LPOTL (intro theme) There's no place to escape to. This is the Last Podcast On The Left. Rise from
your grave! That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Oh shit!
BEN KISSEL Are we starting?
MARCUS PARKS I wanna be mayor of Fucktown.
BEN KISSEL (chuckles) You cannot be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I wanna be contwollah of Fucktown.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hey Marcus, do you like the fact that we're in your hotel room and where my butt is, is where
your face soon will be?
MARCUS PARKS It's gonna be wonderful.
BEN KISSEL Yes indeed. Hey everyone, welcome to Last Podcast on the Left! I am Ben Kissel with Marcus
Parks-
MARCUS PARKS Hello!
BEN KISSEL And sitting on Marcus Parks' bed where Marcus will have to sleep is literally the butthole of
one and only Henry Zebrowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI My name is Pewy Muwin, I am the contwollah of Fucktown.
BEN KISSEL (laughs) It's pretty good, thank you. All right we are recording our first Last Podcast on the Left
live proper show from the road. We wanna thank everyone we've seen so far. Nashville was
incredible.
MARCUS PARKS It was.
BEN KISSEL I loved it, I had a baloney sandwich at Robert's which I talked about on Side Stories and I'm not
gonna do it again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You have been speaking about the fucking sandwich for 72 hours.
BEN KISSEL I understand, time continues to go into the future but the sandwich remains in my mind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We've had at least a dozen other memories.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Well I also have a stomach full of cheese curds because coming back from Cincinnati, which we
were at Cincinnati yesterday and people were wonderful, thanks for everyone who came out.
Now my stomach is full of cheese curds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah. From Grandpa's Cheese Shack.
BEN KISSEL And Marcus got the fudge!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah he went down to the fudge shed.
BEN KISSEL We lost Marcus at Grandpa's Cheese Shack for like 20 minutes and we're like, he's in grandpa's
cheese basement gettin' grandpa's cheese fudged.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Not many people come into my cheese basement to see how the special new kind of cheese is
made, called grandpa cheese.
BEN KISSEL Oh god. All right well, speaking of disgusting, today's episode... Are we gonna do, is this a gold
star episode?
MARCUS PARKS I would say this is probably a gold star episode, yeah.
BEN KISSEL Okay, I would agree with that. So we are on to Part 2 of The Shoemaker, Joseph Kallinger!
MARCUS PARKS So thankfully about a week after Joseph restrained his children, beat one of them with a
hammer handle, and burned the other with a spatula, Mary Jo, Joey, and Michael went to the
cops and reported Joseph Kallinger for abuse and Joseph Kallinger was arrested.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I did no such thing, I am just a chef.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL You're just a, I thought you were...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I was making breakfast for my children and they happened to get in the way.
BEN KISSEL I thought you were a shoemaker, sir.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah that's my hobby.
BEN KISSEL Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS Well after this, his children became a part of his delusions. They became what Joe called the
"Three Total Gods". Beings completely in charge of his life, which filled Joseph with contempt
for some of his children and reverence for others.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I am sick of being scared of these children.
BEN KISSEL I agree, honestly though a lot of fathers feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of
fatherhood and then you just omelette that with a mental health condition and then I guess
that's what we have here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well he did view his re-education of these kids as a solemn job. He said it too, he was like, 'I
don't wanna be doing this. This is not how I wanted to do this. I wanted to do it the nice way
but oh, once the experiments failed...'
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And once facts or logic... You know, beating the kids, that was a solemn job of his and the
weird fear and reverence of the kids is very very interesting because it would cause a lot of
problems in the future.
BEN KISSEL Sort of reminds me of that scene from Mommie Dearest with the wire hangers and all of that
stuff. She felt like she was doing this young girl a favor, and she was like, 'I can't believe you're
making me do this again, I wanna be sleeping.'
MARCUS PARKS Now concerning the sentencing for his crimes, Joseph received a suspended sentence in
regard to beating Joey and was put on four years psychiatric probation for the burning of Mary
Jo. He was required to regularly report to a psychiatrist, but after just a five minute
conversation the psychiatrist decided that there wasn't a damn thing wrong with Joseph and
that was the end of the psychiatric counselling.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Mr. Kallinger, um, here is your psychological exam. What is this?
Uh, that's a hat.
Well, it is shoes, but um, it's very strange you didn't recognize that.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, I'm just saying that it's like uh, shoes are like uh, hats for feet uh...
You're doing great.
BEN KISSEL Doing just fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm actually gonna ask you to just leave my office.
BEN KISSEL Well he passed the test. That's what happens when you schedule your psychiatrist
appointment for 11:55. Everybody knows, lunch is noon. You got five minutes, that's all he had
to work with.
MARCUS PARKS But since Joseph had spent some time in jail, his business suffered. See nobody really wanted
to go to Kallinger Rapid Shoe Repair and Pickup and Delivery Service ever since the owner was
convicted of beating and burning his kids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They've got to see I have discipline!
BEN KISSEL I mean the shoes are probably the same.
MARCUS PARKS Oh yeah, the shoes are very much the same, but nobody wanted to go. He even started
handing out business cards at the courthouse to the judge, to the bailiff, trying to get business.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Let me take a look at these New Balances. Okay, okay, one thing I will say about these New
Balances, they're not making you Jesus Christ.
BEN KISSEL Not like his shoes, right?
MARCUS PARKS And as a result, because there was no business coming in, the family suffered once more,
because no money was coming in. So in order to get the business back up and running, Joseph
convinced his children to completely recant their testimony and in February of 1974, they did,
completely letting their father off the hook, and the good people of Philadelphia came back to
Joseph.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The way they describe this scene in the book is that Kallinger is like, 'Oh! I've gotta get my
business back in order. They're gonna see the fact that I didn't kill my children, that means that
I didn't finish the job.'
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And so he brought all the kids down to the basement and he was like, 'Here's the thing, we're
gonna tell the police that you kids lied, and that we're gonna say that you're very sorry, but
everything you said was a complete falsitude and your father is not only the right arm of Christ
himself, but he's also an excellent father and a wonderful shoemaker.'
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And all of the kids, their responses were, (kid voice) 'Hell yeah! It's fun to lie to the cops!'
Straight up, all of them were like, (kid voice) 'We get to spend all day lying to these cops!'
BEN KISSEL It is strange... Has there ever been a shoemaker or a shoe company that has not abused
children? I'm staring at my Nikes right now just being like, hey killed 30 kids a day and people
are still making them the #1 bestseller.
MARCUS PARKS But something changed in Joseph Kallinger when he burned his daughter and beat his son. The
commandment from god to be the savior of mankind through orthopedics had died. Instead,
god was now commanding Joseph to destroy the world he'd failed to save.
BEN KISSEL I'm just saying, why didn't god just encourage him to make sandals? Or just like get on the Croc
game?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs) Because he didn't care about leisure shoewear. These are workmen shoes, these are
businessman shoes.
BEN KISSEL Oh, I see!
MARCUS PARKS Joseph's job now was to personally murder every single person on the planet by destroying
their sexual organs. 3 billion people in 1974. And at the end of it all, Joseph was gonna murder
himself, and at the moment of his own murder, Joseph would become god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And that's it! Set it and forget it.
BEN KISSEL (laughs) I guess so. So this is a pretty grand plan here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Huge plan. Yeah, he was planning to kill every single person on earth one by one by ripping off
the dick and balls.
BEN KISSEL Maybe he should've had six minutes with the therapist. Just get that last minute in there so he
could utter that sentence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He believed that if you destroy the penis that it like, deflates the person. That if you snip the
penis off that they would literally just disappear. And he, well, you know... He's not doing well.
MARCUS PARKS No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He's obviously not thinking straight but his response to god when god said, "You have to kill
every single person that exists." Kallinger was like, 'Oh, that's gonna take a lot of time. That's
gonna take a lot of wrist energy.'
BEN KISSEL Well as we learned about the Lorena documentary, if you cut someone's penis off, they just
get more famous. They actually don't die.
MARCUS PARKS But in order to become god, Joseph had to enlist the help of a god. So he brought one of the
three total gods into the fold. His 12 year old son Michael and began a crime spree. Now
committing crimes with his teenage children was not new to Joseph. He'd already been out
with Joey spray painting the front gates of Joey's high school, and he even sometimes sent
Joey out to commit crimes on his behalf.
BEN KISSEL This is one of those moments in the show where I have to say that if he wasn't crazy, then that
would be really fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It is Curly Sue. This is Curly Sue. It's him waking up his son at night, being like, 'Come on kids,
it's time to go tagging.' And then they went and hung out at the subway station like, 'Latin
Kings! Latin Kings everywhere, represent! 718! 718 til I die!'
BEN KISSEL It's crazy.
MARCUS PARKS Oh, so you guys are fine with the crime spree but Diggin' Daddy, for some reason, that's
weird?
BEN KISSEL No cause Digging Daddy wasn't just digging, he was crapping and cumming in the dig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It was crapping and cumming daddy after the kids went to sleepytime. This part is fun because
vandalism is fun. See, the actual, the hard physical labor seems to be...
BEN KISSEL It's not fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, cause it's hard. That's why. It's imagining the actual physicality of making them dig until
their arms can't move anymore.
BEN KISSEL Right, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Well Joseph called sending his kids out on crimes, he called that 'delegating'. Joey was the
Kensington delegate, he was the local boy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I've learned a little bit about Kensington since this cause Natalie lived in Philly for a section of
time and apparently Kensington's... It's a little rough.
BEN KISSEL It's not doing well, huh?
MARCUS PARKS Sounds like a terrible, terrible place.
BEN KISSEL Well I'll tell you one thing guys, I don't know why you're angering the people who seem to be
the most dangerous in Philadelphia. I've actually heard Kensington is a great place full of
wonderful, peaceful people and we hope to see you soon on the road.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) So Joey, he was the Kensington delegate. Michael, he was Kallinger's suburb delegate.
Together, Joseph and Michael would take buses out to suburban towns around Pennsylvania
and New Jersey and rob houses in the middle of the day. And Betty, Joseph's wife, she was in
on it too. Sometimes she'd wake up early to make breakfast for Joseph and Michael, knowing
exactly what it was that they were going out to do that day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (feminine voice) There you go, here's some eggs. So what're you guys getting into today?
Well hopefully, what I hope to do is cut off at least 25 penises. I just want to rummage through
people's underwear drawers and I wanna steal jewelry.
(feminine voice) You kids. You're still a kid at heart, Joe.
BEN KISSEL Ugh, she's like the mom of the, what is it, the bugle boys? The cartoon dogs.
MARCUS PARKS Oh that's from DuckTales with Scrooge McDuck, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Psychological disorders, they're not transitive, obviously right. But it is really strange how you
pull a bunch of people into a room under what is now sort of the collective reality of Joseph
Kallinger. How all of a sudden, they just play along.
MARCUS PARKS Well it's a Stockholm syndrome type of thing. Where all these people are under the control of
this one man so what he says goes. So they just kind of follow Joseph's lead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's weird. Is this because, is this straight up... (feminine voice) Is this the patriarchy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Like honestly, is this boiled into that where the idea is whatever dad wants is good for family.
Happy dad, happy sats.
BEN KISSEL I don't remember this episode of Leave It To Beaver. That's all I'll say on that.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) it might be a part of that, but I think it is also a part of just him taking control of the
entire household. And remember, they are living in a literal fortress that he has built. They are
living in a house where he has covered most of the windows with metal plates and then
covered those with cement. And they also said that some of them enjoyed it. They enjoyed the
lifestyle, but that's when they weren't getting the holy living hell beat out of them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Well, twelve year olds, again, you get to go spray paint your school, who doesn't want to do
that with your dad? And also, Marcus mentioned the word Stockholm. We're gonna be in
Stockholm.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah!
BEN KISSEL We cannot wait to see you all out there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah that's our Stockholm syndrome tour that we'll be doing throughout that one, taking
people hostage until they learn to love us.
MARCUS PARKS But the thing is about the kids and the wife and all of 'em, nobody except Joseph knew that all
of this was being done under the commandment of god. Joseph wasn't telling 'em that, he was
keeping all the god stuff to himself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's like the secret master's shit.
MARCUS PARKS Mm-hmm.
BEN KISSEL But does that mean that he knew it was crazy?
MARCUS PARKS See, he didn't really go into why he didn't tell anybody about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The way it seems to me, in my mind, I'm not really sure, but it's like Joseph Kallinger is on one
channel, and when he switches over to the family channel, that's ABC. But on the Joe Kallinger
channel it's like the old school scrambled Spice TV, where it's like he's kind of seeing television
but he also kind of hears his family in the other room. I also think it's very personal for him,
and he expressly believes that like if I wanna tell people about my personal relationship with
god then I would be tattling on god.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL So his version of god is blurry Shannon Tweed porn. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS And it wasn't long before god upped the ante from breaking and entering to murder.
According to Joseph, god said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (god voice) The destruction of the hamsters was the beginning. You continued by burning
Mary Jo's thigh, only you were supposed to shove the hot spatula up into her vagina and guts,
but you chickened out and burned only the soft flesh near her vagina. Now the time has come
for you with Michael's help to kill three billion people.
I heard a lot of talk like that from the lord in the summer of '74.
BEN KISSEL Jeez. Well I have read some of the bible and it does not seem out of the realm of possibility
that god would say something like that.
MARCUS PARKS I heard a lot of talk from the lord like that in the summer of '74.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The road, the road, the road.
MARCUS PARKS Now Michael was not yet 13 years old at the time, but by Joseph's estimation his son was
perfect for the job. He was enthusiastic, ruthless, and according to Joseph, had a MUCH bigger
penis. So mike had power that Joseph didn't, that's what Joseph believed.
BEN KISSEL Can you not do the "much" bigger-
MARCUS PARKS Much!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI MUCH!
BEN KISSEL Like I'm at subway sandwiches being like, six inch or the footlong? MUCH bigger, if possible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI C'mere, Michael, Michael. Now wake up, wake up wake up wake up. Listen, we're gonna do a
little bit of a science test, but I don't wanna show you my penis cause that'd be disgusting, and
I don't want you to see how small it is. There you go, just hold this Tootsie Roll up next to your
penis, you go in the bathroom and you do it, and you tell me just how much bigger it is than
the Tootsie Roll.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL All right, it's gonna be bigger, my goodness. A young child.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh that is MUCH bigger!
BEN KISSEL Okay, thank you Mr. Kallinger, enough.
MARCUS PARKS So, on June 26 1974, Joseph told Mike, straight up, that he had a strong desire to kill people
and that Michael was the one to do it with him. In response, according to Joseph, Mike just
said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Glad to do it dad.
BEN KISSEL Oh god, that's scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He is just-
BEN KISSEL How much... Now I know this kid isn't Damien from The Omen, but like he sounds really
onboard for this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well I wonder, right, because Michael in this whole situation's been kinda the sleeper kid,
because Joey's really been the one who's been mixing shit up, he's been doing a lot of the
vandalism, arson, sucking dudes off underneath the bridge, stealing shit, assaulting people, he
was the real career criminal of the family. Michael kind of hanged in the background. I almost
wonder if it's kind of a perverted like, 'Dad's showing me attention, this is my way to bond with
my dad.' But the way he jumped into cutting people's penises off was like the way I jumped
into podcasting.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS Now we don't know if Mike really was as enthusiastic about crime and murder as Joseph said
he was because mike never publicly spoke about his crimes. But no matter what, Mike was still
right at Joseph's side during all of the murders, helping. So about a week and a half after
Joseph suggested murder, Joseph took his son aside and told him that today was the day. The
two of them hit the streets and at about 6:30pm they found a 10 year old boy named Jose
Collazo hanging around outside the Mann recreation center. Joseph and Mike told Jose that
they needed help moving some boxes of ribbon and if he'd like to help, they'd pay him for his
time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Cause this was back when kids could work.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL They could work but also, you don't need help moving boxes of ribbon. Ribbon is extremely
light.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah but if you have a lot of ribbon though...
BEN KISSEL (sighs) Are they in the ri-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You've never seen this ribbon! And I've got some of my own personal ribbon, it's very small,
very small. But my son's ribbon, oh it's MUCH MUCH bigger.
BEN KISSEL Are we talking about boxes of ribbon still?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Ah, talking about cocks.
BEN KISSEL Oh, I see. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS Well in reality, they were planning to take Jose to the nearby abandoned rug factory and
murder him. And that's exactly what they did. Once they got him there, they stripped the boy
nude, bound his hands and ankles with cord, and then, using a shoemaker's tool, they cut the
boy's penis off and let him bleed to death.
BEN KISSEL You know, it's interesting that they use the shoemaker tool. Do you think that he knew about
branding? Was he just like, this is gonna be so on brand the way that we're gonna do this?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'll finally be one of Batman's Rogue Gallery.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL It really is like a supervillain move to use the shoemaker tool.
MARCUS PARKS I think it's just what he had in the house.
BEN KISSEL Just what he had?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL God that's friggin disgusting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well god told him he had powerful tools. And he shone the light... Cause there was that one
segment in the book where the light would come through the window onto his... The lip, cause
it's the lip-shaped knife that he first had and he first learned how to snip the thing because he
brought his shoe snippers with him. And he believed that as a shoemaker, truly, his job was to
be the ultimate fucking revengeful shoemaker for god's hands. But he also said he did not
know how the kid died, because they were beating him, like Michael was beating him and
choking him. And so he gives him the chop, and then they were like, they yadda yadda
yadda'd, and then it's just like 'and then the kid was dead.' Because he assumed that when he
would-
BEN KISSEL I have a clue as to why the child died.
MARCUS PARKS I figure he probably bled to death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I actually don't know if he bled to death. I think they then manually strangled him.
BEN KISSEL Oh, god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Not to be sounding like a baseball announcer about it, but I think they did manually strangle
him.
BEN KISSEL It is absolutely disgusting. All right, so this is by far the most brutal thing that's happened.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, by far, yeah. Well about this murder, Joseph told Flora Shreiber, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI "Mike and I did what we did and what we had planned to do. We had passed the test, the rest
would be easy. God's will be done! Amen, Flora."
BEN KISSEL Um, first of all the rest wouldn't be easy, you would still have 3 billion people to do that to.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I have seen on several magnets, 'a journey of a million miles begins with one tiny boy's penis
being chopped off'.
BEN KISSEL I don't think that's the right motto.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I've been at different stores than you.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL I think you must've been going to a different Barnes & Noble than me.
MARCUS PARKS And he went even further in his description, lamenting the lack of light at the murder scene.
This is a further quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI "I was a little disappointed because it had been too dark in the factory to see blood. I wanted
to see blood. My thoughts were drenched in blood, blood gushing out of human bodies, blood
flooding the cities, staining rivers and oceans, blood boiling in a huge pot with morsels of
sexual organs in it that quiver while bubbles pop and splash." Oh, I love a soup!
BEN KISSEL All right, so I just have to ask. I know it's obvious that you wanted to see blood, so-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh, honestly, even just a nice borscht.
BEN KISSEL Did you think about just turning the light on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh my god. It's like shutting the computer off when you have computer problems!
BEN KISSEL Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS It was an abandoned rug factory, the power had been cut.
BEN KISSEL Okay, so that's his biggest complaint is that he didn't see enough blood.
MARCUS PARKS That he didn't see enough blood, that it was too dark in there.
BEN KISSEL All right.
MARCUS PARKS So after murdering this child, Joseph put the severed penis in his pocket and took it home.
There he sealed it in plaster of Paris, but once it started to smell, Joseph took his trophy and
threw it in the sewer. And not surprisingly, Joseph and Mike were never suspected of the
crime in any way whatsoever, nobody saw 'em with the kid. And Joseph said he just acted the
part of the outraged citizen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS PENIS?! Oh I wanna talk to the editor!
BEN KISSEL We didn't even mention that he lost his penis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh, interesting.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, seems like a strange piece of information that you would have. Um, perhaps you are-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It just seems like a natural thing that would happen to a dead young boy.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS And after a while the story just faded away as another unsolved case, the people of
Philadelphia just forgot about it.
BEN KISSEL So at no point were they like, 'this creepy-ass shoemaker who already has hurt his children, no
way he would've done that.'
MARCUS PARKS No, no. He was nowhere near. Cause he had just been exonerated. He is in a public, he is
having a war with the Philadelphia justice department right now where they're going back and
forth trying to repeal these charges that he was convicted of for child abuse. But he was
nowhere near anything like this. Because they just thought... Remember, he had, not unlike
the child's little penis, he had all of the legislature of Philadelphia in his pocket because he
fixed all their shoes! So all of the lawyers knew him, the judge knew him, and so for a while
they just thought... And there was a lot of vague 'spare the rod, spoil the child' shit.
BEN KISSEL The power of orthopedics.
MARCUS PARKS I think "he had them in his pocket" is going a little too far.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, like the little boy's penis (laughs).
MARCUS PARKS He fixed their shoes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You don't know!
BEN KISSEL As a lawmaker you're just like, 'Wow, this shoe...'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I put this shoe on the other day and I had three wishes granted to me by a severed head. I love
my tailor!
MARCUS PARKS I know, but he was still Crazy Joe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, I don't know if I'd go to bat for my tailor if he was in a child abuse case.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) No. On the day that Michael and Joseph killed the boy, Joseph said that he turned to
his son and told him that they were gonna murder others, and according to Joseph, Michael
turned to him and said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Good.
MARCUS PARKS And supposedly, according to Joseph, soon after telling his son this he completely and totally
forgot that he murdered the little boy.
BEN KISSEL Joseph forgot?
MARCUS PARKS Joseph forgot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL How the hell does he forget that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I left my computer charger in the hotel room last week.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Entirely different story.
MARCUS PARKS Well he'd been told that he'd done it, but the details didn't come until, he spoke with Flora
Schreiber years later. But that's just what he says.
BEN KISSEL Okay.
MARCUS PARKS So we don't know if that's 100% true or not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But then a part of her weird pseudo breakdown of psychology in the book is that she kind of
attributes it to actual amnesiac periods of... Like I guess that schizophrenics have or people
with severe dissociative disorders have, but I think that he's just saying it.
MARCUS PARKS I think that he's just saying it, yeah. Flora Schreiber, I mean yeah. Like we said in the last
episode, she's the author of Sybil which was largely discredited. She makes a lot of jumps. The
Shoemaker, the story is fantastic, the story is great, but her psychological analysis can be a
little suspect at times.
BEN KISSEL All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But also this is just straight up serial killer compartmentalization as far as I'm concerned, like
John Wayne Gacy said that his 'dark half' did it; Ted Bundy said 'the entity' did it.
MARCUS PARKS (chuckles) Jack Hanley.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, Jack Hanley.
BEN KISSEL (laughs) Jack Hanely, that's right.
MARCUS PARKS So about two weeks after the murder of Jose Collazo, Joseph had a vision. In this vision-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (chanting)
I just like all of this shit because it's very um, what was his name, it's like Alejandro
Jodorowsky.
MARCUS PARKS Very much so, yeah. I mean these visions are... I mean, they're beyond David Lynch. I mean,
they are some of the most intense things I've ever read.
BEN KISSEL Right, right.
MARCUS PARKS In this vision Joseph said he saw a boy being thrown from a mountain, and in that moment,
Joseph had an erection.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I wish I didn't but I did.
BEN KISSEL I wish you didn't too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Turkey is done.
MARCUS PARKS Well he'd come to know erections as a signal that the message is coming from god.
BEN KISSEL I am talking to god every second of every day.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I guess so. I mean, especially in a hotel room. The first fifteen minutes and the last fifteen
minutes I spend in a hotel room I guess I'm talking directly to Jesus Christ.
BEN KISSEL He's got a whole website.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) God told Joseph that he must throw the boy, whoever the boy was, from the edge of a
cliff and that Joseph would find the name of the cliff in a brochure on the small table beside his
sofa bed. See, Joseph had picked up a couple of travel brochures at a tourist information
center a few days before because he wanted some ideas for a father/son outing with his three
sons. Cause that was the amazing thing about it was that he was still trying to be a dad during
all of this but he didn't know how. He was also getting all these signals from god. He was a very
complicated individual.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He's confused.
MARCUS PARKS He's very confused.
BEN KISSEL Sounds a bit like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But the kids were barely going to school, and so they were in and out truant. But he viewed
them all, again, they're all now serving a higher purpose, he doesn't give a shit. That sounds
like some of the towns we just drove through in Ohio where the families are all there either
working... And we went to this cheese shop, it was Grandpa's Cheese Barn, and the whole
family is there working, and it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
BEN KISSEL Oh it's a family affair. They should've been in school, but that's the greatest education. The
cheese education.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL That's what you wanna know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's strange cause he did have this other thing being like, 'I wanna do something nice for them.
Cause I can't always have them working, cause it's so hard to cut all these penises off. I know,
look at my thin, thin wrists.'
BEN KISSEL Yeah, it's so... So he wants to be a normal dad and it's just not happening.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah it's not happening at all. And he also would send the kids out to try and sell shoe cleaning
products, but then when they wouldn't sell enough, he'd beat the shit out of them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's like the show My Two Dads if it was just one dad.
BEN KISSEL One dad, yeah, the whole time.
MARCUS PARKS As Joseph was flipping through these brochures, he found what he was looking for. He would
fulfill god's command at the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs) It's just filled with beer cans.
BEN KISSEL Now wait a second, what is the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon?
MARCUS PARKS It's a big canyon in Pennsylvania.
BEN KISSEL But it's not the Grand Canyon.
MARCUS PARKS No it's the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.
BEN KISSEL But why even go with the grand... Just rename it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Uh, because it's like the Grand Canyon, but it's in Pennsylvania.
BEN KISSEL But the Grand Canyon is the Grand Canyon, so no matter what you're like, 'Huh. That's the
Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.' But then you think about the real grand canyon, and you're
immediately going to be disappointed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They weren't ready to call it the Delco County Big Gaper.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL That would work!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That would, for several things.
MARCUS PARKS Well once Joseph found the place, god told him the target. He was gonna have to kill Joey, his
own son.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh! I've heard about this somewhere.
BEN KISSEL Wasn't this the story of Moses or something in the bible?
MARCUS PARKS Abraham, yeah.
BEN KISSEL Oh Abraham, okay.
MARCUS PARKS Now, God went on to explain that had Joseph not spent so much time on discipline with his
son, then he may have succeeded in his orthopedic experiments.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This thing keeps twisting and twisting at every single move he makes in order to make it like
it's his fault too.
BEN KISSEL Right, he does take responsibility for being a horrible dad kind of? I guess?
MARCUS PARKS Kinda, sorta.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Kinda.
MARCUS PARKS Plus, if Joseph had the will to kill his own son, then he would have the will to kill anyone and
everyone on earth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That makes total sense.
BEN KISSEL Of course.
MARCUS PARKS And besides, Joseph was able to make a little money off the deal too, which this part tells you
it might not be 100% psychological. Soon after he decided to kill, Joseph took out two
insurance policies on his own son that totaled $45,000 in profit for the surviving Kallingers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm gonna need about 45 grand of insurance on my son. I'll tell you he's got small feet and he's
very easy to knock over, he's very sick all the time and he yearns for a bullet in his mouth.
BEN KISSEL Well that is just so great. This is Flo, from Progressive, she'll be working with you.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh do you mind if I cut off her vagina? It's for Jesus Christ.
BEN KISSEL You've gotta ask her that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh, okay.
MARCUS PARKS Now according to Joseph, Michael had already suggested that they kill Joey as their next
victim, as Michael and Joey apparently fucking hated each other.
BEN KISSEL It works out.
MARCUS PARKS So when Joseph suggested they throw him off a cliff, Mike said, "Let's go!"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Let's go.
BEN KISSEL Wait, so the other son/brother was totally into this idea?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI These kids are like... Remember the Burger King Kids Club?
BEN KISSEL Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's that, but they're all Henry Lee Lucas. They are ready to fucking kill each other.
BEN KISSEL He definitely passed... Like father, like son. I remember that episode of that show.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Have you ever seen Titus Andronicus, the Shakespeare play, or read it?
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You fucking liar.
BEN KISSEL I actually, I read the screenplay? And then I read the-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm gonna knock you out of this hotel room. You can't read.
BEN KISSEL I have seen it. I have seen it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah? When? Give me a location.
BEN KISSEL It was uh, in a room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Pick a location.
BEN KISSEL In a bedroom.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You watched a Shakespeare play alone in your bedroom. Was it the film Titus?
BEN KISSEL Andronicus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Is it (sighs).
BEN KISSEL No, I have read that, yes. Love it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (sighs)
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL No it's a wonderful play, wonderful play.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's like the panel of sons in that play, where it is literally, the villain has his series of sons that
are all villains and they are just as likely to kill you as they are to kill each other.
BEN KISSEL Yeah I knew that, I knew that, I read that, so...
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) So, on a Sunday, Joseph took all three boys to the bus station to catch a ride to the
Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. But they all took too long in the bathroom and missed the bus.
BEN KISSEL What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This part of the weird logic thing in this whole episode that I don't understand but literally it's
like, 'Okay, we've got four minutes to go to the bathroom. Everybody take a shit!' And so they
would all go, they're like, (kids voice) 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!' Cause you could tell it's all of
them just kicking garbage cans and knocking people's coffees out of their hands.
MARCUS PARKS Joey's chain smoking the entire time, he's got a 14 year old chain smoker following him
everywhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They just let the bus roll past. Whatever it was that was anti-society, they were like, we just
bought bus tickets so that other people can't have them but then we're just gonna say, (kids
voice) 'Fuck you bus! Make me wanna ride you?'
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL They sound like a John Waters cast. Just horrible deviants.
MARCUS PARKS So Joseph went with the backup plan. Instead of going to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, they
could go have a nice Sunday exploring the beautiful mines of Pennsylvania.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Ugh.
BEN KISSEL Who doesn't wanna explore the mines of Pennsylvania with their schizophrenic father?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah (laughs).
MARCUS PARKS Well Joseph figured that a pit was a pit, and Joey would die no matter what he threw him off
of. But as he was making this decision, Joseph had a vision right there in the bus station.
BEN KISSEL Ooh, tell me that he comes up with the idea of a McDonald's ball pit.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) He saw himself lying naked on the floor, and Joey was throwing dried branches over
Joseph's body. Joey lit the fire and Joseph burned.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screaming) "Joey, no! It was supposed to be you, Joey!"
MARCUS PARKS His skin melted from his face and he screamed as joey sat watching in a recliner, chain
smoking, and singing this song: (music plays) We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the
sun. But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time.
BEN KISSEL It's honestly a really, really good song though. I like that song very much. So this is his father
just screaming at a bus stop-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screaming)
BEN KISSEL I'm now going to think that everyone I see screaming at a bus stop, we saw a lot of people in
Cincinnati screaming at a bus stop, was just thinking of their son burning them alive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That was Joey's favorite song, number one, which was haunting because he used to go, (kids
voice) "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun." And they were like torturing
people in the street. But yeah, it's Kallinger standing with his kids chain smoking next to him,
staring off into the middle distance going, 'They're gonna come here, they're gonna set me on
fire. Oh! We missed the bus. Time to go to the mines!'
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Oh my goodness. Joseph Kallinger is the Kriss Kross of serial killers. He missed the bus-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What?
BEN KISSEL Kriss Kross, I missed the bus, and I'm never ever ever gonna do it again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh I thought you were talking about Christopher Cross from the song Sailing.
BEN KISSEL No, I have no idea what-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (singing) Sailing. Sailing's where I'm going baby.
Right?
BEN KISSEL It's just so weird what your brain absorbs, what it just keeps in there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I wish that I knew less.
BEN KISSEL I know, I wish you did too.
MARCUS PARKS So in other words, when these guys got to the mines Joseph was pretty amped up but as he
was taking pictures of his two sons, the murderous urge left. As Joseph put it again and again,
"The cup had run dry".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI His boner went down. That is true-
BEN KISSEL So this entire time he also had a boner?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Like, no, it was like a Looney Tunes cartoon where he would get the kids, like 'Okay, we're
gonna try.' Cause he would pull Michael aside and be like, 'All right, we gotta find a place to kill
Joey.' And he's like, (kids voice) 'Yes daddy, whatever it takes. Let's get rid of Joey.' And he
would position them, taking pictures, right, up by the cliff's edge. He's like, (kids voice) 'Is this
close enough daddy? Is this close enough?' 'A little bit closer, little bit closer. Okay, Michael 1,
2...' (slide whistle sound)
BEN KISSEL Oh my god, now you have to redo the whole thing. Interesting. Okay, so this is good for the
kids.
MARCUS PARKS It's good for one-
BEN KISSEL It's good for Joey, to be fair.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah I would say to be fair, it's good. But Joseph was even going up to Michael and saying like,
(whispering) 'Hey, throw some rocks at your brother.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs)
BEN KISSEL This is honestly, this is like Cain and Abel shit going on right now.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. So they went home and Joseph figured out another plan. The next idea was to burn Joey
alive inside a truck container that was being stored at a parking lot near the Kallinger home.
See, 14 year old joey, as I said, was a chain smoker. So Joseph and Mike figured they could
trick Joey into taking a bunch of gas into a container to burn the container down just for fun.
BEN KISSEL Is this the fucking Addams Family?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
BEN KISSEL What is going on? Why is he even thinking about this stuff?
MARCUS PARKS Actually the Kallinger family, it is what the Addams Family would be like if they were real.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It is a pack of homicidal maniacs. And also, not very bright.
MARCUS PARKS No.
BEN KISSEL I would assume not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Joey was not smart.
BEN KISSEL Oh you think so? Henry did you think that was gonna be breaking news? These kids who never
went to school, who chain smoke, who spend their nights digging holes and spray painting
their high school with their schizophrenic father aren't necessarily on the bright side of life?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But they also knew each other so well. And they sat there like, 'All we gotta do... What does
Joey love? He loves flicking cigarette butts, right? So we put him in there with a bunch of
gasoline and eventually what he'll do, naturally, is he's gonna throw the cigarette butts and set
himself on fire.' And Michael's like, (calm voice) 'Yeah he will. He definitely will.' And Joey goes
ahead and he does fucking exactly that.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Wow. I do like that Joseph Kallinger in my mind has become Bernie Sanders meets Tony
Clifton.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It is that. It's the same fucking accent.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, they figured they'd get him in the container, then when he wasn't looking they'd lock
him in. And since they figured Joey wouldn't be careful, he'd just light up the smoke, his
cigarette would ignite the flame, Joey would burn to death, knocking one more person off
their hit list of 3 billion. And they did do their damnedest. On the night that they were gonna
do it, the horrifying laughter, remember that Joseph had-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (villainous laughter)
BEN KISSEL Yes, he was laughing at things that were not funny, like Richard Nixon.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah it hadn't come out in 20 years, but that night it came back. And as it came back, Joseph
hallucinated a vision of his son burning alive. And as he hallucinated this, he just laughed and
laughed without joy, all while writhing around like a snake. And suddenly Joseph stopped
laughing, the visions ended, and he went to gather his two sons. He gave Joey gasoline and
matches and gave Mike all the instructions to lock his brother inside. But when the time came
to trap Joey in the container, the lock was too high for Mike. Cause Mike was not yet 13, he
hadn't hit his growth spurt yet. Mike was only 4 foot 11.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah!
BEN KISSEL This kid needs a Squatty Potty? He needs a stepladder?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He could not ride the Kumba at Busch Gardens but he could attempt to murder his brother.
BEN KISSEL Interesting. That is an interesting note for some reason, just giving some insight into how small
and juvenile these children are.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, he's 12 years old, he's 4'11". So, Mike improvised and wedged an empty milk crate
between the trailer and the wall and went home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You know what that shows? Every single time you say the word 'can't', what you mean is the
word 'won't'.
BEN KISSEL Honestly, kind of.
MARCUS PARKS But what I just realized though, why didn't he just use the milk crate to stand on?
BEN KISSEL He's not-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They're not problem-solving!
BEN KISSEL Honestly he just did the thing where it's like, 'I'll just jam it in.' That's a good question, though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (calm voice) 'This'll do it. This'll kill him.'
MARCUS PARKS And sure enough, when he got home, Mike and Joseph looked out the window and they saw
black smoke billowing from the container. It had worked out perfectly. Joey had lit up the
fucking cigarette and the whole thing had lit on fire. But much to their surprise, a few minutes
after that, who should show up at the front door but Joey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But all covered in soot like he's Wile E. Coyote.
BEN KISSEL Yeah what kind of cartoon cigarette is this? This is like insane. 'That was one of the better
cigarettes I've ever had in my life.'
MARCUS PARKS Well Joey assumed that Michael had just run off because he'd got scared, and the milk crate
hadn't lasted past a couple of good kicks to the door. Now they'd failed twice, and still Joey
was none the wiser.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He is not smart!
BEN KISSEL He is not getting it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It is Mr. Magoo!
BEN KISSEL When are they just going to paint a big black circle and just be like, 'With any luck, he'll think
it's a tunnel.' Like this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but it's also super, super sinister.
MARCUS PARKS It's extremely sinister, and it's very sad I mean, it's a father and son trying to murder a family
member.
BEN KISSEL Good lord.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI In my way, I almost see this as Joseph Kallinger was both hyper aware of what his quote
unquote "task" was supposed to be for god, but I think that there was an inner, the other of
the My Two Dads, the real Joseph Kallinger, the one that was not completely taken over by his
illness, that was very hesitant to murder his own son.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL I would hope so.
MARCUS PARKS But the third attempt would result in Joey's death. Joseph got a message from god that the
perfect place for the murder existed in a condemned block of shops on market street in
Philadelphia. Joseph and Mike told Joey that they were going out there to take some spooky
pictures. And they were even gonna bring along some props, they were gonna bring along
some locks and some chains. And Joey, who loved having his picture taken, couldn't wait. He
was like, 'Yeah, let's go, this sounds like a great afternoon!'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah he sounds like an alt model.
BEN KISSEL I mean it really does sound like fun, again, if your father is not a schizophrenic who wants to
kill you.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. So, on July 28th, 1974, the three of them set out for the abandoned shops and found a
ladder leaning on a platform about five feet above a stagnant pool of water in the basement.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god if you tell me they throw a toaster oven in the water, if they try to electrocute him
in the dumbest way possible...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well one of the worst... One of the first details about this story that really creeps me out is
that it's literally just a stagnant pool of construction site water, right. They open the doors,
they're like, 'What's going on here? This one's gonna be real creepy. This is where we'll get a
real good shot.' And Joey opens the door and he's like, (kids voice) 'Ah hell yeah! This is creepy
as shit! Oh look, it's a stagnant pool, my favorite!' He goes down to the bottom of the stairs,
takes off his shoes and socks, rolls up his fucking pants and just being like (childish laughter)
sticking his feet in the water like, (kids voice) 'Ah it's like a watering hole. You see that daddy?'
BEN KISSEL It reminds me of when every summer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn of course where we reside
and love, there's always the new people in Williamsburg and they're like, 'This is so romantic, I
love to be in Brooklyn.' And they take their shoes off at midnight when they're drunk. And I
know for a fact that they're stepping in human feces and vomit and just trash. Oil is
everywhere for some reason. There's so much construction going on. There is nothing sweet
about the filthy streets of these cities.
MARCUS PARKS Mm-hmm. And as soon as they found that spot, they told Joey, "This is where we're taking the
pictures." So Joey, super excited that he was gonna get his picture taken, stood up against the
ladder they found and let his father and brother chain him to the handles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Well the goal, right, was that they chained him face-forward onto the ladders. They didn't ask
him exactly what the theme of this shoot was gonna be, I think that if it was like Project
Runway, it would be Crime and Punishment. But he was up against the ladder cause the first
thing was they gotta get access to his penis cause they were supposed to cut off his penis. So
he was supposed to be positioned between the rungs-
BEN KISSEL Is this like a Dov... What is it?
MARCUS PARKS Dov Charney?
BEN KISSEL Is this like a Dov Charney photoshoot?
MARCUS PARKS (Laughs)
BEN KISSEL Anytime the photographer is like, 'We need to get access to your penis' that's usually like, 'You
know what, I think I'm good, I'm just gonna go.'
MARCUS PARKS But, once Joey was tightly bound, Joseph just tipped the ladder into the pool of water and
watched his own son drown.
BEN KISSEL In a pool of muddy, disgusting construction water. Ugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And the way they... In the description of it... because Joseph Kallinger was obviously
immediately trying to distance himself psychologically from what he's watching. Cause he
watched his son hit the water and then just be like, 'Help. Help me daddy.' Like through, trying
to get his voice... And it just went plink plink and it just erased itself from Kallinger's mind.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god. The Men in Black showed up and just erased his brain. Wow.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. And then once Joey was dead they pulled the ladder out of the water, unchained him,
and just left the body there. And as they walked away from the site, Joseph once again said
that he just forgot everything that he'd just done.
BEN KISSEL Well then honestly man, why even do it? If you're just gonna-
MARCUS PARKS But he doesn't know that he's forgotten. He doesn't know that he forgot the first one, and he
didn't know that he forgot the second one. He still thinks this whole time that he is on a
mission from god to kill 3 billion people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, so he is locked in man. He is scared. That's one thing too. He is scared, he doesn't really
understand the circumstances, and this shits appearing to him fucking photo-real and
concrete.
BEN KISSEL Okay it's hard to comprehend, but yeah.
MARCUS PARKS So Joey was reported missing at 11pm that night, and Joey's body was not found for almost
two weeks when a detective named Ed Funk discovered that the body was indeed Joey
Kallinger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Tell me, is that some kind of dead little boy? Ba-dow-bow.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Detective Funk can you stop living up to your name at every crime scene?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh I'll try, but it's hard to outlive the funk. Bad-dow-dow, boom-da-da-ba-bow. I gotta keep
playing bass so I don't lose the rhythm.
BEN KISSEL It's a tragic scene, sir.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, tell me about it, I'm about to cry. Ba-dow-bow, ba-da-ba-bow.
MARCUS PARKS In the weeks since the murder, Joseph had even spoken to the Philadelphia Bulletin about his
missing son and had bizarrely recounted the first murder attempt on his son in the mines as a
happy memory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You can't believe how many times my son almost died. Oh, we laughed and we sang, me and
my sons.
BEN KISSEL So he's pulling a... Remember Susan Smith, the gal who drowned her children? He's doing one
of those press conferences, is that right?
MARCUS PARKS Yep. Mm-hmm. But the Philadelphia police, who knew all about Joseph Kallinger's history of
child abuse, pegged Joseph as murder suspect number one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He also did not make any friends in the police department cause of how much... He is a, let's
say, he is a difficult human being to deal with 24/7.
BEN KISSEL I think that that's a fair statement to make, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The cops fucking hated him, and he hated cops.
BEN KISSEL Rightfully so on the cops part.
MARCUS PARKS Mm-hmm. But the thing is, the cops didn't have any evidence beyond the insurance policy.
BEN KISSEL Honestly, I'm just gonna say that's enough. You got the body, you have... I'm sure they
could've nipped this in the bud a little bit sooner.
MARCUS PARKS It's a hunch thing. So they were all like, that's the problem, it's kind of based on a hunch, but
it's like a really, really, really good hunch.
BEN KISSEL It's a huge hunch!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah but it's just circumstantial. I mean that's like the definition of circumstantial evidence, it's
a circumstance that you took out an insurance policy on your son and then he ended up dead
about a month later.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Marcus laying it down!
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) I'm just saying it's not gonna hold up in a court of law.
BEN KISSEL All right, all right.
MARCUS PARKS Now even though Joseph was a free man, he was about to become saddled with a new
problem altogether as a result of his actions. On the day that the Philadelphia police told him
that he was their main suspect in the murder of Joey Kallinger, Joseph was walking down the
same street where he killed his son, and he saw, off in the distance, the head of a boy bobbing
at eye level.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What's that?
MARCUS PARKS Joseph tried to ignore it and went home, but the head followed him. And when Joseph got to
his door, the head came close and showed itself. The vision was just the head of a boy with no
mouth and no nose and its skin was pus white and drawn across the skull.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh my god it's Betty White!
BEN KISSEL Also is pus white... Can I buy that at a home depot to paint my walls with? Is that a real color?
MARCUS PARKS I'm sure one of our listeners is selling makeup called 'pus white' right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I don't know a lot but I see Natalie's stack of Sephora stuff but I'm certain I've seen a pus white
highlighter.
BEN KISSEL (laughs) That's so nasty.
MARCUS PARKS Well the eyes of this vision were described in The Shoemaker as small discs of brown cork
surrounded by tiny veins like red worms in white fluid.
BEN KISSEL (shudders)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This shit. Think about how fucking scary this shit is. Cause at first it sounds like a cartoon, it's
like (humming tune) as it's bobbing slowly and then shows up like (snarling). And Joe
Kallinger's like (screaming).
BEN KISSEL It kind of seems like the cover of the movie Zombie.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah!
BEN KISSEL A little bit like that.
MARCUS PARKS And this floating head was focused directly on Joseph. So Joseph unlocked the door, threw his
keys at the apparition, and ran inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You bring my keys back here!
BEN KISSEL Wait, hold on a second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm like a skunk but with keys! That's my natural reaction.
BEN KISSEL Out of all the violent things that this man has done, he reacted like my grandmother would.
Like he just threw his keys at this severed head that's floating in front of him like that's gonna
work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He acted like Bernie Sanders. We saw him with that stupid bandage on his head, he fell down
in the shower. And hopefully he didn't see the severed head of fucking, I don't know who just
recently died... Barbara Bush.
BEN KISSEL Barbara Bush, John McCain.
MARCUS PARKS Later, Joseph was once again working on an old pair of shoes when the head reappeared.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (slide whistle sound)
MARCUS PARKS But this time it spoke, despite having no mouth, as if from a loudspeaker, and said in a high-
pitched voice, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) My name's Charlie!
BEN KISSEL Jesus...
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Now Charlie never-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's lips are like quivering-
MARCUS PARKS It has no mouth!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's what I'm saying, it's like chattering. Can you hear that?
MARCUS PARKS It can't chatter cause it has no mouth!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It has no mouth?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, it has no mouth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's fucking creepy.
BEN KISSEL It sounds like something that you have to whip in Castlevania, that comes after you-
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, yeah. It had no mouth and no nose. That's why he said it sounded like the voice came
from a loudspeaker because it had no mouth whatsoever.
BEN KISSEL Wow.
MARCUS PARKS Now Charlie never quite explained where he came from. Or who he was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He didn't have to.
BEN KISSEL No.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Schreiber figures that Charlie was created out of guilt for murdering his own son, but
the only information Joseph could glean from this new vision in that first conversation was
this. Charlie told him, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) I belong to you, and you belong to me! Bye bye!
BEN KISSEL Bye bye.
MARCUS PARKS And then it just disappeared.
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS And the next time Charlie showed up was during another interrogation by the police
concerning Joey's disappearance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And you're in with the cops, right, and you're already being like, 'Let me just get a hold of your
shoes and I swear to god I can make sure that you're nine feet taller. And not only nine feet
taller but also, have you ever seen Stretch Armstrong? I can really spread you out, then you
can become like a rubber man and so... What is that? What is that?' And then the head floats
above the shoulder of the cop you're talking to.
BEN KISSEL Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The police captain is sitting there asking him questions about his son's
murder, and the cop knows, has just a gut hunch that you are the murderer, and then
suddenly Charlie popped up right over the shoulder of the police captain and said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) Every cop in the room would want to see you in your coffin!
BEN KISSEL Mr. Kallinger it seems like you're a little distracted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Sorry, I'm a little bit distracted.
BEN KISSEL You are looking a little bit distracted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm a little distracted, yeah.
BEN KISSEL Just getting back to your son here for a moment...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I didn't kill him, not one time. Maybe one time, but not that I remember.
BEN KISSEL Maybe one. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Charlie I'm gonna need you to be quiet, okay. It's a severed head who's my friend.
BEN KISSEL Oh there's a severed head behind me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But don't worry, he's cool. He's cool.
MARCUS PARKS Well Joseph told him to shut up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Shut up!
MARCUS PARKS But the cop thought that Joseph was talking to him, and the cop got pissed off. And then
Charlie said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) That pig thought that you told him to shut up! Oink oink! Oink oink!
BEN KISSEL Why is his imagination so fun, though?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I know, this is incredible!
BEN KISSEL No that is crazy.
MARCUS PARKS And still, after five hours of that kind of back and forth, the cop still let Joseph free, because
they had nothing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's why they can never get me, can never keep me, slippery as soap.
BEN KISSEL I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS It was around this time that Betty had another kid.
BEN KISSEL Oh my, this story is... You lost one, I guess, so then I guess you replace the kid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Cause what, I mean, what is Joseph Kallinger's sex style like? Is it just him going, 'Oh, honey, I
can't wait to just ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, like a tugboat. Like a tugboat
coming into the harbor, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.' And she's sitting on the bed being like,
(feminine voice) 'Oh, I can't wait for you to cum inside me and make another little one of you.'
BEN KISSEL Honestly, I don't know if you did that on accident but that's a Don Rickles bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Is it? (laughs)
BEN KISSEL The tugboat. When Eddie and I went to see Don Rickles and who was it, Billy Crystal? Was it
Billy Crystal? No, Regis Philbin. It was the Reg. That's his opening bit, he does his tugboat
thing...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's weird!
BEN KISSEL It was weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I must've absorbed that somewhere.
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Well this kid was a little girl named Bonnie, but Bonnie had been born with the rare condition
called... I'm gonna do my best with this, this is very complicated. Cutis marmorata
telangiectatica congenita.
BEN KISSEL Is that the book of the dead?
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Why do all of these things have to be so frickin difficult.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Can you see me that I'm floating over the bed?
BEN KISSEL Mm-hmm.
MARCUS PARKS Well it wasn't painful, but the disease caused Bonnie's skin to be covered in purple patches.
There was and still is no cure, but one night Joseph had an hallucinatory dream in which he
thought he was given an answer to his daughter's problems. To put the hallucination into
broad strokes, because it was quite vivid-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is cool as shit.
BEN KISSEL It's interesting.
MARCUS PARKS It's disgusting. And I'm putting this into extremely broad strokes here, cause this vision is
extremely detailed and very long.
BEN KISSEL Ugh. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS But in this vision, Joseph was walking down a long corridor with a crystal wand in his left hand.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh, this is awesome. I'm like Superman and Gandalf.
MARCUS PARKS The corridor opened out to a road leading to a one-story house, and suddenly a shower of
golden shoelaces fell from the sky. Angels then descended from on high and sang this to
Joseph:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (singing) Joseph Kallinger, master shoemaker, and god of the universe. Oh healer and
destroyer, we sing your praises now. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
BEN KISSEL Another very on-brand hallucination. It is crazy, I mean, this is why he's The Shoemaker I
suppose.
MARCUS PARKS It's like The Big Lebowski.
BEN KISSEL Oh man, this story is just out there.
MARCUS PARKS Then, the headless figure of a naked woman appeared before Joseph in the middle of the
road, and squatting where her head should have been was a demon with a gigantic erect
penis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh hey, how you doing buddy?
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Examining the woman further, Joseph found that she had enormous breasts and an
exposed body cavity. And hanging from her nipples was a doll-sized man with bat wings and a
frog's head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Wait a second is that... Henry Zebrowski?
BEN KISSEL Literally Clive Barker couldn't come up with a better character for Hellraiser than this.
MARCUS PARKS Could not. The bat-frog-man also had a huge erection and he was trying to stick it into the
open wound on the woman's torso.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Ay, when in Rome.
BEN KISSEL They're not in Rome, they're in Pennsylvania.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I know, but yeah, I'm in Pennsylvania but also my dick is shaft-deep inside of this woman's
torso.
BEN KISSEL My god.
MARCUS PARKS And slapping at the legs of the little man was Joseph's baby daughter Bonnie. She was sitting
amongst the woman's intestines.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Fuck, shit, fuck yeah dude.
BEN KISSEL Like what is it, Krang? From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, like Krang. Just like Krang.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Just like Krang.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Joseph waved the wand again, but this time it turned into a tiny dried penis.
BEN KISSEL Well of course that means that he's in the Slytherin club, that's what that means, he's in
Slytherin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs) How did you pull that from Harry Potter?
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Yeah and it's house, not club.
BEN KISSEL What? I got the Slytherin part, he's in a Slytherin house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Have you seen a minute of Harry Potter? Did you just pull that from the collective
unconscious?
BEN KISSEL I've seen it, and then I've read all the books.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You did?
BEN KISSEL Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What was the last one called?
BEN KISSEL Titan. Titan Andronicus. No, it was The Lost Key of My Ass. I don't know what it was called.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The Lost Key of My Asshole.
BEN KISSEL I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS So Joseph threw the tiny dried penis to the ground. He heard the sound of fire, so he followed
the sound and found people with arms like the branches of trees bound by chains into the
earth. They were all groaning and wailing, dying by fire, and on the ground next to them were
empty shoes, dancing to the cries of pain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Fucking awesome. It is awesome.
MARCUS PARKS Then Joseph saw the face of Lucifer which morphed into a vagina, which Flora Schreiber
inexplicably called a quote, "hairy delta".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI At least she didn't call it a downy poonanny.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (feminine voice) And then it's icky dicky little poopoo-tookoo...
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Like people have baby names for vaginas.
BEN KISSEL That would be disgusting.
MARCUS PARKS And Flora Schreiber, she really is a fantastic descriptive writer. I mean, there's a reason that
Sybil was such a gigantic hit, because she is a fantastically descriptive writer, I love her writing
style, but I just can't get past... Just say vagina. You're an adult. You don't have to say "hairy
delta". And it's not evocative, I know what a vagina looks like!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Scruffy envelope.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Harry Delta of course went on to be one of the stars of Designing Women.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You did it again.
BEN KISSEL I did it again, I did it again.
MARCUS PARKS Then the vagina began to speak to Joseph. In a raunchy voice, the vagina said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (feminine voice) I know what'll cure Bonnie. Take my fluid, mix it with your semen and with
perfume, and put the liquid on Bonnie's sores. Thank you.
BEN KISSEL All right, I didn't realize that Casey Anthony was doing sex audiobooks now. That is enough of
that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (moaning) (feminine voice) Single and ready to mingle.
BEN KISSEL I know.
MARCUS PARKS And with that, Joseph had a mission. He took this as instruction. He was gonna follow the
advice of the talking vagina but in order to do so, he needed vaginal fluid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Mm-hmm.
BEN KISSEL Of course!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah cause the vagina said, "Take my fluid."
BEN KISSEL Ugh, okay.
MARCUS PARKS So he decided that his wife was too old.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (feminine voice) I got plenty of fluid though, Joe.
You're too old, you know that for a fact.
MARCUS PARKS So he and Mike went searching for someone young and healthy. And this is when this takes a
big fucking left turn. And, since Joseph supposedly didn't remember his first two murders, he
thought this would be the perfect opportunity to kick off his world massacre.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He legitimately, every time it restarted like this, he had to imagine, be like, 'Okay, time to kill
our first one. Time for the appetizer.' But then they... You already killed two people!
BEN KISSEL Right.
MARCUS PARKS So, Joseph and Mike, armed with a butcher knife in a brown paper bag, got on a bus and
headed to the suburban town of Lindenwold, New Jersey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They also barely covered that fucking knife. That's what they said, is that the knife was
literally... They just wrapped paper around a knife.
MARCUS PARKS But once they got there, Joseph found a third companion who'd come along. When they were
looking for a house, who should show up but Charlie.
BEN KISSEL Oh, great.
MARCUS PARKS But when Joseph told Charlie to get the hell out of there, now is not that time Charlie, Charlie
said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) "Joseph you old horse's ass, chicken brain, fucker-up, you're a real laugh you
know that? If you're gonna be God, then I'm the Holy Ghost, and I'm gonna fuck the Virgin
Mary. Wow!"
BEN KISSEL Charlie, I appreciate you doing your version of The Aristocrats, that is great, but you need to
get out of here now.
MARCUS PARKS Then, the pupils in Charlie's eyes disappeared, leaving only the whites of his eyeballs, and he
faded away, laughing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) Bye, bye!
BEN KISSEL Ugh, god.
MARCUS PARKS And at that moment, Mike, who'd been wandering around the suburban neighborhood by
himself, approached his father and told him that he'd found a woman all alone. To make sure
she was alone, Michael knocked on her door and asked her if she'd like to buy any tie clasps.
When she said her husband didn't wear those, Michael asked if he was around so he could
make sure he didn't want any. But she said she was alone. And with that knowledge, the plan
went forward. See Joseph had dressed up nicely that day, wearing the suit and tie that he
always did when they went out to commit crimes.
So, when he knocked on the door holding Mike by the arm, he had an air of respectability.
When the woman answered the door, Joseph angrily asked her if this young boy had tried to
sell her anything. She got a bad feeling and started to close the door but before she got a
chance, Joseph and Mike burst into the house. They took her upstairs, stripped her naked, laid
her down on her bed, and tied her wrists and ankles to the bedsprings with bootlaces before
slipping a pillowcase over her head. They ransacked the house for valuables, then Joseph told
Mike he wanted to be alone with the woman. Once Mike left, the visions began.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is fucking frightening. Cause think about this, they have now ransacked this whole house
because they are trying to make whatever money they can. Joseph is a very big man, too.
MARCUS PARKS Joseph looked over into the corner of the bedroom and saw the shadowy figure of a man. And
as the man turned towards Joseph, Kallinger realized that this figure was his double, and this
double was facing a figure of a nude woman whose features were vague, and her mouth was
open in a silent scream. Then, Joseph watched as the man pulled out a knife with his left hand
and began moving it in and out of the woman's stomach. But before Joseph could mimic the
vision in front of him, he had to follow the instructions the talking vagina had given him. And
here's where things are about to get both disgusting and disturbing.
BEN KISSEL Okay. Here's the time?
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Yeah.
BEN KISSEL We've been there. This entire series might be the most disturbed I have felt in maybe two
years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Good!
BEN KISSEL This is really bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm glad we can still get to you.
BEN KISSEL No you guys have constantly traumatized and triggered me.
MARCUS PARKS But Kallinger needed semen to complete his concoction. But just as he was about to rape his
victim, he went limp, and the visions vanished. Determined to still go through with it though,
Joseph rubbed his soft penis on the woman's pubic hair until a few pathetic blobs of semen
dribbled out. Then he put his finger into the woman's vagina for fluid, then he gathered his
semen and put it all in a rubber glove before taking a bottle of perfume from her dresser to
complete his list of ingredients. But since the vision had disappeared, Joseph no longer had the
inspiration, for lack of a better word, to go through with the murder. So Joseph and Mike left
the house without doing it.
BEN KISSEL Hmm. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This episode that they do... There's something about it, obviously, this is very harrowing, a
sexual assault is very frightening, but something to me that's even more frightening is... Again,
we are telling the story from inside Kallinger's brain, right, so he can see all this shit. But
there's something about how a man, his 12 or 13 year old son, have bound and gagged you.
You're in a room and you don't know what's about to happen to you, you're pretty certain
you're about to get murdered, he has a knife in his hands. He stops. He's on top of you, he's
looking at you, he stops, then again stares into the middle distance, seeing something that's
not there, and then proceeds to rub himself on you. You're still, again, waiting. What the fuck's
gonna happen, what's gonna happen here? And then he's just like, 'Okay. We're done.' And
then they just leave.
BEN KISSEL Horrifying.
MARCUS PARKS Absolutely horrifying. So when Joseph got home, he mixed the semen, the vaginal fluid, and
the perfume with some warm water and applied the tincture to his infant daughter's skin and
kept doing it every evening for a week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I actually saw that in an article in Goop.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, is that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's the title of it.
BEN KISSEL I think that's why they're closing it down at this point, they went a little too far with that one.
My god.
MARCUS PARKS But when nothing happened, Charlie came back to taunt Joseph. Charlie then gave Joseph
instructions to go out the next day with Mike, find a house, and kill whoever he found inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is like Office Space, he's got 7 bosses.
BEN KISSEL Lot of bosses, very crazy.
MARCUS PARKS And to give him what I suppose was encouragement, Charlie told Joseph to look over into the
'while you wait' booths in his store. And there, Joseph saw the figure of the murderer and the
victim once more. And again, the knife just slowly moved in and out, in and out.
BEN KISSEL And I mean, I guess, is he late with their shoes? Why are they there?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes. I don't know, I don't know.
BEN KISSEL Get them out of there.
MARCUS PARKS So the next day, Joseph and Mike headed to Susquehanna Township in Pennsylvania and
settled on a nice two-story house. And Joseph was coming to this one with a brand new
method. Right before they left Kensington, Joseph had seen a vision of his double whom he'd
come to call "the supreme power". And in this vision the supreme power was pouring lighter
fluid into a woman's eyes. So Joseph figured that this was what he needed to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Honestly, it is kind of like a hashtag mood, to see yourself in the mirror and call yourself the
supreme power. Because I think it's important to remember that, but as long as you're not
convincing yourself to drown a woman in kerosene, then I think you're G-2-G.
BEN KISSEL This might very well be the premise of Jordan Peele's 'Us'. Isn't there another...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Plagiarism! That's Plagiarism!
BEN KISSEL That's plagiarism?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I understand parallel thinking.
BEN KISSEL Okay, thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But as long as there's not one severed little boy's penis in that movie, I will be fine with that.
BEN KISSEL No there is not. Well, I haven't seen it yet, I have no idea what Us is gonna be about, but...
MARCUS PARKS So at 11:30am Joseph and mike broke into a nice two-story suburban home while the
occupant was out running errands and they waited for her to return. As soon as she walked
inside the two of them grabbed her and pointed a gun in her face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Think about how surprising this is. This is at 11:30 in the goddamn morning. You just went out,
you're doing you shit, you're going grocery shopping, and then you walk into being held
hostage by a man and a child.
BEN KISSEL Yeah that is crazy. The morning does make it more frightening in a strange way, or in the very
least more surprising.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Because at night, obviously, you feel more vulnerable because you can't see but there's
something about how like in the morning you're just like, 'Oh, nothing's gonna happen to me
right now.'
BEN KISSEL No at night... There's a big difference between going to the bathroom at 2 o'clock in the
afternoon and at 2am. 2am a lot of people bring a baseball ball with them.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You been doing that?
BEN KISSEL No I don't do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You do that in your own home? You take a baseball bat to your own bathroom?
BEN KISSEL No, I bring a bag of chips to the bathroom with me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I've seen this.
BEN KISSEL I do an entirely different thing.
MARCUS PARKS So they led her upstairs and tied her to the bed then placed absorbent cotton moistened with
lighter fluid onto her eyes before covering almost her entire face in adhesive tape. The plan
was to set her on fire to mimic a vision that was once again playing out in front of Joseph
Kallinger in the bedroom. But just as Joseph had taken out the can of lighter fluid that he'd
brought along, the vision once again vanished. And Joseph said that he felt quote unquote,
"silly."
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, I'd feel silly too.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Because he'd gotten everything set up but didn't go through with it. He said that was
his emotion at that time, was that he just felt silly/.
BEN KISSEL He felt like a real goof? Like I'm like John Candy in Stripes right now, I'm just the biggest goof in
the yard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI The egg on my face! I'm just so sorry that I put you through this for me, I mean, think about
how embarrassing this is for me.
BEN KISSEL Jeez. How far gone do you have to be to use 'silly' as the descriptor for you not being able to
keep the visions when you're murdering a woman?
MARCUS PARKS But at that moment, the doorbell rang. What Joe and Mike didn't know was that the woman
they had tied to the bed upstairs had planned a luncheon that day. So one by one the guests
began to show up. And one by one, Mike and Joseph brought each of them inside and
restrained them with wire hangers taken from the closet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is like Fawlty Towers but with murder.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, very serious episode of Fawlty Towers.
MARCUS PARKS By the end of it they had four hostages. But once Joseph got them all where he wanted them,
he was struck with another vision. This one was the most vivid and involved vision yet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Now these are four struggling people. He told each one of them, he's like, 'Calm down,
nothing's gonna happen, we're here, right now this is our situation, we're just gonna play this
by ear and everybody's gonna smile.' Cause his whole thing, he's like, 'I wanna treat them with
respect.' And so as he's talking to them... So now you've got four people, so it happens again.
These people are struggling, they don't know what the hell's gonna happen, Joe is now just
staring at the wall. And I guess Michael is just like, (kids voice) 'You having ideas, daddy?' I
don't know what he's doing.
MARCUS PARKS Well Mike was upstairs with the hostages.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yeah, that's right.
MARCUS PARKS Because they took the hostages upstairs into the bedroom one by one, and Joseph was down
in the dining room by himself where the settings had been placed for the days luncheon. He's
just staring off into the distance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Most people you see alone in a subway are doing this.
BEN KISSEL Right, right, okay.
MARCUS PARKS And suddenly, the vision began. And the supreme power entered the room, and in the vision
the four hostages came with him. The supreme power stripped the women then laid them on
the floor and cut off their breasts, putting all eight into plastic bags before continuing
downward to their "hairy deltas".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Say vagina.
MARCUS PARKS Which Flora Schreiber used again as a descriptor for this scene. The double then knelt down
and pulled out the innards, removing the lungs, heart, intestines, uterus, ovaries, and livers of
each woman.
BEN KISSEL But this is the vision, right?
MARCUS PARKS This is the vision. After that came the eyes, tongues, and ears, which were all removed right
before the supreme power took off their heads. The entrails were then put into pans for
baking while the eyes, ears, tongues, and ovaries were all placed in pyrex dishes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We're nose to tail, here.
MARCUS PARKS Then, making several trips, the supreme power took what Joseph now assumed was a meal
into the kitchen for preparation. After only a few moments though, the double came back
wearing an apron of fine linen, carrying gold dishes filled with blood gravy and eyeball hors
d'oeuvres.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Cool!
BEN KISSEL No this is like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Ugh. It's disgusting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's like a goth luncheon.
BEN KISSEL Honestly, I do know for a fact that you would drink blood of animals and eat their eyeballs in a
stool... In a soup!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I have. I put it in my stool.
MARCUS PARKS Now this whole scene, it sounds like something out of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. It sounds
just like this horrible, psychedelic nightmare.
BEN KISSEL Why can't, I mean, I know that there's a fine line between crazy and artistic, and artists and
someone who is just crazy, but it seems like if he just had a typewriter...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Who's buying these books, Kissel?!
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL There were two authors who reminded him of that exact story. So people would.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You need more narrative than that.
BEN KISSEL No I know we need a narrative I'm just saying if you just gave him the books for the description
part, he could come up with some crazy stuff.
MARCUS PARKS When the supreme power brought the golden dishes back into the room, as he was wearing
the apron of fine linen, he was no longer the supreme power. He was now what Joseph called
"the perfect waiter".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh, what's so nice about being a waiter... Still or sparkling blood? Oh, so we got specials of the
day, we got some hairy deltas fresh from the living room.
BEN KISSEL Uh Mr. Kallinger I am not a waiter sir, I am actually an actor who happens to be waiting tables
at the time...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Tell me all about it. I am a shoemaker primarily but also I am an assassin for Jesus Christ.
BEN KISSEL Oh okay, well that's great. I thought you were gonna say he thought she was Julia Child.
MARCUS PARKS But after bringing out dish after dish of cooked human remains, the perfect waiter finally
brought out a sterling silver platter. On this surface, he had arranged the four heads of the
women to point north, south, east, and west, and each one had an apple shoved into its
mouth. And in the middle of the four heads, looking towards the ceiling was who else but good
old Charlie. He just looked at Joseph and gave him a wink.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Wink!
BEN KISSEL This is just like a child's show from hell.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Then, at that moment, a man whom Joseph assumed was the homeowner's husband
walked into the vision. The man was stripped and blindfolded before he could see the meal
before him, and the perfect waiter sat him down in a chair and tied him by the chest, leaving
his arms free for movement. He sat and he ate, blindfolded, happy as a clam, smacking his lips,
loving the whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (slurping sounds) Mmm. This is good!
BEN KISSEL It's like when that person ate the human brains in Hannibal.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Was it Hannibal when they did that? Was that Ray Liotta?
MARCUS PARKS That was Ray Liotta and wasn't he eating his own brain?
BEN KISSEL Something like that, he was like, 'This is quite tasty'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Brain is tasty.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Isolate the audio. Isolate the audio once again on Henry Zebrowski.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Then when the man was done, the perfect waiter removed the blindfold and the man
screamed in horror at the sight of his wife's head. Then he fainted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI First person acting normal.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS Actually, if you enjoy this story, I would recommend The Story Must Be Told here on Last
Podcast Network because this sounds a lot like the types of stories that they write.
BEN KISSEL This is when you wanted to put on business owner hat? You wanted to do that now?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs)
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL You have never plugged another show on this show ever.
MARCUS PARKS It very much reminds me of their style!
BEN KISSEL And you think that's gonna drive listenership to them? This is one of the most disturbing things
I have ever heard, and you're like, 'Now is the time'. No it is a great show, The Story Must Be
Told, right here on LPN Network.
MARCUS PARKS Well after that, the perfect waiter morphed back into the supreme power and cut off the
man's testicles, penis, and head, then rearranged the table setting where the heads of
husband and wife sat neatly together, and as a final touch, the supreme power placed the
testicles in the husband's mouth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Okay, there's something missing here... I know. Gotta put the ornaments on the tree!
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's very much like... There was a music video, I think Radiohead, where there was like a
cartoon-
MARCUS PARKS You talking about the Paranoid Android video?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think so, but the kind of music video style of him cutting the heads off, where you know it's
very perfunctory; it's very like slice slice slice, the parts fall off the body-
MARCUS PARKS Unemotional. Matter of fact.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Right. Right, right. Okay, interesting. Well, let me just take this time to plug Wizard and the
Bruiser. It's another great show here on the Last Podcast Network.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI If you love gutted women you will love Holden McNeely's voice.
BEN KISSEL Testicles in Mouths: The Holden McNeely Story.
MARCUS PARKS So after seeing all this, Joseph was perfectly satisfied that god's will had been done. Joseph
Kallinger actually believed that what he had just seen had actually happened and that he'd
kicked off his world massacre with five brutal murders. So Joseph called out to Mike, motioned
for him to come downstairs and said, "Let's go." And then once again they just left.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI So these people-
BEN KISSEL The real people are alive upstairs.
MARCUS PARKS So there are four people tied up with wire hangers up in the bedroom. One of them has her
entire face covered in adhesive tape, there's lighter fluid leaking into her eyes, and Joseph
Kallinger just says, "Okay, let's go. Yeah we're done here."
BEN KISSEL Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS And the break-ins and assaults continued after that, and only increased in brutality. About two
weeks before Christmas, Joseph and Mike broke into a home at 3pm in a suburb of Baltimore
called homeland and Joseph orally raped a woman. About a month after that, they did it again
at 9am in Dumont, New Jersey. On both occasions, the supreme power had appeared, showing
Joseph what to do, but just before the moment of murder, the vision went away and the urge
to kill left with it. But on January 8th, 1975 in the New Jersey town of Leonia, Joseph wouldn't
need the double at all to commit his third and final murder.
Again, Joseph used Mike as bait. The 12 year old boy knocked on the door, and when the
owner opened Joseph pushed his way through and the terrified woman immediately told them
that her invalid grandmother was upstairs in bed. Not really caring, Joseph made the woman
strip, and once she was undressed Joseph began to walk up the stairs to kill the grandmother
with the hunting knife he'd brought with them. But at that moment, the doorbell rang. It was
the woman's sister and her son. Once again, Joseph and Mike had burst their way into a social
function.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But also the way that he put it is that he treated them with respect, and he was just like, 'I
don't wanna be doing this, I hate to be doing this, this is my job, I'm gonna need you to
remove your clothes.'
BEN KISSEL Do you really need to be doing this? Cause it seems like you're doing it and I'd prefer if you
didn't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I hate the fact that I'm doing this.
BEN KISSEL Ugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And then he would go and... He felt like he was being nice. They just didn't understand that he
was a part of a massive quest.
BEN KISSEL Oh, Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Now the woman's father had just suffered a heart attack, and on that day family
members and friends were coming by for tea in her time of need. Joseph actually liked this
idea. In his mind, the more people that showed up, the more people he could kill all in one
place, thereby getting him closer to his ultimate goal.
BEN KISSEL Not really though because it's still, again, 3 billion people he would have to do this to.
MARCUS PARKS But even then it's still like, 'Okay, well I can kill one person today or I can kill five people in a
day.' He likened it to the Nazis. He was like, 'Okay yeah, it was like the Holocaust, we get all
these people all in one place and we kill them all at once. Now that was efficiency.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's what he said, straight up. Was just being like, 'The organization and the paperwork was
(chef's kiss) absolutely fabulous with the Germans.'
BEN KISSEL That is not surprising that he would sympathize with the Nazis efficiency for murdering people.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, but that's all he sympathized with. It was the process of it that he-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I hate their house! And I'll tell you one thing, their shoes, that's some good stuff. There's some
good shoes. Shining a lot of shoes.
BEN KISSEL Now you're just fully Tony Clifton. Who of course was an Andy Kaufman character for you
young folks out there who don't know. It's a great character, great movie. Man on the Moon.
MARCUS PARKS So, Joseph brought the sister and her son inside and had them strip as well. Not too long after
that, the doorbell rang again. Joseph opened the door and pointed his gun in the face of two
women and a man and ordered them all inside. Joseph was in the process of stripping them as
well when the doorbell rang again.
BEN KISSEL And at the door was Mr. Plum, coming to join the party.
MARCUS PARKS Ringing the bell this time was a young woman named Maria Fasching. She had taken the day
off from her job as a nurse to come by and see how her friend was doing, and Joseph figured
he'd change tack on this one. Instead of opening the door holding the gun, Joseph greeted her
with a friendly 'hello' and welcomed Maria inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hey, come inside, we're having a... We're having fun, we're having a little get together.
BEN KISSEL Just one question, who the fuck are you? Why are you in this goddamn house, I've never seen
you before.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm the perfect waiter.
MARCUS PARKS Well she just assumed that he was a family friend that she didn't know and she returned the
friendly greeting. He was like, 'Hello!' So she was like, 'Hi, how are you?' But once she walked
inside she saw all of these people stripped, tied up on the floor. Now Maria, she was a take-no-
shit kind of girl. So instead of being scared upon seeing all of her friends tied up on the floor,
she got pissed and tried untying everyone. She only stopped when the 12 year old Mike
pointed a handgun in her face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Because Mike, this whole time, in all of these break-ins was in charge of the gun because
Joseph said he had the bigger penis. "Cause it was MUCH MUCH bigger." He was allowed to
handle the gun. So all of this time it's Joseph being like, "Do what he wants. Do what he
wants," to Mike and Mike's this little kid being like, (calm voice) "Put your hands behind your
back." A little boy with a fucking loaded handgun in your mouth.
MARCUS PARKS A 4'11" 12 year old is pointing a handgun at you.
BEN KISSEL It is the closest thing to ever having a real life attack by Chucky.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah! It really is.
BEN KISSEL You just wanna kick it. Every time you see that movie you're like, 'Just kick it!' But then you
realize it's a demon from hell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Kids are dangerous. That's what I take from this.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely they are.
MARCUS PARKS But just as Joseph was getting Maria down to the ground, he had another vision. He saw a
hunting knife just like the one he was carrying floating in the air, and there was something
small stuck to the end of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh what's that cute little thing? Is that some kind of lemur, or is that like some kind of gecko,
or?
BEN KISSEL I don't think this is gonna be good.
MARCUS PARKS He soon realized that the tiny thing was his own penis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Deja vu! That's what I'm having. Oh there it is, my shmeckle! Oh, I missed you, come give
kisses! (kissing sounds) Kisses, kisses!
MARCUS PARKS And that's when Charlie came. He told Joseph that he had no choice but to cut off a penis that
day. Gotta do it today. There's gonna be a penis cut off. Yeah, a penis.
BEN KISSEL Not his own, necessarily.
MARCUS PARKS Not his own. And at that moment, Joseph began another full-blown immersive hallucination.
This time, Joseph saw a long line of portraits, and in each portrait was a person from Joseph
past, and they were all making fun of his tiny penis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Every comedian has the same hall of legends inside of their mind.
BEN KISSEL Is that what you're calling the hockey team that you grew up with? The hall of legends?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Those faces exist for every performer reminding you of your tiny penis and you gotta get out
there and you gotta make 'em laugh or your penis will fall off.
BEN KISSEL Right, he should've just gone to the stage.
MARCUS PARKS His wife Betty was there, Joey was there, his ex-wife Hilda, his daughter Mary Jo, even his
adoptive parents came back to make fun of his little dick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And the tin man came, and the scarecrow, every single one of them. It was like a family
reunion, but I wish it was just centered around maybe how good of a shoemaker I am.
BEN KISSEL That would be nice. It sounds like a VR game that should never be made.
MARCUS PARKS Well supposedly, the vision of his mother said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (Austrian accent) "Small, small, small. It will never get hard. Always soft because the demon
was cut out. You'll always be a good boy and a good man, never get into trouble."
BEN KISSEL Oh man, that's... All right.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Mama tried, but I wish I could. I can tell you what. But oh that penis... You can take the demon
out of the penis, but you can't take the penis out of the demon.
MARCUS PARKS Are you putting 'mama tried' on Joseph Kallinger?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs)
BEN KISSEL I was gonna say, we were just in Nashville. Maybe the country version of this story?
MARCUS PARKS Then the portraits vanished along with the floating penis on the knife, and only Charlie was
left. Joseph asked, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI "Cut off my own cock?"
MARCUS PARKS And Charlie said:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) "Not your dumb cock, the big guy on the floor! His cock!"
BEN KISSEL (sighs) Charlie, I understand that you have a lot going on, but could you be nicer to me?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (screeching) I don't got time for bedside manner! We've got cocks to cut off of guys!
BEN KISSEL I don't wanna bring the audience out of this whatsoever cause it is amazing, but we are in a
hotel room and I'm sure there's a family next to us that is calling security as we speak, so...
This is fun and that's what's fun about recording on the road, the opportunity for officers to
come and knock on the door and make sure everything's okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI All I can hope is that they're gonna call the cops, but they're gonna call casting services and say
there is an incredible voice actor in room whatever room we're in.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) So Joseph complied. He took the guy down to the boiler room of the house because,
as he told Flora Schreiber, Joseph Kallinger had always been an underground man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, I hate a penthouse. I hate windows.
BEN KISSEL No, I think it's cause you like to dig, and you like to then dump in the dig and then you
ejaculate on the dig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You know what, I completely forgot to shit in my hole today. That's the problem! That's why
my whole day has been off. I didn't cum properly once on top of my shit, because it's so much
fun to see... Cause you know what it's like? Have you ever had a chocolate mousse with a nice
swirl of whipped cream on the top of it?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I make it out of my own body.
BEN KISSEL Well maybe go do that and then you wouldn't have to commit this act of murder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Nah, because when I'm in that hole, every day is Friday.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) Well once they were down in the boiler room, Joseph tied the man to a water pipe,
bound his wrists and ankles with wire, and pulled down his pants. He then poked the guy in
the testicles with his hunting knife, but stopped when he was struck with an idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI This is ludicrous! What I'm doing right now is ludicrous.
BEN KISSEL I would agree, yes, I would agree with that.
MARCUS PARKS He wasn't gonna do this himself. Like he had with his sons, Joseph was gonna delegate this
mutilation. So, Joseph went back upstairs and randomly chose Maria for the job. He said the
choice was as impersonal as hailing a taxi. He said any one of the three women were gonna
take him where he wanted to go, so it didn't really matter which one he chose. So, he picked
up Maria and led her downstairs. She shuffled behind him because her ankles were still bound
together, and she had no idea where she was going because she was blindfolded. Finally, once
they got to the basement, Joseph told her what he wanted her to do. Either chew off this guy's
penis or die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Repeat that. This is literally what he asked her.
MARCUS PARKS Either chew off this guy's penis, or die.
BEN KISSEL But he's got a hunting knife, why can't...
MARCUS PARKS Cause that's what god wanted.
BEN KISSEL God is really making some bad choices.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He's being weird today.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, I think so.
MARCUS PARKS But to this, she said, "Kill me. I don't care if I live." So Joseph did just that. Without even
thinking, Joseph plunged the hunting knife into the right side of her neck, pulled it out, and did
it again and again. And the whole time, Charlie was screaming in Joseph's ear to do it more, do
it more. So Joseph kept stabbing, in the chest and in the back, but Maria didn't fall. She kept
standing. Then Joseph heard Mike yelling from upstairs. One of their hostages had escaped
and was now running out the door screaming for help. Joseph and Mike had to go, but before
they left, Joseph looked back into the boiler room to see Maria still standing in her own blood.
He said she was turning from right to left and it looked like she was dancing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That description chills me. Like I literally had a chill run up my spine.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, it's disgusting.
MARCUS PARKS So they ran, and as they ran they threw away the gun and the knife just to block from the
home. They stopped at a baseball field and knelt down to a puddle of water where Joseph
took off his coat, his jacket, his tie, and his shirt. He tried washing off the bloodstains but they
weren't coming out. So they kept running, taking the clothes with them until they came to a
green shed. There, Joseph took his bloody green shirt and tie and through it inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Out of sight, out of mind.
BEN KISSEL I guess so, my god.
MARCUS PARKS After that, they hopped on a bus to New York City!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Aw hell yeah!
MARCUS PARKS Got off at Penn Station and had a slice of pizza.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hey, you know, you're tired. It's been a long day.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, New York City where dreams are made of. Usually when people do this they dress up to
go to new york city but I guess you gotta dress down. It's really bizarre to me, and I don't know
why I keep on thinking about this, that he would dress up for this bizarre ritual ceremony that
he would do, being like, 'Going to work!' And then when he's being a shoemaker he's like,
'Looking like I don't have a job!' But technically you're at work when you're making shoes.
MARCUS PARKS Every single time he went out for all these, he was dressed in a full suit and tie.
BEN KISSEL Reminds me of the German fella. Kürten.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I think it's on purpose. It is elevating it to a ritual. All of this is very ritualistic.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah. Well finally, Joseph and mike made it back home to Kensington and assumed they'd
gotten away with the whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Whew! That was close. I can't believe we almost got caught, that was crazy. And I gotta tell
you what, all we gotta do is 2,999,999,998 more times.
BEN KISSEL Jeez. But now we have multiple witnesses who have seen this. And how often do you see a
father/son duo break into multiple homes? I'm surprised this crime spree has been able to go
on for this long.
MARCUS PARKS Remember, this is not just happening in like a two mile radius around their house. This is
happening in New Jersey, this is happening in Philadelphia, this is happening in Maryland. This
is like three states and they're taking buses every single time they do this. They're taking buses
hours away from their own home.
BEN KISSEL Right, right. So it was like a mini tour for them.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, and they might have gotten away with it, or at the very least might have kept killing until
they got caught if not for one thing. Sewn into the label of the shirt Joseph left behind was the
name Kallinger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI So dumb! So ridiculous! They are just... You know what, I'm gonna even take that back, cause
it's not fucking dumb, he's just sick as shit. And he had no wherewithal. Yeah, these were
premeditated, but also this is why we said in the first episode, this is like if Richard Chase had a
job. Once he was activated into these crimes, he obviously was not thinking clearly. So it
wasn't like a Dennis Rader, where everything was about the control...
BEN KISSEL Particular.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah and everything was a choice that he made himself. Like, Dennis Rader, everything was a
choice that he made, every single fucking thing that he did.
BEN KISSEL So, he's living in this really bizarre version of the movie Dutch, just hanging out with this frickin
kid. Are they having fun?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah!
BEN KISSEL Is the kid literally like, 'We're going to New York City! Gonna have a slice of pie.'
MARCUS PARKS I don't know. I really go back and forth on whether or not this kid was actually having fun or
whether he was just fucking terrified the entire time and was just going along because he was
afraid that his father was gonna murder him if he didn't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI One detail that shows me that he at least was raised, not to enjoy it, but... Was that he kept
asking if he could sexually assault all the women.
MARCUS PARKS But that's also according to Joseph.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS You know that's the thing is this is all according to Joseph. This is according to what Joe says. I
think Michael was at the very least like compliant, but I have a hard time saying that he's
complicit because he's 12 years old.
BEN KISSEL Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He was in danger the entire time.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, absolutely. Well the two of these guys had been seen running by a woman named Eva
Rummy, who was out walking her dog. She had seen these guys running away from the scene
and eventually the shirt was found. Nine days later the cops showed up on Kallinger front
porch. On January 17, 1975, Betty was watching The Rockford Files while Joseph and Mike
were looking through their stolen coin collection when they heard a knock at the door.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI See by this time the cops had put together a picture. The shirt was damning evidence of
course, but Joseph had also left a fingerprint behind at the luncheon in Susquehanna
Township, and the M.O. and the description of a man with a young boy had been linked to
other cases in the area, word was starting to get around. So on January 17th, 19 cops from
three different states burst into the Kallinger home armed with shotguns and arrested one of
the most bizarre and dangerous monsters Philadelphia has ever seen.
BEN KISSEL Ugh. Thank goodness that they ended that story, my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI And they really did the full fucking roll out. Because that's how you know when you get the
cops really mad, when they just show up being like, 'We're gonna put you in the fucking
anklets, we're gonna throw you in the back of this car. We are gonna get you, get you.'
BEN KISSEL I mean, honestly though by today's standards that would've been a tank, a helicopter, maybe
lockdown of the whole neighborhood, semi automatics for sure.
MARCUS PARKS Yes. Yes. And as far as what happened to Michael, he was put into foster care and moved in
with a relative of Betty's. Got put on probation til he was 21, and after that he moved out of
Pennsylvania, changed his name, and faded into obscurity. And he's probably still alive, living
somewhere in America. I mean this was not that long ago at all. He was young. I mean, I hope
he came back, because Flora Schreiber tried getting a hold of him and the foster parents that
Michael had told her to fuck off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh I bet.
MARCUS PARKS They were like, 'Fuck off, we do not want to talk about this, he does not want to talk about
this. We want to put this behind us forever.'
BEN KISSEL Yeah. I don't think we'll be getting him anytime soon, and I think he should just move on.
MARCUS PARKS I hope he's put it all behind him. It's probably not much of a surprise that Joseph Kallinger tried
the insanity defense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS But in both of his trials, one in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey, the jurors deliberated for
just a little over an hour before handing down a guilty verdict. And this is understandable.
During Kallinger's trial, he was a little shall we say 'over the top' with his actions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs)
MARCUS PARKS He started moving like a snake again, he'd moan and groan. He'd chirp like a bird and he
started doing that 'kristara' chant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Look at me, look at me! This is my time in the sun!
BEN KISSEL It is funny because I think that does prove that he's crazy. I get why the jurors were like, 'That's
totally fake' but it is funny that he's like, 'How do I act crazy?' And it's like, you know what, the
one rule of improv, be yourself.
MARCUS PARKS Be yourself.
BEN KISSEL You don't even have to act.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I just want them to see. I want them to know how crazy I am!
BEN KISSEL You know client Kallinger, you are the crazy. You are it, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Do you mean that? Do you mean that when you say that to me?
BEN KISSEL I mean that. You can be crazy, I promise you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Really?
BEN KISSEL Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What do you think Charlie?
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) As far as the jurors were concerned, Kallinger was full of shit. Honestly, Kallinger
probably should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. This of course isn't so he
could be treated and let back out into the streets, that's one of the fallacies of not guilty by
reason of insanity. No matter what, Joseph Kallinger was never gonna be a free man ever
again, just like Ed Gein was never gonna be a free man ever again. But since Ed Gein was found
not guilty by reason of insanity, he went to a hospital.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah. And at least he had doctors looking at him, he didn't have to be mixing with all of the
worst criminals of the world.
MARCUS PARKS But it's not even about mixing Ed Gein with the worst criminals in the world, or about mixing
Joseph Kallinger with the most dangerous criminals in the world, it's exposing a dangerous and
unstable individual like Joseph Kallinger to other humans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Right. He needed to be in iso.
MARCUS PARKS Ed Gein wouldn't have been a danger to other people, but it's definitely like, we should keep
tabs on this guy.
BEN KISSEL Yeah, absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS But you're putting Joseph Kallinger into gen pop with a guy who might be in for-
BEN KISSEL Tax evasion.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, like a non-violent drug offense, something like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But honestly, those fuckers, I'd like to see them get a taste of it. It'd be nice for those white
collar criminal guys to show up, they have a TV in their room and all of a sudden next door
they hear, 'Hey buddy, hey. So tell me, um, you got a penis still?'
MARCUS PARKS (laughs) And pretty soon after receiving the mandatory life sentence, the violence began
almost immediately. He started setting fires in prison, he assaulted another inmate, and
eventually he was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane, but it was far too late for that. It
was after he'd been in prison for years.
BEN KISSEL Jeez. Send him to Arkham.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah! Actually, let's let Joseph himself tell the story in this clip from an interview that Joseph
Kallinger did with Geraldo of all people.
BEN KISSEL Geraldo is a man who is able to find the worst people on earth and just get the interview.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI He is. But this clip is the only clip I could find of Kallinger talking, or any kind of interview with
him. And if you could just see his fucking face...
MARCUS PARKS He is out of his... I mean, he is medicated as heavily as a person can be medicated. Cause you
can hear the way his mouth is dry. A lot of schizophrenia medication causes dry mouth. But his
eyes are just barely open, he's medicated to the top of his fucking head.
LPOTL (audio clip)
Geraldo: These voices from god, these hallucinations, do you still experience them?
Kallinger: Yes, I do.
Geraldo: Often?
Kallinger: Often.
Geraldo: Do you ever feel violent?
Kallinger: Yes, I do.
Geraldo: What do you feel like doing?
Kallinger: Killing people.
Geraldo: You still feel like killing people?
Kallinger: Yes.
Geraldo: Describe the feeling that you get when you feel like killing people.
Kallinger: Well, last March 11th, I was hallucinating and I took a razor blade and I cut a man's
throat.
Geraldo: Here in the hospital?
Kallinger: Here in the hospital.
Geraldo: Do you think you'd murder me, Joe?
Kallinger: Yes.
Geraldo: That's gruesome, Joe. That's horrible.
Kallinger: Yes, it is.
Geraldo: And you don't blame me if I say I hope you never get out of this place.
Kallinger: I hope I never do either.
BEN KISSEL Well Geraldo shouldn't have made it about him, that's actually a bad move.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, I know! 'You'd even kill me? Geraldo?'
BEN KISSEL I really hate when interviewers are like, 'I'm also one of the stars'. It's like no, you have to be
the interviewer. But okay, fascinating. So even heavily medicated he was still like, I mean,
there's no curing this dude.
MARCUS PARKS No, no. I mean he was gone. Way way way too... It just has to be you put this person in a box
forever. And that's the thing is that the violent streak just continued throughout his time at the
hospital, and he eventually landed in solitary in 1991. And that's where he died in 1996. Once
again alone, in a hole of his own making.
BEN KISSEL Wow. Alright, Joseph Kallinger. Well guys, that story was intense but quite fascinating and of
course not very well known, so, uh, yeah. Well thank you all so much for listening, if you do
have any mental health issues-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Please seek help. All of us have experienced our own version of treatment. You know,
whatever it might be because everyone was suffering in this story and of course, you have to
take responsibility for your actions but, my god. Get frickin help.
MARCUS PARKS That's what I always say about mental health. It is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
I'm bipolar myself and I've been getting treatment for 14 years now.
BEN KISSEL But it's nice to have you as a friend because it's like I have three friends.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (laughs) I am fabulously unwell.
BEN KISSEL I wonder who Henry is gonna be today. Ooh, it's the mean Polish Henry today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Uh, he could've used some help.
MARCUS PARKS He could've used some help when he was a child. From the time that he was 15 and started
laughing uncontrollably or writhing like a snake, that was the time to get help. Or when he
blacked out and ended up in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Any single time, any moment in his entire life, someone could've helped him.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, somebody could've helped him but it was also a different time, it was the 50s and 60s
when people just kinda put 'em in and put 'em out. There was also not a lot of treatment
available but we're almost in 2020, we're in 2019 now so there's a lot of options out there
available for people who need help. So if you're experiencing these sorts of delusions, these
sorts of things, definitely get help as soon as you can.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Contact a real therapist, don't just email sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com.
MARCUS PARKS Please do not, please do not just email. No, we are not mental health professionals in any way,
shape, or form.
BEN KISSEL This is the only thing we know how to do.
MARCUS PARKS Contact actual mental health professionals.
BEN KISSEL Laughing, he was laughing and writhing as a kid, of course he did blackout and end up in
Hazelton, New Jersey, with any luck he would've turned out to be Axl Rose. It just did not
happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Oh yeah the snake dance!
MARCUS PARKS Yeah!
BEN KISSEL It did not happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Now I'm dancing with Mr. Brownstone!
BEN KISSEL You know what, we like the writhing but your voice is horrible for G'n'R.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI What's wrong with my voice?!
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Again, it's just a little too...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Perfect? It's absolutely amazing! (singing) Ah my little pancake.
BEN KISSEL Maybe, can you... (singing) Take me down to the paradise city-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (singing) Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty!
BEN KISSEL Yeah that's the thing!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI (singing) Oh won't you take me home!
BEN KISSEL Yeah we're trying to get laid here, not scare all the women, so... All right, well thank you all so
much for listening, and thank everyone who came out to our live shows. We're excited to see
you in Pittsburgh tomorrow.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
BEN KISSEL Cincinnati was beautiful, didn't get a chance to have the chili but we'll be back there and we'll
have it then. And Nashville-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I'm just gonna straight up say I don't want the chili.
MARCUS PARKS No, I don't want it, I have no desire-
BEN KISSEL I know but we have to have a bit of the culture. We just couldn't get out of the show early
enough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI If someone showed up with the chili and said, 'Have this chili' I would eat some of the chili,
yes. I'm not gonna refuse chili.
BEN KISSEL Well that's how you get a demon curse put on you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yes, but-
BEN KISSEL But never show up to an event with a bowl of chili.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's what you're doing!
BEN KISSEL Here, I've given you the gift of one of the things that's the most easy to have my fecal matter
in.
MARCUS PARKS No, I did take in some of the culture. I went to Hail Dark Aesthetics in Cincinnati, that's a great
little record and oddity store.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI We drank at the weirdest bar in Cincinnati called O'Malley's in the Alley, which I don't even
know if I can even recommend.
BEN KISSEL No, I'm not gonna recommend it necessarily but I will say we took an uber and it was only two
blocks walk from our hotel but when we stepped outside it seemed very dangerous.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I was very high and very paranoid.
BEN KISSEL Yes, we did do that and then it got intense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah.
BEN KISSEL All right everyone, well thank you so much for listening. We wanna do a plug, I wanna say this
one thing about Jason Saenz He's a great comedian, he's a good friend of ours, he had a tragic
accident in, what was it, mid January of last year.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Actually, it was closer, it was like December. It looks like he is paralyzed from the chest down,
he is in the middle of starting physical therapy but it took months for him to even get to be
able to be well enough to start physical therapy so he's in really dire straits. There's been a
GoFundMe that's been started and they raised $150,000 for him which is not even fucking
scraping the barrel which is where we're at now, which is awful. But what we have-
BEN KISSEL By the way the fact that comedians have to be like, 'Let's put our health insurance caps on and
see if we can't raise some money.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI It's really difficult.
BEN KISSEL Ugh, it's so sad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI But we are having a special series of events. It is multiple shows in multiple cities on the same
night, Monday April 1st, April fools day. In Los Angeles it's at the Regent Theater at 448 South
Main Street and tickets are at saenzbenefitla.com, that's for the L.A. show hosted by me, Ed
Larsen, and Jackie Zebrowski. You gotta come out, honestly this show's gonna be fucking
hilarious.
MARCUS PARKS It's gonna be a great show.
BEN KISSEL It's gonna be a lot of fun honoring a great guy. NYC, I will be there with the one and only, the
recently married Holden McNeely and again that will be April 1st, April fools day. Arlene's
Grocery which is 95 Stanton Street in the Lower East Side. So come hang out with us, it'll be for
a good cause and hopefully we can help out Jason as much as we possibly can.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yeah, and what I like about this show is that it's genuinely... In L.A. we have some of the best
comedians in the world that are gonna be there, Sasheer Zamata, Jermaine Fowler, Rory
Scovel, Jeff Ross, Adam Conover, if you like his show Adam Ruins Everything, Jared Logan who
is a friend of this show, Kara Klenk, Nick Vatterott, it's gonna be a really funny night.
MARCUS PARKS I will say that show has some of my favorite comedians ever. That is a fucking murderer's row
right there. That's fucking great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI New York has got who I fucking love, Sean Patton who I've been seeing forever.
MARCUS PARKS Oh, man.
BEN KISSEL Oh yeah, Chris Gethard's gonna be there, there's gonna be a lot of great performers, Danny St.
Germain, Ramy Youssef.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah, and Jason Saenz, he's part of the LPN family. Longtime listeners of the network will know
that we used to do Unlimited Lives back in the day and Jason signs was a co host of that show
for a longtime. So come on out and support one of our own.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely. And if you're going through anything, we had a lot of people talking about the
death of KB, thank you so much for being so sweet and honoring him with T-shirts that say Bird
Luger Forever and those kinds of things. And if you've lost a loved one, you know it's really
really hard. So anyway, we're here for yeah.
MARCUS PARKS Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI So again, thank you guys for your support, honestly for everything. Thank you for your mental
support, thank you for giving to the Patreon, thank you for coming to the shows. It means so
goddamn much to us.
MARCUS PARKS It's really great.
BEN KISSEL Absolutely. And can we say Berlin out loud? And Stockholm out loud?
MARCUS PARKS Yeah we can say Berlin and Stockholm. I mean they are on sale, man.
BEN KISSEL Awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Fucking come out! I can't wait to go to fucking shit town berlin, man! I wanna see some
poopoo porn, man.
MARCUS PARKS (laughs)
BEN KISSEL Wait...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI I wanna see some live!
BEN KISSEL You wanna see some poopoo porn in Berlin?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI If you're gonna see it anywhere... It's like if you go to Costa Rica you gotta get the coffee. You
know? If you go, here's what you want to do. You know what I mean?
BEN KISSEL Great. Yes.
MARCUS PARKS And we have announced all of the tour dates for the Back in the Habit world tour! There's a lot
of them. We have May 17th, Kansas City. May 18th, Denver. May 19th, Salt Lake City. May
30th, Vancouver. May 31st, Seattle.
BEN KISSEL Ooh!
MARCUS PARKS June 1st, Portland. July 18th, Oakland. July 20th, San Diego. July 21st, Los Angeles. September
4th, Dublin. Sept 6, Bristol. The 7th we've got Edinburgh, the 10th we've got Manchester, the
11th it's Birmingham, the 13th it's London. I think we're gonna try to add another show to
London, were working on it right now. And then the 16th it's Stockholm and then we're gonna
end it all with September 18th in Berlin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Yass.
BEN KISSEL Cannot wait. Also July 21st in L.A. that's my birthday, and I'm celebrating this year so you can
come and bring me happy birthday things. I don't know how to celebrate birthdays.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You don't know. You really don't know how to celebrate a birthday.
BEN KISSEL I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI They're called gifts.
BEN KISSEL Feel free to say happy birthday to me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI That's actually a big leap for you.
BEN KISSEL I'm working on it.
MARCUS PARKS That is good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You've broken up with women over celebrating your birthday.
BEN KISSEL I just don't like to celebrate my birthday cause I feel like, again, birthdays are for the dying,
funerals are for the living. But I have decided we don't have many left. I don't know why I'm
saying that, I am 37 years old.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI You only have four left.
BEN KISSEL I might have four left, so. Alright thank you everyone, thank you so much for listening. Hail
yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS Hail Gein!
BEN KISSEL Megustalations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hail. Me. If you will. Please.
LPOTL (outro theme)
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