SERIAL KILLER: Charlie Brandt

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today's episode, I will warn you, is a gruesome one. We don't normally get into the gory details of a case, but in this particular story, the details are crucial to the understanding of the perpetrator and his MO that the police are scrutinizing carefully. This case will make everyone who is dating or married to somebody [01:00] a little easier tonight, Britt, that includes you. But it will make all of you who met your partner as an adult sleep with one eye open tonight because this case confirms for us, you never really know anyone. And in 2004, many people found out that they didn't know the real Charlie Brandt.

[01:30] Thank you. [01:56] In 2004, Charlie Brandt and his wife, Terry, were living the kind of idyllic life that you would expect in Big Pine Key, which is the southernmost portion of the Florida Keys. Charlie had spent most of his life in Florida from about ages 14, 15 until well into adulthood, with just a short break in there when he worked in the Bahamas. [02:25] into the U.S. Terry and Charlie were married in 1986 and for almost 18 years they had what everyone thought was a perfect marriage. I mean literally to the point of almost being like sickly. Like years later someone said like they used to do this thing where they would like make each other's lunch every day because they said that lunch made by the one who loved you tasted so much better [02:55] cheesy stuff. But again, so many people wanted what they had back then. [02:59] Well, September of 2004 was a pretty unremarkable time in the brand's life, but it was marked by a defining event, Hurricane Ivan. People in the Keys were told to evacuate, so Charlie boarded up his home with the kind of precision you'd only see from an engineer. Like every board cut specifically to spec with like little holes cut out for each specific doorknob. They left the house in pristine condition. They did not expect to be gone long.

[03:29] it was a little ridiculous that they were even evacuating at all. He didn't think this would be that bad of a storm. But his wife and her family were insisting they were just going to make the few-hour drive north to stay with Terry's niece, Michelle, near Orlando, and then they would come back. But... [03:45] When they got in their car and started the drive, I don't think either of them knew that they would never make it back to their house in the Keys again. The first night they got in, one of Michelle's friends was supposed to come over and visit. Many of Michelle's friends knew Aunt Terry and Uncle Charlie, so it was common for others to visit while they were in town. But that first night, Michelle called her friend that evening and said, Hey, you know, don't bother coming over. We've all been drinking. I think maybe we've been drinking a little too much. [04:15] Charlie and Terry are arguing so you just stay home we're gonna get together another time while they're here [04:20] The rest of the days there seemed pretty uneventful. Charlie makes plans to see his dad. He sees his younger sister, since they live just like an hour away or so. And it's his younger sister, Jessica, who actually tells us that [04:33] Charlie didn't really want to be there. She was the one that said, no, he said it was all Terry's idea to come and her family. And he kept talking to her about how he just wanted to go home. And she said there was this strange insistence in his voice about wanting to get home as soon as possible. And she said it was weird, too, when they left, Charlie embraced her and her dad, like, in a way he normally didn't and told them he loved them. And it felt like a very strange goodbye.

[05:03] Yeah. Now, I'm going to say, "Oh, I'm going to say, [05:05] Charlie and Terry were planning on leaving on the 12th. And again, it sounded like Charlie couldn't get out of there fast enough, which to me isn't like a weird thing. [05:14] I'm all about sleeping in my own bed when I'm traveling. So yeah, definitely. I get wanting to go home. But the next day, something changes. Despite the fact that their bags were packed and like lined up by the door as if they were ready to take off, something had to have shifted. Charlie all of a sudden insists on staying just one more night. And now this is September 13th. [05:44] normally talk every single day but starting on the 13th mary lou's call to michelle's phone start going to voicemail which again not a huge worry this happens michelle just calls her back but one day passes then two and by the third day her mom is sure something is very wrong so she calls up one of michelle's friends debbie [06:06] Michelle had this like close group of friends and they all shared keys to one another places. So Mary Lou asked her if she would just go over there and check on Michelle. She's like, I can't get a hold of her. All of this is super weird. And my sister, Terry, is supposed to be there and I can't get a hold of her either. So Debbie grabs her keys and heads over. And before she pulls like into the driveway, she calls their other friend, Lisa, the one that was actually supposed to come over that first night. And she explains what's going on, asks her to come over too.

[06:36] in, she sees both cars. Like she knows everyone's home. So she walks up to the front door and starts knocking, but no one comes to the door. She waits a little bit. [06:48] And she's not even hearing so much as like a rustle behind the door. So her knocks become more frantic. In an almost full panic now, she tries to put the key to like unlock the door. But it's just sticking. It's not working. She can't get in. So she starts walking around the house. First to the living room windows, like banging on the windows, calling out Michelle's name. Then around to the bedroom windows, like again, banging, banging, banging, calling out her name, not getting a single response. [07:18] the house. She spots the glass door on Michelle's garage and she can see right in. [07:25] And what she sees chills her to her core. It's Michelle's uncle Charlie hanging from the roof of the garage from a bed sheet. And Debbie immediately calls police to the scene. [07:38] When police arrived, they used Debbie's key to get into the house. I thought it didn't work. So it didn't for Debbie, but I have to believe that maybe it was some kind of divine intervention. Either she was using the wrong key, like, again, all the friends had keys to each other's houses, or it's something we can't explain. But for whatever reason— The lock stuck and she couldn't get in. Yeah, and it would be a blessing that she couldn't get into the home on her own that day.

[08:08] and scarred even the most seasoned investigators. Inside that home, they found Terry slumped over on the couch with seven stab wounds to her chest. As they made their way further back into the house to Michelle's master bedroom, I assume they expected to find a similarly tragic scene. But what they found was so much worse. Yeah. [08:36] When they opened the door to Michelle's bedroom, it's been said that the sight was so horrific that officers ran out of the house to throw up. Michelle's body was placed on her bed. It was determined that her cause of death was one fatal stab wound to her chest. But after she was deceased, she had been decapitated. [09:06] her. [09:06] her breasts were severed and her body was cut [09:10] open and her organs, including her heart, had been removed and placed around her body while her intestines were put in the trash. Now, the rest of the room was littered with her underwear and bras from Victoria's Secret. When the police and investigators are able to regain their composure, because again, this is something that shook every single one of them to their core, they went outside

[09:40] they asked them to describe Michelle to them and once police confirmed what they already feared that it was Michelle inside they told the girls about the murders Michelle's friend was the one who called Michelle's dad and she just remembers crying into the phone saying over and over again Michelle's dead she's dead she's dead [10:03] In the first few hours after this horrific crime, everyone is baffled and confused. They didn't understand how something like this could happen. Like, who would have wanted to hurt Michelle and Terry and Charlie? But police are quick to correct them. In the early stages of the investigation, they already had a theory. This was a murder-suicide perpetrated by Charlie. But this didn't make any sense. [10:28] any more sense to the family. Like, how could this have happened? Charlie was the most normal guy in the world. He and Terry were married for, what, almost two decades. Everyone said they were a perfect couple. He had a great job. He was smart. He'd spent time with Michelle a ton of times before. Like, what happened now? And police were just as confused as everyone else. They came to the conclusion, because of the manner of death, that it was obvious Charlie had killed Michelle [10:58] and then killed himself. But the reason behind it was a total mystery. Okay, I assume they pulled his records, though. Like... [11:06] Did he have some secret double life? Had he ever been in trouble with the law before? I mean, the first thing they, of course, did was pull Charlie's records. But he was totally clean. There were no arrests. His fingerprints had never been entered in the system before. Prior to this event, Charlie would not have turned any heads. Officers who would have, like, come across him maybe on a routine stop would have thought he was just your average Joe. But there was something they didn't know, something that was hidden from Charlie's records.

[11:36] it doesn't come up to anyone's attention until Charlie's older sister, Angela, is called in to talk to police. And before they can even start talking, she stops them and says, I have to tell something to you people. And the next thing to come out of her mouth would forever change this investigation. [11:57] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [12:16] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [12:23] wherever you get your podcasts. [12:26] Angela tells police there's something you need to know about Charlie. The reason I don't seem to be as shocked as everyone else about what he did to his wife and niece. He's murdered before. And at first, this doesn't seem possible. Yeah, again, they look at Charlie's records. He was clean. Angela, like, had to have been confused. They didn't know what was going on. But she persists. She said, no, you won't have his records. [12:56] murdered our mother. Angela goes on to tell a horrific story set in 1971. The Brant family, which was Angela, who was 15, Charlie, 13, and their two younger sisters were like two and three, very small. They lived in the town of Fort Wayne, Indiana with their dad and their mom, who was eight months pregnant. To everyone, the Brants were a normal family. Charlie was a normal

[13:26] No one could have expected what happened on January 3rd, 1971. The Brantz had all been up that night watching TV together before it was time to go to bed. After their program, Angela had gone to her room to read. The younger girls were like already asleep and mom and dad went to the bathroom to get ready for bed as well. [13:46] Charlie's mom got into the bath while his dad stood over the bathroom sink. Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie's dad spotted him coming into the bathroom. The next words out of his mouth were, Charlie, no, Charlie, stop. 13-year-old Charlie held a gun and fired once into his dad's back, then went to the bathtub, stood over his pregnant mother, and fired five shots into her. [14:16] Now, Angela is like hearing this from her room. She's hearing her dad yelling. And before she could even make it out of her bedroom, there was Charlie standing in her doorway. He had something in his hand. But in that moment, Angela couldn't even put together what he was holding or what was happening. It all just seemed so unreal. And as she's explaining all of this to police nearly 33 years later, she explains that some of it's fuzzy. Some of it she doesn't remember. [14:46] memory, but she remembers Charlie pointing the gun right at her and then hearing her [14:53] a click. [14:54] as he pulled the trigger. The gun wouldn't fire, and she doesn't know exactly how, but the next thing she remembers is her and Charlie entangled in a physical altercation, and she kicks the gun away. They're wrestling, and she assumes that she got hit by a few good blows because later she'd be bruised and bloody, and as they're fighting, she kept saying to him, Charlie, I love you. What are you doing? I love you. Then, all of a sudden,

[15:23] Angie said that she was looking Charlie right in the eyes and he had this like glazed and crazed look that all of a sudden just like [15:33] disappeared, like he snapped out of something. And he asked her, [15:38] What did I do? And, you know, Angie says, I don't know. Like, I think you shot our parents, but I need to go check. Like, get off me. Get off me. Both children at this point are freaking out. Charlie, because of what he had just done. And Angie, because she is terrified to her core of her own brother. He kept asking, like, what they were going to do. And Angie kept saying she didn't know. But she knew she had to be calm. She couldn't risk him being afraid of her. [16:08] that she's like on his side and she's going to take care of them and their sisters. And she starts to head down the stairs and she's telling Charlie that they should leave, but they have to take their sisters with them. So she tells him, you go upstairs, get me some blankets for the girls. Like it's winter out. They need to be bundled up. So he starts walking back up the stairs, but he's walking backwards. And the whole time he's asking Angie, you're not going to leave me, are you? Like promise me you won't leave me. [16:38] And of course, she says no all the while, knowing as soon as he's far enough away, she was going to make a run for it. As Charlie got higher and higher on the staircase, still looking at her, she bolted for the front door. And she runs out, running through the snow in her bloodied nightgown, barefoot, screaming for anyone to save her from her brother. She ran to one of the neighbor's houses and pounded on the door.

[17:08] her brother closing in behind her. She could hear him yelling, Angie, you promised, you promised you wouldn't leave me. Those would be words that she would hear in the back of her mind for the rest of her life. Angie ended up running to another neighbor's, but Charlie went right up to the first door that Angela was at. He knocked again, softer than his sister had, and a young girl opened the door. Charlie stood there in the cold and just calmly said, [17:36] I shot my parents. Police and paramedics were called to the scene and life-saving measures were performed. Charlie's dad actually ended up surviving the incident, but his mother and her unborn child didn't even have a fighting chance. Both she and her unborn baby died in the tub that January night. And no one could figure out why. So fast forward to 2004. Suddenly, police had kind of a motive. [18:06] Not a great one. But this story that Angela told them at least provided that there was like some kind of darkness that existed within Charlie. Something that had been there all along, but maybe now just resurfaced. The common thread here is women, right? Maybe, yeah. I mean... [18:25] Dad only got one shot. Mom got a whole gun unloaded on her practically. And then what he did to Michelle? Cutting off her breasts and there's underwear everywhere? Yeah. And so people have theorized this before that he had some kind of hatred for women. But here's the crazy part. Like, I agree with everything you said. This, it's...

[18:45] This all seems like he is targeting... [18:48] women specifically. As far as I know, they've never connected him to a male victim. But the weird part for me is everyone who knew Charlie said that not only did he and his mom have a good relationship, but he was what everyone called a mama's boy, which... [19:05] makes this so much more shocking, I think. Like... [19:09] I personally know a mama's boy. We have a mama's boy who edits this podcast. And don't you dare take that out, David. [19:17] I do. I think it would make it all the more shocking to find out that someone who was so close to their mother and who would be described as a mama's boy would do something like this. Right. Like, I think everyone would have expected, you know, kind of a bad kid or maybe an antisocial kid, a kid who gets into a lot of trouble, maybe is involved in drugs. [19:37] not a mama's boy. Like you said, like not someone who's good in school, who gets along well with people. And I, [19:44] I think you want to believe you can see something like this coming, but it sounds like you couldn't. Right. And that's what made this so terrifying to a small Indiana community back in 1971. I'm sure parents started locking their own bedroom doors at night or even looking at their kids a little differently. Like, what are they capable of and how do you try and help them when there are apparently no warning signs? Yeah. And I guess that's what I'm struggling to believe. Like, there had to be something, right? [20:14] wanted to believe that because to believe that some people are just born bad apples is terrifying. Charlie underwent three separate psychological evaluations. Each time the professional was looking for some underlying signs of like a specific mental illness that could explain away his behavior or at least explain what contributed to it. But each of them reported that Charlie

[20:44] Now, according to some online sources, he was too young to be charged with murder under Indiana law. Wait, we have a law like that? I don't know what the laws were in 71. I know that now laws are not structured that way at all. And I couldn't find somebody who like specialized in old Indiana laws. But I have to assume there was some issue with charging him because he never went to prison. Instead, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. [21:14] a year in the hospital, it's my understanding that his dad actually fought to get him released. And I'm not sure why. Like, as a parent, feel free to weigh in here because in my mind, I'm like, you stay there as long as you need. Like, I'm gonna wait for the professionals to tell me when you can come home without trying to shoot me again. Uh, yeah, that seems a lot safer. Honestly, I don't know if I would miss my kid enough to be like, yeah, you can just come home and be dangerous. [21:44] Like it would be scary, right? Like I have to assume there is like this bond, like you want to protect your child. I get that. And you feel like you know that. But part of protecting them is getting them the help they need. Exactly. Like to me, I would want to get to the root of why this happened. Otherwise, I'd be so afraid of something like this happening again. But clearly there was a reason his dad wasn't worried. Maybe it was just his parental instinct. Maybe there is more to this story that the public will never be privy to. Who knows?

[22:14] least Charlie's dad moved the entire family to Florida. Now there isn't a lot known about Charlie's life as a child in Florida but here's what I can piece together. I think he had some grandparents who lived down there so his dad probably moved to get some help. I mean after all he's alone now with four kids but also I can imagine you'd like you'd want to start over in a new city. Fort Wayne isn't a super small town as far as Indiana goes but I'm sure everyone knew the story of what [22:44] real chance of growing up normal. It would be hard to do there. So they moved to Florida and within a year, his dad remarries. And here's what I don't get. His dad moves the family back to Indiana, but leaves Charlie behind with his grandparents. And I, for the life of me, can't figure out why. I can guess until I'm blue in the face and I think I have some pretty good guesses, [23:14] of like gloss over it. But to me, this is a huge deal and maybe one of the biggest keys in the case. Like, was there something still there that anyone could have seen? Right. And I know we aren't going to go down this rabbit hole. The listeners can speculate for themselves. But I do want to bring up one thought. [23:33] Could it have been that his siblings didn't feel safe around him? Like, I get as a parent, you still feel the need to protect them and all that. But I would imagine his sisters would still be... [23:43] super confused and scared, especially Angela. Yeah, well, so here's the thing. Angela obviously knew because she was 15 when it happened. Charlie, like, actually tried to kill her.

[23:54] But the other two younger sisters who were, like I said, like three and two when their mother was killed, no one ever told them what really happened. They were told that their mother died in a car accident or something like that. And they lived their entire lives until 2004 having no idea what their brother had done or the truth about their mother's death. Oh, my God. But they weren't the only ones. Almost no one spoke of the incident after it happened. [24:24] like this dark stain on the family's past, and they wanted to just move on. They wanted Charlie to live a normal life, and it really seemed like that's what was happening. Charlie, for a long time, was proof to everyone that children shouldn't be punished like adults because they aren't fully developed, and, you know, there really is so much room for change. But in 2004, when Charlie committed that horrible act against his niece and his wife, everyone questioned if the opposite was true. Like, he had clearly never changed, [24:54] still just as evil, it seemed, as he was back then. But while the public went back and forth trying to decide if, like, once evil is always evil, and if you suppress it long enough, will whatever it is eventually explode out of you, police had a different question. They didn't think Charlie had been suppressing his evil for 33 years. This 2004 crime was too perfect. It was too neat.

[25:24] mutilated with such precision that to police officers, the real question was, how many victims did Charlie have over the 33 years that he was pretending to be normal? [25:37] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. So [25:56] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [26:03] wherever you get your podcasts. [26:06] The more they looked at Charlie's life from his teens into his 40s, the more they heard disturbing stories. Like, no one person had all of the facts. But pieced together from everyone in his life, a very disturbing picture began to emerge. His sister Angie told police that even though the family forgave him and she really did love him, there was always an instinctual part of her that was scared of him. [26:36] with her, she would sleep with her door locked and barricaded shut. And she didn't want him around her kids. Now, I [26:43] Other people in Charlie's life, his co-workers, talked about how Charlie would talk about his niece at work sometimes, not calling her by name, but instead calling her by a nickname he gave her, Nia.

[26:57] He called her Victoria's Secret, the same brand of underwear that he threw around her room the night she was killed. And the same brand of magazine that Charlie had owned a subscription to. And also just not an appropriate nickname for your niece. None of it is. And people said at work that he would talk about her and like he almost had this obsession with her. He would talk about the men she dated, like no one was good enough for her. [27:27] So in addition to this unusual taste in magazines, [27:31] There was also other things found in Charlie's home that were like, [27:35] odd to say the least he had anatomy books in the house although neither Charlie or Terry ever worked in the medical profession and weirdest of all on the back of their bedroom door there was this poster and like I used to have posters on the back of my door but when I was 12 so weird [27:56] The poster on the back of their door is of the full anatomy of a woman. And it is the creepiest thing ever because when I heard this for the first time, I imagined like a skeletal picture, pretty like formless figure, whatever. Yeah. But oh no. When I saw the picture... [28:14] I got full body chills. It is a woman cut in half. One half shows the skeletal system. The other half shows the muscular system. But she has like a full head of hair done up into a bun. It is so, so creepy. Made only creepier by his internet search history, which included searches for autopsy photos, snuff films, necrophilia sites.

[28:44] check your husband's search history, but this case makes me want to. Another person who had a piece of the puzzle, but again, not the whole thing, was Charlie's best friend, Jim. Now, Jim was actually married to Angie at one time, which is how he and Charlie met, but the two became fast friends. Now, I will say, Jim was one of the few people who did know about Charlie's past. Angie had told him before getting married. She thought it was an important piece of family history, [29:14] Good to know. But fast forward some years later, Angie ends up leaving Jim. So Jim takes sanctuary at his best friend's house down in the Keys and they're like drinking. They're going to smoke. They're going to fish. They're going to just like be mad. It's what you do after a breakup. And listen, I know that like no one is thinking or talking 100% rationally in these instances. I get that like we all say things we don't mean when we're hurt. And even as a friend, we're saying things to like support the ones that are hurting. Oh, yeah. But you tell me if you think this is [29:44] so this is like day two of him coming down there and they're on this fishing boat and jim's just like mad and he's talking about how he wants to get revenge and charlie tells him well you know what the perfect revenge is jim [29:59] You kill somebody and then you cut their heart out and you eat it. That seems drastic. Right. It's not normal. It's not like you go out and find someone hotter. Yeah. And like make out with them or like go like take all the shots. Like, no. But I think it's extra disturbing because the person he's talking about is his own sister. Like, yeah, you would think he even though he's like his best friend's hurting, he would have some like shred of love for her.

[30:29] Cutting her heart out and eating it? Like, are you kidding me? And Jim knew about his past, right? Yes! Red flags... [30:36] everywhere. You would think that, right? But as far as Jim knew, Charlie hadn't done a thing wrong in years and years and years. Maybe he was just talking. And so Jim writes it off. But years later, [30:49] Jim hears another story straight from Terry that he shouldn't have written off because Terry was close to discovering who her husband really was. According to Jim, Terry pulled him aside one day and said she was thinking about calling the sheriff on Charlie. She said that she had come home early from work one day and Charlie was in their fish gutting room, which was just like the small utility room off their house. When she opened the door, [31:18] Charlie was covered in blood and there was blood all over the sink. And Jim's trying to calm Terry down and he's like, yeah, I get it. But like, that's the fish cleaning room. That's actually normal. There's always blood in there. And Terry says, yeah, I know that. [31:36] But there were no fish anywhere to be seen. And Jim keeps trying to make excuses for his best friend. But Terry cuts him off. She's like, no, listen to me. There was a girl that was murdered not too far from us. The same time they found her mutilated body in a rowboat. And I'm worried he might have done it. [31:56] What should I do? And, like, I get wanting to defend your best friend. But, Ashley, if Eric came to me and was like, listen, Ashley is into something dark, found her with a ton of blood...

[32:08] As much as I'd want to defend you, he's your husband. [32:12] gonna take his word for it. Well, to me, that's the crazy part. And I was gonna ask you what you would do if like that scenario presented itself. And I think I would say like better safe than sorry, again, especially knowing this weird background that Charlie has. Yeah. But Jim is like steadfast. And instead, he kind of like veers Terry the other way. He warns her, you know, if you call them like this is marriage ending, it's all over. And you just need to think about [32:42] police. Maybe that's true. I don't know if you can come back from your spouse thinking you're a murderer, but [32:49] Again, it's worth the phone call. Okay, so when they had this conversation, did anyone bring up the fact that he had murdered his mother? So... [32:59] They didn't. Again, we know Jim definitely knew. Angie had told him. But... [33:04] He never talked about it with Charlie or with anyone else for the full 33 years, like since the incident. Charlie had actually met Terry through Jim and the woman he was dating at the time. And when Charlie told him that he wanted to propose to Terry, Jim said, listen, have you told her about the thing? And Charlie says, no, no, I don't want to. And Jim says, you have to tell her, man. Like, if you don't tell her, I will. So Charlie just says like, OK, OK, fine. I'll tell her. [33:34] But then poof, surprise wedding. No one from the family is invited. And then Jim just never brings it up again. Now, he said that he like always implied that she knew because one time he'd asked him about having kids. And she's like, well, considering everything, I don't think we will. Or I don't think it'd be a good idea or whatever. And he took that to mean like considering the thing. But like if someone asked me, are you and Eric going to have kids?

[34:04] i.e. considering I have to research and write six episodes, considering I'm going on tour, considering I'm running a business, considering all that. [34:13] No, we're not right now. It's not a good time right now. It could have to me. It could have meant anything. And Terry's family swears up and down that she had absolutely no idea whatsoever. They said there would have been no way for her to keep that a secret. And moreover, like she wouldn't have been with him, they say, if she knew he was capable of something like that. [34:35] Now the family and sometimes investigators point to her journal as proof. She kept this little like daily log. It wasn't the kind of journal you're probably thinking where she like details each day. It was more like a planner where she just jotted down significant notes like had a nice dinner with Charlie, went out fishing or, you know, [34:53] One of them was marked weird day. So there was nothing in there about finding out big news. However, I do think she had to have had some deep concerns about Charlie. Aside from the incident where she wanted to call the sheriff on him, she also made a couple little notes in that daily planner, like Charlie stayed out all night. Charlie got home at 3 a.m., stuff like that. But no one person other than Jim suggested that Terry could have known anything [35:23] They think she was totally surprised by his actions that night, and I wonder if maybe in those few fleeting and final moments she didn't realize that her darkest suspicions about her husband were right all along.

[35:36] because they were. [35:39] After Charlie took the life of his niece and his wife and then took his own life in 2004, police opened up a large scale investigation. They were sure this had to have happened before. It was reported by some media outlets that they were looking at up to 26 cases with similar MOs where like the victim had been decapitated and or had organs removed. [36:09] the other isn't [36:10] super rare when you're talking about depraved killers, but to have both of those is. And I imagine, though, that when they're looking at his M.O., [36:19] I would hope that they expanded out a little bit further of that because I think what we all know is that killers don't tend to just start there. Like their first one isn't a decapitation and mutilation. They usually build up in their crimes getting more and more depraved. Though this group of investigators got together over a decade ago to link other crimes to Charlie, no official list has been created of his victims. Except for they do conclusively say that he has more. [36:49] victims who have been conclusively linked to him. But beyond that, like there is no large list. No one has ever like laid out all 26 people that they're looking at. Now, one of the victims that is believed to have been his was Sherry Parisho. She was found decapitated and her heart had been removed. And she is actually the one who was found in that rowboat beneath the bridge near Charlie's

[37:19] 1989. And back in 1989, this was an MO that they'd never seen before in the area. It was terrifying. And all they had was a composite sketch of a man who was seen running across like US Route 1 near where she was discovered. And I've got a picture of the sketch on our website. It actually looks a lot like Charlie. And they can tell from her boat that her boat was used like a [37:49] no idea who that would have been. Okay, so I'm bad at math, but that's like 15 years before Michelle and Terry and almost two decades after his mom. Yeah. [38:01] Is there really nothing else? [38:02] Well, right. So police are confident that they can link him to a 1995 murder as well. There was a woman named Darlene Toler in Miami who was found wrapped in a blanket and then wrapped in a tarp off the highway. And when they unwrapped her body, they found that her head and her heart were missing as well. Did they ever find the heart and head? From my understanding, no. And it kind of makes me wonder... [38:30] This might be really gruesome, but if he was eating them, that's because that's what he told Jim to do for revenge. But that's never been confirmed. And it's also kind of contradicted to me by the fact that he didn't do anything with Michelle's organs. Like he just left them around her body, even though he would have had ample opportunity to fulfill whatever fantasy he had. But I think law enforcement are confident enough to connect him to this specific case of Darlene because of what was found in his vehicle.

[39:00] police found dog hairs similar to dog hairs that were found in Charlie's car. But Charlie and Terry didn't have a dog. They had a cat. And my understanding is that Charlie had actually helped out a friend at this time taking her dog to the vet. And early on, it was believed that those were like the same dog hairs. And eventually DNA testing was done that confirmed it. So there was no way this victim would have had hair from one of Charlie's friend's dog unless she was somehow [39:30] truck, the same truck that the dog had been in. And additionally, Charlie kept meticulous mile logs for his travels. And on the day that Darlene went missing, he had an extra 100 mile trip that couldn't be explained. And here's just a weird side note about the friend with the dog. Like I said earlier, everyone saw this normal guy and each person only got maybe one or two glimpses into the real Charlie. About 12 years before the murder, Charlie wrote her like a three [40:00] you [40:00] She said, listen... [40:02] this can't be. Like, I love you like a brother. I love Terry like a sister, but like nothing's going to happen between us. And she said after that, like she didn't like to see him. But after that, for the longest time, she would have dreams about Charlie chasing her and trying to kill her. And this is like the guttural instinct I think we all have. Like even if it's just our subconscious that comes through deep down, if we listen to ourselves, we know when something isn't right.

[40:32] called The Invisible Killer, The Monster Behind the Mask. And in this book, the author theorized that Charlie was also responsible for two more murders. And I'll tell you about them, but I want to be very clear that they have not been connected to Charlie by law enforcement. And at least in the first case, the family was actually upset that the author just like lumped them all together. So while they might have been some of the initial 26 that police looked into, [41:02] you know, Charlie is the perpetrator of the crime for sure. The first one is Carol Sullivan, and she went missing in 1978. She was just 12, about to turn 13. And it's devastating because this was the very first day that she was going to walk to the school bus on her own. Like, she was about to turn 13. She told her mom, like, I'm old enough. Oh, my God. She went missing, and later her skull would be found in a paint can. And the reason this comes up and she's connected to Charlie [41:32] and because Charlie did live in the area that she went missing from. Now, the other victim that he was linked to was a woman named Lisa Saunders, who at age 20 in 1988, 10 years after Carol Sullivan was killed, was found nude and lifeless on the side of the road in some bushes in an area named No Name Key. Vultures were actually what alerted authorities to the body.

[42:02] eyes, neck muscles, appendix, colon, vagina, left fallopian tube, ovaries, bladder, thyroid gland, and parts of her lung. Now, she had marks on her body indicating that her killer tied her to the back of a car as well and drug her about a half a mile before dumping her body. The pathologist couldn't say whether the organs were removed by a person or by the vultures. [42:32] at all, or [42:34] if maybe the cuts were crude and could be mistaken for vulture marks, maybe this is just the early signs of what was to come. Like if this is truly connected, maybe his methods were just more crude and he wasn't as well practiced. But here's the thing. Like I said, those have never been conclusively linked to Charlie. He died in 2004. And in 2015, there are still articles about Lisa offering a Crimestoppers reward. So this case is far from being considered closed. [43:04] Not much else has been released about the 26 deaths that were investigated in connection to Charlie, or if any could be officially closed without him here to talk about them. In the book that I mentioned, there is a big section where they kind of line up Terry's story. [43:20] daily journal entries with suspected victims. And it is really interesting. There are times where either she's out of town or she's like, you know, Charlie's acting really weird. He's been really funny these last couple of days. That kind of line up well, but we know, you know,

[43:35] that's not proof of necessarily anything. I do think there were a lot of women who suffered at the hands of Charlie between the time he was 13 and when he died in his 40s. Women here in the U.S., maybe women in the Bahamas where he lived for a short time, but we will likely never know a true number. And we'll likely never know why. Like, was Charlie Brandt just born evil or did something happen? I think... [44:02] Very few people hold the real answer to that. One of those people is Rob Hemmert, who was the lead investigator on Michelle and Terry's case. In 2006, Charlie's mental health records were released to him. And he said that the records helped him understand why Charlie committed his crimes. And in the same book that I referenced earlier, it said that Charlie's mother nagged him. And growing up, his father, who grew up in Germany during Hitler's regime, was overly strict. [44:32] But... [44:33] Like, could that really be what made him that way? [44:37] The rest of us are just left to speculate. [44:41] If you guys want to see pictures from this case, like the sketch or that really weird anatomy poster, you guys can go to our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on social at Crime Junkie Pod on Twitter and at Crime Junkie Podcast on Instagram.

[45:11] And we will be back next week with a brand new episode. [45:34] you [45:35] you [45:37] you [45:39] you [45:42] Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [45:50] Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [46:08] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. [46:12] I think you'll love it too. [46:13] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.