I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When segregation was a law, one mysterious Black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero? Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and Visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow by Order of the Faithfuls and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to this bonus episode of The Peacemaker. I'm Ryan Kroll, a producer on the series. Thanks for listening to the show. And I'm Ben Westhoff. Usually I take the lead when it comes to hosting, but today we're doing something a little different. Yeah, now that the main part of the series is finished, we're awaiting the trial of Brandon Grossheim, which should happen sometime this year. In the meantime, we're going to discuss some of the feedback we've gotten from our reporting so far. We've heard from many listeners, including people who were at Truman State at the time of the suicide cluster. Ben had a lot of conversation with these folks, and he's going to tell us today what he heard. Some of those people that I talked to knew the main characters in our story really well, and they had a lot of insight. So we're going to dive into that. This will be a short episode, but I think it has a lot of interesting stuff. All that and more coming up on this bonus episode of The Peacemaker. This podcast series tells the story of the most infamous suicide cluster in American history. It's a production of iHeart Podcasts and Cool Fire Studios. I'm your host, Ben Westhoff, along with Ryan Krull. This is The Peacemaker. Before we get started, just one quick note. We would love to hear from you. Whether you were a Truman State student at the time of the suicide cluster and you want to share your experiences, or if you're just a listener who has general thoughts about the show, you can email us at peacemakerthepodcast at gmail.com. So anyway, Ben, to kick this off, It sounds like you spoke to someone specifically who had a really interesting connection to this case. Yeah, she was a student at Truman State at the time all of this was going down. She was in a sorority there and knew some of the characters in this story very well, particularly the guys from Alpha Kappa Lambda. She didn't want her name used for fear of upsetting parents of victims, some of whom she is close with, but I have confirmed that she is who she says she is, And I think she has some really useful insight and even some theories that have kind of altered the way I think about this case. Oh, whoa. Well, let's get right into it. What were her thoughts about Brandon Grosheim? Did she think he was guilty about causing these suicides? You know, it's interesting. She actually gives him a pass when it comes to some of his actions that some people found suspicious, but certainly not everything. Well, what did she let him off the hook on? The first thing is about Brandon's various love interests. In episode three, you'll remember, we discussed how Brandon dated some of the suicide victims' girlfriends. You know, to me and to many other people, really, that sounded strange. But this source I was talking to who went to Truman State during this time, she actually doesn't think it was that strange. Here's us talking about it. Did you ever know about any of that? So, yes, but I also don't know how unusual it would have been just because of the culture in general at Truman and kind of the girls that dated AKLs and stuff like that. I think more likely than not, you know, everyone kind of ended up sleeping with everyone at some point. Oh, interesting. Yeah, a lot of people we talked to found it creepy, you know, Brandon dating the ex-girlfriends of suicide victims. But she defends him, saying it was a small dating pool. I guess I can understand it would be like that at a small college. And then there was another thing that Brandon did that some people thought was weird too, right? How he started wearing some of the victim's clothes? Yeah, exactly. Following the suicide of victim number two, Jake Hughes, Brandon began wearing some of his clothes, including his Popsicle print shirt, a pair of shoes, and some of Jake's silver and gold chains. As you said, many people thought that was strange and that it spoke to kind of a weird obsession with death. But again, the woman I spoke with did not think it was weird. I would also mention, you know, Jake gave away a lot of his clothes in general. I had clothes of Jake I think I still probably had clothes from Jake So it not super crazy to me that Brandon would have Jake clothes This also jibes with our reporting because, as we mentioned, Jake's parents actually donated his old clothes to the fraternity after he died. So Brandon wasn't the only one who had his things. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So basically your source let him off the hook when it comes to his girlfriends, and wearing Jake's clothes. But then you're saying there's some things that she kind of blamed him for, right? Yeah, that's right. According to her, what tied a lot of the victims to Brandon Grossheim was drugs. But yeah, we knew that, right? We knew Brandon smoked weed and drank alcohol with some of the victims, and that he even tripped acid with some of them too. Right. But according to this source, it goes deeper than that. And this is where it gets really interesting, because according to her, drugs were a major part of AKL's identity. Of all of the fraternities, AKLs were the heaviest of the drug-using fraternities, and they were doing drugs that weren't weed, you know. A lot of psychedelics, but also lab-created research chemicals. So now we're talking about drugs that go beyond just the weed, ecstasy, and pills that a lot of fraternities are known for. What stood out to me was this term she used, research chemicals. Have you ever heard this term? No, I'm picturing something that might be cooked up on like a high school Bunsen burner or something like that. In chemistry class, yeah, that's what a lot of people selling these chemicals want you to think. But really, research chemicals is just a euphemism for new synthetic drugs that get people high. I actually wrote a book. It's called Fentanyl, Inc. that's largely about this topic. These drugs are made in China and sold on the dark web. They're branded as research chemicals to avoid scrutiny with customs, as if they're for, like, reputable pharmaceutical labs or schools. But really, they're just drugs. And more specifically, they're designer drugs, brand new concoctions that were just invented in recent years. They have odd, complicated names like Abfubinaca and 3MMC. And because very few people have ever tested them, they can be especially dangerous. Now, my source is saying that AKL was known for drugs like this. She doesn't know the names of the specific drugs because she said she never did any herself. But she thinks Brandon was trying research chemicals with some of the suicide victims. I really feel strongly that Brandon, you know, he was doing those drugs with those kids. But I think that really is the link is that they were all doing the same kinds of drugs, the same batches of drugs. And, you know, sometimes you get a bad batch of something and it can mess your brain chemistry up. And obviously, I think there was multiple factors involved, but I do really think it was drug related. Wow, that's quite an accusation. Seems like she's saying these crazy new drugs contributed to the deaths. Yeah. But we should note she doesn't have proof of this, right? She doesn't know exactly who did what drugs and when and with exactly whom. And it also doesn't sound like she's saying Brandon supplied any of the victims with drugs. That's correct on both counts. And in fact, she even defended Brandon a little bit in this realm as well. You know how Brandon was accused of stealing the drugs out of the safe of Jake Hughes, who was the second suicide victim and also a drug dealer at AKL. You know about that. She believes that Brandon might have allegedly done that just to protect Jake from having his parents find out or the police. Okay. So what do you think is the upshot of this woman's theory? You said it changed your thinking on the case. How so? Well, to me, it's significant if these kids were doing these research chemicals. My source believes that some of these drugs were really powerful psychedelics. And psychedelics are known to amplify the state that you're already in. So if you're feeling great, they make you feel really great. But if you're feeling depressed, they can make you feel much more depressed, make the situation much worse. And on top of that, the suicide victims were also taking potent pharmaceuticals for which they had prescriptions. antidepressants, antipsychotics, amphetamines. And they'd recently all had bad breakups too. So then if you throw in some powerful, unpredictable psychedelics on top of that, it could put them all in an even worse frame of mind. Okay, yeah, thanks for that breakdown. So then let's move on. Next, we'll hear from a listener who said we got something wrong. Oh no. Well, that's after the break. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth. Until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history Everyone thought they knew how it ended A verdict a villain a nurse named Lucy Letby Lucy Letby has been found guilty But what if we didn get the whole story The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation in the day, integration at night. When segregation was the law, One mysterious Black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping in another world. Inside Charlie's place, Black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. they had to crush you. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and Visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong with a podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying. And drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, then. So what did we screw up? Well, it concerns the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, from 1774, which we mentioned in the first episode of the podcast a couple times. Okay, nice. Good pronunciation, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. The book, as folks will remember, is about a young guy in love with an unattainable woman who ultimately kills himself. And this book, we said, led to a rash of suicides among European readers at the time of its publication. But that isn't true. I saw it referenced like all over the internet. Well, my former colleague back from when I was a college professor, the historian Min-Soo Kang, told me that it's actually a myth that has been debunked. And I looked into it and it seems like Min-Soo is right here. It all started in the late 1700s when parents began freaking out that their kids were reading this new type of sentimental novel. A sentimental novel. Okay, what's that? Yeah, I had to look it up, but it's a novel that prioritizes emotion and sensibility over logic and reason. And parents at the time were worried it would lead to a sort of moral decay. So basically like parents not wanting their kids to be on TikTok today, maybe. Yeah, kind of like that. So parents were already primed to hate this book, The Sorrows of Young Werther, when it came out. And then after its publication, there was a news article about a girl who was found dead with the Young Werther book under her pillow. And this article implies that the book caused her to kill herself, but a lot of things are suspicious about it. For one, the article is only three sentences long, and it doesn't even give the woman's full name. But nonetheless, the Pearl Clutching class seized on it and basically made up this rumor that the book caused a bunch of suicides, and thus, a myth was born. Oh, wow, crazy. But then the book still coined this phenomenon that's known as the Werther effect. Exactly. And that's this idea that a publicized suicide begets more suicides. And it's worth pointing out that the Werther effect is very much real, just not in the case of the Werther book itself. Okay, interesting. Well, thank you to your former colleague. Indeed, indeed. And then to the final person we'll hear from today is someone you spoke to, Ben, who had some insight on the Glenna Haught case, right? Right. Her name is Anna Scott, and she's a really great journalist. She's done an investigative podcast for KCRW out in Los Angeles, and she's currently a nursing graduate student, which gives her, I think, an interesting perspective on all of this. Yeah, and I understand she even had a chance to review the medical examiner's report for Glenna Hunt. That's right. I was hoping she might pick up on something that we may have missed. Okay, and just for a little background, Glenna, as listeners will remember, was the fifth death in our story. She didn't die by suicide, but rather from a ruptured liver, and then, according to her autopsy, quote, severe acute alcohol intoxication may have contributed to the death. Brandon Grostheim, though, was the last person to see her alive, and police questioned him because she was found nearly naked and he had scratches and marks on his arms. So Anna looked at the medical examiner's report in autopsy sort of from the medical perspective, And I was interested to hear from her because, you know, any insight into Glenna's death can help us understand what state she was in when she talked with Brandon. Does that make sense? It does. And because even though she'd be dead within an hour or so after talking with him, Brandon claimed she said she was fine. But to this day, Glenna's family and ex-boyfriend are mad at Brandon for not calling 911, for not doing anything. Yeah, exactly. So here's what Anna had to say. Her death really sounds absolutely excruciating and incredibly tragic. Apparently, she tore a blood vessel in her abdomen, and then because her liver was not able to clot blood anymore, she essentially bled out inside her own body And in terms of Brandon I just going to reiterate what you already said in the episode about this which is that his story sounds odd because someone in her condition given what was happening with her medically, probably would have become increasingly weak over a period of time. So what do you make of this? Yeah, yeah. To me, this articulates something that I have thought about, and that has to do with the supposed timeline of Glenna's final hours and minutes and the fact that it just doesn't totally add up. It's unclear how she could have had this coherent conversation with Brandon so close to her demise. It's not something I thought about until more recently, and it's something that police, obviously, at the time, didn't pursue either. That's right. Police don't appear to have asked him about this at all. And then along those lines, Anna also had an interesting bit of speculation. She thinks it's perhaps dubious to believe anything that Brandon said about all this. Okay, so here's what I'm wondering. I wonder if Brandon completely made up his anecdote about talking to Glenna shortly before she died, because it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, it's very hard to believe that if this conversation actually occurred relatively close to her passing away, that she would have been in any kind of coherent state and would have been able to tell him, oh, I'm fine and nothing would seem amiss and he would just leave. That just doesn't seem to jibe with any of the evidence. And then, but it also doesn't really seem like there is strong evidence that something else occurred, that there was some kind of confrontation between them or something that he would be trying to cover up. I mean, of course, it's possible, but that also just seems a little far-fetched based on what we know. And he is somebody that has inserted himself into deaf investigations in the past, as the podcast has covered, who's been in the middle of these kinds of situations a lot. And maybe, maybe for some reason, he had a compulsion to do the same in this situation and just invented the encounter for attention or some other reason that, you know, some other psychological reason. Obviously, I'm completely speculating, but nothing else really makes a lot of sense to me either. Yeah, a lot about his response to the situation doesn't really add up. Yeah, I agree. But still, it's difficult for me to believe that Brandon just conceived an entire elaborate lie while talking to the police. I mean, he went into such great detail about getting home, doing his laundry, watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He said he heard this loud thump, and then he went over to the apartment and had this whole conversation with her. what I was saying makes some sense but still it's hard to believe that he could have just made up that entire conversation you know right there on the spot while he was talking to police but you know then again there's a lot of other things in this story that don't make sense to me either so who knows alright well that's about it for this short episode but a reminder you can feel free to reach out to us at peacemakerthepodcast at gmail.com and then maybe we'll do another one of these bonus episodes at some point before the trial. Great. Well, thank you, Ryan, and good job. Thanks, Ben. We'll talk to you guys soon. The Peacemaker is a production of Cool Fire Studios and iHeart Podcasts. It's hosted by me, Ben Westhoff, and Ryan Krull. Our executive producers are Jeff Keene, David Johnson, and Steve Lubert. Music and audio engineering by Brent Johnson. Executive producers for iHeart Podcasts are Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, there are resources available to you. Please call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, 988. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When segregation was a law, one mysterious Black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero? Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and Visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying. And drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
