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00:167-Matter-15, we're code 6 at the 911 call location.
00:20Any further contact from the distressed individual?
00:22Negative. Do you want me to start additional units?
00:24Uh, no. Give us a minute to scope it out first.
00:27You ready?
00:28Do I have a choice?
00:29That's the spirit.
00:38L.A.P.D., we've received a distress call from this location.
00:41We are making entry.
00:46Oh.
00:51Oh. Do you feel that?
00:53Feel what?
00:54Uh, something evil's in here.
00:56It sure smells like it.
01:06I can't die.
01:08It's inside of me.
01:10It won't let me die.
01:12It won't let me die.
01:14Elise, show yourself.
01:19I can't die.
01:20It's inside of me.
01:21It won't let me die.
01:22Don't touch that, all right?
01:23Just call this in.
01:24Call it in.
01:25I need an R.A. to my location for a stabbing victim.
01:28So I usually sit right next to camera to keep the eyeline tight?
01:30Then I'll just sit on the other side.
01:32No, because then you'll split his look.
01:34Oh, hey, hi.
01:35Thanks, uh, thanks again for sitting down with me.
01:37Us?
01:38What?
01:39Oh, right, us.
01:40Uh, why are you filming?
01:42Oh, I just wanted to document the new partnership.
01:44Abigail was very excited.
01:45It's not a partnership.
01:46It's totally a partnership.
01:47The judge was very clear.
01:48The judge?
01:49My name is Abigail Tierney.
01:51I'm currently trapped inside a secret lab at Westview Psychiatric.
01:54All attempts at escape have proven fruitless.
01:57I may have inadvertently used some of Abigail's footage in my last documentary without gaining
02:01the proper permissions.
02:02Translation, he stole my intellectual property, I sued, and the judge gave him a choice.
02:07Pay me 200,000 damages or give me equal partnership in his next project.
02:11He never said equal, but you know what?
02:13Never mind.
02:14Let's focus on the story that we're here to tell.
02:16Seat.
02:19Perhaps the most shocking case of murder and mayhem we've ever seen.
02:23Would you say that's a fair assessment?
02:24Um.
02:26No, no, stay back, stay back, stay back, you don't understand.
02:28Okay, relax here, okay?
02:29We're trying to help you.
02:30Who stabbed you?
02:32I stabbed myself.
02:34It's inside of me.
02:35I've tried everything else.
02:36I can't kill it.
02:38I can't die.
02:39See?
02:40No, don't pull that, don't pull it out.
02:41Oh, God.
02:45No, he died instantly.
02:47I mean, the wound was fatal.
02:49You can't stab yourself in the heart and survive.
02:51But the way the knife was lodged, he wasn't bleeding.
02:57Once he pulled it out.
02:58It was Blood Fountain City.
03:00Not exactly, but...
03:01As shocking as that was, it was far from the most shocking thing you found.
03:04Oh, we should get him to say that to set up the opening credits.
03:07That's not...
03:08We don't put words in people's mouths, it's a documentary.
03:13Yeah, it was, uh, straight up crazy.
03:17You don't think that there's a body in there?
03:20Cool.
03:21And they have finally found it.
03:25Please don't kill us.
03:26We will join your cult.
03:27Yeah.
03:28Oh, God.
03:29You arrived on scene as the sergeant's supervisor?
03:32Yes.
03:32I got there before the ambulance.
03:35Not that there was any aid they could have rendered.
03:37Is there a reason you didn't want us to interview you with Tim?
03:39Um, what?
03:41No.
03:42We're just, I'm just shaking it up.
03:44Let's, let's stay focused.
03:46Um, were you the first to recognize the victim?
03:48Uh, sort of.
03:50Um, I, I thought I knew his face, but it wasn't until we ran his prints that we got a
03:54name.
03:54Rich Riley was retired LAPD.
03:57He had been with the department for 30 years and was a little bit of a legend.
04:00Mostly because he made a series of training videos from the mid-90s till his retirement in 2015.
04:07Which, by modern standards, are a little cringe.
04:11Hey everybody, Rich Rowley here with another installment of...
04:17Now today, we're gonna be talking about proper cuffing technique.
04:22Excuse me, officer?
04:23I hurt my shoulder at the gym.
04:25Would you mind cuffing me in front?
04:29Pretty lady like you.
04:32What's the worst that could happen?
04:37You're welcome.
04:41Rich was a trip.
04:43The life of the party, at least early in his career.
04:46Then as the years went on, he became a little, uh, crazy.
04:51Crazy how?
04:52He was deep into conspiracy theories.
04:55He, uh, had a real thing for cults and cabals.
04:58To be fair, Los Angeles does have a pretty dark history.
05:01But Rich took it to the next level.
05:03And his training videos got more and more intense because of it.
05:06We finally got around to updating the videos this last year, but that caused quite a controversy with some of
05:11the older officers.
05:12I mean, they said we were being insensitive.
05:15Why would updating training videos be insensitive?
05:17Even three years on, a lot of his friends were still mourning his death and saw the videos as a
05:22way to keep his memory alive.
05:23I'm sorry, I thought Rich died six months ago.
05:26Yeah, he did.
05:28I'm talking about the first time.
05:30Divers are searching for any signs of retired Los Angeles police officer Richard Rowley after a sailing trip gone wrong.
05:38Coast Guard responded to a distress call this morning from Raleigh's wife,
05:41who says the 55-year-old fell overboard after the sailboat he was captaining was struck by a rogue wave.
05:49Anytime someone disappears from a boating trip, it automatically sets off alarm bells.
05:53Why is that?
05:54It's just an ideal place to cover up crime, throw a body overboard, weigh it down.
05:58The likelihood of us recovering it before it becomes fish food is low.
06:02And the circumstances were suspicious.
06:04By all accounts, Rich was a skilled sailor.
06:06It was a calm day, and the only witness to his demise was Darla Phillips,
06:11his on-again, off-again girlfriend who he married five days prior.
06:15So you suspected foul play?
06:19Not necessarily, but we couldn't rule it out.
06:21Why wasn't Rich wearing a light vest?
06:23He never did.
06:24He was a strong swimmer.
06:26He must have hit his head when he fell.
06:29Why didn't you jump in after him?
06:30I'm scared of dark water.
06:32Dark water?
06:33Water you can't see the bottom of.
06:36Just blackness, with God knows what lurking below.
06:40You stand to inherit Rich's entire police pension.
06:42That's quite a bit of money.
06:44How dare you?
06:45I just watched the love of my life die in front of me.
06:50We don't know that for sure yet.
06:52They haven't found his body.
06:54Unless you know more that you're not telling us.
06:59Go to hell!
07:00This interview is over.
07:01Did it ever occur to you that Rich might still be alive?
07:04As we said, we couldn't rule anything out.
07:06But there was no evidence that he'd faked his death.
07:09Until he turned up dead again.
07:11Needless to say, we had a few more questions for Darla.
07:14Helping someone fake their death isn't a crime.
07:16I checked.
07:17You're right, but profiting off of that death, collecting Rich's pension and his life insurance,
07:22that's fraud.
07:23Not to mention the resources that were wasted trying to recover his body, he could be facing
07:28some serious charges.
07:30So, tell us, why did Rich want to fake his death?
07:35After Rich retired, he kind of fell apart.
07:39His drinking got worse, and his paranoia, he was always a little intense, but it started
07:46to get scary.
07:47He covered all his windows with newspapers.
07:51He started writing down the license plates of passing cars.
07:55What was he so afraid of?
07:56He said there was this group, like a secret society of dangerous and powerful people.
08:04He'd been onto them for years, but he said that they found out about him, that he was
08:09in danger because of it.
08:10It was too much for me, so I broke up with him.
08:14And then a year later, he showed up on my doorstep and asked me to help him fake his death
08:21in return for his pension.
08:23I needed the money, so we got married, and we did the deed, and I never saw him again.
08:29So you have no idea why there was a coffin in his garage?
08:33Uh, we'll probably hold this piece of the puzzle until the end of the first act.
08:36You know, hit the audience with a twist when it's dramatically expedient.
08:40Yeah, seems manipulative.
08:41Well, all good storytelling is, so...
08:42Uh, just tell us about finding the coffin.
08:45Uh, so once I arrived and we secured the crime scene,
08:49we cleared the rest of the house, and then we moved on to the garage.
08:56Whoa.
08:57Oh.
08:58You don't think there's...
08:59That there's a body in there?
09:00I absolutely do.
09:02Okay, are we gonna open it?
09:03Because I don't want to open it.
09:06What do you think?
09:07I mean, it's clearly been dug up.
09:10Given the state of the coffin, it's clearly been underground for a few years.
09:13If there is a body in there, it's likely long dead.
09:17Unless...
09:17Unless what?
09:18Unless he put a fresh victim in an old coffin.
09:25Oh, okay.
09:26Got it.
09:27Yeah.
09:27Oh.
09:29Oh, God.
09:35The body belonged to a 54-year-old truck driver named Marcus Ford,
09:40who was the victim of an unsolved homicide back in 2020.
09:44How was he killed?
09:45Uh, he was stabbed in the heart.
09:47Just like Rich.
09:49Wait.
09:50Wait.
09:50Rich murdered Marcus Ford.
09:52Did I just solve the case?
09:53Uh, no, we were able to alibi Rich out.
09:57He was hospitalized with double pneumonia the day Marcus died.
10:00Medical records say he was so weak that, uh, he could barely get out of bed.
10:03Or that's what he wanted you to think.
10:05Moving on.
10:06Digging up a body is no easy task.
10:08Why would Rich go to all that trouble?
10:10Initially, we thought it was simply the demented act of a clearly disturbed mind.
10:15And in some ways, it was.
10:17But then we found the tattoo.
10:20At first, it was a little bit difficult to make out exactly what it was.
10:23A half a decade of decomp does a number on the skin.
10:27But when we looked back at the case file, there was a photo of it taken during the original autopsy.
10:32That's actually kind of sick.
10:33I wonder if there's a way to track down the artist.
10:35I've been meaning to start the sleeve on my other arm.
10:38Like, uh...
10:38To my collaborator's point, lots of people have tattoos.
10:42What was it about this one that jumped out at you?
10:44Well, something about it was familiar to both of us, but we couldn't place it.
10:49So we started asking around, and the answer couldn't come from a more unlikely place.
10:56I watched the Rich Rally training videos more than any person alive.
11:00So I recognized the symbol immediately.
11:04Sometimes citizens panic when they can't get in touch with their friends or loved ones.
11:08That is why we always advise the public to wait 24 hours before reporting someone missing.
11:14While most missing person reports stem from a lapse in communication,
11:17every once in a while, you'll encounter a true, workable case.
11:22Officer, help! My sister is missing!
11:25When's the last time you saw her?
11:26Last night at the bar. Her boyfriend said she never made it home.
11:30You always want to take a report like this one? Seriously.
11:34So Rich did the same symbol in his training videos that was tattooed on the body of a murder victim.
11:39What did you think that meant?
11:42Uh, I don't know.
11:43I can't believe I'm saying this, but Smitty was right.
11:46In Lesson 187, the tattoo symbol was hidden in the background.
11:50Although, the instructions to wait 24 hours before reporting a missing person are wildly outdated.
11:55Uh, anyways, it got me thinking.
11:57What if Rich put messages in other videos?
12:00What kind of messages?
12:02I'm not totally sure yet.
12:03I binged every single Rich training video I could get my hands on.
12:06Yeah, it's been a fun few nights.
12:07And I did find a few other possible leads, but there's a problem.
12:11The department's archive is incomplete, and without all of the videos, I can't be sure that I'm not missing a
12:15vital piece of information.
12:16So, what happened to the missing videos?
12:18So, when the training topics and the videos become outdated because of new laws or protocols, the department has to
12:25make new ones.
12:26And the obsolete videos are supposed to be digitized and archived for historical record.
12:31But Rich is, we're just gone.
12:34Gone is then destroyed?
12:35Like a cover-up?
12:36No one's saying that.
12:38Most likely it was a human error.
12:40You know, someone got lazy, didn't archive them.
12:43I tried reaching out to the production company that made the videos to see if they had any copies left.
12:48Bad news is, they went out of business a few years back and auctioned off all their equipment.
12:53What's the good news?
12:54Well, I managed to track down the auction logs, and I actually know the person who purchased the studio's old
13:01hard drives.
13:02Careful, I'm very ticklish. Like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
13:06Same. I hear it's, um, a sign of intelligence.
13:09Is that a fact?
13:10Then I am smart as the dickens.
13:13So, you purchased hard drives from Speak Now Studios?
13:16Yeah, Dropout was still in its infancy. I was building the company from the ground up.
13:20We had to be smart about how we were spending our money.
13:23We bought a huge amount of equipment secondhand.
13:26Hard drives, cameras, wigs.
13:28What? Wait. You bought secondhand wigs?
13:30Give them a little shake before we put them on.
13:32That's awesome.
13:33Do you still have that wig connect? Because I'd love a referral. My guy is...
13:38Back on track.
13:39The hard drives you bought contain police training videos.
13:42Did you happen to watch any of them?
13:43Of course. Rich Rowley, right?
13:45We were obsessed with those videos.
13:47We probably watched them like a dozen times.
13:49I'm Rich Rowley and this is Survive the Streets.
13:53That's great.
13:54Vic can do the best impression.
13:55Do you think you'd be able to make copies for us?
13:58I totally would, but I can't because we wiped all of those hard drives to use as servers months ago.
14:04Sorry, I couldn't be more help.
14:06You'll still feature this interview, right?
14:10Yeah, probably not.
14:11Wait, you said you and the Dropout crew watched the video like dozens of times, right?
14:16Yes, sometimes on an edible. Mostly sober.
14:18I have an idea.
14:20Okay, so then you'd be like, don't forget to check the closet or you'll die.
14:22So, I don't know.
14:23I think it's a little bit more like, like, if you forget to check the closet,
14:26Freddy, Jason, and Chucky will rip off your scrum.
14:29Okay, I think there's less foot stuff. I feel like he's like,
14:33and then your crazy met the ex-girlfriend who's been hiding in the hallway closet
14:37will chainsaw your face when you get home because you forgot to clear the room.
14:41Clear the room!
14:42Check the room!
14:43I think he was so close to pulling out a gun.
14:45What are you guys doing?
14:46That's a great question.
14:47They're, uh, they're reenacting the police training videos
14:48since you guys wiped them off your hard drive.
14:50Oh, the Rich Rowley ones.
14:51Those are so funny.
14:53I actually stole one of the hard drives so I could watch it when I'm in the tub.
14:56Can you talk about your time, man?
14:57A little self-care, you know, trying to relax a little more.
15:00It's not working.
15:01Can we have it?
15:01If you want to borrow it, I could, you know.
15:03No, I think this is actually working great.
15:06Okay.
15:06We can keep this up.
15:07We're riffing.
15:08Clearing the room!
15:09Help us.
15:09Okay, I finally finished watching all of the Rich training videos and there is a lot.
15:14Take lesson 277.
15:20My Azaleas!
15:22A cold case where victim Azalea Robinson was found stabbed near a ski resort.
15:27You're kidding.
15:28No.
15:29And in Lesson 290, Rich is holding a folder with a post-it note on the back with a brown
15:33star drawn on it.
15:35I'm lost.
15:35Right.
15:36So I looked up the cold cases to see if there were any victims with names like
15:40Star or Stella, and there was one hit, Stella Brown, also found stabbed in the chest.
15:46In all, Lucy found clues pointing to seven different cold cases.
15:51But why was Rich hiding the names of murder victims in police training videos?
15:54Based on what we could piece together, he believed he had stumbled upon a conspiracy,
15:58a series of connected murders committed by person or persons unknown.
16:02If that were the case, why not just report his suspicion?
16:05He was a cop for 30 years.
16:07Well, Rich had a bit of a reputation within the department for, shall we say,
16:12magical thinking.
16:14So, unfortunately, his theory was dismissed out of hand.
16:18But why did he think the murders were connected?
16:19Well, for starters, they were all stabbed in the chest.
16:21But more importantly, each victim was found with a penny either in or on their person.
16:26What do you mean in?
16:27One had a penny in her stomach.
16:29Another had one shoved up his nose.
16:32Stella Brown lucked out.
16:33Hers was just clasped in her hand.
16:35And when we reexamined Marcus Ford's corpse, the Emmy found one inserted into the heel of his left foot.
16:41Why?
16:42Did we mention that they were all minted in 1930?
16:45Okay.
16:46Well, I just got goosebumps.
16:47Rich's autopsy also revealed that he had swallowed close to 50 pennies before he died.
16:52Gross.
16:52So, at this point, was your theory...
16:54I actually have no idea what their theory would have been.
16:56Yeah, well, I would tell you, but we were way off the mark.
16:59Which we were about to discover when we got access to his cloud account.
17:05Okay.
17:06I may have finally found it.
17:09I am so close to getting some real answers.
17:11I am so close to getting some real answers.
17:14See that?
17:27Oh, my God.
17:31Oh, wow.
17:35Oh, my God.
17:36No, no, no.
17:40A guy pretending to be dead breaking into a secure military facility doesn't seem like the best idea.
17:46No, he wasn't just breaking into any military facility.
17:50It was Area 67.
17:52What does that mean?
17:53That's where the government keeps the aliens.
18:02So, Rich broke into a secret government base on the hunt for a massive conspiracy,
18:07then stabbed himself in the chest?
18:08I mean, at that point, it's obvious what happened.
18:10Is it?
18:11Come on.
18:11Remember what Rich said right before he died?
18:14I can't die.
18:15It's inside of me.
18:16It won't let me die.
18:18Yeah, I'm not following.
18:19Rich was exposed to an alien parasite.
18:23It was inside him.
18:25Were you familiar with Area 67?
18:27I'd heard of it.
18:28Yeah.
18:29There's this AM radio station I used to listen to back in Foxburg.
18:33Kept me awake when I was working late.
18:35The host was obsessed with UFOs.
18:38Val's Velvet Bunker?
18:39That's the one.
18:40He was a little bit out there, but always entertaining.
18:44Area 51 is theater.
18:47Do you believe, do you really believe the most secretive military installation in the world
18:53would let itself become a tourist attraction?
18:56No, no, no, no.
18:57Area 51 is the distraction.
19:00Area 67 is the real deal.
19:03You know why California has all those earthquakes?
19:05It's not San Andreas Falls, my friends.
19:08It's the sonic resonance from Area 67's underground testing chambers.
19:13Did you believe in his theories?
19:15No, no.
19:16Like I said, just entertainment.
19:19Let's hear from a caller.
19:20Hi, name's John, long time listener, fourth time caller.
19:22Hey, John from Foxburg.
19:24Welcome back.
19:25What have you got for us tonight?
19:26I swear to God, I just saw a UFO.
19:31John is such a common name.
19:34I'm open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
19:36You are?
19:37Yeah, I mean, it's a big universe.
19:39Anything could be out there.
19:41I don't know.
19:41People who claim to have seen aliens tend to be a little off.
19:45You were friends with the corpse, right?
19:46Well, yeah, we were more than friends, but fair enough, okay.
19:50Legally, is it necrophilia if she only did over the closed stuff?
19:53That's a great question.
19:54Oh, I definitely believe. In fact, I've been abducted by aliens.
20:00Really?
20:01Multiple times.
20:02Apparently, I'm a fascinating subject.
20:05I remember the last time Smitty was abducted.
20:09Turns out he partied too hard in Vegas and woke up in Wisconsin.
20:12Missing time.
20:13One of the hallmarks of alien abductions.
20:17And binge drinking.
20:18Point is, the government had little gray men in their secret labs for decades.
20:24What are they doing with them?
20:25They're implanting the aliens in unsuspecting hosts and taking over their bodies.
20:30You just never know who might be one of them.
20:35Some people in the station believed Rich dabbed himself to kill an alien parasite.
20:40But I wouldn't say that was a dominant theory.
20:43It wasn't long before we figured out Rich believed something darker.
20:47And it was connected to the seven murders.
20:49Then why did Rich break into the army base?
20:52Yes, I remember the incident. Rich Rowley cut through a fence.
20:56He trespassed on government property. He was promptly apprehended and sent on his way.
21:01Do you have any idea what Rich was looking for?
21:03Uh, as it turns out, he was looking for me.
21:06But not because of any alleged aliens.
21:09So why did he come?
21:12Uh, this part is, uh, is a little bit embarrassing.
21:16Um, before I found my calling in the military, I thought that I wanted to be an actor.
21:22And, uh, I was in a few DTV movies.
21:25What's DTV?
21:26You're so young.
21:28Uh, direct-to-video.
21:29They made all these super cheap movies back in the 80s and 90s.
21:33You make them as cheaply as possible and then hope that someone was drawn in enough by the cover art
21:37to rent them.
21:39A guy can't have a side gig?
21:41Totally.
21:42How did you get into acting?
21:43Some director scouted me when I pulled him over.
21:46He said I had a bitchin' bod.
21:49Well, he wasn't wrong.
21:50But I gave it up because the people of this city needed a savior.
21:55Yeah, you are the model of public service.
21:58Right?
21:59Anyway, Rich became interested in this terrible B-movie that I was in.
22:04I played a monk.
22:05It was called 300 Days of Hell.
22:12Terrible B-movie?
22:13That's what he called it?
22:14300 Days of Hell is the scariest film of the 1990s.
22:17Really?
22:18The Ring, Scream, Blair Witch Project?
22:20Which one of us executive produced a horror movie?
22:22Trust me, T-H-D-O-H is true nightmare fuel.
22:26It's not that scary.
22:28She made me watch at the beginning of our relationship.
22:30When he was still trying to impress me.
22:34You want to watch it again tonight?
22:36I would.
22:38Totally.
22:39I do have plans, though.
22:42Yeah, I'm not watching that crap.
22:44Even if it is for a case.
22:45I-I see enough horror on the job.
22:47That being said, 300 Days of Hell was our first real window into the rabbit hole that
22:53Rich had gone down.
22:54A rabbit hole filled with demons.
22:55Or rather, a demon.
22:58So Rich believed a demon had killed all those people?
23:00No, the killers were definitely human.
23:02Killers, plural?
23:03Yeah, there was different trace DNA on all the bodies.
23:06All from different subjects, and none of them were in the system.
23:09Meaning?
23:10The murders were committed by a group of people with shared beliefs.
23:14A murder cult.
23:15The cult believed a demon named Malefus had been possessing people all across the city.
23:20Jumping from host to host.
23:21And it was up to them to stop it.
23:31The legend of Malefus is centuries old.
23:34The first mention we see of him is 1433's Lesser Grimoire of Solomon by Slovenian Inquisitor
23:41Terentius Bruma. A reference text of demons and their attributes.
23:47Huh, gnarly.
23:49Right? He's also known as the Deceiver, the Infestor, and Demon of 300 Days. Why?
23:55Once summoned to Earth, Malefus won't rest until he finds a human host.
23:59After possession begins, he incubates. 300 Days.
24:04What happens after 300 Days?
24:06He reaches full strength and his power becomes uncontainable.
24:11Uh-oh.
24:14Um, if Malefus was summoned to Earth, how would one stop him?
24:18Bruma suggests killing the host might slow Malefus down, forcing him to regenerate before he can find a new host.
24:25A process that also can be slowed by the use of copper.
24:30It was the pennies.
24:32The pennies.
24:32It all came back to the pennies.
24:34Before 1984, U.S. pennies were 95% copper.
24:38So the copper in the pennies was meant to bind the demon, but what about the 1930 part?
24:42Uh, are you familiar with numerology?
24:46Some ancient peoples, and Taylor Swift, believed there was a mystical connection between letters and numbers.
24:55Using the Chaldean method, the name Malefus becomes a digit 1930.
24:59So you're saying...
25:00We had a theory.
25:01Whoever killed those people believed the victims were possessed by Malefus.
25:06They had to reach Malefus's host before he reached his true form.
25:11A 1930 penny was the perfect tool.
25:13Yeah.
25:14Rich's talk of, it's inside me, it won't let me die.
25:17He thought he was infested by this demon too, and that's why he killed himself.
25:22Wait, I thought Rich didn't believe in Malefus.
25:24Isn't that why he was trying to stop the cult?
25:26Yes, but I mean, years of obsession and paranoia can do a number on a person's psyche.
25:31I mean, it seems as though in the end, Rich could no longer distinguish fantasy from reality.
25:35And you got this theory from Rich's files?
25:37Well, I mean, we actually got it from Opus.
25:39And they say watching old horror movies isn't a good use of time.
25:44I never said that.
25:53Are we safe, brother?
25:55Is Malefus banished?
25:57His sigil is drawn.
25:59The right is spoken.
26:01We have sealed his last human vessel with copper.
26:11His sigil is drawn.
26:12Heaven forgive us.
26:13Indeed.
26:15For hell will not.
26:18Midnight.
26:20The 300th day.
26:23Our task was done none too soon.
26:52Yeah, that was me.
26:57Do you guys want a glass?
26:58Oh, you got anything stronger?
27:01Fine, I'll just take a glass.
27:04Okay, I'll just, I'll have nothing, actually.
27:06No fun for me.
27:07Yeah, that was my first big movie role.
27:12Well, my only one, really.
27:15Rich was so excited when I told him I booked it.
27:18He helped me run lines.
27:19Did Rich buy into the Malefus mythology?
27:22No, weirdly, given all the conspiracies that Rich believed in.
27:26He was a total atheist.
27:28But I wouldn't have blamed him after everything that happened on that shoot.
27:32Like what?
27:35Before production wrapped, the DP was paralyzed driving to set.
27:39A stunt person had his leg amputated.
27:42There were divorces, bankruptcies, careers ended.
27:44One of the actors even died in his hotel room.
27:48People say the production was cursed.
27:51What about you?
27:52What do you believe?
27:53I believe the real curse was the director.
27:57He was a reckless maniac that didn't know how to run a set.
28:01Cuts! Cuts!
28:03Arthur! Arthur!
28:05Your strangulation, it has to be real.
28:09I want to feel the life draining from him.
28:11And you, you, you cannot move from your position.
28:15Not even an inch.
28:17Guys, this ritual is extremely specific.
28:21Okay? Let's go again.
28:23Okay, I thought I was choking you pretty well.
28:25I'm sorry.
28:26Okay, I'm gonna choke you a little harder.
28:27Ready?
28:28Douglas was real touchy about the religious stuff.
28:30I guess he had grown up in some sort of commune.
28:33And this was all based on stories he was told growing up.
28:36Okay, but what I heard is that they accidentally summoned Malifus for real.
28:40The director found some ancient tome and inserted the incantation and rituals verbatim.
28:46Ooh, I love that.
28:47And that's what got me thinking about the penny killings.
28:50We found the first victim just a little under 300 days after the summoning ritual was filmed.
28:55We knew Rich was aware of the Malifus legends.
28:57It was only natural to link them.
28:59So Rich thought that penny victims were killed by people trying to stop Malifus.
29:03Was he able to identify any of these killers?
29:05We know he tried.
29:08Hi.
29:09Hey, how are you?
29:09Jared.
29:10Hello.
29:11Wow.
29:12Um, it's a pleasure to meet you, gentlemen.
29:15Pleasure to meet you, too.
29:16Why don't you tell us about yourselves?
29:17Yeah, we, uh, co-starred on a TV show together for 15 seasons, uh, called Supernatural.
29:26Yeah, we played Sam and Dean Winchester, brothers that, uh, you know, tracked and fought
29:32supernatural beings.
29:34Like K-pop demon hunters?
29:36No, no, not like that.
29:37Well, I mean, you're kind of like that.
29:40Yeah.
29:41Okay.
29:41Can you tell us about your encounter with Rich Rowley?
29:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:45Rich Rowley.
29:45He came to a fan event we did last year, um, at MonsterCon.
29:51Yeah, you know, most people show up and they just want, uh, the autograph for a photo.
29:55Uh, but Rich was sort of a different beast altogether.
30:00Yeah, yeah.
30:01He was, he was super fixated on this one particular episode where we fought a demon.
30:06Malifus.
30:07Yeah, uh, that one.
30:09Anyway, he seemed to think we, like, knew more about it than we were saying.
30:15More about what?
30:16Demon hunting.
30:17He kept, like, asking these super pointed questions like, like he was, uh, testing us or something.
30:24Did you have an answer?
30:26No.
30:27No, I mean, we didn't, we didn't come up with these stories.
30:29You know, we just did what the writers wrote.
30:31It's called acting.
30:33There's no actual demon hunters in real life.
30:35Exactly.
30:36Uh, that's not exactly true.
30:38There is at least one.
30:40And it actually connected to the movie.
30:44We heard the director brought a priest named Father Simon McCabe to bless the set every day
30:49before filming.
30:49Well, it was either that or the whole crew was going to walk.
30:52Does that name mean anything to you?
30:56About 15 years ago, Lopez and I had just finished our rookie years.
31:00We responded to, uh, call it a house of, uh, priests doing an exorcism with a 16-year-old girl.
31:04It had been going on for three days.
31:05Uh!
31:09Please!
31:11Help her!
31:13Please!
31:15Help her!
31:16Please!
31:17Please!
31:18Please!
31:19Please be too sick.
31:20I'm in.
31:21Get away from her!
31:24Mother, forgive me.
31:34did you feel like you'd seen the devil the only thing in that room that belonged in hell was
31:39father simon he kept saying he had to the whole way to the station i'm sorry i had to i'm
31:44sorry
31:45i had to because he believed she was possessed she had a brain tumor that's what they found
31:50after the autopsy she needed a doctor not an exorcism and he wasn't a man of god he was a
31:55killer the courts agreed so father simon was convicted of first-degree murder when we processed
32:01him we found a penny in his pocket nothing else just a penny didn't mean anything at the time but
32:06after rich connected those seven murders it seemed likely he was involved involved like he killed them
32:11no simon was already in prison when five of the murders took place and his dna didn't match any
32:17that was found on the corpses but he could have been part of whatever group rich was so afraid of
32:22which means he knew more than he had told us so we had to go back officers i remember you
32:30you you
32:31were the ones who tried to stop the ritual i just wish we would have gotten here sooner becca scott
32:34might still be alive oh she was long gone before you arrived demon saw to that malifus
32:42do not say its name in my presence boy you afraid we might accidentally summon it you may scorn me
32:49and my beliefs but i have fought this evil i know enough to fear its power what's more evil than
32:55murdering a child i took no pleasure in the act i'm grateful i had the courage to do what was
33:01necessary courage tell us about the penny that was in your pocket in the movie 300 days of hell
33:07malifus is sealed inside his host with copper before he can be killed banished not killed what's
33:13the difference the demon is a parasite it needs a host once you kill the body that inhabits it
33:21find a new one becca scott was just a single battle in a larger war if you're in here who's
33:28doing the
33:29fighting now the knights of havila los angeles has a long history of spiritualism esoteric religions
33:38that go back over 100 years so think alistair crowley jack parsons l ron hubbard he freaking loves this
33:44stuff i do anyway a lot of these groups started out as fraternal orders similar to the freemasons
33:50where people would gather and and share well yeah yes and and some women and they would share
33:57new ideas explore philosophies they also liked partying doing drugs and performing weird sex
34:04rituals sign me up for the intellectual exchanging of ideas obviously so the nice of avila is one of
34:12these groups it was like a lot of the similar organizations at the time it fell apart when the
34:17founder died it hasn't been active in 60 years then what was father simon talking about based on
34:23tim and lopez's conversation with father simon we began to believe that the group or at least the name
34:29had been revived sometime in the late 90s to the early 2000s and rebranded as some kind of demon
34:37hunting cult so rich was actually right there was a murderous cabal after it seemed that way and we were
34:44getting close to discovering who their ringleader was i found him found who doug roberts i want to
34:53fill a life training for man oh you mean the director of the sad little demon porn where i was
34:58going
34:58through some old industry trades from around the time thdoh was slated to come out one of the articles
35:03mentioned that roberts was a client of stewart winecliffe at the golden talent agency the guy hasn't made a
35:08movie in 26 years i doubt they still rep him not actively no but i called their offices and i
35:13bribed
35:14or like i talked one of the assistants into giving me the address where his residual checks are sent
35:18it's downtown let's go uh hold on you just want to go doorstep the guy if that means go knock
35:23on a
35:24door while also filming then yes yeah i'm not in the business of gotcha journalism what about the business
35:29of making that paper the guap money guy come on the doc business is oversaturated these days we need
35:37footage that pops and what pops more than blindsiding a potential cult leader come on what's the worst
35:45that could happen this is it okay um uh here here's your camera um i don't operate oh well
35:57now you do let's go what floor is it on eight but uh there's an elevator don't worry
36:14are you sure it's that way yep nope you know at the risk of being called a scaredy cat you
36:22do
36:22understand that this is inherently neither a wise nor safe activity you're asking a woman if she
36:28understands that it's inherently dangerous to go anywhere or do anything when you put it that way
36:34i sound like an ass maybe we should come back hey hello douglas roberts we're here to question you
36:45about murders and demons that should get his attention oh i am just an intern
36:57so clearly we're not deceased which means we saved you from certain death i'm not sure how certain it
37:04was oh it felt pretty certain to me please don't kill us we will join your cult is there a
37:09membership fee
37:10or a secret handshake i love a secret handshake ignore her she's not right in the head in fact
37:14she has short-term memory issues so if you let her go now she won't remember any of this just
37:17shut
37:18up no one's going anywhere i mean technically we're all going somewhere
37:25all right let him go get your hands up up against the jeep now let's go
37:36oh my god yeah thanks for trying to save me even though i'm the one who put us in danger
37:42no problem i was about to do the same thing but you just uh beat me to it i can
37:48be noble too
37:49no doubt yeah um i get very claustrophobic can i just point out how claustrophobic i get please
37:54so when did you and douglas meet in the movie he was you know so commanding and driven and everything
38:02i wasn't when did he start talking about killing the demon it was uh at least a year after that
38:08he
38:08would call me late at night and talk about the demon and how scared he was for the world and
38:14eventually
38:15it started to make sense and he told you that someone was possessed correct her name was cynthia
38:23um she cried when i tied her up and she kept saying that she was not a demon she begged
38:29me to
38:30believe her and at that point he was very deep in my head and then tonight you know all the
38:40lies he
38:41was spewing at the end it was like somebody turned on the light switch i could just see him for
38:46who he
38:47was so pathetic
38:52we'll need you to write up a detailed confession
38:59i would like to make a deal
39:02uh we have already located your co-conspirators you don't really have anything to offer
39:09you don't want to know what an alien spaceship looks like
39:13i am all that stands between the world and damnation so all of the people that you had targeted they
39:21had to die for the greater good yes and my heart breaks for each of them but i will not
39:29let innocence
39:30fall to perdition okay have you had your fill of bs god yes okay me too so uh first victim
39:39cynthia green you dated for two years before she cheated on you marcus ford he worked as a teamster
39:44on your movie then later sued you for non-payment pamela jones wrote a scathing review of your movie
39:52really i i had no idea all seven victims were people who wronged you in some way you don't even
39:59believe in the demon you just used it as a tool to get people with weak minds to do your
40:03dirty work for
40:06you exactly i was the director i think you'll find i never laid a finger on any of the victims
40:14and i think you will find that manson died in prison
40:20all right uh anything else no i think we got everything okay
40:27that was a crazy one huh tell me about it and look thanks so much for all of your time
40:31and for saving our lives anything from my favorite documentarian actually the only documentarian i
40:36know not true i'm a documentarian too of course yes oh speaking of how did this whole uh working
40:43together thing go is this the start of a beautiful friendship i don't know i mean we have very
40:48different styles and instincts and well basically everything but i'd be able to do another collaboration
40:57oh um it's just i uh i kind of signed an exclusive three film deal with hulu what yeah i
41:05um i sent
41:06them a sizzle reel of this project just the me parts and uh they freaked said i'm gonna be the
41:10new face
41:11of true crime their words wow i mean you'd probably be able to bring him along though right oh totally
41:19totally totally i gotta go but uh thanks again hello no i said toronto and then camp
41:29she'll probably call you
42:11damn it
42:12damn it
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