Hello! Hello! I'm Kenna and I'm Koelle and welcome back to another episode of...Diagnosing A Killer
of the day! There's only so many different ways you can say that. I know I had someone
recently, I don't remember who it was, it might have been Jesse I think and he was saying like,
Kela Kela, Kela Kela. He was like doing like a little bee and I was like, oh my gosh, that's so funny.
Well, thank you guys for joining us again for another episode. I have looked up a case this
time around, someone that I kind of knew about but didn't know details and hoping it's someone
that you maybe don't know enough about or maybe you do because you know everything about true
crime. I'm excited. But either way, we're gonna do this episode and it is going to be another two
part. We don't shock her. We have so many of those. Yeah, we don't have enough. We don't have enough.
But then again, it's like, you know, would you rather have a three and a half episode or two
part? You know, it's the same thing. Yeah, it is the same thing. At least you can break it up. Right.
You feel a little bit of sense of accomplishment when you finish one episode. Exactly. There you go.
And then you don't have to feel like you're stopping in the middle of an episode. So we'll do it
for you. So I'm just gonna go ahead and get right into it. Today, I am going to be talking about
Robert Burdella, Jr. Burdella. Burdella. Ring any bell. What about the Kansas City Butcher? Okay,
I think I know that guy. I think I know that guy. All right. On April 2, 1988, it was a quiet night
in Hyde Park, Kansas City, Missouri. Through the eerie darkness, a man wearing nothing but a dog
collar around his neck seemed to appear out of nowhere. The man ran towards a parking meter
attendant after jumping out of a second story window. What? The parking attendant grabbed the
man, later found out to be Christopher Bryson and called the police. The police arrived to the scene
where Bryson led them and found something out of a horror film. Human remains, large bloodstained
barrels, multiple personal belongings of various victims. Bloodstained barrels? Yes. And perhaps the
most gut-wrenching of all, a stack of some 300 Polaroid photos depicting naked men being sexually
assaulted and tortured, some of which were no longer alive. What? This happened in the photos?
They're no longer alive? Yes. This was the home of one Robert Burdella, later becoming the infamous
Kansas City butcher. Who else used to do that? Somebody else used to do that. Was it a, I was
gonna say Tom Brady, a Ted Bundy? Tom Brady, if you're listening. We love you. Well, my mom
doesn't like you, but we like you. Not that guy, the other guy, Ted Bundy. Yeah, I think Ted Bundy
did that, right? He did. I want to say it was like Green River or someone like weird that did
Polaroid. No, it wasn't Ted Bundy, it was Dahmer. You know, they all kind of blur together in my
mind now. I had to be focusing and researching one case to just know. So I'm not even gonna say
yes or no. Every time I think of Dahmer, I think of this one picture where somebody had a super
imposed emo glasses on him. Okay, that's curious. And it was just, it was ridiculous. One of the
biggest things I know about Dahmer was that he was an alcoholic at the age of 12 in school. Like,
he would frequently be drunk like in school. Like fall asleep at his desk. So I'm gonna bring it
way back to when Robert Bridella Jr. was born. So Robert Bridella Jr. was born on January 31st,
1949. And what I assume to be called Choyahoga Falls, Ohio. Choyahoga? It's Ohio, so. Trish. Trish.
Hello, Ted here. To Robert Andrew Bridellis, Sr. and Mary Louise Bridella. He was the first of two
sons born to the family, a family which was ran by a devout Roman Catholic, his father. And they
were of Italian descent. Not that that really matters to the story, but I figured pepper it in
there. Well, you know, yeah, Roman Catholic, yeah, that makes sense. The family regularly attended
mass growing up. And both of the sons were regularly known to attend religious education
courses like extra. So obviously a very religious based family. It was very clear that that was
what they were all about. Now, while it counts, Robert was a very intelligent child, but he was
also very much a loner. He rarely played outside of his home. He very seldom had friends come and
visit. Just wasn't really a big social dude. He also had a speech impediment, like a pretty
distinguishing one. And he wore really thick glasses, which is funny that you say that about
Dahmer from the age of five years old on because he was super nearsighted. So he had like really
corrective lenses. He's got all the like things working against him. Yeah, exactly. Well, all
those uncomfortabiliies that you like experience as a kid. Exactly. And like a kid, we always say
this, like feel bad for the kid, like he didn't do anything wrong yet, you know, so I kind of
feel bad for him. On top of this, he was also diagnosed with high blood pressure for which he
took several medications as a child as a child. Yeah, as a baby. I know. All in all, he was very
unathletic, not popular and kind of an outsider in his community. I know. On the other end, his
younger brother Daniel was very involved in this. Oh, no, here we go. Early age. The staunch
contrast. He was seven years younger than Robert, and he kind of seemed to be like the star child
of the family. Right. Their father, Robert senior idolized athleticism and even praised Daniel
for getting into sports at such a young age, where he kind of saw Robert Jr. as a failure of
sorts for not being interested in sports or anything athletic, right? He kind of medically
can't, though. He's got high blood pressure. Do you want me to like die? You want me to die? You want me to die? You want me to die? You want me to die? You want me to die? You want me to be an athlete? You want me to be athletic and die? Try? Honestly. This being the case, their father,
Robert senior would constantly compare the two of them, and he would like frequently be known to talk negatively about Robert Jr. I hate that so much. It's like, dude, you're the adult idol. It's so messed up. Like you picked a favorite. Like honestly, it's very clear. It's very clear. It's not even the one that's named after you. Yeah.
I just got you all home sorry. He just named some Robert again. Right. You're Robert 2.0 now. He's like, you know what name revoked? Figure it out. Sorry. I was taking a sip.
Now throughout school, while Robert performed very well academically, his teachers noted that it was kind of hard to teach him due to him being super aloof, and he was also, again, really distanced from other children. So he very rarely was
found like emotionally interacting with his peers or even at all. And because of this, he was not only isolated through his peers, but also through the education system with the teachers. They were kind of just like, well, that kid's like a lost cause. Yeah.
Adding to the already difficult time he had growing up, when he began to go through puberty, he discovered that he was gay and immediately decided it best to keep it a secret. Obviously, he has all these things working against him. This is the early 60s. Yeah. Like it's obviously not, especially with that
dad of his, that darn dad of his. Yeah, the darn dad. Now he did not become open about his sexuality until many years later, and he actually dated females like well into his early adulthood. Well, by his mid teens, Robert's attitude towards others and his own self confidence began to change like a lot. He actually started to showcase like an arrogance almost and he would frequently react to others as like rude or condescending. Like they were noticing that he started getting this ego of sorts.
He was rude and condescending. Yes. Oh, I thought you meant that he was getting upset because he thought other people were rude and condescending. No, no, he was the one. Oh, I see. Now this was especially true for the females in his life. It was at this time he also began to learn about like cooking and art and he kind of developed somewhat of like a showmanship attitude, which honestly, if you are struggling your whole life to fit in and you finally gain this confidence, it almost makes sense to like over, you know, emphasize it.
This is good. I am cooking. Good. I am an arting. Arting.
Now we're going to fast forward to this is Christmas Day 1965. The Bridella family traveled to Canton, Ohio to visit some relatives. I only know that name because of the Candy Apples from Dance Moms.
I saw that. I was like, oh, Canton. The Candy Apples. Yeah. So the evening that they got to Canton, it was Christmas Day. Like I said, Robert Bridella Sr. had a heart attack at the young age of 39. What? The family.
The family. The blood pleasure.
He gets his Robert Carter vote. Right. Now two days later, Robert Jr. returned back home by himself. I guess that his family had stayed behind. Maybe he had some prior commitment or whatever he came home.
But when he arrived home, he had received a phone call from his family that his father had actually died because of the heart attack. 39. Yeah. Yeah.
What? I know. Isn't that awful? Well, it's traumatic. Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, stand up guy. It's all that football.
Now, after his father died, Robert sought comfort in his religion because that was what he was raised to believe, even reading up on many different faiths to try to get answers.
But ultimately, he became cynical about all religion. Yeah.
Well, in 1965, the same year that his dad had died, Robert actually saw a film adaptation of the novel The Collector by John Fowles.
I'm not a reader. And if you're not familiar with the movie, which I was not, the plot revolves around a man who stalks and abducts a young woman whom he finds attractive.
Then he holds her captive in his windowless basement. Then he views her as more of an attractive person and decides to kind of keep her as like a slave of sorts.
This is the movie. But that was the intention of killing her. And then I guess he like kind of falls in love with her. Yeah.
And then apparently after several... Reverse Stockholm syndrome or something?
Apparently after several weeks of being held captive in the movie, the woman dies of an illness despite the abductor's efforts to keep her alive. Right?
It's like, it's kind of gross.
And what is this? The Collector?
It was a film adaptation of that novel. So that's what the name of the film was or if that was the name of the novel.
Is he really a collector of things if he only collected once?
Well, Robert took this and ran with it. Took the name Collector to a whole new level.
That's mine now.
My name is no longer Robert. It is the Collector.
The Onesler.
Well, Robert would later state that this movie had lasting impressions on him, obviously.
Now, shortly after the death of his father, Robert's mother actually remarried.
Because of the swift action by his mother to get remarried, Robert began to resent her, kind of seeing it as like an active betrayal.
It was clearly quick enough that this is an issue. You know, just like a couple years later, you know?
Yeah.
So as a result of his feelings towards his mom, Robert became increasingly withdrawn and threw himself even further into the activities that he had enjoyed up until that time, which was...
Cooking up a storm.
Yeah, cooking, painting.
Arting.
He actually decided to start collecting coins, like foreign coins and stamps, which is really cool.
He is the collector.
Yep. And he actually started writing to pen pals from across the country.
That's cool.
I tried to do that a few times on the Internet, just to be like, oh, pen pals, which you can find.
It's so cool, but mostly it's just like bobs and vajín propositions.
Especially now, too. It's very hard to find someone that's genuinely trying to connect with another person.
Right. Just want to connect with someone.
Yeah.
And Robert would later claim that because of the amount of time he spent writing to his pen pals, they were in countries such as Vietnam, Burma, and, you know, et cetera.
And the amount of things that they would send him for his collection, it actually developed his interest in primitive art, photos, and antiques.
So beginning in 1965 and on, he was avidly collecting all of these and would later become inspired to open his own antique business in 1982.
Wow, how quaint.
Right?
Yeah.
And it's like, this guy seems like an unabout dude, right?
He keeps taking some time, but he's like adjusting honorably for the most part.
Other than being obsessed with trying to collect women.
This is not funny at all, but like I was looking, I was like, oh, there's all these great things that he's doing.
Let me read down to this like content warning and all caps of my notes.
I'm like, oh great.
Where's the poop?
Now, in the summer of 1967, Robert graduated from Quayhoga Falls High School.
Again, don't know how to pronounce that.
Good stuff.
Due to his excellent grades and display of potential in high school, in 1966, one teacher had actually placed him in an independent study program.
So shortly after graduation, he ended up moving to Kansas City, Missouri, where he enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute.
And his aspirations were to become a college professor.
Like that's what he wanted to do.
Good for him.
Yeah.
In his first year of college, he was considered a talented and attentive student.
But by his second year, he actually became a super anti-authoritarian to the point of being vocal about it.
Like it was like a 180.
Like, oh, that's so great.
I want to get all these amazing things done.
Yeah.
It's like, fuck you.
I'm going to be a college professor, but I'm only going to have one point of view.
Yeah, exactly.
Which is not the way any college professor should be.
This is interesting to me because usually if you're going to get involved in a bad crowd, it's in high school, right?
It happened to him in college.
He ended up becoming involved with a group of students that would actually sell him drugs, and then he would resell the drugs to more students for a profit.
Oh, well.
He pretty much became known as like a small time drug dealer on campus.
On top of this, he frequently began abusing alcohol and actually engaged in acts of animal torture on at least two occasions.
In college?
Which is interesting because yes, in college, usually animal abuse or torture starts happening early.
Like before you're 10.
Yeah, 6, 8.
And yeah, in college was the first time that we're seeing something like this, or at least knowing about it.
You know, who knows who's to say that he didn't do that before.
Content warning.
So interesting.
Yeah.
During one of these instances of animal torture, he actually decapitated a duck in the presence of his peers.
Odd.
And during the second instance, he experimented with sedatives and tranquilizers on a dog.
So, you can see where this is going.
Did you just like grab a duck and snap its head?
Apparently he was gonna like eat it.
So he was like, oh I hunted this.
Crack.
Like you would torture the animal if you're gonna eat it.
Right.
So at the age of 19, on top of everything else that he's done already, he was arrested for attempting to sell meth to an undercover police officer.
Wow.
I don't know.
We have like two different, like there's like two forks in the road as like escalating quickly.
Snapping the heads off of birds and dealing meth.
Like that just sees both of those are in weird opposite directions.
But it's also like, okay, doing great in college.
Oh by the way, I'm gonna go sell some meth and then kill animals.
Like that doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, that's so bizarre.
He ended up being released after posting a $3,000 bond.
Today I looked it up because I like the conversion rate.
It would be $23,000.
Wow.
And he would actually later plead guilty to the offense.
So he was handed a five year suspended sentence.
So probation rather than prison time.
I had to look it up because I was like, what the hell is this?
I've never been arrested if you can't tell.
However, one month after his first arrest, Robert and two other students were actually arrested for possession of marijuana.
And LSD.
Okay.
This time he could not post bond and he spent an entire five days in jail.
Oh.
Although some of the charges would ultimately be dropped due to lack of evidence.
Of course.
This is where Ohio canceled.
This is where Missouri.
Where are we?
Where are we, LA?
Yeah.
Now in 1969, Robert voluntarily withdrew from KCAI, which is that college.
After receiving a lot of criticism from administrators for killing and cooking a duck for the sake of art.
Like, what is that sentence?
Like.
Content warning.
I've seen a woman take a turkey baster and put spaghettios inside of her own vagina at like one of those art installation places.
That's a great way to get an infection.
Yeah.
It was something about corporate America or something.
Oh my God.
To kill an animal for the sake of art?
I don't understand.
And then cook it?
No.
He was just being a weirdo.
I think he just thought that, oh, for the, it's for the sake of art.
I can't keep that up.
He had a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
What a great way to start experimenting.
Now, during this time after he left college, he actually began working as a short order cook in various restaurants around Kansas City.
In part to help pay for the lawyer and fines from his arrest, but also because he wanted to keep collecting antiques and building his business.
He had sold a number of items that he collected over the years.
He had actually established contacts in Africa, Asia, South America, and various Pacific Rim countries.
So he had like a pretty good like, kind of going.
He knows where he's getting this stuff.
Like he's actually getting legit shit.
Yeah.
So he would initially operate this kind of antique sale as a side business from home while he was working in the restaurants.
And by the mid 1970s, he actually began working as a senior cook at several well renowned Kansas City restaurants.
Yeah.
I mean, you can clearly like, you know, process his own bird.
Yeah.
He actually joined local chefs associations and actually started helping establish a training program for aspiring chefs at a local community college.
Like, stand up dude.
Right.
Yeah.
Everyone's on it.
Although he left college and because he was flourishing at this time, he decided to stay in Kansas City rather than going back home to Ohio.
And in September of that same year, he moved to an address within the Hyde Park District, 4315 Charlotte Street.
Now that becomes a really big deal, like that address.
Now at this point, he had been openly gay for several years and had been spending much of his time with male prostitutes, drug addicts, petty criminals and runaways.
He was known for frequently befriending these types, trying to free them from their drug addictions and criminal lifestyles.
And he was adamant about the fact that throughout most of the 1970s, he never had any physical contact with these individuals.
He was just giving them a place to stay, trying to get them back on their feet.
It wasn't like relationships or prostitution, he just kind of clung to that society, I guess, or that community, if you will.
He would even go so far as to say that he felt like somewhat of a foster parent to the youths in his neighborhood.
Those two youths.
By the early 1980s, many of his older acquaintances had ceased any form of contact with him.
So it kind of left him relying on these young men for like companionship and friendship.
He would recall later that he would frequently get frustrated with them when they would ignore his efforts to help steer them away from self-destructive behavior.
Despite later claims, Robert would often engage in sexual relations with several of these individuals and would establish a degree of control over them by loaning the money or allowing them to live rent-free, like, at his place.
So he's over here saying, I never wrote any content with them blah blah blah, well it turns out, that's wrong.
And then he's like holding it over their heads.
Exactly, blackmailing almost.
So to his neighbors, Robert was considered a nice guy, helpful and civil, despite his unkempt property and somewhat arrogant attitude.
So he was kind of a messy person, kind of like cocky, but decent, you know, community asset, I guess.
Yeah, I wonder if that's also part of that whole sense of control, is like, the sense of control is also being allowed to not be in control or something.
So like, him not doing yard work and stuff like that is still a sense of control.
Yeah, that's true.
Because he doesn't have to and nobody can tell him what to do because it's his property, you know?
Well on top of assisting the youth in the area, beginning in the late 70s, he would actually assist in the South Hyde Park Crime Prevention and Neighborhood Association,
and would eventually become their chairman in the early 1980s.
Man, they're really good at selecting people.
He would encourage neighborhood watch patrols.
He actually remained active in the association until the mid 1980s when he relinquished his position.
Also, not to mention, he would represent his own neighborhood and fundraising events as well.
Sounds like Dexter.
Super, literally though. It literally reminds me of Dexter.
It's like super, like, community involved, super, like, big figure, you know?
Everyone look at me, I'm a great dude.
They love stuff like that though, don't they? Like, BTK?
They want to be involved and they want people to look at them, like, and it's even more of a satisfaction when they can fool everyone around you.
Yes, exactly.
Which is, I think, silly because you're just drawing more attention to exactly how helpful.
You can still be like a staple in the community and then still commit these crimes, but like, you do it on purpose.
This is a straight cover.
Now this is when the antique business starts to soar.
So in 1982, Robert began renting his own booth at the Westport Flea Market, and he aptly named the store Bob's Bazaar Bazaar.
So Bazaar being like the market and then Bazaar being like weird.
Okay, okay.
Alright, that makes it like a weird market.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
He primarily sold and traded primitive art, jewelry, and antiques, and although this was a good business, it was not enough money to make ends meet by itself.
So he actually began buying like extra items to sell for profit and also allowing people to now rent a room at his place to make extra money.
Instead of letting people stay for free like he was before, he's now like leasing out like an area of his house, right?
So it's not too weird.
Yeah.
Otherwise it's just weird.
Now while working the booth, over time, Robert became acquainted with a fellow merchant named Paul Howell.
He operated a booth that was like adjacent to Robert's.
Now soon after meeting Paul, Robert became acquainted as well with Paul's younger son, Jerry Howell.
Initially, Jerry and his friends would constantly tease and taunt Robert over his homosexuality.
And according to Robert though, Jerry would later confide in him that he and his friends would like occasionally earn money as prostitutes.
Wow.
Do you know how old they were?
Publicly, they were in their late teens, early 20s.
So Jerry was.
But so the dad was probably what, 40, 50?
Yeah.
And how old do you think Robert was at this point?
About the same age as the dad.
They made just the dad.
I mean, he was born in the 40s, so it's the 80s, probably 45.
Oh, I see.
Okay, okay.
So maybe a little younger than the dad, but older than the kid.
Yeah, definitely older than the kid.
But yeah, so it was almost weird to read that.
It was like, okay, so Jerry, this person that's much younger than Robert, is like teasing him and taunting him for being gay.
But then he's looking into him as like a father figure of sorts, and he can confide in about maybe being gay himself.
Interesting.
Paul Howell had actually relocated his business from the currently market to like a store of sorts.
And him and his family had actually moved into an apartment above their new shop.
And despite, you know, Jerry and Robert's kind of odd relationship, Paul like maintained his friendship with Robert after he left like the booth and everything and he moved.
Their relationship was casual, but it was really known that Robert would actually offer like legal and financial advice to Paul, like should Jerry ever get in trouble?
So he was kind of giving him that like companionship like, okay, I've been in trouble with the law.
Like if Jerry ever gets himself in a situation, like here's what you should do.
Okay.
That's a little, I don't know.
Like kind of, well, it made it seem like it was out of the blue.
Like he randomly like mentioned that, but maybe that was just something that was adamant like later on.
Yeah.
Now on July 4th, 1984, Robert picked up Jerry Howell with the promise of driving him to a dance contest in Merriam.
So I guess Jerry needed a ride to go compete in this dance competition and Robert offered to drive him.
According to Robert, he supplied Jerry with alcohol, Valium and acid promane, which I looked it up.
It's an animal tranquilizer, both in the car and then also at Robert's house until he became unconscious.
Complete 180.
God.
All right.
There's the poop.
Okay.
So he's this nice guy that's giving like financial and legal advice and then all of a sudden he's drugging this child.
So it's unknown whether Jerry took anything willingly or was drugged without his knowledge.
However, when he became unconscious, I guess that's when they kind of, he was maybe going in and out and that's when kind of Robert lured him to his house rather than going to the actual competition.
Robert actually injected Jerry with a heavy tranquilizer before binding him to his bed.
That's so scary.
And I mean, at this point, Jerry's unconscious.
So like he doesn't even realize what's going on.
Now again, content warning for this whole next section.
Jerry was restrained to Robert's bed for approximately 28 hours.
Yeah.
Throughout this period of captivity, Robert repeatedly drugged, tortured, raped and violated Jerry with foreign objects.
During this time, Jerry was in and out of consciousness because of course he was so heavily sedated.
Although while he was awake, it was noted that he would frequently ask questions as to why he was being treated like this and pleading to be let go as one would.
As one would.
One more time, content warning.
According to Robert, at around 28 hours into this, Jerry quote, either asphyxiated on vomit or the combination of the gag and medicine were too strong for him to be able to catch breath.
Robert would later say that it was at this point that he attempted to perform CPR upon Jerry before giving up realizing that he was deceased and then dragging his body down to the basement.
That's so horrible.
Like, I don't give a fuck if you tried to perform CPR.
You put him in that position.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's horrible.
It gets worse.
After 28 hours.
This is another content warning.
After Jerry's body was in the basement, Robert had actually suspended him above like a large pot and he had made like several incisions to his elbows and like his jugular in order to pretty much drain him of blood.
Yeah.
The following day he dismembered Jerry's body and kind of wrapped up, I guess, sections in a newspaper and trash bags and then put them in the big trash bins to go to the landfill, which is terrifying, especially if you're a garbage man.
I know.
Could you imagine taking something like that up and not even realizing until like way later, like what it was?
I feel like it would be heavy, like even some parts.
But clearly, so part of the whole, I don't even know if you can call it an MO at this point, but I'm guessing that that might be an MO of his that he kind of sticks to because we see that pattern often, that he knows how to process an animal.
Yeah, exactly.
Now, when Robert was later questioned by authorities, he stated that he did indeed drive Jerry to the dance as promised and that they had parted close to the destination.
He had claimed that he had not seen him since that time.
Bullshit.
This couldn't have been farther from the truth, obviously.
How many days was this afterwards?
It doesn't say.
It's actually a while afterwards because he, when he gets caught, he gets caught for everything.
He doesn't get like suspected.
Yeah.
Okay, it's not an Andre Ticatillo situation here.
Well, I mean, we'll kind of see.
It's similar, but not really.
In fact, if Robert had, you know, a little bit trouble remembering or maybe he just, you know, forgot somehow what he had done, that's still bullshit because he actually kept detailed logs of each murder in which he documented each act of sexual and physical torture inflicted upon his victim.
That's horrifying.
What is wrong with this dude?
It just escalates.
It escalates so quickly.
It did.
He would recall that, like the other victims, Jerry had repeatedly pleaded for the abuse to stop throughout the period of his capture.
Although Robert would ignore the pleas, he would actually even like taunt the victim or threaten them, and he would write all this down.
And this is way later, obviously, he's admitting this.
So this is how he knows.
And this is like, that's why the account is so detailed is because he knows it because he wrote it and he...
Yeah, so again, this is later on when he starts to explain like what's in the journals and stuff.
Right.
And it's like detailed.
And we're going to definitely get more into the journals later on, but just for right now, one thing that was really, I think important to add at this point was that later on, whenever he was being questioned by authorities, he actually confessed that there were occasions where he would stop making additions to the logs
because he assumed that the victim would not quote be able to make it much longer.
So he would like log everything in detail.
And when he realized that they were close to being deceased, he would stop logging because he's like, well, no point in that, you know, literally.
So there would just be like some logs were just stopped.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Ugh, this guy.
Now, we're going to move on to April 10th, 1985.
Okay, so the following year.
Yes.
20 year old Robert Sheldon arrived on Bridella's doorstep asking if he could stay at his house for a short period of time.
For this one, I'm going to refer to him as Bridella and Sheldon, obviously, since both of them names are Robert.
According to Bridella, although Sheldon was responsible for paying rent, he considered him quote an inconvenience. And although he was not physically attracted to him, he made the decision to drug and hold him captive on April 12th when he returned home from work to find Sheldon already intoxicated.
So he had been staying with him for two days and he came home. He's like, oh, well, he's already drunk.
He's already drunk.
Like, yeah, who thinks like that?
Well, who thinks like this time I get drunk is going to be, you know, the time that the serial killer decides to take me.
And I've already been in his house for two days, unharmed.
Yeah.
Now, Bridella was adamant that he had held no animosity for Sheldon, but saw him as an individual that he could quote, express some of the anger and frustration that I had toward other people on.
So he knows.
So this guy literally didn't do shit and Bridella is saying this guy didn't do shit to deserve this.
I was like, fucking like, just like, like that mindset.
I'm not trying to say that so casually like that is baffling.
Well, what's interesting is that he, like I said, that he's aware of it.
He knows what, why he wants to, which is sometimes lost on on some serial killers.
Yeah.
Now, this next part is a big content warning as well.
Sheldon was drugged with sedatives and held captive in the second floor bedroom for three days and during forms of torture, including the swabbing of drugs.
The swabbing of drain cleaner in his eyes.
Oh my God.
The insertion of needles beneath his fingernails, which literally makes me cringe.
Nope.
And the binding of his wrists with piano wire.
The intention behind this was to permanently damage the nerves in his hands.
That's the last of that.
Oh, hold on.
There's one more.
Oh, wait.
So, like, um, Vardella actually filled his ears with caulk to like reduce his hearing.
This is like, this is like, this is beyond.
This is, isn't that like who thinks of that?
I remember I was telling Casey that I was researching this case and I said something about the drain cleaner and Casey was like, oh yeah, I heard about some guy that filled, you know, someone's ears with caulk.
And I was like, this is the guy and he was like, oh my God, that's so terrifying.
He's like, I work with caulk every day.
I'm like, I know, like,
The call of the void in case he's just looking at the caulk like,
Better watch it.
Seriously.
Go get your ear.
So awful.
Now, after three long days of being held captive and tortured on April 15th, a workman actually had come by the house to perform some work on Brunella's roof, leading to Brunella choosing to fatally suffocate Sheldon.
Because there was someone coming up.
Yeah.
He had chosen to end Sheldon's life by suffocation by like a bag over his head.
He then later dissected Sheldon's body on the third floor bathroom similarly to Jerry.
The following June.
So another year later, Robert came upon a young man by the name of Mark Wallace.
He vaguely knew Mark when he helped him with some yard work in the past, but it was at this point that he found Mark hiding in his tool shed because there was like a big thunderstorm coming.
So Mark was trying to like seek shelter, but I guess he was transient or something.
He didn't have somewhere to go.
So as he had done in the past, Robert invited Mark into his home and immediately offered to inject him with some chlorpromazine.
Like he was like, oh, are you a little anxious?
I have something for that.
Yeah, and this is used as an anti-anxiety medication or sometimes it's actually used before surgery to help you.
It's like the cocktail, right?
Yeah.
So that was Robert's reasoning.
I'm going to help you calm down.
I'm going to help you relax.
You're clearly super tense by being out in the storm.
And he knew that this guy was had struggled with depression in the past and so he knew he had taken it before.
Interesting.
Now Mark willingly accepted this offer and 30 minutes later, Robert decided, oh, perfect opportunity.
Let's hold him captive.
So awful.
So this is victim number three, the three.
Okay.
Content warning again for this next part.
Mark was then carried to the second story bathroom where he endured almost an entire day of captivity and torturing,
including the application of alligator clips to his nipples to give him an electric shock when he would begin to pass out.
To like keep him away.
That's...
Oh, so fucked up.
According to Robert, one hour after his quote, experimenting with hypodermic needles by inserting them into various muscles in Mark's back,
Mark died through a combination of quote, the drugs, the gag and the lack of oxygen.
That was a quote from Robert.
And obviously, you know, hypodermic needles is like a needle that has liquid in it.
Yeah.
It's the sorts.
He even noted in the log his victim's time of death as being quote, 7pm on June 23rd.
He wrote that down.
Like a surgeon.
Like a doctor.
Like what have said time of death, like this time.
Do you think he's like doing these experiments in his mind?
Like he thinks that he's this like mad scientist type dude?
I think that he's fucked up in the head.
Yeah.
I don't like, I don't, there was no, like, I feel like some people in the past, we can kind of like speculate on like,
okay, maybe like, this is why they felt they need to do that, or this is why I can't put it, like I can't put my thumb on it.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I definitely, I had watched a documentary recently, and it's about a guy who was abducted at a young age by a man who just wanted a child.
And how unique it is for a man to just want a child.
Yeah.
And, you know, women, we hear about women stealing babies all the time.
Maybe not all the time, but you know, it is certainly rare, but it was the first one that I had heard where he actually just wanted to care for this child.
He did abuse the child.
But, you know, in his mind, he thought he was providing a real life and even allowed him to go to public school and all this stuff.
Like, yeah, like he wanted to raise this child.
It's really interesting, like the psyche in those cases, like, right, when you start to dissect like why that person did what they did exactly like,
but in this case, I just can't think of a reason for any of this.
Right.
Like, and it, that's what I'm saying is like, it's, it's, it goes and it doesn't, it's not like he just abducted someone because he wanted to abduct someone.
And then see how that went.
Yeah.
And then escalated to killing people or escalated the severity of the torture.
It's just 100% all of a sudden.
100% from the get.
Yeah.
Like that's just, it was like, yeah, I'm heading neighborhood watch and now I'm going to kidnap this child that I've known for years and, you know, have my way or whatever.
That's very unusual.
Now on September 26th, 1985, Robert answered a phone call from an acquaintance named James Ferris who asked if he could stay at his house for a little while.
This time Robert accepted with the intention of kidnapping him, who he arranged to meet at a bar that same evening.
Despite the brutality of the torture inflicted on the first three victims, Robert explained that James was the first victim that he intentionally inflicted torture.
So the other ones, like, maybe it wasn't intentional, maybe he wasn't like thinking about it beforehand, but this time he was like going into it, like with the intention.
With a plan.
Like this is what I'm going to do.
Oh, God.
Robert brought James home and drugged him with crushed tranquilizers that he had concealed in a meal and then tied him to his bed before torturing him for about 27 hours.
This guy's room's got a smell.
Awful.
Now this is a big content warning as well.
The torture included repeated administering of 7700 volt electrical shocks to the shoulder and testicles for up to five minutes at a time.
Five minutes?
I don't think we actually can appreciate how long five minutes is.
That's a long fucking time.
That's a long time.
And this also included acupuncture via hypodermic needles to the neck and the genitals.
James eventually became delirious due to the torture and the substances being injected into him, but this did not stop Robert from continuing his physical and sexual assaults until it was noted in his log that James was, quote, unable to sit up more than 10 to 15 seconds.
The next entry read, quote, very delayed breathing.
And finally, Robert noted that James died with just the entry, quote, 86.
What?
He was a chef for a very long time.
In the restaurant world, 86 has a number of different meanings, but it usually means we're out of something or something else.
Oh, it's 86.
Expired or?
Yeah, interesting.
So he would later explain that this term, quote, meant anything from throw it out to stop the project.
The project?
This guy, he thinks he's a doctor.
Like seriously.
Todd Stoops was a 23 year old drug addict that would occasionally engage in prostitution and had lived briefly alongside his wife at Robert's house on two different occasions in 1984.
After Todd and his wife moved out of Robert's home for the second time, Robert did not see him again until a random encounter at Kansas City's Liberty Memorial Park on June 17th, 1986.
So he was already used to, like, trusting Robert.
He has been over-insated at his house with his wife on two separate occasions.
Stayed the night or like stayed?
Like, gave him a place.
Yes.
Robert invited him to his house with an offer of lunch and with an added incentive of sex as Todd stated that he was short $13 for the drugs that he was wanting to purchase while he was there.
Robert later admitted that he was extremely attracted to Todd, one of the main reasons that he decided to make the decision to kidnap him that day when he came over.
Content warning.
Robert held Todd for two weeks. During this time, he gradually increased his terror to make him a cooperative and incapacitated sex slave.
Robert used electrical shocks through Ted's eyes in an attempt to blind him and injected drain cleaner into his larynx to try to stop him from screaming.
This is horrifying.
During the second week of his capture, Todd had asked Robert for a soda and a sandwich to which Robert refused to give him and it caused Todd to burst into tears.
I mean, obviously, like I would be like emotionally everything exhausted.
During this time, and I'm going to say this as delicately as I can, but it is important for later, Robert also violated Todd anally and he caused permanent damage because of it.
Now, during the end of his capture, Robert tried to feed Todd ice cream and soup kind of like liquid stuff, I guess.
But according to the logs, he, quote, wasn't able to keep anything down.
By the final day of his captivity, Todd was so weak that he was unable to breathe in a sitting position, according to Robert.
And on July 1st, 1986, Todd ultimately passed away. A forensic pathologist later determined that the damage I spoke of earlier that was inflicted caused sepsis and he became fatal.
Yeah, I was going to ask if that was in relation to the damage he experienced.
Yeah, it definitely was.
In the spring of 1987, Robert became friendly with another 20-year-old named Larry Wayne Pearson.
The friendship began when Larry entered Robert's antique shop because that's still happening during all this. He still has the antique shop.
And he actually struck up a conversation about his interest in witchcraft and wizardry as a child.
Both of them had like a common, I guess, interest.
Now, shortly after this meeting, Larry temporarily stayed with Robert and willingly performed chores around the house as a means of paying rent.
Robert let him stay like he has with multiple people.
Yeah, I'm sure it's more like death, but yeah.
According to Robert, he did not initially intend to capture Larry, but formed the plan to do so on June 23rd when he actually had to bail Larry out of jail.
And I guess Larry had gotten into some trouble for something, I guess not so crazy.
But when Robert went to pick him up, like, I guess he was asking him what happened and Larry jokingly, like, said that he had been robbing gay men in Wichita.
And I think that Robert took offense because he's gay, obviously.
So yeah, that was when he decided, well, here's my next victim.
Content warning. That evening, Robert made sure that Larry became intoxicated and then injected him with chlorpromazine and moved him down to the basement where he bound his hands above his head.
He then linked that rope that he had used for this purpose to abrick call him so he was like real stuck. And then he injected his larynx with drain cleaner as well.
So I assume that he found out that that worked and that's why he was going to do that again.
He then brought an electrical transformer down to the basement.
According to Robert, Larry was the most cooperative of all the victims he had had up until this point.
On the fifth day of captivity, he had endured countless shocks to his body via the transformer at this point and also several of his bones and his hands were broken with an iron rod in an attempt to, like, render him submissive, kind of.
So on this day, Robert made the decision that he had Larry's trust and that he could begin to kind of relax a little bit.
In a ward of sorts, if you will, Larry was moved to the second floor, but not before Robert told him that if he had continued to cooperate, he would not be physically or sexually assaulted as much as he had been before.
By the sixth day, Larry had even trained himself to sleep without moving in an attempt to make sure that Robert didn't get upset and in return hurt him even more or move him back down to the basement.
After six weeks of being held captive, Larry had just about enough, obviously, and during one of Robert's many sexual assaults, Larry was noted as screaming that he could not continue to tolerate his poor treatment, and then he bit very deeply into Robert's penis.
Bad bitch alert!
Love that.
Content warning. In response, Robert began to beat Larry into unconsciousness with a tree limb, not sure where he got that from, but it was there, and then proceeded to suffocate him with a bag and a ligature.
After Robert was sure that Larry was deceased, he drove to the hospital in order to take care of his own wound.
Oh, are you in pain?
Oh, my God, I'm so fucking desy.
We need to get a penis transplant.
Just cut it off. Just cut it off.
When Robert arrived back home from the hospital, he later dismembered Larry's body, initially storing his head in a plastic bag in the freezer, but eventually burying it in the backyard.
He killed him and then he left him there, went to the hospital, and then came back and was never done?
Jesus Christ.
At 1am on March 29, 1988, Robert would abduct his last victim, a 22-year-old prostitute named Christopher Bryson, the one from the beginning.
Robert had met him and lured him back to his house with the promise of payment for sex.
Content warning.
When they arrived at the house, Bryson was knocked unconscious with an iron bar and then bound to Robert's bed, where he performed similar methods of sexual and physical torture as he did with his previous victims.
There was a distinct difference in this victim, however.
It was noted that Robert repeatedly swabbed Bryson's eyes with ammonia and he was said to have exclaimed, quote,
The only things you need to think about are you, me, and this house.
So Robert told that to Christopher.
After several days of being held captive, Robert explained to Bryson that he had began to, quote, trust him.
Although he was willing to discuss physical abuse and torture moving forward, the sexual abuse was not up for negotiation.
Robert was noted as finishing this discussion with the quote,
I've gotten this far with other people before and they're dead now because of mistakes they made.
Whoa.
And that's where we're going to stop.
No!
What?
No!
Full body heaps.
That's so fucking scary.
I want to make sure that this is very known and I know that people don't know us as well as we know each other.
If I ever sound like I'm laughing or trying to make light of something, I'm really not.
I'm just uncomfortable.
It's the suspense.
Yeah.
It's nothing to do with, there's obviously full respect to the victims and everything,
but I just want to make that clear because I feel like even listening back sometimes,
I notice that I kind of sound like I'm cheerful and I'm really not.
It's just, it's just...
It's just...
So that is part one of Robert Bridella's crazy fucking life.
What an asshole.
Right?
And then in part two we're going to talk about Christopher's escape.
We're going to talk about the capture and the trial and everything that happened afterwards.
Wow.
Yeah, so...
Man, fuck that guy.
Yeah, so until then we're going to have probably another mental breakdown posted before part two.
So we're going to make you guys wait again for part two.
We will.
And then we will come back with part two in a couple weeks.
In the meantime, you're definitely welcome to reach out to us via Gmail.
It is diagnosingakilleratgmail.com.
We do have a Twitter at killerdiagnosis and then our Instagram is at diagnosingakiller.
You can also join the Patreon if you would like and that is patreon.com slash diagnosingakiller.
Anything else?
No, I'm just...
Ugh.
Gotta wait.
Alright, love you guys.
Love you guys.
Bye.