whatever.
Oh, man.
I don't even know what any of those are except for the first two.
Maybe a Toey.
I wish I could have had a few of those, I guess, when I was in middle school.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, man.
But, yeah, that's crazy.
That's crazy talk, bro.
But first of all, we all know...
That's rape.
Whether the boy liked his teacher as much as she or he liked him, right?
But as a boy in that position, you're sort of stuck on the idea that it's nothing of the sort.
It's nothing bad.
It's actually kind of cool.
And secondly, all of your male friends are hella jealous of you, and so are any adult men, and probably adult women for that matter, you know, when they find out.
I'm sure at first you probably feel like it's a different situation, but then once the grown-ups get involved and the police get involved and it all inevitably comes to light, which it always does, I imagine the child reacts just like any other child with a little bit of fear and,
you know, like, oh, wow, this is really serious, you know?
Because they made it scary.
Because suddenly it's so much more different than this fantasy or whatever.
It's, you know, the authorities are interviewing you, your families are getting sat down, the teacher is in jail, you know?
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
Hell of a lot of pressure on the kid there, for sure.
And then there's the other side of it, too.
They said that it holds the completely erroneous view that a man cannot be raped or sexually assaulted.
And that's particularly by, you know...
Yeah, we're not going to give that any time.
That's obviously not true.
Yeah. Yep.
So getting back to the story.
So despite at least one news agency in St. Louis, Missouri, reporting that Elaine was sexually assaulted with or without the baseball bat, there was no evidence of such happening according to the coroner in medical examinations.
Good. I'm glad to hear that.
Yeah. Just to clear that one up.
So, what was the motive in all of this?
Why would such an all-American family be so brutally murdered?
By all accounts, the Dardenes were liked around town, and being that Ina was a sparsely populated village, word was likely to get around if you weren't liked.
But the police couldn't find a person who had a negative thing to say about them.
Okay, that does start us off on, you know, it's not like that weird family on the corner where everyone was like, uh, yep, I knew we were just gonna kill them.
True, yeah.
So, okay.
Let's start from the beginning.
Was it a love affair?
Let's go from there.
Alright, so the police started to think this may have been a case of an affair gone bad.
I mean, that's always the suspicion.
Had Keith or Elaine been having an affair with someone around town who then became jealous and killed the entire family in a murderous rage?
Or maybe they went to the Dardines to kill one of them, but the situation just got out of control.
Okay. Yeah, that's fair.
Lover scorned situation.
I mean, you know, we've seen that before.
Crimes of passion.
Yes. The more the police looked down that avenue, the more they found themselves heading toward a dead end.
Okay, what about robbery?
I mean, did these people have any material goods that a person would have been interested in?
I mean, are they sitting on the crown jewels?
Do they have some kind of safe or treasure?
What's going on?
That was another angle.
Whether this was a robbery or a botched robbery, so they looked around for all the usual signs of breaking and entering in robbery.
Things such as dresser drawers pulled out, clothes tossed everywhere, beds flipped over, overturned furniture, couch cushions all over the place.
Sure, sure.
Like the person was looking for something.
Yeah, throwing the place about, you know, as well as clearly missing items such as things that were expensive or had some sort of value in the black market.
But upon searching around, the police would find none of the usual signs of a robbery.
The police were quick to find that the back door of the residence was left open when they first arrived, and there were no signs of being forced to entry anywhere else.
So that can say a lot in many cases.
Right. I mean, that could mean that whoever this was was known by the Dardines, and the Dardines trusted this person, or these people.
Correct. But it doesn't always mean that, in every case.
Yeah, well, of course.
Because sometimes the perpetrators just get lucky, and the doors or windows happen to be open.
So the back door is wide open.
So this doesn't make any sense, because Keith was very protecting of his family.
And I don't see him leaving the back door open while he leaves.
I mean, considering that he shooed that young woman away who just wanted to use his phone, you know, he like suspected something was up and was like, hey, get out of here.
Yeah. I don't see him leaving and intentionally leaving a door open.
Yeah, I don't see that either.
Doesn't make sense.
So the police think that whoever did this was trusted by the Dardines and that's why there was no forced entry.
Pretty much.
But we really can't know that.
We have to consider whether the back door was accidentally left unlocked or a window, or did someone wait for one of them to open the door for whatever reason before the killer or killers made their move?
Was it just luck on the killer's part, or was it someone the Dardines knew and trusted?
All we really know here is that however they got into the residence, they seemed to only have one goal in mind, and that was to kill the Dardines.
But then again, were they trying to kill everyone, or just Keith, or just Elaine, or just Keith and Elaine?
Or just Peter?
I mean, it's tough to say, but I think it's very clear that it obviously wasn't a robbery.
No. The motive definitely was not a robbery, seeing that the police then realized that a VCR was there, a TV was there, a portable camera was there, amongst many other items.
They're all left right there in open view.
And in other areas, they found money and jewelry, so they ruled robbery out as a motive.
Right. And then rape obviously wasn't a motive because there was no evidence of sexual assault on the women or the males.
So, I mean, you can rule that out right away.
Yeah, rule that shit out.
So then, what about debts?
Okay, and I mean, this is maybe one that people don't think about, but did Keith have any outstanding debts with anybody?
This was a possible motive that the police looked into, but once again, they came up with nothing.
Keith's mom, Joanne Dardine, would even tell the police that Keith was not a gambler by any means.
He was such a frugal man that he used to resell cans of soda or pop, or soda pop, depending on where you're from, for 50 cents at work just to help save a little extra money for Peter's college fund.
Okay, so maybe drugs or some shit like that.
Maybe Keith was selling a little drogas on the side and somebody didn't like him stepping in on their territory and they're like, hey man.
You know, I mean, we hear about that, like, turf stuff going on.
I mean, this is, like, kind of in the middle of nowhere, but...
Yeah, drugs are everywhere.
That's true.
Yep. Anymore.
So, I mean, the police did find a tiny bit of weed when they were investigating the residents, but it was such a small amount that they felt it was highly unlikely that either Keith or Elaine were dealing drugs.
And that says a lot, considering it's 1987 and the war on drugs was hot and heavy, you know?
People were locked up for decades for having just a gram of weed on them.
And half the time, that shit was planted.
Exactly. Well, that's interesting.
I mean, no wonder everybody liked them.
Maybe they were the town dealers.
No, I'm just kidding.
I know they didn't find enough to think.
It's not like they found a scale and papers on the table.
They found probably seeds and stems.
The old seeds, yeah, it was probably old swagweed.
Exactly. So the police also looked into any sort of financial issues that the Dardines might have been going through.
But again, there was nothing to indicate that they were in any serious debt or financial ruin.
They just couldn't find anything to help them move forward in this investigation.
Yeah, dead ends all around.
Then there was the talk about Satanists and devil worshippers being responsible.
Well, aren't they always?
They seem to be putting their daggers into people and sacrificing babies for their blood, right?
The Democrats or the Republicans?
Well, both.
I mean, everyone knows that they're both sides of the same coin.
Well, I hope more and more people become aware of that very obvious fact.
Absolutely. Wake up, America, baby.
Really quick, man.
See this shit Biden said back on July 23rd, 2021 on the White House lawn while reporters asked him about all the defunding about the police?
Dude, yeah, man.
What in the actual fuck is that about, dude?
Why would he say that shit?
He's at a left field while the reporter asks him a specific question about defunding the police.
I mean, he may be President of the United States, but just so the listeners know what we're talking about, just to set the scene, Joe Biden's on the White House lawn, taking questions from a group of pre-chosen reporters.
This guy's looking from right to left like he's a damned pelican, eyeballing its prey.
You know, all wall-eyed.
As one of the reporters starts to ask her question, Biden then pivots back to his right to face the reporter, and he says in his voice, We are not defunding the police.
He then pivots back to the left and the reporter asks again, are there people in the Democratic Party who want to defund the police?
Biden pivots again back towards the reporter this time, interrupts her mid-question and says, are there people in the Republican Party who think we're sucking the blood out of kids?
Yeah, dude.
And when he says that, it catches the reporter off guard as it just goes silent for a moment.
And then she's like, I...
I'm not sure.
Yeah. And then she just goes back into asking the question about defunding the police.
Like, let's not focus on the important part of what he just said there.
Yeah. What the fuck?
Right, he just kind of rolled his eyes and shook his head like a pompous dick collector.
And then he goes back and he's like, oh, you just don't get it.
Oh. Yeah, and he throws his wrists up in the air.
Like, just gives up.
Exactly. Oh, you don't get it.
Yeah, and he just, like, walks back into the White House.
Yeah, dude.
To suck blood out of kids.
What's really going on, though?
I mean, these whistleblowers are coming out with some pretty damning stuff lately.
I mean, there's just too many coincidences and similar statements from the same group of powerful people.
It's just like right in front of our faces, man.
For sure.
Too coincidental.
Yeah, so what's going on there?
A lot of us would like to know.
But how did the devil worshippers tie into this whole thing with the Dardines, you ask?
Yes, I do ask.
So obviously, the murders happened in 1987, which was precisely during what some would argue as the pinnacle of the sad, sad, mass hysteria known as the...
The Satanic Panic!
Wow, yes.
The old satanic panic of the 1980s, which all culminated with the now-discredited book published in 1980 called Michelle Remembers, written by the now-discredited psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder.
It was co-written by the main character of the book, now-discredited Michelle Smith, who was also later married to Lawrence after the book's disastrous success.
The book was titled to be an autobiographical series of accounts about organized, ritualistic, satanic sexual abuse that Michelle was said to have experienced for years, beginning when she was just a little girl.
The accounts, if you will, were all fabricated through Dr. Lawrence's now-discredited treatment that he called Recovered Memory Therapy.
Right, it's more like hypnosis.
He was basically just telling her what she remembered and she went with it, and they formed a narrative around it, and unfortunately, the book really made a lasting impression on people.
Now, we are not saying that shit does not happen or did not happen, that being ritualistic abuse, because it certainly does happen.
Right now, as we speak, it's happening.
And it certainly did far back in time.
What we are saying is that Lawrence and Michelle used that to their financial advantage.
They literally banked on people's fear.
And again, part of that fear was due to real crimes of this nature happening during that time.
Yeah, for sure.
It's not like it doesn't have a historical background, obviously.
But these people were...
We mentioned it in previous episodes, but the Franklin cover-up?
Which happened in what?
Yeah, that all came to light in 1988 and had been going on for a number of years already.
Sure, sure.
And the McMartin preschool shit too?
Yes, exactly.
And the McMartin thing was going on all throughout the 1980s.
So yeah, that whole thing got tied up directly with the Dardene case because that trial started on July 13th, 1987.
So all this satanic panic and ritualistic sexual abuse was very fresh in everyone's minds.
Yeah, naturally.
I mean, they would have thought devil worshippers were behind the murders, of course.
Can you blame them?
I mean, can I?
Can I blame them?
Yes. Yes, I can.
And I do, actually.
I don't blame you for blaming them.
The now discredited book, Michelle Remembers, made more than just a financial success for the couple.
It made a nation of paranoid lunatics looking for everyone to point the finger at and blame for what would turn out to be literally any accusation or allegation or suspicion under the sun.
The satanic panic actually spread worldwide like a virus.
Mostly in Europe, I believe, and Australia as well.
Yep. Must have been a great read, though.
I mean, Michelle remembers book.
I mean, it did meet massive financial success, which only means millions of people bought it and were reading it, right?
It almost says more about the people who bought the book to read all the ritualistic child sexual affairs.
Dude, no shit, man.
That is a great fucking point.
Yeah. Dark, dark.
So, the satanic panic was in full swing, and the police didn't have anything to work with, let alone a suspect to pursue.
And people started talking.
And once they started talking, there was no stopping the hysteria from spreading like a government-funded, lab-created, weaponized virus purposely released to not only infect as many people as possible, but to use it as an economic and geopolitical agenda to further push governmental laws restricting individual rights and freedoms, and telling us those rights and freedoms are privileges,
and gaining more control over every aspect of our daily lives, and telling us it's for our convenience and our safety.
Yes, just like that, actually.
Very good.
But I wonder how this talking town went down.
Oh, yeah.
Well, let's give that a listen.
We actually have this recording of the very start of the Satanic Panic Rumor Mill.
Oh, yes, yes.
This is a really incredible piece of audio history, guys.
We do retain the rights.
All right.
Mr. Wayne Dale, if you would please go ahead and let that roll.
Uh, hey, Jimmy Teen?
What is it now, Earl?
I done had it up to here with your inquisitiveness today.
If... If I may posit a theory, Jimmy Jean, I think it was them devil worshippers who done did all that stuff over there at the Dardines' place.
Now, goddammit, Earl.
I mean, think about it, Jimmy Jean.
Only Satan could be behind something so evil.
You heard of Geraldo Rivera, Jimmy Jean?
Estimates are that there are over one million Satanists in the United States and they are linked in a highly organized secretive network.
You heard it yourself on the TV, Jimmy Gene.
You done did.
My God, Marduk, Utu, Tiamat, Enlil, and Enki.
I think you might be right on this one.
My God, Earl.
You think so, Jimmy Gene?
You really think so?
God damn it, Earl, no.
Geraldo Rivera said it first, and you're just re-repeating what Geraldo Rivera already done said.
Now shut up.
Call everyone in the phone book.
Let them know.
I'll write you, my Jane, that it's the goddamn devil worshippers behind this, just like everything else in the world from Wall Street to Walgreens, Earl.
I just know it.
Quick! I'll write you, my Jane.
Goddammit, Earl!
I said quick!
Oh, hey, can you get me a beer first, though, man?
Hey, thanks, buddy.
Huh. Yeah, I can see how quick that theory must have spread around town at the time.
Yeah, dude, those guys were on top of it.
Not a moment was lost.
Without getting too much into the satanic panic itself, let's just say that the police of Ina, Illinois, looked into the allegations of devil worshippers being behind the murders, but that too would prove to lead them nowhere helpful.
It just muddied the waters.
The accusations being made by the public at large about devil worshippers were running rampant, and there was no sign of abatement.
This led an officer who was an expert on cults to tell a newspaper that the accusations were not true.
He would tell this newspaper that typically, these types of groups often mutilate the bodies extensively, as well as take particular organs, and they usually leave satanic symbols around the crime scene with evidence of candles and such.
But there was nothing like that.
There were no signs being evident.
That's true.
If it was truly a satanic event, it probably would have been claimed, and there was nothing even close to any kind of calling card.
So those were the possible motives that the police investigated.
Definitely something to kick around.
Well, let's go over a couple different scenarios of how this could have played out.
First of all, was it one person?
Or more than one person?
Yeah, I mean, I feel like there would have had to have been more than one person to carry this out.
I mean, okay, well, first, let's just say there was one person and go from there.
Alright, yeah, one person scenario.
Let's do that.
Yeah, so the single bullet theory.
So the Dardines are home, right?
The three of them, with Elaine being about eight months pregnant, someone they know and trust shows up.
They're let inside.
Elaine and Keith feel at ease.
At first, this person has a handgun, right?
Okay, so yeah, the evidence shows that there was a handgun involved.
So at gunpoint, then they, you know, like you get Keith out of the picture by saying, I will shoot your family and your kids.
If you don't do what I tell you, get out in your car right now.
And he's like, no, I'm not going to leave.
Brandish the gun.
Yeah, I could have knocked him out.
Or hit him or something maybe.
But the thing is, that's kind of tough though, right?
So the evidence that the police saw, right, say the killer took their time.
They weren't rushed.
In the crime scene.
So you can't be having this guy that you're trying to separate out and deal with this family at the same time, obviously hysterical.
They're not going to be calm about it.
He kills them with a baseball bat, mutilates their bodies with this bat.
That takes a minute.
So you can't have this father that you're trying to keep at bay.
You know, who was shot three, who was shot three times in the face.
So I just, and then the police also, like the medical examiners, said that the bodies had been, you know, killed before, right?
Keith's body in the end.
Right. So obviously they were killed first.
So you can't say that he took Keith and left and then came back and did the killing.
You know, like it had to, they had to have been killed first.
Yeah. So I feel like that rules out our single person theory.
I think how this could have worked with a single person would be, this person was known to the family, they let him in, they had a handgun, pointed it at Keith, and it was basically, alright, tie your wife up, or, you know, because she had duct tape, or tape around her ankles and wrists.
So, at gunpoint, they made Keith tie her up.
Man! So, how does that work out?
Exactly, that's what I'm saying.
It would have to be a scene, I mean...
Maybe they tied him up.
Maybe they tied Keith up, but they never said that he had evidence of his hands or anything being tied.
But they could have just taken him out of the picture and then maybe killed his family in front of him and then taken him out and done it that way.
That would be the most likely scenario is the person's got the gun, aiming at the kid, they're in shock, don't know what to do, tie up the husband and take him out of the picture.
Unfortunately, brutally kill the family after that, and then take Keith and kill him away from town.
And also, they could have come in, ordered Keith to tie up the wife or whatever, and he was like, no, I'm not doing that, and they got in a fight or whatever, and then they shot him in the face once to incapacitate him.
Sure. So he's down, he's shot in the face, he knows he's shot, so he's like, holy fuck.
And then the person kills the family, puts him in the bed, Puts Keith in the car, the 1981 Red Plymouth.
Goes inside, cleans up the mess a little bit.
Takes Keith out to the field.
In the car.
In the car.
So maybe they shot him again in the car.
Yeah, because they said there was blood spattered inside of the Plymouth.
Shot him again after they drove him out.
Because he was coming to.
Yeah, I guess.
Maybe he was coming to after being shot in the face the first time.
And he was starting to put up a fight, so they shot him again in the face.
Put him out again.
Yeah, or just to make sure.
Yeah, and then walked him out to the field and then executed him finally.
So I was too hasty in saying that it couldn't have been done by one person because I think we just proved that it could have been.
It could have.
It would have been...
We don't know the exact details.
We don't have the crime scene photos, anything like that.
The blood smears, we don't have that stuff.
So we don't know.
Sure. Well, let's walk down the more than one person scenario.
So it's hard not to think that whoever did this had something personal against the Dardanes to be attacked with such, you know, brutality, beating to death with a baseball bat, not only a three-year-old, but a literal newborn baby that was beat out of Elaine.
And then after taking Keith to a nearby field to kill him in a different location with a different weapon and they mutilated his generals, that's just far too personal there.
It is very personal, but it could have just, in my opinion, as easily been just a crazy person, though.
Could have been.
As well.
Sexually motivated.
I don't know.
But ultimately, Keith was found with two bullets to the face and one directly to the skull.
Police said that there was blood inside of the Plymouth that led police to think that he was first shot inside the car and then led into the field where he was shot again and ultimately killed.
Sure, I can agree there.
I mean, personally, there had to be more than one person involved in this.
It just seems that there was more than one person.
When you consider all of the circumstances, like the scene didn't seem chaotic, right?
There were no signs of a struggle.
Nothing appeared to be out of place.
Nothing was missing.
Whoever did this also took their time.
They didn't appear to be in a rush or hurried in any way.
It just seems that if it was just one person against the Dardenes, they would have put up a bit of a fight somehow.
But again, maybe not.
So when did they think this happened anyways?
Like, what time of the day?
The authorities assumed the murders took place under the cover of night.
The Dardines lived pretty close to Route 37, which is a frequently traveled state highway, and about 2,000 feet, or about 610 meters to the west, sat Interstate 57. Therefore, the police thought that the killer or killers used the noise of passing traffic in the darkness of night to their advantage.
And this to the police meant that the Dardine murders were not a random attack, but that they had been targeted and their murders had been planned.
And with that said, the police looked at every angle.
Was it one killer?
Was it more than one?
The logistics point to there being more than one killer.
Now here's one scenario of how this could have played out.
Two or more people show up at the Dardenes under the cover of darkness.
At least one of them has a handgun.
And so at gunpoint, they keep the scene under their control, more or less.
The perpetrators then used a weapon found at the scene, that being the baseball bat, to kill Elaine, Peter, and newborn Casey.
Whether they made Keith watch or not is up for debate, but we know that after Elaine, Peter and Casey were murdered.
Keith was then brought to the wheat field at gunpoint.
There's no doubt about that.
Seeing as there were blood splatters inside Keith's Plymouth, it's reasonable to assume that the killer or killers forced Keith inside the car, where they most likely shot him in the face and or cut his penis off, hence the blood.
They drove to the wheat field, where they made him walk a certain distance and then shot him either once, Twice or three times in the head.
As I said earlier, it's impossible to say when Keith's penis was severed.
Was it at the residence?
Was it in the car?
Was it in the field?
We don't know.
We don't know where it is.
Right, and so even after all of this, the police really only came up with like one suspect, right?
Or am I wrong?
Was it more than one suspect?
Well, in fact, one suspect was a serial killer who had already been caught for some of his crimes.
His name was Tommy Lynn Sells.
He was known to have killed at least 22 people, but most authorities were adamant he killed many more than that.
Tommy himself even admitted to killing more, including the Dardines.
But they didn't believe him because they thought that he was just trying to pull one over on them like old Henry Lee Lucas, who gets brought up a lot here, and Otis Toole, of course.
So they discounted Tommy's confession.
Yeah, I mean, I could see how you'd rule it out and just be like, well, he could just be blowing smoke.
So Tommy Lynn Sells was executed by lethal injection on January 3rd, 2014 in Huntsville, Texas, and according to Wikipedia, his execution was not botched.
According to Wikipedia, he was given a lethal dose of either pentobarbital.
He then took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes, and began to snore.
What? I know exactly what you're going to say.
No. Hold on.
First of all...
How many deep breaths is a few?
I feel like I need to know.
It's probably something like 15 to 25. Exactly.
And second, that wasn't snoring.
That was him choking on his fluids, man.
Like, filling his lungs.
Or it could have been a drawn-out death rattle, which also commonly happens when people are in the process of dying.
Like, going over that threshold, you know?
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, too.
But it goes on.
Okay. Less than a minute later, he stopped moving.
13 minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
So... What we hear now by the doctors is saying that these people, they can't move, and they just drown in the fluids that build up in their lungs for minutes.
Yeah, and these minutes aren't fast minutes.
And can I quote that quote from earlier one more time?
Regardless of outward appearance of a tranquil death, 84% of those executed showed evidence of pulmonary edema, a fluid buildup in the lungs that creates a feeling of suffocation or drowning that experts have likened to waterboarding.
It's absolutely terrible.
I wonder if his autopsy was used in that NPR report.
Yeah, it probably was.
And it was a high-profile case.
So Tommy Lynn Sells was a suspect, right?
So what happens after that?
So the cops didn't believe him.
I mean, his story changed about how he met Keith and how it all went down no less than three times.
So the cops believed he was just trying to use the system to avoid being executed.
He said a lot of things that led many of the police to believe him, though.
But whoever made the final call decided, you know, let's not believe him.
And at some point...
Before he was about to be murdered himself, he made some comments that went something like this.
Well, how many families have ceramic watermelon figurines?
Or some shit like that.
And it was a fact that the Dardines did have a set of ceramic watermelon figurines.
Oh, interesting.
But here's my take on that.
Most of the time when people do this, confess to unsolved crimes, the majority of the information they give is already public knowledge.
You know, they get it from the newspapers or wherever.
The same goes for photos of the publication's prints with articles.
You following me?
Oh yeah.
So you're saying that Tommy may have seen a photograph in the newspaper or something like that.
Maybe it had a little bit of information included.
He sees a set of ceramic watermelon figurines in the background and you know.
Yeah, it's possible.
It's happened before.
It's just an idea.
No, that's a good idea, for sure.
So, okay, Tommy Lynn Sells was executed.
So, what about the other suspects?
There was another heavy hitter.
This guy's name was Angel Maturino Resendez, who was another serial killer who roamed the railways and was given the name the Railroad Killer because he traveled all over the U.S. by train and raped and murdered a lot of people, 15 or 16 officially, and thought to be responsible for many more.
So, because of his transient lifestyle and method of travel, much like Tommy Lynn Sells, actually, Angel became a suspect, but there wasn't enough evidence, that is, there was no evidence whatsoever linking anyone to the Dardene murders, let alone Angel.
He would also be murdered by lethal injection on June 27, 2006 in Huntsville, Texas, and probably another autopsy for NPR.
So this whole thing is nuts.
So no other suspects, even after all these years?
Not that the public is generally aware of, but there would be two FBI profilers who would hop on board and try to help however they could, but they found that the Dardene murders defied their typical analytic methods, which is interesting, and they were unable to provide any assistance.
Damn! Yeah, man.
There was no evidence to work with at all, almost as if it was an inside job, like a mafia hit, like the Dardenes were in the Witness Protection Program or something.
That is another of the more pseudo-theories that people have speculated on.
Oh! One part of the theory goes as such.
Both Keith and Elaine only wanted to be called by the middle names.
You know, Keith and Elaine.
Their first names were Russell and Ruby.
People say that the Dardines were running from something.
Many say that one of the best ways to blend yourself into a new community is to get in good with a local church.
They were tight with their local church, and they only went by the middle names.
And Keith had become increasingly worried about his and his family's safety only about one year after moving to Ina.
The killing was the type of killing that really makes an example of you, right?
Right, yeah.
Not just some...
I mean, it would easily explain the lengths that the killer went to to not only mutilate the bodies by such a severe beating, with a violence like a bat also, which is also very organized crime style, but the cutting off of the penis,
you take the guy out, make him walk.
I mean, everybody knows that the Mafia uses bats to teach a lesson.
Even to kill, especially when it's very personal.
So that just kind of fits, you know?
I don't know.
That one holds probably the most water with me.
But, you know, this is all speculation, people.
We're just tossing some ideas out there.
Yeah, I mean, it's worth it.
Nobody else figured anything out.
But that is the story of the Dardene family and their horrific unsolved murders.
It's just crazy how there's nothing to lead them to a suspect.
Yeah, it's a real head-scratcher.
It really gets the neurons firing, you know?
Hey, did you say you had a couple emails that you wanted to read?
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Hold on.
Here we go.
Let's click this.
Close. Fucking close.
Close. Fucking close.
Click. Click.
Click. Okay, one more.
Click. All right.
All right.
Oh, man.
Click. Holy shit.
Click. Close!
So many.
Click! Ugh.
Alright. I think I'm finally there.
Okay. Dear God, what's going on over there?
Pages upon pages upon pages.
Thousands of them!
Seriously, the RAM is just in the red constantly.
Wayndale's gonna have to pass on hiring three sex workers tomorrow in order to buy a new computer over here.
Tomorrow morning, yeah, man.
That might be pretty difficult for him.
You know what?
I'm gonna kick you both in the fucking nuts the moment we stop recording this.
Whoa, it's two against one, buddy, so good luck.
I'm not fucking scared of you guys.
Hmm, sounds like it.
Alright, read those emails.
Yes. Hey, fuck you, man.
Okay, Coop, do you hear something?
No, uh, no.
I don't hear anything.
I've had it up to my ankles with you two numbskulls.
Yeah. Anyways, here, why don't you read this first one and I'll read the second.
It only makes sense that you read the first one and, well, you'll see why.
No worries, man.
Now I'm interested in what this says.
Alright, let's see.
This one is from Clara Limon?
Limon? Limon.
From somewhere in South Carolina.
Oh, well, you gotta try with the accent then.
No! You have to.
Bro, you have to.
Alright, alright, alright.
Sorry to all of our South Carolina listeners.
Please forgive us.
Yes, we mean no disrespect with our impersonations, but we just like to call it like we see it.
Clara says, Y'all funny as hell.
I can't get enough of y'all.
Seriously? For as stupid as it is, I realize that's exactly what my humor is like.
Stupid. So I wanted to thank y'all for reassuring why I'm not as crazy as all my girlfriends say I am.
I love the show.
I only started listening a few weeks ago, so I'm a little behind.
Y'all are perfect for the drive to and from work.
Also, Scott, I think I have the right one.
Not the one that talks more.
The other one?
That's Scott, right?
LOL. Anyway, your voice is sexy as hell.
LOL. I'm sure y'all seen that Howard Stern movie with the speaker?
LOL. You have my email.
Bye, y'all.
XOXO. See what I mean, man?
Yeah, see what I mean.
Well, thanks, Clara.
I appreciate that.
That's actually pretty freaking awesome to hear.
Everyone knows your voice melts.
Oh, jeez.
First of all, thank you.
Thank you very much, Clara Lamone, for that illuminating email.
Keep listening, and yeah, thank you.
Yep, thanks.
And my number is...
Nah, just kidding.
And what's this next email you got?
This next one comes to us from Christopher P. out of Redding, California.
Oh, right up there by Shasta Lake.
Beautiful country up there.
That's absolutely true, Coop.
Alright, man.
Do a super proper white-collar voice.
I just think it'll sound great.
Oh, yeah.
No, we love our fans.
We wouldn't actually make fun of any of them.
So, Christopher P. from Redding, California writes in to say...
This is one of the most random yet informative and entertaining podcasts I've listened to in a long time.
I don't get bored while I listen to it, and at least you guys talk about relevant things in between the storyline and don't go droning off about stupid shit.
Haha, that's what's up.
As for a suggestion...
If you haven't considered him yet, a guy named Kerry Stainor, who killed at least four people, but suspected in a bunch of other murders in and around Yosemite National Park, is quite the story, that guy.
That's all.
Take care, guys.
Awesome. Christopher P., thank you for that.
First of all, we do join off about stupid shit all the time.
Yes, all the time, man.
But, uh, yeah, we appreciate the email.
Yeah, thanks for writing in and giving us that suggestion.
That's a crazy case, man.
That's a pretty fucked up one, but we will do it.
Put that in the calendar.
It is documented.
Thanks, Christopher.
See? The best audience.
Hands down the best audience.
The nicest and the best looking as well.
Yeah, they are, man.
And they smell amazing.
Well, I'm not sure how you're getting that, but I sure wish I could.
But yeah, alright ladies and gentlemen, once again, thank you all for tuning in and all that good stuff.
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