Okay, I want you to picture a scene with me.
It's incredibly mundane. It's Sunday, June 2nd,
1985. We're in South San Francisco. It's overcast,
you know, typical Bay Area weather, just gray
and cool. And we're inside a lumber and hardware
store. You know that smell sawdust, metal, the
smell of treated wood? Oh yeah. It's the backdrop
of American domesticity. Yeah. A place where,
you know, your biggest problem is usually figuring
out what size screw you need. Exactly. It is
the definition of a low -stakes environment.
People are pushing carts, buying plywood, maybe
planning a deck renovation. It's just... Normal.
Totally normal. And in the middle of this completely
ordinary scene, a man walks in. He doesn't look
like much. He wanders the aisles. He picks up
a vice. Just a standard workbench vice, right?
Heavy piece of metal. Yeah, gripping tool. And
then he just walks out, bypasses the registers.
Doesn't pay. And that's I mean, that is the absolute
definition of a petty crime. Shoplifting is seventy
five dollar item. It happens thousands of times
a day. Yeah, right. Usually it's a slap on the
wrist. You get banned from the store. But this
time it's different. The employees stop him.
The police arrive. And suddenly this guy, he
starts to panic. He tries to pay for it. Right.
Yeah. He's pulling out cash, trying to just make
it all go away. Turn back the clock five minutes.
But it's too late. The officers are there and
right there in that concrete parking lot over
a stolen piece of hardware. One of the darkest,
most twisted stories in American criminal history
just begins to unravel. Because that man isn't
just some shoplifter. No, he is Leonard Lake.
And sewn into the collar of his shirt, resting
right against his neck, is a cyanide pill. It's
the ultimate example of what criminologists call
the banality of the catch. You have this massive,
complex criminal enterprise, years of planning,
horrific execution. And it's not brought down
by some brilliant detective. No red string on
a corkboard. No. It's a broken taillight, a parking
violation, or in this case, a shoplift advice.
It just shows how fragile these double lives
really are. The disconnect between the mastermind
persona and the reckless reality. And that is
exactly what we are unpacking today. We are doing
a deep dive into the Miranda murders, the horrific,
sprawling crimes of Leonard Lake and his partner,
Charles Eng. And it's a lot. We're talking survivalist
bunkers, a chilling obsession with a 1960s novel,
stolen identities, and a literal dungeon hidden
in the quiet California foothills. Yeah, and
we have a tremendous amount of material to get
through. We're pulling from comprehensive records
on Lake. legal transcripts, recovered journals
that are just a window into a deteriorating mind.
And we even have some very recent updates. Forensic
identifications of victims that came through
as recently as 2025. That's a key point. The
story feels like history, but it's not over.
The science is still catching up to the crime,
you know, 40 years later. So our mission today
is to try and understand the why. How does a
smart kid from San Francisco turn into a man
who builds a torture bunker? And how does a sort
of generic survivalist obsession morph into this
specific deadly collecting fantasy? That word
collecting, that's the whole thing, isn't it?
That's the pivot point. It wasn't just about
killing. It was about possession. It's a disturbing
psychology, but we have to look at it to understand
how they operated for so long. It's about viewing
the world and the people in it as... It just
feels impossible. You hear the scale of what
they did, kidnapping entire families, the number
of victims. You think, how did nobody notice?
But then you see how he got caught stealing a
vice. And it's almost laughable if it wasn't
so tragic. And that's the paradox of Leonard
Lake. Yeah. On one hand, you've got this meticulous,
paranoid survivalist planning for the end of
the world, building structures to outlast a nuclear
winter. Right. And on the other, you have a man
reckless enough to draw police attention over
a minor theft. It suggests just a massive compartmentalization
in his brain. He could function in society, present
a face to the world, all while building a literal
hell on earth in his backyard. So let's rewind.
Let's go back to the blueprint. Before the bunker,
before Charles Ng, before this whole Miranda
plan, who was Leonard Lake? Okay, so Leonard
Lake was born in 1945 right here in San Francisco.
And if you look at his file... On paper, his
early life has those classic markers of instability,
but also flashes of really high intelligence.
His parents divorced when he was young. Yeah,
six years old, which was less common back then.
He was raised mostly by his grandmother. And
from what I read in the source material, the
grandmother's influence was, let's just call
it complicated. It wasn't exactly a nurturing
environment. To say the least, it appears she
actually encouraged some of his... his early
voyeuristic tendencies. There were reports that
he had an obsession with nudity, with photographing
his sisters, and instead of this being a moment
for, you know, correction or therapy. He was
just brighted off. Or even enabled by her. But
there's one specific detail from his childhood
that just stands out to me. It's a forensic warning
sign that is flashing neon red. I think I know
what you're going to say. It's the mice. The
mice. Exactly. A lot of kids who grow up to be
violent have a history of harming animals. It's
part of the McDonald triad. But Lake didn't just,
you know, kill me with physical force. He dissolved
them in chemicals. That is incredibly specific.
And honestly, it's terrifyingly clinical. Clinical
is the perfect word. Most children. Even those
with violent tendencies act out of rage or maybe
curiosity about physical reaction, hitting, throwing
something. Yeah. But dissolving a mouse in chemicals,
that implies a desire to make the object disappear
completely. It's erasure. It's not just about
death. It's about erasure. It foreshadows the
exact method he would use decades later to dispose
of human remains. It shows this. Yeah. Detachment
from the suffering of a living thing. He's using
it purely as organic matter to be processed.
He was refining a process, not just acting out.
So he's a smart kid, obviously deeply troubled,
obsessed with photography and chemicals. Then,
like a lot of young men in the mid -60s, he joins
the military. Right. He enlisted in the Marines
in 1964, served two tours in Vietnam. And his
role is interesting. He was a radar electronics
technician. So not frontline infantry. Not necessarily,
no. But he was in the thick of the war zone,
dealing with high -tech equipment. He was looking
at blips on a screen. Which feeds back into that
detachment, doesn't it? Dealing with abstract
threats rather than faces. Exactly. And the military
structure seemed to hold him together, for a
while at least. The Marines provide a very rigid
external skeleton for your life. You're told
when to wake up, what to wear, what to do. For
someone with a chaotic internal world, that structure
can be a lifesaver. Until it breaks. And for
Lake, it broke. Hard. He had a breakdown. He
was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder.
Now, I want to pause here because this gets misunderstood
a lot. For you listening, it's important not
to confuse this with schizophrenia. Right. Schizophrenia
involves hallucinations, hearing voices, losing
touch with reality in a sensory way. Correct.
Schizoid personality disorder is different. It's
characterized by a profound lack of interest
in social relationships, a tendency towards a
solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional
coldness. People with this disorder often live
deep inside their own heads. They build their
own worlds. Exactly. They build elaborate fantasy
worlds because the real world and real people.
hold no interest or warmth for them, which sounds
exactly like the profile of a guy who would later
want to go live in a bunker and create his own
reality. Precisely. It fits the trajectory perfectly.
So he has what's called a delusional breakdown
in Da Nang and gets a medical discharge in 1971.
So now you have a man returning from Vietnam,
already predisposed to this detachment, now stripped
of that military structure, and he's entering
civilian life in the chaotic early 70s. And where
does a guy like that go? In the early 70s Bay
Area, he drifts into the hippie scene, which
that feels like a contradiction. It does seem
odd, right? The rigid marine entering the free
love, flower power movement. But Lick was a chameleon.
He briefly attended San Jose State, but dropped
out. He moved to a commune. But even there, his
darkness leaked out. He wasn't there for the
peace and love. No, he was there for the indulgence.
His first marriage collapsed because his wife
found out he was making, let's call them extreme
amateur movies. Bondage. Sadomasochism. So it
wasn't about free love. It was about control.
Always. And this is where we see the transition
into his survivalist phase. He moves to Greenfield
Ranch, which is this massive back -to -the -land
settlement near Ukiah. He lived there for eight
years. This is where he marries his second wife,
Claralyn Cricket -Balas. And she seemed to tolerate
or even participate in his fantasies. But the
real turning point here seems to be his paranoia.
He wasn't just living off the grid. He was preparing
for nuclear war. The bunker mentality completely
took over. You have to remember the era, early
80s, the Cold War is freezing over again. Lake
became convinced a nuclear holocaust was imminent.
He actually started building a massive bunker
on the commune property. But the owner stopped
him. Yeah, the property owner eventually shut
it down, but the architecture of his mind was
already set. He wanted a place where he could
survive, but more importantly, a place where
he was the absolute ruler. And this brings us
to the book. We cannot tell this story without
talking about The Collector. Yes. John Fowle's
1963 novel, The Collector. I cannot overstate
how important this book is to understanding Leonard
Lake. In the novel, a lonely, socially awkward
man wins the lottery. He buys a remote house.
And he builds a specially designed cellar to
hold a woman he's obsessed with captive. He treats
her like a butterfly in a collection. Exactly.
He feeds her, clothes her, but keeps her trapped.
And Lake didn't just read this book. He internalized
it. He wanted to live it. It became his script.
It became his literal script for reality. He
wanted to be the main character, Frederick Clegg.
He called his plan Operation Miranda. named after
the victim in the book, Miranda Gray. He wasn't
just fantasizing about violence in a general
sense. He was fantasizing about the specific
scenario of holding women captive in a prepared
space. He wanted to make the fiction real. He
wanted to be the collector. It's just terrifying
to think that a piece of fiction could provide
the structural framework for real -world horror.
So, okay, he has the fantasy, he has the survivalist
skills, but he's still just one guy until 1980.
Enter Charles Nang. And this is the partnership
that turns a dangerous man into a lethal one.
How do they even meet? Most sources point to
a survivalist magazine ad around 1980 or 1981.
Lake was managing a motel at the time, the fellow
motel. Eng was a fugitive. A fugitive from what?
He was a former Marine from Hong Kong who had
escaped military prison. He had a weapons theft
conviction. So you have two former Marines, both
with criminal inclinations, both feeling like
outsiders, both obsessed with weapons, a match
made in hell. And the dynamic was immediate.
Aang looked up to Lake. He described him as a
brotherly, fatherly figure. Lake was older, the
visionary, the mastermind. Aang was the willing
student, the muscle, the apprentice. Lake had
the philosophy. Aang had the kinetic energy.
It's that dangerous synergy. Maybe alone, Lake
would have just stayed a weird guy in the woods
with dark fantasies. Maybe Aang would have just
been a petty thief. But together... Together,
they validated each other. Lake provided the
intellectual justification. The Miranda concept.
The survivalist logic. Eng provided the enthusiasm
and the lack of inhibition. A classic folia due
situation. A shared madness. They escalated each
other. Eng wanted to impress Lake and Lake wanted
an audience for his genius. And escalate they
did. In 1982, they both get busted on weapons
charges. Right. Eng gets sent back to prison.
But Lake, he skips bail. He goes underground.
This is where he truly disappears. Completely.
He adopts alias as Alan Dre, Tom Myers. He moves
to a remote cabin in Willsieville, a property
owned by his in -laws. And because he's alone
again and on the run, he starts building. He
builds the dungeon. And he explicitly describes
it as a dungeon in his journals. It was a cinderblock
structure right next to the cabin. From the outside,
maybe it looks like a shed, a root cellar, or
a pump house. Inside, it was a prison. He installed
a one -way mirror. He soundproofed it. He built
a cell. He was building the set for his movie.
And in 1984, N gets released and rejoins him.
And that's when the nightmare really begins.
But before we get to the strangers they targeted,
there's something darker we need to discuss.
The betrayal. This is what chills me the most.
When we think of serial killers, we usually think
of stranger danger. But Lake began by devouring
his own family and friends. Let's talk about
his brother, Donald. Donald Stephen Lake. Leonard's
younger brother. Donald had been hit by a train
as a child and was mentally disabled. And Leonard,
he resented him deeply. He felt Donald had leeched
their mother's attention away from him. He actually
used that word. He used that word in his journals.
Leech. That word again. Dehumanization. Viewing
a person as a parasite. So what happened to him?
In December 1982, Leonard lures Donald to a so
-called house -sitting job. Donald vanishes.
But Leonard doesn't just kill him. He becomes
him. He steals his identity. He starts cashing
Donald disability checks. He forges letters to
their mother claiming Donald moved to Reno to
live with drug dealers. Think about the cruelty
of that. Well, that's just, that's evil. It is.
Not only do you kill the son, but you make the
mother believe he abandoned her for a life of
crime. It wasn't a crime of passion. It was a
resource acquisition. He needed money and a cover
identity, and his brother was just a resource
to be harvested. And he didn't stop there. He
did the same thing to his best friend. Charles
Gunnar. This was the best man at Lake's wedding.
They had history. In 1983, Lake invites him on
a road trip to Vegas. Hey, let's go have some
fun. Lake comes back alone, driving Gunnar's
car, claiming Gunnar ran off with a woman. And
then Lake literally becomes Charles Gunnar. People
in the town of Willsieville knew Leonard Lake
as Charles Gunnar. He lived under his best friend's
name, spent his money, used his reputation as
a solid guy. It's a level of cold pragmatism
that is hard to comprehend. He wiped out the
people who trusted him most because they were
useful to his survival plan. It's predatory in
the most literal sense. So by 1984, he has the
bunker. He has the stolen identities. He has
the accomplice in Charles Ng. The trap is set.
Let's look at the Willsieville horror itself.
What was their modus operandi? It was brutal
and systematic. They would target people, sometimes
lone individuals, sometimes entire families.
The pattern was distinct based on gender and
age. Men and infants were usually killed almost
immediately. Why? They were seen as threats to
the operation or, you know, burdens on their
resources. But the women? The women were the
target of the Miranda fantasy. They were subjected
to enslavement. They were kept in that bunker,
tortured, raped, and forced to act out Lake's
script. They were told they had to earn their
survival by pleasing their captors. And the disposal
method. We talked about the mice earlier. Descaled
it up. They built a large incinerator on the
property. They would burn the bodies and then
take the remaining bone fragments and crush them
manually. They would dump the dust and chips
into the hillside. When police finally excavated
the site, they found over 40 pounds of bone fragments.
40 pounds? Just piles of dust. Let's put names
to these victims. And this is where the timeline
gets interesting. Because even though we are
looking back from 2026, some of these names were
mysteries until very, very recently. Right. Let's
start with the Dubs family in 1984. Harvey, Debra,
and their one -year -old son, Sean. A whole family.
An infant. Gone in an instant. They were trying
to sell some video equipment. Two men rang their
doorbell. Debra was on the phone with a friend
and said, I have to go. Two men are here. That
was the last time anyone heard from them. Lake
and Eng wiped out the entire family just to steal
their video cameras and recorders. And the irony
is just sickening. It is. They used that stolen
equipment, the equipment they murdered a family
for, to film their torture sessions with future
victims. It connects the crimes in this gruesome
technological loop. Then there's the Bond and
Stapley group in 1985. This was bold. Very bold.
Lonnie Bond, his girlfriend Brenda O 'Connor,
their baby Lonnie Jr., and their friend Robin
Stapley. They were actually living on the same
property near Lake. They were neighbors. They
were right there. Right there. They likely saw
too much, or maybe Lake just got tired of them
being around. They all vanished. And this is
where the recent updates really matter. For decades,
we knew they were likely victims, but forensic
confirmation was difficult because of, you know,
the bone crushing. Right. But in 2025, just last
year in our timeline, advanced DNA analysis finally
positively identified Brenda O 'Connor's remains
among those fragments. 40 years. It took 40 years
to give her family that final scientific confirmation.
And another one, Reginald Fisbee. Reggie. He
disappeared in 1984. His remains were actually
found back in 1985. He's the only fairly complete
skeleton found, but he wasn't identified. He
was known as Calaveras John Doe for 40 years.
Wow. And then in January 2025, genetic genealogy
gave him his name back. It's amazing what the
science can do now. Genetic genealogy is such
a game changer. Basically, they take the DNA,
find distant cousins in public databases, and
build the family tree backwards, right? Exactly.
It's reverse engineering and identity. It's what
caught the Golden State Killer, and now it's
closing the book on the Miranda murders victims.
It reminds us that these bone fragments were
people. Reggie was 29. He had a life. He had
people who missed him. It's good to remember
them as people, not just statistics. But back
in 1985, Lake and Eng were operating with total
impunity. They were killing people over cars,
over video equipment, or just because they were
there. Like Paul Kosner. He was selling a car,
a 1980 Honda Prelude. He went to show it to a
weird buyer in San Francisco. He told his girlfriend
where he was going. He was never seen again.
And that car, that car is the linchpin. This
brings us right back to the beginning, the vice
incident. June 2nd, 1985. It all comes crashing
down. Charles Ng enters that lumber store in
South San Francisco. He steals the vice. He runs
out, throws it in the trunk of a car and flees.
And Leonard Lake is just left holding the bag.
Lake tries to play it cool. He offers to pay
for the vice, but the police arrive. They ask
for ID. He hands them a driver's license with
the name Robin Scott Stapley. The man he had
murdered, his neighbor. Exactly. But the police
officer looks at the photo, looks at Lake and
realizes, this isn't you. The discrepancy is
obvious. Stapley was younger. Lake was 39. So
they check the car. It's a 1980 Honda Prelude.
Paul Cosner's car. The VIN belongs to Paul Cosner.
The license plate screwed onto it belongs to
Lonnie Bond. It's a Frankenstein car. A Frankenstein
car driven by a man with a stolen identity with
a stolen vice in the trunk. And inside the trunk,
they find a gun with a silencer. And the silencer
changes everything. That's not a shoplifting
tool. That's a hitman's tool. Exactly. That elevates
it immediately from petty theft to major felony.
They arrest him. They bring him to the station.
And this is where Lake makes his final move.
They put him in an interrogation room. They give
him a glass of water and some paper to write
his statement. And he doesn't wait for a lawyer.
No. He writes a note. It basically says, I love
my wife. I love my life. I am not going to jail.
Right. He swallowed the cyanide pill he had sewn
into his clothes. He starts convulsing. He denied
them the satisfaction. It was the ultimate control
freak move. He realized the game was up. He knew
it was in that bunker. He knew he would never
see freedom again. So he decided when his story
ended, he died four days later. On June 6th,
without ever saying a word about where the victims
were. Leaving the police to figure it all out
on their own and what they found. Well, let's
go to Willsieville. Police traced a utility bill
found in the glove box of that Honda back to
the cabin in Willsieville. If he hadn't left
that bill there, who knows how long it would
have taken. When they arrived, it was like walking
into a horror movie set. They found the trucks
belonging to the victim's park there, hidden
under tarps. They found the cinderblock dungeon.
And they found a map. A hand -drawn treasure
map. It literally led them to buried five -gallon
buckets. And inside those buckets wasn't gold.
It was the trophies. Bucket one, IDs, credit
cards, personal effects of up to 25 people. Bucket
two, the journals and the videotapes. We have
to talk about the tapes. The M. Ladies tapes,
I've read transcripts of these, and they are
difficult to even describe. They are pure sadism.
These tapes were crucial, though. Because remember,
Lake is dead. Eng is on the run. These capes
proved Eng wasn't just a bystander. What was
on them? There is footage of Neng cutting the
clothes off Brenda O 'Connor. He tells her, and
I'm quoting this because it's important to see
his nature, you can cry, it won't do any good,
we are pretty cold -hearted. We. He. He implicated
himself perfectly. There is footage of Lake lecturing
Kathleen Allen, telling her exactly what the
plan is, rape. torture, death, if she doesn't
comply. They were documenting their own crimes
as if they were making a home movie. They were
performing for the camera and for each other.
It just destroys any defense Eng could ever have.
But speaking of Eng, where was he while Lake
was swallowing cyanide? He was running. He made
it all the way to Canada. And how did he get
caught? Let me guess. You guessed it. Shoplifting.
You have got to be kidding me. Again. July 6th,
1985. Calgary, Alberta. He's caught stealing
grocery salmon, I believe. A security guard confronts
him. Aang pulls a gun and shoots the guard in
the hand. But the guard and others tackle him.
So, twice, two times, this duo is brought down,
not by their horrific murders, but by petty theft.
It speaks to their arrogance. They thought they
were above the rules of society, big and small.
They thought the laws of physics and the laws
of man just didn't apply to them. But catching
Eng was just the beginning of the legal nightmare.
It was a saga. He fought extradition for six
years. Canada generally doesn't extradite to
countries with a death penalty. It was this massive
diplomatic and legal tussle. He wasn't sent back
to California until 1991. And even then, the
trial didn't happen immediately. Delay after
delay after delay. He went through lawyers like
tissues. He tried to represent himself. He filed
endless motions about his eyewear, his food,
the temperature of the room. The trial didn't
actually start until 1999, 14 years after the
crimes. 14 years. And his defense? It was all
Leonard. He claimed he was just a subservient
student terrified of Lake, forced to participate.
He tried to paint himself as just another one
of Lake's victims. The tapes killed that argument.
You can't watch a man gleefully taunting a victim,
smiling, participating in the torture, and believe
he is a reluctant participant. The jury didn't
buy it either. He was convicted of 11 counts
of murder. There was a weird moment in the trial
involving Lake's ex -wife, Clarilyn Balazs, right?
Very strange. Yeah. She had immunity. She cooperated.
She was expected to be a key witness about the
property, about what she knew. But Ayn's lawyer
just dismissed her. Didn't ask a single question.
Why would he do that? It remains one of the bizarre
mysteries of the trial. What did she know that
they didn't want to risk bringing up? We'll never
really know. It was a huge gamble that apparently
paid off for the defense in that small way. So
Eng gets the death penalty. He does. The judge
was clear. Eng was not under duress. He was a
willing participant. And where is he now? As
of our deep dive today, Charles Eng is still
on death row at the California Medical Facility.
But as many of you listening probably know, California
has had a moratorium on execution since 2019.
So he just sits there. decades later it's a frustrating
end lake took the easy way out with a pill ang
is living out his natural life albeit in prison
it lacks the catharsis of justice doesn't it
the family's waited decades for a trial and now
they wait decades for a sentence that may never
be carried out when you look back at this whole
case just the whole sprawling mess of it what
is the one thing that really sticks with you
it's the duality on one side you have this grand
evil literary fantasy, the collector, the Miranda
plan, the bunker. It's so elaborate. And on the
other side, it's just two losers stealing tools
and groceries. It strips away the myth of the
genius serial killer. Right. They weren't geniuses.
They were cruel, broken men who got lucky that
nobody was paying attention until they were.
That's a powerful point. We tend to mythologize
these figures, but really they're just pathetic.
Dangerous, but pathetic. So what does this all
mean for us? For the listener. I think it's a
reminder to look closer. The weird neighbor building
a blockhouse in the yard. The sudden disappearance
of a co -worker that doesn't quite add up. These
things happen in plain sight. People knew Lake
was using Gunnar's name. People saw the bunker.
But the dots weren't connected until the vice.
It forces you to question how much we really
know about the people around us. And it highlights
the persistence of truth. Those buckets buried
in the ground. Lake called them his treasure.
He wanted them to be found. That brings me to
our final thought, and this is something I want
you, the listener, to really sit with. What's
that? Lake buried those journals and tapes. He
drew a map. Why? Because a collector wants his
collection to be seen. Exactly. He committed
suicide to escape prison, but he left the map
because he didn't want his work to be forgotten.
He wanted us to be talking about him 40 years
later. He wanted the infamy. In a way, by doing
this deep dive, are we giving him exactly what
he wanted, or are we stripping the power away
by exposing how small and pathetic he really
was? That is a very uncomfortable question. He
curated his own legacy from the grave. He couldn't
control his life, so he controlled the narrative
of his death. Something to think about. He didn't
plan on getting caught shoplifting, but he definitely
planned on being remembered. It's a chilling
legacy. That's it for this deep dive into the
Miranda murders. It's a heavy one, but an important
piece of history to understand. Absolutely. Knowledge
is the only defense we have against this kind
of darkness. Stay curious, stay safe, and we'll
catch you on the next deep dive.