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But we have even more big

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did a live show in Denver. Well

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might not recall. I barely recall. The

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last time we were in Denver we... We

1:00

flew too close to the sun. We

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activated fully. So

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that was a trip. Literally. So

1:08

this one is bound to be

1:10

just as wild but maybe slightly

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less messy because our tolerance is

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1:32

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the podcast where two friends chug

1:59

wine. every

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you ready? I'm ready. All

14:51

right, then Lucy, what is our background?

14:53

Probably not psych and hopefully a little

14:55

case for farm crisis

14:57

crimes. I actually do have a little bit

14:59

of psych. Oh my God.

15:02

I also want everyone to know that

15:04

this episode is not going

15:06

to be as boring as it sounds.

15:09

No, it's not. Also

15:12

the how we came up with this, I was

15:15

talking to my lawyer, Corey's

15:18

lawyer, and I don't remember

15:21

how it came up. The family lawyer. The

15:23

family lawyer. The topic

15:26

of the farm crisis can't... It

15:29

did. White

15:32

straight dudes are constantly like, you should

15:35

have me on your podcast. I have

15:37

a really good idea for blah, blah,

15:39

blah, blah. I'm like, just

15:41

shut up. Just stop. You

15:44

are not qualified. You are not

15:47

an expert in anything related to

15:49

this. You're not going

15:51

to be on the show. Anyway, he

15:54

was like, you should do

15:56

an episode on farm crimes. And I was like, okay,

15:59

dude. Okay, guy. Okay,

16:01

guy. And he's like,

16:03

no, seriously, there were like

16:05

murders, suicides, fraud, forgery, all

16:07

this stuff, all this juicy

16:10

stuff. Because he

16:12

said that his law firm

16:14

partner was like

16:16

a lawyer during all of this and he

16:19

has like some fucking crazy stories. Well,

16:21

maybe he'll be familiar with my case

16:23

today. He'll probably be familiar with my

16:26

case. All right. It's been

16:28

not too far away. So let's just get

16:30

into it. Let's get into it. To

16:32

clarify, there have been two major farm

16:35

crises in US history. So the first

16:37

occurred in like the 20s and 30s,

16:41

Great Depression Dust Bowl time.

16:44

That's not the one we're talking about today. But

16:47

we should do Dust Bowl crimes because that would be so cool.

16:50

That time is like so fascinating to me.

16:52

Yeah, I'm in. If only

16:55

I could interview Helen about her childhood in the

16:57

Dust Bowl. We could interview my grandma.

16:59

You could. She was

17:02

the head of the household with

17:04

her like 7,000 siblings. Yikes.

17:08

One of whom listens to the show. Hi, Niam.

17:12

Okay, so we're talking about the

17:14

farm crisis in the 80s. According

17:16

to Iowa PBS, which quite frankly is

17:18

the best source out there for talking

17:21

about the farm crisis. Yes,

17:23

yeah, specific topic. I

17:25

was very pleased with this particular source. The

17:29

farm crisis of the 1980s altered the

17:31

fabric of rural America. During

17:34

the 80s, American farmers faced an economic

17:36

crisis that was more severe than any

17:38

since the Great Depression. According

17:41

to the Federal Deposit Insurance

17:44

Corporation, the agricultural market severely

17:46

deteriorated, which had attendant effects

17:49

on agricultural banks. And

17:51

a lot of what happened in the 80s

17:53

was due to a significantly increased demand for

17:56

farm commodities in the early 1970s.

18:00

So they experienced this huge boom in the

18:02

early 70s. What

18:04

would qualify as a

18:06

farm commodity? Like food.

18:09

Oh. So basically there were

18:11

droughts happening all over the world.

18:14

Okay. The dollar was worth

18:17

a lot more. So

18:20

we were able to export a lot

18:22

of food and charge and

18:24

get a lot of money for it. Okay. So

18:27

they had this boom in the

18:29

early 70s. Got it. And

18:32

during this time, and I'm using

18:34

Iowa as an example

18:36

for a lot of this, Iowa's total population

18:38

was over 2 million with 42% of

18:42

the population living on farms or in

18:44

small towns. Damn. That's

18:46

a lot. It was,

18:49

like most people lived in

18:52

rural communities. Yeah, almost half. Yeah.

18:55

That's wild. There's just a lot of rural shit in

18:57

Iowa. Jurors.

19:00

This increase in demand caused farm prices

19:02

to grow at a much faster rate

19:04

than their expenses. So

19:07

farm incomes began to also rise

19:09

rapidly. This is what we call

19:11

a bubble. This

19:14

combination of high farm income and

19:16

high inflation caused the value of

19:19

farmland to rise, while

19:21

at the same time, the ready

19:23

availability of credit caused farm debt

19:25

also to rise sharply. So, I

19:28

mean, I'll kind of explain this a little bit more,

19:31

but the land itself

19:33

was getting more expensive, but

19:36

interest rates on that

19:38

land was bizarrely negative.

19:43

Like the real interest rate was

19:45

negative, so people were encouraged just

19:48

expand, expand, expand. Yeah. At

19:50

this time, the more

19:53

crops they produced, the more

19:55

money like exponentially they made

19:57

because of this high demand

19:59

around. around the world for

20:01

farm food. So

20:03

that's kind of how they just blew up

20:06

this bubble bigger and bigger and bigger because

20:08

everyone was kind of doing

20:10

the same thing. But

20:13

then as like everything else got more expensive

20:16

then their only assets were their land and that's

20:18

like the first thing to go. When

20:21

they get into debt and they're like approved for

20:24

all these loans at first and then people like

20:26

defaulted on them. It kind of reminds me of

20:28

like the 2008 housing crash. It's

20:32

just how bubbles work. That's the nature of

20:34

bubbles. Plus at this

20:37

time you have technological advances.

20:39

So machines are doing more work

20:42

than actual people. So these farms

20:44

are also getting industrialized and

20:47

over time this sort of we're seeing

20:49

the beginning of this happening but as

20:51

these farms are being foreclosed on cause

20:54

spoiler alert, a lot of them are

20:56

foreclosed on. A lot of them were,

20:58

yeah. Many of them were bought up

21:01

by corporations or entities that would like

21:03

rent them to other farmers. So

21:06

it was just like the beginning of a huge

21:09

fucking mess. So

21:12

high farm income, high inflation, the value

21:14

of the land itself is rising in

21:16

the early 70s. This

21:19

all stopped in the late 70s when

21:21

the interest rates started to rise

21:23

after the Federal Reserve Board tightened

21:26

monetary policy to fight inflation because

21:28

again, at this time the

21:30

inflation was going nuts too. So

21:33

the Fed stepped in and was like, okay, we're

21:36

tightening this up, we're slowing the

21:38

inflation and

21:40

changing conditions in worldwide

21:42

supply and demand cause

21:44

export demand for farm

21:46

commodities to then decrease.

21:49

So like the droughts stopped,

21:51

like other countries were able

21:53

to start growing to keep

21:55

up. It's cheaper for them to

21:58

keep it local. So

22:00

they're not going to buy and pay all

22:02

the taxes to have it sent to them anymore if they

22:04

can avoid it. Yeah, I mean, I think

22:06

that's a very simple view of it.

22:08

I mean, I'm not a fucking macro

22:11

economist, but essentially.

22:14

Yeah. Yeah. So the export

22:16

decrease was partly due to the 1980 U.S.

22:19

grain embargo against the Soviet

22:21

Union. So the Soviet Union

22:23

invaded Afghanistan. Yeah, we

22:26

put sanctions on shit. No,

22:28

no. So then we then we

22:32

there was a grain embargo against Soviet

22:34

Union. So we're not sending our grain

22:36

to the Soviet Union either as a

22:38

punishment. So this is

22:40

a lot of jargon that I can barely

22:42

follow. So just to give you some perspective

22:44

on the effects of all of what I

22:47

just said, real farm

22:49

income nationwide went

22:52

from 92.1 billion dollars in 1973. Down

22:58

to twenty two point eight billion in

23:00

1980. Big

23:03

drop real fast. Then to eight point

23:05

two billion in 1983. Yeah.

23:08

So math huge drop. I did

23:10

break out my calculator. That

23:13

is an eighty nine point three billion dollar

23:15

loss in a decade in 10 years. That's

23:18

an unfathomable amount of money, especially

23:21

given. So fast started at only

23:23

92. Yeah.

23:25

We lost 89. Like

23:28

that's the whole fucking

23:30

industry. Yeah. Bye. So

23:32

again, this is due to a perfect

23:34

storm of economic, political and technological factors.

23:38

According to farm progress, farm

23:40

foreclosures rose dramatically. And economists

23:42

said more than 33 percent

23:45

of farmers were in serious trouble. Further

23:48

depressing land prices. The

23:50

farmers who had expanded by buying

23:52

land during these strong export days

23:54

of the 1970s, which again, they

23:56

were highly encouraged to do. Right.

23:59

Because. Again, the prices were

24:01

high, but the real interest rates were

24:03

in the negative. So everyone was saying

24:05

like, expand now, invest in

24:08

this, and then you can just fucking sit on

24:10

it and watch the money roll in. I

24:12

was going to say, I'm willing to bet there

24:14

were like government incentives for

24:16

certain crops too that we were

24:19

exporting. And so farmers

24:21

were investing in growing the

24:24

things that were in the highest demand. And

24:26

then that demand disappears and

24:29

all the prices are fucking wild and

24:31

out of control. And then they're hemorrhaging

24:34

money on a national

24:36

scale. And a lot of

24:38

these farmers went into huge debt in order

24:40

to expand. And then

24:43

when there's no payoff in sight,

24:45

then it's just high interest. Yeah.

24:49

Okay. So those who had expanded

24:52

were hit the hardest. The

24:55

events in the farm economy were reflected in farm

24:57

bank failures in 1981 and 1985. So

25:02

in 1981, only one agricultural bank

25:04

was among the nation's 10 bank

25:06

failures. So 10 total banks went,

25:08

one was a farm bank. But

25:12

in 1985, 62 agricultural banks failed

25:15

accounting for over half of the

25:17

nation's bank failures that year. That

25:20

was only four years later. Yeah.

25:22

So it's just getting worse. And

25:25

also a

25:27

lot of these banks that went under, like in

25:29

my case, somebody was able to buy one

25:32

of these banks. These

25:35

farm communities will have maybe 200 fucking

25:37

people in them. This is the

25:40

tiny bank for that whole area.

25:44

And I don't know, it's just

25:46

like something like that going under obviously

25:49

affects the farmers, but it also affects

25:51

the whole community built around that industry.

25:53

It's devastating. Entire

25:55

towns just left. Yeah.

25:58

Because there's nothing. There's no where

26:01

to even keep your money. I have a stat

26:03

in here somewhere that, okay,

26:05

it's estimated that one rural business

26:07

closed for every four farms that

26:09

went under. That's wild. That's

26:12

a lot. Okay, so here's a quote.

26:14

I found an article from 1986 with

26:16

some really devastating quotes in

26:18

it, including this one quote, people may

26:20

wonder why I made the decision to

26:22

expand, but I just, this is one

26:24

farmer telling his side of the story.

26:27

But I just had a son and given

26:29

the information that I was given, it seemed

26:31

the right thing to do. The

26:33

land grant colleges were telling us we'd have $10,000

26:35

land by the 90s. So

26:39

use your leverage. What a

26:41

joke. Now my boy tells me

26:43

he wouldn't be caught dead farming. He doesn't

26:45

want to end up a loser like his

26:47

dad. Oh God.

26:51

I mean, it's so fucked up when like, I

26:53

mean, I feel like this happened with

26:55

the housing crisis. It was

26:58

like, oh yeah, these banks are wanting to give

27:00

out these loans. Cause like it was, they were

27:02

easy to get. And then the banks get make

27:04

all this money off of the interest and

27:06

then the bubble fucking bursts. And we

27:09

had so many fucking foreclosures nationwide. It's

27:11

the same shit with these

27:13

farms. I feel like it's ultra devastating

27:15

too, because like the housing crisis and

27:18

this farm crisis, it sort of preys

27:20

on, or at least it's

27:22

predicated on like the American dream, like

27:25

owning a home and. And the

27:28

middle class, the lower end middle class.

27:30

It's like, oh, you can finally afford

27:32

to expand your legacy, your farm. You

27:37

can finally afford to get a home. And

27:42

on these farms, they also fucking live there.

27:44

It's not like you just lost your job.

27:46

It's like you lost your

27:48

home. It devastated your community, your livelihood,

27:51

your legacy for your family. And in

27:53

a lot of cases, yeah, like your

27:55

heritage, a lot of these people had

27:57

their, you know, ancestors. a

28:00

couple generations come over from wherever.

28:02

And the asset that you invested

28:04

in, I mean, we are, millennials

28:06

have been fed this line, these

28:08

lines about fucking buying houses because

28:11

it's like, you know, creates generational

28:13

wealth and it's an asset

28:15

that's like secure and in your name and

28:17

like in on paper, that all sounds really

28:19

great. But then when there is a huge

28:22

crisis and you need to sell like

28:24

none of these farmers could fucking sell their

28:26

land because there was a huge farm crisis

28:29

and nobody was buying farmland. It was

28:31

all fucking foreclosed on. Yeah,

28:33

I mean, well, banks were buying it. Well,

28:35

right, exactly. But like farmers aren't buying it.

28:38

Yeah, it's just a loss. Banks

28:40

are buying it and selling it for scrap. Yeah,

28:42

and getting to like right off the loss because

28:45

it's a business expense. And

28:47

the concept of like manifest destiny

28:49

too, which I always want to

28:51

call event horizon when

28:54

I tried to remember the term

28:56

manifest. Honestly, for some reason, event

28:59

horizon crops up first. Same

29:01

death. It's kind of the same thing. Yeah,

29:04

it's just this whole devastating loss of like

29:06

the American dream, especially when like rugged,

29:08

independent self-reliance is like the

29:11

name of the game. Yeah.

29:14

Anyway, so that was a sad quote. And here's my

29:16

psych. I can't believe I found psych for this. I'm

29:18

pumped. This is from

29:20

the same article. Melissa Farley, an

29:23

Iowa City psychotherapist who counsels rural

29:25

families under stress, very specific, sees

29:28

a predictable cycle in Johnson County farmers.

29:30

Johnson County, by the way, is the

29:33

county where like Iowa City is. So

29:35

it's like Southeast Iowa. Denial

29:38

gives way to anger, then to

29:40

depression and self-doubt. She

29:42

says, quote, when I talk to farm women,

29:45

they all say they understand how the

29:47

person in my case felt. And my

29:49

case is very devastating. So

29:52

there's a progressive sense of being pushed

29:55

up against the wall. They've been independent

29:57

all their lives. Then they lose control

29:59

of everything. The bank controls

30:01

every bit of cash that comes through

30:03

their hands. There's a terrible lack of

30:05

dignity. People are scared.

30:07

They last out. There are more

30:09

temper outbursts, more substance abuse, and

30:12

more domestic violence. A lot of

30:14

women getting hit these days. Oh

30:16

God, yeah. Yeah.

30:18

So it's a, I mean,

30:20

toxic masculinity plays a role

30:23

in all of this and yeah. And

30:26

just mental health in general, like men,

30:29

especially boomer men and

30:32

greatest generation men in the 1970s and 80s,

30:35

they're not necessarily going and asking

30:38

their neighbors for help because there's

30:40

shame. Right. And

30:44

that changed, it

30:46

paved the way for a

30:48

lot of these issues, especially when we

30:50

get into like specific incidents, but

30:54

also it just like fundamentally changed these

30:56

communities because it was made to feel

30:58

like you can't rely on

31:00

your neighbors and people just sort of got

31:02

like cold and distant, drifted apart. And again,

31:04

a lot of these small towns, the banks

31:07

failed, the towns themselves just became empty. It's

31:10

devastating. And you drive through rural Iowa

31:13

today and like, you know, these

31:15

really cute, quaint small towns, some of them

31:17

are like, you know, fairly robust. And some

31:20

of them are like, Jesus

31:22

Christ, there's nobody here. Yeah, there's

31:24

like a gas station, a bar

31:27

and a bank. And then a

31:29

main street where every single business

31:31

is shuttered. Yeah. It's

31:33

so crazy. It's sad. So the

31:35

farm crisis decimated small towns where

31:37

many businesses closed. This then spread

31:39

to the cities where manufacturers of

31:42

farm implements and other agricultural supplies,

31:44

like so John Deere is a

31:46

good example, laid off thousands of

31:48

people. The cost.

31:50

I'm sure they were in like

31:53

a manufacturing boom during all of

31:55

this rapid expansion of the farming

31:57

and the global food. Technological advances.

32:00

So like this didn't just

32:02

affect the farmers, it

32:04

affected so many different

32:06

industries that contributed to the expansion of

32:08

farming and even like the

32:11

shipping. Corey's grandpa retired

32:13

from John Deere and

32:15

his pension was like fucking awesome,

32:17

but it was pretty much just

32:19

because he dodged all of

32:21

this in the 80s. Yeah, that's

32:24

lucky. Yeah, the Quad Cities

32:26

in Iowa, so that's Bettendorf,

32:28

Davenport, Moline, East Moline

32:30

and Rock Island. I

32:33

think Rock Island is in Illinois. I don't know why

32:35

there are five cities listed for the Quad Cities, but

32:37

whatever. Quad Cities lost an estimated 20,000

32:39

manufacturing jobs during

32:42

this crisis. Waterloo, Iowa,

32:44

ever heard of it? Yep. Lost 14%

32:46

of its population in the early 80s

32:48

and many homes were left abandoned. I

32:50

called my mom earlier to ask her

32:52

if she like remembered this, because she

32:54

grew up in Cedar Falls, which is

32:57

right next to Waterloo and

32:59

their family business was based in Waterloo. And

33:02

she said she didn't really remember like specifics other

33:04

than it was just like a really dark cloud

33:07

over everything and that her mom, who at

33:09

that point ran the business, was like really

33:11

freaked out about it, but it was also

33:14

a beer distribution business. So like their industry

33:16

was fine. Listen, my dad always used to

33:18

teach me that. He worked in for many

33:20

years in wine and spirit marketing and he

33:23

was like, if you work in the alcohol

33:25

business, people are drinking

33:27

when they're sad and people are drinking

33:29

when they're happy. So it's a pretty

33:31

stable place to be. I

33:34

was like, oh, okay, I guess I'll

33:36

be a bartender server. Came

33:39

in handy on Sunday. Yeah. And

33:42

be on a podcast called Wine and Crime.

33:45

Yeah. Stick on

33:47

the side of alcohol, you'll be

33:49

fine. Keep alcohol close. Always trendy.

33:52

Thanks, dad. Great advice.

33:54

At least he didn't die of love.

34:00

No, he's not. Then we might have

34:02

reconsidered his advice. For

34:04

someone with a lot of

34:06

access to actually very,

34:09

very bad and very good booze, we ran

34:11

the gamut. We had a lot in that

34:14

basement. My parents have never really

34:16

been a lot of that basement. Neither

34:18

of them were ever really big drinkers. Yeah,

34:21

that's why they never noticed when their spirit

34:23

off went missing. Precisely. Precisely.

34:26

My mom didn't- It was great for us. My

34:29

mom didn't even question it until she

34:31

needed a bottle of vodka for cooking,

34:33

like making vodka sauce. I

34:36

was like, oh no, we're out. Grandma must

34:38

have drank the last bit of it

34:40

for her cosmos. A case

34:43

of spirit off? Listen, they weren't keeping

34:45

an inventory. No, that was

34:47

apparent. Bye. Hi,

34:50

Suzanne. Okay. For

34:53

many, the stresses of the farm crisis became too

34:56

much for some of them. There

35:00

was an increase in rural murders and

35:02

suicides due to these hardships. This also

35:04

impacted the feeling of camaraderie, long prevalent

35:06

in rural communities, like I was saying.

35:08

So much so that some struggling people

35:11

reported feeling shunned by their friends and

35:13

neighbors. I mean, at least

35:15

in my case, so I have to imagine this

35:18

happened in other places too. When

35:20

people are murdering

35:23

their neighbors, essentially, because they

35:25

live in these small communities and even if

35:27

that neighbor happens to be the person who

35:30

signed off on your loan that you now

35:32

defaulted on, that's still... I

35:35

mean, that's terrifying. And

35:38

so many of these neighbors, these communities

35:40

didn't feel safe. It's

35:42

so disorienting. I

35:44

think it just added to this

35:47

crazy nightmare that, like you were

35:49

saying earlier, the American dream of

35:51

buying a house or having a

35:53

farm and being so self-efficient and

35:56

autonomous, and then everything all of

35:58

a sudden just gets turned complex. completely on

36:00

its head. It falls apart, it's terrifying. And

36:02

you've never even imagined being in this position

36:05

because you feel like you have so many

36:07

fail safes in place. And you have kids

36:09

and family and boys and yeah. The

36:12

security is gone. Gone, and

36:14

you've devoted your life. A

36:16

lot of farmers are legacy

36:18

family, legacy farmers. And

36:21

don't have other transferable skills. Like

36:23

this is what they know how to fucking do.

36:26

Many of them were like schooled

36:28

through maybe high school education, did

36:30

not go to college, immediately took

36:32

on duties on the family

36:34

farm and then took over the farm. I

36:36

mean, most people in rural communities in the

36:39

mid 20th century didn't, they

36:41

went that route anyway. Yeah. So yeah,

36:43

it was, yeah. And so as the

36:45

times changed and they changed so fast,

36:48

it's like, how do you even fucking have time

36:50

and how are you supposed to afford to then

36:52

like get an education and learn a completely new

36:54

way of life to sustain yourself? That's

36:57

wild. And also your neighbors are

36:59

killing each other. Yes, and themselves.

37:02

Yeah. That's a lot of devastation to

37:04

handle in the span of

37:06

a decade. Yep. So alcohol

37:08

abuse and domestic violence in rural

37:10

communities, those rates went

37:13

way up. A farm wife

37:15

from Southern Iowa wrote in her journal on

37:17

December 6th, 1984, quote, I

37:21

feel a hundred years old, 14 years

37:23

of farming and we never made a dime.

37:27

Oh God, and it's such hard

37:30

work. I'm 44 years

37:32

old and I'm back to zero. So

37:34

basically she's saying after 14 years

37:36

of farming, they lost everything they

37:38

ever gained. They

37:41

lost everything. Which was very little in the first place. Yeah.

37:45

And the only asset they had, their farm

37:47

is now worthless. They're

37:49

bankrupt. She said, I'm ready to sell

37:52

out. I hate to lose my home place, but I

37:54

can accept defeat when I have to. I

37:56

could mourn forever all the lost

37:59

dreams. I don't sleep well

38:01

and the rage in me is about to

38:03

explode. I just can't go on. I have

38:05

to hide my feelings from the kids and

38:07

from the folks. Oh God,

38:10

it's so isolating. Don't

38:12

hide your feelings. Oh God. It

38:14

only harms you. You're not a

38:16

burden for talking about what you're

38:18

going through. Yeah. It only harms

38:21

you until you lash out and murder three people.

38:23

Well, exactly, exactly. Yes, it only harms you

38:25

until it potentially harms other people, but yeah.

38:28

Regular people and artists

38:30

seem to give more shits about this

38:32

crisis than Congress at the time. Yeah.

38:36

Who knew that that was always

38:38

and will always be the case? Well,

38:41

who swoops in? But Willie Nelson in 1985, he

38:43

and others founded Farm Aid. So

38:48

it was a huge concert held

38:51

in Champaign, Illinois on September 22nd, 1985. Champaign.

38:58

54 acts performed before a crowd of more than 75,000

39:00

people and raised

39:02

more than $7 million for farm families.

39:05

That's pretty amazing. Yeah,

39:07

but like- It's a very small dent in,

39:10

what was it? An $84 billion

39:12

deficit? 89,

39:14

sorry. I was like,

39:16

oh God, 90 million, billion. God.

39:20

God. Please,

39:22

please. Please. A

39:26

1987 New York Times article reported

39:28

that, quote, in Iowa, state health

39:30

figures show that about 47 farmers

39:33

have killed themselves every year since

39:35

1980. 47

39:38

a year in the span of seven years. That's

39:40

a lot. Food

39:42

pantries. That's a lot of people. Yeah,

39:44

food pantries sprang up in rural communities

39:46

to offer hunger relief. People were lit

39:49

to release starving. Government cheese

39:51

giveaways. Fucking government cheese. Here

39:53

we go. Provided

39:55

important protein, as did

39:57

livestock donations programs. Donations.

40:00

programs, they were just trying to

40:02

feed their neighbors. Literally,

40:05

here's some cheese, maybe you

40:07

can get food tomorrow. Iowa

40:10

State University Extension offered counseling

40:12

by telephone on its rural

40:15

concern hotline. Between

40:18

October 1st, 1984 and December 31st, 1985, the hotline

40:20

communicated with almost

40:25

12,000 people. Oh man,

40:27

in a year. Yeah, a little

40:29

over a year. The university also held meetings

40:32

and support groups across the state that interacted

40:34

with more than 50,000 Iowans. And

40:37

remember- This is just in Iowa. I

40:39

was just gonna fucking say that. It's

40:42

like, these are only the figures in

40:44

Iowa. A lot of that just like

40:46

belt that goes right across through the

40:48

middle of the country is predominantly

40:52

farming community. And

40:55

this was happening in all of them.

40:57

Yeah. And I'm not even trying to

40:59

suggest that Iowa had it the worst.

41:01

I don't actually know which had it

41:03

the quote unquote worst. But I mean,

41:05

Iowa's farming industry is like one of

41:07

the main industries of the state. So

41:10

it makes sense that this is like

41:12

a good barometer for how awful this

41:14

was and the impact that

41:19

it had. Yeah. So Congress,

41:21

bless them, didn't get involved

41:23

until the second half of the 80s. And

41:26

many felt that was too late because it

41:28

was. However, the federal government's

41:30

response brought about some of the most

41:33

profound policy reforms the agricultural sector had

41:35

ever seen. So we

41:37

have three key pieces of legislation

41:39

from the 80s that are

41:42

still having an effect

41:44

today. So these are the three,

41:47

we've got the 1985 Farm Bill.

41:50

This established a comprehensive

41:52

framework within which the

41:54

Secretary of Agriculture will

41:56

administer agriculture and food

41:58

programs from From 1986

42:01

through 1990, this

42:03

allowed for lower commodity price income

42:05

support and created several conservation programs.

42:07

So basically means if

42:09

you're making less now for

42:12

your crop of soybeans, we

42:15

can help you financially make up a portion

42:17

of that loss. For four years. Only

42:20

between 86 and 90, yes. The

42:23

second one is called Chapter 12

42:25

bankruptcy. So

42:27

this allows farmer debtors with

42:29

regular annual income to achieve

42:31

debt relief. Chapter

42:34

12 bankruptcy relieves debtors who qualify

42:36

as family farmers and fishermen. But

42:39

because it targets a very narrow

42:41

class of debtors, it was overall

42:44

really underutilized. However,

42:46

for those who did qualify, it allowed

42:49

them to restructure their finances and avoid

42:51

liquidation or foreclosure. So it was a

42:53

really sweet deal if you qualify. But

42:56

it's kind of like the public service loan forgiveness

42:58

program. You may or may

43:01

not qualify, but it kind of feels

43:03

like you have to successfully answer these

43:05

riddles three before you can get it.

43:09

And then we have the Agricultural Credit Act.

43:12

According to the Farm Credit Administration, this act

43:14

authorized up to $4 billion in federal assistance

43:17

to troubled institutions of the farm

43:20

credit system, including up to

43:22

$2.8 billion in Treasury

43:24

guaranteed 15 year bonds. This

43:28

also created the Federal Agricultural

43:30

Mortgage Corporation, which established a

43:32

secondary market for agricultural real

43:34

estate and rural home mortgages.

43:38

I don't fully understand this, but basically what I

43:40

think it did was create a second, like

43:42

a subset of mortgages for

43:44

these rural communities so that

43:46

they had their own like

43:49

ways to qualify for their own set

43:52

of rules. I

43:54

think that's kind of what that means. I mean, that

43:56

makes sense. It does make sense. By

44:00

the 90s when this crisis

44:02

was quote unquote over, although

44:04

the effects are still very much

44:06

present today. Yeah. About

44:09

one in every four farms ceased to

44:11

function. And

44:13

if you consider how many fucking farms

44:16

there were before

44:18

all this, that's all. Well, I have

44:20

to imagine that during

44:22

this crisis, a lot of that foreclosed

44:25

on land that was then sold by

44:27

banks was not necessarily. Sold

44:30

to be farmed again. And

44:32

so it's very possible that

44:35

a lot of that farmland could have

44:37

been lost entirely in the same a

44:39

lot of it was because it's

44:42

really it's really rich soil like

44:44

this. The land had

44:46

been used as farmland. So that just kind

44:48

of makes it more fertile just by

44:51

nature. Sure. But what it did mean is

44:53

that they sold it to either

44:56

wealthy people who had like big

44:58

conglomerates of farmland already like this. And

45:00

a lot of a lot of farmland

45:02

in at least Iowa is owned

45:04

by like a couple of

45:07

different entities. Oh, yeah. And then they rent it

45:09

to farmers that often like really

45:11

astronomical prices and they make a fuck ton of money.

45:15

Yeah. Or they just run it

45:17

like under corporate different

45:19

foreign entities to like there's

45:22

a bunch of like Chinese owned

45:24

farmland, for example. It's

45:27

just got the point is

45:29

the family farm is not at

45:32

levels that it used to be. No, it's

45:35

like pretty it. This family farms

45:37

are still pretty they're still

45:39

around for sure. But not

45:44

like it was the before and after is

45:46

is jarring. So to

45:50

tell you what constitutes a farm in

45:52

the first place, the USDA defines a

45:54

farm as any place that produce and

45:56

sold or normally would have produced and

45:59

sold at least. $1,000

46:01

worth of agricultural products during a given year. Okay,

46:03

so that's a pretty broad. It's not the garden

46:05

in your backyard. Yeah, but that's still a pretty

46:07

broad scope in terms

46:09

of size of farms, because $1,000 of product

46:11

in a year is not

46:13

very much. So this covers

46:16

farms that could be very small

46:18

to extremely large. Yeah, so this

46:20

also shows you too how

46:22

small farms can be, which

46:26

kind of gives you an idea of

46:28

how many farms there are. Sure.

46:32

The USDA uses acres of crops and

46:34

head of livestock to determine if a

46:36

place with sales less than $1,000 could

46:39

normally produce and sell at least that amount to

46:41

qualify it as a farm. Of

46:44

the 1.9 million farms that

46:47

currently dot America's rural landscape,

46:49

only 955 are operated by

46:51

families, individuals, family

46:55

partnerships, or family corporations. What?

46:59

That's wild. Do

47:01

you know what that figure was before the crisis?

47:04

No. That would

47:07

be interesting, but yeah, that's devastating.

47:10

Farmers and ranchers receive only 15 cents

47:13

on average out of every retail dollar

47:15

spent on food. So

47:18

the rest goes to wages and

47:20

materials for production, processing, marketing, transportation,

47:22

and distribution. 30%

47:25

of all farmers are quote unquote

47:27

beginner farmers, which means they've been

47:30

in business for less than 10 years. And

47:32

the average age is 47. Wow.

47:36

So they're older, but there is like

47:38

kind of a push for younger farmers,

47:40

at least in my area, which

47:42

I think is pretty cool. In 2023, $174.9

47:45

billion worth of

47:49

American agricultural products were exported around

47:51

the world. Wow. Yeah.

47:54

So there's some background on the

47:56

farm crisis. Damn. And

47:59

I have a short case. Case for us. I

48:01

love it. This is the story of Dale Burr.

48:04

Ooh, okay. Dale Bernhardt, not really, Dale

48:06

Burr. Dale Burr was born in 1922

48:09

and was a third generation corn

48:11

and bean farmer. He's a

48:14

corn bean man. I could live off corn

48:16

and beans for the rest of my life.

48:18

Literally the same. I believe

48:20

he was born in Lone Tree, Iowa, which

48:22

is near Iowa City. It's in Johnson County,

48:24

which I mentioned before. Cute. And

48:27

because I know you were curious, it would take

48:29

me 46 hours to walk there

48:31

from my house. To walk there? Yeah. And

48:36

now if you wanted to walk there.

48:42

As a teenager, Dale was

48:44

once voted the healthiest boy

48:46

in Johnson County. Wow.

48:50

It's a weird flex, but I'll take

48:53

it. Yep, and awards an award. He

48:55

was a man who walked tall in Johnson

48:58

County because he had a homestead that stood

49:00

on some of the most fertile land in

49:02

the state. Oh, wow. Also because

49:04

he was six too. Oh,

49:07

tall, tall man. He's a

49:09

tall man. He's a tall bean and gorman.

49:11

I've got a tall man in my

49:14

case too. Dale's brother-in-law. So it's his

49:17

sister's husband, his brother-in-law.

49:20

A guy named Keith Forbes said

49:23

about Burr, quote, he was a

49:25

good farmer, a wealthy man, and

49:27

a welcome customer in any store

49:29

in this county. Which

49:31

I took to mean it was

49:34

Keith's impression, at least Keith's,

49:37

that Dale was a, he

49:39

had money. I

49:42

mean, he said he was a wealthy man. He'd

49:44

be welcome in any store. It

49:47

wasn't apparent that he was- In

49:51

debt, in serious debt? Yeah. However,

49:54

a lot changed during the farm crisis of the

49:56

1980s. Burr,

49:59

who was 16 years old, 33 years old in

50:01

1985, found himself more than a

50:03

half million dollars in debt on

50:05

the 560 acres in Lone

50:08

Tree where he had his farm. According

50:11

to the Chicago Tribune on November 30th, 1985 Burr

50:13

and his wife Emily confided in

50:18

Keith Forbes and Burr's

50:20

sister Forbes' wife, her

50:23

name was Ruth. Keith

50:25

and Ruth, Dale and Emily. So

50:28

Dale and Emily come over to the

50:30

Forbes' house and they just spill

50:32

about all of their problems. We're

50:35

fucked. According to Forbes, Dale

50:38

quote, Dale wasn't one for talk,

50:40

but for five hours they poured

50:42

out their hearts. I

50:45

remember Emily saying, I'm 64 years

50:47

old and for the first time in my

50:50

life, I don't have money for groceries. Forbes

50:53

said that while Burr never revealed the sum

50:56

of their debt or why they had fallen

50:58

so behind, he estimates that his brother-in-law may

51:00

have owed as much as a million dollars

51:02

to all of his creditors, including

51:05

$10,000 to Forbes himself. Oh

51:08

dear. So he had loaned his

51:10

brother-in-law 10 grand. That

51:13

is never going to get back. Spoiler, he

51:15

doesn't get it back. No. Burr

51:18

had taken out one $39,000 bank

51:20

loan to help pay off farming

51:22

debts incurred by his son, John,

51:24

who was aged 39. John

51:27

raised hogs and apparently made a

51:30

questionable investment in some really expensive

51:32

acreage and then kind of found

51:34

that he was fucked, asked

51:37

his dad for money. His dad took out a $39,000

51:39

loan to help his son. But

51:43

then that's now Dale's debt.

51:45

Yeah, it just keeps, the

51:47

buck keeps passing right back. Forbes

51:50

said, quote, it hurt Dale not to be able to

51:52

pay his debts. He said that the

51:55

Hills bank was after him to sell his

51:57

livestock and machinery and rent his land out,

51:59

but he He was too proud for that.

52:02

So the stress of it all got to Burr. On

52:05

December 9th, 1985, Burr

52:08

went down to the basement of

52:10

his family home set for his

52:12

Remington 12-gauge pump shotgun. There's

52:16

some question as to whether the next

52:18

thing happened before or

52:20

after the main thing. For

52:25

this rendition, we're going to go with before. He

52:28

then went up to the kitchen

52:30

where his wife Emily was baking

52:32

cookies and killed her with a

52:35

single blast to the chest. Friends

52:37

said he evidently could not bear having to live

52:39

with what he was about to do. However

52:45

some reports again state that Emily's murder happened

52:48

after the following. He

52:51

then climbed into his old rickety

52:53

rusty pickup truck and drove to

52:55

the Hills Bank and Trust Company

52:57

in the neighboring town of

53:00

Hills. It was about six miles away. Once

53:03

he got to Hills Bank, he tried to cash a $500 check. I

53:06

think he wrote himself a check and tried to

53:08

cash it, but the

53:11

teller refused because his account was overdrawn

53:13

or the account was overdrawn. Bill

53:15

then went back to his truck, grabbed

53:18

the loaded shotgun. He

53:20

put it down his

53:22

overalls as he went back

53:25

into the bank and just went right

53:27

over, pushed open the door

53:29

to the office of the bank

53:31

president, a 46-year-old man named John

53:33

Hughes. Burr fired a single

53:36

blast and hit Hughes in the head,

53:38

killing him instantly. It was later reported

53:40

that the irony of Hughes' murder was

53:42

that he was widely considered to be

53:44

a friend to the local farmers. So

53:48

there's a guy named Ray

53:50

Marner Jr. from a different bank recalled,

53:52

quote, he realized how hard it is

53:54

to turn down someone for a loan

53:56

during the week when you have to

53:58

sit next to them in church on

54:00

Sunday. Yeah, these communities are

54:03

tiny. It's not banking the way

54:05

that we know it. It's incredibly

54:07

personal. It's personal. And

54:10

it feels personal, even when it's like,

54:13

ugh, I don't know. It's not that bankers fault. Yeah,

54:15

that's the other half, it feels personal. Yeah, it's not

54:17

that bankers fault for not being able to approve your

54:20

loan. Yeah. Or whatever,

54:22

but. Yeah,

54:24

it's also reported that Hughes reportedly

54:27

had no intention of foreclosing

54:29

on Burr's farm. He

54:31

was trying to help him, but Dale murdered

54:34

him anyway. He then

54:36

moved into an adjoining office where he aimed

54:38

at two other bank officers, but I don't

54:40

know a lot about guns. It

54:43

said he double pumped the pump

54:45

shotgun, which

54:47

I assume was an accident. And apparently

54:50

that ejected the round that

54:52

might otherwise have taken their lives. So

54:55

he like double pumped in and the unspent

54:58

cartridge like popped out. Okay.

55:01

So the shotgun was no longer

55:03

loaded. Okay. So

55:05

they weren't killed. A

55:09

person named BD Dua, a bank

55:11

customer said, I was in

55:13

there doing business. I turned around and heard a

55:15

shot. Everybody started running. I thought it was a

55:17

robbery. After

55:20

he left the bank, Burr hunted down his

55:23

own neighbor, 38 year

55:25

old Richard Goody on Goody's farm.

55:28

Goody had won a $6,000 judgment

55:30

from Burr's son in a land

55:32

dispute. So Burr must've felt like

55:35

he had a score to settle.

55:37

Yup. Burr found

55:39

Goody and shot him

55:41

in the face and left his

55:43

corpse in the snow between two hog

55:46

feeders. Oh

55:48

no. And like

55:50

a minute later, Goody's wife Marilyn returned

55:52

home from running an errand with their

55:54

six year old son Mark. Oh

55:57

God. And she saw Dale.

56:00

with his shotgun and her dead husband's

56:02

body. And so she stepped

56:05

on the gas and got the fuck out of

56:07

there in the car. Thank God. And he tried

56:09

shooting, he tried to

56:11

shoot them and missed. Thank God.

56:14

Damn. As Burr headed

56:16

back to his farm, a Johnson County

56:18

deputy sheriff drove up behind him with

56:20

the sirens blaring. Burr pulled off the

56:22

road as the officer waited in his

56:25

patrol car for reinforcements. Yeah, because he

56:27

doesn't want to get shot. They knew

56:29

exactly what had happened. This is crazy,

56:31

like our cases are so

56:34

similar. I mean, I

56:36

think a lot of people were driven to this

56:38

shit. When the other deputies and state police arrived,

56:40

they found Burr slumped in his truck, dead of

56:43

two shotgun wounds to the

56:45

chest. Damn. Dude

56:48

shot himself in the chest with a

56:50

shotgun twice. That's wild.

56:52

Yeah. At his home,

56:55

authorities found Emily's body along with a

56:57

one sentence note written by Burr addressed

56:59

to his son, John, that said, I'm

57:02

sorry, I can't take the problems

57:04

anymore. Well, if he was,

57:06

if he took his gun and

57:10

went and did this at the bank and then

57:12

went, well, maybe he could have come back, killed

57:14

his wife and then gone after his neighbor. But

57:16

it does, the timeline discrepancy, it does kind of

57:18

make more sense that he like made

57:21

this plan. He killed his

57:23

wife before enacting his plan in

57:25

the event that he would survive.

57:27

I don't think he had any intention of

57:29

living. I think he always intended to kill

57:31

himself or be killed in the process. Yeah,

57:33

the only thing that makes me think that

57:35

he went to the bank, then

57:38

went back and killed Emily, then

57:40

killed his neighbor, then got pulled

57:42

over is because if he

57:44

went to the bank and he didn't end

57:46

up shooting anybody, then he had just murdered

57:48

his fucking wife for no reason. I

57:50

suppose, but if he was like really

57:53

determined and he was

57:55

preparing to leave with the

57:58

firm belief that he would be successful. I

58:00

think it's more likely

58:02

he killed his wife first, but

58:08

psychologically it does

58:11

make sense that he didn't kill her

58:13

first because he wasn't maybe so fucking

58:15

out of his mind yet. Sure,

58:17

it's like oh god. Like if she was his first

58:20

murder, it's possible

58:22

he could have snapped out of it and

58:24

been like, oh fuck or something. Yeah, I

58:26

don't know. You'd hold, yeah, who knows? Either

58:28

way. I mean, it sounds like

58:30

he was very far gone at this point

58:32

psychologically. Yeah, either way he did leave a

58:34

note at some point or another,

58:36

not in a great place and

58:38

we're never gonna understand. So

58:42

this was the saddest part. Well, not the

58:44

saddest. This is the cherry

58:46

on top. In Iowa City, 1500 mourners

58:49

went to bank president Hughes's

58:52

memorial service. In

58:54

Lone Tree, Dale and Emily were buried side by

58:56

side in a cemetery. One

58:58

mile from their farm, Goody's widow

59:01

refused a military funeral for her

59:03

husband who had been a Vietnam

59:05

war veteran because

59:07

she wanted quote,

59:09

no more guns. Oh,

59:12

I don't blame her. Yeah, she's

59:14

like no more guns. Yeah, I don't want a fucking 21

59:16

gun salute at

59:19

the burial of my husband who

59:21

died in a senseless shot in

59:23

the face. Gun violence incident. Yeah.

59:26

Can't blame her for that. Nope,

59:29

so that is the story of

59:31

Dale Burr and his several

59:33

victims. Wow. And a

59:35

little bit of insight into the psychology shit

59:38

show that resulted

59:41

from the farm crisis. Yeah, I

59:43

didn't know much

59:45

about this, but fuck, it was

59:47

bad and this gives

59:49

a lot more, this background gives

59:52

a lot more clarity to

59:54

my case. Excellent, I can't wait to

59:57

hear it. Thank you for doing that. You're

1:00:00

amazing. So are you. You're

1:00:03

a gentleman and a scholar. All right.

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Let's take another quick break

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I'm pretty sure they were. Or

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Dive podcast wherever you listen. Okay,

1:08:11

so I've got a local one for you

1:08:13

today. Nice. Not every small

1:08:15

town in the Midwest is pure as the

1:08:17

driven snow, don't you know? No, if you

1:08:20

are. Also, I feel like this

1:08:22

story would make a great season of Fargo,

1:08:24

so get at us, FX. Okay.

1:08:27

Because we own the rights to this story.

1:08:29

We do, we do, we do

1:08:32

not. But it was my idea

1:08:34

to say that this would be good,

1:08:36

so I want my cut. Okay, you'll

1:08:38

get it, I'm sure. I'm told that's

1:08:40

how this works. Okay, so we're in

1:08:43

the 80s for this story, obviously. Let's

1:08:45

meet our main characters. We've got Rudolph

1:08:48

Blythe or Rudy Blythe. Rudy was

1:08:50

a formidable man,

1:08:53

sanding 6'4 and 250 pounds. Ah,

1:08:57

another tallman. Another tallman. He'd

1:09:00

grown up in Philadelphia as the son

1:09:02

of a successful and affluent scientist. Rudy

1:09:05

had moved his wife and young son

1:09:07

to the small farming town of Roughton,

1:09:09

Minnesota. And I mean, smile, okay?

1:09:11

It had a population of 467 in the

1:09:13

mid-70s, early 80s. Now, post-farm crisis, has

1:09:19

a population of about 227. Oh,

1:09:22

she's tiny. This entire town

1:09:24

has fewer people than were at

1:09:26

my wedding. Oh, Jesus. Yeah.

1:09:32

So he moved his family from the Philly

1:09:34

area to this little town in the late

1:09:37

70s where he purchased a local bank and

1:09:40

looked forward to being his own boss, being

1:09:42

able to contribute to the community in a

1:09:44

way that only a small town banker could.

1:09:46

He tried straight away to get involved in

1:09:49

the community. He organized the local Lions Club

1:09:51

and they worked on community projects. He

1:09:54

got on the town council. He

1:09:56

revived a proposal for a local home for

1:09:58

old folks. Thank you. He

1:10:00

donated money to send the Rutten Girl

1:10:02

Scouts on a train trip to Duluth.

1:10:05

Oh, for cute. Yeah,

1:10:07

he worked hard, but despite their

1:10:09

attempts to assimilate, the family encountered

1:10:12

standoffish hostility from the small, tight-knit

1:10:14

community of farmers. Big

1:10:16

city guy coming in here

1:10:18

and buying up the bank and trying

1:10:20

to get his hands on everything in

1:10:22

the town. Send our girls away to

1:10:24

Duluth. Mm-hmm. Rudy

1:10:27

tried to be folksy, learning names,

1:10:29

family histories, dropping into the cafe

1:10:31

across the street for coffee, but

1:10:33

his suit and tie and college education

1:10:35

made locals feel uneasy in his presence.

1:10:39

When Rudy ran for county commissioner, he

1:10:41

was resoundingly defeated. Oh, I feel kind

1:10:43

of bad for him. I do

1:10:46

too, and you're allowed to. That

1:10:49

being said, the locals did acknowledge that Rudy

1:10:51

seemed to genuinely want to help people. They

1:10:54

just didn't vibe with the guy, okay?

1:10:57

Just something off about him. There's

1:11:00

something's off. Former town mayor Birch said

1:11:02

that, quote, that Rudy, he'd help anybody.

1:11:04

So he got him, Jim, which we'll

1:11:06

get to, he got him going. Long

1:11:08

story short, it wasn't going so good

1:11:11

for Jim. He got behind on payments

1:11:13

and he wasn't taking very good care

1:11:15

of the cattle yet. Mm,

1:11:18

so Rudy helped him with a

1:11:20

farm. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. And as

1:11:22

the bank, owner of the bank,

1:11:24

he's helping, he's processing

1:11:26

loans and et

1:11:29

cetera for the farmers. Okay.

1:11:32

Quote, Rudy had tried to be helpful to

1:11:34

some of these farmers. So Gary Lindahl, the

1:11:36

cafe owner who served him coffee every day

1:11:38

in the same booth next to the soft

1:11:40

drink cooler, he sat there every day. But

1:11:43

maybe he let people borrow when they shouldn't have,

1:11:45

you know? And now he was getting

1:11:47

a little worried. Which like a

1:11:49

tale as old as time, never loan money to friends

1:11:51

or family that you need to get back. But he

1:11:53

owns a bank. So it's

1:11:56

like, it's not like Rudy's giving necessarily

1:11:58

his money. I do

1:12:00

think in some situations he was doing

1:12:02

that. Whether that be- He

1:12:04

can't just give out bank money all willy nilly.

1:12:06

Correct. I think whether that

1:12:09

be direct like cash

1:12:12

to like mutual aid

1:12:15

or contributions he was making through

1:12:17

all of these local programs that he had

1:12:19

his hands in. But either way, he was

1:12:21

making his own personal investments in the community

1:12:23

as well. He was committed to doing that.

1:12:26

He didn't have ulterior motives as far as

1:12:28

I know. He just wanted that

1:12:30

small town life with his family and he

1:12:32

wanted to be helpful. He

1:12:34

was a good dude. Now we

1:12:37

get to James Jenkins. James

1:12:39

or Jim Jenkins. Jim was

1:12:41

the only child of farmers- I don't trust an alliterative

1:12:43

name. I know. I know.

1:12:46

James was the only child of farmers

1:12:48

with a modest upbringing so it's like

1:12:50

a legacy farming family. He

1:12:52

was short and stocky. He was a high

1:12:54

school dropout. He was considered a quiet loner,

1:12:57

ill at ease with people, more at home

1:12:59

milking. Even cows or repairing a tractor, which

1:13:02

is like hardly unusual for the farmer tape. God

1:13:04

bless him. By the age

1:13:06

of 46, Jim was overweight and

1:13:08

suffering from complications from diabetes, specifically

1:13:10

loss of vision. So he developed

1:13:12

type 2 diabetes and it was

1:13:14

particularly harmful to his eyesight. He

1:13:16

had retinitis pigmentosa, which we'll

1:13:18

kind of get to later. Pigmentosa.

1:13:21

That's a beautiful word. That's

1:13:24

what I'm going to name my first born. Pigmentosa.

1:13:27

Baby pigmentosa. These

1:13:29

are my twins, retinitis and pigmentosa. That's

1:13:32

adorable. I don't like it. Ready

1:13:36

and piggy. Ready and piggy.

1:13:38

He was extremely controlling and had

1:13:40

an explosive temper. And it's not

1:13:42

just his family who suffered for

1:13:44

it as he cut the

1:13:47

tails off his dairy cows.

1:13:50

Why? According to

1:13:52

Mayor Birch, quote, Jim got mad because the cows

1:13:54

would swat him with their tails when he was

1:13:57

milking, Birch said. He milked by

1:13:59

hand so the cows will. had short

1:14:01

stub tails. That's... They're

1:14:03

squatting because there's flies. There's flies.

1:14:05

They have a tail for an

1:14:08

evolutionary reason. You took away the

1:14:11

thing that covers their butthole and keeps the

1:14:13

flies away from their poop shoot. God,

1:14:16

that's mean. Because you don't like being flicked

1:14:18

in the face as a dairy farmer? Surely

1:14:22

there were other things. You duct tape the

1:14:24

tail to their side while you're milking. I

1:14:26

mean, get a... I

1:14:29

don't know. Tie... There's got...

1:14:32

Wear a helmet. I don't fucking

1:14:34

know. Get a big hat. Yeah.

1:14:37

Sit on the other side. Yeah. What

1:14:40

a jackhole. He's a

1:14:42

douche. It appears to be

1:14:44

agreed that Jim worked hard, but he didn't

1:14:46

earn a lot of sympathy from his fellow

1:14:49

farmers because of his behavior. And

1:14:51

despite everything going on with the farm

1:14:53

crisis, the community also felt that he

1:14:55

didn't make the best decisions, like

1:14:58

financially and with his land. So

1:15:01

the consensus was that Jim is a dick and

1:15:03

it sucks that he's struggling financially, but he made

1:15:05

his bed so it's not our problem. Yeah.

1:15:08

That's my consensus, too. Yeah.

1:15:11

And I don't usually feel that way

1:15:13

because I have, you know,

1:15:16

almost detrimental empathy, but I

1:15:18

don't like this fucking guy. No,

1:15:20

the tails. That's

1:15:22

all I needed to hear. Yeah.

1:15:25

So, I think like every,

1:15:27

all the worst things about like

1:15:29

boomer attitude. A rumpy old man.

1:15:32

Yeah. In

1:15:34

one package, one stocky package.

1:15:37

So instead of self-reflection, he considered himself

1:15:39

a perpetual victim. He always blamed everybody

1:15:41

else for his issues. Mayor

1:15:44

Birch pointed out that Jim Jenkins

1:15:46

had not only fed his cows

1:15:48

poorly using primarily free sweet corn

1:15:50

silage from Sleepy A, a

1:15:52

city in Minnesota, don't you know? We also

1:15:54

know he treated them fucking terribly because he cut

1:15:56

off their goddamn tails for God's sakes. God.

1:15:59

Quote he didn't have. to

1:18:01

the safety and well-being of her son. And

1:18:03

there are other things that happen down the

1:18:05

road that lead me to believe this. But

1:18:08

I also do feel for her because this

1:18:10

had to have been a nightmarish household

1:18:13

to live in. Yeah, and probably

1:18:15

in like a rural farming community. Right.

1:18:17

Where do you go? In this time?

1:18:19

I mean, maybe just. With no resources,

1:18:21

they're broke. And maybe just

1:18:23

like the reporting or however you're getting

1:18:25

the vibe that she may

1:18:28

or may not have been abused, may or may not

1:18:30

have been trying to protect her

1:18:32

son. I

1:18:34

don't know. I don't know. We'll get

1:18:36

to why I kind of feel like this.

1:18:39

Like she. I think we can agree that

1:18:41

it was a terrible situation. It was a

1:18:44

bad situation. And then this guy suffered. And

1:18:46

Steve suffered, I'd say the

1:18:48

most. And it gets bad. So after

1:18:50

the divorce of his parents, Steve had

1:18:53

a rather unstable upbringing, constantly

1:18:55

moving because he

1:18:57

wasn't staying with his mom. So

1:18:59

I think Darlene divorced Steve, but

1:19:01

that are divorced Jim, but did

1:19:04

not take Steve out of the

1:19:06

house with her, even though she

1:19:08

clearly was aware. Oh, that Jim

1:19:10

there. Yeah, is is

1:19:13

harming him. Great. That's great.

1:19:16

By the age of 18, Steve

1:19:18

fancied himself a junior commando sporting

1:19:21

a military style haircut and always

1:19:23

wearing a military camouflage uniform. He

1:19:26

had a tattoo on his right arm and residents

1:19:28

recall that he liked to wear a long knife

1:19:30

strapped to his lower leg. That's

1:19:32

a look. It was never

1:19:34

specifically stated, but it's

1:19:37

it's pretty logical

1:19:39

to see that part

1:19:42

of the fascination with the military was

1:19:44

because Stephen was so desperate for the

1:19:46

approval of like a paternal figure and

1:19:48

some structure, and he wasn't

1:19:50

getting it from his dad. So he

1:19:52

was trying to get it from someone

1:19:54

named Charles Snow, who was a former

1:19:56

top sergeant who taught Stephen how to

1:19:58

shoot and appeared to set himself up.

1:20:00

as some sort of mentor for Steven.

1:20:02

And they met Charles Snow because Jim

1:20:04

at one point moved to

1:20:07

like different states trying to establish himself.

1:20:09

At one point they were in Texas

1:20:12

and Steve connected with this guy, Charles. Charles

1:20:14

kind of took him under his wing. He's

1:20:17

former military. Steve is really interested in joining the

1:20:19

army, like, etc, etc. So he

1:20:21

like starts to get into guns and he's

1:20:23

being taught to shoot by this guy. Do

1:20:26

Jim and Charles know each other or is

1:20:28

it just Steve and Charles? They know each

1:20:30

other. Oh, OK. I it's just like a

1:20:32

neighbor in Texas. So

1:20:36

backing up a little bit before they went

1:20:38

to Texas. So Steve's parents, Jim and Darlene,

1:20:41

had owned the farm and had run a small dairy

1:20:43

operation from 1977 to 1980. In

1:20:48

1979, they had pledged the property as security

1:20:50

for a farm operating loan from Buffalo Ridge

1:20:52

State Bank, which was the bank that had

1:20:54

been recently purchased by Rudy Blythe. They

1:20:57

secured a $40,000 loan. James

1:20:59

and Darlene then divorced in 1980

1:21:01

when Darlene had grown unhappy with

1:21:04

Jim's temper and the like

1:21:06

hand to mouth existence she'd been living after 20

1:21:08

years of farming. So she left in August of

1:21:11

1980. She filed for

1:21:13

divorce, alleging verbal abuse and would later remarry.

1:21:15

Jim would complain to others that his wife

1:21:17

may have been stepping out with another man,

1:21:19

possibly even Rudy Blythe. Oh, come

1:21:21

on. While it was suggested in

1:21:24

the research that Darlene did leave James

1:21:26

for another man, nothing suggested that it

1:21:28

was Rudy. And I think the fact

1:21:30

that James would even mention it as

1:21:32

a possibility kind of

1:21:34

highlights his mental state and how he felt

1:21:36

toward the owner of the bank, who is

1:21:39

like an outsider of this community. And he

1:21:41

was just a guy that Jim didn't like.

1:21:43

So he's like, oh, my wife's sleeping with

1:21:46

him. He's fucking with my money. Yeah. So

1:21:48

he would blame Rudy for basically everything that

1:21:50

was going wrong in his life. James then

1:21:52

defaulted on the $40,000 loan that he had.

1:21:55

He cut Macau's tails off. Yeah.

1:21:57

Fucking Rudy snuck in and cut off my cow tail.

1:22:01

Jim defaulted on the $40,000 loan that

1:22:03

he had with Buffalo Ridge State Bank. Facing

1:22:06

the loss of his farm and its assets

1:22:08

that he'd put up as collateral, Jim started

1:22:10

to illegally sell his cattle and tore out

1:22:12

the plumbing from the house, apparently saying if

1:22:15

he couldn't have the farm, no one could.

1:22:17

Okay. He

1:22:19

declared bankruptcy still owing $25,000 on the loan. The

1:22:23

family would abandon the property, so him and Steve,

1:22:26

and the title for the property passed to

1:22:28

the bank. Steve would alternatively

1:22:30

live with his mother, slash paternal grandparents

1:22:33

in Minnesota for a little while, and

1:22:35

eventually dropped out of 11th grade to

1:22:37

stay with his father, and

1:22:39

move around from Minnesota, Ohio, Texas,

1:22:42

back to Minnesota. Do

1:22:44

you think that his mom tried to take

1:22:46

him with her and he was like, no,

1:22:48

I want to stay with my dad, who's

1:22:50

like, weirdly psychologically and physically abusive, but I'm

1:22:52

yearning for his approval? I

1:22:54

really don't know, but I think that that's

1:22:56

a very real possibility. Okay. Um,

1:23:00

and I don't

1:23:02

know, I think to Darlene's credit, I

1:23:05

think her son was very

1:23:09

manipulated by his father, and

1:23:11

I think she was seeing behavior

1:23:14

in him that's very

1:23:17

clearly learned from Jim, the

1:23:19

man that she was trying to get away from. Mm-hmm.

1:23:22

And so I think that also contributed

1:23:24

to her decision... To just

1:23:26

go. To just kind of go

1:23:28

and let Steve make his choice

1:23:31

to go be with Jim. That makes sense. And,

1:23:33

you know, again, I don't fault her for that,

1:23:36

and I also have feelings about

1:23:38

it. Both things can be true.

1:23:40

Decisions were made. And yeah, and

1:23:42

people are complicated, and parents aren't

1:23:44

perfect, and she's doing the best

1:23:46

that she can for her, and

1:23:49

Steve's life is completely fucking ruined

1:23:52

by his shit stain of a

1:23:54

father, and I wish

1:23:56

that people, whether it be

1:23:59

her or somebody... He also had fought harder for Steve.

1:24:02

I really do, because then so much of this could have

1:24:04

been avoided. And hindsight is 20-20. Exactly, of course. So in

1:24:06

May of 1983, Steve and his father returned

1:24:10

to Minnesota from Texas. They

1:24:13

had been in Texas where he met that neighbor,

1:24:16

Charles Snow, he started to get into guns, all

1:24:18

this shit. They go back to Minnesota and

1:24:20

Jim is once again, wanting

1:24:24

to get back into dairy farming in

1:24:26

Minnesota. So he wants to start up

1:24:28

a new dairy farm. He

1:24:31

and Steve rented a small farm

1:24:33

near Hardwick in Rock County, which

1:24:35

is like roughly 200 miles

1:24:37

from their old farm. So not close, they

1:24:39

did not go back to the same community.

1:24:42

But he was unable to fund this

1:24:44

new endeavor himself. So he fought financing

1:24:47

or credit for the proposed operation from

1:24:49

the many lending institutions and paddle lessers.

1:24:52

But credit was repeatedly denied, because he'd

1:24:54

filed bankruptcy, he defaulted on a loan.

1:24:56

I don't know what he expected. You're

1:24:59

not gonna get a fucking loan. No. Quote,

1:25:01

every time someone would ask about his credit, said

1:25:03

a friend who asked to remain anonymous, everybody

1:25:05

would refer them to the bank that they'd shut

1:25:08

the door real, to the bank, and

1:25:10

they'd shut the door real quick like. So like

1:25:12

anytime he'd go to a bank to ask for

1:25:14

financing, they'd take one look at his credit and it

1:25:16

would be game over. So he was

1:25:18

not welcome in any store in the

1:25:21

county? No. Okay.

1:25:23

September 27th, 1983, a cattle dealer

1:25:25

called Rudy Blyth, the bank

1:25:28

owner from his former community, to

1:25:30

check on the credit rating of Jim

1:25:32

Jenkins. And angry Rudy told him exactly

1:25:34

what he thought of that fella, a

1:25:37

blunt report that the cattle dealer passed

1:25:39

on to Jim Jenkins as he flatly

1:25:41

rejected his last hope of acquiring some

1:25:43

cattle. So it's like, your

1:25:45

credit sucks and Rudy says you're

1:25:47

a real piece of shit. So we're not gonna do

1:25:49

a business with you, bye bye. The

1:25:52

next day, a banker would inform Jim that

1:25:54

his effort to negotiate the credit purchase of

1:25:56

dairy cattle from a long query cattle dealer

1:25:58

had failed. Steve said his father blamed

1:26:01

his inability to get credit on the 1980 bankruptcy

1:26:03

and on bankers, specifically banker Rudy

1:26:06

Blythe, who he believed was giving

1:26:08

him bad credit references, even

1:26:10

though it's on his credit report that he

1:26:12

defaulted on a loan and had to file

1:26:15

bankruptcy. Yeah, it's not like a character witness.

1:26:17

No. It's just like, there's

1:26:19

the numbers. Yep. Susan Blythe,

1:26:21

vice president of the bank and Rudy's

1:26:23

wife, confirmed that her husband had told

1:26:25

prospective lenders about Jenkins bankruptcy when they

1:26:28

asked for a credit reference. Quote,

1:26:30

one thing led to another and all of a

1:26:32

sudden Jim got it in his head that all

1:26:34

his marriage problems and his family problems were all

1:26:37

Rudy's fault, that he was the

1:26:39

one making it so tough for him, Mayor Burch said.

1:26:42

Then he started it on the kid saying

1:26:44

it was all Rudy's fault, like planting this

1:26:46

in Steve's head. He kept

1:26:48

grinding that into Steve. Pretty

1:26:50

soon, Steve believed that was what

1:26:53

had happened. So Jim made Rudy

1:26:55

the villain in their entire story

1:26:57

and brainwashed his desperate for approval

1:27:00

military and gun loving son into

1:27:02

believing it too. I

1:27:04

honestly don't see how this is

1:27:06

going to go sideways. This

1:27:09

is bone to end well. Rather

1:27:11

to see your special thanks. Special thanks.

1:27:13

The end. Everyone's fine.

1:27:16

God. That would be amazing.

1:27:18

Everyone's not fine. This

1:27:22

is the wine and smiles podcast.

1:27:24

Smile and smile. True

1:27:27

smile podcast. So

1:27:31

after his final rejection for credit

1:27:33

from the longberry cattle dealer, Jim

1:27:36

called Rudy at the bank posing

1:27:38

as a potential buyer named Ron

1:27:40

Anderson. He said he was

1:27:42

interested in buying up the old Jenkins farm. It

1:27:45

made no economic sense, but Rudy was so

1:27:47

delighted at the chance to dump the old

1:27:50

place that his bank had acquired and hadn't

1:27:52

been able to sell off. So he quickly

1:27:54

agreed to meet, quote unquote, ran out at

1:27:56

the farm as he'd requested instead of at

1:27:58

the bank in town, which. was customary. So

1:28:01

Fake Ron is like, no, no, no,

1:28:03

I want to meet you at the farm. And Rudy's like,

1:28:05

well, I'm just trying to fucking get rid of this. So

1:28:07

I'm just going to agree. Fine. He wants to meet the

1:28:09

farm. We'll go meet at the farm, talk about this. Whatever.

1:28:11

So they agreed to meet at the old

1:28:13

Jenkins farm at 10 o'clock the next morning. According

1:28:16

to Steve, Jim told him, quote,

1:28:18

we're going to go there and Rob

1:28:20

and Rob Blythe and scare him scare

1:28:22

the hell out of him. However, Steve

1:28:24

would later admit to the jury that

1:28:26

he was armed and prepared for some

1:28:28

violent encounter, but denied the intention to

1:28:31

murder. It was just in case. Just

1:28:33

in case. The pair headed out to

1:28:35

the farm early the next day with

1:28:37

Steve driving inside the truck

1:28:39

were four guns, a 12 gauge shotgun,

1:28:42

a modified 410 shotgun, a

1:28:45

22 caliber pistol and the gun later

1:28:47

identified as the murder weapon and M1

1:28:50

semi automatic rifle. There was

1:28:52

ammunition, two knives, three to fuse

1:28:54

hand grenades. What the

1:28:56

fuck? And assorted military

1:28:59

equipment. Men that need to

1:29:01

fucking relax. I couldn't

1:29:03

agree more. And this is

1:29:05

just such a clear cycle of violence.

1:29:09

Like Jim created the

1:29:12

perfect circumstances for

1:29:15

his son while simultaneously

1:29:18

seeking any kind of affirmation,

1:29:20

love or approval from his

1:29:22

own father. That

1:29:24

kind of vulnerability leaves so

1:29:27

many specifically young men yearning

1:29:30

for structure, community and

1:29:33

like paternal guidance. And

1:29:36

they get drawn into, say, the

1:29:39

army and

1:29:42

weird neighbor who used to be in

1:29:44

the army. Like Steve didn't even go

1:29:46

into the army. He just showed interest.

1:29:48

He wanted to be like a little

1:29:52

badass. It was a

1:29:54

fantasy. Came under the wing of

1:29:56

this snow. Charles Snow guy

1:29:58

who taught him everything and

1:30:00

instead of going into the army, he just like

1:30:03

fueled his own obsession with like

1:30:05

guns. And

1:30:08

it's not good. Like

1:30:11

Steve is a victim here and he also is a violent criminal. Both

1:30:18

things can be true. Yeah, for

1:30:20

like as problematic

1:30:22

as like militarization, just

1:30:25

is like system, like just at

1:30:27

its core. I

1:30:30

feel like these guys who have

1:30:32

just the fantasy of

1:30:34

being in the military are so much

1:30:37

scarier. Without any of the structure or

1:30:39

discipline of actually being in the military.

1:30:41

All they wanna do is like shoot

1:30:43

guns and be a big man. That's

1:30:46

horrifying. Yeah, and I'm not saying that

1:30:48

his life would be so much better

1:30:50

if he had gone into the military,

1:30:52

but there at least would have been

1:30:54

some fucking like rules, regulations, hierarchy, and

1:30:57

safety protocols, things like that, that just

1:31:00

were not in effect because he's just a

1:31:02

kid, an 18 year old kid, who's

1:31:05

in love with this dream of being a

1:31:07

military man who got taken

1:31:09

under the wing of like

1:31:11

a retired veteran in the neighborhood who like taught him

1:31:13

how to be a sharpshooter. And

1:31:17

none of the manipulation and abuse

1:31:19

that he was sustaining at the

1:31:21

hands of his father was ever

1:31:23

addressed, intervened. He

1:31:26

had no opportunity to heal from that.

1:31:28

And so when his dad is like,

1:31:30

we're gonna do this together, this

1:31:32

guy ruined our life, he made your

1:31:34

mom leave. He wanted to

1:31:36

be a partner. He

1:31:39

wanted to be the person that his dad

1:31:41

depended on for once. Exactly, so of course

1:31:43

Steve is gonna be like, oh,

1:31:45

my dad needs me for the first

1:31:47

fucking time ever. I'm gonna do whatever he says.

1:31:50

It was just like the psych in

1:31:53

this case is so

1:31:55

fascinating and so clear to me. Yeah,

1:31:58

and it's pretty A to B. to see. Yeah,

1:32:01

exactly. You don't need a degree to

1:32:03

follow this one. Sure don't.

1:32:06

All of this equipment belonged to Steve who said

1:32:08

he habitually stored the weapons in the cab of

1:32:10

the pickup truck with the exception. So like he's

1:32:12

saying, I always have this shit

1:32:14

in my truck except my M1 rifle, which

1:32:17

I keep at the corner of my room at night and I

1:32:19

take with me in the truck whenever

1:32:21

I leave the house. This

1:32:23

claim is clearly made. Even

1:32:25

whether or not it's true that he

1:32:27

always keeps that stuff in his truck, either

1:32:30

way he's saying that because

1:32:32

he's trying to avoid the premeditated murder

1:32:34

charge. Yeah, exactly. And

1:32:36

I also acknowledge that it's the 80s,

1:32:38

it's the rural Midwest, people are going

1:32:40

to have guns, etc. but like grenades.

1:32:43

Yeah. Knives. A semi-automatic.

1:32:45

Four different guns. It's

1:32:49

grenades. I can't.

1:32:52

Well in these, like the M1 semi-automatic rifle is

1:32:54

not legal to hunt with. It's like why the

1:32:56

fuck would you have that? There's

1:32:58

only one reason to have that, quote

1:33:00

unquote, home defense. So

1:33:03

yeah, I don't know. So

1:33:05

the next day, September 29th, 1983, a day and four years before my birthday, 8.30am,

1:33:14

Steve and Jim arrive at their old farm. Jim

1:33:17

begins removing the truck that

1:33:19

they drove, their front license plate.

1:33:22

Steve took three guns from the truck, placed the

1:33:25

22 pistol on the seat, the M1

1:33:27

rifle and the 12 gauge shotgun within reach on the

1:33:29

hood of the truck. Have

1:33:31

fun trying to claim that this

1:33:33

was not premeditated license plate. Are

1:33:36

you fucking kidding? As

1:33:39

Jim began to remove the rear license plate,

1:33:41

the pair heard a car come up the

1:33:44

farm's driveway. And it was, you

1:33:46

know, they're there like 8.30 in the morning. So it's

1:33:48

still pretty long before 10am. It's like almost

1:33:50

9 now. So they weren't expecting anybody

1:33:52

to drive up. They're supposed to meet Rudy at 10.

1:33:55

The pair each grabbed a gun and ran and hid.

1:33:58

Steve hiding behind the garage. Riving

1:36:00

in the ditch. Riving in the ditch.

1:36:02

Yeah. He was wearing like a bright

1:36:04

yellow raincoat so he could easily be

1:36:06

seen from the street but unfortunately like

1:36:08

he does he doesn't survive. He

1:36:11

doesn't make it. The physical evidence indicates

1:36:13

that almost immediately after Susan Blythe drove away

1:36:15

from the farm to fetch the police a

1:36:17

gunman stepped from behind the chicken coop and

1:36:20

fired three shots from the M1 semi-automatic

1:36:22

rifle at Blythe and Thulin or Thulin.

1:36:24

I'm sorry, I don't remember exactly how

1:36:27

to pronounce it. They had apparently returned

1:36:29

to the station wagon quite quickly because

1:36:31

Susan saw them heading away from the

1:36:33

car in the opposite directions as Susan

1:36:35

left and then I think they saw

1:36:37

something threatening and were like running back

1:36:39

toward the car. And

1:36:42

so Toby made

1:36:44

it into the car but

1:36:47

a bullet entered the front passenger side window

1:36:49

vent and hit him in the

1:36:51

neck severing his spinal cord

1:36:53

and killing him instantly. Oh

1:36:56

Jesus. Very precise shot.

1:36:58

Wow. Thulin was a

1:37:01

father of three, a veteran, and had

1:37:03

joined the bank as an employee only

1:37:05

10 months prior. Oh

1:37:08

my god. Literally survived war and

1:37:10

was shot to death after 10

1:37:12

months of working for a fucking

1:37:14

bank. In a small town

1:37:17

Minnesota. In rural Minnesota. Oh.

1:37:20

In a town of at the time like 450 people. That's

1:37:22

awful. A second bullet

1:37:24

was lodged in the car door on

1:37:27

the side that Toby was sitting. So like both

1:37:29

of these shots were absolutely

1:37:32

like specifically

1:37:35

trying to kill him. Yeah. And were

1:37:38

well aimed and precisely

1:37:40

fired. Oh my god. One didn't hit him

1:37:42

but the other hit him right in, hit

1:37:44

him so precisely in the neck that it

1:37:46

severed his spinal cord. That is why

1:37:49

that's like some sniper shit. Yeah.

1:37:51

Close range. It's,

1:37:54

it's terrifying. A third

1:37:56

shot went through the front windshield

1:37:59

through the open. driver side window

1:38:02

and hit Rudy Blythe who

1:38:05

was crouching beside the driver side door. He

1:38:07

hadn't like made it all the way into

1:38:10

the car, but like the door was open

1:38:13

and he's hiding. It hit him in the lower

1:38:15

back. The wound

1:38:17

isn't fatal. Blythe is running. He

1:38:20

runs at least 90 yards west

1:38:22

like going toward the road to

1:38:25

help run for his life. His path led

1:38:27

through the farmyard along a sidewalk south of

1:38:29

the farmhouse and across the front yard. The

1:38:31

second of four shots hit him as he

1:38:34

went into a shallow ditch that separates the

1:38:36

front yard from County Road 7 that the

1:38:38

farm was on. He was hit

1:38:40

by all four bullets shot from

1:38:42

approximately, they think like 90 feet

1:38:45

away. There were four shell

1:38:47

casings in that area. So like

1:38:49

not super close, but not, you

1:38:51

know, not super far. These

1:38:54

aren't like point blank close range shots.

1:38:56

These are targeted longer range

1:38:58

shots. Two bullets hit

1:39:00

Blythe in the side very close together causing

1:39:03

fatal wounds. Another bullet hit

1:39:05

Blythe's arm. The fourth pass through

1:39:07

his jacket. So he was technically hit

1:39:09

by all four. One didn't like lodge

1:39:11

into him, but it went right through

1:39:13

his clothes. So

1:39:15

he died in that ditch. Oh my God,

1:39:17

that's so sad. That afternoon,

1:39:20

sheriff's officers visited the home

1:39:22

of Mr. Jenkins elderly parents,

1:39:24

Jim's parents. They found

1:39:26

some spent 30 caliber carbine casings

1:39:28

and a stuffed dummy dressed like

1:39:30

a man that had

1:39:33

been shot several times.

1:39:36

Literally practiced target with the

1:39:38

casings match the murder weapon.

1:39:41

Is there someone's practicing with that gun?

1:39:44

Okay. My, this is

1:39:46

obviously horrible, but I can't

1:39:48

stop thinking about how fucking stupid these guys are.

1:39:51

Yeah. Yeah. Jim,

1:39:53

as the mastermind of all of this is not

1:39:56

well and not for lack of

1:39:59

a better word. executing this plan

1:40:01

well. No. And

1:40:05

I also think that that is because he,

1:40:09

I don't know if at the time he was

1:40:11

fully, he had fully made

1:40:13

this decision, but I think that there was a part of

1:40:16

him all along that

1:40:19

wasn't expecting to live

1:40:21

after this, whether

1:40:23

that would be by his

1:40:25

own hand or the police.

1:40:27

Did he shoot out? Yes.

1:40:31

I don't have like, again, that's me

1:40:33

speculating wildly. I don't have like solid

1:40:35

evidence to that fact. I just know

1:40:37

that his mental state was very, very

1:40:39

bad. He was not thinking clearly.

1:40:41

Or he was just so focused on

1:40:43

killing Rudy and he didn't give a

1:40:46

shit what else happened. Yeah, he was-

1:40:48

Or how obvious it was. Rudy had

1:40:50

been made in his mind, the

1:40:52

villain responsible for every

1:40:54

bad thing that had happened

1:40:56

to Jim in Jim's life.

1:40:59

And so I think he was so fixated on

1:41:02

this. And even after the

1:41:04

satisfaction of killing him or whatever realizes like,

1:41:06

oh, that's not actually gonna make all my

1:41:08

problems go away. And now I have way

1:41:10

more fucking problems than I had to begin

1:41:12

with. What the fuck do I do? So

1:41:14

what they first do is go on the

1:41:16

run. Oh, natch. Yep,

1:41:19

they flee the farm. A

1:41:21

witness saw their pickup quote, screaming down

1:41:23

the driveway around 9 a.m. So

1:41:26

like all of this happened really

1:41:28

fast. Like the- Before my alarm

1:41:30

goes off, honestly. Seriously, the father and

1:41:33

son show up around 8.30. Blythe

1:41:36

and Rudy and Toby are pulling up

1:41:39

around nine, or not even, maybe 8.45.

1:41:42

Susan comes up right after that, takes

1:41:44

the other car. They know that something's

1:41:46

off. She goes to

1:41:48

call the cops. Like basically the second she's off

1:41:50

the property, it's going

1:41:53

down. Jesus Christ. After leaving the

1:41:55

farm, Steven and his father, Jim,

1:41:57

drove to Laverne, Minnesota, bought more ammunition.

1:41:59

ammunition, gasoline, and a flashlight, and they

1:42:01

started for their home in Hardwick, Minnesota,

1:42:03

which again is like 200 miles away.

1:42:07

They don't actually return home. Instead,

1:42:10

they drive to South Dakota and then

1:42:12

on to Texas, driving at night to

1:42:15

avoid police detection. Again, in Laverne,

1:42:17

they had stopped. They bought 100 rounds

1:42:19

of hollow .30 caliber carbine ammunition

1:42:21

before leaving Minnesota. They

1:42:24

stated that they were going hunting, even though, like

1:42:26

I said earlier, this type of ammo, and

1:42:28

I think that gun is illegal for hunting.

1:42:30

At the very minimum, the hollow point bullets

1:42:33

at the time were illegal for hunting. They

1:42:36

also bought shotgun ammo and a flashlight at

1:42:38

another store in Laverne. They

1:42:40

stopped at a junkyard to pull some new

1:42:42

license plates. They pulled

1:42:44

into a junkyard and swiped the plates off a

1:42:46

white pickup truck and put them on theirs. I

1:42:48

think they did this in South

1:42:50

Dakota. They said, quote,

1:42:52

people were looking for a white Chevy

1:42:54

pickup with Texas plates because they had

1:42:57

just recently moved back to Minnesota from

1:42:59

Texas, but they had South Dakota plates

1:43:01

on by then. They stopped at a

1:43:03

junkyard in South Dakota. That's

1:43:05

how they got all the way to Texas without being pulled over. The

1:43:10

one smart thing they did is if you're going

1:43:12

to lift plates, at least lift plates off of

1:43:14

a vehicle that looks very similar if it's not

1:43:17

exactly the same car as yours,

1:43:19

because the vehicle that's registered to that

1:43:21

plate, totally different, is going to send

1:43:24

up alarm bells. I

1:43:26

never thought about that. Yep. I

1:43:28

have. Anyway, why?

1:43:31

Just kidding. Well, you

1:43:33

know, my car's been towed for scoff law

1:43:35

many times in my past. You

1:43:37

are a scoff law. I'm a scoff law.

1:43:39

I was in my 20s and I didn't

1:43:41

feel like paying my parking tickets and I

1:43:43

definitely paid for it later. So

1:43:47

on the road, I think in Texas at this point, they

1:43:49

encountered a Rock County deputy sheriff,

1:43:52

Ronald McClure, who turned around

1:43:54

and began following them closely because like something

1:43:57

wasn't right. Oh, Steven said

1:43:59

his father told him to get out

1:44:01

and shoot at the policeman. So

1:44:04

they turn the truck onto a gravel

1:44:06

road. Steven gets out with his M1

1:44:08

rifle and shoots three times at McClure's

1:44:10

car as it passes an intersection. McClure,

1:44:12

thinking quickly when he saw the gun,

1:44:14

laid down in the seat but accelerated

1:44:16

through the intersection so he wasn't hit.

1:44:19

Wow. By any shots. I

1:44:21

know, that was pretty fucking smart. Yeah, but

1:44:23

to your point earlier, it definitely sounds like

1:44:25

they were planning on dying in some sort

1:44:28

of police shootout. They are playing it

1:44:30

fast and loose right now. Yeah, I

1:44:32

don't think Steve is even thinking about

1:44:34

this. He's just like, what

1:44:36

dad says I'm just gonna do, I'm just gonna trust him. And

1:44:39

Jim, I don't think gives a fuck about

1:44:42

his own life or his son's life. He's

1:44:45

just absolutely playing it fast

1:44:47

and loose and I think he's like making decisions in

1:44:49

the moment. And I think at

1:44:51

this point, Steve is just like traumatized,

1:44:55

abused, again, this doesn't absolve Steve of

1:44:57

his role in this entirely but it

1:44:59

does kind of, it explains it in

1:45:01

my mind. Yeah. So

1:45:04

they get away, they

1:45:06

arrive in Paducah, Texas

1:45:09

on Saturday, October 1st, 1983. On

1:45:12

Sunday, October 2nd, after four days on the

1:45:14

run, Steven left his father at

1:45:16

the abandoned farm where they were just hiding

1:45:19

out and surrendered to Paducah

1:45:21

police. He's like, this

1:45:23

is not gonna end well, I'm

1:45:26

gonna turn myself in, I'm done

1:45:28

doing this. I'm done being on the road,

1:45:30

like good for him. He said he was

1:45:32

wanted in connection with some murders in Minnesota and

1:45:35

the pair had also run out of

1:45:37

gas and any money. So like Steve

1:45:39

knew, time's up, we're gonna get caught,

1:45:42

I'm just gonna go fucking turn myself in. He

1:45:45

tearfully said that his father had

1:45:47

asked him to kill him, Jim

1:45:49

asked Steve to kill him. Oh

1:45:52

God. He replied that he couldn't do that

1:45:55

and that he told his father, you'll have to

1:45:57

do that yourself which I'm proud of him for

1:45:59

doing that. When they talk. I talked in Texas

1:46:01

about the shootings and about the father's wish to

1:46:03

die. Quote, that was the first time ever in

1:46:05

my life that my father told me he loved

1:46:07

me, Stephen said. Wow, that's

1:46:09

so sad. It's really sad. Quote, his son

1:46:12

came in saying they had run out of

1:46:14

money and his father was talking about shooting

1:46:16

himself, the sheriff in this

1:46:19

town in Texas. By the time

1:46:21

we got to the farm, the abandoned farm where

1:46:23

they were hiding, he was dead. So he

1:46:25

did shoot himself. Yep. Steve

1:46:27

refused to shoot him, left to turn himself

1:46:29

in. Jim shot himself. Stephen

1:46:32

maintained that he remained hiding behind

1:46:35

the garage during the events at

1:46:37

the farm in Ruffton.

1:46:41

And saw neither his father nor the

1:46:43

victims until after the shootings. Though

1:46:45

he stated that he did hear somebody

1:46:47

say something about going to get the

1:46:49

police and heard one car leaving. So

1:46:52

probably Susan. However, he told

1:46:54

police when he turned himself in

1:46:57

that he had seen his father

1:46:59

shoot Rudy and Toby. So

1:47:01

there's conflicting stories here. And

1:47:04

this will become an issue at

1:47:06

trial because Stephen

1:47:09

claimed that he hid behind the

1:47:11

garage and stayed there. But then

1:47:13

Susan Blythe, Rudy's wife, would

1:47:15

testify that she saw her husband walking

1:47:17

past the end of the garage where,

1:47:20

like right where Steve was saying he

1:47:22

was hiding. And

1:47:24

she's like, no, no, no, no, no. If

1:47:26

he had been there, Rudy would have seen

1:47:28

him on that north

1:47:30

end of the garage. So either

1:47:33

he either moved or he

1:47:35

wasn't there in that area

1:47:37

at all. And based on the evidence,

1:47:39

including the testimony at trial, it's believed

1:47:41

that since Rudy didn't see Stephen,

1:47:44

he was not hiding where he claimed he

1:47:46

was hiding in his statement.

1:47:49

It's instead believed that he ran from behind

1:47:51

the garage and around the chicken coop to

1:47:53

avoid being seen by Rudy, which makes way

1:47:55

more sense because Rudy and Toby are like

1:47:57

going back and forth to the car. Where?

1:48:00

who's here before they're essentially

1:48:02

ambushed and chased down and

1:48:04

killed. Susan also testified

1:48:06

to hearing a metallic noise that was later

1:48:08

believed to be a pile of rain gutters

1:48:11

being stepped on by Steven

1:48:13

as he moved location and those rain gutters

1:48:15

were not in the area that he claimed

1:48:17

to be hiding. The

1:48:19

location of those rain gutters and the sound that connects

1:48:21

with what she heard supports the

1:48:25

prosecution's theory that he was like

1:48:28

skirting away from Rudy so

1:48:30

that Rudy wouldn't see him. Almost

1:48:32

immediately after Susan Blythe drove away, three

1:48:34

shots were fired at Rudy Blythe and

1:48:36

Toby Thullen, killing Thullen instantly and wounding

1:48:39

Blythe and as we know then

1:48:41

he ran and was chased

1:48:43

down and shot. The first set of

1:48:45

shots were fired from the corner of the chicken

1:48:47

coop. So we know that someone, whether

1:48:49

it was Steve or Jim, had

1:48:52

to have fired those shots from that location. Jim's

1:48:55

dead so we can't confirm

1:48:57

where he was. Steve's claiming that

1:48:59

he was hiding. I

1:49:02

can't help but assume that all of the

1:49:04

shots fired were fired by Steve. That's a

1:49:07

good assumption and also since Jim

1:49:09

killed himself Steve can blame whatever he

1:49:11

wants on his dad because he's fucking

1:49:13

dead. Yeah but the evidence is

1:49:16

still the evidence. Yep. So Rudy Blythe fled

1:49:18

toward the farmhouse front yard and the killer

1:49:20

followed. Blythe was shot four times and fatally

1:49:22

wounded as he tried to reach the road

1:49:24

landing in a ditch adjacent to the road

1:49:26

where he finally passed. Throughout

1:49:29

the trial Steven would continue to assert that it

1:49:31

must have been his father that fired the fatal

1:49:33

shots though he didn't see it from his hiding

1:49:35

spot. So it was up to the jury and circumstantial

1:49:38

evidence to decide who pulled the trigger. Was

1:49:40

it Jim or was it Steven? The

1:49:43

case for Steven is pretty damn solid.

1:49:45

That army veteran Charles Snow had

1:49:48

trained Steven how to shoot. It was

1:49:50

testified that Steven was a quote superb

1:49:52

marksman with one witness testifying that

1:49:55

he had seen quote Steven dance a

1:49:57

tin can across a pond with the

1:49:59

weapon like He's seen him

1:50:01

shoot that M1 so rapidly

1:50:03

and with such precision that

1:50:06

he got a tin can all the

1:50:08

way across a pond. Now whether that's

1:50:10

like a colloquialism or actually what he

1:50:12

saw, I don't know. I also don't

1:50:14

care. It's to indicate that he's all

1:50:16

really fucking good. It's like he could

1:50:18

shoot a bug off a alligator

1:50:21

tongue. Like I don't know if it was

1:50:23

like something like that. On a Tuesday in

1:50:25

March. On a Tuesday in March. 40% humidity.

1:50:28

40% humidity. 40% you. Either

1:50:33

way, the kid could shoot. Snow

1:50:35

also taught Steven the military skill

1:50:37

of shooting accurately after running a

1:50:39

distance, which I had never really

1:50:41

thought about this, but this is

1:50:43

like a very specific skill to

1:50:46

run quickly, stop

1:50:48

and shoot accurately is very hard because you're

1:50:51

like breathing heavily and your body is a

1:50:53

little bit dysregulated. Yeah. So it's something that

1:50:55

they really have to train to do. This

1:50:58

is a skill that Steven worked at

1:51:01

perfecting by frequent practice. Evidence

1:51:03

at the crime scene indicated that the

1:51:05

shooter would have run after Blythe approximately

1:51:08

90 yards before delivering the fatal shots

1:51:10

from about 90 feet away. And

1:51:12

Jim's not going to do that. He's got retinopathy

1:51:15

or whatever. Oh, we'll get

1:51:17

to the retinopathy. Diabetes

1:51:21

clears another man's name. Even

1:51:25

though in the long and short of it, Steve,

1:51:28

in my opinion, was the murder

1:51:30

weapon. Yeah. For Jim. Yeah.

1:51:33

And was manipulated into being the hit

1:51:36

man for Jim's fucked up

1:51:38

grievances against a man that had nothing

1:51:40

to do with the shit going on

1:51:43

in his life. God. And

1:51:45

a man he'd never even met, like fucking

1:51:47

poor Toby. Yeah. Had just

1:51:49

started fucking working there. He's like, well,

1:51:51

who are we meeting here again? Exactly.

1:51:54

I can't. I

1:51:56

can't. It's so shitty. In the months before

1:51:58

the murder, after his return to Minnesota, Steve had

1:52:00

shot at least 500 rounds in target

1:52:02

practice with the murder weapon indicating

1:52:05

familiarity with the M1's common

1:52:08

malfunction. Okay, so this

1:52:10

gun would often jam in

1:52:12

semi-automatic mode, but could still

1:52:14

be operated just fine

1:52:16

manually, which is the harder way

1:52:19

to operate the firearm. But he

1:52:21

could do it. Yup. So

1:52:23

he could do it. He was also

1:52:25

particularly attached to the M1, keeping it

1:52:28

close to him at all times. Would

1:52:30

he have even let his father use

1:52:32

it, knowing its quirks and knowing

1:52:34

how precious it was to him? Steven was

1:52:37

also 18 years old in great physical condition

1:52:39

at the time of the murders. Jim,

1:52:41

on the other hand, was 46 years

1:52:43

old and physically limited not only by

1:52:46

impaired eyesight. He had

1:52:48

some mobility issues. So he also

1:52:51

struggled from slowness and hesitancy

1:52:53

in his movement. Some of

1:52:55

that is from his eye

1:52:57

issue because he has that

1:53:00

diabetic retinitis pigmentosa. This is

1:53:02

a progressive disease causing tunnel

1:53:04

vision, night blindness, and eventually

1:53:06

complete blindness. He's

1:53:08

also suffering from type

1:53:10

2 diabetes. He said he

1:53:13

was overweight. He's overweight. He's

1:53:16

not fast. He's

1:53:18

me. He's me. You

1:53:22

can move quickly when you have to,

1:53:25

but you're not going to chase someone

1:53:27

down and then shoot them with accuracy

1:53:29

with an automatic

1:53:31

weapon. Literally, absolutely

1:53:34

not. Yeah, absolutely not.

1:53:36

I mean, I have running

1:53:38

for my life. I'm sorry. You

1:53:40

can do anything you put your mind

1:53:42

to. Yeah, I'm not

1:53:44

putting my mind to that. It's not happening. No,

1:53:46

no, no, no, absolutely not.

1:53:49

I believe in you to a degree.

1:53:51

I don't. That's don't

1:53:54

do not put your money on this horse

1:53:56

girl. Not

1:53:58

a safe bet. Correct

1:54:00

division was 20% of normal in

1:54:02

his right eye, which

1:54:06

would be the eye that he would have to

1:54:08

use to aim a weapon. It

1:54:10

was 63% of normal in his left

1:54:12

eye. So the right eye was worse than the left,

1:54:14

but he would have been, the way that that gun

1:54:17

was built, you use the right eye to look

1:54:20

through the scope. While Jenkins could see

1:54:22

well enough to work, hold a driver's

1:54:24

license only driving during the day, there's

1:54:26

evidence his poor vision limited his mobility

1:54:28

and made sighting and shooting a gun

1:54:30

very difficult. For this

1:54:32

evidence, they even exhumed Jim's

1:54:35

body. Oh. Quote,

1:54:37

they dug Jim up just to check his

1:54:39

eyesight. They took his eyes out

1:54:42

and said that there was no way he could

1:54:44

see to shoot. And Steven was right on with

1:54:46

the shooting. Oh my God, I'm burping, thinking about the

1:54:48

eyes coming out. I can't. These eyes

1:54:50

are way too decomposed to shoot a gun.

1:54:53

These eyes, I

1:54:55

cry. Betty Davis eyes. I

1:54:58

can't. Recent

1:55:01

associates described Jim as walking

1:55:04

oddly as if he had to feel

1:55:06

his way along the ground with his feet because he couldn't

1:55:08

see well. He

1:55:10

wasn't stable on his feet. Could he

1:55:12

have covered a 90-yard distance in pursuit

1:55:14

of Rudy? There was testimony that his

1:55:16

eyesight had recently prevented him from being

1:55:18

able to use a mechanical gun sight

1:55:20

like that on the murder weapon. In

1:55:23

addition, Jenkins had not owned or shot

1:55:25

a gun with any frequency for several

1:55:27

years, although he may have received some

1:55:29

training to shoot the M1 rifle while

1:55:32

in the National Guard 20 years earlier.

1:55:34

That doesn't seem very applicable in

1:55:37

this scenario. No. Steven

1:55:39

said his father had practiced target shooting only

1:55:41

a few times in the last two to

1:55:43

three years and did not share his son's

1:55:45

interest in guns. Jim's friend in Texas said

1:55:47

he once saw him try to sight a

1:55:49

shotgun, but he couldn't focus and said, quote,

1:55:51

I can't see anything through it. Jenkins

1:55:54

refused a deer hunting invitation from

1:55:56

this same friend claiming poor eyesight.

1:55:59

Jenkins borrowed a shot. shotgun for use in guard duty

1:56:01

at his job in Texas, but returned it the next

1:56:03

day saying, quote, I don't want to carry it because

1:56:05

if I used it, I would get myself killed. Oh,

1:56:09

so he's not on board with all

1:56:11

the guns because he's he's nervous about

1:56:13

using them. Understandably so. He's he's vision impaired.

1:56:15

How responsible of him. I know.

1:56:18

Right. So I'll just manipulate my son

1:56:20

into doing it for me. He's a

1:56:22

very good shot. Physical evidence of the

1:56:24

murders indicated the killer shot quickly and

1:56:26

with great accuracy. Thullen was killed by

1:56:28

one bullet through the neck. Then the

1:56:30

killer chased Rudolph Blythe for 90 yards

1:56:33

and shot again, hitting his target with

1:56:35

all four bullets and placing two of

1:56:37

those bullets, the fatal shots within one

1:56:39

to one and a half inches of

1:56:41

each other. So it's rapid fire and

1:56:43

very close clusters. He's a really good

1:56:45

shot. Mm hmm. That's terrifying. Yep. There

1:56:48

was evidence running and shooting diminishes the

1:56:50

accuracy of marksmanship and the less fit

1:56:53

the shooter, the greater the impact of

1:56:55

this strenuous maneuver. The shooter

1:56:57

had to fire one deadly shot, then run

1:56:59

nearly 100 yards before firing four more shots

1:57:01

to kill the second man to kill Rudy.

1:57:03

Can you imagine running 100 yards?

1:57:05

Oh, God, no, I would

1:57:08

rather turn the gun on myself there. I said it

1:57:11

faced with this evidence. The jury

1:57:14

well could well have been forced

1:57:16

to conclude even against their natural

1:57:18

sympathies that Steven, who was young,

1:57:20

agile, skilled at running and then

1:57:22

shooting and an expert marksman with

1:57:24

the M1 specifically had to

1:57:26

have shot Blythe and Thullen rather than

1:57:29

Jim. There's just no fucking way that

1:57:31

Jim pulled this off. I agree. He

1:57:33

had limited mobility, a serious visual handicap

1:57:36

and rarely handled guns. And this was

1:57:38

a skilled execution. There is just no

1:57:40

physical fucking way that Jim did that

1:57:43

didn't himself. Steven was convicted of

1:57:45

first degree murder in Rudy Blythe's death and

1:57:47

second degree murder in Toby

1:57:49

Thullen. He would be sentenced to life in prison, but