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Hi, my name is Mark Chavez and I'm
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the host of Let's Make a Horror, a podcast
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where three comedians try to make a horror
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short film. Why
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am I laughing like a ghost? This is scary for
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we consult Hollywood horror experts. People
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Let's Make a Horror Let's
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a Horror Let's Make a Horror
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Let's Make a Horror Welcome to Crawl Space. I'm Tim here
1:45
today with Lance. Lance, how are you today?
1:48
Doing great today, Tim, because it is
1:50
a very special day. It's a very special episode
1:52
coming up, but it's special in other ways
1:54
because it's Halloween. So I just want to
1:56
say Happy Halloween to you, sir. How
1:59
are you? Yes.
1:59
I'm doing well, yes. Happy Halloween
2:02
indeed. And today
2:05
on Crawl Space we're going to be talking about the serial
2:07
killer known as the alphabet
2:09
killer. Otherwise known as
2:12
Joseph Nassau, that's his name.
2:14
But we're going to get into it. Before we
2:17
do, we just want to send a thanks to our fantastic
2:19
researcher, Marianne Stonewight,
2:22
for this research. But before we get
2:24
to that great piece of research that Marianne put together,
2:26
we're going to break real quick for
2:28
commercial and we'll be right back with Joseph
2:31
Nassau, the alphabet killer.
2:40
Say hi. Hello.
2:43
This video is a message from a little boy
2:45
named someone. He disappeared five
2:47
years ago in Syria during the war to
2:49
defeat ISIS.
2:51
He still hasn't been found.
2:53
My name is Poonam Tineja. I'm
2:55
traveling to Syria to find out what happened
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to Salman and the thousands of children
3:00
like him, lost in one of the most dangerous
3:03
places on Earth. From BBC
3:05
Sounds and the CBC podcasts, Bloodlines,
3:08
listen wherever you get your podcasts.
3:11
I'm Kathleen Goldhar and I'm the host
3:13
of a new podcast, Crime Story. Every
3:16
week we bring you a different crime, told
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by the storyteller who knows it best.
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You got one witness who can't be found.
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You got another witness who's murdered. We
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couldn't sugar-crate the story. I was getting
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calls from Cosby's attorney threatening to sue every
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day. Every crime in one way or another
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is a reflection of who we are as a people,
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as a city, as a country. Find
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us wherever you get your podcasts. Hi
3:41
folks. Let me see if I can sum
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up Midnight Burger in about 25 seconds. Really,
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my superhero irony. Pardon me,
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Gloria. Might my husband and I have
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a word?
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The radio is talking
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to me. So this is how it ends. Eaten by wolves in
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space. There's a pocket dimension
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in the deep breeze. This is the story. stupidest
4:00
dystopia we've ever been to. What the hell
4:03
is that?
4:03
Because you're having a cigarette
4:05
in 415 million BC. Where
4:09
are we? Space.
4:10
Can you narrow that down? The bad
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part? Ava. Yeah, that didn't work at all.
4:15
At the nexus of all things, there is a diner.
4:18
Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app,
4:20
or just go to weopenatsix.com.
4:32
Joseph Nasso was born January 7,
4:34
1934, and he lived in New York, California,
4:38
and Nevada.
4:42
He was ultimately apprehended in 2011 in Reno,
4:44
Nevada, and convicted of four counts of murder. And
4:50
he is serving life in prison in San
4:52
Quentin as we speak. Eighty-nine
4:55
years old and on death row in
4:57
San Quentin, Joseph Nasso
4:59
was born in Rochester, New York in 1934, served in the
5:01
Air Force in the 1950s. This
5:04
is where he met his wife, Judith, and they had
5:06
a son named Charles. Charles
5:08
was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia,
5:11
and Nasso was said to have taken care of him in
5:13
the later years. After 18 years
5:16
of marriage, Joseph and Judith divorced.
5:19
They lived in San Francisco and Nevada in
5:21
the following years, but he apparently
5:24
still visited her in the East Bay area
5:26
where she lived on many occasions. During
5:29
this time, Nasso worked as a freelance
5:31
photographer and attended community college
5:34
in Oakland, and this was in the mid-1970s. And
5:37
then we'll jump forward to 1994. Nasso
5:40
was arrested for petty theft in Sutter
5:42
County near Yuba City. And
5:45
in 95, Nasso was arrested
5:47
for attempting to steal 30 pairs of
5:50
women's underwear from a department
5:52
store. Then in 2003,
5:54
he was arrested in Sacramento for shoplifting
5:57
from a local food store. And
5:59
he was later paroled, but when he didn't
6:01
show up for a scheduled visit with his parole
6:04
officer on April 13th 2010,
6:07
his PO Wes Jackson decided to pay
6:09
Nassau a visit at his home. As
6:12
we learn more about Nassau,
6:14
that number of underwear,
6:17
the 30 that he stole, starts to
6:19
come into play a little bit based on the victim
6:23
list and his motivations
6:27
with them. There's some sources
6:29
say that under Nassau's parole
6:32
terms, his house could be searched
6:34
at any time without a warrant. However,
6:36
other sources say that after entering
6:38
Nassau's house, Jackson saw
6:41
an advertisement for a gun, several
6:44
cartridges around the house. Because
6:46
this was a parole violation, a search
6:49
warrant was obtained. Either way, the
6:51
search turned into much more than Nassau's
6:53
parole officer ever imagined. And
6:55
officers ultimately found a total of
6:58
four guns, ammunition, handcuffs,
7:00
and police officer uniforms. And
7:02
they also found many nude and
7:04
semi nude photos and
7:07
videos of young women, many
7:09
of whom appeared unconscious or even
7:11
dead. Nassau tried to explain
7:14
these away by saying they were all part of his
7:16
job as a freelance photographer
7:19
and that none of it was actually real. But
7:22
officers discovered a room in his house
7:24
that could only be accessed from the outside.
7:27
And there was a small area cut out of the door
7:30
where things could be passed through without
7:32
opening the door, which is kind of like
7:34
a jail cell. And the window on
7:36
the door was also the only
7:39
one on the house that was equipped with
7:41
metal bars. Couldn't imagine
7:43
being the officers discovering all this and realizing
7:46
as you're discovering it how it's all
7:48
coming together, how this is so
7:50
much more than what you thought it was going to be going into
7:52
it. The dresser drawers in
7:54
a bedroom were packed with women's clothing,
7:57
which seemed odd since no one else appeared to
7:59
be living there at the time, there were a pair
8:02
of mannequin legs turned upside
8:04
down wearing pantyhose. Nassau
8:07
claimed he wore pantyhose because of a skin
8:09
condition on his leg, but Jackson
8:12
noted that Nassau wasn't wearing pantyhose
8:14
at the time, he was just wearing socks. And
8:17
also found during the search was a diary
8:20
in Nassau's bedroom that contained information
8:22
about several different women. This diary
8:24
came to be known later on in court
8:27
as the quote dump journal end
8:29
quote and the quote rape diary
8:31
end quote. One of the entries read
8:34
quote girl in north buffalo woods,
8:37
she was real pretty, front seat of
8:39
my car, had to knock her out first 1958
8:41
end quote. And another that
8:44
read quote Selena Kansas, girl
8:47
I followed and met at Fred Astaire dance
8:49
studio, she was gorgeous, great
8:52
legs in nylons, heels, had
8:54
to rape her in my car on a cold wintery
8:57
night, snowstorm end quote.
8:59
Sort of says something about his ego that he felt
9:01
the need to document these in a diary,
9:05
which is really interesting to me. Yeah,
9:08
or he's trying to remember these
9:10
details for some reason.
9:13
Right.
9:14
So this information about what was found
9:16
during the search of Nassau's house, obviously
9:18
is extremely alarming, but possibly
9:22
the biggest piece of evidence found is
9:24
what officers called a shortlist.
9:27
This was a list numbered from one
9:29
to 10, but did not provide specific
9:31
names. Instead on this paper named
9:34
by Nassau, the list of 10, this
9:37
quote list of 10, there were the words
9:39
quote lady or quote girl
9:42
followed by a location, which was
9:44
where he supposedly met or
9:46
first saw each of those women.
9:49
Once investigators started looking into these places,
9:52
they found that six women had been
9:54
killed in six of the listed
9:57
areas. The other four locations
9:59
are still undeterred.
10:00
That is wild. And police
10:03
also discovered a stash of notebooks which
10:05
has apparently been written years after
10:07
the so-called dump journal or rape diary.
10:10
In these notebooks, Nassau recounts graphic
10:13
descriptions of bondage, torture,
10:15
and murder. Some of these appeared
10:17
to be crimes he had already
10:19
committed while others were written
10:21
more like an instructional manual for crimes
10:24
he intended to commit in the future.
10:26
I mean it almost feels like he wanted
10:29
this information to be out there if
10:31
he got caught because it seems like you're
10:33
putting together an instructional manual.
10:35
It's really striking to me as an incredibly
10:38
organized serial killer. Nassau
10:41
was ultimately arrested for probation
10:43
violations and spent the next
10:45
year in a Nevada prison. Then
10:47
a year later Nassau was awaiting
10:50
trial on charges of murdering four
10:52
women. The four women were all prostitutes
10:54
who were strangled to death. The
10:57
thing about these murders is that they seem to follow
10:59
the plot of the Agatha Christie
11:01
novel The ABC Murders where
11:03
the first letter of each victim's first
11:06
and last name are the same. These
11:09
murders became to be known as the alphabet
11:11
murders or the double initial killings.
11:14
And on January 10th 1977 the body of 18 year old Roxene
11:19
Rogache was found near Fairfax,
11:21
California and wearing a pair
11:24
of panty hose. She also had her
11:26
hands and feet bound with
11:28
a pair of pantyhose and another
11:30
pair was stuffed into her mouth. And
11:33
police determined she had only been dead
11:35
for a day and because police suspected
11:38
she was a prostitute they believed she had
11:40
been killed by local pimp. However
11:42
there was never enough evidence to move forward with
11:45
a case against him. But her
11:47
family denies she was ever involved
11:49
in sex work at all. Moving
11:51
on to August 13th 1978 the body of
11:54
a nude female was found by a highway
11:56
patrol officer on Carquinas Scenic
11:59
Highway. body was later identified to
12:01
be that of 22 year old Carmen
12:03
Colon. This case soon went
12:06
cold because of the lack of evidence. And 15
12:08
years later 38 year old waitress
12:12
Pamela Parsons was found
12:14
dead in Yuba County. She had ligature
12:16
marks on her wrists and neck and her hyoid
12:19
bone had been broken which is typical
12:22
in some cases of strangulation
12:25
as this is a small horseshoe shaped
12:27
bone in the middle of the neck.
12:29
And in the following year 1994 31 year old Tracy
12:31
Tafoya was also found dead
12:35
in Yuba County. She had been drugged,
12:38
raped and dumped in a cemetery.
12:40
It's believed her body had been dumped
12:42
there around a week prior to her being
12:44
found. And because of all the evidence
12:46
found during the search of his house authorities
12:49
from multiple states believe that Nassau
12:51
is actually responsible for several other murders
12:54
across the United States. And while no
12:56
one has stated a figure or
12:58
even attempted to estimate the potential
13:00
number of victims police do believe that
13:03
Nassau committed several rapes and murders across
13:05
the country from California to New York
13:07
to Florida. In addition to
13:09
the diary notebooks and photos found
13:12
in his house authorities also discovered a
13:14
number of driver's licenses, passports
13:16
and work identification cards belonging to
13:18
women. They even found a birth certificate
13:21
of a woman born in 1914. Authorities believe it
13:25
is very likely that Nassau was operating undetected
13:27
for many years and that there were likely
13:30
other victims out there that haven't been
13:32
discovered yet. I think that's pretty clear
13:35
just with the way he describes the
13:38
sexual assault that he performs on
13:40
these women. It's so nonchalant
13:43
and passive. It's
13:45
almost as if he's talking about taking
13:47
someone out on a date. Then it wouldn't
13:50
be a surprise to me at all if there were at
13:52
least a couple dozen more
13:54
victims. And knowing that it's likely
13:57
Nassau was committing these heinous crimes
13:59
for over half a second. police now
14:01
say that he could probably have been
14:03
stopped earlier. Over the years several
14:05
women went to police to report themselves
14:08
or their daughters being sexually assaulted
14:10
by Nassau and he was charged with rape
14:12
at least twice but each time it was regarded
14:15
with indifference at best
14:17
by the authorities and at
14:19
least once police reportedly told
14:21
Nassau to leave town to avoid
14:24
arrest. Sounds like a really responsible way
14:26
to address an issue of rape
14:29
allegation. Just get out
14:31
of town. If you don't
14:34
want to be arrested get out of town. And in 2012
14:36
as he awaited trial
14:38
for the four murders authorities continue
14:40
to investigate him and the
14:42
following are just some of the cases
14:45
that could possibly be connected
14:47
back to Nassau or at least had been looked
14:49
at. The first one we're going to talk about is South
14:51
Lake Tahoe's cold case files which
14:54
include the 1976 murder of 17
14:57
year old Kathleen Keyhane. Kathleen's
15:00
body was found under the Truckee
15:02
River Bridge her skull was crushed by something
15:05
sharp. No suspects or motive
15:08
have yet been identified in her
15:10
case. And Marina Mitchell disappeared
15:13
from the American River Canyon in 1976. Searchers
15:15
combed the area for weeks. Her decomposed
15:19
body washed ashore not far
15:22
from where she was last seen. Foul
15:24
play was ruled out because the
15:26
leads were short and there was no intent
15:28
but investigators admitted they
15:31
may never know how Mitchell actually died.
15:34
And Tim this brings us to the point where
15:36
we should probably talk about Sheila Shepherd's case.
15:39
Absolutely and of course we've covered
15:41
Sheila Shepherd's unsolved murder pretty
15:43
extensively here on the crawlspace
15:45
and missing airwaves we even spun it off
15:48
into its own podcast feed so if you want
15:50
to hear more about Sheila Shepherd's
15:52
unsolved murder just search the
15:54
murder of Sheila Shepherd in
15:56
your pod catcher. Sheila Shepherd
15:58
was murdered in Saratoga
16:00
Springs in her apartment November
16:03
23rd, 1980.
16:05
She
16:06
was suffocated with
16:08
her blouse and her cause
16:11
of death was ruled as asphyxiation.
16:14
So it was kind of just her
16:16
blouse was stuffed into her mouth. So that kind
16:18
of reminds me of some of these other cases in
16:21
Nassau's story. And it's
16:24
a little different from Nassau's
16:26
MO in that Sheila wasn't
16:30
the victim of an aggressive
16:32
sexual assault. She was found without any clothes
16:34
on, on her bed, tied her
16:37
hands, her riffs, and her ankles,
16:39
tied in a spread eagle fashion. She
16:42
had the knife in her stomach that was inflicted
16:44
post-mortem, but there was no
16:46
physical sexual assault. I mean, the attack
16:49
itself is sexual in nature, but
16:51
this one stands out from Nassau
16:54
in that there was no
16:56
actual sexual aggression going
16:58
on, which would be an outlier
17:00
with Nassau because that was his main objective,
17:03
was to have that sexual act
17:06
occur. And just for a little context here,
17:08
Rochester is 220 miles away from Saratoga Springs, and
17:13
that's about a three and a half hour drive.
17:16
And Nassau would have been about 46 at
17:19
the time of Sheila Shepard's murder.
17:21
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all of the evidence against the suspect. And
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as the investigation of NASA continues, his former wife Judith visited
20:27
him at the
20:33
Washoe
20:56
County Jail. The police monitored
20:58
the conversation as NASA told
21:00
her to enlist the help of their eldest son.
21:03
He said, quote, once Charlie gets into
21:05
my house, tell him to go straight to my bedroom.
21:08
In the top drawer of the dresser under
21:11
my socks is a blue two by
21:13
four inch pouch envelope containing
21:15
my safe deposit keys. I've
21:18
got things in there that are private. NASA
21:20
said, according to the court papers.
21:23
And detectives found a black zippered
21:25
bag with an envelope in a safety deposit
21:28
box at a Reno bank. In
21:30
it, there were 66 photographs
21:32
of women naked or in various
21:34
states of undress alongside
21:36
various identification documents
21:39
belonging to several different women. And
21:41
there was a passport and driver's license
21:43
in the name of Sarah Dillon, a
21:45
woman who used to be called Renee
21:47
Shapiro. Shapiro had changed
21:50
her name to that of Bob Dylan's first wife
21:52
as an homage to the singer and
21:54
was on her way to a Bob Dylan concert 20
21:57
years earlier when she actually went
21:59
missing. Shapiro had followed
22:01
Dylan to performances across the US
22:03
and abroad for years. And so that
22:05
safety deposit box also held
22:07
a piece of paper on which Nassau
22:10
wrote quote, May 4th 1992, Monday,
22:12
PM, end quote, and that is the time
22:14
of the Dylan
22:17
concert that Shapiro never made
22:19
it to. It makes you wonder how
22:22
long he had been stalking this individual and
22:25
when we had mentioned that he'd stolen
22:27
the 30 pairs of underwear from
22:29
the department store, it
22:32
seems to me like it's so
22:34
premeditated that he's going
22:36
to take pictures of women, dress
22:39
them how he wants to dress them, including
22:41
the underwear that either he's purchased or stolen,
22:44
pantyhose that he's purchased or stolen, and
22:47
that's just a level of psychosis
22:49
that I would love to talk to somebody
22:51
about because this is again
22:53
so premeditated and planned if
22:56
that was the case. 30 pairs
22:58
of underwear, what are you doing with those?
23:01
You're abducting
23:03
these women, you're sexually assaulting
23:05
them, you're making
23:07
them pose or they're unconscious, and
23:10
you're dressing them in what you've stolen or bought,
23:13
like dolls, like mannequins.
23:15
And as Nassau was arrested for the alphabet
23:18
murders that took place in San Francisco, people
23:20
on the other side of the country near
23:22
Rochester, New York took notice
23:25
as they never quite got over the murders of three
23:27
young schoolgirls back in the early
23:29
1970s between 71 and 73 and the murders had also been dubbed the
23:35
alphabet killings because again each
23:37
of the victims first and last names
23:40
shared the same initial. And
23:42
disturbingly one of the ten-year-old
23:44
victims in the Rochester area carried
23:47
the same name as a woman allegedly
23:49
murdered by Nassau in California
23:51
years later, Carmen Colon, so
23:54
same name. That is wild.
23:56
Yeah. I'm not sure if that's connected but
23:59
that is a wild. coincidence. Yeah
24:01
it really is and there had been multiple suspects
24:03
over the years with one failed investigation after
24:06
another. Now investigators in New York
24:08
say that Nassau is a person
24:10
of interest, although they do point
24:13
out that while a connection may exist
24:15
there are also reasons for caution
24:18
and the alphabet murders that occurred
24:21
in Rochester in the early 1970s remain
24:25
unsolved. Through DNA evidence
24:27
Nassau was actually ruled out of the
24:29
murder of Wanda Walkavitz. So
24:32
he's at least not responsible
24:34
for Wanda's murder but
24:36
there is still Carmen Colon and
24:38
Michelle Manza and
24:41
it should be noted that Carmen was 10 years
24:44
old, Michelle was 11 and Wanda was also 11
24:46
and Nassau was born in 1934 so
24:52
I think he'd be around 37 38 around the time
24:54
of these murders so it's not impossible
24:59
although Nassau lived in Rochester
25:02
at that time there is no evidence
25:04
that directly connects him to any of those
25:07
alphabet murders. So now this brings
25:09
us to the trial. During a preliminary
25:11
hearing Nassau showed that while he
25:13
may be older now he was no less honoree.
25:16
He accused prosecutors of misunderstanding,
25:20
here's that nonchalantness that he uses with
25:22
raping women, he accused prosecutors
25:25
of misunderstanding his use of the word
25:28
rape saying quote in
25:30
my culture and where I come
25:33
from New York it's a term
25:35
for making out, scoring, getting
25:37
to first base, I use that term loosely
25:40
end quote and Tim we know
25:42
people in that age range or
25:44
a little younger have you ever
25:46
heard any of the of your elders
25:49
ever say oh back in my day the
25:52
term rape was just kind of used as
25:54
a loose term for making out
25:57
get together with my girlfriend and do
25:59
a little rape. I mean that's
26:01
an insane thing to say. He's obviously trying
26:03
to cover his tracks. It's just
26:05
not true. It's just Absolutely
26:08
absurd and he goes on to say that Everything
26:11
was consensual and he even
26:13
boasted quote. I
26:16
could probably get half the women in this room
26:18
to disrobe Voluntarily end
26:20
quote which is also you know
26:22
not true So, you know
26:24
just it doesn't help his previous
26:27
point saying that in court Like
26:29
it's completely absurd. Oh
26:31
the arrogance. That's just like Exuding
26:34
from him even in this moment in a preliminary
26:36
hearing Well and
26:39
prosecutors called his former wife Judith
26:41
then 73 to provide evidence
26:44
in a prelim hearing She said that her
26:46
former husband once told her that
26:48
he had given her something to knock
26:51
her out and that twice in the
26:53
summer Of 1976 she believed
26:55
she was drugged and sexually assaulted
26:57
by him This poor woman. She's 73
27:01
years old. This is her life now. She has
27:03
to revisit her relationship
27:05
to this animal and Has
27:08
to relive these moments where
27:10
he probably Manipulated her into thinking that
27:13
this was something that was her fault or this was something
27:15
that was normal in their relationship
27:18
She goes on to state that on
27:21
one of the occasions after an evening out at
27:23
a nightclub with Nassau She
27:25
was at a San Francisco hotel where
27:27
she awoke to find two strange men
27:30
in her bed They were quickly quote
27:32
scurried away and quote and Nassau
27:34
was left standing there watching Another
27:37
time she woke up in her own bed to
27:39
find one of her husband's friends lying on
27:41
top of her With this poor woman this
27:43
poor woman who is done
27:46
nothing more than Agree
27:48
to have a partnership
27:50
with this guy is this complete animal
27:53
and Defending himself
27:55
at the preliminary hearing he asked his
27:57
former wife if he had ever physically
28:00
abused or threatened her, or if she
28:02
had ever heard of him harming another person.
28:05
Judith responded, well, you did tell
28:08
me shortly after we married that you
28:10
were charged with rape. And Nassau
28:12
shot back. That was back in the 50s. Good
28:16
for her, though. I said this poor woman
28:18
before, but in a sense
28:20
of like, I feel bad that she
28:22
had to live her life with this guy, but
28:24
good for her for taking the stand
28:27
and knowing that he's defending himself. That's
28:29
going to be questions from another attorney.
28:32
These are coming directly from the man who assaulted
28:34
you and just good for her,
28:36
for standing her ground
28:39
and giving that information. You did
28:41
tell me that you were charged with rape. I mean,
28:43
that was back in the 50s, I guess, when rape wasn't
28:46
such a serious
28:47
matter
28:49
to partake in.
28:50
And during the trial,
28:52
the prosecution claimed that Nassau
28:54
drugged and photographed his victims, strangled
28:57
them and dumped their naked bodies in
28:59
rural areas of Marin and
29:01
Contra Costa counties in
29:03
the 1970s. And the prosecution
29:06
presented a total of 70 witnesses. Nassau
29:09
continued to represent himself at trial,
29:12
though he did not testify. He called
29:14
a total of seven witnesses to the stand and
29:16
insisted someone else committed the murders,
29:19
that evidence was planted and that
29:21
the whole case against him was politically
29:23
motivated because he's
29:26
big into that scene. And
29:28
in his closing arguments, he told
29:30
the jury he was not a monster and
29:33
denied killing the women. Prosecutors
29:35
put forth a trove of evidence found
29:38
in Nassau's Reno, Nevada
29:40
home, including the photographs in
29:42
journal mentioned earlier. You
29:44
know, I'm not going to get too hung up on it, but that whole
29:48
thing about it being politically motivated
29:50
against him is so ridiculous.
29:52
It's such an empty theory
29:55
to put out there because
29:57
people here are politically motivated and it opens
29:59
up. up all of these other scenarios
30:02
that the jury is considering, like
30:04
politically motivated. Is he on
30:07
track to be a
30:10
spokesperson for some organization or is
30:12
he politically
30:15
aligned with an organization
30:18
that goes against the man? Just putting it
30:20
out there is so, like
30:23
a throwaway term that is
30:25
so damaging I think but so empty at the same
30:27
time. I mean in today's day and age it
30:29
feels like that defense is overused
30:32
so it's just, it's, I don't
30:34
know, it's drowned out these days I feel
30:36
like. Again I said I wasn't going to get too hung up on it
30:38
but it just, for whatever reason, annoys
30:41
the hell out of me. And Nassau was convicted
30:43
of strangling the four victims in Northern
30:46
California each with matching initials,
30:48
Ruxine Ragache, Carmen Colon,
30:51
Pamela Parsons, and Tracy Tafoya.
30:54
Jurors recommended the death penalty.
30:56
Barron County Superior Court Judge Andrew
30:59
Sweet called the 79-year-old Nassau
31:03
a, quote, evil and disturbed man
31:05
as he handed down a sentence of
31:07
death for three of the murders and a life
31:09
sentence for the fourth because there was
31:11
no death penalty in California
31:14
at the time of Ragache's
31:16
murder. And Judge Sweet said the murders
31:18
were, quote, vicious, brutal, and committed
31:21
with a high degree of cruelty,
31:23
end quote. He said the motives
31:25
for the killings was, quote, sexual
31:27
in nature, planned and deliberate, end
31:30
quote.
31:31
And
31:32
a detective working on the case in 2009,
31:34
Robert Hetzky, said you
31:36
have this aura of the initials. Are
31:38
they connected? Are they not connected? We
31:41
don't know that. And it is possible that the
31:43
double initials were a coincidence. Apparently
31:46
alliterative names were on a bit
31:48
of a trend when those victims were born.
31:50
And again, a big thanks to Marianne for putting together the research
31:54
on Joseph Nassau. And I really hope that we
31:56
do follow up episodes on this because the psychology
31:59
behind his is fascinating.
32:01
And I think we can learn a lot from it if we could have someone
32:04
in that field to come on to speak about this. The
32:07
purpose of shoplifting
32:09
underwear to dress women with, the
32:11
photographs, how he was so
32:14
organized in his detailing and his diary,
32:17
and just his overall
32:19
arrogance when he's choosing
32:21
to defend himself, what he's saying
32:24
to the jurors and what he's saying just in general
32:26
to the court, I think is really fascinating.
32:28
So I'd love to have somebody to come on
32:30
and we can go through again the psychology
32:33
of the man and his crimes and
32:35
his MO. I find it too
32:37
hard to believe that his victims
32:39
having the same letter in their
32:41
first and last last names is
32:44
just a coincidence. But it also
32:46
seems like a weird way
32:49
to find victims. Like, how do you
32:51
even go out of your way to find
32:53
victims? Do you like turn down victims
32:56
who don't have that? I'm just I'm
32:58
confused about that whole process. I
33:01
don't know that there's any academic research
33:03
on that or if he was ever really spoken to
33:05
about how he chose victims, but I'd
33:08
be curious to learn more about that too. Yeah,
33:10
me too. That's a great point because maybe
33:13
there was one that was a coincidence and he
33:16
recognized that and thought that that would be interesting
33:20
is a terrible word to use. But that would be an
33:22
interesting way to commit his crimes, that that's who
33:24
he focused on. But how do
33:27
you find that out? And again, like
33:29
you said, what if you are approaching somebody
33:31
and they don't have the double initials? Do you just abandon
33:34
the plot? Or do you move
33:36
forward with it? And they're just not counted
33:38
as those double initial victims? Yeah,
33:41
I don't know. And where do you get the names when Google
33:43
doesn't exist? The phone book? Well,
33:45
that's actually a great point. Could be I guess.
33:48
And if you've gotten the information on potential
33:50
other victims of Nassau's, hit
33:52
us up at crawlspacepodcasts at gmail.com.
33:56
Thanks a lot for listening.
33:57
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
34:08
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34:10
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