Preview
JEFF – It was Good Friday, April 19th, 2019.
JEFF – As he often did, retired lecturer Gerald Corrigan was at his isolated home in Wales, watching TV.
DEE – A bit after midnight, the TV signal went out, so he went to check on the satellite dish outside.
JEFF – As he crouched over the satellite dish, he felt a sharp pain.
JEFF – He thought he’d been electrocuted.
DEE – This wasn’t an accident.
DEE – It was murder, with, of all things, a crossbow.
JEFF – Let’s talk about what happened to Gerald Corrigan and why.
JEFF – It’s so much crime.
DEE – So little time.
JEFF – Welcome to So Much Crime, So Little Time.
JEFF – I’m Jeff.
DEE – And I’m Dee.
JEFF – And in this episode, we’re going to preview the BBC Sounds podcast, The Crossbow Killer.
JEFF – We’re only going to discuss the first episode here, so there’s going to be no spoilers for anything that comes after.
JEFF – And our goal here really is to decide if this true crime podcast is worth your valuable time.
DEE – The next time in our full recap, we’ll recount the whole series, together with our opinions and any lingering questions we have.
DEE – But before we get into the story, it’s time to hop into the time machine.
DEE – This crime happened on April 19th, 2019 in Wales, but what else was happening on April 19th, 2019 around the world?
DEE – Or in Ireland and America?
DEE – That’s as global as we’re getting with our time machine at the moment.
JEFF – All right, so 2019 isn’t that long ago.
JEFF – So, Dee, I just have two things for our time machine.
JEFF – One of them actually isn’t at all about a time machine thing, but it’s related to this podcast.
JEFF – So the time machine thing I have is from the top song on the Billboard charts this week in April of 2019.
JEFF – And as I like to do, I want to read you some of the lyrics and see if you can figure out what this song is.
JEFF – Are you ready for this?
DEE – Go for it.
JEFF – Now, I can’t.
DEE – How did you describe it?
JEFF – A flat reading.
JEFF – This one, I’m going to read, I think I’m going to read verse two because I think that’s going to be the hardest, but also the funniest for me to read.
JEFF – But you tell me.
JEFF – Are you ready?
JEFF – Let’s go.
JEFF – This is me quoting now.
JEFF – This is not me talking.
JEFF – I mean, it’s me talking, but it’s okay.
JEFF – Ride not a tractor.
JEFF – Lean all in my bladder.
JEFF – Cheated on my baby.
JEFF – You can go and ask her.
JEFF – Oh, God.
JEFF – My life is a movie.
JEFF – Bull riding and boobies.
JEFF – Cowboy hat from Gucci.
JEFF – Wrangler on my booty.
JEFF – Nothing?
DEE – I have one coming to mind, but I’m like, I don’t know.
DEE – I could be way off.
DEE – Does it start with old?
JEFF – It does.
JEFF – Yeah.
DEE – Does it?
DEE – Is it Old Town Road?
JEFF – It sure is Old Town Road.
JEFF – And I don’t think until this moment…
DEE – Wrangler on my booty.
JEFF – I don’t think I ever knew that’s what he was saying.
JEFF – I never paid attention to that part of the song.
DEE – Oh, my gosh.
DEE – That was very funny.
JEFF – All right.
JEFF – That was the number one song in April of 2019.
JEFF – I think like the months and months before and months and months after that.
JEFF – All right, Dee, I got one more thing from you.
JEFF – And again, this is not a Time Machine thing, but I didn’t know where else to put this in this episode.
JEFF – We’re going to throw this in the Time Machine.
JEFF – So I went to walesonline.co.uk.
JEFF – And found the 50 greatest Welsh men and women of all time.
JEFF – Because I was like, what is this place, Wales?
JEFF – I’ve heard of it.
JEFF – I don’t really know much about it.
JEFF – And I learned a lot of things.
JEFF – So first of all, do you know who’s from Wales but isn’t listed in the 50 greatest Welsh men and women of all time?
JEFF – Oscar-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.
JEFF – What?
JEFF – Yeah, she’s Welsh.
JEFF – Do you know that?
DEE – She is not.
JEFF – I actually checked multiple websites and they all said the same thing.
DEE – Because you absolutely didn’t believe it.
JEFF – I absolutely didn’t believe it.
DEE – That’s mad.
JEFF – But coming in at number 46, we’re not going to do the whole 50.
JEFF – We’re not going to do the whole 50.
JEFF – Number 46.
DEE – This is like the time you threatened to read all those pages of the transcript for Tylenol Murders.
JEFF – Alright, number 46 is Anthony Hopkins.
JEFF – Yeah.
JEFF – I feel like he should be higher.
JEFF – Number 40 is Henry V.
JEFF – Above Henry V at number 39 is Tom Jones.
JEFF – Then skipping past a bunch.
DEE – Why didn’t we hear any Tom Jones songs?
JEFF – Because he didn’t have any hit songs in 2019.
JEFF – Number 20 is Roald Dahl.
JEFF – Roald Dahl is Welsh.
DEE – Roald Dahl?
JEFF – Did I not say it right?
DEE – No, I’m just asking the question.
JEFF – Jumping all the way up to number 7 is Dylan Thomas.
JEFF – And yeah, number 1, the number 1 of the 50 greatest Welsh men and women, according to Wales Online, is Labour Icon, born in 1897.
JEFF – I’m going to butcher this name.
JEFF – Annurin the Van?
JEFF – Bevan?
DEE – I don’t know.
DEE – But how is Anthony Hopkins not higher than loads of those people?
DEE – I don’t know.
JEFF – Seems weird, right?
JEFF – Anyway, that’s all I got.
JEFF – That’s our time machine for today.
DEE – Very good.
DEE – Thanks for the context there, Jeff.
DEE – I think they’ll work better when like they’re further away.
JEFF – Yeah, I think it’s, yeah.
DEE – Well, the music was better, although the lyrics there were very funny.
DEE – Wrangler on my booty is such a funny line.
JEFF – It’s a question.
JEFF – Who builds a time machine to go back in time five years?
DEE – Well, I don’t know.
DEE – Before five years, like, you know, 2019 was way better than 2020.
JEFF – No, that’s a good point.
JEFF – Yeah, pre-pandemic.
JEFF – Or like in Galaxy Quest, where they have the thing where they can go back, like, 45 seconds in time.
JEFF – No.
JEFF – Okay, great movie.
DEE – Did anyone die?
JEFF – What?
DEE – Did anyone die in it?
JEFF – I mean, there’s almost a whole race of people that get killed.
DEE – Oh.
JEFF – It’s a good movie.
DEE – I have not seen it.
DEE – Sounds delightful.
DEE – This podcast came out in the summer of 2023.
DEE – There are six total episodes, each about 30 or so minutes long.
DEE – Put out by BBC Sounds, and it was produced and presented by Meic Perry.
JEFF – Meic Perry.
DEE – Meic Perry and narrated by Tim Hinman.
DEE – I find it really hard not to say Tim Hinman.
JEFF – All right, so Dee, we’re going to talk about episode one here, which is called Murder in the Middle of Nowhere.
JEFF – We’re going to talk about this episode.
JEFF – We’re also just going to talk about the show as a whole.
JEFF – Where would you like to start?
DEE – Where do we always start?
JEFF – The hosts.
DEE – The hosts.
JEFF – All right, what are your thoughts on those?
DEE – Well, okay.
DEE – I love Meic Perry.
DEE – I love that he has a connection, like a solid connection to the area.
DEE – The connection between himself and Alan who comes into it.
DEE – Alan is a BBC…
JEFF – Wales reporter, yeah.
DEE – Wales reporter or producer.
DEE – Or sorry, reporter.
DEE – And I just feel like there’s something kind of…
DEE – It’s like a great representation of the area.
DEE – And they say that, like they note, like how, oh, actually, we went to school together.
DEE – Like we were a couple years apart.
DEE – Like we see each other all the time, like because we’re both reporting.
DEE – I just felt like they had like a really good idea of the area.
DEE – Like they weren’t trying to learn.
DEE – I don’t know.
DEE – It gave me good vibes.
DEE – I really liked that.
DEE – Did you?
JEFF – Yeah, I did too.
JEFF – I think, yeah, so I feel like this is maybe not said outright, but it’s at least alluded to somewhat directly that, yeah, so Meic Perry, like why are they making this show?
JEFF – Right?
JEFF – Like I think we don’t often get the answer to that question from the host, but here it’s because it was an unusual story that happened fairly recently in a place where he’s from.
JEFF – And so he was just curious to learn more about like, what was the deal with that super weird case from 2019 where the guy gets killed with a crossbow?
JEFF – Like that’s, I feel like that was the genesis of this.
JEFF – And that’s kind of…
DEE – He does talk as well about like hearing it for the first time and knowing like when he heard it for the first time and like that feeling and like Alan was reporting on it.
DEE – So within a couple of hours of the incident becoming public knowledge, like Alan was down like recording like at Jerry’s house, the victim’s house.
DEE – And like, I don’t know, it just gave such a like strong start to it.
DEE – I also think there was just something lovely about the Welch accent telling the Welch story.
DEE – The tidbits of like Welch that they interspersed into like their conversations, whether it was with each other or with like different people that they’re talking to and interviewing.
DEE – I just thought that was really nice.
DEE – And I didn’t dislike that there was like not a local connection when we were listening to Wes Cork, but it’s only when I’m listening to this that I’m like, oh, it’s really nice that this is a proper Welch connection, telling the Welch story in a Welch accent.
JEFF – Yeah.
JEFF – So one of the things I want to ask you about is, so Welch pops up here and there throughout this episode.
JEFF – Is that, like, okay, so you’re from Ireland and, like, you speak multiple languages.
JEFF – Like, is Welch spoken anywhere, like, outside of Wales?
JEFF – Like, do people go to Wales and, like, know any of the language?
DEE – No.
JEFF – I feel like…
DEE – I don’t think so.
JEFF – I feel like for such a small, like, geographical area, like Wales, Scotland, Ireland, like, the languages seem, and this is as someone who doesn’t speak any of them, very distinct from each other.
DEE – Yeah, and that’s the interesting thing.
DEE – So I was actually…
DEE – I was kind of…
DEE – Like, I always…
DEE – I knew that I would never understand Welsh, if having known Irish.
DEE – Like, I knew that.
DEE – But I was kind of baffled at, like, how…
DEE – the words they were using.
DEE – I was like, I don’t even see any little pattern with it.
DEE – Do you know the way usually, like, with some of the European languages, you can be like, oh, this is it in Spanish and this is it in Italian, and, like, the root word is, like, very similar.
DEE – But, like, I didn’t really get that from the bits that we heard.
DEE – I found that interesting.
JEFF – Yeah.
DEE – But they are, like, very distinct from each other.
JEFF – Also, I mean, I think the, like, the accents…
JEFF – The accents are challenging, I think, a little bit, but also…
DEE – Did you find them challenging to understand what they were saying?
JEFF – A little bit.
JEFF – A little bit.
JEFF – But I think one thing I actually really liked about the very…
JEFF – So the very beginning of the podcast is kind of a little bit of scene setting of trying to find the house, and then we get into this, what I think is a poem?
JEFF – That opens it up.
DEE – There’s a poem that was, like, is written specifically for the podcast.
JEFF – Yeah, which…
DEE – Or, sorry, specifically about the event.
DEE – I don’t know if it was written specifically for the podcast.
JEFF – And I don’t think we know who’s…
JEFF – Maybe it’s in the credits who’s reading the poem, but it’s in more of a thicker Welsh accent.
DEE – Yeah.
JEFF – There’s…
JEFF – I mean, this is true throughout the whole episode, but there’s a fair amount of music and sound effects and really trying to draw you into this coastal town.
JEFF – And it’s sort of mysterious, but also kind of like a rock, kind of blues kind of music.
JEFF – Like it’s guitar driven.
JEFF – I kind of love that.
JEFF – I feel like it was very…
JEFF – It was more intrusive than other things we’ve listened to, which have been more just like voices.
JEFF – But it set a mood, like opening with a poem.
JEFF – It’s funny because we were really ragging on Ian Bailey for his poems in West Cork, but here they opened with an actual poem.
JEFF – And I’m like, yeah, I’m kind of into this.
JEFF – Like this is…
DEE – Oh, it works.
DEE – It works here.
DEE – I mean, though, we don’t hate anyone in this podcast.
JEFF – Not yet, at least.
JEFF – Yeah.
DEE – Not yet.
DEE – So, yeah, no, I was going to actually ask you about the podcast and even just the intro.
DEE – So it starts with like the prologue is kind of Meg going up to people and saying like, oh, I’m actually doing like, you know, a report.
DEE – Like it’s what you would call a podcast.
DEE – And they’re like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know what that is.
DEE – Sorry, that was an Irish accent for a Welshman responding to it.
DEE – I just thought that was very funny.
DEE – And then like it leads into the poem.
DEE – And then it goes straight into the kind of details and stuff.
DEE – I just I really liked it.
DEE – It was it was not like captivating, like dramatic news headlines and blah, blah, blah.
DEE – I’m like, I’m sure you could grab a lot of dramatic news headlines from here.
DEE – And I’ve loved that previously in previous intros.
DEE – So I’m not or previous prologues or whatever.
DEE – I’m not saying that I would dislike that, but it was totally different.
DEE – It was very soft entry into it, I thought.
JEFF – It’s funny, soft.
JEFF – I was going to compare it actually to the thing about Pam, which in terms of having a lot of production to it, but I think tonally it’s very different.
JEFF – I think the thing about Pam had kind of a more, I don’t know, well, it was very like Dateline, NBC, kind of slick.
DEE – It was very produced, yes, slick.
JEFF – This is slick in a different way.
JEFF – I think this is very thoughtfully put together.
JEFF – It’s almost more just artfully put together.
JEFF – Right, like there’s a lot of like artifice to it that we haven’t always heard in other podcasts.
DEE – But it doesn’t like curate it too much that it does like, it’s kind of presumably similar to how they’re describing like the location and the area.
DEE – Like it’s still got that rugged element, but there’s a lot of like art in the background to us.
DEE – Yeah.
DEE – And I think there’s so much of this that reminds me of West Cork, like a really rural area, that kind of rugged landscape.
DEE – But I really did enjoy like they told us about the area, but what I disliked with West Cork is how they went into that like real description as if you’re reading a story with too much fluff and too much whatever.
DEE – They didn’t do this here.
DEE – They like gave you a really good idea of the area without putting so much filler and so much noise in there.
JEFF – Well, I don’t know.
JEFF – I think in some ways, like I thought we really liked the beginning of West Cork, the first episode of West Cork that set the scene for the…
DEE – Oh, we did.
DEE – But I distinctly remember myself saying like it was…
DEE – Was that the intro actually?
DEE – So in the intermission for West Cork, by the time we got to episode two and beyond, I felt like I was still doing a lot of like dramatic descriptions.
DEE – And I just thought it was a bit too flowery for my liking.
JEFF – That’s interesting.
DEE – Whereas I think this had a really good…
DEE – Like this was, what, 35 minutes long, including all the ads.
DEE – And like it had like…
DEE – I got a really good sense of the area, a good sense of the community and of the story and the kind of main players involved in it, or who I presume are going to be the main players in it, without all that.
JEFF – Yeah, in that way, I would compare it, although it’s a very different type of show, to Black Girl Gone, where it’s very condensed, it’s very succinct, it packs a lot in.
JEFF – Like before you know it, like the half hour is gone, and you’ve learned a significant amount, right?
JEFF – Like in this episode, I would say this is, like some other shows we’ve listened to, this is the equivalent of like the first two or three.
JEFF – Just because we both get all of the sort of scene setting of the place, we get pretty much the whole story of the night of the crime.
JEFF – And then we also get some of this other like supplementary information about the people, about Ellen, about the paramedics, like we get a little bit more about what’s gonna happen next.
JEFF – Like it’s dense with info, but moves right along.
DEE – Yeah, and like what’s interesting, that’s an interesting comparison with Black Girl Gone, because with Black Girl Gone, it was one voice, it was very factual.
DEE – We had a lot of positives to say about that.
DEE – We liked that like kind of switch in format.
DEE – With this one, we’ve so many different voices, we’re introduced to lots of different people, and yet they still managed to move the story along.
DEE – So it’s like it’s bringing the elements of Black Girl Gone that we really liked with kind of more…
DEE – I don’t know how to say this without saying that Black Girl Gone didn’t have depth to it, because I really loved it, but you’re getting maybe that kind of arty production with a quick, clear, succinct 30 minutes, lots of facts.
DEE – It was very interesting.
DEE – It’s really well done.
JEFF – I will say, and I think this is maybe something…
JEFF – I don’t think this is a mark against this one, but something that I’m curious to see as we go on with this one, because there are so many more people, because there are different voices, because there are…
JEFF – Honestly, part of this for me is just because I’m so unfamiliar with Wales.
JEFF – I’m unfamiliar with the names.
JEFF – I have trouble with the place names, the people names, the language.
JEFF – It’s a lot of things that are just very, very foreign to me.
JEFF – So I feel like I’m going back and re-listening to a part.
JEFF – It’s like, oh, did I catch that, that I understand what they said?
JEFF – I don’t even know how to make notes on this because I don’t know what order to put the letters in.
JEFF – I was also going, so because this one is setting the scene, I brought up a map of Wales, because they don’t tell you exactly where this happened, but I’m trying to narrow it down based on the clues we’re getting.
JEFF – And I keep going further and further north, further and further west.
JEFF – I’m on the coast, which is, there’s not a lot going on up there on the coast.
JEFF – There’s sort of connected islands.
JEFF – But that was a little hard.
JEFF – I’m curious, as we go on, if we get more and more people introduced, if it’ll be hard to sort of follow.
JEFF – It wasn’t really in this episode, though.
DEE – Anglesey Island is where it took place, isn’t it?
JEFF – Yeah, yeah.
DEE – Just beside Hollyhead.
DEE – So there’s a ferry that goes from Hollyhead, from Ireland to Hollyhead.
DEE – So I’m familiar with Hollyhead.
DEE – I’ve never been.
JEFF – You’ve never been?
JEFF – Yeah, I mean, if you bring up a map here, yeah.
JEFF – So this is the part of Wales that is just across from Dublin, right?
JEFF – Like just across the Irish Sea.
DEE – Lots of people go on a booze cruise from Dublin over to Hollyhead and back again.
DEE – I mean, it’s not a booze cruise.
DEE – It’s just a boat, but they go on it and they just drink on the boat and go back.
JEFF – As one does on a boat.
DEE – As one does.
JEFF – Should we talk a little bit about the events?
JEFF – Yeah, we have.
DEE – Yeah, we took a lot there about that first part.
DEE – So I loved.
DEE – So after the prologue, we get into like the story and I really, I was intrigued to know how you felt about like how they told the events of that night.
DEE – So this it’s a very much it’s a story, but no fluff and no opinion.
JEFF – I thought it was really well done.
JEFF – I think one of the things that why I was interested to listen to this podcast in the first place was because I mean, part of why we did Black Girl Gone was because we wanted to get away from like the stereotype of just young white women getting murdered, right?
JEFF – Like that’s the there’s too many of those stories out there.
JEFF – And so this one was looked interesting because it was an unusual story.
JEFF – It’s about a 74 year old retired lecturer, Jerry Corrigan.
JEFF – And I thought they painted a picture of him and his evening, right?
JEFF – Like he stays up late watching TV.
JEFF – He lives kind of out in the middle of nowhere.
JEFF – Like he’s a half mile from from any of his neighbors.
JEFF – And yeah, I thought I thought like we got a sense of who this guy was, the type of guy who’s up past midnight on Good Friday, watching TV.
JEFF – Satellite goes out and he’s like, I’m going to go check on that satellite dish.
JEFF – He goes out.
DEE – Not just go to bed and hope that it’ll be better tomorrow, which a lot of people would do, understandably.
JEFF – So right, like it’s after midnight.
JEFF – Just just go to bed.
JEFF – He goes outside.
JEFF – That’s actually an interesting point.
JEFF – I hadn’t thought about that till you said that.
DEE – Like, why?
DEE – Like they the person looking has to have known that he would go outside.
JEFF – Yeah, I wonder if that’s going to become an important detail.
JEFF – Like how many people would just turn off the TV and go to bed?
DEE – I mean, when I think of the 70 year old men that I know, which is quite a few because my parents are 70, or in their seventies, I can name a couple that I know would not go to bed.
DEE – They’d fix it before they go to bed.
JEFF – Right, because it’ll still be broken in the morning when the sun’s up and you could go out and do it then.
JEFF – But anyway, he goes out and he so his satellite dish is on the ground.
JEFF – And as he like goes to touch it, he thinks he gets electrocuted.
JEFF – But he’s actually been shot with a crossbow arrow.
DEE – Wild.
JEFF – Yeah.
DEE – I mean, obviously he thinks he’s been electrocuted because your first thought isn’t going to be, I’ve been shot with a crossbow.
JEFF – Right, right.
JEFF – So he doesn’t, he’s not killed right away.
JEFF – In fact, we hear that it takes him 22 days before he eventually does die from the injury.
DEE – And there’s a lot of, there’s a gruesome details about the injury.
DEE – In fact, the host kind of speaks to a consultant from the EOIR, like a close enough EOIR emergency room.
DEE – And he’s reading the injuries.
DEE – And he seems really shocked.
DEE – Like I was kind of surprised.
DEE – He was like, it’s horrific, quite upsetting reading it.
DEE – And he basically said that these injuries are like up there with the worst he has seen before.
JEFF – Which is kind of shocking.
JEFF – I mean, I guess you don’t, this is not the type of thing you hear about, right?
JEFF – Like this is not the kind of thing that I feel like I’ve never heard.
JEFF – I can’t remember ever hearing about this before.
JEFF – But yeah, he goes through like how this arrow basically passed through this guy’s body and all of the organs, all of the systems of the body that it damaged, including eventually coming out and going through his arm and breaking his radius, which like, yeah, the force that this had, right?
JEFF – It’s, I don’t know, it’s remarkable and really horrific, like you said.
DEE – Really horrific.
DEE – The other thing that was like, we heard like how remote this is, and we hear about this a couple of times, but I actually had the question, I’m like, God, how long did the ambulance take to get there?
DEE – Like we’ve been told how remote this place is.
DEE – And then later on in the podcast, we hear later on this episode, we hear that it took 30 minutes, which is really good.
DEE – Like I know a family member of ours who had to get an ambulance in an emergency when they were in a rural part of Ireland.
DEE – And it took like the guts of 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
DEE – And obviously 30 minutes sounds pretty good, but it’s not going to be pretty good if you’re bleeding from a lot of spots in your body.
DEE – But it’s that other thing of like, if he wasn’t so remote, he could have been close.
DEE – Anyway, I just thought that was interesting.
JEFF – Well, it’s hard to know that would have made a difference.
JEFF – I did want to know too.
JEFF – Like we’ve talked in the past about good and bad police work.
JEFF – Here we have an example of, I think, great paramedic work.
DEE – Oh my gosh, yeah.
JEFF – So aside from like just trying to save his life, which I mean, they didn’t ultimately do, but I think they at least got him to the hospital and kept him alive for over three weeks.
JEFF – But there was a paramedic as they were loading him into the ambulance who decided to have a look around and happened to notice that the gate outside by the wall was open, asked Jerry’s partner if that was normal.
JEFF – She’s like, no, that’s not normal.
JEFF – And then he notices the crossbow arrow on the ground covered in blood.
JEFF – And he decides, I’m going to, that’s obviously important, bag that, which both meant that they had a piece of evidence, a critical piece of evidence, and meant that they knew immediately what happened to him, right?
JEFF – Because I don’t think they knew that right away.
DEE – Yeah, really interesting.
DEE – And like the other thing, like that they don’t touch on here, but like if the paramedic had not done that, we’re in a really remote area.
DEE – As soon as the ambulance leaves with, I was going to say Jules, that is not his wife’s name.
DEE – That’s Ian Beatty’s wife’s name.
JEFF – Oh no, it’s Mary.
DEE – Oh my God.
DEE – Okay.
DEE – As soon as he leaves, like obviously Mary’s going to the ambulance too, if someone is lurking in the shadows having shot him, they could go and take it back.
DEE – So like, and maybe that was like the plan all along, to wait and take the crossbow back.
DEE – So that vital piece of evidence would be gone.
JEFF – I hadn’t thought about that either.
JEFF – That’s a really good point.
JEFF – Well, okay.
DEE – So the other thing is, as he is being wheeled into the ambulance, the last thing that he says to Mary, his partner, is, and I remember listening to this and being like, that has to be important.
DEE – Call Wynn.
DEE – Wynn will look after you.
DEE – And I was like, that’s an interesting thing.
DEE – Obviously I’m like, who’s Wynn?
DEE – Like we don’t hear about Wynn through the rest of us.
JEFF – Yeah, we don’t know.
DEE – Who is Wynn?
DEE – Yeah.
JEFF – Yeah, that’s interesting.
JEFF – Okay, so we leave Jerry in the hospital, I think.
JEFF – I don’t think we hear much more about him.
JEFF – Like they kind of circle back on the story and give us more details.
JEFF – Like we said, the timeline of when he, the satellite dish was tampered with and when he went outside and when Mary calls the paramedics, when the paramedics arrived.
JEFF – So we get the exact timeline of that.
JEFF – And then, but we also get a little bit about the investigation, right?
JEFF – Like the initial steps of the investigation where the police thought at first, this must have been an accident, like a hunting accident.
JEFF – They talk about lamping.
JEFF – Do you know about lamping?
DEE – I didn’t know about it, sorry.
DEE – I didn’t know about lamping at all until, like I wouldn’t have known what it meant, but it was really interesting.
DEE – So it’s like illegal hunting where you go hunting at night with like a lamp on your head or like a lamp in front of you.
JEFF – I think something about you light up the fields really brightly to startle the animals.
JEFF – So you have the light that you can shoot them with, but also like they’re startled by the bright light in the middle of the night.
DEE – So I thought this was really interesting because they get this from the police that like this is one of their like questions.
DEE – It’s like maybe it was an accident because they really are at a loss.
DEE – They’re like, this guy is like, there’s seemingly no reason why someone would have like, there was no motive.
DEE – There was no clear cut reason.
DEE – So they were like, maybe it was an accident.
DEE – So yeah, sorry.
DEE – Oh my God.
DEE – I feel like I said a lot of stuff there and didn’t say anything.
JEFF – Did you say?
DEE – What did you say?
JEFF – I don’t know.
DEE – No, I didn’t say anything.
JEFF – You didn’t really say anything.
DEE – But sorry.
DEE – So with the lamping, they mentioned that the police are like investigating that line of work.
DEE – And then the host is like talking to Oswin Williams, who’s a builder.
DEE – And he’s like, oh, like I’ve worked all around the area.
DEE – I won’t do the Welsh accent.
DEE – I’ve worked all around the area, whatever.
DEE – And he said, well, like, did you hear that they were thinking it might have been lamping, like it might have been hunting?
DEE – Do you know what lamping is?
DEE – And he’s like, oh, yeah, sure.
DEE – Like I grew up in an area of poachers.
DEE – I know exactly what it is.
DEE – What do you think about that?
DEE – Load of rubbish.
DEE – And most of the stories I heard were water rubbish.
DEE – That was what he was thinking.
DEE – He was like, the police were going down dead ends.
DEE – But now, obviously, I will not fault them because they seem to have have done quite good work on this case.
DEE – But anyway, he says most of the stories I heard were other rubbish, which I just thought was like interesting.
DEE – Like he’s very much like, this is not an accident.
DEE – And then we have a counselor who’s interviewed who says, who would be carrying a crossbow after midnight?
DEE – And I’m like, hold on buddy, who would be carrying a crossbow full stop?
JEFF – Sure.
DEE – Well, question mark.
DEE – Like, I don’t understand.
DEE – It’s just so bonkers.
JEFF – It’s a really strange show.
DEE – So like from a like solving this crime point of view, we’re in a very remote part of the country in Wales.
DEE – Someone has killed someone with a crossbow, somewhere where like the sat nav might get you lost.
DEE – Yeah, like it’s that remote.
DEE – From the murderer’s point of view, how are you getting away with this?
JEFF – Well, is that a rhetorical question?
DEE – I’m just, I’m kind of baffled because I’m like, unless this is like a random killing, I suppose it could be a random killing.
DEE – But how could it be a random killing?
DEE – Like you’re not just going to sit being like, I’m going to eye up that house, and at some point someone’s going to come out, and then I’m going to shoot them.
JEFF – Do you know what I mean?
JEFF – Like I said earlier about the fact that he comes outside to fix the satellite dish after midnight, there’s a lot of things that I feel had to go right for this to work.
DEE – That’s my point.
DEE – So it’s the likelihood of this being random.
DEE – It would be different if this was in a really densely populated area, and it’s like whoever walks by is going to get shot.
DEE – This cannot be random.
DEE – If they’re looking at one house.
JEFF – Why would you use a crossbow?
DEE – Well, so my first point is it can’t be random.
DEE – But second of all, why would you use a crossbow?
DEE – Surely that’s going to be easy to track.
JEFF – Yeah, I mean, use like a 19th century French cannon.
JEFF – I just…
JEFF – It’s such a bizarre.
JEFF – There’s so many bizarre elements to this.
JEFF – And yeah, I mean, it ends on, I think, a really interesting strong note that made me want to keep going on to the next one, where it’s…
JEFF – We don’t know this is Jerry’s daughter, but she says, he was hunted.
JEFF – My father was hunted.
JEFF – And yeah, like, why?
JEFF – Yeah, there’s no motive.
JEFF – There’s no obvious suspect.
JEFF – It’s a bizarre murder weapon.
JEFF – It’s such a strange scene.
JEFF – There’s a lot of mysteries to this one.
DEE – Yeah, there’s a lot of mysteries, and I totally agree.
DEE – I think the way it ended towards the end of the episode, we got kind of a book ending or like a book end end to it, where it tells the story again that I told at the start, but like from the point of view of the hunter, for want of a better word.
DEE – And so it goes through it again.
DEE – So it kind of solidifies like the timeline of events, but and then obviously it ends with Jerry’s daughter.
DEE – But yeah, I loved that structure.
DEE – I thought that that format really was really good.
DEE – I felt like we got a lot of the victim in there.
DEE – 30 minutes, you have so much fact, but you also have a lot about victim.
JEFF – Well, I presume we’re going to get more.
JEFF – The thing is that it ends with the daughter who’s not introduced, but I presume she’s going to be a factor going forward, which I’m eager to hear more from her perspective.
JEFF – I’m also eager to hear the person you alluded to, but I don’t think I talked about it all, but Ellen Nguyen, the reporter, she seems like just a really like an asset to this podcast and to this investigation.
JEFF – She kept a sounds like a really good diary, which to your point about the Welsh, I like that she keeps her diary in Welsh.
JEFF – She reads some of that, like she talks about, she goes with Meic Perry back to the scene and it’s pouring rain, and she talks about how she wrote in her diary that it was a nice day, which was on the day of the murder, the day that she went out there, and how that’s uncommon, because usually it’s not a nice day out there, which was interesting.
DEE – What was the phrase?
DEE – Did you write down the phrase that you used?
JEFF – Oh, am I going to be able to say this?
JEFF – Dirt?
JEFF – Dernod Braff?
JEFF – I’m eager to hear more from Ellen’s diary as we go on.
DEE – Yeah, definitely.
DEE – Okay, Jeff, are you eager to keep listening?
JEFF – Yeah, I mean, there’s so many strange elements to this case.
JEFF – I feel like I really want to know what was happening.
JEFF – Was this, I mean, I presume this wasn’t an accident.
JEFF – I feel like if it was, this wouldn’t be a show.
JEFF – But why would someone do this?
JEFF – Why would someone hunt this 74-year-old man?
JEFF – Why with a crossbow?
JEFF – Yeah, I really, I want to find out.
JEFF – I also want to note, I’m eager, like, so we were coming off of, if you look back at our last several episodes, like, we listened to West Cork, which is really long.
JEFF – We listened to Black Girl Gone, which was, each episode was very short.
JEFF – This one, I feel like, is kind of like Goldilocks of, like, right in the middle, six episodes, six short episodes.
JEFF – So I’m like, no matter what happens, it’s not a huge time investment.
JEFF – And so, yeah, I’m definitely curious to keep going.
JEFF – How about you?
DEE – Oh, yeah, totally.
DEE – I had to restrain myself from listening on.
DEE – I was like, I kind of want to binge this.
DEE – Like, this is bingeable because it’s, like, so short.
DEE – And yet it feels like there’s so much packed into it.
DEE – Like, I’m just, yeah, I’m loving it.
DEE – I think you hit the nail on the head.
DEE – It’s the Goldilocks between Westcork and Black Girl Gone.
DEE – I’m, yeah, I’m looking forward to figuring out what happened here.
JEFF – Awesome.
JEFF – All right.
DEE – On to our true crime question of the week.
DEE – So Jeff, question of the week.
DEE – The killer here uses a crossbow, which is odd.
DEE – We don’t often hear of a killer using a crossbow.
DEE – Have you ever fired a crossbow?
JEFF – I have not.
JEFF – I have fired a compound bow.
JEFF – You ever use one of those?
DEE – A compound what?
JEFF – Bow, like a bow and arrow, but like the fancy kind that has like the wheels on it.
JEFF – So it like it fires incredibly fast.
JEFF – Are you Googling?
DEE – Compound bow?
DEE – I’m Googling it.
DEE – I’m like, what is that?
DEE – Is that what you’d use in archery?
JEFF – Yeah.
DEE – Bow disciplines are frozen cause, but crossbows are definitely archery, just as much as modern compound bow is archery.
DEE – Are we talking about the same thing then?
DEE – Oh no, wheels.
JEFF – Whoa.
DEE – That looks wild.
JEFF – So you want me to tell my story or no?
DEE – I got to, I just wanted to context so I could give my context.
JEFF – So I was hanging out with some family members.
JEFF – I feel like I have a couple of stories and they’re all about the husbands of the people who are my actual family members.
JEFF – Anyway.
DEE – The men go hunting and the women cook the dinner.
JEFF – That’s it, exactly.
JEFF – Yeah, so I was in this backyard in New Mexico and I was asked, have you ever fired a compound bow?
JEFF – And I was like, no.
JEFF – And so he had some hay bales set up against their back fence and he pulls out this bow and I just figured, oh, it’s like a bow and arrow.
JEFF – Like I fired like a toy bow and arrow when I was a kid.
JEFF – How different is this?
JEFF – Turns out it’s a lot different.
JEFF – And the tension in the string is a lot.
JEFF – It’s like an athletic feat just to lock in the arrow and pull it back.
JEFF – And then, I mean, it felt kind of like firing a gun.
JEFF – Like it, the force that this came off of.
JEFF – And I realized like I was firing it at like a, just like a circle target set up on some hay bales.
JEFF – But if I missed, it’s going to go over the fence into some neighbor’s yard.
JEFF – And like…
DEE – Oh my God.
JEFF – Yeah.
JEFF – So that was kind of terrifying.
JEFF – And I would probably never do that again.
JEFF – What about you, Dee?
JEFF – Have you ever fired a crossbow?
DEE – I mean, I’ve done archery a few times.
JEFF – With a crossbow?
DEE – I don’t know if that counts.
DEE – I mean, like, what’s the definition of a crossbow?
DEE – Like, it was like a Robin Hood style.
JEFF – A crossbow is like the…
JEFF – it’s like flat.
JEFF – Like, you’re holding it like…
JEFF – A crossbow and a bow and arrow are two very distinct things, right?
JEFF – Like, a crossbow, you fire with, like, a trigger.
JEFF – Like, you load in an arrow, you pull back the string, and you fire with a trigger.
JEFF – It’s like Daryl on The Walking Dead.
JEFF – He had a crossbow.
JEFF – I have not seen.
DEE – Crossbow versus, what was the other thing you said?
JEFF – Like a bow and arrow.
JEFF – A crossbow is a valuable weapon in a zombie apocalypse.
JEFF – Have you listened to this whole episode and not know what a crossbow is?
DEE – I just assumed it was like a bow and arrow.
JEFF – No.
JEFF – In order to explain what a crossbow is to Dee, we brought in an outside expert.
DEE – Turns out I’m wrong?
JEFF – Just a little bit.
JEFF – And I think that’s why we wanted to bring in a special weapons expert.
DEE – Connor, the special weapons expert.
DEE – So, Connor, what’s a crossbow?
CONNOR – Yeah, sure.
CONNOR – So I guess imagine like a cross between a standard bow and arrow and a rifle.
CONNOR – Much more mechanical than a traditional bow.
CONNOR – Instead of being held vertically, like a traditional longbow, the bow portion, which is called a prod, is mounted horizontally on a stock that kind of resembles a rifle stock.
CONNOR – And the bow string, instead of being held back by the archer’s arm, is pulled back and latched into place, either manually or some of them have a crank or a lever that you can use to give you some mechanical advantage to help you pull the string back.
CONNOR – And then the arrow, which for a crossbow is typically called a bolt or a quarrel, is then placed on top of the stock in a groove sort of right up against the string.
CONNOR – And so then you hold the crossbow, much like you would hold a rifle, and when you pull the trigger on the stock, the string shoots forward, projecting the bolt at your target.
CONNOR – So it fires a bit more like a rifle than a traditional bow, but it still shoots basically an arrow, just like a shorter, heavier version of an arrow, which is called a bolt.
CONNOR – And modern crossbows have lots of interesting attachments that you can add, like you can put a rifle scope on top of a crossbow if you’re a hunter and you want to improve your aim or whatever you want to do.
JEFF – So Connor, actually before I ask you another question, I want to ask Dee a question.
JEFF – Dee, how many words that Connor just used did you not understand what they were?
DEE – No, I understood.
DEE – I think Connor did a really good job at explaining it.
DEE – I feel like I’ve built up some idea in my head.
DEE – I will say the part I’m missing, and I want a little bit of clarification on, is when we’re talking about a rifle, from my knowledge, which is like really limited when it comes to like guns and shit like that, a rifle has kickback, so like you kind of lean it on your shoulder and it like kicks back, yeah?
DEE – I feel like I’ve shot one of those before.
DEE – Probably like a clay pigeon rifle.
DEE – Is that kind of similar?
CONNOR – In terms of what that stock would be like, yeah, absolutely.
CONNOR – It will rest up against your shoulder in the same way that say a rifle or a shotgun would if you were like, if you were using a shotgun for hunting or for sport shooting or something like that.
DEE – So if someone was to fire a crossbow, would they get a kick back on their shoulder?
CONNOR – That’s a good question.
CONNOR – You might get a little, but yeah, I suppose you probably would, but not as much as from a rifle or a shotgun.
DEE – Not enough to leave a mark, say, on your shoulder that could be used as evidence if you were to say shoot a crossbow.
CONNOR – Oh man, I don’t actually know about that.
CONNOR – I don’t think so, but I could be wrong.
JEFF – Connor, why is it that you are a session expert on crossbows?
JEFF – Where does this deep, deep well of knowledge come from?
CONNOR – Well, Jeff, I will tell you this.
CONNOR – It is not from years of experience crossbow hunting or engaging in any sort of crossbow-centric conflict.
CONNOR – I have played many, many years of Dungeons and Dragons and similar sort of fantasy-oriented games, which over time have sort of osmosis to this knowledge into my mind.
CONNOR – So certainly an expert.
JEFF – So, okay, so Dungeons and Dragons, I feel like, features a wide array, a spectrum of different types of weapons.
JEFF – Where would a crossbow fall in terms of usefulness?
JEFF – Like, how much is that a weapon you would want to have?
CONNOR – Well, that’s a great question, Jeff.
DEE – In the game, not in real life.
DEE – Just to clarify.
JEFF – Well, why not both?
JEFF – Whatever Connor wants to speak to.
CONNOR – I cannot speak to the general usefulness of a crossbow in modern society outside of use for hunting.
CONNOR – Or even with regard to its use as a hunting weapon.
CONNOR – That said, in a game like D&D, a crossbow is a perfectly serviceable option.
CONNOR – A lot of different kinds of characters can use them.
CONNOR – They are generally effective.
CONNOR – I would say thumbs up for crossbows.
JEFF – Why would someone use, from your knowledge, a crossbow versus another weapon, like any other kind of weapon?
JEFF – Like, what are some of the advantages of that over, let’s say, a rifle or, let’s say, like a traditional bow and arrow?
CONNOR – Sure, yeah.
CONNOR – So compared to a traditional bow and arrow, I think the learning curve for using a crossbow is significantly less.
CONNOR – Aiming is supposed to be significantly easier with a crossbow because you don’t have to hold back the full draw weight of the bow with one arm while holding your other arm steady and sighting down an arrow.
CONNOR – You just hold it like you would a rifle.
CONNOR – You aim.
CONNOR – You may even have a fancy scope on there that helps you aim a little bit more accurately and you pull the trigger.
CONNOR – So the stability and the sort of construction and setup of a crossbow might make it advantageous for hunting in a modern setting.
CONNOR – Compared to a rifle, I imagine that there are instances where you would want to take a shot and remain silent, or at least more silent than a gunshot.
CONNOR – So that might be advantageous in a hunting scenario or in a rural area, for sure.
CONNOR – If you didn’t want to give away your position when you took a shot, I suppose that would be advantageous.
CONNOR – That said, it is likely that the effective range would be less on a crossbow as compared to a traditional bow and certainly as compared to a rifle.
JEFF – OK, that’s super helpful.
DEE – Is there any other wild and weird weapons you know about?
CONNOR – Just in general.
CONNOR – I mean, probably know too much about swords, probably know too much about any number of miscellaneous medieval or fantasy implements.
CONNOR – But you know, it’s all fun.
DEE – Interesting.
DEE – So any like future episodes where we cover wild and interesting implements, we can come to you as our weapons expert.
CONNOR – I would be more than happy to jump in as a quote unquote weapons expert.
CONNOR – I cannot vouch for any real world credentials in that area, but it’s always a fun time to talk to you guys.
JEFF – I have one more question, Connor, and then we can wrap up unless Dee has any other questions.
JEFF – So as also a D&D expert, what would you say are the either, like what do you think would come from D&D that would be most applicable in a true crime setting?
JEFF – Like, is it a particular type of weapon?
JEFF – Is it a particular type of creature?
JEFF – Like, where do you think your expertise might come in most handy in a future episode of So Much Crime, So Little Time?
CONNOR – Oh, that’s super interesting.
CONNOR – Well, if you have any potential true crime villains who like to monologue about their villainy, that would certainly be an area of crossover with Dungeons & Dragons.
CONNOR – Certainly, any other, I guess, medieval weapons or settings, I suppose.
CONNOR – Yeah, absolutely.
CONNOR – Anything that resembles an idyllic British countryside certainly feels like classic high fantasy Dungeons & Dragons style stuff.
JEFF – Excellent.
CONNOR – Anything in a castle, if anyone committed a crime in a castle, that would certainly fit the bill as well.
JEFF – We’ve had castles come up.
DEE – But it wasn’t the main focus.
JEFF – Well, we’ve had villains who liked to monologue.
JEFF – That’s actually been a theme.
JEFF – A couple of them.
DEE – Actually, two in one, actually.
DEE – Wes Quirk had a person who liked to monologue and a castle.
JEFF – That’s true.
DEE – The castle had a ghost and was haunted.
JEFF – Are ghosts a part of D&D?
CONNOR – Oh, certainly.
CONNOR – Yeah, absolutely.
CONNOR – Any creepy, crawly, ghosty, ghoul-y type stuff, I’m your guy.
JEFF – Awesome.
JEFF – Well, Connor, I think we’ll probably have you back on, I’m sure, before too long.
DEE – Thank you for being our very first guest.
JEFF – Will do.
JEFF – Thank you, Connor.
JEFF – This was amazing.
DEE – Thanks, Connor.
CONNOR – Absolutely.
CONNOR – Thank you, guys.
DEE – Next time, we’ll discuss all of The Crossbow Killer, the whole series.
JEFF – There are five more episodes to cover.
JEFF – Was this an accident, or was it intentional murder?
JEFF – And how did the police investigate this bizarre crime?
JEFF – That’s next on So Much Crime.
DEE – So Little Time.
DEE – So Much Crime, So Little Time is a production of Mime Glove Media. The executive producer is Paxton Calareso. Our associate producer is Blythe Tai. Our theme music was composed by Viacheslav Starostin. If you haven’t done it yet, please subscribe to this show on your podcast app. Don’t forget to give us a 5-star rating and a review. Even better, tell your friends! To join the discussion, look for us on social media. Check out the show notes for all the links. Thanks for listening!
