Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre: Part One
Sources:
https://lascruces.gov/las-cruces-mass-shooting-unsolved-after-35-years/
https://www.borderreport.com/regions/new-mexico/las-cruces-bowling-alley-massacre-still-unsolved-after-nearly-4-decades/
https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/las-cruces-police-seek-new-leads-in-1990-mass-shooting-case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Cruces_bowling_alley_massacre
https://www.krwg.org/regional/2017-02-10/27-year-anniversary-of-las-cruces-bowling-alley-massacre?
https://kfoxtv.com/news/crime-news/family-remembers-victim-of-bowling-alley-massacre-investigation-continues
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now.
Speaker 2: True Crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,
Speaker 2: the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about
Speaker 2: more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension,
Speaker 2: home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories,
Speaker 2: the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it
Speaker 2: all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for being here. I've said this before,
Speaker 2: but I'll say it again. Time is money, and things
Speaker 2: are so darn expensive these days that your time is
Speaker 2: more valuable than ever. And boy, I sure do appreciate
Speaker 2: you choosing to spend that time with me. I am
Speaker 2: Zevanote And this is kind of Murdery. And today I'm
Speaker 2: going to be telling you a story that was inspired
Speaker 2: by the suggestion of a listener named Paul, who brought
Speaker 2: to my attention the Los Crusius Bowling Alley massacre. So
Speaker 2: here we go. That's where we're headed today. This is
Speaker 2: part one of kind of murders the Los Crucis Bowling
Speaker 2: Alley Massacre, and it starts now February tenth, nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: Saturday morning in Los Crusis, New Mexico. The place is
Speaker 2: Los Crusis Bowl. Nothing special from the outside, a low
Speaker 2: building with a wide parking lot, the kind of spot
Speaker 2: people go to because they've been going there for years. Inside,
Speaker 2: it's exactly what you'd expect. Long rows of lanes stretching
Speaker 2: out under fluorescent lights, the steady smell of oil and
Speaker 2: cleaner baked into the wood, and the carpet front counter
Speaker 2: off to one side where they handle shoes and payments,
Speaker 2: and that a small office, tight functional where they keep
Speaker 2: the safe, the paperwork and money from the night before.
Speaker 2: Mornings like this don't carry much weight. You're not dealing
Speaker 2: with the crowd yet. It's just opening up lights, registers,
Speaker 2: getting everything ready before the first customers drift in. The
Speaker 2: routine doesn't change. Unlock the doors, count the cash, check
Speaker 2: the drawers, make sure nothing's off from the previous night.
Speaker 2: It's muscle memory more than anything. People move through it
Speaker 2: without thinking. There were seven people inside that morning, employees
Speaker 2: getting the place ready, moving between the counter and the
Speaker 2: office handling the same tasks they handled every weekend. A
Speaker 2: couple of kids were there too. That wasn't unusual. Bowling
Speaker 2: alleys always had that overlap work and family. People hanging
Speaker 2: around because they were part of the place, not just
Speaker 2: passing through it. Nobody's on edge, nobody's watching the door
Speaker 2: thinking about who might come through it. There's no reason to.
Speaker 2: The office door opens and closes as part of the routine.
Speaker 2: Someone steps in to check the safe, steps back out.
Speaker 2: Another goes in to grab something, maybe paperwork, maybe to
Speaker 2: confirm the count. It's all ordinary, the kind of movement
Speaker 2: that doesn't stick in your memory because it happens the
Speaker 2: same way every time. The front door is unlocked, that's standard.
Speaker 2: You don't keep it shut at that hour. You're open,
Speaker 2: even if the business hasn't started yet. It's a glass door.
Speaker 2: You can see straight through into the building from the
Speaker 2: parking lot. Lights are on, people are moving place looks active.
Speaker 2: Nothing about it says stay out. From outside, it looks
Speaker 2: like any other morning. Inside it feels like one too.
Speaker 2: No raised voices, no urgency, no sense that anything is
Speaker 2: about to break from the pattern. Just people doing their jobs,
Speaker 2: moving through a space they know in a rhythm. They
Speaker 2: don't have to think about any more. That's how it was.
Speaker 2: When the door opened, two men walk in. Nobody reacts
Speaker 2: right away. At that hour, people come and go. Someone
Speaker 2: might be early, might be looking for a lane, might
Speaker 2: be there to ask a question at the counter. You
Speaker 2: don't stop what you're doing. Every time the door opens,
Speaker 2: your glance maybe, then you go back to whatever your handing.
Speaker 2: That's how places like this work. You assume anyone who
Speaker 2: walks in belongs there. They don't announce themselves, they don't hurry.
Speaker 2: They come in through the entrance like they've done it before,
Speaker 2: like they know exactly what kind of place this is
Speaker 2: and how it operates in the morning. That's the part
Speaker 2: that matters. Nothing about their injury forces a reaction. For
Speaker 2: a few seconds, they're just there, part of the same
Speaker 2: space as everyone else. Then they start talking. It's not loud,
Speaker 2: not aggressive in the way people expect trouble to sound.
Speaker 2: It's controlled, direct, the kind of tone that cuts through
Speaker 2: what's already happening without needing volume. People stop moving not
Speaker 2: because they're startled, but because something in the way it's
Speaker 2: said doesn't fit. It doesn't belong in the rhythm of
Speaker 2: the room. The guns come out right after that. That's
Speaker 2: when everything settles or unsettles into place. Nobody asks questions,
Speaker 2: nobody tests it. There's no confusion about what's happening. Once
Speaker 2: the weapons are visible, the room changes without anyone having
Speaker 2: to say it out loud. The distance between people, the
Speaker 2: open space that existed a minute earlier. That all stops mattering.
Speaker 2: The guns take that away. What's left is compliance. They
Speaker 2: tell everyone to move the office. That's where they want them.
Speaker 2: They don't grab anyone, they don't chase any one down.
Speaker 2: They don't need to. The instructions are enough, and the
Speaker 2: guns make sure those instructions get followed. One person moves,
Speaker 2: then another, then the rest. It happens in sequence, steady controlled,
Speaker 2: no scrambling, no sudden break for the door. There isn't
Speaker 2: an opening for that. They keep talking while it happens,
Speaker 2: not yelling, just directing who goes first, who follows, where
Speaker 2: to stand once they're inside. It's specific without being complicated.
Speaker 2: Every step is clear, and nobody inside the building has
Speaker 2: any reason to think that ignoring it would end well.
Speaker 2: The office starts filling up. One person goes in, then another,
Speaker 2: then another, until all seven are inside. That room. It
Speaker 2: wasn't built for that many people. You can see it
Speaker 2: in how they have to stand, how close they are
Speaker 2: to each other, how there's no space left. Once the
Speaker 2: last one crosses the threshold, the door is right there
Speaker 2: behind them, still open for a moment. As the last
Speaker 2: person steps through, the two men follow them in. They
Speaker 2: don't stay outside, and they don't leave anyone in the
Speaker 2: main area. They bring the whole situation into that room
Speaker 2: with them and close the distance down to nothing. One
Speaker 2: of them shifts slightly toward the door, keeping it in
Speaker 2: his line of sight. The other faces the group. They
Speaker 2: don't need to say anything to make it clear what
Speaker 2: comes next. The door closes. Out on the lanes, nothing
Speaker 2: is changed. The lights are still on, the front counter
Speaker 2: is still empty. The entrance is still unlocked. A glass
Speaker 2: door facing the parking lot, just like it always does.
Speaker 2: Anyone driving past would see the same thing they would
Speaker 2: have five minutes earlier. Inside the office, every bit of
Speaker 2: that morning has been pulled into one room and locked
Speaker 2: in place. Once the door shuts, the rest of the
Speaker 2: building might as well not exist. Everything is inside the
Speaker 2: office now, seven people packed into a room that was
Speaker 2: never meant to hold them, There's a desk pushed against
Speaker 2: one wall, filing cabinets, the safe. That's it. No extra space,
Speaker 2: no corner to step into and get distance. Everyone's close
Speaker 2: enough to feel each other, shifting, breathing, trying not to
Speaker 2: move more than they have to. The two men stay
Speaker 2: in the room with them. They don't hover or pace
Speaker 2: like they're unsure of what to do. They settle into
Speaker 2: positions that give them control of the whole space. One
Speaker 2: keeps the door in his peripheral vision, making sure nothing
Speaker 2: changes behind him. The other watches the group directly. The
Speaker 2: guns are still out, still steady, still doing all the work.
Speaker 2: Nobody needs to be reminded what they mean. The men
Speaker 2: start giving instructions again, not rushed, not complicated, simple things.
Speaker 2: Where to stand, who sits, how to position themselves so
Speaker 2: everyone stays visible. It's not about efficiency, it's about control.
Speaker 2: Every adjustment keeps the room exactly how they want it.
Speaker 2: Nobody moves unless they're told to, and when they are
Speaker 2: told to, it's small, deliberate, just enough to tighten the
Speaker 2: space even more. There's no talking from anyone else, not
Speaker 2: the kind that carries across the room anyway. No questions,
Speaker 2: no attempts to slow things down or redirect what's happening.
Speaker 2: People answer when they're told to answer. Otherwise, they stay quiet,
Speaker 2: the kind of quiet that isn't natural, the kind of
Speaker 2: quiet that's forced into place. Time doesn't move the way
Speaker 2: it did a few minutes earlier. There's no sense of
Speaker 2: what's happening outside that room. No sound from the lanes,
Speaker 2: no door opening, no interruption from the front of the building.
Speaker 2: The office is sealed off in a way that has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with locks or barriers. It's sealed because
Speaker 2: everything that matters is happening inside it, and nothing from
Speaker 2: outside is getting in. The men don't rush. That's the
Speaker 2: part that doesn't fit if you're thinking about this like
Speaker 2: a simple robbery. They're not in a hurry to get
Speaker 2: through it. They don't act like they're worried about how
Speaker 2: long they've been there or who might show up. They've
Speaker 2: taken the room and they're holding it like time isn't
Speaker 2: a factor. Nobody's been hurt yet. But the way things
Speaker 2: are set up, it's clear that that's not because it
Speaker 2: couldn't happen. It's because it hasn't happened yet. The space
Speaker 2: stays tight, the door stays closed, The rest of the
Speaker 2: building stays quiet and unchanged, like nothing has been interrupted.
Speaker 2: Anyone walking in through the front entrance would still see
Speaker 2: lights on lanes empty, a normal morning in progress. Inside
Speaker 2: the office, seven people are standing or sitting where they've
Speaker 2: been placed, close enough so that there's no room left
Speaker 2: between them, under the control of two men who haven't
Speaker 2: needed to raise their voices once to take over the
Speaker 2: entire building, and they're still not done. It comes out simple,
Speaker 2: no speech, no build up, just what they want and
Speaker 2: who's going to give it to them. The office is
Speaker 2: where the money's kept, so they've already put themselves exactly
Speaker 2: where they need to be. No searching, no moving people
Speaker 2: back out into the open. Everything happens right there. They
Speaker 2: tell them to open the safe. Whoever has access steps
Speaker 2: forward and does it. Hands aren't steady, but they get
Speaker 2: the job done. There's no hesitation that changes anything. Nobody's arguing,
Speaker 2: nobody's stalling. With two guns in the room and nowhere
Speaker 2: to go, there's only one direction this part can take.
Speaker 2: The safe opens, cash is taken out and hand it over.
Speaker 2: Bills from the night before, operating money for the day,
Speaker 2: not a huge amount, something in the range of four
Speaker 2: or five thousand dollars, enough to matter to the business,
Speaker 2: not enough to explain anything beyond a straightforward robbery. They
Speaker 2: take it. At that point, it should be finished. That's
Speaker 2: how it usually goes. You get what you came for,
Speaker 2: you leave, Nobody gets hurt if nobody complicates it. The
Speaker 2: room should have opened back up, the door should have
Speaker 2: been unlocked, and the whole thing should have ended as
Speaker 2: fast as it started. But it doesn't. The men don't
Speaker 2: move toward the door. They don't back out of the office.
Speaker 2: They don't release anyone or tell them to stay put
Speaker 2: while they leave. They stay right where they are, holding
Speaker 2: the same positions, keeping the same control that they've had
Speaker 2: from the start. The money is already in their hands,
Speaker 2: but nothing about the room changes. The people inside don't
Speaker 2: get any space back. They don't get any distance from
Speaker 2: each other or from the two men. The guns are
Speaker 2: still there, still pointed, still keeping everything exactly where it is.
Speaker 2: The instructions stopped for a moment, but the robber's control
Speaker 2: of the room doesn't. Time starts to feel different, not
Speaker 2: because anything new is happening, but because nothing is happening
Speaker 2: when it should be. The part that made sense, the
Speaker 2: robbery has already been completed. What's left doesn't line up
Speaker 2: with that any more. The two men shift slightly in
Speaker 2: the room, small movements to keep everyone in view. One
Speaker 2: adjusts his position near the door, making sure it stays covered.
Speaker 2: The other keeps his focus on the group. They don't
Speaker 2: look like they're deciding what to do next. They look
Speaker 2: like they already know. Nobody's told to leave, nobody's told
Speaker 2: to sit tight and wait. They're just held there. The
Speaker 2: door stays closed behind them. The rest of the building
Speaker 2: stays quiet. Out front. The glass entrance still shows a
Speaker 2: place that looks open and lit, ready for business. There's
Speaker 2: no sign from the outside that anything has changed inside
Speaker 2: the office. The robbery is over, but the room is
Speaker 2: still locked in place, and no one inside has been
Speaker 2: given a reason why they should have been gone already.
Speaker 2: The men, the robbers, They should have been gone. That's
Speaker 2: the part that starts to sit wrong, even if nobody
Speaker 2: inside the room says it out loud. The money's already
Speaker 2: in their hands. There's nothing left to take, nothing left
Speaker 2: to open, nothing left to explain. Every step that would
Speaker 2: normally bring something like this to an end has already happened.
Speaker 2: But the two men stay where they are. They don't hurry,
Speaker 2: They don't move toward the door. They don't tell anyone
Speaker 2: to lie down or count to a hundred while they leave.
Speaker 2: They don't create distance between themselves and the people in
Speaker 2: the room. If anything, they keep that distance exactly the same,
Speaker 2: tight controlled, close enough that no one in the room
Speaker 2: could shift position without being noticed immediately. The room holds
Speaker 2: nobody inside. It moves unless they're told to. Nobody speaks
Speaker 2: unless they're answering something directly. The kind of quiet that
Speaker 2: settles in isn't natural. It's the result of everything being
Speaker 2: locked into place with no indication of what comes next.
Speaker 2: The two men make small adjustments. One steps a little
Speaker 2: closer to the desk, then back. The other angles himself
Speaker 2: slightly so he can see everyone without turning his head.
Speaker 2: They're not pacing, not restless. It's measured. Every movement has
Speaker 2: a purpose, even if that purpose isn't clear to anyone
Speaker 2: else in the room. They're not arguing, they're not asking
Speaker 2: each other what to do. There's no moment where one
Speaker 2: of them hesitates or looks uncertain. Whatever they're doing, they're
Speaker 2: doing it together, and they're doing it like they expected
Speaker 2: to still be standing in that room at this point,
Speaker 2: and that's what makes the time stretch. It's not just
Speaker 2: that they're staying, it's that they're staying without any sign
Speaker 2: that something has gone wrong. No complication, no interruption, nothing
Speaker 2: forcing them to linger. The robbery didn't stall out or
Speaker 2: take longer than planned. It happened clean, and still they're there. Outside.
Speaker 2: Nothing changes. The building doesn't react because it doesn't have
Speaker 2: a way to the front. Door stays unlocked. The parking
Speaker 2: lot doesn't fill up. No one walks in at the
Speaker 2: wrong moment. There's no outside pressure pushing against what's happening
Speaker 2: in that office, and inside the office, the air feels heavier,
Speaker 2: not because anything new has happened, but because nothing has happened.
Speaker 2: That explains why they haven't left. The longer it goes,
Speaker 2: the harder it is to match what's happening in that
Speaker 2: room with what it's supposed to be. Nobody is released,
Speaker 2: nobody is separated out. Everyone stays in that same tight space,
Speaker 2: close enough to hear every movement, every shift of weight,
Speaker 2: every small adjustment that the two men make. The guns
Speaker 2: haven't gone away, they haven't lowered them or put them aside.
Speaker 2: Now that the money's been taken. They keep them ready,
Speaker 2: part of the same control that they've had from the
Speaker 2: start that never changes. There's a point at which it
Speaker 2: stops feeling like they're waiting for something, and it starts
Speaker 2: feeling like the waiting itself is part of it. And
Speaker 2: then the shooting starts. There isn't a warning that changes
Speaker 2: anything in the room, no shift that opens space or
Speaker 2: gives anyone a chance to move differently than they already have.
Speaker 2: It comes out of the same control the two men
Speaker 2: have held from the moment they walked in like it
Speaker 2: belongs to the sequence that they've been following the whole time.
Speaker 2: The first shot is fired at close range in a
Speaker 2: room that small, there's no distance for it to travel.
Speaker 2: The sound fills everything up at once. It doesn't echo
Speaker 2: out into the rest of the building in any way
Speaker 2: that brings help. It stays contained the same way that
Speaker 2: everything else has stayed contained since the door closed. Then
Speaker 2: more shots follow. They're not firing wildly, they're not spraying
Speaker 2: the room or losing control of what they're doing. They're
Speaker 2: aiming one person at a time, close enough that there's
Speaker 2: no question where the shots are going or what they're
Speaker 2: meant to do the positions that people were forced into earlier,
Speaker 2: standing close, sitting where they were told. Those positions don't change.
Speaker 2: There's no room to break away, no path to the
Speaker 2: door that doesn't run straight into the men holding the guns.
Speaker 2: People are hit where they are, Some are shot more
Speaker 2: than once, some collapse immediately. Others are hit and stay conscious,
Speaker 2: still in the same space, still within arm's reach of
Speaker 2: everyone else. The distance between people never changes. The men
Speaker 2: don't rush through it, they don't move in a way
Speaker 2: that suggests panic or hesitation. They continue in the same
Speaker 2: deliberate manner they've been moving since the beginning, focused on
Speaker 2: the people in front of them, finishing what they started
Speaker 2: when they brought everyone into that room. The office door
Speaker 2: stays closed. Nothing from outside interrupts it, No one walks in,
Speaker 2: No one hears enough from outside to change what's happening inside.
Speaker 2: The rest of the building stays exactly as it was, quiet, open, unchanged,
Speaker 2: while everything in that room, While the lives of everyone
Speaker 2: in that room, their fates are decided within a few
Speaker 2: feet of space. The shooting continues until the men stop,
Speaker 2: not because something forces them to stop, but because they
Speaker 2: choose to. When it ends, the room hasn't rearranged itself.
Speaker 2: It's the same walls, the same desk, the same tight space.
Speaker 2: But now there are people lying on the floor dead
Speaker 2: and others who have been shot and are still alive,
Speaker 2: still confined with the rest of the victims, trying to
Speaker 2: stay conscious. No one has been moved out, no one
Speaker 2: has been helped. Everything that has happened is still contained
Speaker 2: inside that office, exactly where it took place. The men
Speaker 2: have gone still after the shooting. But then they move again,
Speaker 2: not quickly, not in a way that suggests they're trying
Speaker 2: to get out before somebody sees them. It's the same
Speaker 2: kind of movement they've used the whole time, deliberate, controlled,
Speaker 2: like they're working through steps they already know. They start
Speaker 2: setting the fire, they don't tear the room apart to
Speaker 2: do it. They don't need to. Whatever they use to
Speaker 2: start that fire, they find it all contained within that office,
Speaker 2: close to everything that has already happened. Their goal isn't
Speaker 2: to burn the building down. It's to burn what's inside
Speaker 2: the office, to damage whatever's left behind, to use fire
Speaker 2: to hide evidence. Heat builds in a room that already
Speaker 2: doesn't have much space. Smoke starts to gather low at first,
Speaker 2: then thicker. The air changes. It gets harder to breathe,
Speaker 2: harder to see. The same walls that kept every one
Speaker 2: inside now hold the smoke in place too. The two
Speaker 2: men don't stay for the fire to take over. They've
Speaker 2: done what they came to do, and now they leave.
Speaker 2: They move out of the office, back into the main
Speaker 2: part of the building and out through the front door
Speaker 2: they walked through. There's no one there to stop them,
Speaker 2: no one outside to see them leave. They're gone the
Speaker 2: very same way they arrived, without drawing attention. Inside, the
Speaker 2: fire continues to build. The office holds it for a moment,
Speaker 2: then it starts to push outward. Smoke moves into the
Speaker 2: main area of the building, spreading through the open spaces
Speaker 2: of the lanes and towards the front. The structure of
Speaker 2: the bowling alley doesn't stop it, it carries it. The
Speaker 2: people left inside the office are still there. Some don't
Speaker 2: move at all. They're already dead. Others are alive, injured,
Speaker 2: surrounded by heat and smoke. The room hasn't opened, hasn't
Speaker 2: given them any way out. Everything that's happened from the
Speaker 2: moment the door first closed to now has stayed contained
Speaker 2: in that same space from outside. It takes time before
Speaker 2: anything looks wrong. Then the smoke starts to show. The
Speaker 2: smoke is what finally gets noticed, not right away, not
Speaker 2: the second it starts, but soon enough that someone passing
Speaker 2: by sees it coming out of the building and knows
Speaker 2: that something is wrong. A patrol officer spots it and
Speaker 2: calls it in. Fire units respond. They don't know what
Speaker 2: they're walking into yet at that point. It's just a
Speaker 2: structure fire at a bowling alley, something burning inside a
Speaker 2: building that should be empty except for whoever opened it
Speaker 2: that morning. They move in to put the fire out.
Speaker 2: The front entrance is still unlocked. They go through the
Speaker 2: same door the two men used earlier. Inside the building
Speaker 2: looks wrong immediately. Smoke has spread through the main area,
Speaker 2: hanging in the air, cutting visibility. The lanes are still empty,
Speaker 2: but the place isn't quiet anymore. There's movement, urgency, the
Speaker 2: sound of equipment, and voices. As they start working the fire.
Speaker 2: They push toward where the smoke is coming from. That
Speaker 2: leads them to the office. The fire is inside that room,
Speaker 2: that's where it's strongest. They move in. They put water
Speaker 2: on it. They start knocking it down. It takes time.
Speaker 2: Fire and smoke don't give anything back easily, and whatever's
Speaker 2: inside that office has already been burning long enough to
Speaker 2: do damage. As the fire fighters get control of it,
Speaker 2: they start to see what's in the room. There are
Speaker 2: people inside. At first its shapes, then its bodies. It's
Speaker 2: not a single victim. It's not something that can be
Speaker 2: explained by the fire itself. There are multiple people, all
Speaker 2: in the same confined area, all where they were when
Speaker 2: the robbery and then the shooting first happened. Some of
Speaker 2: them are already dead, others are alive. The responders shift
Speaker 2: immediately from putting out the fire to pulling people out,
Speaker 2: calling for medical assistance, trying to get to the ones
Speaker 2: who are still breathing. The building fills with more units fire, police, medical,
Speaker 2: and the scene changes from a fire response to something
Speaker 2: else entirely. It's no longer just about putting out flames.
Speaker 2: It's about what was done inside that office before the
Speaker 2: fire ever started. Outside, the area begins to lock down,
Speaker 2: vehicles pull in, lights flashing. People are held back. As
Speaker 2: the situation becomes clear, words starts to spread that this
Speaker 2: isn't just a fire, something happened inside that building. Something
Speaker 2: that didn't start with smoke inside the office is still
Speaker 2: the center of it. That's where everything leads back to.
Speaker 2: The call comes from inside the building. It doesn't come
Speaker 2: in a clear report. It comes in a broken, strained voice,
Speaker 2: the voice of someone who shouldn't be able to speak
Speaker 2: at all, but does anyway. A twelve year old girl
Speaker 2: shot multiple times, still conscious, still able to reach a
Speaker 2: phone and dial for help inside a building that's already
Speaker 2: filling with smoke. She tells them where she is. She
Speaker 2: tells them what happened, as much as she can get out.
Speaker 2: The words aren't laid out in any clean sequence. They
Speaker 2: don't need to be. The dispatcher hears enough to understand
Speaker 2: that this isn't just a fire, not even close. There
Speaker 2: are people inside, there's been shooting. There are others in
Speaker 2: the room with her. The call becomes the first account
Speaker 2: of what happened, not from the outside, not from someone
Speaker 2: piecing it together afterward, but from someone who lived through
Speaker 2: it and is still there while everything is unfolding around her.
Speaker 2: She stays on the line as long as she can.
Speaker 2: Every word takes effort, every breath is work, but she
Speaker 2: keeps talking long enough to make sure they know. By
Speaker 2: the time responders reach her, the building is already in motion,
Speaker 2: fire crews, working officers moving through the space, medics being
Speaker 2: called in. That office is no longer just the source
Speaker 2: of the fire. It's the center of everything. And they
Speaker 2: find her inside that same room. She's been shot and
Speaker 2: left there with the others. She's alive, barely but alive.
Speaker 2: They move her out, get her into the hands of
Speaker 2: medical personnel, and she's taken from the building that never
Speaker 2: gave her a way out on her own. Around her,
Speaker 2: the rest of the scene settles into what it is.
Speaker 2: Seven people had been inside that office. Five of them
Speaker 2: are dead, two survived. The fire didn't cause the deaths.
Speaker 2: The fire came after investigators start arriving, while the last
Speaker 2: of the smoke is clearing, The building is secured, the
Speaker 2: perimeter pushed back, access controlled. What started as a response
Speaker 2: to smoke becomes something else, something that pulls in detectives, evidence, texts,
Speaker 2: people who know how to read a room after everything
Speaker 2: inside has already happened, and the office is where everything
Speaker 2: leads back to the confined space. The positions of the bodies,
Speaker 2: the damage from the fire layered over the damage that
Speaker 2: was already there. They don't have the benefit of a
Speaker 2: clean scene. Heat and water have already taken their toll.
Speaker 2: Whatever was left behind has been altered, degraded, in some
Speaker 2: cases erased. The robbery part is easy to understand. The
Speaker 2: rest of it isn't. They took a few thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and stayed anyway, held the room, shot everyone inside of it,
Speaker 2: set the fire after walked out the same way they'd
Speaker 2: come in, without anyone stopping them, without anyone even knowing
Speaker 2: they'd been there until the smoke started showing. That's where
Speaker 2: it sits. A place that looked open, a room that
Speaker 2: got sealed, and two men who walked in took control,
Speaker 2: shot seven people, set a fire, and left nothing behind
Speaker 2: that made them easy to find. All right, That's the
Speaker 2: end of the Los Crusis Bowling Alley Massacre Part one.
Speaker 2: Please join me next Thursday, April ninth for part two.
Speaker 2: And Hey, if you know anybody who likes a true
Speaker 2: crime podcast, a friend, a family member, a coworker, a
Speaker 2: random person on the street who's maybe wearing a button
Speaker 2: that says I love true crime podcasts, please do tell
Speaker 2: them about the show. Tell them about kind of murdery
Speaker 2: I sure would appreciate it. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2: I'm Zevanodleberg and this has been kind of Murdery.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell
Speaker 1: your friends. You can find us on social media at
Speaker 1: kinda Murdery or email at Kindermurdery at gmail dot com
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