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B
I'm Jimmy Wissman.
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Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely bonkers edition of Small Town Murder. This is a crazy twisted. It's just every dark thought you could have. It's all true in this one. It's the weirdest show ever. We will get to all that. First though, head over to shut upandgivemerder.com go ahead and get your tickets for live shows and come out and see us in a live show. Just do it. Fine. If you've never seen a live show, we have to tell you it is a comedy show. People leave hurting from laughing. It's A real comedy show. A lot of jokes in the pictures with the murder story and it is just a wild time. So come out and enjoy a show here. Definitely. September 18th at the Pabst in Milwaukee. Get those tickets. Only a few left. So get those now. September 19th, we'll be at the State Theater in Minneapolis the next night.
B
Oh boy.
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Tickets left for that, so grab those. And then in October, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento. Then in November we are in Boston and Tarrytown. So get your tickets right now. Shut up and givememurder.com Listen to our other two shows as well, Crime and Sports, which is just awesome right now. It's just great. You don't have to like sports at all. You just have to like hearing stories of people completely screwing up their lives for no reason, which is what we do there. So check that out for sure. Check out your stupid opinions, which is just hilarious. So you definitely want to do that. Get yourself patreon as well. Patreon.com crimeinsports Just like the name of that show you should be listening to there anybody $5 a month or above on Patreon. You get everything we put out everything. Everything. As soon as you subscribe, you're going to get almost 400 back bonus episodes you've never heard before. And then we keep the feed going, new ones every other week. And this week, what you're going to get. Well, it's always one crime in sports, one small town murder. And you get. How much of it do they get? Every damn bit. This week, what you're gonna get for crime and sports, we're gonna talk about Kirby Puckett and the problems he had. The Twins player who was a beloved figure. I mean, he looked like a little like a Dobe person. He was like doughy and cute and you know, one of those little round head on him. But goddamn, was he a good player.
B
There's a couple of images in my head of him as like an innocent looking man and then there's also like a murderous looking man.
A
Well, he's not a murderer, but we'll get into a couple problems. Again, he looked dangerous.
B
Yeah.
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I think also his eye, he had a problem there, as we'll find out. Also, he's big as shit too. Yeah. For small town murder, Maternal Instinct, the documentary. We'll talk about that and all the stuff around it because there's plenty outside the documentary to get into too. I saw the body cam footage and the interrogation footage. That lady is wacky. We will talk all about that. That's the best way to put it. Wow. Patreon.com crimeinsports and on top of that, you also get every show we put out. Crime in sports, your stupid opinion. Small town, murder. All ad free as well.
B
Ad free.
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Ad free. And you get a shout out and a shout out. At the end of the show, Jimmy will mispronounce your name. He doesn't care. That's right. Patreon.com crimeinsports that said, disclaimer. This is a comedy show, everybody. There's gonna be murder. Cause that's the name of the show. But there's also jokes here. And you go, well, that sounds weird. How does that work? Actually, very easily. You'd be surprised how easily it actually works. All you have to do, it's really simple. I'm surprised everyone hasn't figured it out yet. All you have to is we don't make fun of the victims or the victims families.
B
Why is that, James?
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Because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. That's it. That's it. If you understand that, you kind of understand where we're coming from and how this works. To us, this is a more digestible way to do this. It makes it a little lighter to make some jokes around the edge to us, someone being like, oh, then the body was dismembered, the corpse was cut in a. It's creepier like that. So we're as uncomfortable as you are. And so we like to make some jokes around it and all that kind of shit. And plus, we make fun of a murderer. Who cares if we make fun of a murderer? So, yeah, fuck them. Exactly. So if that sounds good to you, holy hell, do you have a good crazy episode ahead of you.
B
Let's go.
A
If you think that true crime and comedy should never ever go together, we might not be for you, but I think we are. So check it out. No complaining later. That said, I think it's time, everybody, let's sit back. What do you say here, clear the lungs, arms to the sky, and let's all shout, Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.
B
Okay.
A
Let's go on a trip, shall we?
B
Yeah.
A
All right. We're going to Illinois this week. We are going to the Chicago burbs, baby.
B
Not so bad. Not bad.
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We're going to Palos Park, Illinois. And if someone says it's Palos or I don't care, I really don't gives a shit, I don't care, you can shove your.
B
Illinois loves that too. They love for you to be el Dorado.
A
Yeah. You can shove your sport pepper adorned hot dog right up your ass. I don't care. I'm not dealing. I'm really not. So. 35 minutes down. We love Chicago by the way, as one of our favorite places.
B
It's the greatest. It's one of the best cities in this country.
A
Love it. My wife's from there. Trust me, I'm pro Chicago. But calm down about the pronunciations. It's 35 minutes to Chicago, so just in the burbs there. 45 minutes to Gary, Indiana if you want to see where Michael Jackson grew up. I guess. I don't know. And an hour and a half to Spring Grove, Illinois, which was our last Illinois episode and I believe our first, I think it was our first Netflix episode. The Fireplace Poker one. Fireplace Poker Murder. I think that was the first one. So this is in Cook county, area code 708. Little bit of history here. Apparently early people that came here built log houses and cut timber. Basically this place was just to get shit for Chicago. So they cut timber and all this stuff and loaded it on canal barges for Chicago to be used for the construction and fuel and that sort of thing. So that's kind of how this place settled basically.
B
Abraham Lincoln style shit.
A
And then there were some farms, cattle and chicken and pigs and goats and farmlands and all that kind of thing there.
B
Old MacDonald.
A
There was the I&M Canal in 1848. That brought a lot of Irish and German immigrants to the area to work on the canal. Because who's going to dig the canal? Who just got here? You're going to dig the canal back then you're up, you're up. Yeah. Then there was the subways. All of us were down there, you know, stick all the Italians in the sick, put them in the hole, let them dig. It's just how it works. The population of early settlers were farmers, laborers, blacksmiths, woodcutters, that sort of thing. In the 1850s, Palos Township was named Trenton, like New Jersey. But it was changed to Palos by the first postmaster. Don't know why he picked that, but that's what he picked.
B
That's what he liked.
A
That's it. They felt the need for a local government around 1914 and incorporated and did all of that kind of thing here. Their village here they were trying to. Later on they had a village aid plan where they wanted new roads and electricity. They were like, eventually we'll get electricity. This was like in 1914. Electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones. Wow, amazing. They also realized that they didn't want this to become houses on top of each other. And to keep the aesthetic. At the time they had a law requiring one acre residential lots. So no lots.
B
Everybody gets an acre.
A
No lots. Were to be, they would not zone a residential lot smaller than an acre.
B
I love it.
A
Yeah. So everybody has room is how they worked it out.
B
That's awesome.
A
And also limited the industrial and business development just to the railroad site and nothing else.
B
What year was this?
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That's like early 1900s. They were doing this brilliant World War I time. Here's some reviews of the town because we don't know. We've never been to this place before. Let's find out what other people think. It has 4.5 stars on niche. So I mean, pretty good. Here's five stars. Cozy, quiet, friendly and professional community with minimal commercial real estate. See, just like they designed it exactly like that. Green landscapes with hills and outdoor forest preserves including lakes, trails for hiking, horseback riding, running and skiing. Plentiful outdoor activities for all seasons. The former artist community and history enriched gardeners abound. Committed residents to excellent schools, parks, first responders and small local businesses.
B
Sure.
A
Jesus. Here's four stars. It's a peaceful area with lots of wooded areas. I liked living where there's four seasons and many places to explore nature. This sounds like someone who moved away. I liked living there. Now I live in Arizona and sweat the whole year. Yeah, no good. Here's three stars. I've lived in Palos park for several years now and have grown to appreciate its charm over that time. It's nice to live in a peaceful suburb that's within walking distance of both small businesses and a big grocery store. The town's also home to many forms of nature and forest preserves, which is really nice because I enjoy to be in a place with nature accessible and nearby. Accessible but far. What am I going to do with that?
B
Nearby and unaccessible. Inaccessible. Not able to use.
A
Terrible. There are parts of town that could be more walkable, especially in residential areas, but overall my experience has been positive. It doesn't sound like there's a ton of sidewalks if you have those big lots. It's nice people in this town. 4859 people. Small too. For being that far out of Chicago and it's kind of or that close to Chicago, it's kind of remained at this level of population. How'd they do it for a long time? Well, because they can't build a bunch of apartments and condos and cram more shit in. So the population stays pretty Steady, because they only have so many lots, basically. So it's nice here is it's about 52.3% women. So way more women than men for a town with almost 5,000 people in it. Median age here, this is why there's so many Women. It is 56.6, which is way above the national average. And that shows that there's a lot of retirement people. A lot of retirement age people here. And women live longer than men. So there you go. It's a lot of old people. Always going to be a lot more women. This place, 65% married, which is well above the national average. And it's expensive here. This is a suburb with yards and your family and your kids and that's it. Only 5.2% of people are single with children here. That's extremely low. The race in this town, 85.9% white, 0.9% black, 1.1% Asian, 10.8% Hispanic. So there you go. 60% of the people here are religious. And I thought, so the high one there is going to be Catholicism. Chicago's a very Catholic town. They love it. Yeah, 38.7% are Catholic. So as we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the Great Lakes, chicagoland area. Yeah. 1.1% Jewish. What? Oh, my goodness. It's been so long. It's been so long. We can sing our song. Let's do it, Jimmy. Hava nagila, Hava nagila Papa Nagila I don't know the words. Hey. All right. There we go. We did it.
B
That's wild, isn't it?
A
It's been so long. It's strange here. Unemployment a bit high here. Median household income here also pretty damn high. $122,676.
B
They're doing great.
A
Yeah. It's $69,000 in the rest of the country. And the cost of living, 100 being average here, it's only 105, so it's not that much higher. But the housing is the one that drives it up. Median home cost here, 428,200 bucks, which is pretty high. That's expensive. So if we've convinced you, you got a few bucks, you're looking for some green yards and some, I don't know, some place to run around. We have for you the Palos Park, Illinois real estate report. Okay. House number one here that I actually your average two bedroom rental. Buckle up, by the way, $2,140 is your average two bedroom rental. That is extremely expensive.
B
That's Outrageous.
A
That's outrageous. It's normally about 12 and change in the rest of the country. House number one's a two bedroom, two bath. So t bowl for each and every b hole. Technically 1905 square feet. It is part of a house. It's a single. It looks like a single family house, but it's broken up into condos. It's weird as shit. Really, really weird. So it's.
B
Everybody enters through the same door.
A
It looks like there's one front door. I don't know if there's a back entrance or a side entrance, but it's really strange. $320,000 for that. Just had a $10,000 price guy. But you're sharing a house with somebody there. Here's a nice house. Three bedroom, three bath. Again, t bowl for all your b hulls here. 1,206 square feet. So not very big.
B
Nothing.
A
0.61 acres on the lot. Also not a lot, not a ton, but a decent amount.
B
It's more than. Yeah.
A
Kind of a raised ranch looking house. Not bad. 499,900 bucks for 1200 square feet. Oh my God, that is a lot. And then finally, five bedroom, seven baths. T bowl for each and every B hole. And a couple neighbors here.
B
Yeah.
A
8,000 square feet.
B
Okay.
A
It's the kind of house that has the real sharp peaked roof. Is that Tudor style? I think something like that. A frame. Oh, a frame. This fucking thing has got 15A frames in it. It's huge. There's fucking frames all over the place.
B
Just peaks all over the place.
A
Yeah. Huge house. 2.90 acres. Built in 2014. It's very fancy looking inside.
B
It's a new place. Built like fucking practical magic.
A
Yes, exactly. Inside and out. Beautiful place. Huge place. 2,399,000 bucks for that though. So there you go. Tried to give some 8,000 square footage.
B
Sounds amazing.
A
That's a lot of square footage. Yeah.
B
You could.
A
If you got in an argument with your spouse or whatever, you could not see each other for like two days. Like not even on purpose, just by accident. Things to do here. Okay. Not a ton. I mean, you could go to Chicago. It's right there. Yeah, that's something to do. A lot of shit to do in Chicago. There's all kinds of shit I could name you. Just the sports alone. Nevermind anything else.
B
Yeah, two baseball teams.
A
They got a lot going on.
B
You can see a double header.
A
You can see it in two different places. Things to do here, though. There's autumn in the park. Festival. And I was looking this up and they have food vendors, beer, wine, spirits. They have a sports cave. I don't know what goes on in there. I don't know what happens in a sports cave. I really don't.
B
I don't know.
A
Your guess is as good as mine. What happens in there? But that's from 6 to 10:30pm so they need four and a half hours for a sports cave.
B
Holy.
A
But from 7th, you won't be down there past 7:30 because you'll be up watching the musical entertainment where apparently for three hours from 7:30 to 10:30pm this band has a set which sounds insane. One band, one band. Mike and Joe. Two guys.
B
Two guys.
A
Two dudes. Mike and Joe. They are known as the Midwest's most renowned cover band.
B
Mike and Joe.
A
Mike and Joe. They play covers for three hours apparently. So you have to know a lot of covers for that.
B
That's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of music that's been made. So I guess you can just go and go and go.
A
Endless, endless catalog.
B
I guess.
A
Then on Saturday, the parade begins. That's nice. There's face painting. There's kids crafts, which sounds boring. Another sports cave for some reason. What is that? I don't know. The Rita Weigel Beautification Awards presentation. Oh, I don't know.
B
The Weigel.
A
W e G L E L or W e G e L E? Sounds like Wegel.
B
Yeah, that's Wegel, right?
A
Weggle Wegel, something like that. And Rita is R e T a too many E's.
B
What is going on?
A
Way too many E's. But when Rita Wegel gives an award, you fucking show up and accept it. God damn it. You take it. From 3 to 6pm the musical entertainment will be Five Guys Named Mo. That's the name of the film.
B
You gotta find Five Guys Named Mo, first of all.
A
That's tough. It really is, dude.
B
And then have them get along enough to play music.
A
They got a Mora Maurice over here. It takes a lot.
B
It should be all Maurice, right?
A
I guess. I don't know if there's another name. Their description is the Moe's for three years in a row have been voted the Southlands Best of readers poll best live entertainment for 21, 22 and 23.
B
The MOE.
A
The MOE's, the MO's are a 100% all natural classic rock rock and roll band that delivers pure energy, heart and a lot of soul. The Mo's have a diverse repertoire and each Mo show is a non stop party. I Don't know what is happening there. That is.
B
I hate them so much.
A
I don't like it at all. And then they're opening for Arra. A R, R, A, all caps, who just say they play classic rock.
B
Abba.
A
Yeah, I don't think that's classic rock, but no, I doubt it. If you went on a classic rock radio station and said, where's the abba? I think they'd go, what are you talking about? So that's all we know about them. Arra. So there's a parade with floats and civic groups and fire and police vehicles, horses, dogs, walkers, riders and community for this wonderful tradition. And anybody's welcome to the parade. Dogs can't walk. If you can walk, drive your car, whatever you want to do. So there we go. Crime rate here, what we're interested in. This is one of the lowest crime rates I've ever seen. Property crime is about a third of the national average, which is 2/3 low. Very low. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is less than one quarter of the average. Less than. It is extremely safe here. Lots of people with money that are doing well and I guess they hurt each other less for some reason.
B
They got 8,000 square foot homes.
A
Yeah, you go to your side, it's really easy to not hurt each other at that point. That said, let's talk about some murder that happened here and some wild shit. Okay, let's start at March 19th. All right? 2:30pm A man named Alan Masters, who is a very prominent and high powered attorney in these parts here, he calls the Cook County Sheriff's Department. Palos park is an unincorporated area, so the county Sheriff's department handles their shit. Now he's calling to file a missing persons report for his wife, Diane.
B
Okay.
A
He said that she was supposed to come home. Basically, she's supposed to be home about 13 hours ago. She should have been home about 1:30 in the morning. And it's 2:30pm and I'm still sitting here.
B
What does she do?
A
We'll find out all about Diane here and where she was and everything like that. But this is the report they said, quote, husband reports wife missing, states he anticipated his wife is filing for divorce. She's supposed to file for divorce. Literally like the next day is when she had already talked to her attorney, told him that the filing was going down on Monday. Anticipated his wife was filing for divorce. States she recently removed over $200,000 in jewelry from the residence. So that's part of the missing person's report here. So yeah, that's what's going on. He's given this report. He's sitting there with their daughter who's about 5 years old, almost 5 years old at this point. Foreign change and you know, sitting at the kitchen table with his daughter, talking to the police here.
B
He's done very well for himself. He's got $200,000 in jewelry for the wife.
A
Yeah, well, he's done very well for himself and we'll find out how too. A lot of different avenues here. During this mid interview, the lieutenant shows up, Lieutenant Keating, as we'll talk about K E a T I N G. He shows up and Lieutenant James Keating just arrives uninvited and unassigned. Nobody asked him to go there. He just shows up at Allen's house. He's the commander of the Vice squad. So why is a lieutenant who's the commander of a vice squad showing up to take a missing person's report at 2:30 in the afternoon?
B
That's, that's bizarre.
A
Very routine stuff here. You show up every time a car gets broken into. Oh, my stereo got stolen. Where's the lieutenant of the Vice. Where's the commander of the Vice squad?
B
Make sure you get your paperwork in order around here.
A
Jesus. Yeah, so apparently he just sat in on this, this lieutenant and then Allen, the man who called the husband here, the lawyer, he says that he has a suspicion that his wife has been having an affair with what he called, I don't know who, some professor from the college she works at. And he said, I don't know who, but he said she's planning on filing for divorce this week. She took 200k in jewelry and she's having an affair. So I think maybe they just took off together basically. So look into that. That's all I can think. That's all he has here. So who are we looking for?
B
Diane.
A
We are looking for Diane with two N's. Diane, Georgia, Turner, Muller, Masters.
B
Oh, three last names.
A
Well, yeah, well, Turner's her maiden name. Master Mueller is her name when Alan meets her because she's married when they meet. And then Masters is his name and Georgia is after her dad, whose name is George for a middle name. So there you go. She's born June 26, 1946 in Cook County. Parents George and Ann Marie. She has a brother named Randall or Randy as he goes by. Who's going to keep coming up in this story over and over and over again? Randy will not take no for an answer. In a good way Randy will have nothing shoved like swept under the carpet. And it's awesome. I love Randy.
B
He will take nobody's answers. He will say, try again.
A
That makes no sense. Come again? Yeah. Not having that shit. Nope.
B
Call it Randy.
A
Diane grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood in Franklin Park. A friend of hers from childhood described her as, quote, extremely competitive and very bright in school. So we all remember that girl from elementary school, the one who was real smart and real driven to the grades and that kind of thing. She was the valedictorian of her eighth grade class at Lincoln Grade School, apparently. Yeah. So she did that. She's very petite, looking, fine boned. She's always described as that kind of thing. She's blonde, thin faced, pretty and blonde and all that kind of thing. And very smart and has dreams of what she wants to do with her life. You know what I mean? So what she does here is she goes to Elmhurst College where she wants to become a writer. That's her goal, is to be a writer. And instead she marries a guy named Ronald Muller instead of being a writer. And instead she becomes a suburban housewife. Basically, that's it. They don't have any kids. And after three years, by the way, Ronald is in Vietnam at this point. Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you how to feed your dog. Way with Ollie.
B
Ollie.com O L L I E dot com.
A
That's right. You love your dog, don't you? Sure.
B
Come on.
A
We love our dogs. I love all three. Frankie, Benny, Oscar. He's got Von and he's got Dre over there. We love our dogs. You know, 89% of dog parents consider their dog their best friend in the whole world. Think about that. And 31% would even let their pups eat off their own fork. So people are obsessed with their dogs. That's the way it is. I'm, I'm the same way with my love. My dogs, they come up, they have that look on their face of I love you so much and how do you not melt? You know what I'm saying? So they get it. And if anyone gets being dog obsessed, it's Ollie. They deliver fresh human grade food in five drool worthy flavors so our pups and yours can live their best life too. You could say Ollie feeds the obsession and it's great. Ollie's fresh recipes are developed by real chefs with gut friendly ingredients that support better digestion, energy, skin health and better poop too. Not these massive things you have to clean up Much better with flavors like fresh beef with sweet potatoes or fresh turkey with blueberries. I'm telling you, you look at the food and you're like, this looks good. Is that for me? Yeah. Is this my. How come you get this? This looks good. I want it. From the moment you start your subscription, everything is tailored to your pup. The meals are perfectly portioned and you get a puptainer and a scoop of for easy storing and serving. And they offer health tracking, which is so cool. Ollie offers it right in their app so you can keep up with your pup's health and see the difference the food is making in their life. The dogs love it. Let's just say that all five of our dogs combined love this stuff. And they are so happy since they've gotten Ollie. Tails are wagging, poops are smaller, fur is shiny, everything's great. Get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com STM tell them about your pup and use the code STM to get 70% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, it's risk free with their Obsession guarantee. That's O l l I e.com STM and enter code STM to get 70% off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession.
B
Now back to the show.
A
Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you the only place you should be getting your glasses with Zenny.
B
Zenni.com z e n n I.com Absolutely.
A
Jimmy, tell me all about it. What are your glasses here?
B
I just broke my glasses the other night.
A
That's awesome.
B
I fell asleep in them. And it's so easy to do. You can get brand new pair and you can get a different style, something to match, a different outfit with Zenny because they're so affordable. They're really, they're wonderful.
A
It is great. And even in 2026, replacing glasses is a big production. You know, most people just live with it for as long as they can because they don't want to go through it. You know, you got to schedule an appointment, you got to pay a lot of money, then you got to wait for it. That's where Zenni Optical fixes everything. And like on Zenny, compared to other places. Tell me about the prices here.
B
It's incredible. It's $30 a pair of glasses. It's amazing.
A
You can't beat it. Zenny is an online eyewear shop. Prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses starting at under $30. You go to zenni.com, pick a frame, upload Your prescription and they ship it to your door. No appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter. Any of that stuff here. And at that price, something kind of shifts you. Stop asking yourself, do I really need new glasses? And start asking, why wouldn't I just get these new glasses? What am I doing here? You're not agonizing over one pair. That has to do everything for the next next few years. Get the ones that work, get the fun ones, get the pair that only matches one outfit. All get them at under $30. If you do that, you don't have to justify it with over 150,000 five star reviews. And if you've ever bought glasses online before, if you've never have, Zenni is a has a virtual try on, so you can see exactly how a frame looks on your face before you commit. It's huge stuff. And I mean, you're very happy with these, are you not?
B
Absolutely. These are great.
A
That's good stuff. If Jimmy's happy, you should be happy too. Get in there. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Go to zenni.com podcast and use code PODCAST15. Podcast 15 for 15% off your first order. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E N N I.com podcast promo code podcast15.
B
Now back to the show. Oh, Jesus.
A
After three years, she divorces him while she's in Vietnam. While he's there, he's there, he's in Vietnam and she divorces him. Which is kind of a shitty thing to do, I'm gonna be honest. Wait till people stop shooting at him at least. Can you at least do that? You know what I mean?
B
Yeah. I know you're busy, but if you could sign this paper.
A
I really wanna take most of our stuff and not see you anymore. Is that good with you?
B
I'd really like to move out of this house while you can't say, don't take that.
A
Yeah, exactly. I'm taking all the records. Is that good with you? All the vinyl is mine, so that's. It's not even like prison's one thing. He did something. He got sent to prison. If someone divorced you in there, it's kind of on you. You left them.
B
He's pretty busy.
A
He's at war, for Christ's sake. Can we at least wait till he gets home from the war?
B
Possibly the hardest one.
A
No, but a bad one. World War I.
B
At the time.
A
At the time. Well, at the time that was going on, World War I. Was the most brutal. Hard fucking chemical weapons and trench warfare and that shit was brutal. I mean Civil War was brutal with the slow velocity musket balls and shattered. That was bad too.
B
But they knew which direction to fire.
A
Kind of. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
B
Vietnam was just like firing at trees and hoping true. The right one.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still that World War I was a fuck man, that was the worst. Yeah, that was because we had. Everybody who knows anything About World War I knows this, but if we had like new technology, like we could really blow the shit out of people. But they had the exact same warfare tactics as if it was 1840 and we were shooting muskets at each other. So yikes, get in a trench and blow each other up is what we did. And then mustard gas and all that shit. That's crazy. At least they didn't have to deal with that. That's pretty bad. I mean there was napalm, cancer got caused from other shit, Agent Orange and all that, but still not. I don't know if it's as bad as World War II or World War I. All war sucks. Yeah, we're really parsing nothing here. She got married in 66, now in 69 she wants the divorce in January. Here her friend said when she first got married she seemed very strong willed and independent, but also very vulnerable. He said she wanted someone to take care of her, look out for her. And she struck out on that count. So January 69. Yeah. Is when she goes for the divorce. Well, Ronald's too busy fighting the Viet Cong to protect her, so you know, she walks into an attorney's office in the suburbs and the attorney is Alan Masters, who is her future husband. He's born March 9, 1935. So he's a little older than her. About 11 years older. His practice was criminal defense. Traffic, divorce, whatever.
B
You got law problems. I can handle it.
A
Suburban lawyer, basically. They gotta kinda take cast a wide net. So he does all of that. Now at the time he is also married to a woman named Benita and has two sons as well. So he has a whole family going on here when she walks into the office. And I can't imagine that she's the first woman who's ever walked in looking for a divorce, you know what I mean? So this must be something special if this is the one he goes freaks out for. I guess so anyway, they start having an affair pretty quickly. Really? Yes. Which is obviously highly unprofessional for a divorce lawyer to do. Extremely unprofessional.
B
Shouldn't You. I mean, he's very well versed in how to end that so that he can go get stray if he wants.
A
But he's not going to do that. No. Because there's also the public image part of this, of wife, two kids, civic leader kind of a guy. And divorcing your wife and kids in 1969 was still considered a little suspect out in the burbs, you know what I mean? This isn't fucking Greenwich Village over here. This is the Acre lot, suburbs of Chicago.
B
This is Catholicism.
A
This is. Well, it's not that it's Midwestern values type of deal, you know what I mean? We hadn't infected it yet with our good values from the shores of Get a goddamn divorce, you idiots, if you don't like each other. So he comes at her hard, which sounds gross. I don't mean that in a gross way, but he does. He is sending her like. This is like in a movie. He's sending her like she'll just get a knock on the door and it's some delivery person with like, a big box that has, like some fancy dress in it and shit like that.
B
From a married man.
A
Married man. Jewelry sending to her house. Calls her daily, sends her flowers every day. Oh, my God. I mean, full court press of. I want to bang this broad. This is what this is. This is.
B
What the hell?
A
Yeah. So. And this is. Diane liked. I mean, she was impressed with this. Her husband at this point's a guy in fucking Vietnam. I don't think he's making much money.
B
I don't think he's sending anything.
A
No. And this guy, he's like, wow, this is crazy. And she knows that he's a successful guy. He drives a big car. He's an impressive fella around town. And then she starts hanging out with him a little bit. And he's got fancy things and goes to fancy parties and shit. And she's like, this isn't bad. So for several years, she's just his mistress, basically. They just have an affair. Her divorce goes through in 72. And then they.
B
Holy shit.
A
They just keep having an affair, basically. And just don't let my wife see it as the whole thing, and then we're fine.
B
That's a wild agreement. People do that still. I realize that, but that's. That's fucking nuts.
A
If you're not in the Mafia, I don't know how you pull that off. I really don't. You have to be. You know what I mean? If you're in the mob, those guys. If they have the gamar. It's a whole different thing.
B
But they leave all the time.
A
That's what it is. They leave. And you know better than to ask him where he's going because it's probably for some crime shit. So when they say, you don't want to know. I gotta go right now. You go. Oh, Jesus. He's gotta take. He might be hijacking a truck or fucking a Russian stripper. Like Tony Soprano, one of the two. You never know. On his boat, you never know. That's the thing. But this guy has some fucking sack on him, some fucking ball, some suburban fucking door. And he's like a. If you see this guy, he is not like a real handsome. He's a fat fuck with a big walrus mustache. I mean, he's got a big fat mustache on his big fat body. He looks like if you made a human being out of the city of Chicago. So it would be him, just kind of chubby, had a couple of Polish dogs and hurling dick all over town.
B
Unbelievable.
A
And Diana's like a pretty young woman. Like, this is crazy.
B
What is that?
A
When she walked in the office, she was 23 and blonde and hot and like, he hooks her up and he's
B
in his 30s and.
A
And married and fat. And that's what fucking money can do. Was maybe back then. I don't know. So her friend from school said Diane never had much money and knew the value of a dollar because she came up hard. He also described her as a hard worker, but couldn't recall her having a job ever. So I don't know how you. How'd you know? That's the funniest thing ever. Well, she was a really hard worker. Oh, Where'd she work? Oh, I don't ever remember having a job. I just.
B
I don't think she ever did.
A
She had a fire spirit burning inside of her. I could tell it was right here.
B
She wanted so bad to be employee.
A
She really. If she had a job, she would have totally been employed.
B
She would have been amazing.
A
She'd have got promotions and raises. I could see it happening.
B
Why the fuck would he say that?
A
It's the craziest thing ever. Sounds like trying to say something nice. I'm not sure.
B
It's so funny.
A
He then said when she met Alan Masters, she didn't have much money and was looking for security. Here she was bouncing off a failed first marriage and he represented security, but not really, because he's married. That is the least amount of security he could just. He could dismiss you tomorrow. And you have no recourse. It's not like you can take half and get alimony. You have nothing. He can just go back to my wife not doing this anymore.
B
She's a hell of a trapeze artist, though.
A
Probably.
B
I don't think she even went to one, actually.
A
I don't even think she would say that. My Christ, man. I'm telling you. Hell of a dunker. She played basketball. I never heard of her doing it. Okay.
B
I don't think she even knew what it was. I don't know.
A
I don't think she could dribble, but I just. All right. She said all of a sudden she had a new car, nice things to wear.
B
He's buying her a car.
A
Yeah. He's treating her like a mob boss treats a goombah. Put her up in an apartment, get her a fucking car, get her nice clothes, shut her the fuck up.
B
Punita has no idea.
A
I guess not. He's very busy. This guy is always doing things. She has no idea what he's doing out there. I don't think it seems like Benita
B
is buy a car for somebody in your.
A
Your spouse doesn't know you use your law firm's money.
B
I guess so.
A
He owns a law firm. He knows how to hide money. I mean, especially in the 70s, too. A lot of times, women didn't even look at the bank statements in the 70s weren't allowed. That's what I mean, if the guy controlled the money, he controlled the money. And she just was like, well, there's money when I go grocery shopping. I guess that's good money to pay the Little League fee. I mean, that's what it was back then. It's crazy. So before long, Diane was telling all her friends that basically Alan owned her. She would say in like, a playful way, I guess Diane's friends thought that Alan and her were married all the way back from 1974 on. She didn't tell them, oh, by the way, he's married and has two fucking kids. They just see them out together and assume they were married.
B
What exactly are they gonna say when they see him in the meat department with his wife?
A
That's. Hi. Oh, hey. Who's this? Is this your. Who the fuck's sister? That's nice. You're grocery shopping with your sister at 40 years old. That seems normal. So she. That's what they thought. Allen still have obviously had the family here in 1974. Here we go. She's pregnant.
B
It. Whoops. God damn it.
A
Whoops. Now Very good timing. Because about three years earlier, this might have been a problem. But 74 is very good timing for that. Diane, basically, she goes to Alan and hopes that this will get him to leave his wife now. But instead he forced her to get an abortion.
B
It's cheaper than a car.
A
Yeah. He's like, oh, no, no, no, we can't have this. I'm married. Blah, blah, blah.
B
I got a friend.
A
Yeah. I can hide a lot of things, but your giant belly and then a baby's gonna be very much harder to hide than this.
B
People are real hard to hide when they're, you know, Christmas happens. Why isn't Daddy here? That shit's gonna be fucked up.
A
It's tough. It's tough.
B
Oh, boy.
A
Diane was very, very mad about this, about being forced to have an abortion because she thought this would take the relationship to the next step, not make her feel like some street trash who got knocked up and some guy threw a couple bucks at her and said, go take care of yourself, sweetheart.
B
Get this out of here.
A
Yeah, get that sucked out of you, would you? There you go.
B
Suck it out.
A
So Diane said, I'm gonna end this relationship unless you do. Unless you leave two things. That's not actually on the list of things to do that's actually not. You'd think it would be. Right.
B
That should be number one.
A
No, no, no. It might be three or four. But the first two are much different than that. They have nothing to do with. Don't be married, you know, fucking. Maybe be with me all the time.
B
Single and available are two, right?
A
No, they're not.
B
Actually.
A
They are. Buy me a house.
B
What the fuck?
A
And put another baby in me.
B
What?
A
Yeah, knock me up, buy me a house, and then I'll take you back. And then it'll feel like you really care because you bought me a house and now you're letting me have a. You want to have a baby with me?
B
If he leaves the wife, he's gonna need a place to stay.
A
There you go.
B
That'll solve one thing. Then all you gotta do is stay on it until he's fucking limp.
A
That's it. You'll get your dream number two, and it's coming through. But he doesn't have to do anything.
B
I'm a better woman than she is.
A
That's right. So she's got her peccadilloes as well, here. And Alan buys her a bracelet that's engraved in a way that kind of fits here. I love you, Angel. Devil. That's what it says. Yeah. These Two have a very interesting relationship. I would say this is a fascinating relationship, man. I think It's July of 77. They have a daughter together. So she did it. He buys her a house, he puts a fucking kid in her. That's what she wanted. It's a daughter named Andra. I was gonna say I won't give the name, but she's older than me, so it's like, we can give the name. She's almost 50. I think it's okay. So 1979, Diane takes off. She's had enough. Oh, he won't leave his wife. And she's pissed about it. Yeah, she took Andra and moved in with her brother Randy and his wife Kathy. And she told her brother that, by the way, part of the reason I'm coming here, not just because he won't leave his wife, it's because he beats the shit out of me also.
B
What the fuck?
A
Yeah, I don't know what. Other than. I mean, come on. There's a lot of guys with money, okay? There's plenty of. Especially if you don't care if they're fat and have a stupid mustache.
B
Right? You can put up with so much.
A
Yeah. If you're pretty and all, you don't need to put up with some just because he has money. You'll find somebody else.
B
Far too much. In my opinion.
A
That is way too. Any amount of beating is too much to put off too much.
B
No, no, but I mean, yeah, fat and a mustache is bad enough.
A
Celery salt stuck in it from his dogs. No, I'm not. I'm not dealing with that. Celery salt and RC Cola stuck in that fucking thing.
B
Poppy seeds all over the goddamn thing.
A
His whole car is full of poppy seeds. You don't know any idea why? So that's what she says.
B
And he hits her.
A
He's been beating her up. And so she stays for some days at her brother's house. Alan ends up tracking her down at her brother's house. And, oh, it's going to be different and everything's going to be beautiful. And I promise to divorce Bonita. I'm going to divorce Bonita and I'm going to do it within the next year. It's going to happen. Going to divorce my wife. And on top of that, that's down the road. But right now, me and you are going to the La Costa Spa in Carlsbad, California too.
B
Yeah. It's time for your pedicure and massages
A
and five star desert retreat. Let's do it.
B
That's where bruises heal best.
A
Well, it's obviously the best. That's where they would send tubercular people back in the day. So why not you?
B
Yeah.
A
So that's what goes on now. March 24th and 5th. Alan has busy times here. Alan and Bonita's divorce becomes official on March 24, 1980. So he followed through.
B
He did it.
A
He did it. He divorced Benita. He really wanted this one. He would have stayed with her forever. If Diane allowed it. That's the thing.
B
She'd have played ball.
A
That's the thing about dudes. We'll let that situation sit for as long as we can keep those plates spinning. And then it's like, oh, well, fuck if I want to keep any plates spinning. I gotta stop and let the few crash and save these two. So the day after the divorce is final, Diane and Alan head on down to the old justice of the peace there.
B
Oh, my God.
A
And get married.
B
He gave her a house, he gave her a car. He gave her a child. He took her to Carlsbad. That is one of the most beautiful places in San Diego.
A
Oh, yeah. It's expensive too.
B
And then won't give her a wedding. Nope.
A
The next day they want to get. Cause she. Well, that's on. She's okay with that. She wants to get married as soon as possible. So it's the day after he got divorced. So she's like, you're marrying me.
B
I don't need a dress and a reception.
A
Y. And she said the quote to her friend, the way I live and the way I dress. And I get married in a pair of blue jeans. Yeah, she dresses very fancy. Everything's fancy. But she gets married very casual at the courthouse there. They have a weird honeymoon. Apparently they have a honeymoon cruise on The Queen Elizabeth 2. Is their honeymoon big cruise ship? I guess just a.
B
Where did. Just like out in the Pacific. Atlantic.
A
I don't know where they went. But that's the thing on a cruise. Vacation. Yeah. They probably took a plane down to Florida, got on it or some shit. But the weird part is Alan invited another couple to go with them on their honeymoon on the cruise, which is really. Try that at home, everybody. Hey, I invited Bob and Susie to come along too. Is that cool with you? What? Oh, it's our fucking honeymoon. We're having dinner with these people.
B
The guy you drink beer with in the garage?
A
No, we're not staying in the same stateroom with them or anything. They have their own room. We have our own room, you know. No, I'm not dealing with these people.
B
But if you want to do some of that boring shit up on the lido deck, I'm going to go hang with you.
A
Yeah. I got a chick for you to do it with and I'm going to get drunk with this guy. So that's what goes on 81 and 82 here. Diane has a lot going on in her life. She is elected as a trustee on the board of the Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills. And she's active in a bunch of shit. Politics, church stuff, battered women. It's all happening. Yeah. She's one of the founders of the crisis center here. South Suburbia. Yeah, South Suburban Crisis center, which is a shelter for battered women. Organized in 1978 as a telephone hotline that Diane helped run out of her kitchen.
B
Oh wow.
A
She was helping with it at the same time that she was running away. So she knew what was up.
B
She knew what she. Yeah, she knew what the consequences were. She knew everything.
A
You know what I mean? She knew. Hey. That they're not gonna stop doing it. She knew all the things. But she's still money. So she did all of that and was a real big volunteer here. She served as that and she served as vice chairman of the community college governing board. Also a volunteer for Recording for the Blind. How nice is it? They do like books on tape and record stuff for the blind.
B
Just reads. Wow.
A
Yeah, there used to be a lot of people. Big volunteer organization that would. There's a. If you look, there's a gigantic, enormous, massive archive of audio books from Recordings for the blind.
B
Wow.
A
Huge, giant, giant fucking massive thing that was not like audible or whatever, but just done that. Holy shit. Yeah, there's an archive out there somewhere. You can find shit. Tons of books. Because I mean, if you're blind, you don't want to have. Well, there's 20 books we can read and that's it. That would suck right now.
B
I mean you've got thousands of them. But that just comes because of the
A
apps and stuff that it gets easier to disseminate too.
B
We don't have to do it. It just transcribes itself. My. My tattoo artist is deaf and he loves it because he can read it, but he's like, they're fucking long, man. If you can chop them down.
A
It's a lot to read. These are.
B
I'm really sorry folks.
A
This isn't meant to be a fucking. A text based endeavor. That's why if it was, it would be a lot shorter show.
B
It really would he Goes, I can't really do this while I'm tattooing because no, that's gonna. This shit is long.
A
That's hard. But this would be. You know, blind people would go and they'd have all sorts of books that they could check out. That's awesome. So that's really cool. Cool. They said she also worked in the state treasurer Jerome Cosentino's campaign office during his unsuccessful bid to become secretary of state. She got into politics a little bit here, and Alan's pretty politically connected, as we'll find out. She worked for one of the party's statewide candidates and she started thinking about maybe she could go into politics herself someday, either as a candidate or maybe like a campaign organizer or something on a higher level there. But otherwise, things seem to be going well. She's got a big house, she's got jewelry, nice clothes. She has a 1978 yellow and white, which I know how those two tones go on those Cadillacs. 78 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
B
Hell yeah.
A
I know that because my grandmother had the exact same car in two tone green, two tone metallic green with dark green leather seats. It was the craziest thing. She kept it in the fucking garage all the time. It only came out on, like, special occasions. And it was like waxed, like gray.
B
There was a big difference between vinyl and leather. Like people had. I mean, you had vinyl interiors, you had leather interiors. You sat down in a Cadillac and you're like, oh, boy, is that different?
A
Oh, the back seat is something else. Still nicer than any couch I've ever had. It was amazing.
B
Those leather seats versus the bullshit leather they put in cars today. Oh, man, it's an entirely different leather. Oh, fuck.
A
I love an old Caddy. That's so crazy. This was a Coupe de ville, license plate DGM19. So that's what she drove around. A big yellow and white Caddy you could see from space and, you know, with jewelry popping and all that kind of shit, she's doing okay. So everything seems perfect. Correct.
B
Doing all right.
A
This is what she wanted. Everything should be fine. Well, not particularly. Alan's up to some other shit besides just doing law firm stuff and coming home to his wife and young daughter here from about 1970 until June of 1982. And we'll find out what happens. Then there's the Willow Springs police chief, Michael Corbett Masters bribed him. For a long time. This guy openly, happily took bribes to steer people that were arrested, ticketed, or investigated by the Willow Springs police department to his law office as clients. So they'd say, I want a lawyer. And they go, I mean, call this guy. And they'd give him his card.
B
There's a business card of a man. I know.
A
That's what they would do, they would suggest, which is absolutely. You're not allowed to do that as a cop.
B
So unethical.
A
Not only can you not give legal advice, you can't guide them to what lawyer to get. That's crazy. So. So that's not good at all. And this guy took kickbacks for that the whole fucking time. And he ran similar kickback arrangements with other cops around the area. And this is what he would do to get them in his good graces. And all the cops would do anything for him. He would do their divorces for free. And if there's one thing every cop has, it's at least one divorce.
B
At least one.
A
If you've ever seen a cop movie, they're all on their third or fourth wife. All of them.
B
Yeah, they're all talking about my ex
A
wife, my ex, my ex ex, all of it.
B
So my ex got my pension, my ex got this.
A
Yep. I'm living in a shitty apartment. My ex. So that's a trope in a movie, is to have the divorced cop who's all depressed. And that's what he would do is the no fee divorces for police officers, which obviously would take up some of his time and he'd have a loss there, but he'd gain it back in spades and waves from all the clients he got. Then there's even less legal shit he was doing than that. That's very illegal. But this is like. It gets crazy. Okay? From 72 until August of 84, which is two years beyond where we are in this timeline, Masters here, Alan Masters, served as a middleman through which illegal bookmakers in Cicero paid off a Lieutenant James Keating. Do you remember his name?
B
Yeah.
A
Lieutenant James Keating is the guy who showed up in the middle of a missing persons report. Besides being the commander of the vice squad, he shows up in the living
B
room taking money to pay him off.
A
He's a bagman. Essentially. He's the middleman. Yeah. So illegal bookmakers pay Masters money because they can pay a lawyer money. And then the lawyer takes it to the cop and pays him off so the vice squad doesn't come down on their.
B
The gambling ring alone.
A
On their jack shacks, their brothels, their backroom gambling spots, all that shit. And this is all from the mob? This isn't from. That's frightening. This is old time Too this is 70s Chicago. This is the outfit, Cicero.
B
Yeah.
A
This is literally the Spilotros, as we'll talk about. If you don't know who they are, the Spilotros. If you've ever seen Casino, Joe Pesci is Nikki Spilotro. Spilotro, who is one of the brothers that helps. They're bad guys. They're really no shit serious guys who kill tons of people. So, okay, he's doing this. And there's payoffs to judges. Two that Alan is a middleman for payoffs for judges. He knows tons of mob connected figures. And even as we'll talk about. Has an ownership interest in a Chicago brothel. Alan does as well. Well, he gets brothel money, this fucking guy. There's a bunch of strip clubs that front for prostitution that are really for prostitution. Credit card laundering schemes as well as we'll talk about. So basically, just so they could run it through and it wouldn't come back as being at the strip club. It'll come back as being at Joe's Family Diner or some shit. You know what I mean? That's how it'll pop up. So it shows respectable dinners rather than that chop shops. He's involved with.
B
He's involved in stealing cars, too.
A
Stolen cars, chop shops, as we'll talk about. There's a place where they send cars away for insurance payouts. And that's every town.
B
He's doing bottom rung shit.
A
That's just. That's meat and potatoes. Mob shit, though. That's how they make money. That's. That's their meat and potatoes. Right.
B
But he's doing all of it.
A
Alan is a middleman for all this shit. He's a middleman between the cops and the mob. He's a middleman between cops and clients. It's a crazy fucking crazy scenario. And these guys, too. Like this is. This is.
B
But if you get one, if you get involved in one of those worlds, it's dangerous enough that somebody can think you're fucking them over even if you're not fucking them over.
A
Over.
B
He's getting involved in so many of them. He was spinning plates at home. This is so much more dangerous.
A
Think about at the time he was doing all that shit in his personal life that I was describing. He's got a chick and she's pregnant. And then my wife and this one. And she wants a new car and she wants. He's doing all this on the side and has a legitimate law firm on top of that where he handles normal clients and does normal lawyer shit. That normally takes up most of people's day.
B
He's a bar lawyer. Legitimate lawyer.
A
Legitimate practice lawyer with a tax return.
B
All the chances in the world.
A
It's crazy. It's fucking insane, dude. I don't know. It's insane. It's just the craziest.
B
It can never be that, dude.
A
It sounds so exhausting. This is exhausting.
B
This is horrifying.
A
Can you imagine that?
B
Exhausting. And then at the end of the day, when you're ready to take a nap, somebody could come in and kill
A
you or need you to go down to the corner. You gotta go here and give fucking some guy named Momo a bag of money. You know what I mean? Like, what is happening right now?
B
Go give money to all the moes.
A
Yeah, all those MO's too. This podcast, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp.
B
BetterHelp.com Absolutely.
A
This is. How's everybody doing out there? Everybody doing okay? Here's the thing. We're trying. That's what it is. Why is there still a stigma attached to getting help and support? That makes no sense. And it's the dumbest thing ever.
B
It is.
A
I don't get it at all. I mean, if someone had a, you know, a medical problem, they went to the doctor, you wouldn't be like, huh, Are you weak? Why would this.
B
If you had a cavity, you'd want the dentist to fix it.
A
Yeah. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans think getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourage people from doing so.
B
Wow.
A
So, I mean, think about that. Everyone thinks it's fine, but yet everyone's discouraging others from doing it. It's silly. It's really silly. And there is a big. There's a chasm in between, you know, people needing mental health support and believing in mental health support and actually seeking it. It's very silly, and there's plenty we can do as a society, and that would be support people who get help, number one, and realize that it's great and everybody needs therapy. It's good for everybody. And BetterHelp is a great way to start. First of all, they have over 30,000 therapists. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it really works with an average of 4.9 out of 5 for live sessions based on over 1.7 million clientele reviews. 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Optional products and services may have fees or charges, stated annual percentage yield and cash back for Chime prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking based on a J.D. power survey published October 20, 2025. For more information on APY rates, MyPay, Spot Me and travel perks, go to Chime.com disclosures Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about the safest sponsor that we ever have had here, SimpliSafe.
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B
Now back to the show.
A
So that's what's going on here. Now let's find out about some of the other players. And the car thing, by the way, very common. The insurance scam on a car. There is countless farms in upstate New York that have so many cars buried in there that you would have no fucking. Growing up, we knew there were places to go, you knew who to talk to. And there's a guy who, you know, for 500 bucks you could dump your fucking car and his place and he'll bury it with his big bulldozer. And then you'll get the full insurance payout and all that shit.
B
That's nothing will grow there for a while.
A
But extremely common. And there's these people up hundreds of acres in the middle of nowhere. They don't fucking care. No one's suspecting them. They've all gotten away with it for decades. I mean, I know of spots the way that they are. I'm not telling anybody, but they're there.
B
You don't have the coordinates off the top of your head? Is that what you're saying?
A
No, I do. I'm just not telling anybody. I know exactly. I mean, they haven't. This is from 20 years ago, but still. Still, I'll tell you, but no one. I can't say it on Netflix. Might be a little much. So now this Lieutenant James D. Keating, who we talked about, he is a Cook county sheriff, a lieutenant, and commander of the vice squad. Like we said, he joined the Cook County Sheriff's police in 1964. So he's a longtime officer as well. Well, he rose to lieutenant, commanded the first vice squad and later the criminal intelligence unit. Oh, that's how dumb they are, as they put the most corrupt guy in charge of the intelligence unit.
B
Or how brilliant he is to look
A
to get involved in that. Yeah. So he is the guy responsible for policing gambling and prostitution and is completely on the take 1000%. So there's also a guy named Michael Corbett. Michael Corbett is the Willow Springs police chief. Corbett with an I, C, O, R, B I T T. Willow Springs police chief. He's born in 1944. They're all about the same age. They're all about 45ish, these guys. So now, Michael Corbett, a little bit about him. He's got an interesting background. He's from a poor Irish family in Chicago. Here. Went to Catholic school at age 9. Then he went to public school after that. And he said that he didn't realize how poor his family was when he was going to Catholic school because everyone had the same uniform on at school.
B
We all looked the same.
A
But in ninth grade, he went to public school. And then he went, oh, wow, I'm really poor.
B
I look like shit.
A
My clothes suck. Yeah. So that was humiliating. He turned into a big shoplifter to get better stuff. And then somehow, even though his name's Michael Corbett and he's super Irish, he started running with an Italian street gang at the time and ran errands around the social clubs. He's basically like their little Henry Hill Type of guy, except a little older cars and shit. Yeah, he run errands, and he was a guy that you could trust, basically a kid that could be trusted to shut the fuck up. So that's it. That's all you needed, really. As a teenager, he made deliveries also for a company that supplied slot machines and gambling gear. So this is illegal as fuck. He's doing deliveries of highly illegal things. When he was still a teenager, he ran a Sunoco station at 56th and Harlem that was run by the Mafia. The gas station was a mafia front, and he ran it. They put him in charge of it. Hey, go take care of that for you, William.
B
Yeah.
A
So he would rent parking spots to hijackers and people who would need to stash stolen trucks for the day. That's why they have the gas station, because it's got the bays. So if you need to stash stolen cars, they'll put them in there, put the thing down, and that's that. And they get paid through it.
B
Put it up on the lift, and it looks like it's getting an oil change.
A
That's it. Put it up. And he just put it in the garage behind the thing. It's not to be found at that point.
B
There's that, too.
A
At that gas station is where he met a mo. A big mo, Maybe the biggest of them all at the time. Sam. Momo Giancana, who is. He was the fucking boss of Chicago, period. I mean, Giancana was a big fucking major, major mob figure. And, like, he was pretty much boss of the Midwest outside of New York. He was the most powerful guy, basically. Maybe a couple of those Philly guys, but it's similar. So he's a fucking big, famous, legendary figure. Momo here. Now, Gian kind of liked Michael Corbett, liked the cut of his jib here. He introduced him around. And this is my kid. This is my guy. So everybody and everybody in the entire Chicago underground knew this kid is directly connected to Sam fucking Giancani. To. Don't fuck with him. He is bulletproof.
B
His dad is not the police chief yet.
A
His dad, Michael Corbin, he's the guy
B
that's going to become the police chief.
A
He's going to become the police chief in Willow Springs. This kid.
B
Oh, holy shit.
A
Yeah. So this is. I mean, you can watch Goodfellas and watch, you know, Robert De Niro and then take him around. This is Henry. This is the kid Henry. And they all know this is the boss of the Mafia doing this. That would be like if Carlo Gambino was Taking Henry Hill around, going, this is my guy. This is my guy. Like it is. He is bulletproof above everything. Giancana liked him, introduced him around, and Corbett basically, you know, he used him as a protector. You know what I mean? I mean, Sam was a protector. Then Giancana does this. This is amazing. He comes up to Michael and he says, hey, I got a job for you, Mikey, a legit job I need you to take. And he goes, yeah, anything, you know, whatever. And he says, I need you to become a police officer in Willow Springs. There's a job opening. I got it for you, so all you gotta do is go down there and it's yours. Slap the backpack.
B
Does that feel like a test?
A
No, that would feel like they expect me to be a very corrupt cop that does things for them.
B
Wow. I'd be terrified to say yes because I feel like there was no job and that he's asking me to go be a cop and that. Go, be, go.
A
No, he knows right away why he's telling him. Yeah, this is all. I mean, how the hell did the mob boss get him a job as a cop? This is all on the arms.
B
Yeah, I'd be afraid they'd kill me. Yeah, I don't want that.
A
I mean, that's probably in the back of your mind all the time, but he hasn't done anything to warrant killing at this point. You know, he's done everything for them. So he got a job there. And he said that this is. Corbett said this later, quote, but he said that Sam Giancana told him, quote, but just remember, kid, don't forget who your friends are.
B
Don't forget who did the. This for you. In other words, you're going to do things for us.
A
You're going to do lots of things for us, and you're going to look the other way on a whole bunch of shit. Oh, yeah, you're doing me a favor by becoming a cop. So, yeah, it's both supportive and threatening, which is a very common tactic of these old Italian guys. They sound both like they do anything for you and murder you in a blink of an eye at the same time. So it's a funny thing.
B
You get a lot of bullshit pins on your chest that don't mean a fucking thing.
A
Yeah. So Corbett was sworn in to the Willow Springs PD at a tavern. Sworn in at the. It's like Deadwood, for Christ's sake. Sworn in at the tavern of the village's political boss, John Doc Rust. So he's sworn in in front of an Underground figure in a tavern. That's how his police career fucking stops here. By 1973, he's the chief of police. That was quick like that. Because he got the promotions he needed. Nine years in, in chief of police, and he ran it just like the mob wanted him to. I mean, he did anything they want. He was basically a member of their squad, happened to have a police chief badge.
B
He was running the department that he was put in charge to run.
A
That's it. And he's doing. He's doing protection for gambling and prostitution. He's taking kickbacks from chop shops. He bribed a First Ward guy, a political guy. He was the bag man to bribe him. So the mob would give him and his police cruiser the money and he would take it right to the guy. So it looked all legitimate.
B
It's the most genius thing I've ever heard of.
A
Yep. And also, one of the things here that they worked with this guy on was there's a canal at the edge of town. That was where everybody dumped their cars that they wanted to get rid of. Oh, Stoughton there, that was part of it, too. You had to pay this guy off, and they'd pay him off so you could dump cars and everything. Now, by 81, that's what Alan has going on. That's a lot. This is his circle, Keating and Corbett. And they're both. I mean, mad corrupt, mad corrupt. And Alan's right. He's chest deep in the Mafia and the underworld. He's right in the muck. Now Diane's got her own shit going on, too.
B
What?
A
Diane's spinning some plates of her own here. By 81, fall of 81, she meets a man named Jim Koskalaniak with a K. I'll just say that you don't have to know where the K is. It's a fucking long name. So Jim, she starts having coffee with him. He's a professor at the college that she sits on the board of. Okay. So she's doing that, and she's starting an affair with this guy. He's an economics professor at community college. Has no money, has no prestige or anything like that. He's a community college professor? Yeah. He's just some guy she's into now. It's very interesting because Alan learned about the affair pretty much immediately.
B
Yeah.
A
Before we were even sure it was sexual. Just they're having coffees, and he was on top of that shit because he's got so many people around that he can use for eyes and ears, basically.
B
Does your wife drink A latte. She's here, I think.
A
I think she's here. I think she's banging a dude. I don't know. They're not banging in the store, but it could happen.
B
She's with a man, low beard. Well, kempt, looks like he fucks.
A
So what he starts doing is asking his cop friends, keep an eye on my wife for me, okay? Keep an eye on my wife. And while I investigate what's going on at my house, Basically, December of 81, there's a faculty Christmas party. From what I understand, that's when the relationship turned sexual. Was that Christmas party, Diane and what's his name, Jim, here start having sex. And after that, it's a torrid sexual affair. Rip roaring through the holidays. Yeah, rip roaring through the holidays. Once they figure out that it feels good in there, it's going to keep happening.
B
Once you figure out these two go together real nice.
A
This is good. Like chocolate and peanut butter. They'll never be separate again.
B
How about that? You like the things I do.
A
Wow.
B
Let's do it again.
A
Someone should tell Reese's about this, because this is delicious. Now, December 81st, that's what that happens. Now, that same December, Alan and Diane and the daughter all go on a family vacation to Sarasota, Florida. And Diane told Allen, this is your last chance to show me that you can change. Which is pretty rich coming from someone who's fucking an economics professor at the same time.
B
The two of them don't have much ground.
A
Neither of them have a lot of ground to stand on at this point. But he's especially got no ground to stand on here.
B
He's got a lot to change.
A
Yeah. So he says, yes, I want this to work. So they go down to Sarasota, and then in the middle of this, he cuts it short, claiming he has urgent business at the office even though the courts are closed.
B
Right.
A
So it makes no sense. But he cuts it short and he has to go home early.
B
He says, I gotta prepare opening arguments.
A
Oh, forget about it. You have no idea. I got a lot of documents to prepare.
B
So many financial statements.
A
So by early January, 92, this is right after the failed Sarasota vacation here, Diane decides, that's it. I'm done. Gave him a chance, didn't work out. So Diane starts planning a divorce. And she knew she had to plan this very well because.
B
Because he's good at these.
A
He's good at this. And he's a bastard, too, so he'll do things to cut your legs off here. So she knew it's not gonna be quiet. And she knew that if she wanted to get some money out of this, she better do this correctly. Basically, if she doesn't want to have nothing. So she does a lot of consulting, documents, things, prepares everything. She hires a divorce lawyer. And she let it be known to the lawyer that she intended to seek full custody of Andrew, the daughter as well. So you can imagine how this is going to go over.
B
This is going to get ugly.
A
Oh, yeah. So according to a friend of hers, Diane began to realize that her basically the whole life that's been provided for her was, quote, not the real thing. And this person said she had grown up and was ready to give up the furs and the house for something more normal. So she realized that just because you have a few bucks in a Cadillac doesn't mean you're happy. Essentially, doesn't change anything, especially if you're miserable and your husband is this asshole.
B
Just makes you hate Cadillacs.
A
Pretty much makes you hate that. That sound of skin on leather. You hate it.
B
That soft kush.
A
Oh, that as you sat down on
B
it, makes you feel every button in the seat.
A
That's so funny. Oh, man, it does. So she. I guess everyone, Diane's affair wasn't so secret, basically because he knows about it. A bunch of her friends know about it. But at different times, she even turned to her lawyer for help, a lawyer that she knew to get her another lawyer for the divorce. And this lawyer said she remembered that Diane was pretty and also that she was flaky. That's what they remember, pretty and flaky. Which she's also kind of scared and is having an affair, too. So flaky's probably about right.
B
She's busy.
A
Yeah. Now she has some fears. As 1982 progresses into February, she has some fears. She told her friends and family that she thought Alan could kill her or have her killed. Yeah. She's like, if he knows I'm filing for divorce, it'd be much easier for him to just have me killed. That'd be so much easier. He knows tons of people who could do this very easily. And then guess what? No more alimony. Yeah.
B
Yeah.
A
And he gets custody of the daughter. Everything's great. And he said she also knew that he had tons of long standing connections with all the police departments around town. So she said she was very scared of being pulled over while driving her car because she didn't know if it was going to be. He's a real cop or it might be a real cop, but a real Cop that's there to kill her.
B
Right, Right.
A
You know what I mean?
B
Whether or not this traffic stop is on the up and up.
A
Yeah. Look at the guys in fucking in New York there that were doing that. They were the two murder cops. We'll do a bonus episode about them at some point. But they worked for the mob. They were detectives. They'd pull people over, mob guys that they wanted to get rid of, handcuff them, put them in the back of the car, never see them again. They disappear, leave their car on the side of the road. That was that. Nobody knew where the fuck they went.
B
Doesn't matter. Yeah.
A
They killed so many people, those two guys. So they said. Friends of Diane said that Alan was always surrounded by a shitload of cops. Because we find out later he litigated no fee divorces for at least 50 Cook County Sheriff's officers. 50. 50 free divorces. He did.
B
Those guys don't do anything for you, dude.
A
They're beholden to you as fuck. And their bosses know that you're. I mean, the lieutenant of the vice squad knows that you're his guy, and it's a lot. He also often represented officers from suburban police departments in workers compensation and police board cases, too. So he'd get them money, get them extra money, just works for them for free. Diane told her family going into February that if some lights go on behind her, she ain't pulling over. No, she's not doing it. And she told Jim, her boyfriend, you don't pull over. If a cop tries to pull you over, fucking gun it. Make it a spectacle.
B
Make a scene.
A
Make a fucking scene. Gun it. Have five cops chasing you. Then it's harder for them to kill you, basically. So imagine if you're this guy. You gotta be going, is this worth it? Is this worthy?
B
Fuck who did.
A
I mean, wow, this is just like an affair. This is crazy.
B
I thought we were having fun. This isn't fun anymore.
A
No, this is really. This went from fun to scary in like three weeks. This is too much.
B
Fun's gone already. Yeah.
A
Friends say that she didn't just take off because of the daughter. She wanted it to be done right so she could actually have custody of the daughter. Kidnapping her wouldn't be good for her case, probably. So Allen, knowing about these affairs, decides to get an ex police officer that he knows who's now a private investigator named Ted Negaza to bug his home to catch her. So he's got bugs in the home, he's got him on the phones, his house is Wired for sound. Now Diane, who's extremely careful about everything, knows to be careful. Careful about the divorce, the affair, won't pull over all this. She does not think there is any danger in using her kitchen phone to talk to her boyfriend, unfortunately. Wow. So it is all recorded. So they hear tons of conversations between Diane and her boyfriend. On February 25, Nikaza brings the tapes over to the house to play for Alan. Okay, this is wild. Alan's seated in the kitchen on the kitchen counter. He's sitting up. Nikaz is there and there's a sheriff sergeant named Joseph Hein. Also there's there now on the tape, the one that they're really going to talk about. Diane and Jim basically talk about in vivid and fucking eye popping color all about their previous night's sexual encounter.
B
What?
A
Oh yeah, including. Well, I'll read. This is from a court document.
B
They just narrate a porn for the tape.
A
Man, when we did this. Remember when we did this? Remember when we did that? I'll read. This is from an actual court document. So you don't call me salacious. This is. You call Cook county salacious if you got any fucking problems here.
B
Awesome.
A
Listening with Nikaza and a Cook County Sheriff's police sergeant to one of the recorded conversations Masters thought he heard Diane and her paramour reminisce about the Paramores inserting a wine bottle into Diane's vagina as part of their sex play.
B
What? Yes.
A
For some reason this is what made him blow up.
B
That's what got him mad.
A
I don't care. You fuck my wife. You do. Don't disrespect Pinot Noir like he is. I will not have it. That's too much.
B
Well, the thing is like that doesn't do it. Shouldn't do it. Shouldn't even make. Shouldn't do anything. It's smooth and does nothing.
A
Yeah, there's no other right apple to this.
B
The penis should be much better than.
A
Yeah, no, no, that's. That's for some weird. That's a different thing. That's not for. That's like disrespecting a woman and she wants to be disrespected. Yeah, that's what that is.
B
Or it's fuck me with trash, fuck
A
me with garbage, fuck me with refuse.
B
What'd you dig in that trash? See if there's a really hard old burrito.
A
What do you got in there? Is there a rotten banana at the bottom of the can? You can fuck me with anything non organic down there. You got Like a Michelob bottle you can shove in bottom first. What do you got? Oh, a wine bottle. Even better.
B
Jesus Christ. Fuck me with a trash dildo, you cheat.
A
That's what it is.
B
It's a disrespectful fuck. And they're both into it, which. Yeah, that'll make you mad. Somebody fucked your wife with garbage. And she loved it.
A
She was ed and topping. Not only loved it, reminisced and fucking basked in it the next day.
B
Brought it up. When she's clothed and dry.
A
What the fuck? In her kitchen with her Captain Crunch on the shelf. That's where she did.
B
It's my Mr. Coffee you talk about.
A
She did this in front of Captain Crunch. The captain had to hear this. This is wrong. It's all wrong. I'm telling you, the rabbit on the
B
Trix box tried to cover his eyes and his ears. He tried to tie him in a knife. Not
A
the Lucky Charms. Guy wants a new shape. He's like we. We add wine bottles, half eaten, hard burritos, hearts, moons, clovers, Wine bottles, horseshoes. Oh, dis.
B
The purple ones taste like cabernet.
A
Yeah.
B
Unbelievable. That's just the most.
A
He loses it.
B
Why would. I'm talking about it.
A
He loses it. By the way, he destroyed the tapes because he was so pissed off. Yes, but the guys around it said that he at that point said, all right, I'm killing this bitch. That's what he said.
B
What?
A
I'm gonna kill her. Fuck this, I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna make it look like a home invasion. And he tells the guy that we're gonna have people come over here. And this is the Nikaza guy who recorded everything he said. And the dogs and the cats and Diane, they're all gonna go. The dogs and the cats?
B
What?
A
I don't think Sparky fucked anybody with a wine bottle. Leave them alone.
B
Take it out on Kendall Jackson or
A
fucking Robert Mondavi's got a fucking say in this. Not fluffy.
B
Leave the dog alone. Jesus Christ.
A
This is crazy. Ernest and Julio Gallo.
B
The dog didn't stop him. Is that what it is?
A
Apparently. Apparently they're what she likes. So get them. Kill them all. Which would be a very weird scene. They killed the cat too. It'd be a lot to process. So it's at this point that Diane has no idea that this is all going on. She's been heard. But she does feel like the divorce might have a negative effect on her image. So she sends this is a letter in late February that she Sent to Jim, him, her boyfriend, quote, I went to the priest the other day. He tells me I must deal with the external pressures of complaints. That is, I don't nurse Allen back to health when I don't give him an opportunity to prove himself, when I don't. Won't give you up when I continue to grow and make independent decisions, okay? So she must deal with the external pressures of all those things and what they will do. She said, the latter is my problem. Yet, regrettably, I spend too much time worrying about what other people think of me. The father, meaning the priest, suggested that during this period of time I listen to my attorney's advice and be the bitch, etc. That I will be portrayed to be. So no matter what happens, the priest said, he is going to portray you as bitch, whore, gold digger, whatever thing you want to do. So be that. Fuck it. He's gonna say, you are anyway. Might as well do it and get what you want out of it rather than shrink and try to be nice. So the priest told her that, hey, be a bitch, would you? And then he closed the little fucking thing. Be more of a bitch, all right?
B
Show up in court with a bottle of wine every day and bring an
A
eight year old boy next time. Plaque closed with you when you come to confession. Jesus, come on.
B
You gotta leave it at the confession plate.
A
Leave it as a tip, you know, a little something. A little something for the father. So that's what she tells the boyfriend in the letter. Now, March 18th, Diane goes to her hairdresser and discusses her fears with him while he made her hair super, super fucking blonde. It's the lightest ash blonde that the l' Oreal line had to offer. Don't know why I know that, but I do. Almost white Ric Flair blonde, we'll call it now. The hairdresser Douglas Allen Snow recalled her telling her to take your daughter and just go to Florida. Fuck it. Fuck it.
B
Hey, get the fuck out of here.
A
Get the fuck out of here. Diane planned to initiate the proceedings against her husband this Monday. Coming up that evening, she didn't meet Jim, even though they had talked about meeting, because she had warned him off that I'm afraid Alan's gonna do something. So it's too hot right now, basically. Pussy's too hot. The block and the pussy too hot. Can't touch him after the. And then there's a board meeting that she's supposed to go to from the college. And this was a normal, like a regularly scheduled after work meeting, basically where they have after, it's like a happy hour thing. Every week they do. They have drinks after the meeting. They usually have it at the same place. This week, for some reason, it's changed to a different location at the last minute. So everybody heads somewhere else. Okay. And that's kind of important now. March 19, 1982, at 1am so that's that night, March 18. She didn't see her boyfriend, went out for drinks, had a hair appointment. 1am is when she's leaving the meeting. That's at this different restaurant the board's after meeting, drink session gets moved. And at 1am Diane's a trustee, so she's there. Jim stays away. Even though normally he's at these events. Jim stays away. Per Diane's instructions, she had specifically called and told him not to go to drinks that night. Something about Alan spooked me today. It's weird and I don't like it. Now, meanwhile, there is a woman named Genevieve Capstaff who has way too much time on her fucking hands. I mean, we joke a lot about people on this show. Like old people that are. If a car drives down the road, they're looking at writing down their license. But the way too much time on their hands, people. This lady takes it to a fucking another level now. Okay, well, she exits the meeting 40 minutes early on purpose, this woman does, so she can go get in her car, reposition it from where she was at to another spot in the parking lot that's not easily seen by the front door, so she can look and see who comes out and who's having an affair together, which order they leave
B
and who's fucking, who's gonna talk.
A
And then when people pull away, make out at their car or whatever, she's gonna sit in the corner and find out it's one o' clock in the morning.
B
Imagine his husband really needs to work on his oral skills.
A
So that rushes home. Genevieve's. What? Yeah, Genevieve's cat needs to do what now?
B
Yeah, she's. She's got to get home to somebody. This is crazy. That's an absurd amount of time.
A
I've never heard of someone with no love to this extent where they sit in a parking lot in the middle of the night, 40 minutes early. It's not like she thinks her husband's having an affair. And she's waiting.
B
This is.
A
I'm gonna see who's fucking each other.
B
People that don't have anything to do with her.
A
Go home. It's 1:30 in the morning, you fucking lunatic. What is wrong with these people. So around 1am, Diane says her goodbyes. Says her goodbyes in the parking lot and drives off alone in the Cadillac, Much to the consternation of poor Genevieve, who really wanted to see her get fingered on the hood so bad.
B
Genevieve sitting there rubbing her clit, looking for some.
A
Come on, come on, get me some. Uttering somebody. Get me off somebody. This turns me on so much. Grinding her. I mean, if a dude she's grinding into the console.
B
Yeah, if a man did that. What kind of fucking creep is that?
A
Yeah, she's a creep too. This is crazy. And later on she'll admit to doing this, which is even crazier. That's how we know about it. So she drives away. This Genevieve Capstaff woman doesn't say, good enough. I saw everybody. I didn't get what I wanted. I didn't get to see affairs happening. She then follows Diane. Who are you? You're not a private investigator and you have nothing to do with anything. Why are you following her?
B
She needs to see somebody.
A
Fox talk about a gossip. So she's following her through the streets, kind of trying to set behind her a little bit. She stopped following her when Diane was about 100 yards from her home. That's when she broke off and turned down another street all the way home to make sure she wasn't going to fuck anybody. That is crazy. The nosiest woman I've ever heard about. But we know that Diane definitely left the place at 1am and Diane definitely drove straight home. And we know Diane was 100 yards from her fucking house at that point.
B
So almost home.
A
That we know because remember, she disappeared by 2:30 the next day. Alan's going, I don't. Never came to home last night. We know she was within 100 yards of home. So then that morning, March 19, morning time, that's when the housekeeper Donna arrives. And at this point, when she arrives, Alan's always gone to the office. But instead he's at the kitchen table sitting with the daughter. And she's like, that's weird. And he tells the housekeeper, diane's missing. I called everyone I could think of. I don't know where she is. She didn't come home last night. Have you heard?
B
So I'm here with this kid and I don't know where this kid goes exactly.
A
So then at 2:30pm that's when he called the Cook County Sheriff's Department. And from the beginning, does the missing persons report. Lieutenant Keating shows up, as we know. And even less idea of why the fuck he's there now. So that's what goes on. And his suspicion is Diane's been having an affair with some professor. I don't know who, even though he knows. And I think they ran off together. They look around, there's, I mean, no signs of anything. It seems reasonable.
B
Her car is gone, $2,000 worth of jewelry's gone. That's a pretty good indicator.
A
So they go. I mean, I guess we'll see if she turns up and they leave and that's it. Now Alan wants nothing. You would imagine, if your wife is missing, but his excuse is actually not that terrible. If your wife just disappears into thin air, you're going to say you're going to want all the publicity you can get because you want to find her. But if your wife's been having an affair and you think she ran away with her boyfriend, you might not want that super publicized so he can lean on that of I don't want my business out here. I don't think my wife. Wife is missing. I think she's ran away. She's different. Yeah. I think she's missing. I think she's missing.
B
She's missing.
A
She's missing a little bit. Hold on. A wine bottle. I think she's missing.
B
Wine bottle's missing too.
A
Yeah, yeah. Also, I checked the wine cellar. There's some things missing from there. So the spring proceeds on and goes into the summer and we never hear from Diane.
B
Oh, no.
A
Which her four year old. You would think even if she ran away, she would have some daughters back to her.
B
She was full custody. She's not leaving her kid behind.
A
Yeah. Now, Alan does not want any publicity on this at all. Doesn't want to talk to the press. He does tell the press that Diane is, quote, probably shacked up with a boyfriend somewhere. That's what she tells the press. So he's like, I don't know. I'm not that concerned because she's probably shacked up with a boyfriend now. At the same time she's telling other people, he's telling other people that he knows that. This is very unlike Diane. I don't understand. She would never abandon our daughter. She loves our daughter. She'd never just abandon. So we don't know which story is true from Alan. Now brother Randy, this is Diane's brother. Randy is having none of this shit.
B
He's hearing nothing.
A
He believes none of this shit for a minute. And he's like, you don't want publicity to find my sister.
B
That's crazy.
A
We're getting publicity to find my fucking sister. He hires a P.I. he goes to the press. He's not fucking around. I like this guy. He goes to the press over Allen's objections. And it becomes a pretty goddamn big story that this socialite high powered lawyer's wife is missing and her and her Cadillac and all that kind of shit. Now Keating has stuck, he's the vice guy, but he has stuck his nose into this investigation also. And from what people understand, he is kind of. People are saying he seems to be obstructing this investigation. They don't understand what hindering rather than furthering it. Weird. They don't get it. You know what I mean? They don't get it. Sometime within the next before summer, we'll say Alan hires a live in nanny because he can't take care of this kid all the time with all the work and the mob shit, who could take care of a five year old?
B
She's gonna get a period one day. When does that happen? I don't know.
A
I don't know. What, seven, eight? I gotta get somebody in here. Could be tomorrow, we don't know. So he hires a live in nanny named Janet Bowers. By the way, they will start having an affair very quickly and will they will eventually be married. Shocking, right? So I wonder what his interviews were like. Hey, how you doing? Not hot enough. Take a hike. How you doing, eh? Your tits are all right? Could be a little bit. I'm going to hold off. No, not you.
B
You look pretty good. How's this taste?
A
Yeah, it's the first nanny job where stand up and twirl is part of it. And they're like, I don't understand out.
B
You'll do.
A
I know cpr. And the Heimlich. Do one of these, one of these little twirl. I don't care about cpr. It's fine. She ain't gonna choke. Don't worry about it. Take your top off, why don't you? So he then Alan puts up a $10,000 reward for information on his wife. Which basically sounds like from a guy who's got a lot of money. That sounds like. I don't care whether you find my wife.
B
You're not gonna find her. I could put up a million. I may as well just put up ten grand.
A
Don't care. That just shows that ten grand, that's fine. Like it's not. I would put up more than that if Sarah was missing,
B
if my kid was missing, I might put up some money.
A
I don't think I'd go. I mean 10 grand, I think I'd go higher than 10 grand, probably. Let's, you know, make this a temptation for something.
B
I figured you should probably go with whatever the ring cost.
A
Oh, that's how you're doing it?
B
That's a pretty good idea, right?
A
Well, back then, Christ, a $10,000 ring would have been like this big.
B
That would be a pretty big ring. Yeah.
A
Yeah.
B
Point today, a $10,000 ring ain't nothing.
A
No. We saw in love after lockup we saw in love after lockup what a $10,000 ring looks like.
B
Yeah, you look like a piece of shit. It's fine. But she's not going to impress her friends.
A
Yeah, it's not. Holy shit. That's impressive.
B
Her friends are going to ask if you guys are okay. Yeah.
A
Is everything all right? Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a better way to dress with quint.quints.com. oh, I love quints. We get all of our stuff from quints. Me and Sarah and Jimmy, all of us get all of our stuff from quints now because you don't need to go anywhere else. It's great stuff. It's great. One thing you're gonna love and I love about the summer is how things feel easy. The days are a little more relaxed. You might, you know, you find yourself reaching for the same kind of comfortable clothes that fit with what you're doing. And that's why we keep coming back to quints, is they focus on well made essentials that naturally become those everyday staples that you're going to live in all season long. And that's what's up with Quince. Quince's 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on, and the summer upgrade that your rotation needs, starting at just $34. Jimmy loves his linen pants, by the way. Their tees are soft enough to live in all day. The lightweight combination cotton sweaters are exactly what you want. When those summer nights cool down, you go out for a dinner or something. You look sharp. Everything at quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out that middleman. So you're paying for exceptional quality, not brand markup. And that's what it's all about. That's what it is.
B
You.
A
The clothes would be so much less expensive if it wasn't for all that garbage. Garbage in the middle. Those middlemen. And that's what Quince cuts right out. So you're just getting the best stuff right from the Factory to you. It's phenomenal. Great quality, great prices. And it's not just clothing, too. Quints has become a trusted favorite for everything from home travel to everyday essentials you really don't need anywhere else but quince. And you should check them out because we do it all the time. Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quince.com smalltown murder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q u I n c e.com Smalltown Murder for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Smalltown Murder now back to the show.
B
Should we put you on one of those food chain things? Should we bring you guys a meal every night?
A
That's funny. That's so funny. Because, like Sarah, I bought her a ring a couple years after we were married because we were poor when we got married. We just started these shows. We had no money at all. I had nothing. I didn't even have a fucking bank account. So I ended up buying her a ring eventually. And she's so fucking cool. When I gave it to her, she was like, she's so cool. She is. She goes, oh, I can't wear this. It's too much. What are you talking about? She goes, no, I'm not wearing it. That's crazy.
B
I used to wear a ring.
A
It's too nice. She said, it's too nice. I'm not wearing that. I don't want that. That's too much. I'm like, what are you talking about? I just watched. I'm standing there with a diamond ring in my hand arguing, guys, how many times have you had a diamond gift for your wife and had to argue about the fucking thing? It's hilarious. That's how cool she is, though. She was like, no, no, no. That's crazy. Bring it back.
B
Don't do it.
A
What?
B
Not out of my house.
A
I don't want that. Wow. So there's investigators now, and I'm using air quotes here. These investigators. No. Court documents showed that Masters at this point owned a co. Owned a brothel with two former Cook county sheriff sheriff's police officers. And those two officers were assigned to the case of the missing person here. Okay. Which is not great. Also that Masters has bribed police officers for friendly testimony in the past, and they're all his friends, as we know about. So all of that. Now enter the FBI.
B
Oh, why?
A
Financial. You can fucking disappear your wife all day long, but you start fucking around with credit card machines, the FBI will Be up your balls with no problem. So the FBI went, they had some undercover people basically in Cook county to try to bring down the vice in that area. Now what they did was they had mob connected strip clubs and after hour joints that were fronting his brothels and all that kind of thing. So the clubs would launder the charges through credit card processing companies under respectable business names. And it hits your bill like we talked about before. You went to Johnny's Steakhouse instead of Johnny's Whorehouse. It's a big difference. When it comes to the wife at home, she's going to want to know what's up.
B
That was ZF involved. But that ain't it.
A
That ain't it. No. Yes. There was curtains at the restaurant. Yes, it's very nice. Now the FBI here, the Bureau, what they decided to do was run its own credit card services front and get them to use their fucking credit card machine. So they're just piling mass amounts of evidence with the FBI.
B
They're bringing them credit card machines and saying, don't worry, it'll be Bill's Steakhouse.
A
And they, they got an undercover guy who poses as a guy who does shady credit card machines. Yeah. And it works. It's fucking amazing how it works. We'll have them. Yeah. It's like when they on the wire when they would give them the pre programmed phones that they would sell. They were selling them the pre wiretapped phones. It's the same thing. Same exact thing.
B
How many guys are there that sell credit card machines? You find a guy, you use that guy.
A
You use that guy. Unless somebody is cheaper. Now his front is the National Credit Service which ended up processing $30 million in claims for the clubs.
B
Wow.
A
With a special undercover agent living for three years as Larry Wright. He's a guy named Larry Dameron. An FBI agent who lived for three years undercover as Larry Wright, a money
B
services businessman doing $10 million a year in business.
A
Fuck yes. That's a lot.
B
That's incredible.
A
And that's just from these strip clubs. That has nothing to do with.
B
That's one business.
A
Drugs or union kickbacks or this or that. Nothing to do with any of that. Garbage collection. I mean this is.
B
Or things that don't have a service and a physical thing like protection. Whereas that's tons of money.
A
Just ancillary mob income here.
B
Wow.
A
So another agent would handle, handled him from anonymous hotel rooms. So you had an agent, that's your handler that goes and takes your notes in and all that kind of shit. So they Used one of the guys who was, I guess, one of the bag men for the mob who had been busted for something. They used him as a guy to do intros and shit. That's how they did it. So basically, the role. This took the FBI agent up the ladder of mob guys. The better he did and ended up, basically, he was paying protection to Victor Spilotro, who was Joe Pesci and Goodfellow's
B
brother, right in it.
A
Not sure if he's the one who got beat with the baseball bat to death or not. We're not sure about that.
B
Cornfield.
A
Yeah, in the cornfield. So June of 1982, this all happened in the few months they had that operation going, and everything's coming to fruition in the few months after the death here or after the missing. I should say missing. Miss of Diane. Now, June 1982, Corbett, the Willow police officer there, the chief of police, is fired.
B
Oh, by who?
A
The village board, for corruption suspicion. From the village board? One of his longtime girlfriends told investigators, in addition to all of his corrupt activities that he did, which were numerous and many. He once put a bullet through her beehive hairdo.
B
He shot at her head.
A
So I wouldn't leave. What movie is that? Or somebody shot somebody's beehive hairdo. It was a movie. What movie was that? Or TV show, I don't know.
B
But that's fucking. That's fucked up.
A
I saw it less than six months ago where somebody did that. Shot the beehive hairdo.
B
The police chief did that?
A
Yes. So she wouldn't leave.
B
Oh, my God.
A
So how corrupt is he? How corrupt is he?
B
How corrupt is he?
A
Well, he was, like, we know. Friendly with all these Mobsters. He inherited $150,000 and a speedboat from reputed mob member Joe Testa, who was murdered in Florida.
B
He.
A
This is obviously just a way for them to. They were like, a guy died. This is a way to.
B
Some shit you can bribe.
A
Well, you. Rather than bribe him in bags here and there, you could do it out in the open with this. Oh, he got a speedboat under 50 grand. Aren't you lucky? Wow, that's amazing. After Corbett lost his job during the administration change of 81, he was at a party trying to raise money for a lawsuit, attempting to get his job back. This guy has the balls to. He wanted to sue the fucking town to get his job back after he has been the most corrupt human being ever. Wow.
B
Sniffed out and fired over suspicions of it. They didn't have any hard evidence. That's why he thinks he can get his job back and it will be okay.
A
Apparently the toastmaster, and at the event was 5th Municipal District presiding Judge Anthony Monteleone. So a fucking presiding judge was there and was being the toastmaster at this thing. Okay? Now, Keating, the other guy, Lieutenant there, the Vice Squad guy, he loves to take payoffs, loves it on tape. He's been caught a million times taking payoffs. In person. They take payoffs. He would issue warnings to people. He would be that kind of thing. He'd pull somebody over and tell them, hey, you better watch yourself. Blah, blah. So and so is pissed off at you. He told the undercover FBI agent, the Larry Wright guy, that a lawyer named Alan Masters could push through all the permits and paperwork for a new club. Even the bribes. He'll handle everything. He's a one stop shop for an illegal setup.
B
He said, he's a little bald fucker from the wire.
A
You're gonna love him. And then he said, here's his phone number, gave him his call and saying he'll be expecting your call. Don't worry about it.
B
Oh boy.
A
Okay. Now, the FBI knew who the fuck Masters was by now. And they go, that's the guy whose wife is missing. So not only do we have him doing this, his wife is missing. That's a problem. So they were like, wow, this guy is someone we need to look into. And one, one recorded conversation, the agent talked about talking with Keating, brought up Diane Masters. Hey, that lawyer you put me to, he's the guy with the wife who's missing, right?
B
Yeah.
A
And this is what he said. This is what Keating said to the undercover agent. She turned up missing like the day before the divorce was going to be filed. Convenient, wasn't it? And then he chucked, chuckled. That's funny, right?
B
Ah, shit.
A
Isn't that convenient now? August 24, 1982. Has someone seen her alive? There is a person coming forward saying they have seen her alive.
B
Really?
A
A canoe paddling tipster, as the Chicago Tribune put it.
B
Yeah, guy out on the lake.
A
Yep. Who said he spoke with Diane Masters. That summer comes into the whole thing here. He says according to him, a woman identifying herself as Diane Masters spoke to him while she was being held captive in a padlocked cabin on the banks of the Des Plaines river in Lake County. What? He walked by a cabin and there was a lady trying to get out. She said, I'm Diane Masters, help me. That's what he said. No date.
B
He did what?
A
Well, that's what we're getting Into. No date was given for the conversation, which was reported to police on August 24 by a secretary in Alan Masters law office. That's who called the police about this. The tipster said he'd encountered Diane Masters or heard her voice while she was being. While he was paddling down the river. So he heard this coming from a cabin. As he's paddling. The woman was quoted saying, I need help. Call my husband, not the police.
B
He has a $10,000 reward for me.
A
Please. He'll give you the reward. Authorities said they were skeptical of the report, which they were told was phoned into the attorney's office by someone only identifying himself as Jack Springer. Okay. One ranking official on the case said he might take a paddle. He'd like to take a paddle to the tipster if he could be found because he doesn't believe him. Authorities suspected the hoax possibly by the same person who was responsible for. For two earlier kidnap ransom demands, each for $25,000, which ran with which Masters received. It's the same time. We'll talk about that in a minute. The same time Alan Masters goes to the police saying, my house is bugged.
B
Uh huh.
A
My house has been bugged. He said, I found two eavesdropping devices in my home. And the cops, cops said, well, let us see them. And he said, no, he would not give them over to the police. These listening devices that his own guy had probably implanted or he just made
B
them up, the ones he put in. Right?
A
Yeah. So now, according to police reports, Allen complained to the sheriff's investigators that his home had been bugged and said the bugs might have had something to do with his wife's disappearance. Police said he declined to take a lie detector test and has refused to be interviewed by the private detectives hired by the wife's family. Family, okay, but what about your detectives? The ones with fucking badges who we pay their salaries? What about them? They're the ones that he needs to sit down with. I don't give a fuck about private investigators. Let's talk about this now. The kidnap, ransom demands and both of them. Masters claims he took $25,000 both times in cash to the Chicago and Northwestern Railway station in Waukegan, as he told police he was instructed to do over the phone. He said the caller threatened to harm his wife, so police staked out the station, but nobody ever showed up. Okay. Master's secretary relayed the tipster's report to the sheriff's investigators. Jack Springer reportedly said he'd not called police directly because he, quote, didn't want to get involved. Yeah, mind my own business. Look, I'm a guy who minds his own business. She asked me for a favor. She said, call my husband. I'm giving you a ringy ding. That's it.
B
I did it.
A
You just handle it from here. Click.
B
I got paddling to do.
A
I gotta go. I gotta make my way back down the river. I'll see you later. So he said that there was a locked cabin and that was in need of paint. And that the woman inside shouted, I am Mrs. Masters. I was abducted and put in this cabin. Call my husband. I need help.
B
Cavias cabin.
A
So somewhere, some real shabby cabin. Yeah. According to the caller, the woman then mentioned the name of Diane Masters five year old daughter and gave two telephone numbers to call. Problem is, once she went missing, her daughter's name was in every newspaper in Chicagoland area. It was all over the place. One number was that of Alan Masters law office. The second number was splashed with water and so he could. He couldn't read it. It was all runny, you know, because he was. All you need is paddling.
B
911.
A
That's the one there. Call that one. Lieutenant Howard Vanek, Commander of the sheriff's south Suburban detective unit said that information on Springer's call was turned over to police in Lake county. But that a search along the river failed to turn up the woman or the cabin. No cabin either. No shitty needs to be painted. Nothing.
B
Nothing.
A
Total horseshit. Now the missing woman's brother Randy here confirmed that he retained the services of Special Operations, a private detective agency in Chicago. A member of the firm John Waters. Not the director or the musician. Little tiny mustache. Fucking telling Divine to be funnier. A Chicago police detective there said an exhaustive inquiry into the master's disappearance has led Harry. It led him to believe that quote, she is certainly dead by now. Fall 1982. Allen hears that private investigator said, we think she's dead. Everybody seems to think she's dead. So he says, I'm filing the insurance claim. Fuck it.
B
Oh, yep.
A
He said he files a $100,000 life insurance policy held by these college on her with him as beneficiary. Yeah, that covers trustees traveling to and from board meetings and is void once the member enters the home. So this is for. Only pays off for things that happen outside the home. If you fall and kill yourself at home, that doesn't pay off. It's only for outside really.
B
Once you get home, anything beyond that, you could leave again. That's all on you. After that. That's a very fortuitous.
A
It's interesting, but it's inside their home is specifically. It doesn't count if it happens specifically inside the home. So Allen's claim rests on just. On the whole idea that Diane's dead, obviously. He obtains a legal declaration of her death and Two checks of $50,000 each eventually arrive by mail. Yeah, not bad. So he's. By the way, when you do that, you know what that is?
B
Mail fraud.
A
That's mail fraud right there. Yes, it is. You get anything out of the mail? It's not good.
B
That's bad.
A
That's bad. He engineered, you know, all of this shit. So they said the claim. They said insured board member failed to return home from a college board meeting and has been declared legally deceased beneficiary alone. So it's on the way home from a board meeting. It's exactly what it's there for, right? So now there's the estate and some custody shit here. Diane is declared legally dead. And Alan says, well, I get the insurance claim now the estate's in play. And Alan now was going to fight with her brother Randy over Diane's share of assets and access to the daughter.
B
Oh, boy.
A
Okay. Cause now it's a totally different thing. So Randy now is now in a civil matter with a guy who he's pretty sure killed his sister, which is amazing.
B
Dangerous.
A
Yeah. Especially this fucking guy.
B
Yeah.
A
December 11, 1982, comes along here. It has been almost nine months. This is crazy.
B
That's a long time.
A
This is the Illinois Sanitary and Ship Canal in Willow Springs. Okay. An officer on routine patrol near the canal noticed tire tracks running off the bank and straight into the water. If you see tire tracks go right in the water, you go, well, that can't be.
B
The only thing that does that is the car.
A
Unless an amphibious car came out of the river. I think there's a problem here. So he said, it looks like a car, it's been deliberately driven in. So he calls it in. And the response triggered was overseen by James Ross, the new police chief, who is now honest, who replaced Corbett. And his whole thing is, I have to be super up and up because Corbett was so corrupt. Now the board had installed him because he's very honest. Now, this is a common place where people dump cars for insurance. They do salvage operations a lot here. Divers go down expecting maybe a couple stolen cars down there, including the one that drove into the water. Instead, they find, from some reports, 82 vehicles down there.
B
82. 82.
A
Which is more.
B
How fucking deep is this canal?
A
It's bigger than a small car lot. That's insane. Yeah, that's huge.
B
Those mom and pop shops don't have 82 cars.
A
No. This is insanity.
B
Holy shit.
A
This is a bunch of give ups. It's people dumping it for insurance reasons. Here. I wanted a payout. So this is a dump site now. So they pull out on this day, 25 cars out of this fucking mire. The 25th car they pull out. The reason why there's only 25. They stopped on this one. The 25th car is a yellow Cadillac, license plate DGM 19. They all know that car. That's reports been going around for nine months. Everyone there knows the car keys are still in the car. Still in the ignition, which is interesting. Now they were saying that they were gonna clean up this canal. And this is what they find. So who shows up at the scene as soon as the car is pulled out?
B
Is it Alan?
A
Lieutenant Keating shows up all of a sudden. Nothing to do with this. Why would a vice squad guy be here while they're pulling cars out of a fight? Makes no sense whatsoever. He appeared at the recovery scene. Scene Chief Ross was surprised and said, what are you doing here? And he goes, I don't know.
B
Get back to work, fucker.
A
They don't work for the same people. He's a sheriff, he's a town guy. So he can't tell them that. And he's a lieutenant commander of the vice squad of the county. But he says, what are you doing here? Just casually. And he says, I don't know. Just driving by, saw some stuff happening, some shit happening, Figured I'd take a look. So they pull the car out. The car. The inside of the car is empty other than keys and a couple personal items and things like that. They open the trunk of the car and they find Diane in there. That's where she is. She's in the trunk of the car. Decomposed as can be as being in water for nine months. As you can imagine, she's partially clothed, missing her underwear. From the report here, she was clad in a matching skirt and blazer and brown blouse. And a bra and jewelry when she was in the trunk of the car. However, no pantyhose or undergarments or shoes were ever recovered.
B
What is that about?
A
But there is no evidence of sexual molestation of the body. So that's interesting. And they have a theory of why that is. She would be doing this now. She's very badly decomposed. They have to confirm her I mean, they know it's her from what she's wearing in the car she's in and her jewelry. But they have to do dental records to absolutely do it. Her skull has been pretty broken in, pretty good. Two entry wound. Two bullet entry wounds as well. So she's got blunt force trauma and two.22 caliber gunshots to the head as well. And they found two.22 caliber shell casings in the trunk recovered from a sleeve of her shirt. They fell into it, got caught. Got caught in, like her shirt there.
B
Wow.
A
So there's that. They have bullet fragments recovered from the skull. Everything sent to the FBI laboratory. And we'll talk a little more about that in a second. Apparently, her wristwatch and dashboard clock Both stopped at 1:50 exactly.
B
Oh, that's right. They had those analog dashboard clocks.
A
Yes. So they're Both stopped at 150 at the top.
B
The water will do that.
A
Absolutely. To both of their watches. That's interesting. So that's a good idea of when the car went in the water. So they found, by the way, at least six of the vehicles found in the 25 foot deep canal belong to former police officers in Willow Springs or nearby Bridgeview.
B
Hilarious.
A
Or the their friends. All of which had been reported stolen, by the way. Yep. They said, we don't believe it was a coincidence that Mrs. Masters car with her body in the trunk was dumped in the same spot where a bunch of auto thieves have been dumping their cars.
B
Right?
A
Yeah.
B
Bunch of cops.
A
Yeah. They said in most cases, too, the vehicles hadn't even been stripped for parts. They were just insurance dumps. They didn't care about the parts.
B
Wow.
A
If the vehicles were really stolen or, you know, basically engines, everything. They were trying to determine. Yeah, basically the ones with everything on them were dumped for insurance. If they were stripped, it might be a way just to get rid of the carcass of the car. But Masters, they go to him again and they'd like to talk to him. And he declines to take a lie detector test. No, thank you. Don't think so. So December 13th. Remember Larry White, the undercover agent? He had a meeting on the books with Alan Masters that day to talk about club permits. This is two days after the body's found, so that's very interesting. Masters apparently got real evasive with the agent and said that I'm all jammed up in court and I can't do it. Didn't say, they just pulled my wife out of a canal, so I gotta.
B
I'm jammed up in court.
A
Jammed up in court. He then, the agent then called Keating on tape asking why the fuck this is going on. Why isn't he getting with me now? And Keating was very cryptic and said, Masters has too many problems right now. A lot of stuff going on. Call back in three or four weeks and everything will be fine.
B
We can make it disappear in three to four.
A
We'll make it disappear now. December 14, Chicago Tribune. Huge headline. Examiner halt's husband's attempt to have the murder victim cremated. He wanted to have her cremated now. Right now. That's crazy. So instead, the medical examiner, Dr. Robert G. Stein, said that he's blocking reported requests to have her cremated. So they said. Stein said he was informed Sunday night by one of the investigators that Mrs. Masters husband, Allen wanted her body cremated. And Stein said he received the same information Sunday from the Willow Springs police chief. Chief, he said, quote, I turned him, meaning the husband, down. Stein said, although he said he hasn't talked to Masters himself, he just denied it on the report.
B
Yeah.
A
Stein says Mrs. Masters body is in the Cook county morgue and will be held for at least 48 more hours. He said he's told the Cook County State's Attorney's office that he opposes cremation of the body. He said he took the action for the simple reason that it's a homicide case. And he said the body is evidence in the call of death.
B
Absolutely.
A
He said possibly we might even have to exhume the body sometime for further examination, so we might even need it later.
B
I don't even want to bury it right now.
A
Yeah, I'm gonna hang onto it for a fucking minute. All of her relatives, including her brother, want her buried anyway. That's what they were wanting to begin with, but I mean, if they were not divorced and in a thing he's gonna have. Alan would have control over that. Unless the medical examiner says no. So, yeah, they said there was no. The brother said there was no reconciliation and Diane was filing for divorce. So they're very skeptical of Allen and anything he does. So they hired the private investigator. They also said her photo will hang in the Diane Masters Shelter for Battered Wives, which is now going to be named after Diane or it was named after her when it opened. Open because she had done so much work and time and donated money to it. And now they're going to put her big picture up now, too.
B
Unbelievable.
A
Yeah, it's crazy. Full autopsy time. Okay. She'd been struck in the head with a blunt instrument and shot twice. Evidence collected of the remains indicates she could have been bludgeoned while disrobing the night she was murdered. Hence, what would you take off first?
B
Your shoes?
A
Pantyhose. I don't think your underwear would come off first though.
B
Would they come off with the pantyhose? I don't want to pretend to be a woman.
A
I have literally never had pantyhose on my body. I have no idea how that works. Especially an 80s woman who wears pantyhose. You'd have to find a woman like over 55 to even tell you what pantyhose do.
B
They are incredibly tight. So I imagine if you go to pull those, taking everything that's under them,
A
probably maybe you grab it all at once. Or maybe, I'm not sure. Maybe they were like thick on top and were like their own underwear. Do they have those?
B
That would be, I don't know, like a bloomer.
A
That'd be super convenient. Like have pantyhose but then at the top have them be like kind of underwear.
B
Panty.
A
Yeah, panty.
B
Panty up there with some hose down it.
A
I think that's the best. Ladies, Come on. I have no idea. They might have that.
B
They're inventing things for you.
A
That was probably invented. That was invented in 1953. And we're just like, yeah, that's what you do. Sure. God, we're idiots. Okay, so they said that she might have been disrobing. They said. Stein. The medical examiner quizzed this week by the Star newspaper on the four year old unsolved murder case. This is later indicated that a broken cheekbone discovered during an autopsy of Diane very possibly was caused by a blow from a blunt object. Possibly. The medical examiner said the object could have been some kind of blackjack or leather wrapped lead instrument with a spring handle swap mobsters use back in the day. Stein said that at first the gunshots. He thought the gunshots could have broken her cheekbone. But later said that trajectories passed from right to left in a straight line and that it was quite possible she'd been struck with something else as well. Well, so beaten then shot rather than just shot. He said it was also quite possible she'd been shot after she was dumped into the trunk of her car. Only one of the.22 caliber shell casings was found and that was in the sleeve of her blouse.
B
Okay.
A
So that would be hard to do from another position. If she was standing up, it'd be hard for the shell casing. She'd have to be laying down. Yeah, yeah. Now he refused to draw any definite conclusions. From the report, when asked if the fact that Mrs. Masters was naked from the waist down and the blouse was unbuttoned, if that was indicative that she could have been in the process of undressing, that's when he said, it's possible. Quite possible, certainly. Yeah. Which would mean put her at home. Which would also mean that that insurance policy should have been paid out too.
B
Null and void.
A
Null and void. Now, Diane's family and friends, they attend a big memorial for her. They have a huge one and it's a big deal here. Obviously they have a big eulogy for her. They said Mrs. Masters husband, Summit attorney Alan Masters, sat almost motionless with his head bowed during the 40 minute service, occasionally stroking the head of the couple's daughter, five year old Andra, and comforting those seated next to him. So he showed up as it and acted like it was all fine. Now police and prosecutors begin to refocus their investigation onto the death of Diane, following this, obviously the finding of the body, because now they know it's a murder probe anyway. She's not in Bolivia somewhere living it up.
B
Yeah. And you don't commit suicide this way. Impossible.
A
I don't know how you'd roll yourself down the canal after you shot yourself. Yeah, that'd be tough. So. And get rid of the gun, too. That'd be tough.
B
Yeah.
A
The probe, they said, is now being spearheaded by the Willow Springs Police Department. It's said to be seeking new clues to add to evidence gathered from the autopsy of her body and her car. Now, Diane's husband, Allen, is still a, quote, likely candidate for questioning, the police say, or the police tell the newspaper. I would say one assistant Cook county state's attorney said, I'm sure he'll be talked to by police authorities, certainly. I would hope so. Chief Ross vowed, whoever did this is going to pay. Okay, they're gonna pay. Ross assumed command, obviously, from the last corrupt guy, and he said that he would clean up this corrupt police department, especially dragging all these cars out and all that. He said, when you go fishing with a big hook, you catch big fish. Getting everybody. He said, there's gonna be, quote, no cover up whatsoever in this murder investigation. He'll spend the next several days reviewing reports passed on to him by sheriff's police because the body turned up in Willow Springs, he has jurisdiction. And he said, this is a spokesman for the sheriff. We're working with Ross right now. And Ross said, I'll go over all the reports and statements of witnesses very carefully. Maybe I can pick something out of the report. That the county guys might have missed. Not purposely missed, but missed just the same. Not calling him corrupt, even though I'm the corruption breaker guy. He does confirm that he intends to speak with Alan Masters as well. So January 4, 1983. The investigation is starting to get.
B
It's getting big.
A
It's starting to mushroom into something much bigger with a lot of legs and tentacles and shit. Here they say a tentacle. This is from the Chicago Tribune. A task force of federal, state and local authorities conferred Monday in an effort to determine if a link exists between the murder of Diane Masters and the dumping of more than 25 cars, trucks and motorcycles in the canal. These are the same people. In addition to the FBI, the task force includes agents of the state Criminal Investigation, our division of Criminal Investigation, the Chicago Police Auto Theft Detail, Sheriff's investigators, investigators, and Willow Springs police. The National Auto Theft Bureau, representing insurance company interests, also had assigned an agent to the probe. The body obviously was found a couple weeks ago. At this point, at a conference in Willow Springs called by Chief Ross, investigators decided to interview. He says that investigators decide to interview all the owners of the cars or other vehicles found in the connection, all of them, and look at the original reports that the vehicles have been stolen. In some instances, witnesses will be asked to testify before a grand jury because that way it's perjury if you lie. A total of 28 vehicles have been found in the canal so far. State agents from the Division of Criminal investigation entered the case at the request of the head of the Special prosecutions unit. Chicago Police are involved because some of the vehicles were. Were reported stolen in Chicago. Cause, I don't know, I went to the city and it got stolen. It's a very easy thing to say. And they go, wow, that happens in the city. And then that's it.
B
A big city. It's scary.
A
That's what happens. That's why we live out here, right? Okay. Is that why we live out here in the burbs, I think?
B
Yeah, that's right. We did this.
A
All right. 83 to 86, Operation Safe Bet gets underway here. So this article says the Washington Post got wind of the undercover operation and gave the Bureau a short Runway before publishing. So they said, we're gonna publish this. They said, let us do some shit before you blow up our fucking spot here. So they had to do this quickly before the publishing happened. Federal raids hit all sorts of clubs all over the place from these credit card machines, brothels and all this shit. Dozens of people are indicted. It's a big Fucking deal. There's all sorts of trials. There's a guy, Bruce Fresh, I think that's one of the cops. He's convicted in May of 86 on 18 counts of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion and tax fraud. With prosecutors telling the jury that these two men sold their badges on the street to the highest bidder. And Keating is in a lot of fucking trouble.
B
I would say so.
A
So Operation safe bet alongside Sergeant Bruce. Bruce frash on the 18 counts. That's what happened. That's what causes this to all be reopened. Then they get a very non corrupt cop in here, a guy named John. Jack Reed, goes by Jack. A lot of Johns went by Jack back in the day. Jack Reed, who's just a fucking dude who is honest as the day is long. He was a seminary student that instead of turning. Yeah, he was going to go to the priesthood instead of turning priest and instead he joined the Marines, which is the complete opposite of the priesthood. You kill people, you don't fuck kids. It's totally different.
B
Opposite amount of vagina too.
A
Completely. Yeah. So that's what he did. And then he became a Cook County Sheriff's police officer from 1966 to 1990, retiring as a lieutenant 32 years.
B
Good for him.
A
Not bad. So he met his wife in 1966. That probably also got him out of the priesthood. I met some hot chick in this.
B
She missed it, I'm gone.
A
You know what it feels like to have this in someone's mouth? Oh my God. It felt like an adult woman's mouth. It's amazing. I know you guys know what it feels like, but I mean, in an adult woman's mouth though, it's much different.
B
Much bigger mouth.
A
Way different. Yeah, it's awesome. So he was her driving instructor and he asked her out and then they got married. So this case, it's 1986 now, and the Cook County Sheriff's Department puts Jack Reed in charge of it. And that's what's going on now. Reed picked up the case. It's been cold for four years. He works with investigators Paul Sabin and Robert Colbert. Be now Reid's former partner at the sheriff's office said that he's really good at doing shit like this and going back over stuff because he makes sources very comfortable to speak. They feel like they can tell him stuff and they don't feel scared of the whole situation. He said, quote, he had this ability to get people to confide and talk. He was the best partner I ever had. He just exuded so much Credibility and intention. Integrity. His own supervisor. While Reid is investigating this case, his own supervisor showed up at his front door and told him to stop fucking looking into this shit.
B
Uh oh.
A
Said leave it the fuck alone. So that's not a good sign. His son was there. And his son remembered it decades later going, this was fucking crazy. He said, I was a kid and I didn't know the details at the time of what's going on, but. But he said, I never.
B
That's on Training Day. And I was like, that looks weird. Whoa.
A
Damn. He asked my dad if he wanted to get wet. And I was like, this is weird as fuck.
B
This is crazy.
A
He said, I never knew about that. Even at home it's mind boggling. A supervisor would try to intimidate him off the case is what his son said. Now what he gets, he's very good at getting people to talk, like we said. And the people he gets to talk first are ladies. This is the thing. This is okay. And this is why you could think whatever you want about the Karen Reid case. But to say it's a giant conspiracy with all the cops, I didn't buy for a fucking second. Only for this reason. Not because they're above it, because obviously they're not. Because if there's 10, 15 cops that are all in on this and then more cops that cover it up and all this, how many of them have gotten divorced in the last five fucking years? How many of them had girlfriends they broke up with? All of those women who were there too would have told on them in two fucking seconds to fuck them over. So that's the only reason why I thought that was. But that's what's going on here. The ladies know, all the wives know everything. And these ladies start coming forward and talking to Jack Reed.
B
Oh, really?
A
That's trouble for people. Yeah. This is interesting. Now, one lady came forward, one of the police officers wives, to talk about domestic violence within the police force and things like that. That turns out there's a lot of these women coming forward. This lady thought it was just her. These ladies got scared because they thought, holy shit, if Alan will do that to his wife. What's stopping my husband from doing that to me? Yeah, they can disappear me too, if they can disappear her. And especially by 86, no charges had been charged. It just looked like everybody got away with it. Which is crazy. Crazy. So they go on to say the nearly successful murder cover up relied on the direct and indirect support of a group of police officers and other men who owed Allen Masters favors. It was also relied on the silent fear of the women who knew the men.
B
Right.
A
They said the case was not cracked by a failure of those police officers to keep the faith, but by information from a half dozen frightened women whose stories provided a map of suspects and events that led to knowing a lot more about this.
B
A couple of them know a couple of things. Then we start piecing those puzzle pieces together.
A
That's right.
B
All of a sudden I see a picture.
A
I see a lot of picture. All of a sudden, the Etch A Sketch is clear. Nobody shaking. The women who spoke anonymously approached special investigators with bits and pieces of the murder story told to them by boasting husbands, boyfriends and co workers. They're bragging, Fuck, yeah. They think they're above the law, these fucking guys. I'm the law. That's what they think. King Kong ain't got shit on me. As you said. He said our greatest uncredited intelligence sources were the women. Jack Reed said. He said it got started when these women said, enough is enough. If I step out of line, I might be swimming around in a trunk. The women who came forward, according to Reed, were the wives, girlfriends and co workers of these men who worked in a variety of police departments, including Bedford park, justice and Summit and Hickory Hills, Orland park and Cook county, as well as Illinois State Troopers and the Cook county court system. None of them will testify, but all of them will give enough information to be able to get verifiable evidence here. Reid said it was the men bragging about it. To tell your wife or girlfriend to keep quiet or the same thing will happen to you or I'm buying a big car to put you in the trunk. Makes an impression. Wow. He said they thought the women, I assume he means thought what happened to Diane was wrong. But for the first few years, they didn't know what to do with their information. They didn't know who to trust. Trust. How would you. Reid said the women came forward slowly with information gleaned from stories and jokes. He said, we were bumbling around with no sense of direction until then. They gave us an outline of what happened. Now what happened was domestic fucking violence. They said that Diane was a victim herself of domestic violence. One of her friends said that she'd seen Allen shove Diane down a flight of stairs during the early years of their 10 year relationship. That's crazy. Another testified later that she often. Diane often had grasping type bruises after fights with Alan.
B
Her arms. Neck.
A
Yeah. Despite the violence, Diane wanted to present a picture of respectability. So she wouldn't show that shit or tell people about it. She'd put another fur coat on and. And act like that was fine. Some of the women who came forward with information for the Diane Masters investigation were victims of abuse, also themselves. The women insisted their names not be placed in any police report and their identities will remain confidential because obviously you want people to be able to come forward. Now, this goes hand in hand with a 1983 study by the Chicago Law Enforcement Study Group. Group. They surveyed suburban and metropolitan police attitudes toward battered wives, quote, unquote. A significant number of those interviewed answered that the wife beatings were justified. If the wife provoked the husband.
B
Holy.
A
I don't know if you guys know this or not, but there's some good cops. But there's also. They don't get the best and brightest. A lot of times it's people who can't find another job or. And that one has benefits or just got out of the military and are used to that kind of structure. That's it. A lot of times it's not the best and brightest all the time. There's some smart ones, there's some decent
B
ones and got a great education. They're gonna take that education and apply it into a job that makes decent money.
A
Yeah, that makes better money. So that's what was going. They said. The officers interviewed for the study identified male pride and female masochism as reasons that the batteries were sometimes justified. Wives or girlfriends of police officers who beat them are often afraid to tell anyone, even social workers who are sworn to secrecy, according to the director of the Uptown Hull Domestic Violence Program. Well, that shows that their whole life isn't what it purports itself to be.
B
But the masochism part relies on them enjoying it.
A
Them enjoying it. Yeah, maybe that's part of it. And if you were an abusive person, who would you look for? Someone who will take it. You're not gonna look for that chick who, the first time you pushed her, she whipped out a switchblade and said, I'll cut you, motherfucker. That's not the chick you're gonna marry. If you're an abuser, look for the
B
chick that says, do it harder.
A
Yeah, exactly. More. Choke me, too, while you're doing that, by the way. So Luft here said that in her 10 years on the job, she's gotten two or three calls a month from police officer officers. Wives who rarely take their cases to authorities. They say these women are. They do seek help and attend support group meetings organized outside the areas of where they live for fear of being caught by their husbands. Now this is what this guy, Jack Reed finds out. Ted Nikaza, Remember the guy who did the wiretapping and played the wine bottle tape? For sure, sure. For Allen Welch. Well, he flips.
B
Oh.
A
He becomes a cooperator and gives investigators the wiretap, the tape, the wine bottle conversation. Alan saying, I'm going to kill her. I'm gonna stage a home invasion. I'll get Keating to handle it.
B
I'll kill the dog and the cat.
A
I'll kill the dog and the cat. All of this shit he flips on.
B
Oh, boy.
A
So now they have a whole other thing happen. Then they get a guy named Jim. Jack Bachmann here, the deputy. He's the deputy who was offered the murder contract by Keating. Keating was going around. The lieutenant was going around shopping. A $25,000 hit to anyone who would take it. Hey, you want to kill a lady for 25 grand? He was the recruiter for this idiot. It's fucking crazy.
B
Why would he do that?
A
Because him and Allen are in everything together, and they thought they were above the law. So it was basically 25 grand to stalk and kill Diane. The assurance that Corbett in the Willow Springs department would handle the body. You just kill her. Corbett, the police chief, he'll put it in the trunk and get rid of the car. You don't worry about that. All you need to do is kill her. Corbett said he won't kill her, but he'll dispose of the body. Okay. Bachmann this Jack Bachmann explained his silence for the last few years, his fear of exactly these consequences from these men. He's like, I thought they were gonna do that to me. He's like, I mean, it's pretty obvious. So I was like, shut the fuck up. So Keating shops it around. He approached a former Cook County Sheriff's police officer. Jack Bachmann obviously offered him 25,000. And then Bachmann flipped, laid out the logistics. He said, corbett will handle the body. Bachmann said no, and then he'd shut the fuck up. He didn't say anything. Until 1986, Keating himself had been stalking Diane in the meantime, keeping an eye on her. Now, this is what was supposed to go down. We find out this is how it was supposed to happen.
B
We got the whole thing.
A
We got pretty much the whole thing. From a confession that's not allowed into court, from later details of Michael Corbett, and from bits and pieces from Bachmann that he heard from Keating. This is the whole picture that gets put together here. Okay? Here we Go. All right. Diane was supposed to be killed on her way home or at a rendezvous with the boyfriend. So you can kill them both. That'd be easy. This was on the night of March 18, after the board meeting. Problem is, she didn't meet up with Jim because she was scared and told him, warned him off. And at the last minute, the board's drinks place moved from the restaurant they usually go to to a different one. There was people waiting outside of the other place of the restaurant waiting to kill her. And she didn't fucking show up. Nobody showed up at the restaurant. They didn't know where she was.
B
Holy shit.
A
Yeah, so that's a big deal. Now, the community college here, Diane is there and all that kind of thing. That's what they were. They were going there. Diane had specifically called and warned Jim off of drinks that night because Alan had spooked. Meanwhile, this Genevieve Capstaff, this nosy twat sitting in the parking lot minding other people's fucking pussies dicks here, rubbing her pussy to this shit. She exited the meeting 40 minutes early and watched her go home. Watched her say her goodbyes. And basically she followed her, basically to the house. Meaning she probably went inside the house if she was 100 yards away, meaning that insurance policy would be null and void. Except that she was found shot in the head, dumped in the canal, which looks like she was shot out there in her car. That's on purpose. Now, 1 to 2am at the house, per the prosecution's what they think happened. Allen is home with Andra. He's making long distance phone calls all night, which has phone records, so that shows he wasn't out all night doing anything. He's at home. The kill team had waited for her and she never showed up. Up. And so she made it home. This is according to the prosecutor. He said this Diane Masters made it home that night and very much surprised the man who was home. He heard the door open and was like, what the fuck? How I had her killed tonight. This is bullshit. So they think Diane walks in, begins undressing for bed, kicks her shoes off, unbuttons her blouse, pulls down her pantyhose, and they think Allen then went to it himself and hit her with a blunt instrument. Two blows to the head, they believe. At first they thought it was just in the back of the head and the cheekbone was broken from a bullet. Now they don't think that it was the cheekbone broken from a bullet. They think it was a shot in the face. So then pre dawn Allen phones Chief Corbett. Corbett arrives with an unidentified accomplice. We don't know who Diane is either at this point. Dead or dying. They're not sure either way. They place her in the trunk of her own Cadillac. The car is driven off and stashed in a garage near the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that they know of.
B
Oh.
A
Allen stays home with his daughter, making more phone calls, making sure he's gotten phone records as doing things. And then the housekeeper arrives to see Allen at home. He calls in the police report at 2:30, then late that night at the canal, about 22 hours after the attack. The prosecution believes Corbett fired the two rounds into her head. Probably. Or his accomplice, one of the two. They said basically the way they did it was 22 to the head. Two shots. That's a mob hit. Two to the head. Jimmy, remember that? It's a mob hit.
B
She may have been alive.
A
Point. Yes, that's what they think. She may have been alive in the trunk, just in the garage all day. So this would make it look like a mob hit, which would take Allen off the hook here. So it wouldn't read as a domestic violence attack. Anyway. So then they roll the Cadillac into the canal. Done and done. Like a card. Like a card dealer. I'm out.
B
Unbelievable.
A
That's it. They think that Michael Corbett was responsible for dumping the car with the body in the canal and all of that sort of thing.
B
That is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard.
A
I think it's fucking awful. It's so calculated, disgusting. It's one thing to have these disgusting plans to carry out yourself, but the more people are involved in some conspiracy, the grosser it gets. Like, oh, these people were like. Like, let's kill this nice lady.
B
Yeah.
A
Fucking crazy.
B
Wow.
A
So also witnesses testified and we'll find out who that they saw Corbett and another man near the canal in the moments before they say Diane's body was dumped there. He was seen at the canal then. Basically what they did is Spring and Summer. They basically did a non search.
B
Spring and Summer. Are you shitting me?
A
Of 82. Yeah, while he was gone.
B
I thought you were talking about two people named Spring and Summer.
A
No, no, no. I was like, what do you mean? Spring and summer 1982. While that's when he was telling everyone she's probably shacked up and all of that sort of thing. That's when the brother brought everything. Now, 1986 in May, Keating is on trial for corruption. Yeah, he is fucked. And he is going to be Sentenced for taking bribes to connect mob connected chop shop cops and all this type of shit as a part of Operation Safe Bet. Keating and former chief of the department's Intelligence Unit and Bruce Frasch, the former chief of Vice Control, were convicted of soliciting and accepting bribes from brothel and strip joint owners. And both were sentenced to. You, sir, they fuck off. 15 years in federal prison.
B
That's a good sentence. But he's so much scummier than that.
A
Oh, he's got more. Don't worry. That's just the first one. He's also married, but they found had, quote, several girlfriends. Of course he does. Yes, he does. So that's why he's doing all this then. There's other corrupt cops here. Three other former members of the Cook County Vice Squad, Ronald Napora, Robert Weineck and William Collins were sentenced to six months in prison for accepting bribes to overlook gambling and prostitution. One of the men's attorneys called the called the Vice Unit quote, a virtual toxic waste dump of corruption. The guy in charge is the most corrupt guy going.
B
Keating's one of the most scummy cops I've ever heard of in my life.
A
He's insanely scummy. So he is sentenced to 15 years and Keating allegedly, like we said, they talk about Keating, how he's still on the hook. Hook for being a part of the Diane Masters murder because he told an undercover agent that it was pretty humorous that she disappeared in such a timely manner.
B
So funny.
A
The other thing we find out, an affidavit filed in US District Court by FBI Special Agent Gerald Lee Boonton. Keating allegedly said Alan Masters had been questioned by police, but quote, that he wouldn't have any further problems concerning the disappearance of his wife.
B
Wife.
A
He's good. I talked to him and it's fine.
B
No big deal.
A
Boonton stated, I have examined the file of Cook County Sheriff's police regarding the disappearance of Mrs. Diane Masters. James Keating was personally involved in that investigation. He purposely.
B
Of course he was.
A
Wow. Keating's affidavit further alleges that during the November 27 conversation between the Larry White, the FBI agent and Keating, the sheriff's lieutenant asked the agent if he had been approved by the Outfit to open a strip joint in the Summit area. So the cop asked him, hey, you've gotten approval from upstairs, right? The mob guy said this was cool for you to do this. This guy said that he had the consent but needed to make contact with either the mayor or the Chief of Police. And Keating said that he talked with an Attorney by the name of Alan Masters. About getting this worked out for you. Keating claimed that Masters is quote, a terrific lawyer who can get anybody off any beef because he pays cops, judges and everybody else that's on tape talking to an FBI agent.
B
You fucking idiot.
A
You moron. Fucking idiot.
B
I'm so glad. I'm so glad. He's stupid as shit, right?
A
If these people weren't so stupid, you could totally hide this. Keating also allegedly said he spoke with Mass concerning Larry White's plan and told Masters that Larry White would be coming to see him. Keating provided Larry or Larry Winter White, Is that his name? Larry White. With two of Masters telephone numbers warning the agent that the attorney to contact the attorney, quote on a safe phone.
B
Hey, hey Masters, I'm sending you a guy. Don't worry, he's not an FBI agent. He told him a lot of things.
A
One thing I know he's not is an FBI agent. So you're good there. So what does Alan have to say?
B
What did he tell him?
A
Well, he's contacted by the South Town Star newspaper here and he said he'd like to review the allegations and I'll comment at that time.
B
I'd love to see what they know.
A
Horseshit. May of 87 federally indicting Michael Corbett, now the old police chief here for extortion and racketeering from his time as chief. He is going to plead guilty.
B
Yeah. Cuz he's a little bitch.
A
Yeah, he's. Well, he's gonna flip too. As we'll talk about here. They also said prosecutors said Corbett had set fire to a Willow Springs nightclub in an insurance cam while police chief. Wow, that is crazy. He is sentenced to. You sir, may fuck off. Four years in federal prison. Cause he pled.
B
Yeah, he's gonna get out.
A
Alan Masters this week labeled all of the. There was a television reporter's question of whether he saw his wife after she left the restaurant after that board meeting. And he called that quote, a ludicrous question. So ludicrous it'll be at the state fair this weekend
B
at every state fair American.
A
Early 1988. Allen gets married again.
B
Yep.
A
He marries his housekeeper. Yep. Janet Bower. June 13, 1988. Corbett is arrested. He is arrested for the murder plot now. And he confessed that he was the person who put Diane's car in the canal while saying, I didn't know she was in the trunk though. I just got rid of the car. He said he just sank cars. That was what he did. People paid him for it all the time. He doesn't know what's in the car. He said this one happened to be occupied. What do you want from me?
B
He's been dealing with the mob his whole life. He knows what to say.
A
Hey, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, how was I supposed to know? Any lawyer would have said that. Why would you open the trunk? You just did that. You already got in trouble for that. So that's not even a new thing. Keating was then arrested and then finally Alan Masters was arrested. Charged with racketeering and bribery plus planning, soliciting, aiding and abetting the murder of his wife. Wife too. Nobody is going to be like actual murder. It's all conspiracy to commit murder. Because they don't know who did it. Okay, so the federal government, they can't charge murder. That's a state crime. And this is a federal trial. So what can charge? Thanks to Operation Safe Bet and the guys who flipped, they can charge these three guys with constituting an ongoing criminal enterprise. A little mafia, basically. And the judge would see if that will fly, basically. So May 1989, Masters, Keating and Corbett all go on trial all together. Together. Because it's a RICO case. It's like a fucking mob case, essentially. So they're charged with conducting an enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity, which is rico. Rico. And that's how they do it. They're both provisions of the RICO Act. Having other people. The conspiracy. The statute provides that enterprise includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association or other legal entity and any union or group of individuals associated, in fact, although not a legal entity.
B
And CD said it all on tape. So you're all fucking.
A
You're all fucked. The statutory term pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of racketeering activity. Easy. Okay. Prosecution in the opening here. This is attorney. Assistant U.S. attorney Thomas A. Scorza. And he said that murder is really a crime of control. He said Allen Masters feared losing control more than anything in the world. Divorce was a threat to his control over his wife, his child and possibly some activities he was involved in which Diane knew about. Including helping prostitution and bribing judges, which she absolutely fucking knew about. They said Diane Masters made it home that night and very much surprised the man who was home as she got undressed. Maybe kicked off her shoes. That's when Diane Masters met her fate. She was struck by the same man who had struck her her twice before in connection with her infidelity. Alan Masters. So he'd beaten her up before is what he's saying there. The prosecutor Said that they include in the trial the motive of a salacious sex tape, which is the audio tape which has been destroyed, in which Masters heard his wife discussing the wine bottle incident. So they talk about all of this. They talk about 22 hours later, Corbett's two shots make it look like a fucking mob hit. Blah, blah, blah. He said the body was then stuffed into the trunk of the woman's Cadillac and the car was hidden in the garage. Late that night, Corbett fired two bullets and they said that he shot the woman to cover up any chance that her death might somehow resemble a domestic quarrel. He told the jury that Allen Masters had vowed upon learning of the divorce plans to destroy her. They talk about. About Nikaza, the wiretap guy on the kitchen playback and the death sentence pronounced from the countertop. That he would say, hey, I'm killing her. Bachmann on the $25,000 offer. He comes forward and says, they offered me $25,000 to kill her. That's the former cop. The operation safe bet tapes and agents establishing their enterprise. We have Genevieve Capstaff and her station wagon of Nosy Horseshoe. She's there too.
B
Masturbation machine.
A
Yep. She said, I was fucking two fingers deep when I saw her about 100 yards from her home. And I peeled off the insurance file. They claim that required Diane to have never come home was filed by him who she must have been home. So they have him on that too. So that's what I mean. The mail fraud, that's all refund.
B
She made it home. Then the doesn't. It's no good anymore. He can't hold claims.
A
If it's all of this to further a criminal enterprise, which it is, they've showed. Then it's rico, then you're fucked.
B
He's in so much trouble.
A
He's in a lot of trouble. Now the defense in their opening, they have to try to squash, quash some of this. They called, basically did on my Cousin Vinny. Everything that guy said is bullshit. Bullshit, he said. Everything they said is as phony as a $3 bill. Oh, boy. It's queer too. Did I mention that? Yeah, he said that's what he said. He says that for defense lawyers, the tape made Masters look less blameworthy. If she had provoked him. And if there was a crime, it was a crime of passion is what they said. Reasoning that this is. It's not. This isn't some massive conspiracy. It's a crime of passion. If that's what happened, which it didn't, by the way. I don't Think it did. Yeah. He went on at these scenarios, finer points, and basically, I mean, what the government put together is not what they're positive that happened, so it doesn't matter. But that's what they're pretty sure of.
B
We're pretty sure this is about what happened.
A
Yeah.
B
The details, they could tell us if they want to.
A
Otherwise this is probably all ears.
B
We'll listen.
A
I mean, couldn't be more ready to listen.
B
If you want to be more specific. We'll change the charges gladly.
A
I can add, I can amend them. Face these ones, we can do those. The defense attorney tried to shift the focus of the trial away from one of the three men on trial, who was Allen to the private investigator.
B
Oh.
A
Saying that Ted Nikaza, the one who did the. The wiretaps. He may have killed her, then removed her underwear. Do you know why? Because he's a freak who loves women's underwear is what the defense said. Now he's a guy who's flipped and is gonna testify for the prosecution. And he said that's who it was. They called it their panty fetish theory. She was murdered strictly for her underwear.
B
Those must have been fancy.
A
Well, now we know that there definitely weren't pantyhose underwear all in one. They had to be special.
B
Those ass ruffles ain't doing it.
A
Yeah. Wow. So the weird thing is later on, this is totally later on in an appeal, the judge keeps this all out and later said that he kept it out not because it's just inappropriate, it's because he didn't think it mattered. He thought it made this Nikaza guy even less likely to do the crime. Because quote, quote, this is in his fucking decision. Transvestites are usually not murderers, so it's cool. That's what he wrote.
B
I'm gonna die.
A
And that got published.
B
He should be embarrassed.
A
Yeah, I think he's dead by now, but still he should be embarrassed. While the jury was out of the courtroom, the judge listened to Nikaza's ex wife. They're gonna see if this can be heard by the jury, by the jurors. Nikaza's ex wife describe his underwear obsession. Wow. They did allow the ex wife to testify in front of the jury, but not about the underwear thing. She watched Nikiza have an argument with an imaginary friend one time. What she called it Nobody. Which he said, I won't do it. I won't kill anyone again. Okay. Now there's also a secretary, a police dispatcher for West Suburban McCook, who once worked as a secretary in Masters law office and said on the witness stand that while he was married to Diane, she had an affair with Masters too. So he has a lot of affairs. Robert Olson, a former Willow Springs policeman, testified that just as he was coming on duty at 11pm March 19, 1982, he heard two gunshots fired from the direction of the canal. Upon arriving there, he testified he saw Michael Corbett driving away from the area where the body was recovered.
B
Oh, my God.
A
However, FBI special agent David Parker testifies for the defense that during an interview in July or January of 83, this other cop implicated that he was standing with Corbett and another officer when they heard the shots fired. Then the three of them headed in different directions to investigate. So we don't know which is true. There's also Clyde Snow, an anthropologist specializing in the examination of skeletal remains. And he said that she was probably first struck on the front and back of her head with considerable amount of force. He says he based the conclusions on the angle of the bullets and the fact that that a cartridge from the gun used in the shooting was found in her sleeve. Like we said, then we get some dirty cops here. Vannick, Buckendall and Hein were all more than 20 years veterans with the police force here. During trial, it was revealed that Buckndall, a former vice unit commander, had been a partner in the late 70s with masters in the prostitution in the brothel. Then Alan Masters requesting they show all the autopsy photos and everything. Allen requests that he be excused during this testimony. It's just too hard for him to hear.
B
May I? Please. I just need a minute.
A
So he remained in the hallway while they went over everything. They should have said no, fuck you. No, we're all. The jury has to see it. What the fuck? Corbett, who was already in prison when he was brought to the trial, told prosecutors that Alan Masters had asked him to murder Diana. He also admitted to pushing the woman's car into the canal, though claimed he did not know the body was in the trunk. In court, despite testimony during the trial that reported the gunshots there. He's always denied murdering Diane Masters and they have no definitive anything. The verdict comes in and the jury finds. Let's see. Masters and Keating guilty on both counts and Corbett guilty on the conspiracy count, which is the only one he was charged with because the statute of limitations had expired on other violations that they were going on with him now. The special verdict form gave jurors a checklist of racketeering acts to check off. They checked that Masters planned and solicited the murder. They checked Keating's aiding abetting and obstruction during the murder. They checked Corbett's sinking of the car and the line for the murder itself. They just left it blank like we don't know who did it. So just blank on that. So they found everything they needed and just didn't decline to answer the last question there. So they are all found guilty, like we said, of all that stuff. Now, June 89, the judge gives Masters and Keating the same sentence here. Oh no, I'm sorry, different. Masters gets you, sir, may fuck off. 20 years and another 20 years. And yeah, 20 and 20 and yeah, another 20 and so they end up with basically 20 years but concurrent. 40 years but concurrent. So it's 20 years. So they get back now Keating gets 20 years and 15 years. So 35 years total and Corbett gets an extra 20 years. The judge also fines Masters $250,000 on the conspiracy count and ordered all three defendants to forfeit criminal proceedings of $42,000. These are all pre sentencing things. There were other counts in the indictment based on the two RICO counts, but the jury acquitted them on those counts. Okay. By the way, where's their daughter during all this?
B
What the fuck's going on? I hope Randy got her.
A
No, she lives with Jan Bauer at that point.
B
Oh, the fucking new wife.
A
The new nanny wife.
B
I like that.
A
Eventually Randy will, I believe, get custody of the kids. And he will end up working out an arrangement so the kids can see Alan and have contact with Alan because it is their father. So that's whatever I guess they want to. And he felt bad. So even after this, they have no, no one's been convicted of the actual case killing. It's all conspiracy to do it. But nobody is actually. They didn't say definitively this person's convicted of pulling the trigger. Doesn't happen. So Masters appeals. He attacks the whole architecture of rico. Basically he said, how can a lawyer, two cops be a lawyer and two cops be an enterprise? That's not an enterprise. Now there's also police departments and law firms attached to that, which makes it. That helps. And the court. The statute says enterprise includes, not means, an association, and an association will in fact will do fine. Do bribery schemes plus a wife murder form a pattern? And the appeal says yes, because the murder was in the enterprise servicing its principal. So the convictions stand, but the sentence gets vacated on a technicality about whether the new sentencing guidelines should have applied since a concealment conspiracy ran past the guidelines. November 87, effective date. Masters demanded guideline resentencing Doing the math that the guidelines would force a lower number. The court says, okay, resentencing sentencing, that's fine. You get that. So Keating, who had adopted all of Master's arguments, also gets that same thing.
B
Ditto.
A
So that sounds good. Sentence over terms. Masters and Keating had argued that the judge erred when he sentenced them to prison for terms of 40 and 35 years respectively by not adhering to the 87 federal sentencing guidelines. Sentence overturned. Okay. Masters getting re sentenced. His attorney argued that he should be resentenced to a prison term that would result in his release after 17 years. To do otherwise would result in a prison term more than he could have gotten if he was sentenced to murder in state court. The attorney argued that under those guidelines, the seriousness of Master's offense called for life in prison. Now the judge, what he does is sentences him to another. You sir, may fuck off. 40 years in prison, but under new federal sentencing guidelines, which means that he must serve at least 24 years before he's eligible for parole. Now before, he would have been eligible for parole in less than 10 years. So he argued himself into much more,
B
into 14 years more.
A
A much more substantial sentence. Yeah. And a maximum of 30 years before he gets the parole hearing. So the statutory max on the counts was 40 years. The court stacked them and gave him 40 years, which is amazing. So he's an idiot. He litigated his own stupidity there. The judge, one judge said judges and genies have this in common. By granting supplicants exactly what they wish for, they may produce misery and regret.
B
Yeah. Don't ask for a ten foot cock.
A
Yeah, that's what you want. You want a ten foot cock. There you go. All right now, good luck hiding it.
B
Now you're a sex offender.
A
Put that in the bed of your pickup truck when you go to the store and enjoy. Oh man. So Keating tried to yank his own resentencing request back once he saw what happened. But the court said, nuh homie, you filed those papers back in the fucking jail. So Diane's sister in law, Randy's wife Kathy said you've got to be happy that he'll be in there longer. You got to love that. Yeah, that's good. Now there's been several books and shit on this case. One, none of them are on like none of them are Kindle or audio or anything. They are order the hardcover. Made in 1991. That's the only way to get these books. One is shattered. A true crime story of Marriage, murder and cover up in the Suburbs by Bob Barbara Schaff. That's on Amazon to buy the actual book. Another book is Blind A Murder, A Scandal and a Brother. Search to Bear the Truth, also available on Amazon. Not in any convenient way to read. Then in 1992, there's a movie based on the Blind justice book called Deadly Matrimony, which is not the worst name for an episode of this show. No, not terrible.
B
It's about on the nose, isn't it?
A
It's a little. It's the only thing. Why I would go. It's kind of on the nose, you
B
know, it's a bit too much.
A
So in this, there. Alan, by the way, is played by Treat Williams, who looks nothing like Alan.
B
Who the fuck is that?
A
Look up Treat Williams and tell me if he's a fat guy with a mustache right now. Right now. Check it out. Everyone at home, if you want to
B
Google treats spelled like trick or treat.
A
Yep. Trick or Treat Williams.
B
What? He's handsome.
A
Exactly. He's a handsome guy. He's been in a ton of shit.
B
That's crazy.
A
Absolutely not. Alan Masters.
B
He got him.
A
That's who played him. Fat guy with a big mustache played with that guy, you know, who played the honest cop.
B
Who is it?
A
He was a thin guy. He gets played by Brian Dennehy. Thanks a lot.
B
I know exactly who that is.
A
Yeah, you made me a fucking fat, alcoholic looking fuck. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Oh, man, that's messed up.
B
Did she get played by Wilford Brimley?
A
She get played by an actress? I don't know.
B
All right.
A
Embith South. Yes. South African born. Embith Davitz is David. David with a TZ at the end.
B
Holy.
A
So that's who they get to play her? I don't know who that is, but yeah, they talk about the whole thing. Treat Williams says there are certain people who start by breaking the law just a little bit. But for some it remains just a little bit. But for him, it was like opening a floodgate. Yeah, now I get to play him. 1993, Allen is trying to take his request to hear an appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. And they say, no, thank you. We gotta understand. We don't wanna hear this. 1990s, Michael Corbett flips and becomes a cooperating witness against the Mafia.
B
Is he gonna talk about a murder?
A
He's gonna talk about the Mafia?
B
Yeah.
A
Probably nothing he's involved in, but he's gonna talk about a whole lot of shit other people did. Cause he knows a lot of bad shit. That happened over the last 30 years. He was connected to the highest guy in the whole Chicago mob.
B
He's in a lot of trouble if he does that.
A
He is, but he also gets paroled or no, I'm sorry. Yeah, he'll end up getting paroled and
B
a little bit of participation programs yet.
A
Oh, well, not really, because he does something that would disqualify him for that, as we'll talk about.
B
Corbett, what are you doing?
A
1996. Will Alan get paroled? Okay. Well, they said apparently. A US Parole Commission confirmed Tuesday he'll have a parole hearing, which it's supposed to be 24 years before a parole hearing. It's been six, seven. The hearing was conducted by the commission's review board at a U.S. medical center for federal prisoners where Masters is an inmate. The family is pissed, by the way. I believe that they're fucking pissed, Randy. He couldn't understand why the parole commission didn't inform him of the hearing that they had at least tell me about. He said considering that he and his family were under FBI protection as the case played out through the mid-80s. You could have at least fucking told me that this guy might get out, he said. I was always under the impression that I would be informed. I'm very disappointed. Another township resident, Palos Township resident Lee Harris, who served on the community college board with Diane, said she was outraged when friends and family were not told of this. She said this is a callous disregard for the local citizens who stood up and volunteered whatever information they had to law enforcement to help them put a very deadly criminal in jail. It would appear as far as the federal law enforcement officials are concerned, once they have garnered a successful prosecution, to hell with the concern and interest of those who help them with that successful prosecution. One has to wonder if the federal justice is simply a numbers game, the numbers being that of successful prosecutions, not the safety of the public. Public at large. Yeah. Every prosecutor federally boasts I have a 97% conviction rate. Well, yeah, everything's set up for you in federal court. Of course you do. You'd be a fucking moron to not have a 97% conviction rate anyway. The spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prison said that Masters became eligible for parole in 96, but has not received it. So they denied him parole. Apparently. Apparently, Corbett, on the other hand, he is going to be released from prison. They said he's set to be released in 1999.
B
Yeah.
A
The parole board heard his case in September of 97 and issued its decision on October 4 of 97. Corbett's release is contingent with his continued good behavior in prison. So he gets out, moves to Florida, and writes a book, which that automatically puts you out of the protection program because you're right under your name. You're writing a book under your real name. Yeah, Henry Hill was already out of that when he wrote Wise Guy, and then that's that one. So the book he writes is called Double Deal, and he writes it with Sam Giancana's nephew, who's also named Sam Giancana. Yeah, by the time the late 90s came around, all those guys that were kind of like the older guys were dead. Some of them were acting like they weren't in the mob anymore. And it's time to write books now, and now they all do podcasts, so who knows? So in this book, he actually says that he was the one who put the Cadillac into the canal, just like he said in court. So October 9, 2000, here. Allen, by the way, had been in early 2000, he was transferred to the Pekin Federal Correctional Institution. And he apparently gets sick. And October 9, 2000, he dies. Oh, good, good. Alan's dead. I think he's 65. Fuck off, you dickhead.
B
At least he died miserable.
A
Yep. And a letter from the grave emerges.
B
Stop it.
A
Oh, we're gonna get an answer to this fucking case, by the way.
B
What do you say?
A
We're gonna get an answer. Prosecutors said that Alan Masters confirmed that he beat his wife to death with a pistol in the driveway of their home.
B
With a pistol.
A
His statement was not allowed to be used at trial. That's why they had to keep this. Part of the thing is they weren't allowed to release this until he died. So once he died, they said that's why they were fine with never getting a trigger man, because they know they got the trigger man because it was him. It was him. And so he's the one. He said she was already dead when she was shot. The shooting was only to make it look like a mop. It was pointless.
B
He just hit her in the face and crushed her skull with the pistol. Twice.
A
Two pistol whips crushed her skull. She was dead. Wow, that's fucked up. July 27, 2004, Corbett dies, too. Of cancer. That it's 60. Good for you, dick face. Keating. I don't know what the fuck happened to Keating. I don't know why he's gotta be dead by now.
B
I hope. Ass cancer.
A
Born in 45. So he's. If he's not, he's in the early 80s. If he's not dead. The Masters kids, by the way, they believe that Andra ended up becoming a Chicago area attorney.
B
Really?
A
And both of Allen's sons were also both said to have practiced law in the Chicago area as well. So all three of his kids apparently became attorneys. And the murder house, it was just for sale, so it just closed. Really? I just found it. It was closed. I don't know if it's the exact house or if they built a new one or what. It looks like it's got some newer stuff on the outside, but they could have just done the face of it. That's easy because it says built in and there's no built in date on here. Dash dash. It's on an acre and a half. Four bedroom, three bath, 2,229 square feet in ground, pool in the back and all that.
B
Very modest.
A
Yeah, but nice one and a half acres.
B
Yeah, it's nice place.
A
I'm not sure. That's why I think it's probably a new house. I think there was a bigger house there and they probably. There may have been two or two. This house, those 675,000 bucks it just sold for. So there you go, everybody. Palos Park, Illinois. Holy shit, is that a long road of.
B
That's fascinating.
A
When I said exposing corruption, brothels, bribes and cold blooded murder in the beginning, I wasn't fucking around. It's deep. That is a deep ass case and I can't tell you guys how hard that was to put all that shit together. I believe so much. Oh, my God, my head's about to pop here. So thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed that, tell everyone about it. Get on whatever app you're on, give us five stars. Netflix thumbs up is huge. Do that. It helps a shitload. So thank you everybody that does that. Certainly, certainly. Listen to our other shows, Crime in sports, which we promise you don't have to like sports. You have to find us mildly amusing and like a crazy story and you'll love it. And your stupid opinions, which is just fucking hilarious. So check that out. Listen to those. Follow us on social media. We'remalltown. Murder on Instagram, Smalltown Pot on Facebook, you can find that. You can go to shutupandgivememurder.com, go there, get there and get tickets for live shows, everybody.
B
Oh, baby.
A
We are going to be in Milwaukee at the Pabst on September 18th. Not a lot of tickets left for that. Get those now. Minneapolis at the State Theater the 19th of September. Get those tickets too. Get them right now. Milwaukee's beating you. Minneapolis. Are you prepared for that? I don't think you are.
B
I love Minneapolis.
A
We fucking love Minneapolis. Jesus Christ. Yes. Can't wait. So do that and come see us there. Also the rest of the year we're in Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Tarrytown andBar Boston. ShutUpAndGiveMerder.com is where you get all that shit. Patreon is something that you need because man, we pump out that Patreon. Patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com CrimeInSports. Just like the name of our other show there. That's where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get every damn drop of shit that we put out. Including, as soon as you subscribe, you're going to get access to to almost 400 bonus episodes that you've never heard before. Then new ones every other week. It's a whole other feed. It's great stuff this week which you're gonna get for Crime and Sports. And it's five bucks a cup of coffee is all it is. Come on. Crime and Sports. Kirby Puckett this week, the beloved Minnesota Twin center fielder there and then for small town murder. Maternal instinct. The lady who cut the baby out of a woman said, oh no, it's mine. I just had it in the car real quick.
B
Something's wrong with.
A
Oh, that interrogation footage is crazy too. She's a nut. Her excuses are crazy, dude. They're fucking nuts. We'll get into all of them, trust me. So check that out. Patreon.com CrimeanSports in addition to that, you also get everything we put out ad free. All three shows ad free. And on top of that, and we don't mean just the Patreon. We mean regular shit. All ad free. Then you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right now. Jimmy, do me a favor. Hit me with the names of the most wonderful people in the world who would never conspire with multi jurisdictional police departments to kill us and have our ultimate demise. Hit me with them right now.
B
This week's executive producer, Peyton Meadows. Happy hour in Hillsboro, Texas. Kip, Kristen and Jamie for Julie. They're going to be in Wisconsin. Janice Hill, Gary Howard In New Orleans, Angela Brawford Taylor, Jane Cooper, Emily Cropper, Eileen Herbertson, Laura Loudecker McGrew, Brandon Adams, Sarah Yarnace, MJ and Scat James. His wife is Christy. She's going through cancer treatments.
A
That sucks, man. Well, Hearts go out to you and our other producers are with you, my brother.
B
Kristen Leach, Sarah Maynard, Katie with no last name. Serena Hillman, Willow Tucker, Colton Adams, Stephen Figueroa, Stephen Kirkman, Amber Starkey, Aaron McEl. McKelvey, Andrea with no last name Michaela Gilchrist, Steve Israel, John with no last name Johnny D. Kitty with no last name. Soco Microblading, Caitlin Courtney, Silas Lockwood, Jody Wilson, Sandy with no last name. Terry. Nope, that's Taylor, Sir Heinrich Paula with no last name. Brandon Goens, David Rife, Jody Hayes, Tyler Rakou, Kathy Bellinger. Bollinger. Sy McIlwain, Brenna Dobrolski, Rachel Newcomb. Newcomb. Marcy Brown, Marsha Thompson, Brianna Nelson, Che with no last name. Kathryn Mitchell, Brittany Brown, Colorado Kit Monroe, Danielle Buscher, Susan B. Ashley Elias Wilson, Molly Bency, Jamie Moskado, Ashley Lichtenberg, Trisha Burch, Ethan Rochal, Sage Rachals, Arlene Teplinsky. Yep. Kayla Peters, Rob with no last name. Holly Fish Jamrog. Lillian Cooper. Who's you gonna call? Le Buster, evidently. Savannah with no last name. Laura Miller. Angela with no last name. Jayton Lee, Jatin Perhaps Star Carol Carol, Alina with no last name. Elena Alina, Mary Deskovich, Mir with no last name. Andrew Solomon, Carl Griffin, Peter's brother Pam with no last name. Rachel Tresenberg, Treisenberg, Tasha Franklin, Lottie Hanrahan, Nando with no last name. Melvin with no last name Brian Gross, Gwen Valinace, Charlie and Crystal Johnson, Heather McCarthy, Nicholas Rhodes, Kristen Carlson, Tanya with no last name Brandon Doreen, Lindsey Wood. Nope, that's Lisa Wood. Nick Jackson, Aman. Amen. A man. Aman Ailes.
A
It's a man.
B
Deanna or Dina Burritt. Burr Chat, Joe Schmalsteg. Small stag? I don't know.
A
Small stag. I'm just copying. Whatever you say.
B
It's. I believe it's German of some sort. I can't pronounce it. Jade Bernowski, Stephen Fawcett, Sarah with no last name. Paige Lewis, Emily Hudson, Tyler Stevens, Warren with no last name. Alicia and Cat Denim. Paul Long, Lord Adam, Mike Patterson, Peter Schlick, Craig and Tiffany. Lori Harris. Oh Shala. Justine Anderson, Shanita G. Lindell D. Lauren Lynn, Grace Knowlton, L.L. kessler, Ashley Sievers, Abby Hubbard S. Jean, Tina with no last name. Steve Irwin. Probably not. Walker stinson, Angela Cohen, McKinley Johnson, Medora Stevens, Hendy Fairchild, PGQ Norso Kessley. I think that's Kelsey. TJ, Jen Bennett, Barbara Taranova, Terry Owens, Taylor Jane Cooper, James Dosher. Dosher Kate Hrebitz. Elin Person. Drew with no last name. Robbie with no last name. Lindsay Pumpelly. Andrew with no last name. Chris. Coble. Coble Cobley. Justine. Justine. Justine. Weatherman with a Y. Where the U would be. Tiffan. Ds. Rhiannon Henry. Mary S. Valerie with no last name. Danielle. Nope, that's Daniel. Hey, man. Cora with no last name. Kimberly Jennings. Fumbles. No last name. Carsten spry stack or stace03. Katie Goodwin. Nicole Belling. Sue McKay. Sue McKay. Gabrielle with no last name. Retro Wrestling Archive. Jessica Freeze. Smooth Hoosier. That's good. Annie Terrell. Nicole Rushton. Hugh Janus. You know, great guy. Riley Jones. Lisa Dorsey. Thomas Vicanti. Cat with no Last name. Sadie McIver. Despina Huerta. Kristen Valerie. William Heiser. Mr. Moose. And Karen Hall. Thank you all so much.
A
Thank you so much, everybody.
B
Fuck.
A
You guys are great. Thank you. Goddammit, you're the best. We appreciate the shit out of you. If you want to find us anywhere on social media or anywhere else, shut up and give me. Murder.com is really the place to go. That's home base for this whole operation. So go there, find your merch, find your cool stuff and keep coming back and seeing us week after week after week. Because until next week, everybody, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Hey, everybody. Listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi. Hi.
B
Hello.
A
Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy too. And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for dates.
B
Yes.
A
Come see a live show. The 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now. Starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets, though, to your stupid opinions. On the 21st of March, Salt Lake City, sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30, we have September 18, Milwaukee. September 19, Minneapolis. October 3 in Dallas. October 16 in San Jose. October 17 in Sacramento. November 13 in Terrytown. November 14 in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people. You're going to have fun, make some friends like crazy and make some new friends. Come out and see us. Shut up and give me. Murder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now while they're hot.
B
See you on the road.
Release Date: July 16, 2026
Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
In this episode, James and Jimmie dive into one of their wildest cases yet: the 1982 murder of Diane Masters in Palos Park, Illinois. What appears, at first, to be the simple case of a missing wife in an idyllic, upper-middle-class suburb rapidly unspools into a web of infidelity, mob connections, police corruption, and a long-standing criminal enterprise. The episode features harrowing details about domestic abuse, the intersection of organized crime and law enforcement, and the persistence of family members seeking justice. True to form, the hosts interweave jaw-dropping research with their signature irreverent, dark humor, making for an episode that’s both disturbing and endlessly entertaining.
(06:45–21:27)
Alan & Diane Masters
(22:13–54:13)
Diane’s Later Life:
(54:13–60:00)
(22:13, 96:59–101:15)
(101:15–108:42)
(124:17–128:40)
(133:03–157:28)
(142:29–153:38)
(164:53–181:08)
James and Jimmie deliver one of their most intricate, scandalous, and densely researched episodes, blending black comedy with jaw-dropping criminal reality. This story exposes how small-town surface respectability can conceal unimaginable darkness, and how, in the end, it took the courage of women and family members to hold powerful, connected men to account.
If you missed this episode, you missed a true-crime saga of epic proportions: Chicago suburbia, mobsters, murder, and a cast of characters straight out of a Martin Scorsese script—except it’s all true.