HENRY ZEBROWSKI Put your hands up! Put your hands up!
BEN KISSEL Put your hands up?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Put your hands up in the air everybody, ready, talk in the microphone. Oh man, I am garbage. I
am already garbage. I don't know how to begin. I don't know what to do.
BEN KISSEL Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left everyone. I am Ben hanging out with hip hop Henry
Zebrowski, nothing cooler than that, everyone loves a polish rapper.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I mean see how goosepimply, it's kind of cold in here and I'm wearing my boy shorts, you can
really see the hair stick up on my knees.
BEN KISSEL I see that. I love it. Marcus Parks is with us as well.
MARCUS PARKS Hello.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! This is gonna be a lot of blood in this episode and
it's mostly just because I think it's just really important for everybody. This is talking from one
broad strokes thinker to another, right?
BEN KISSEL Sure!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm an idea man, right?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm not a logistics guy.
BEN KISSEL Who cares about logistics? Just because they're the things that actually accomplish the goal
that you have with your wide stripes. Who cares?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Whatever. It takes an idea to start the ship and then all of these seamen, they crawl all over it
and then they direct it. I don't know what they do.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But I started the ship. I don't know if that metaphor even works. But today's episode is all
about how while it is important to have the broad idea man.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He inspires people like I inspire you two.
MARCUS PARKS He sets the tone.
BEN KISSEL Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He sets the tone and then you have to have a detail person.
BEN KISSEL Sure. Well Marcus is kind of a detail guy, a little more type A.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But this episode shows how if you don't have at least one anal retentive nerd in the group,
you're gonna fail, you're gonna fall.
BEN KISSEL Well then we're gonna be just fine boys, my anal has been retaining everything as of late. It's
been a long time since I've had a BM. Anyway let's move on, we're talking the Children of
Thunder!
MARCUS PARKS So when we last left Taylor Helzer and his two cult followers, the trio were just getting
comfortable with the idea of committing violence in service of Taylor's vision because Taylor
had convinced his brother Justin Helzer and his most ardent follower, Dawn Godman, that God
was cool with murder in certain situations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They really jumped so quickly into murder. It was like the third idea that he had. He's like, 'You
know some people are gonna have to die for this.' And they're all like yeah, yeah, yep.
BEN KISSEL Why not? I went to bed and I was like how do I feel about murder? And I was like, I don't love
it. But you know I woke up today and I am just like I love it. I had a change of heart, I had an
aha dream and I love murder now. Isn't that weird?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh it's because you killed a bunch of people in your dreams?
BEN KISSEL I don't know, man.
MARCUS PARKS In addition to using the bible to justify murder, Taylor also took the name for his little trifecta
of weirdos, the Children of Thunder, from the Book of Mark chapter 3 verse 17. In this verse
disciples James and John were named the Sons of Thunder, which Taylor adapted into the
gender neutral Children of Thunder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Golf clap for wokeness.
BEN KISSEL Wow, good for him. Yes, he's more than a double murderer but at least he recognized that his
group is multiple different types.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You're right, you're right.
BEN KISSEL Isn't that nice?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Do you know that the Sons of Thunder is the name of the band from Airheads?
BEN KISSEL Oh, no kidding!
MARCUS PARKS No, they're The Lone Rangers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What?
BEN KISSEL That's right, The Lone Rangers. Marcus point-counterpoint, now I remember that too.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, remember? Like how are you lone if there's three of you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Wow.
BEN KISSEL Either way you stand corrected.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I want all of this out.
BEN KISSEL No, we have to keep that in! That's a point-counterpoint.
MARCUS PARKS We have to keep that in.
BEN KISSEL That's a victory for Marcus so he does need to have a score.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Thank you. He's got the outline, his fucking little outline.
BEN KISSEL That was an improv.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, when I'm not around you don't know the difference between fucking dandelions and
daffodils.
BEN KISSEL If you bring it up again!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I swear to fucking Christ.
BEN KISSEL You have 500 pounds of pure German and Polish meat attacking your bones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, man. We're going to crush you, dude.
MARCUS PARKS According to christianity.com, when we're talking about the whole Sons of Thunder reference,
James and John the disciples, they were rough hewn guys. They were so gung ho on Jesus'
message of peace that they once asked their Lord and savior if he wanted them to more or less
burn down a village because the villagers didn't welcome Jesus in advance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I know you're super busy Jesus but honestly when it comes down to it, we want to do it.
BEN KISSEL We love peace. We love peace so much we are willing to kill for it. Do not see any irony with
that at all? No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No. The only irony I see is that you've got 10,000 spoons but all you need is a knife.
BEN KISSEL That's from Alanis Morissette.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's bad luck, it's not irony.
MARCUS PARKS Ironic.
BEN KISSEL Don't start the argument about Alanis Morissette, it's a fantastic song.
MARCUS PARKS The whole point of the song is that the song is called Ironic and it's ironic that there's no irony
in the song. It's a metatext.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes, yes, yes. Thank you! Yes.
BEN KISSEL Speaking of W-O-K-E, yes we usually do uncle corner but I'm happy we finally got to aunt
corner. Very nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is an auntie moment.
MARCUS PARKS In other words, James and John were the aggressive disciples and I don't know if they asked if
they could burn down the village, they just asked Jesus like you want us to rain down the fire
of heaven on these bros? You want us to fucking do it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Let's go! Let's go, bro! Let's go!
BEN KISSEL Oh God, I can't think of the 12 disciples wearing Tap Out shirts.
MARCUS PARKS These are the disciples who had no problem committing acts of violence if Jesus so wanted it.
And while Jesus never wanted violence, quite the opposite in fact, Taylor Helzer needed
violence for his plan to work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It still wasn't really clear why though. Because I know that he had the plan, we're going to get
into all of this today. Taylor Helzer's murder plan is one of the single worst in quality murder
plans I have seen in true crime.
BEN KISSEL Okay!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He has a terrible plan. They didn't need murder. As a matter of fact murder hurt the plan.
MARCUS PARKS Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They could have done a lot of extortion without the murder, the murder is what fucked it all
up.
BEN KISSEL I mean the murder's what warrants the name Thunder.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think it was the size of one of the members.
BEN KISSEL Oh could be. By the way kudos to the person who sent the goofy brothers from Always Sunny
in Philadelphia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It is very similar.
BEN KISSEL They are very similar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI To the Helzer brothers.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. The McPoyles. Now concerning Taylor's overall plan, it was still somewhat up in the air
as far as specifics went.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS Generally Taylor believed that his self help group Transform America was going to transform
America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We're going to transform America in a way that it is different than it was before!
BEN KISSEL Right. Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS And it really didn't go further than that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No.
MARCUS PARKS I think he said I would transform America and then the second coming of Christ is somehow
gonna come afterwards but there's not a whole lot of steps as far as how that's going to
happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Marcus, you're missing the step. It's yada yada yada which is Latin for we're going to figure this
out later.
BEN KISSEL Right. We'll figure it out! Absolutely. No, I love it. He sounds like, I don't know if you guys
heard Roger Stone's plan to make sure that Trump is installed as the new president, this is very
similar. It's goofy, not plausible, but people seem to like a story no matter how dumb it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI With that plan too it's all like we're gonna let the fans figure it out.
BEN KISSEL We're gonna let the fans do it. Yada yada yada.
MARCUS PARKS But one thing that Taylor Helzer understood is that even though you may not have a solid plan
you still need a solid headquarters.
BEN KISSEL That's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I don't believe in brick and mortar. I don't believe it.
BEN KISSEL So they're kind of jumping a lot of steps here.
MARCUS PARKS That is the defining feature of the Children of Thunder is jumping the gun.
BEN KISSEL Well even the Ghostbusters, they caught a ghost before they got their ghost station, they had
to prove that they warranted a station.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Actually you're incorrect, they got the firehouse first.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. They didn't actually catch the ghost, the ghost screamed at them and they ran away and
then they decided-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, get her. That was their plan.
BEN KISSEL We're just gonna edit this part out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No, we have to keep it. Now you have one!
MARCUS PARKS Now it's a point-counterpoint, now you have one. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Are we bringing back CNN's Crossfire?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Kissel, the only thing that we can do now is undermine Marcus, all right? That's the rest of the
episode.
BEN KISSEL We have to do that.
MARCUS PARKS So in the spring of 2000 Taylor got Justin and dawn to rent a house for the then kingly sum of
$1650 a month.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Where all three of them would live. $1650 in the year 2000 was a lot of fucking cash.
BEN KISSEL That's a lot.
MARCUS PARKS And when the landlord who thought only Justin was living there, when he asked why this
seemingly single oddball cable guy needed a three bedroom house all for himself-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You just don't understand, it's Lebensraum.
MARCUS PARKS Justin said he needed one room for sleeping, one room for exercise, and one room for
meditation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They have to be separated because I get too excited in the exercise room in order for me to
relax.
BEN KISSEL I mean I'm not backing up any of these douchebags but it seems like the landlord can also shut
up. I'm gonna rent it, what do you mean why do I need three rooms? I'm renting it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What do we know about Justin? He eats like a dog and he's dressed like a Bing Bong version of
Neo from the Matrix. He shows up and he's talking to this landlord who's looking at this guy
probably like how do you even have the money to afford this? And Justin's a fucking weirdo.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Red flags are waving for a reason.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Now once the Children of Thunder had a compound of a sort they began having daily
meetings that started with prayers led by Taylor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Put your hands together! Put your hands together!
BEN KISSEL I can't have that right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Keep the energy up, bass the ball.
BEN KISSEL Is this DDP Yoga? What's going on?
MARCUS PARKS Then once Taylor established himself to his followers as a man of God it was time for some
Pinky and the Brain style planning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Seriously.
BEN KISSEL I love that show.
MARCUS PARKS See the thing to remember about the Children of Thunder is that their plans are all big picture.
I mean it really was like what are we doing today Taylor? We're going to take over the world.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Transform America.
MARCUS PARKS Details and logistics never once crossed Taylor Helzer's mind when he was coming up with his
schemes to take over the world, which is exactly why his cult never really got off the ground.
He tried taking a shortcut in every way possible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The only person who's allowed to do that is, I mean you have to be a Timothy
Chamalamadingdong. You need to be born into money.
BEN KISSEL You again out of nowhere found a way to criticize Timothee Chalamet.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And you make fun of his name for some reason, which I don't know why both you and
Jackie-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's a fake name. His name is Tim Chon? I don't care what his real name is.
BEN KISSEL We don't know. This is your Walter from the Big Lebowski moment. What does Vietnam has to
do with this? Nothing to do with it Timothee Chalamet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah but guess what? Timothy Chamalish honestly, at least he's better than Eddie Redmayne
who is the walking plague of man.
BEN KISSEL Okay. Unwarranted.
MARCUS PARKS Unwarranted. In other words Taylor Helzer was such a megalomaniac and on so much meth-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Never forget!
BEN KISSEL Oh my gosh.
MARCUS PARKS That he never stopped to question the how of anything, assuming that it would all work out
because he was just so goddamn special.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's obnoxious. He's such an obnoxious fuck.
MARCUS PARKS For example, Taylor believed that Transform America would only work if he was installed Head
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and one of the plans to make this happen was
codenamed Brazil.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is the thing, Dogmeat too, you say that he didn't work out all the details. You're going to
hear the details of this plan and I think it's pretty rock solid.
BEN KISSEL Why Brazil? Based off the film?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You'll see.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS Well in this scheme the Children of Thunder would travel down to Brazil where Taylor has
spent his Mormon mission.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Easy. Definitely have the money for it. They definitely can get there.
BEN KISSEL Of course.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. That's where Taylor had spent his Mormon mission. And then once they got down to
Brazil, they would adopt Brazilian orphans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Boom, boom, boom. Easy to do. They're right there. Honestly you just put them in a
wheelchair, you put a sign on them that says adopted. That's legal in South America.
BEN KISSEL I think that's what they did with ET.
MARCUS PARKS They would then bring the Brazilian orphans back to the United States and train them to be
child assassins who would only answer to Taylor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Easy.
BEN KISSEL They're gonna go to Brazil and kidnap a bunch of kids, bring them back here, and make them
suicide bombers.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Adopt them and train them. That is where you are incorrect. They're coming here, you're
training them because you know what you do is all of these kids in Brazil, they've never seen a
PEZ before. You show them, they'll see the magic of it. They'll be like oh wow, that's incredible,
what incredible sorcery is this? They're indebted to you, afraid of your power. Next thing you
know is you're teaching them scissors are not only for making clothes for wonderful
companies like Nike, they're also there to kill.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL And don't mind Justin eating like a dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Everybody, every single person in the entire book, every one of them says like, 'Justin and his
food.' That's the only thing they bring up.
BEN KISSEL It's like Holden McNeely, that's gonna be half of Holden McNeely's eulogy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Ignoring such logistical roadblocks as language barriers and the fact that none of the Children
of Thunder knew anything about assassination.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They don't anything, how would they train them?
MARCUS PARKS Taylor would then take his Brazilian child assassin cell to Salt Lake City where they would
kidnap the 12 apostles of the LDS church, the LDS president, and his counselors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That easy. Dress them up as milkshakes. They think they went to the malt shop!
BEN KISSEL Yes. I'm completely against the culture that we live in where people are snitching on each
other, whether it be Texas or here in California. But sometimes if you see something, you
should say something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL If there is three morons with what appears to be a Brazilian group of ducklings walking
through the airport.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They have sniper rifles.
BEN KISSEL With sniper rifles. Then you might want to tell security.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I love the idea of them all walking in single file tied up with the rope like you see in Park Slope,
like they have all those kids coming out of the kindergarten all dressed up like they're climbing
a mountain, they're all repelled to each other. Whatever the word is. They all have guns.
BEN KISSEL Get them used to the chain gang.
MARCUS PARKS Well somehow after Taylor's child assassins kidnapped the entire upper echelon of the
Mormon church, Taylor was going to convince the kidnapped Mormons to call the media and
say that the United States government was behind the kidnapping for some reason or another.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Transform America.
BEN KISSEL Say what you want about the Mormon people, they're stringy and tight. They like to bike, they
like the outdoors. I don't mess with the Mormons. They're also sober enough to be so full of
freaking rage. Christians, they look like Jerry Falwell*, you can knock them over. But
Mormons? They are deceptively strong I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They build their own houses.
BEN KISSEL They do!
MARCUS PARKS Well blaming the whole thing on the United States, that would create chaos within the entire
country. Specifically it would cause chaos in Utah and that would give Taylor the opportunity
to step in as a unifying figure. Look at that fucking guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, look at all of you. I'm giving you all the opportunity to gaze upon my incredible blazer, no
shirt underneath it. I have a chain on. You all love it, it's opulent. You trust in me. You see my
businessman-like ponytail which I have heard described as businessman-like several times in
this book and I don't know if the man who wrote this book has ever seen a man with a ponytail
because you very rarely see a man with a ponytail in a business setting.
BEN KISSEL I'm actually gonna disagree with you. I think he sees one every day in the mirror. Sounds very
pro-ponytail. Oh man, those that defend the male ponytail, which it's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's fine.
BEN KISSEL But there are some advocates for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. The captives would then appoint Taylor as president of Mormonism while Justin and
Dawn would choose 12 new apostles and bing bang boom, Taylor is the head of the LDS
church.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI America transformed.
BEN KISSEL Go to Brazil, get a bunch of kids, come back here, overthrow the Mormon church within Utah,
blame it on the United States government, now they're in charge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's it.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Those are a lot of details.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And finally to make sure that no one talked and to ensure Taylor's spot at the head of
the table, the Brazilian child assassins would then slaughter the entire LDS upper ranks and I
suppose blame it on the government.
BEN KISSEL Well that's a hell of a conclusion.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I mean it's a lot of ideas.
BEN KISSEL Okay, wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, yeah. There's plenty of details, Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. However these plans meant nothing if the Children of Thunder couldn't even afford a
plane ticket to Brazil.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah!
BEN KISSEL Right, right.
MARCUS PARKS Because remember Justin Helzer was a cable guy, Taylor Helzer was an ecstasy dealer, and I'm
not entirely sure what Dawn Godman's job was but she certainly wasn't making 'adopt a
foreign child army and train them in your own home' money.
BEN KISSEL She took a bunch of ecstasy and watched free cable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think Dawn Godman was in a supportive capacity to the Children of Thunder.
MARCUS PARKS It seems like Dawn Godman might have had an inheritance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI There was a hint that she came from money.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. But the point is that even though this idea is insanely illogical in every way possible, the
Children of Thunder still felt like it was a good idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They wanted the brainstorming session to be over. That's what I think. They were ready to
wrap it up.
MARCUS PARKS So if this plan was going to go forth, they needed funds which required its own set of highly
illogical schemes. Their main plan for funding their ideas was to kidnap 5 people and steal their
stock portfolio information which would then be placed into another person's account, some
sort of Patsy*, and the money would then be funneled into Taylor Helzer's account.
BEN KISSEL I love it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And we laugh at the absolutely stupid nature of this idea.
BEN KISSEL Well there is an upcoming economic collapse that they are not aware of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh very much so. But the thing is that they will then seek to commit this scheme.
BEN KISSEL Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They will start putting the steps together to do this very, very bad idea.
BEN KISSEL I know you were saying this before we recorded but it is infuriating to be killed by someone so
stupid. Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You're going to find out also being stupid and unable to be a good murderer actually
sometimes makes you a more brutal murderer than if you are a trained serial killer.
BEN KISSEL If I have to be killed, please god, I want it to be a cold assassination where the guy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He knows what to do. Pew pew!
BEN KISSEL Thank you! Okay, bye.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. It's actually very difficult to kill a human being. It's not easy at all. Well for some reason
this idea that Taylor had - I know that from experience! Not from experience.
BEN KISSEL Whoa, whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Now we got him. Dogmeat, I might have been wrong, you might have been wrong.
BEN KISSEL I didn't know the Ghostbusters movie but he just confessed to murder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Dogmeat is guilty of murder.
BEN KISSEL You know it was The Lone Rangers, right?
MARCUS PARKS I don't mean that I know from experience from killing a person, I know from all of the stories
that we've covered in our fucking journey through true crime over the last 11 years, man.
BEN KISSEL Oh it's cause he works so hard. That's why.
MARCUS PARKS Yes. It is.
BEN KISSEL It's not because you killed somebody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He works too hard and he cares too much. That's how he knows how easy it is or difficult to kill
a person.
BEN KISSEL Great.
MARCUS PARKS Well concerning Taylor's plan to take the stock portfolio information, move it to one person's
account and then immediately move it to another person's account, he thought that this was
somehow money laundering.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS I don't know how. And he thought that he would be free and clear of any sort of legal
implications if the money went through a single person's bank account before it went directly
to his.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It makes absolutely no sense. And again fueled by meth and ecstasy.
BEN KISSEL Oh man. But isn't meth kind of a specific drug? Like wouldn't you bullet point out, then we
take a left, then we take a right with our feet, we go right, that's called walking. Yeah, we're
gonna walk there. Like doesn't meth also make you highly specific?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I read a thing that was a really interesting breakdown of what being on meth feels like and
how you get used to it. At first it's a very chaotic high but actually a lot of time you become a
longtime user, the feeling is more of an extreme confidence.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI People talk about how they work on their guitar, I was reading this thing, I think was on Reddit,
about how he got really good at the guitar and he spent a lot of time in it and then at just
some point the wheels fall off.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Well to make a truly clean break, Taylor planned to murder all five people from whom
he'd stolen the stock information as well as the patsy. And while Taylor would kind of sort of
go through with this plan with 2 people, 5 would end up dead anyway, including a young
woman named Selina Bishop. Selina Bishop was actually the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin
Bishop best known for the fantastic mid 70s single Fooled Around And Fell In Love. Henry,
please.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (singing) Fooled around and fell in love! This is actually sad about Selina herself is that it kind
of becomes reversed, right, because of her falling for Taylor, like the song kind of becomes, it
has an ominous tone over this whole story.
MARCUS PARKS It kind of does because the thing is that song is actually about Selina Bishop's mother Jenny.
And Selina was the product of the love affair that came from the song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But now it's all about how like she fooled around and fell in love with Taylor Helzer and it was
very bad for her.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Oh no. That's not good.
MARCUS PARKS And tragically Selina's mother Jenny would also become a victim of the Children of Thunder,
even though she had absolutely nothing to do with Taylor Helzer or his cult. Now Selina Bishop
met Taylor Helzer at a rave in 1999 where Taylor was dealing ecstasy.
BEN KISSEL Like all good romance.
MARCUS PARKS But Taylor wasn't going by his given name. Instead he called himself Jordan, using his In 2 Me C
alias. And since Taylor always had plenty of money in ecstasy, Selina found him mysterious and
exciting. Eventually Selina and Taylor started dating and Taylor slowly introduced Selina to
Justin and Dawn who went by the names Jason and Sky.
BEN KISSEL Just brilliant. This is a little bit of advice. If somebody shows you a wad of money, that's all the
money they have. So don't think like oh wow, there must be lots of money. That's it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Whoa, whoa. Yeah, don't.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Before long Selina had completely fallen under Taylor's spell and wrote in her journals
that she was falling for the tall, mysterious, handsome ecstasy dealer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I get it. In a way I sort of understand the idea that you want drama.
MARCUS PARKS He's a very charming man and he's handsome as well. Conventionally so at least.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I would put him as manic and high energy.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And it really also shows how low the bar it is for men for a woman to fall in love with you.
BEN KISSEL I can send you some internet chat rooms where there seems like there's a lot of guys having
difficulties.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That is sad. That is very, very sad.
MARCUS PARKS Selina became enraptured with both Taylor and eventually the Children of Thunder
themselves. But unbeknownst to her, she was nothing more than the sacrificial lamb that
Taylor needed to work out the next phase of his unworkable plan. Or at least nothing more in
Taylor's eyes because of course she was much more than just that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI In the planning sessions they did talk about, because immediately he's like so we got to find
the person who we're going to kill, we have to kill in the name of God in order to spark, in
order to properly transform America.
BEN KISSEL Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And so Selina didn't know she was being cased from the moment they met. He was like she's
the one and you had little Dawn going like, (goblin voice) 'Yeah we gon' get her. We gon' kill
her.' And then Justin being like, 'I don't know, she seems kinda pretty.' Which is true, they
have this kind of dynamic where Justin's like, 'I sure wish it wasn't her we had to kill because
she's somebody I like.' And you're like well I'm sorry Justin, you're one member of the Children
of Thunder.
BEN KISSEL Sure.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. He wasn't that simple. I dunno how many times I have to-
BEN KISSEL Well Marcus, he's the character actor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm the character actor!
MARCUS PARKS I know.
BEN KISSEL This is out of our purview.
MARCUS PARKS Well Taylor told Selina that he was about to inherit a lot of money from a great uncle but he
didn't want his ex wife to get her hands on the cash. So using a variation on the Nigerian Prince
scheme, Taylor told Selina that he needed her to open five bank accounts to hide the money.
Each account would get a deposit of $125,000 and when the money eventually went to Taylor,
Selina could keep $5,000 from each account, netting her a profit of $25,000 for doing nothing
more than going to the bank.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's as easy as going to the grocery store or the bank.
BEN KISSEL Right.
MARCUS PARKS And of course she'd be making Taylor very happy in the process which she very much wanted
to do.
BEN KISSEL Does Taylor realize the banks document all this stuff and technically he's just giving receipts to
the police for all his criminal activity?
MARCUS PARKS Receipts would play a very large role in the downfall of the Children of Thunder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah! Yeah! Also Taylor did believe, again meth, also he believed he was the hand of God
himself. He was really trying to swallow his own bullshit and there was a part of him that had
that thing where he's like, 'Well we're working under the purview of God, I'm going to replace
and transform this country with child assassins, I'm going to do it. And so God is going to
protect me no matter what.'
BEN KISSEL Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It had kind of this idea of we can operate out loud because when it comes down to it, Jesus has
got our back.
BEN KISSEL It's all good.
MARCUS PARKS What Selina didn't know however was that each of the five accounts would be filled with the
liquidated stock portfolios of five murder victims and once those five accounts were filled and
the money was funneled to Taylor, Taylor was planning on murdering Selina herself. Now once
Taylor had someone that he could use to quote unquote "launder the money" even though he
didn't understand what money laundering is-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI So, so stupid. No.
MARCUS PARKS He began going through his old client list at Morgan Stanley. Because remember Taylor Helzer
was for a time a successful stockbroker before he became a cult leader/ecstasy dealer.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's also so stupid. The idea that you would go through your former client list and they would
have to look through all these people. What do these people all have in common? It's like all of
the things that would just point directly to your stupid ass!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Because even after he killed five people, the one common thing that they all shared
would be the name Taylor Helzer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Oh my God, it reminds me of that serial predator who was a stand up comedian and all of the
victims were on his tour schedule. Wow, brilliant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Vince Champ. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS I suppose trying to make himself look merciful, Taylor wanted to specifically target old people
because they, according to his logic, had already lived a long life and their deaths could be
more easily justified as collateral damage in service of bringing about the second coming of
Jesus or whatever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Or whatever.
BEN KISSEL You fucking idiot. Get Selina to make one fall in Love with her and then you just slowly take all
of their money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI She's gonna get the Fooled Around And Fell In Love money at some point, right?
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And then you just kind of hang out and you service this woman and eat her pussy and just be a
good husband, you get the runoff anyway, live a comfortable life.
BEN KISSEL Come on.
MARCUS PARKS So after going through his old Morgan Stanley client list, Taylor settled on an old man named
Bob White for the first victim and the Children of Thunder began preparations for the
extortion and murder to come.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's all fucking so stupid. This breakdown is fucking so dumb.
MARCUS PARKS First Justin was sent out to buy a semiautomatic pistol as well as shotgun shells and bullets for
a .22 and bullets for an AK-47 even though they didn't own a shotgun, a .22, or an AK-47.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yep.
MARCUS PARKS Dawn meanwhile went to Sears and bought a reciprocating saw for future disposal of the
bodies.
BEN KISSEL Aw, remember Sears?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Sears was fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I do.
BEN KISSEL You could get all of your bone saws there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Sears was fun, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS I remember the last time I went to Sears.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You can get some bras, you get a power saw.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS I bought a Game Boy game last time I went to Sears, I think it was Super Mario Land 2.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You didn't support them enough, either one of you.
BEN KISSEL We tried, I used to go to Sears all the time.
MARCUS PARKS Well soon after, Dawn bought three ski masks, three pairs of water ski gloves, and weights for
a large set as well as pagers and cell phones for all of them so they could stay in contact during
each phase of their idiotic plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They gave a lot of garbage onto Dawn and Dawn just ate it up. One of my favorite little details
is that she brought the gloves and then they felt them and they're like, 'These gloves are too
fucking small, Dawn!' And then they had to go back to the store with Dawn and and return the
gloves, she sat there as they fit the gloves on their hands like they're OJ Simpson at JC Penny's.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS In addition, each of them adopted a dog. Dawn got a rottweiler and named it Jake, Taylor got a
border collie and named it Blackie, and Justin got an Australian shepherd and called it in very
Justin fashion, Taser.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hey man, hey. Technically it's metal.
BEN KISSEL Then they get to eat dinner together.
MARCUS PARKS But these dogs were not bought out of a want for companionship or even protection, rather
the Children of Thunder were planning to use these dogs to dispose of the bodies of their
victims and started buying large amounts of meat and soup bones to train the dogs to eat
entire human bodies whole.
BEN KISSEL Guys, first of all you're thinking of pigs. That's number one. Just get 1000 cats.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's all putting the cart before the horse, it's all of this stuff and you're like what are you talking
about?
BEN KISSEL Border collie? Maybe a rottweiler but a border collie is just going to try to bring it back to life.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah or an Australian shepherd.
BEN KISSEL Come on.
MARCUS PARKS I mean they very soon discovered that the border collie and the Australian shepherd, they
were not man eaters. So they released the dogs into the country. They did however keep the
rottweiler.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, they just let the dogs go on the street.
BEN KISSEL Is this the preamble to Homeward Bound?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS No dude, like three of the dogs I had growing up were dogs that people had just dumped out
into the country. People do that shit all the time. They go out to the country, they dump the
dog near someone's house and say it's your dog now, you take care of it. But that's how I got
Velma and goddamn, I love that dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah but that's sad.
BEN KISSEL Aw. They got to solve a lot of mysteries with Velma.
MARCUS PARKS Velma was a magic dog. She would jump up on the fence and she would walk on the fence.
She was a circus dog, that's what I called her. I called her my circus dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's cute.
BEN KISSEL That is cute.
MARCUS PARKS Now the plan for the murder and extortion itself was for Justin and Taylor to simply knock on
the door of one of Taylor's old clients and convinced them by hook or by crook to sign their
stock portfolio over to Taylor's girlfriend, Selina Bishop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Makes no sense. And the other plan was they'd show up, they dressed in suits and they
showed up with a bottle of champagne and roses and they would go to one of the clients,
knock on the door and say, 'Hey, one of your neighbors and I made a big money deal and I
figured you were next door so we should all celebrate together.'
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It makes no sense.
BEN KISSEL Right.
MARCUS PARKS Then once the checks were signed and the money was safely in Selina's account, the Children
of Thunder would kill the depositors and dispose of the bodies in such a way as to make them
disappear forever. To put an extra layer of stupid on the whole scenario, in the first murder
Taylor brought back his old sometime follower Debra McClanahan, the Mormon witch who
gave erotic massages to the Helzer brothers and still sometimes dropped by the house from
time to time to have sex with Taylor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think it's because he's still trying to get a hot chick back in the group.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He really is missing that, he's missing that vibe. He keeps looking at Dawn and Dawn's like,
(goblin voice) 'I like the way you hug.'
BEN KISSEL You gotta work with what you got, Taylor.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, play for the audience that shows up, Taylor. Fucking Christ, man.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS For the planned murder of former client Bob White, Taylor had Debra create an alibi. On the
day that the murder extortion plan was to go into effect, Debra went to the movies and
bought four tickets to see the new X-Men movie. Then she went to Denny's and bought four
meals.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's so fucking stupid. Cause Debra floated this idea to Taylor in the planning stages because he
was like, 'We need money, we're trying to transform America, this is how America works, you
need collateral, blah blah blah.' And she's like, 'What if I go, I was talking to this producer the
other day and he said that I could make $6000-$8000 a week making porno films and I can just
give you some of the money.'
BEN KISSEL Should do that, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Because she had the offer and then I think remembering that he already lost one hot chick to
Playboy, his response was, 'Do you really want to be remembered in that way in your life?'
Because he didn't want to lose her. He didn't wanna lose her to the porn producer.
BEN KISSEL Oh my goodness. Much like how Marc Mero lost Sable which is an interesting story that I
covered-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh was that his horse?
BEN KISSEL No. Sable? No! Oh my God.
MARCUS PARKS We talked about this last week, we talked about her Playboy spread last week, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm sorry.
BEN KISSEL Yes, I'm gonna continue to bring it up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm trying to remember all the wrestling details. I'm trying to honor you.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely. I will say though X-Men and Denny's, ooh that's a date.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS That it was a fun date, yeah. Especially that 2000 X-Men movie, it was fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It was.
BEN KISSEL It was really fun.
MARCUS PARKS I was going to see it in the theaters. In fact I think I may have gone to see the X-Men movie and
I might have gone to Denny's afterwards to smoke cigarettes all night long. It's very possible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's a very 2000 date.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS Now Taylor didn't tell Debra why she needed to do all this, nor why she needed to keep all of
the ticket stubs and receipts. But the thing about an alibi like this is that you need a true ride
or die follower who's going to stick to the story no matter what. And Debra, owner of a ferret
named Cosmo, certainly wasn't that, much to Taylor's later chagrin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Ferret owners got big mouths.
BEN KISSEL A ferret's kinda fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They're chatty people.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Hey, I'm not saying that the ferret's a bad pet to have, I'd love to have a ferret. But Henry I
think is very correct in that the ferret owner, they're going to talk to somebody at the bus
stop.
BEN KISSEL Well ferrets are kind of chatty little creatures themselves.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah. (ferret noises) Kill, kill.
MARCUS PARKS So when the day finally came, Taylor and Justin went to his former client Bob White's house
reared up and ready to go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (heavy breathing)
BEN KISSEL Are you feeling dumb enough? Yes, I am dumb enough!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, yeah! But they both dressed in fucking Reservoir Dogs suits like fucking morons.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And they've still got their ponytails going too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And fucking witnesses peg, literally one witness says they called the police being like, 'I believe
two hitmen just walked down my street.'
BEN KISSEL Oh my. This is where it's like should we blame Hollywood?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I dunno.
BEN KISSEL Should we say maybe as humans we're not ready for cinema.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. But since these dudes weren't great at prep work, they found that Bob White wasn't at
home and had in fact just left town for a trip to San Antonio.
BEN KISSEL Oh you're gonna want to check in on that.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. So Taylor and Justin immediately went for the next target on their list, an elderly couple
named Ivan and Annette Steinman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well because remember this list is the top five portfolios that Taylor had worked at when he
was a stockbroker.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Taylor had been the Steinman's financial advisor and was still well-liked by the couple
because remember most people only knew Taylor on a very surface level as a charming
individual.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI How you doing, killer? What's going on buddy? Hey, you're working hard or hardly working?
Good to see you man, good to see you. We're transforming America today I need your blood.
MARCUS PARKS So when Taylor and Justin rang the doorbell at the Steinman residence on July 30th in the year
2000 at 8pm, the brothers were welcomed inside by the Steinmans as friends. Now at first the
Helzer brothers sat with the Steinmans and chatted and the atmosphere was cordial enough
where Annette took a call from her daughter. Annette said, 'Hey we've got visitors, we're
gonna have to call you back later.' Didn't think anything was wrong at all. And Taylor and Justin
did at least try to get Annette and Ivan to quote unquote "invest in transform America".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You see we're transforming America!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Okay, great, I want to invest. How do I invest?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI One word, Brazil child assassins.
BEN KISSEL That's so many more than one word but okay.
MARCUS PARKS But when the Steinmans heard this very dumb idea and said no, the mood of the room very
suddenly changed. Pulling out the pistol they bought earlier that summer, Taylor and Justin
grabbed all the Steinmans' checkbooks, forced the Steinmans into their own white van, and
had them drive the whole crew back to the Children of Thunder house where a long night and
day of physical and mental torture was waiting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is where being a dumb criminal a lot of times make you worse than the smart criminal.
BEN KISSEL Yeah. And these people are what, in their 70s or 80s?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, 70s I think. They're elderly.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god. Leave 'em alone!
MARCUS PARKS They're grandparents. Well once they were in the house, Taylor switched tact and told them
that he was in trouble and needed money to get out of the country. Specifically he needed
their money and if they signed over $100,000 to him then he'd leave them handcuffed in the
house for three days while he escaped, then he'd call the cops and it would all be over. Badabing,
bada-boom, easy as that. But since he was in trouble, they couldn't write the checks
directly to him. Instead they needed to write the checks out to his girlfriend Selina Bishop. And
Selina Bishop by the way was still completely ignorant as to the sort of situation she'd gotten
herself into. As far as she knew the money that was coming into her account was from Taylor's
dead great uncle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You know at some point one of the Steinmans had to have been like, 'You know that's a stupid
idea, Taylor. You know that that is not money laundering.'
BEN KISSEL Of course.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And eventually it kind of sort of worked. The Steinmans seemed to agree. So the next
morning, Dawn called the Morgan Stanley offices pretending to be Annette Steinman, saying
that they needed to liquidate their accounts due to a medical emergency.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Dawn is... You know what? Because I know the other two of the main villains, right. The Helzer
brothers are like really, really-
BEN KISSEL I don't know man, she's very complicit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS Extraordinarily so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No, no, no. I am bumping her up, I'm bumping her up to just how... This is like that Trapped In
Paradise movie with Nic Cage, like this is the worst band of fucking morons in the world.
Because she called up the bank and was like, (old lady voice) 'Hello? This is Mrs. Steinman.'
They knew up top that something was incredibly fishy about this whole scenario. They're like
that does not sound like Mrs. Steinman who they'd been working with for decades.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI From another number.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. But still the money was in the Steinmans' regular bank account by 1pm, that part of the
plan did at least work. But again the Children of Thunder had not thought ahead. They had
given the Steinmans Rohypnol to make them more compliant.
BEN KISSEL Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS But they'd given them 6 pills each.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Far too much to keep either of them even conscious.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI If you're trying to do business, you can't have a Cosby lunch.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely not. I mean that's what they gave Jason Voorhees in Freddy VS Jason.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL To make to make him go to bed so they could get him to Camp Crystal Lake where he likes to
be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's true.
MARCUS PARKS So to try to wake them back up again, Taylor smoked some meth and blew it in their faces.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Like a dog at a party.
BEN KISSEL This gets dumber and dumber and dumber.
MARCUS PARKS When that didn't work, Taylor said fuck it and had Dawn practice Annette's signature, making
a test check of $10,000.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Wait a second Taylor, doesn't this sort of mean that we never needed the Steinmans in the
first place that we could have just taken the checkbooks? Dawn, oh God. Just get some
makeup. You know what I mean? Just something else. You've got to contribute something
else, Dawn.
BEN KISSEL All right, Dawn. Let me take a look at the checks here. You signed every one of these Dawn.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Yeah but you're supposed to use the name.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh I always thought I was doing it as Annette. You know what I mean?
BEN KISSEL No, but yes. But then you have to write Annette.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm Annette Steinman! I'm a character.
BEN KISSEL No, you just wrote Dawn again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes, I'm Annette.
BEN KISSEL Okay. Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm gonna kill you, Dawn.
MARCUS PARKS Well figuring that he had enough to move on with the next phase of the plan, Taylor decided
that it was time for the Steinmans to die. After Taylor, Justin, and Dawn all stripped down to
their underwear so they didn't get any blood on their clothes, Taylor tried killing the Steinmans
by suffocating them. This however proved too tiring for Taylor. So he ordered Dawn and Justin
to suffocate them with plastic. But the two pensioners proved to be made of sterner stuff than
the Children of Thunder expected. When they fought back, Taylor started smashing Annette's
head on the bathroom floor over and over again.
BEN KISSEL Oh man.
MARCUS PARKS And Justin, who copied his brother in everything he did, took the cue and did the exact same
thing with Ivan. Eventually Ivan died of a heart attack during the beating but Annette survived.
Tiring of the whole business, Taylor dragged Annette to the bathtub and stabbed her once in
each lung. And when she still didn't die, Taylor turned her over, slit her throat, and drowned
her in her own blood.
BEN KISSEL God they're so fucking bad at this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well and it was all to avoid... Because that was the whole thing, they had this like they're
gonna feel no pain. Because Justin at first, he was in on the plan because he's like we're gonna
feed them with so much Rohypnol they're just going to go to sleep and not wake up. And so
like okay. And then it turned into this like he's switching the plan. Taylor is looking at
everything and we got to suffocate them because then they're like we need to do this quick,
we need to make sure we don't cause any noise and we don't cause a disruption because if
not, because of the neighbors. We can't shoot a gun, that's too crazy.
BEN KISSEL Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Meanwhile they then protracted it and it was probably far noisier than two separate-
BEN KISSEL They're slamming people's heads into the floor!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We're in a big city. If you hear a gunshot it sounds like claps, right?
BEN KISSEL Yeah. Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's a very specific noise but it actually can be covered up fairly easy by car noise, other
environmental sounds.
MARCUS PARKS Sneezing really loud.
BEN KISSEL Sure.
MARCUS PARKS Just make sure you sneeze at the same time that you fire the gun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Achoo!
BEN KISSEL Achoo! Perfect. Berkowitz could have done that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yep.
MARCUS PARKS Well within 10 minutes of killing both of the Steinmans, Taylor ordered Dawn to drive up to
Petaluma to deposit the $10,000 check into Selina Bishop's account. They're immediately
getting to work on this. Meanwhile the Helzer brothers immediately got to work
dismembering the bodies. Now the Helzers very quickly learned, as many killers in the past
have, that you don't use power saws on flesh because it gums up the works. So they sliced the
flesh off the bodies with knives and used the saw on the bones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Oh my.
MARCUS PARKS And once the Steinmans were dismembered and packed away into duffel bags, things only
accelerated for the Children of Thunder. The next day Dawn started calling up rental
companies to see if she could get a hold of a jet ski so they could dispose of the Steinmans'
bodies somewhere in the California delta.
BEN KISSEL Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS And once that was wrapped up, Dawn embarked on the next phase of this extremely methinspired
plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI So first of all Dawn, who has never seen a jet ski in her life-
BEN KISSEL No, no idea what it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They're like go get us a jet ski.
BEN KISSEL Does it work on snow? Does it work on snow then?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's very Kenny Powers. It's just so strange, this idea. So she's calling all around town trying to
find a jet ski, they have to go to the fucking-
BEN KISSEL Go to the jet ski place!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's so dumb. They have to go get their cars retrofitted so they could even - they didn't even
think that you would need something to tow the jet ski so then they had to have something
attached to the car to even use the jet ski. It's pain.
BEN KISSEL Oh wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's stupid.
BEN KISSEL Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But the next bit takes the cake.
MARCUS PARKS The next bit's great. On the morning of August 1st, the day after they killed the Steinmans,
Dawn showed up at the Steinmans bank in a wheelchair dressed in a bright lime green
jumpsuit, gloves, and a big golden cowboy hat. Words seriously cannot express just how stupid
and out of place she looked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Besides Jodi Arias' butthole, it is one of my single favorite pictures in all of true crime because
she's rolling in, she looks sort of like, have you ever seen the meme, the 'what in tarnation'
meme with the dog with the cowboy hat on? Because Taylor fed her this thing of like you
wanna dress so outlandishly, they're just paying attention to how outlandish you are, they're
not thinking you'd be doing something suspicious. Meanwhile she comes into this thing, she
looks like Larry Flynt in drag. She's just the stupidest figure in the world.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. If I saw this woman in the bank dressed like that, I would remember it 30 years later. I'd
be in the rest home thinking about this woman in the fucking lime green jumpsuit and the
cowboy hat in the wheelchair.
BEN KISSEL So their logic is so methed up and so 360.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
BEN KISSEL They say in order not to be recognized you have to be so recognized that people don't even
see you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Super recognizable.
BEN KISSEL They just see whatever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hats and wheelchairs and wigs.
BEN KISSEL Wow it's so brilliant.
MARCUS PARKS Well Dawn told the bank manager that she was a relative of the Steinmans named Jackie and
she needed money from the Steinmans' account to pay for emergency heart surgery for their
granddaughter Selina Bishop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And bank managers, they really always react well to hyper convoluted fast talking schemes
and a woman obviously in a wig and a cowboy hat.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely. Well you have to listen to her because no matter what she's saying, she is
confessing to murder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You have to be recording details.
MARCUS PARKS Well she had checks from the Steinmans' account made out for $67,000 and $33,000. And all
the tellers needed to do was just deposit it in Selina's bank account so she can pay for the
heart surgery. That's all I need you to do, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Just like that.
MARCUS PARKS Just take these checks, just deposit it in Selina's account. You don't need to know anything
else. You just need to know she needs emergency heart surgery. Just do the thing, it's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Come on, come on, I'm in a wheelchair.
BEN KISSEL And you know how easy banking is. That's why I just do it every day for fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You love it.
BEN KISSEL Because I just go to the bank and I'm just like, 'Here's a dollar, can we play with it? Can we talk
about it?' Because it's nice for community and of course they're always so ready and willing to
help.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
BEN KISSEL In a timely manner!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS Now the bank teller very wisely called the Steinmans' house and got the answering machine.
But Dawn told them man they just moved.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They just moved.
MARCUS PARKS That's why they're not at home.
BEN KISSEL But they kept the answering machine? They didn't bring it?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They just moved.
BEN KISSEL You are one of the dumbest looking people I've ever seen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Thank you.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS So Dawn gave the manager the Steinmans' quote unquote "new number" which was of course
a line to Taylor Helzer's cellphone. And Taylor answered and tried impersonating Ivan
Steinman.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yeah, it is definitely my wheelchair-bound friend of child. What did she say? Who did she
say she was?
BEN KISSEL I don't even know what kind of hell I want these people to be in because not fire and
brimstone, it has to be dumber than that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think so too.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, yeah. But the man on the answering machine and the man at the new number were
obviously two very different people.
BEN KISSEL Right.
MARCUS PARKS So Dawn was told that she needed the Steinmans' social security numbers and even after she
left and called them back with the information, they said it would be at least a week before
the money could be transferred because the manager had put a quote unquote "hard hold" on
the account.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The manager read this scenario perfectly right. He was just like oh this is completely incorrect
and you know what sold it? What made them put the hard hold on?
BEN KISSEL What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Was that they said like, 'Okay well if we're going to cash this, you're gonna need to get the
social security numbers.' And Dawn was like, (goblin voice) 'I'll be right back, that's easy to get.'
And then she wheeled out the front door. And then the manager looked at her go and was
like, 'How did that wheelchair-bound woman come in the front door?' Because the
handicapped entrance, you have to actually go through the parking lot and take the elevator.
There's two sets of stairs that you'd have to go down, it was like 24 steps to come up the thing.
BEN KISSEL No, she just went down like Naked Gun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah. So it's like she threw her wheelchair up the stairs front sprung in a flip up the stairs,
landed in the wheelchair and then rolled in.
BEN KISSEL I swear to God that's Usual Suspects.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
BEN KISSEL That was their trick there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But far dumber.
BEN KISSEL Of course.
MARCUS PARKS Oh yeah. Now at this point Taylor Helzer believed that the plan, although delayed, was still
going to somehow work out. As far as he knew the money was going to Selina's account and
going off Selina's journals at the time, she was smitten enough with Taylor that she would
have willingly given him every single cent. She would have done anything he asked. But this is
the point in the story when things get truly confusing and it's hard to figure out Taylor Helzer's
motivations because he was, and I can't stress this enough, doing a lot of meth and a lot of
ecstasy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You just need one clarifying drug.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Advil?
BEN KISSEL Maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What brings you down?
BEN KISSEL A hit of weed might actually help in this case.
MARCUS PARKS They were also smoking a lot of weed.
BEN KISSEL Okay, fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS Ostensibly this plan was supposed to go down four more times, netting the Children of
Thunder $500,000 to fund their plan to install Taylor at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints.
BEN KISSEL It would have literally just been easier to wait every single day outside of Family Feud.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The church! Anything else.
MARCUS PARKS The Price is Right.
BEN KISSEL Price is Right, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Gonna get into Price is Right.
BEN KISSEL Trying to get on Price is Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He should have just expanded his ecstasy business.
BEN KISSEL Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS Then after it was done 4 more times, the money would be transferred to Taylor and Taylor was
then going to kill Selina Bishop. That was the plan.
BEN KISSEL Boom!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's it. We're transforming America.
BEN KISSEL Set it and forget it.
MARCUS PARKS But Taylor didn't even wait for the first scheme to play out before he carried out the end of the
plot. Possibly Taylor got paranoid and thought he couldn't trust Selina and his megalomania
was so out of control that he figured he could get the money from Selina's account with or
without her somehow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I do believe that his blood was up. I think that they killed the two people and it went so poorly,
right, they had to rev up.
BEN KISSEL Did they think it went poorly or were they just like, 'That was another perfect job.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes. It was supposed to be easy and it turned out to be far harder than they thought it was
gonna be. And I think the thing was that Taylor realized he's looking at Tweedle Dee and
Tweedle Dum and he's realizing we don't have a lot of gas in the tank here. Because Justin was
like, say what you will, Dylan Klebold-like. He is the dude that is just like, 'So I'm really not
looking forward to going through that again.' And then you got Dawn who's just like, 'Let me
get back to the bank! I'm excited to get in the mix!'
BEN KISSEL Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And it's just like Dawn, you're done. Your part of the plan is over, you fucked it up, Dawn. And
now I think there is a little bit of that, of how am I gonna rev everybody up to do this another
four times?
BEN KISSEL Right.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And I think it was also the fact that he had orchestrated the deaths of two people and
they hadn't immediately gotten caught. I think his ego was boosted enough where he figured I
can get to the Steinmans' money without Selina Bishop, doesn't fucking matter. And so Taylor
Helzer jumped the gun and killed Selina Bishop for seemingly no reason. On August 2, three
days after murdering the Steinmans, Taylor invited Selina to the Children of Thunder house to
stay the night in advance of a trip to Yellowstone National Park the next day. The plan was to
have Justin Helzer beat Selina to death with a hammer that night.
BEN KISSEL What a fucking brilliant plan!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI During Risk.
BEN KISSEL Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And after playing Risk - well not during Risk. After.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Who knows? You never know because I get really concentrated and get in the zone.
BEN KISSEL Yeah I guess it's appropriate they were playing a game with a lot of red flags.
MARCUS PARKS And after playing Risk and smoking weed with the Children of Thunder, Selina was invited to
come back to look at the newly remodeled bathroom and that was where the deed would be
done.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well you remember this bathroom was an absolute slaughterhouse three days ago. They did it
all the worst way possible.
BEN KISSEL It must have smelled, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS No, they had remodeled it, they had done a full gut renovation in like a day and a half because
they had butchered two people in that room just a few days earlier.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Thank you, meth.
BEN KISSEL Wow, yeah. You'll notice the shiplap. Isn't that nice?
MARCUS PARKS But nevertheless Justin walked in behind Dawn and Selina with a hammer, waiting for Selina to
turn her back. But when she never did they all just went back to playing Risk.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's like a movie. It's a movie because literally they're like, 'All right, we're going to the
bathroom.' And then Selina was like okay. They go and then Justin's slowly raising the hammer
behind him being like, 'Should I do it?'
BEN KISSEL It makes the characters from Burn After Reading look like supervillains.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. You know what it reminds me of? Throw Momma From The Train.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Very much so.
BEN KISSEL Owen loves his momma! Owen loves his momma!
MARCUS PARKS Well soon Taylor brought Selina some wine spiked with Rohypnol. But when Selina
commented that the wine looked funny, Taylor took it back, gave her a new non-drugged
glass, and came up with yet another plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Are they all like making eyes at each other? That's the only way I could figure out, like how is
he shifting plans amongst each one? Is he going like, 'We're going to have to do something else
then for dinner. Right, Dawn?' And she was like, (goblin voice) 'Do you want me to get the hat?
You want me to go get my wig?'
BEN KISSEL Yeah, love that hat.
MARCUS PARKS Well he's bringing him into the other room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Like The Birdcage!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. He's like, 'Dawn, let me talk to you in the other room for a second.' And he told her that
she and Justin were to wait half an hour after Selina was asleep in Taylor's room, then they'd
sneak in, put a towel over her face, and beat her to death with the hammer. But when Selina
didn't fall asleep-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI She's not going to sleep.
BEN KISSEL What are we gonna do now?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What do we do now?
BEN KISSEL Oh my God, that's such a key component to our plan.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Taylor offered her a back rub and it was while she was face down in Taylor's room that
Justin came in and brought down the hammer over and over again. All while Dawn watched.
And after five or so blows, Selina finally stopped struggling and Taylor ordered Dawn to
prepare for cleanup. But Selina still wasn't dead. After hearing her moaning from the other
room, Taylor returned, hit her three more times himself, and slit her throat which according to
forensics is what finally killed her. Somewhat learning from their last dismemberment, the
Children of Thunder placed the body on sawhorses in the bathtub for butchering and used
chopsticks to pull body tissue out of the bathtub drain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That is all Dawn too. They made Dawn do all of the cleanup duty. Ugh god.
BEN KISSEL Well everyone has their role in this ridiculously stupid plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS Going back to their old plan just to see what they could see, the Children of Thunder tried to
get their rottweiler to eat human flesh. The dog did indeed eat a few pieces including skin
featuring an identifying tattoo, but the dog could only eat so much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Poor dog. I feel bad for the dog.
MARCUS PARKS I feel so bad for the dog, of course.
BEN KISSEL Yeah dude.
MARCUS PARKS And the thing was it's not like the Children of Thunder were inconspicuous. They were known
as the weirdos on the block and a nosy neighbor had seen them take both the Steinmans and
Selina Bishop into their home and they noticed that none of them came back out again.
BEN KISSEL To be fair I don't think that was a nosy neighbor, I think that was just a neighbor and they're so
stupid and bad at it that by definition they had to see it.
MARCUS PARKS Another neighbor heard the hammering and the sawing and in a scene straight out of The
Burbs very explicitly said on the night of Selina Bishop's murder that it sounded like they were
breaking bones next door.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This reminded me of in Tallahassee when I lived across the street from a meth house and
watching them all. It must have been they smoked in the morning because then you'd watch
them all come outside and paint the house and lawn mow and they'd do all of this shit, out
scurrying around like a bunch of cockroaches all day in front of the fucking house, doing all this
shit. Where you're like none of you are subtle, you know that right? You know that you all
think that you're just normal everyday guys. No, you are cranked up crazy people.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. But after Selina was murdered and dismembered, Taylor realized that there was still a
loose end to tie up. See Taylor had been careful while dating Selina to stay away from any sort
of personal entanglements and therefore refused to meet Selina's mother Jenny Villarin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Remember this boys and girls, if you're trying to talk to somebody and they're love bombing
you, like Taylor's hitting you with all the I love you, I love you, I've never met anybody like you,
we're two twin flames entangled in a torch and we're going to transform America but he didn't
tell her what transform America meant. But the idea is that they keep pushing all the dates
because that's what she said was that Taylor would make all these promises about hanging out
and doing the stuff, that we're gonna meet your family, going to do all this stuff. And he just
kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. Eventually you need a reason, like a real reason
besides just I'm an ecstasy dealer.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS But one day not too long before the murder, Jenny Villarin had dropped by Selina's apartment
unexpectedly while Taylor was there, just to meet this mysterious new boyfriend that Selina
wouldn't stop talking about. So Jenny Villarin saw Taylor Helzer's face. And from what Selina
told Taylor just before he killed her, Jenny Villarin was housesitting at Selina's apartment at
that very moment with the full knowledge that Selina was supposed to be on a trip to
Yellowstone with this mysterious new boyfriend. So right after Taylor killed Selina Bishop, he
and Dawn drove to Selina's apartment with the express purpose of killing Selina's mother. But
when they arrived they found that Jenny Villarin was not alone. She'd had a sleepover with a
friend named Jim Gamble and both were asleep in bed when Taylor Helzer walked in alone
with his pistol. Jenny was shot twice in the head while Jim was shot through his right calf, left
arm, chest, and neck. And since Taylor left behind a lot of easily obtainable cash when he
quickly left the crime scene, investigators who arrived that very night after reports of gunshots
knew that they were definitely not dealing with a robbery here.
BEN KISSEL Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And again Dawn is parked outside. So they parked his truck outside of the house, catty corner
on it, basically it was parked very badly on a corner. Have you ever seen a car just literally
parked diagonal on the tip of the corner?
BEN KISSEL I guess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, no one does this. And two witnesses just watched a man dressed as a hitman get out of
a car, go into a house, right. And then they watched a portly woman inside chain smoking,
chain smoking, chain smoking, throwing out cigarettes. And they're like that's really fucking
weird.
BEN KISSEL A lot of DNA evidence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI She's straight up just smoking inside with the fucking windows closed of her truck, putting out
little fucking cigarettes back and forth. So eventually when Taylor left, these guys were
watching her the whole time and she was watching them watch her enough so that Dawn
emerged from the car and she went over to the two witnesses and she's like, (goblin voice)
'My friend was buying weed from a shady guy so I was back up.' And then scurried back into
the van. This is true.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Scurry back into the truck and drive off.
BEN KISSEL We didn't solicit, we didn't ask you to give us that information at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And the neighbor was like there's no weed dealers around here, this is a pretty nice
neighborhood, nothing wrong with that but there's no guys just selling weed out of
apartments here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It doesn't work like that, yeah.
BEN KISSEL Right. It's also another crime.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Like you know you're committing a bad crime obviously in the year 2000.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI When you have to confess to a less crime, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS And so now that the murders were taken care of, for all the good it did the Children of
Thunder, it was time to dispose of the bodies. Half thinking it through and half not, Taylor
didn't want the bodies identified in case they were found. So he had Justin put all three
disembodied heads on a towel and Justin spent 30 minutes knocking out the teeth in each
head with a chisel and hammer.
BEN KISSEL Oh god. DNA evidence exists! OJ was the biggest trial of the 90s, everyone knows about DNA
evidence. These people are so stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They're transforming America and they're protected by god.
BEN KISSEL You know what? Now that I think about the current state of America, they may have won.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They might have.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Once that was done, the body parts of Selina, Ivan, and Annette were intermixed
amongst 9 duffel bags to confuse identification and the bags were weighted down with
stepping stones stupidly taken straight from the Children of Thunder's front yard.
BEN KISSEL Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That they rented! It's a rented house. They don't own the house.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And they're not just rocks, these are like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Slates!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, these are slates that were taken from the house. If you found these fucking stepping
stones in the lake you could just take them and put them right back where they belong.
BEN KISSEL Oh that's where they belong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You see the holes in the gravel that they came from.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS And after towing the rented jet ski complete with paperwork out to the California delta where
they were photographed multiple times by toll road cameras, the Children of Thunder stopped
at a place called Korth's Pirate Lair.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I do wish that they all, and that's a hint for an upcoming series, but I do wish that they all were
in the Village People costumes. Like constantly trying to throw everybody off. Would you
believe a police officer, a Native American, and a construction worker came in here the other
day? And that woman didn't look Native American.
BEN KISSEL Wow. Absolutely fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS There in the middle of the afternoon, Taylor and Justin took the jet ski out and ferried the
duffel bags full of body parts in four separate trips while Dawn waited on the shore next to a
bloody pickup truck bed. Because these duffel bags full of body parts were leaking a lot.
BEN KISSEL Sure, I would imagine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (goblin voice) And I should have been on the jet ski, I'm the one renting it. They go out there
on the lake, they're the ones having all of the fun and I'm the master of disguise.
BEN KISSEL Yeah. Stay by the truck, Dawn. Yeah, just stay by the truck there. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (goblin voice) Jet ski all the time...
BEN KISSEL Thanks for renting the jet ski, Dawn.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (goblin voice) That's all I needed!
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS After getting rid of the bodies, they got rid of the Steinmans' white van by driving it to a bad
neighborhood in Oakland. They left it there with the keys in the ignition and a spare set of keys
on the fucking dash. Then they left the doors open and they blared rap music, thinking
someone's definitely gonna steal it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's the most racist bait. They'll hear the rap music coming out over here and they can't help
but be drawn to the rhythm and the beats.
MARCUS PARKS Nobody was dumb enough to take the bait.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS The cops found it. No, that is a weird trap of some kind. I'm not going to fucking go check that
out. And so therefore this became a massive piece of evidence. As far as the rest of the
evidence went including all of the Steinmans' checkbooks, Selina's ID, and the gun Taylor had
used to kill Jenny Villarin and Jim Gamble, that all went into a safe at the apartment of
Mormon witch Debra McClanahan who still didn't have a clue what was going on.
BEN KISSEL Jeez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well that's where he kept his meth and his ecstasy that he would sell. And he somehow
railroaded her into thinking I'm going to keep this safe, you don't know what's in this safe, you
don't know what's in this safe, I'm keeping it over here, it's in your house but you don't know
what it is.
BEN KISSEL Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Meanwhile he only went over there and took ecstasy out of it and drugs, other drugs, money,
and a gun. And it was all there and she was just like, 'I don't know what's in that box.'
BEN KISSEL You kind of gotta ask, it's your safe, it's in your house.
MARCUS PARKS Meanwhile the Children of Thunder got to work cleaning their house after the very messy
hammer murder of Selina Bishop. They picked up a steam cleaner but when that didn't do the
job they called a professional carpet cleaner to come take care of it.
BEN KISSEL Great.
MARCUS PARKS Saying that Justin had cut himself and got some blood on the rug.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I was definitely peeling a carrot the other day and I got a little bit of a nick.
BEN KISSEL Justin that's the perfect story and don't forget there's a Hippocratic oath with the carpet
cleaners, they can do no wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Client privilege.
BEN KISSEL They also have the exact same client privilege as a doctor or a priest. They will never speak,
they are carpet cleaners and no one trusts what they say.
MARCUS PARKS The stains were actually so bad that the cleaner, who god bless him just wanted to believe the
best, he asked Justi, 'Hey bud, did you spill Kool-Aid on this rug or something?'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Some kind of Kool-Aid?
BEN KISSEL Yeah, blood-flavored?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Some kind of Kool-Aid here? Wink wink. Let me see, there was probably several gallons of
Kool-Aid.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, you know adults just slam Kool-Aid and then dump it on the ground.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And so this must be penny-flavored because you get that.
MARCUS PARKS And after Justin said, 'Yeah, that's totally what we did.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL You don't do Kool-Aid parties? You get a bunch of Kool-Aid, dump it on the ground, man.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. He and Dawn just left the carpet cleaner there while they went to the movies.
BEN KISSEL What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We're gonna see X-Men for real because honestly after she fake bought the tickets I was
thinking I don't want to miss this cinematic event. There'll never be another comic book movie.
BEN KISSEL This is the last one. Any idea what movie they saw, Marcus?
MARCUS PARKS I have no idea what movie they saw. I would imagine they did probably go to see X-Men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS What was in the theaters that summer? I think The Mummy was out that summer, maybe that
was '99. Maybe that was the summer before.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I really think that it was all about the X-Men because then they knew that then if someone
asked us about the intricate plot of the X-Men, we will be able to tell them with no detail left
untold.
BEN KISSEL So smart.
MARCUS PARKS So Dawn, what does happen to a toad when lightning strikes it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I fell asleep.
BEN KISSEL No Dawn, you gotta stay awake!
MARCUS PARKS The same thing that happens to everything else! The dumbest fucking line in movie history.
Now while we'd like to say that the Children of Thunder were immediately picked up for their
crimes, the sheer randomness of it all actually made this quite a difficult case to crack but to
the credit of the policemen involved, they actually did do one hell of a job putting it all
together even if they were horribly haunted by it.
BEN KISSEL All right. Well that's the job, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS Well I think what haunted the policemen more than anything, like watching one of the
documentaries, the head investigator in I think the Selina Bishop disappearance, what haunted
him was the sheer idiocy of all of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Sure.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS I mean it was also the brutality, yeah. The brutality was horrible but he couldn't he couldn't
wrap his head around people being this dumb.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Because like I would put it close to the idea of Richard Chase where the level of brutality and
child-like nature of the murder itself is far more sinister in my mind. Yeah I know that
obviously it's horrible what somebody like a highly organized killer like BTK does or the East
Area Rapist, like that type of thing, like someone who really does fucked up shit.
BEN KISSEL Scary in another way, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And highly planned, meticulous. There's something about this where it's like they just didn't
even know what the hell they were doing. It's almost worse.
BEN KISSEL It's also just so random because the people that were killed never knew that they had planted
a seed and then quickly that grew was the dumbest damn thing ever. And it's like really bro?
You're the one who's going to kill me?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Now of course the first bodies discovered were those of Jenny Villarin and Jim Gamble.
And cops soon discovered that Jenny's daughter Selina was also missing. Meanwhile the
Steinmans had completely disappeared with the only trace being the van found in Oakland. On
the side of Selina's investigation, cops discovered that she had been dating a mysterious man
who called himself Jordan but the person who showed up again and again on her phone
records was Justin Helzer, who was of course paying his brother's cell phone bill. And on the
Steinman side, when cops were looking into the disappearance, they found out about the lime
green weirdo in the wheelchair who had tried to transfer money from the Steinmans' account
to a woman named Selina Bishop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI So dumb.
BEN KISSEL Wow.
MARCUS PARKS And once the two investigations came together, it wasn't long before the name Helzer showed
up again in the Steinmans' past dealings at Morgan Stanley. And then the body bags showed
up.
BEN KISSEL It seems like True Detective, they got the strings and they're connecting all the dots. This is like
when you give spiders a bunch of acid because when you connect these dots you're like, I did
it right. This is just how stupid this looks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI When does a moron become a genius? You're starting to see the ouroboros tail of well they
somehow made themselves criminals dunderminds.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, that's true.
MARCUS PARKS See the Children of Thunder were counting on nobody ever finding the duffel bags full of body
parts because they weighed them down with the stepping stones from their own house and
they had cut holes in the bag to keep gasses from bringing them back to the surface. But all 9
resurfaced and were discovered by either unlucky civilians or law enforcement. And so it was
known that both Selina Bishop and the Steinmans were murder victims. And a search warrant
was obtained for the arrest of the Children of Thunder. Now Justin and Dawn were very easily
detained when a SWAT team stormed their house but Taylor jumped out of his bedroom
window and made a break for it wearing only a black t-shirt and boxers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm free! I'm free! You could see it, like viscerally see this. Dawn very easily being taken and
him running like the Joker in that shot where his hair is blowing in the wind.
MARCUS PARKS Eventually Justin was caught, they caught up to him pretty fast but he was then put in a squad
car and he asked for some air. The officer rolled down the window just eight inches but that
was enough for Taylor to wiggle through and take off running again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm free!
BEN KISSEL Yeah, you know what? We're just gonna keep windows up from now on.
MARCUS PARKS Eventually Taylor knocked on the door of a neighbor who thought that the crazed young men
without pants was a friend of her son's. As soon as she let him in though it became obvious
that she had made the wrong assumption. And it's at this point that I think Taylor Helzer might
just be cursed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah. He's very bad.
MARCUS PARKS He's very, very bad. Taylor grabbed a knife from the kitchen and demanded her car keys but
she very truthfully had just opened the phone book to call enterprise for a rental because her
car wasn't running.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's not running so I can't help you there.
BEN KISSEL Well that's not part of the plan!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's it! You're not helping me transform America!
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS Taylor then pointed to the guns on the wall and demanded she take them down so he could
use them. But she told him again very truthfully that they were just her husband's Civil War
replicas, they didn't work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Damn you heritage!
BEN KISSEL He's gonna go with the muzzle?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, he's gonna have a fucking musket. He's seriously gonna go and be like, 'This will
neutralize them. They'll be so surprised to see the Civil War era gun that they won't know that
I'm the deadliest man in the world.'
BEN KISSEL See the thing is they're not going to die from the bullet wound, they're going to die from the
infection.
MARCUS PARKS He then demanded clothes, so she gave him her husband's pants but they were too big.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god. Just give up, buddy. Just give up.
MARCUS PARKS So Taylor took some scissors so he could cut off his own hair because he figured if I run,
they're looking for a guy with long hair and if I go out there with short hair, nobody's gonna
fucking catch me, bro.
BEN KISSEL It's not Grand Theft Auto. You didn't just go get your car painted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No.
MARCUS PARKS But unbeknownst to him, this woman's son had been on the phone with the cops the whole
time and they very soon arrested Taylor Helzer and took him to jail.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hey guys, do I look familiar? Let's all think about this. Can I get some air?
BEN KISSEL Are you sure it's the same guy because the guy that ran away had long hair. Honestly that cop
is very lucky he didn't kill that family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yes.
BEN KISSEL That would have been a bad...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI A lot of paperwork.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Now even though the Children of Thunder had done their level best to get rid of the
physical evidence of multiple murders within their home, there was still quite a bit of
circumstantial evidence left behind, including a lot of embarrassing Children of Thunder
ephemera.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI God, I wish I could get some of this is. I know I'm not supposed to have any more true crime
memorabilia in my home, but god, some of this would be great.
MARCUS PARKS In addition to a Rolodex that had the home address of the Steinmans, the cops also found
paperwork for the jet ski rental, a note in the garbage can entitled 'Escape Plan'.
BEN KISSEL Oh my God.
MARCUS PARKS Documents detailing the ins and outs of In 2 Me C, ads for quote "better orgasms and bigger
and better penis" in Justin's room, and numerous LDS church documents.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's all you need. That's all you need to build a cult.
BEN KISSEL Hey Sergeant Barry, you want to give me that one piece of evidence there, the bigger dick
thing? Yeah sure, Leonard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It says step one, tug on it. It's incredible. It's that easy.
BEN KISSEL Wait you mean to tell me you've never had a boner before?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No.
MARCUS PARKS They also found receipts for 40 ounces of red phosphorus that Taylor was ostensibly going to
use to make meth but there was actually no evidence that Taylor had actually succeeded in
building his own meth lab.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He tried but it did not go through.
BEN KISSEL That was the one thing that he should have been able to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI True.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Cops also found numerous plans for schemes, including a tiered 401k plan for In 2 Me C
sex workers.
BEN KISSEL Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS And they found plans for a venture involving sexy poker games in which men could play poker
with sexy ladies and have sex with them afterwards for $800 a pop.
BEN KISSEL Nothing hotter than a bunch of babes sitting around a poker table with their tits out and it's
just such a sexy look.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think it's nice but it's such a 15 year old's idea.
BEN KISSEL Poker is not a hot game.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think it's fun, I think strip poker. I've played a couple of those back in the day.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god. Again proving my point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Wink.
BEN KISSEL I can't even imagine who you played strip poker with.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI College, baby.
BEN KISSEL Oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI College, man. Fucking sexy theater girls and a bunch of fat guys, skinny girls. It was incredible.
Incredible times. But then it is funny to think of it because it is such an 18 year old's idea of like
wouldn't it be fucking cool if we fucking played naughty poker, and you can have sex with
them after.
MARCUS PARKS As far as evidence for murder goes, Taylor had actually written out notes for possible
justifications should he ever get caught. And Justin had written detailed flow charts that
plotted out how the Children of Thunder should react in certain murder scenarios. There were
notes from Selina Bishop, receipts for a reciprocating saw, a sword naturally, and multiple
answering machine messages from various carpet cleaning services.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI There's a heck of a lot of Kool-Aid and it just seems to be big chunks of Kool-Aid all inside the
caulking of the tub and inside of the faucet, yeah.
BEN KISSEL Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS Actually they produced so much blood that the faucets had to be replaced. They actually sent
Dawn out to get new faucets because they couldn't get the blood off of them.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS But what really put the Children of Thunder into the stew was the Mormon white witch Debra
McClanahan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Should have just let her be a pornstar.
MARCUS PARKS When she found out that the X-Men Denny's alibi she'd helped create was for a double
murder, she flipped as fast as she possibly could. She told cops that they definitely hadn't gone
with her to see the X-Men nor had they gone to Denny's that night.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI No. And I would have remembered.
BEN KISSEL Of course, you never forget a Denny's trip.
MARCUS PARKS And she immediately gave them access to her safe which held cheque books belonging to the
Steinmans and the gun used to kill Jenny Villarin and Jim Gamble. And to top it all off, when
they finally tracked down the $10,000 test check that Dawn Godman had forged and deposited
in Selina Bishop's account right after the Steinmans had been murdered, it was found that
Dawn had misspelled the name Steinman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Who is Stinman, Dawn? Who is Stinman? (goblin voice) 'I don't know what's going on. Honestly
I had to go to three different hat stores.'
BEN KISSEL Dawn, stay by the truck!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (goblin voice) And honestly even just getting this lime green jumpsuit was really very difficult
too.
BEN KISSEL Dawn, you go by the truck. Just go by the truck.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (goblin voice) All right.
BEN KISSEL Please.
MARCUS PARKS Now in the lead up to the trials it seemed like the Children of Thunder were going to stick
together. But just before the trials began, Dawn Godman flipped and gave a full confession in
order to avoid the death penalty. That's why we know everything that we know about the
Children of Thunder. And honestly I kind of think that that's why we don't know a lot of the
details about the Children of Thunder because I don't think Dawn had great recall for a lot of
stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I don't know if Dawn should have been the secretary of the cult but sometimes that's where
you get to. Sometimes it's who shows up. Again what are you gonna do?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL What is it Annie Potts? She's no Annie Potts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI She's no Annie Potts.
MARCUS PARKS That's right. Well for her cooperation she got 37 years to life. 19 days after Dawn flipped,
Justin changed his plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity.
BEN KISSEL Okay, hear me out. I'm not guilty by reason I'm a dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm a dog.
BEN KISSEL I'm actually a dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI How would I know? I'm just a dog. I'm only as good as my trainer.
MARCUS PARKS But it was very easily proved that Justin was not insane, just stupid and weak. However during
the trial Justin did become somewhat unmoored. At one point near the end he started saying
an open court that he wanted this life to be over, that he just wanted to die.
BEN KISSEL Sure, go for it.
MARCUS PARKS And when the judge said that this wasn't the time for such statements, Justin seriously said
quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm not trying to be rude or anything, I just want to die. I just wanna die, please. Can I please?
BEN KISSEL You'll have plenty of time to think about it.
MARCUS PARKS And even though Justin did eventually get the death penalty for his part in the murders, he
didn't wait for the state to carry out the sentence. In 2010 Justin attempted suicide by
ramming pens into both of his eyeballs.
BEN KISSEL Oh god! No! There's actually so many better ways to even do that!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I made a bit of a miscalculation.
BEN KISSEL You did again!
MARCUS PARKS Came away with blindness and brain damage.
BEN KISSEL Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Can I get a do over?
BEN KISSEL At least put it in your fricking ear or something.
MARCUS PARKS There was however just enough function left for Justin to hang himself and he did so in 2013
while being incarcerated at San Quentin. As far as Taylor Helzer goes though, he tried a
different gamble. Just before his trial he switched his plea from not guilty to guilty and did so
without any deal in place. The gamble did not work and Taylor Helzer was sentenced to death
for the five murders he committed. To this day he sits on death row in San Quentin where he
tells psychiatrists that his schemes failed because he didn't hear god correctly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What if he's right?
BEN KISSEL Well he definitely didn't. He did not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI If there is a god, this isn't one of his plans.
MARCUS PARKS No.
BEN KISSEL But you know what's so funny? The game of telephone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
BEN KISSEL And even with four people, you're going to start hearing mixed messages.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Honestly when it came down to it, I realized I was just listening to god's friend.
BEN KISSEL Isn't that insane? It turns out it was just Eric Clapton's most recent album the whole time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh my god.
BEN KISSEL It was just nuts, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah wow.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, that was really horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What a fucked up story.
BEN KISSEL Children of Thunder, I'm so pissed, I'm so pissed. I'm just pissed at that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, you should be.
BEN KISSEL I hate them so much.
MARCUS PARKS It's an infuriating story about infuriating people, yeah.
BEN KISSEL It really is. And it's just very sad that they with the power of sheer stupidity-
MARCUS PARKS And confidence.
BEN KISSEL And confidence.
MARCUS PARKS Stupidity and confidence, yeah. And meth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Meth, meth. Meth, meth, meth.
BEN KISSEL Maybe they're all intertwined.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, I think so. I think they're all together, one big happy family.
BEN KISSEL It's a marriage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's a marriage. But wow, I'm so glad we learned it, we got in deep. I learned a lot about EST
therapy as well, all that shit's very, very intense.
BEN KISSEL Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But next week we got a Relaxed Fit coming then we're going to the high seas for the first time
we're foraying into a realm of history that we've never gotten into before. And I'm very
excited.
BEN KISSEL I love it. All right so wear your most comfortable Uggs and your sweatpants for the next
episode. Relax.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Relax.
BEN KISSEL Relax.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Relax!
BEN KISSEL I want to thank everyone who came out to our shows in Boston and Mashantucket,
Connecticut. You all were just absolutely wonderful and we had such a great time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It was awesome.
MARCUS PARKS Thank you.
BEN KISSEL And yeah, we'll be on the road. Check out lastpodcastontheleft.com to check out our tour
schedule.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And speaking of check out we're going coming to the Ryman, all of LPN Is coming to the Ryman
Theater in Nashville. It is June 18th. Every member of the entire network is gonna be there
yelling at you.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god yeah, we're gonna meet ya!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We're gonna see your faces and we're so fucking excited. It's gonna be a big night.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL You'll be able to see Ed Larson, Ben Kissel, Henry Zebrowski, Holden, McNeely, all eight of our
nipples.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI All eight nipples! And then we've got a Jackie, we've got a Natalie-
BEN KISSEL I would say Marcus but Marcus' nipples are a little bit too tiny to see from stage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Too small from the stage.
MARCUS PARKS They're small, they're real small. You're not going to see my wife's nipples but she will be
there, Carolina Hidalgo, because we're gonna be doing a special No Dogs In Space segment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (barking) Yeah man, it's gonna be fucking sweet! I'm so excited. Everybody who's anybody is
gonna be there.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely. All right everyone, well thank you so much for supporting everything we do and
keep on supporting the shows here on the network. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL Megustalations. Don't kill anybody, please god, it's not right to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Again, have a plan though.
MARCUS PARKS No, just don't do it. Just don't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I mean technically they had a plan.
MARCUS PARKS They did have a plan, yeah. They had a whole plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It was a bad plan.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL I mean that's like being like I'm on a diet, I'm on the seafood diet, I see food then I eat it. That's
a diet but it's also stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, it's true.
MARCUS PARKS That's true.