Sick Timothy

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Dispersion. Nineteen forty four, West
Mahanoy Township, Pennsylvania became the home of

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a life steeped deep in pain and
tragedy. Timothy Wayne McBride had just been

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born to Charles McBride and Fern Yost. Only a year later. The scene

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would be set for a winding trail
of death and destruction when Charles left Fern

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and their one year old son to
fend for themselves. Chasing after jobs and

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trying to keep afloat, Fern moved
Timothy and herself from place to place,

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never staying anywhere long enough to establish
a home and grow some roots before moving

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on to the next. Timothy would
later describe his relationship with his mother,

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especially during these times, as cold
and unaffectionate. But in nineteen fifty some

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of that turbulent and unstable childhood changed. Even though Fern was still emotionally distant

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from her son, that wasn't always
how she was with others, and when

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Timothy was around six years old,
she married Bernie Croger. Bernie adopted Timothy

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as his own, but by the
time Timothy had gained one stable parental figure

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in his life, he'd also already
taken the first step down a very slippery

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slope. At the age of only
six, Timothy made his first acquaintance with

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the law when he was charged with
his first crime. He'd stolen a bye

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sickle, been caught, and with
that came his first blemish on his criminal

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record. Only four years later,
and things had taken a drastic turn from

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the relatively harmless to the beginnings of
something extreme. Timothy began showing signs of

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obsession and possessiveness towards women, or
more accurately, one woman in particular,

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Fern, became the target for Timothy's
sexual and emotional desires, further driving a

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rift between mother and son. Timothy
acted out these urges in any way that

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he could. He started wearing feminine
clothing and stalking other women. By the

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age of thirteen, Timothy had established
himself as an exhibitionist who often got caught

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fondling and groping women on the streets. By the age of seventeen, Timothy

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had left home and appeared to be
trying to correct his course. He joined

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the navy as a cook, but
his attempt to stay on the right side

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of the law did not last for
very long. Only fourteen months into his

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training, Timothy was dishonorably discharged for
a crime that Timothy had become all too

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comfortable committing, sexual assault. Now
completely free of anything that could provide him

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with a sense of structure or even
morality, Timothy was unleashed. One crime

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he later admitted to happened almost right
after he was dishonorably discharged, and that

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was when he raped a woman in
Waukegan, Illinois. He then stabbed his

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victim with a pair of scissors before
leaving her to bleed out at the scene.

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The woman somehow survived, but her
assailant was still free to strike again.

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That same year, Timothy attacked another
woman in Chicago. His second victim

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also survived the attack, but this
time Timothy was caught and convicted for rape

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and attempted murder. He was sentenced
to twenty five to fifty years behind bars,

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but he would get out after serving
only fourteen. In nineteen seventy seven,

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Timothy was released on parole, and
he seized his new found opportunity.

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On the surface, he played the
part of the reformed inmate and bided his

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time. As part of the conditions
of his parole, he enrolled in Southern

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Illinois University, Carbondale, where he
studied administrative justice with a minor in psychology.

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This would turn out to be the
perfect degree for any one learning how

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to avoid being caught for any future
crimes that they wanted to commit. Timothy

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then went on to study and then
become an e M T ambulance driver,

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then giving himself the perfect mask and
the authority to hide behind to commit them.

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By day, he walked the streets
seemingly an upright citizen and reformed inmate.

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He was first a student and then
an e MT medic. His colleagues

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became his friends, and both the
men and women who knew him found him

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to be pleasant and charming. But
by night, Timothy Crager was some one

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else. In entirely, he stalked
the streets, often traveling to other cities

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to help muddle the waters and keep
the authorities off the trail of his crimes.

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In nineteen seventy seven, that very
same year that Timothy was released,

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he broke into a home in Carbondale
and stole a thirty eight caliber handgun.

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He then later broke into another home
where he attacked to mother and her twenty

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five year old daughter, He sexually
assaulted the daughter before shooting both of the

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women in the head, killing them
and eliminating any witnesses to his crimes.

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But one of his victims was a
little closer to home. She was the

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thirteen year old daughter of one of
his neighbors, and by nineteen seventy nine,

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Timothy had already been molesting her for
over two years. When he was

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finally caught and arrested for sexually assaulting
a miner, his e mt friends and

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colleagues could not believe that the Timothy
Crazer they knew would be capable of such

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a heinous crime. He told them
that the girl had lied to him about

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her age, and they believed him. His friends all banned together and posted

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his bail, essentially releasing a killer
and a rapist back onto the streets.

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Timothy then seized his opportunity again.
While out on bail, he attacked and

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killed two more women in Pennsylvania and
raped a third. When he was found

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guilty for the child molestation charges,
his former colleagues were beside themselves with guilt

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and shame. Almost unbelievably, Timothy
was released only a year after sentencing in

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nineteen eighty his psychiatrist announced that he
believed Timothy to be reformed, and said

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that the only way to prove this
theory was to put Timothy to the test.

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It's crucial to remember at this point
in time that no one had connected

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the trail of bodies and assaults to
Timothy. In fact, the authorities hadn't

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even pieced together that these crimes were
being committed by the same person. Yet

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Timothy had put all the knowledge he'd
gained from his administrative justice degree to good

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use, but far from his intelligence. It was the lack of DNA technology

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that had actually kept him ahead of
the investigators for as long as he would

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be. For the most part,
Timothy only had to conceal his identity from

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his victims and keep variables in his
im O for the authorities to think that

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maybe there was more than one killer
out there. The closest that came depending

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everything on one person was when Timothy
became known as the blue bandanna rapist.

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He often wore a blue bandana over
his face when committing his crimes, and

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perhaps this marked the beginning of the
end of him evading suspicion, maybe spurred

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on by his success in eluding authorities. So far, Timothy began to get

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careless. In nineteen eighty two,
he broke into a house wearing the same

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blue bandana. He then proceeded to
rape a thirty four year old woman while

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her ten year old daughter watched.
He then left and later attacked a fifty

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seven year old woman in Cape Girardo. He strangled her to death, but

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then left several strands of his own
hair behind at the crime scene. Later

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that year, he killed another sixty
five year old woman in Cape Girardo.

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This time he left behind his blood, a palm prince in a boot lace

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that he'd used to strangle her,
and even several of his skin samples were

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recovered under the victim's finger nails.
Unbeknownst to Timothy, the noose was tightening.

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When he murdered twenty three year old
Deborah Shepherd, he would leave behind

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a clue that would unravel the long
web of crimes that he had gotten away

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with so far. This time,
the investigators recovered a sample of Timothy's seamen

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from Deborah's shirt, and even though
DNA technology had not reached a point where

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they could do very much with it, they saved and stored that sample,

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and the countdown began ticking. In
nineteen eighty three, when Timothy was thirty

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eight years old, the police found
him sitting in his car holding a pistol,

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which was a direct violation of the
terms of his parole. They arrested

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him, probably thinking that their job
was done, but it was only the

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beginning. Behind the scenes, investigators
had begun to connect the dots, and

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the technology was finally catching up to
the point where they could start to prove

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that Timothy was guilty of so much
more. In two thousand seven, investigators

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ran Timothy's DNA against the Seaman sample
recovered at Deborah Shepherd's murder. The results

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were a match. When he was
first confronted with this new evidence, Timothy

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denied this crime, but confessed the
very next day. He still concealed his

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other crimes, but the other DNA
samples he'd left behind over the short spree

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of his most heinous crimes were starting
to catch up with him. When the

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victim's families announced that they would not
be seeking the death penalty, Timothy Crager

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came clean. He confessed to the
murders of nine more women and at least

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seven more sexual assaults. He was
sentenced to forty years for the murder of

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Deborah Shepherd and another forty for Virginia
Lee Witt and Mary in Illinois. He

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then pled guilty to the murder of
five women from Cape Girardo and was given

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thirteen consecutive life sentences for once.
It's pretty safe to say that Timothy won't

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be getting out of prison again.
He is currently still serving his sentence at

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the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois,
which is a prison design for inmates who

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need extra security or simply can't follow
the rules of other prison systems. That's

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ten Minute Murder for today brief and
bingeable true crime. I'm Joe the host,

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and thank you so much for taking
the time to listen. If you

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like this episode. If you like
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related to the podcast. A quick
email question from someone that wants to remain

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anonymous, Joe, how long I'm
curious does it take you to do each

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individual episode? Thank you? It
varies greatly, anonymous person. It can

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be super short, like I could
possibly do all of it in one day,

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But then there are some that I've
been working on for weeks, so

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there's really no right answer to that. The ones that take much longer are

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the ones with so much more information
out there. For instance, I've been

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kicking around the idea of doing the
West Memphis three, and if you know

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that story, which you probably if
you're listening to the sound of my voice

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right now, you definitely know about
the West Memphis three. So much to

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talk about with that, and I've
got to compact ten minutes to do that.

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It's nearly impossible, but I'm definitely
trying. I'm trying to figure out

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a way to do that. I
haven't quite figured it out just yet,

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but probably sometime in twenty twenty four
you'll hear me talking about the West Memphis

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three in some capacity. Definitely,
that's on my goal list for twenty twenty

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four is to do an episode or
whatever that happens to be on the West

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Memphis three. Anyway, that's it. Thank you for listening to another ten

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minute Murder Podcast episode. I will
see you on the next one. Bye.