Twisted Affection: Hope Masters & G. Daniel Walker

True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real-life crimes. Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to True Crime Brewery. I'm Jill. And I'm Dick. So in the quiet hills of Springville, California, there was a cold-blooded murder that shattered the illusion of a perfect world.

The lives of a wealthy rancher, a beautiful woman, and a charming stranger with a dark past collided, resulting in a twisted series of disquieting incidents. So this is more than a true crime story. It's a story of manipulation, survival, and really the power of persuasion. Join us today for Twisted Affection. We're delving into the chilling case of Hope Masters and G. Daniel Walker, a man who posed as a charismatic friend, but was a psychopathic sexual predator, a fugitive, and a remorseless killer.

So we're peeling back the layers of deception, exploring the psychology of criminal and victim, and asking ourselves, how much can one person really control the actions and the feelings of another person? And while we do this, we're drinking something called Scorpion Bowl. A nice IPA from Stone Brewing. It's an American IPA with a 7.5% alcohol by volume. Nice beer. Not one that you'd necessarily think of as a West Coast IPA, but still a very good beer. Pretty brass color, medium-sized white head that stays around the whole time you're drinking. Ton of lacing on the sides of the glass. Nice aroma, tropical fruit, a little bit of pine resin.

Taste of mango and pineapple with some pine at the end of the swallow. Pretty nice beer. Didn't really know what I was expecting, but it turned out better than I thought it would be. All right, cool. So I think Scorpion Bowl I have had as a drink at a Chinese restaurant. Yeah, there's Scorpion something. It's got like 27 alcohols in it. It's very alcoholic and fruity, so. Yeah. Okay. But this is not terribly alcoholic. 7.5% is about average. Maybe a little above average. It's a little bit on the higher side. Yeah. Put it another way. It's not a beer you're going to sit down and have two or three. Boom, boom, boom. Well, maybe not me, but some people might. Well, okay. Most people.

Yeah. Well, maybe back in the day when your liver was fresher, you probably could have drank three or four of those. Oh, I don't know. Oh, come on. I'd feel it. Well, you would feel it. Yes. I'm not saying you wouldn't feel it. Okay. It would be a day off. You wouldn't be on call. That's for sure. No way. No. So let's open it up.

All right, come on down here. This is an older story, but I hadn't heard of it, and it's really kind of fascinating. It really is. Yeah. So let's start talking about Hope. So Hope was born Hope Elise, and when she was a young child, her parents got divorced. When Hope was just two, her mother went to City Hall and deleted Elise from her original birth certificate. So she would remember her father, James Stagliano, a musician, whom she came to call my wild Italian father, as a joyful man. When he moved back east and played French horn for the Boston Symphony, they saw a lot less of each other, though.

For her 16th birthday, when she flew to New York for a visit with him, he took her to the Stork Club, where they were thrown out for fancy dancing, whatever that means. Inappropriate dancing? I don't know. Yeah, I guess that's what they meant. Probably. Inappropriate dancing. More like a modern, yeah. Yeah. So for the next dozen years of her life or so, Hope was in and out of various schools. She lived in rental houses and hotel rooms, although she spent long stretches of time with her mother's parents in Holmby Hills. So did they move around a lot? Mom did. Mom did. And Hope.

Hope did sometimes, or she would stay with her grandparents, her mom's parents. Okay. So there they had a giant white Spanish-style mansion with this huge lawn, and inside the house they had a living room so big it looked like a ballroom with velvet draperies and crystal chandeliers. So you kind of get the picture. So we got some money here. A lot of money on mom's side, yeah. So Hope's mother, who was also named Hope, was called Honey by her family. Oh, yeah. Got to have one way of keeping them separate. Yep. And she was often away from her daughter. She was very busy dating, playing tennis, and traveling. And because of this, Hope became very attached to her grandmother.

She said that she and her grandmother would lie on the floor side by side stretching and doing exercises while her grandmother would tell her stories and explain to Hope that her mom, Honey, needed to be taken care of and just how Hope should do that. So interesting, right? Sounds like we're getting a little bit of grooming here. Yeah. So Hope had a big bedroom upstairs at her grandparents' house where she and her friends spent a lot of time playing with Hope's expansive collection of dolls. And the girls were often alone in the house. So at Westlake, a very proper girls' school, Hope wore a blue uniform with short sleeves and a sash tied in the back. She had to wear these white ankle socks and black shoes. She really hated this school. But she was living with her grandmother. And other than that, she was generally happy in life. So when she was 11, her grandmother died. And that was tough. And Hope ended up being transferred to a public school.

But, you know, Hope really loved the new school. She really just preferred the public school. I think she liked having the boys and the girls. She liked the freedom of wearing what you want. She just preferred it. But then after two years, her mother placed her in Marlboro, an even more proper girls' school, which Hope disliked even more than she had disliked Westlake. So she used to come home crying nearly every day because she wasn't one of the popular girls. And by the time she reached 10th grade, she was really miserable. She started skipping school a lot, pretending to be sick.

She even threatened to flunk out deliberately. And by 11th grade, she'd gotten back into a public school. That was Los Angeles High. Again, she loved it. But this conflicted with her mother's long-range vision for her daughter. She remembered her mother saying that nobody who went to LA High would ever do anything with their life, that all the nice people went to private school. Honey won, and Hope transferred back to Westlake to repeat the 11th grade. And her mother's plan was to have Hope finish at Westlake, then make her debut at the Las Madrinas Ball, and go on to Stanford. But Hope had different plans, very different than that.

So when Hope was just 16, she drove down to Mexico with the boy next door and they got married. They didn't tell their parents because they were afraid the marriage would be annulled by them, which is probably a valid concern. That probably would have happened. Yes. So Hope's 19-year-old husband went back to his classes at USC, and then Hope enrolled there too. She hadn't yet finished high school, but when her test came back showing an IQ of 183, USC took her on conditionally. That's some IQ. Isn't that amazing? That's true. Well, I have no reason to doubt it. She was very intelligent, maybe not the most common sense, but that's not unusual. So the newlyweds continued to live at their family homes, but they were together a lot during the day on campus.

And they spent a lot of time at a friend's nearby apartment. And for whatever reason, Hope wanted to get pregnant. And, you know, people have said, well, maybe she just wanted to have a home of her own. She thought if I start a family, I can get away from my mother and live my own life, which seemed like something she really wanted. Yeah, good luck with that. So Honey got married again, and this time she married a rich and prominent attorney who Hope really didn't get along well with at all. So when Hope did become pregnant, she and her husband decided it was safe to tell their families they were married because they're not going to be able to annul it now. Hope's mother actually approved of the groom. Well, conditionally approved because he had money. Well, yes, that was important to Hope's mother.

He was actually an heir to a biscuit fortune, and his family had a legitimate ancestral crest. But his mother was not happy about the pregnancy and the marriage. She actually cried about it. This is not what she had planned for her son. So finally, both mothers got together and arranged for a large formal wedding at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills. But you know what was really funny, funny, maybe strange, not so humorous, is the groom's mother wore black to the wedding. Can you believe it? Well, I guess if she's in mourning, she'd wear black. Yeah. Well, she's not being subtle about it, though. She sure isn't. No.

So she was probably right because the marriage did not last. Hope's first place of her own was a studio apartment downtown where she and her husband slept on a mattress on the floor. When she was eight months pregnant, the landlord said he didn't allow children. So Hope and her husband moved to a slightly larger place. So they were living on $300 a month, half given to them by each family. And that sounds terrible, but we're talking, what, late 60s here? So it wasn't that bad. So when their son Keith was 18 months old, Hope decided to have another baby right away so Keith wouldn't grow up alone.

And she wanted a girl and she wanted to name her Lisa Marie. And this wasn't after Elvis's daughter. This was after her Italian grandmother, Maria Teresa Stagliano. But then during the labor, Hope's mother stayed with her and insisted a girl should be named Hope too. So pretty much like Hope III, but with a different middle name. Her mother-in-law wanted her name Elizabeth because it was a proper English name. So the new baby girl was named Hope Elizabeth. By then, Hope and her husband and the children were living in a nice little house in Benedict Canyon, mostly paid for by Hope's mother. Although Hope had chipped in with the $10,000 that her Holby Hills grandmother...

had set aside for her wedding. Pretty nice wedding gift. Yeah. So you'd think Hope had it pretty much made, but that just wasn't who she was. She was soon very bored and dissatisfied. Their social life consisted mostly of bridge games with Honey and her husband, and Hope really started to hate those evenings. When Hope was 23 years old, she filed for divorce. Her husband actually cried. He was really heartbroken, and Hope felt bad about this, but she really loved her new freedom. She hadn't sown her wild oats, and this was her chance. So she did a lot of double dating with her friend Phyllis. By the age of 19, Phyllis had already been married and divorced and had a son.

so hope and phyllis had a lot in common and they often shared babysitters to cut down on costs when they went out together so in a restaurant one night hope met a handsome young public relations man named tom masters they dated for four months and she had one last date with another man the night before she and tom were married in las vegas So when I read about this, I thought, wait a minute, we're kind of passing over this quickly. What was this last date one night before she married? Tell me. Does that really count as a date or is that cheating? What is that? Bachelorette party thing? Well, I'd consider it cheating. I would think if Tom knew about it, he wouldn't have been happy. I don't think so, but who knows? Who knows? I mean, he was really taken with her.

hope wore a white mini skirt and pink roses in her hair and just before the ceremony tom paid an extra five dollars and someone lit candles for them then they spent a five-day honeymoon in las vegas but the temperature there was a hundred and twenty degrees so it wasn't great it does get hot in las vegas it sure does so hope had a son with tom masters who they named kirk craig and nicknamed k c he was born in january nineteen seventy hope and tom though separated just six weeks later just for a week that time but pretty soon they did separate for good so by nineteen seventy three when she was thirty one hope masters had really lived a string of different lives and she had contradictions that seemed to manifest them all although she was often referred to as the heiress and the socialite she had spent unusual amounts of time without spending money she didn't really have a lot of money to spend large sums of money that was legally hers was sitting in trust funds but without being able to access it she and her children lived a very simple life they ate a lot of hot dogs and mac and cheese one week they lived on potatoes and milk that was it she also had no health insurance and no credit cards

Now, it's funny because she was listed in the Blue Book Social Register while her children qualified for free lunches at their public school. So it was really interesting, these two dynamics. Yeah, I know. If she has money in trust, how come she can't access it? She wasn't able to access it yet. I don't know what the rules were with it. Oh, something like at age 30 or whatever, she could get it? Something like that, I believe, yes. But her income at this time was $435 a month, some from each husband and some from her mother. But she was still eligible for food stamps. So she was living in Beverly Hills, one of the most expensive areas in the whole country.

and she was working at a series of odd jobs, some of them worse than others. For a while, she was a cocktail waitress. She worked briefly for a doctor who specialized in giving injections. But, you know, Hope's really strong point was talking. She could talk about anything, anytime. She loved to talk, and when she wasn't talking, she liked to listen to people and hear their stories. And I've found that people who love to talk many times don't like to listen.

Right, but she liked both, probably talking more, but she was a decent listener when she wanted to be. So she had discarded one husband because she considered him a boring homebody, and another because she considered him uninterested in children and domesticity. So she wanted to spend time with her children and to be involved with them. But she also really wanted to have the kind of fun that her beauty and her personality made pretty easy for her. So when her two kids, Keith and Hope Elizabeth, were old enough to understand, she promised them she'd never go out on a date two nights in a row.

And she pretty much kept that promise. She almost never did. But it's funny that on the nights she did go out, she usually arranged for two or three dates in that one evening. So she was really getting the dates in. She liked men. She liked going out and having fun. She'd gotten married really young, so maybe she was kind of making up for what she'd missed out in in college. But that's just the way it was. And her kids pretty much accepted that. What else were they going to do?

well they didn't know anything different really no exactly so hope was soft-hearted and over the years she'd taken in dozens of stray cats and even a few runaway children a friend called hope's house early crash pad when one of her former maids turned up pregnant hope took her in and when the baby was due she took her to the hospital when the hospital said only a family member could go into the labor room with her hope signed the form and attended So she may have been generous with her emotions and her love because she felt such an intense need herself to be loved simply for being herself. I think that's very apt. Yeah. So when she met Bill Ashlock in December 1972 at a Christmas party, she felt right away that he was the man for her. He was quiet, but not boring, successful, but not flashy. And he seemed able to express his feelings for her just as readily as she did hers for him. So at 1030 that Friday morning, February 23rd, 1973, Hope's new maid, Martha Padilla, knocked on the bedroom door and told Hope that Mr. Ashlock was calling.

and had asked her to wake hope up to talk to him so hope woke up quickly bill called her every day from his office and they talked for at least an hour so she had expected his call that day but it was unusual for him to call so early so she sat up in bed and reached for the bedside phone bill said listen to this you want to have the biggest laugh of your life sure she said he said well for some crazy reason i'm going to be interviewed a guy called me and said he's doing a story for the la times on the ten most eligible bachelors in town and he wants to interview me So Hope laughed. She said, well, tell him you're not a bachelor. And Bill laughed too, but then he sounded serious. He said, Hopey, the thing is, I don't want to do this if it's going to affect our relationship where you're going to think I'm interested in meeting other girls because I'm not. And she said, I know you're not and was fine with it. So Bill hung up and Hope quickly called Tom Masters, her ex-husband. Although she and Tom had been separated for two years, she saw him often and they did keep in touch by phone. She'd filed initial divorce papers to Tom only a few weeks before and their marriage had been over for quite a while, but she deliberately delayed the filing.

so even early in her marriage to tom several men had continued to call her telling her they were waiting for her now that she felt like her relationship with bill ashlock was destined for marriage she had finally filed the papers to divorce tom so hope told tom she was going away for the week-end with bill and that tom was expected to pick up their son k c on saturday morning and keep him all day tom said he remembered and hung up the phone So it was right around noon when a neatly dressed man in a three-piece suit, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and carrying a pipe, stepped off of the elevator on the ninth floor of the tall modern building on Wilshire Boulevard where Daly and Associates had its offices. So he told the receptionist that he had a lunch appointment with Bill Ashlock and he gave her his name. She jotted the name down on a piece of paper and went into Bill's office. She said he'll be just a few minutes. He told her he was from the Los Angeles Times. And after a few minutes, she went in again to remind Bill that he was waiting for him. So Bill was putting on his jacket.

Bill was right behind her as she returned to the reception room. The man with the pipe stood up and smiled, and he and Bill shook hands, and then they left together. Hope got out of bed and made her way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and she took the coffee and her cigarettes into the living room and curled up for a few minutes on the sofa. Casey was lying on the rug playing with his miniature cars. The living room there was big and comfortable and cluttered with pillows and books. Hope put on some blue jeans and a shirt, combed her hair, and told Martha she was going out for a while. So she got into her car, a 1971 green Vega, and back down the driveway.

At the top of the hill, she turned right and drove to the strapping section in Beverly Hills. hope crossed sunset boulevard and continued south past the royal palm trees shading the houses on either side which included her mother's house then she pulled into the parking lot behind a bank and went in to cash a check her checking account was down to about two hundred dollars which wasn't unusual from the bank hope crossed the street to the market she walked up and down the aisles tossing things into her cart she wanted to get back soon so that when bill came home early as he promised he would they could leave right away for the ranch if they didn't get away by mid-afternoon traffic would be really bad and hope really loved spending weekends at the ranch even though it wasn't really hers Honey and her husband had a quarter interest, along with three other couples. And those four families rotated the weekends there. So this weekend, Hope just could not wait to get there.

When she got back to the house, Bill wasn't home yet, and he hadn't called. Hope asked her to put away the groceries and went to the telephone. Bill's secretary said that Bill wasn't back from lunch yet. Bill's boss, Cliff Einstein, had been looking for Bill around the office too, starting around 1.30. But Cliff wasn't annoyed that Bill was having a long lunch. He was just surprised, partly because Bill was so careful about telling people where he was and exactly when he'd be back, and partly because Cliff knew that Bill really shunned having long lunches. It wasn't his thing. Most of the time, Bill's habit was to have yogurt or cottage cheese, either at his desk or at his apartment, or maybe just skip lunch altogether.

so when bill came back from lunch a little before three o'clock cliff noticed that he seemed excited so bill said to cliff i have to tell you about something that's happened to me i'm being interviewed by a reporter from the l a times for an article on the town's most eligible bachelors So Cliff was pretty surprised because Bill was real quiet and, you know, not flashy at all. And he also wondered if Bill could really be called eligible since he wasn't even divorced from his wife yet. And he already had this serious girlfriend, Hope. It doesn't sound like a bachelor, does it? No, he doesn't sound very eligible at all. So Bill returned from lunch about 3 p.m. He called Hope and told her the L.A. Times reporter wanted to come to the ranch and take some pictures of him.

Jim Webb, the caretaker at the ranch, lived in a small house near the main house with his wife Teresa and their children. Honey liked to let Jim Webb know when someone was coming up so he could turn on the lights and heat, but when Hope tried him again, there was no answer. The house would be cold and dark when she and Bill got there, and Bill was running late. Plans for this weekend had been rearranged so much that for a moment, Hope thought about calling the whole thing off, and now there was a total stranger coming up. Yeah, after Bill got home, the phone rang at exactly 5.30. Bill answered the phone on the dining table and said, it's all right if you come, but we don't want the name of the ranch used. So Bill said, fine, around one o'clock tomorrow. Then he gave directions to the ranch.

He told Hope the reporter's name was Taylor Wright, but the man's real name that we'll find out was G. Daniel Walker. So if you are a fan of True Crung Brewery and you just can't get enough of our storytelling and our analysis, subscribing at tiegrabber.com slash subscribe may be your perfect next step. Because as a subscriber, you'll enjoy every episode completely ad-free so you can stay immersed in the chilling details without any interruptions. Plus, you'll get access to exclusive bonus episodes that dive into the most fascinating and disturbing cases. This is content you can't hear anywhere else. Your support not only helps keep the beer chilled and the stories flowing, but it also allows us to continue delivering the content that you love. So whether you're into it for the psychology, the mystery,

or even just the craft beer pairings. Subscribing is a wonderful way to show your appreciation and to get even more of what makes true crime brewery so addictive. So if this sounds like something for you, head on over to tiegrabber.com slash subscribe, and you can join the Tie Grabber community today. the ranch was about a three-hour drive from los angeles there were no other cars on the road and no lights anywhere so once there bill turned and parked in the open space between the house and the orange grove the foreman's house behind the trees was dark it was cold when hope opened the side door into the entrance room that opened into the kitchen so she switched on the lights and walked through the kitchen into the living room where she turned on the thermostat hope slept in the next day and answered the phone later to give the reporter directions again when his car pulled up and he stepped out she saw him this guy was tall and very handsome with dark wavy hair and a deep tan he was wearing dark slacks a dark turtle-neck sweater with a white shirt over it and a leather jacket

He was facing Bill and gesturing toward the mountain with a large carved pipe. His other hand was in his pocket. He just looked like the image of confidence. Hope looked at him for at least a minute before she spoke. She thought he looked like Robert Wagner. So a handsome man from the 70s, right? Natalie Woods. Natalie Woods' husband. Yeah. So Bill introduced Hope to Taylor Wright and Hope sat on the sofa and Bill poured wine for each of them and sat in a chair by the picture window. Taylor took the rocking chair near the fireplace and Hope and Taylor did most of the talking. Remember, I said that Hope was a real talker and you could even probably call her a compulsive talker.

Yeah, I mean, here she's just met this guy, and she's going all over her upbringing and likes and dislikes and everything, just filling the air with speech. Yes, but he was very charming. She talked about her life and her upbringing, her likes and dislikes. Taylor said that he was from the Midwest, but said he'd been living in Paris for the past three years. So his assignment, which included the interview with Bill, he said was just something to do until he went abroad again. When they went down to the river to take some pictures, Hope slipped on the grass, and it was Taylor who caught her around her waist and helped her climb back up the bank. But by the time they were going to eat dinner, Hope was feeling lightheaded.

and tired from drinking wine and taking pills for her back pain. Bill walked with her into the bedroom. She told him she was just going to nap and he should wake her after the reporter left. Right. So let's talk a little bit about G. Daniel Walker, Gerald Daniel Walker, who has come here to see Hope and Bill under the name Taylor Wright.

Yes. He's doing an article on the 10 most eligible bachelors in Los Angeles, which just seems funny to me because Bill is still getting a divorce and he's with Hope. So I don't think he's very eligible. No. But anyway. No. And you have to wonder, where did he get Bill's name? Did he know about Hope? I have to wonder also. Yeah. No, he wasn't even a reporter. How could it be real? This is totally made up, but he was really good at doing that. He could fool people. He was smart. He fooled Bill. He did. He did. He did. So Gerald Daniel Walker, also known as Daniel Wayne Walker and Daniel Wynn Walker, was actually born in Toledo, Ohio.

in 1931 he was an only child to virgil walker and irene massey walker virgil was an antiques dealer irene was a housewife and he seemed to have had a very stable upbringing he went to school and church regularly he served with the army in korea he was arrested eight times starting when he was twenty-two years old with the charge of armed robbery in toledo leaving things off i guess so later he was convicted of armed robbery in miami and sentenced to ten years at the florida state penitentiary so he escaped was caught and later paroled again Then within two years, he was convicted again of armed robbery, this time in Columbus, Ohio, and he was sentenced to 10 to 25 years at the Ohio State Penitentiary. So everyone would describe him as a real charmer, very personable and clever, and a very good talker. When he was an inmate at Ohio State, Walker had married the warden's private secretary. So that's kind of crazy if you think about it. It is. I would wonder what the warden thought, or maybe he had the warden won over as well, because it's really amazing the people he was able to win over. Yeah, just by talk. Yep, just by talk. Gift of gab. Yep.

Now, he was paroled in 1963 and released on May 1st, 1966, the year his son Drew was born. And that year, he started Ad Biz Inc. advertising firm and began to make a lot of money, much of it legally. But Walker robbed people, and sometimes he would even shoot people, just for the fun or the thrill of it. Well, that's a fun hobby. Yeah, so just a bad man, really. Yeah. So a camera shop owner in Arlington Heights, whom Walker had robbed, said Walker had actually recited poetry to him. A young woman living in a high-rise apartment at the Lake Point Towers in Chicago

would retell in terror how Walker had come in unexpectedly one night, found her with another man, pulled out a gun, and shot that man in the head. He then wrapped a towel around the man's head to catch some of the blood, got him into his car, and drove him to the O'Hare airport, where he pushed him out of the car. Get out of Chicago, Walker warned the man, and don't ever come back. Then he returned to the woman's apartment, pulled the gun again, and held it to her head. He said, if I ever find you with another man, this is what will happen. And of course, this was a woman he'd never met before. Right. So really strange. The head wound must not have been too severe.

I'm not sure, but he did survive. I don't know if many head wounds are small, especially if he had to wrap a towel around his head. Well, if it's a scalp wound, it'll bleed like heck. That's true. But another interesting thing is that Walker was married at the time, but his charm had begun to fade for his wife Edna. She had seen a lot. A police car followed Edna everywhere, and on at least one occasion, Walker was seen following the police car that was following Edna. So when Walker phoned the police to tell them where he'd been and where he might be later, investigators realized that he was really enjoying playing the game of cat and mouse.

so the court had appointed an attorney to defend him but walker defended himself which he did well enough that for a while the verdict was actually in serious doubt in his summation to the jury he stressed his heartbreak as a father if you believe me he said you will let me go home tonight and be with my son and this plea was so impressive that the jury was out for seven hours deliberating but in the end the verdict was guilty and on december fifth nineteen sixty nine walker was sentenced to sixteen to twenty years on the first charge and eight to ten years on the second but even at joliet walker's visibility was high he walked around the place in his elite style demanding that his cell be repainted doing legal work for other inmates filing lawsuits of his own against prison officials and getting himself taken back to court time after time one of walker's suits charged harassment And he claimed he'd been beaten. And several lawyers and reform-minded citizens really began believing him and visited him. So Walker used these people, as he'd used people all of his life, to great effect. His charm and wit never wavered. Then in January, 1973, Walker escaped. And this was just about one month before he met Bill and Hope. But Walker had not escaped directly from Joliet, but from a hospital in Chicago where he had been admitted as a patient.

So he had complained about internal bleeding and he had blood in his urine as proof. When the prison doctors couldn't explain the blood after a series of tests, Walker got himself a court order for outside medical care. He was then sent to the Illinois Research Hospital. And Illinois Research was just a regular hospital. It had no connections to the prison. So while there, he didn't wear prison clothes or even hospital clothes, but he wore his own nice flannel pajamas and an expensive looking robe. So I just want you to picture this because it's really outrageous. It sure is. It is.

So although prison guards were assigned to him around the clock, many of them spent some time watching TV in the lounge next door to Walker's room. When Walker refused to let hospital people draw his blood for tests, he was given a needle, a vacutainer, and tubes, and he was allowed to draw it himself, privately in the bathroom. So by the time someone figured out that Walker was putting his blood from his arm into his urine, it was too late. And I don't know why no one thought of that earlier. I don't either. Yeah. That's certainly something that would be not unlikely. I don't think he would get away with that today. Probably not. No, but it's still amazing.

So at 7 o'clock on Wednesday morning, January 31st, as the guards were changing shifts, Walker left his room saying he was going to take a shower. Then he stepped into an elevator and never came back. So his whole time at this hospital was just really amazing to me to read about. It sounds like he ran the place. Kind of. It really does, doesn't it? It also sounds like he was running the prison. Yeah, I think anywhere he was, he kind of controlled things pretty well, considering. He certainly did.

So Marcy Permal was a legal aid lawyer who visited Walker often and whose relationship with him seemed very different from the normal relationship between attorney and client. Nurses had seen Marcy kissing Walker and rubbing his knee. Then sometimes they saw nothing, like when Marcy and Walker drew the curtains that encircled his bed and there were these long periods of silence. One time, though, when the curtains were closed around Walker's bed, they heard loud laughter as Marcy and Walker were reading aloud from a court document. So nurses told the police that Walker had definitely not been properly guarded.

Two of them reported seeing at least one of his guards asleep on a couch in the TV room on two different evenings, and all of them confirmed that Walker had been a difficult patient, not allowing them to be near the cabinet by his bed and constantly getting phone calls. When Walker told them he would make his own bed and that they were not to come anywhere near his bed, they stayed away. Yeah, he actually had liquor in his little cabinet by the bed, which he forbid the nurses from checking, and for whatever reason they listened. So Catherine Pietersiak, who was a social worker at a county hospital where prisoners were sometimes treated, was just amazed by the freedom that Walker had. At the county hospital, she said, prisoners were handcuffed to their beds and never allowed out of bed without a guard nearby. She thought it was unusual, too, that Walker drew his own blood. And one night she mentioned it to a nurse. I've never seen any patient be allowed to draw their own blood. Nope. Even ones that were free and not prisoners. Well, you just don't do that. No. So when she mentioned it to this nurse, the nurse said, well, you know, it's not the usual hospital procedure. But in this case, it's OK. And based on what, we don't know. He's a nice guy and had a way of talk. Yeah, they liked him.

So Catherine noticed that he washed his hair every morning and styled it carefully and had hairspray that he used. He'd always been meticulously well-groomed, and he was always ready for company, even during his hospital stay. So at a Marriott hotel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 9, 1973, the real Taylor Wright checked in during a business trip. The real Taylor Wright sold costume jewelry. He was 42 years old, but he was one of the sons in the firm, and his father always had to be called with a report. The conversation with his father lasted half an hour, and when he hung up, he decided to skip the news and concentrate on getting drinks and dinner.

yes so there was a party in the lobby of the hotel and taylor went in after learning there was a long wait for a table in the restaurant taylor felt at home as he moved through the groups of laughing people to the bar where he asked for a scotch he felt more relaxed than he had all day now still hungry he picked up a plate and moved along the buffet table which was well stocked and after another scotch he started to mingle most of the girls he talked with seemed to work for the marriott and he met their boss the hotel manager john west so it was about ten when john west announced the party was over and everyone had one last drink when the party was finally over taylor walked into the bar where the leftovers from the party had kind of spilled over and there everyone seemed to know everyone else including the bartenders so taylor made his way to his room slightly drunk around eleven p m a woman started talking to him in the hallway then out of nowhere someone struck him on the head he would remember being dragged across the hall into a room where the woman had been standing in the doorway and he heard someone close the door the room was dark but he could see a man sitting on the edge of one bed leaning over him as he lay on the floor and this was not the man he'd met in the bar he recognized the man who had hit him as the man he'd talked with in the bar the man who'd said he was a reporter taylor had never seen this other man this second man though it was a man he would never never after this night forget so he was hit again when he came to

and he saw that he was only wearing his t-shirt and socks now the room was quiet but somebody started hitting him again and shaking him and talking in a very harsh angry tone the man who was standing over him stuck a gun in his mouth and the woman there begged the man not to shoot him and then he was hit on the head with the gun so nearby in room one o seven andrew j volink and his wife were awakened just before three in the morning by voices and a loud thumping in the room next door they thought of calling the desk to complain but then the sounds stopped and the bolings went back to sleep night desk clerk cliff gregory answered the desk phone around five a m and he heard someone complaining about a car alarm ringing on the west side of the marriott cliff called the police and when a police car arrived cliff and one of the policemen went out into the parking lot and found the car with the alarm ringing cliff checked the license against the registration slips and found that this car belonged to t o wright from room one ten so he and the policeman went to room one ten and not and when there was no answer clif used his master key to open the door so the room was empty remember they had dragged taylor into another room and in this room one ten nothing seemed wrong so the policeman left and clif went back to his desk and the alarm kept ringing it was nearly six thirty in the morning when taylor wright got to his feet and untied them got his feet untied and stumbled out of room one o nine bloody and battered his hands still tied behind him wearing only a t-shirt and socks

and he limped along the hallway until he found a maid who helped him into a linen supply room and sat him down while she called the front desk Cliff called the police again, and by 7.30, a policeman as well as a detective were on the scene. So room 109, where the assault had really happened, was a mess. There was blood all over the carpet and on the walls, two feet up from the floor, and Taylor Wright's trousers were lying near the bed, turned inside out, with the pockets pulled out, with his jockey shorts still hanging on the trouser leg. His briefcase was lying on the bed, but his things were gone, including most of his clothing, his shaving kit, and his wallet, which had his driver's license, VFW, and Yacht Club cards, a Sears card, American Express card, and an engraved bracelet that he'd had since his high school graduation.

So he'd been beaten and robbed. In scripted clothes. Yes. Twelve days later, on Wednesday, February 21st, 1973, while the real Taylor Wright was still at home recuperating, G. Daniel Walker checked into the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills and used his room phone to rent a car. He told the car rental clerk that he was with an advertising agency in Detroit and had come to Los Angeles to work on the General Motors account and to negotiate a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He said he needed a car for one week. A little later that afternoon, around 4.30, he picked up a brand new Lincoln Continental. He used an American Express card and signed for the car with the name on the card, Taylor O. Wright III.

Yeah, so at 11.50 a.m. on February 23rd, this handsome and well-dressed man carrying a carved pipe entered the lobby of Daly & Associates Advertising Agency in Los Angeles. Andy said he was a reporter from the LA Times and he had a lunch date with Bill Ashlock. He wanted to interview him for an article on the city's 10 most eligible bachelors. And he gave the name Taylor Wright. So after interviewing Bill over lunch, and remember, it was a pretty long lunch they took. Right. And then going out to the ranch where he met Hope and took some photos of the couple, Walker really won over the couple with his intelligence and his charm.

But then by dinnertime, remember, Hope was kind of dizzy and tired, and she'd gone to take a nap. But the next thing she knew, she was awakened by a large shape looming over her in bed. The room was dark, and he jabbed her in the mouth with a cold, hard object, and she realized that was a gun. So horrible. She jerked herself over the bed and ran out the door, and she was screaming for Bill. In the living room, in the dim light of the fireplace, she saw Bill, sitting on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table. He still had his drink in his hand, but his eyes were closed. So as she ran toward him, she noticed that the chair, where the reporter Taylor Wright had been sitting nearby, was empty.

so she thought had taylor left and then some maniac with a gun had come into the house so she was still screaming as she grabbed bill by the shoulders and shook him his head wobbled and fell back then a voice came from out of the darkness telling her that bill could not help her he was dead then someone approached her from behind spun her around and held her hands in the firelight he told her look at all the blood on you and then repeated that bill was dead So at that point, Hope vomited. She ran for the bathroom and the man came running after her, tearing at her clothes. He pulled her into the bedroom where he violently raped her and berated her with a deep, angry voice that she didn't recognize. So at this point, we're hearing it from Hope, the story, of course, because she's the only one besides Walker there. Bill's departed. Yes. So this man told her he didn't need a gun to kill her. He could break her neck with his bare hands.

Then he taped her feet to her hands behind her back, and he told her he would have to kill her because she could identify him. He told her not to scream, covered her with blankets, and then whispered near her cheek, I love you. And he was known for doing weird things like that, right? Remember, he'd recited poetry to one of his victims. Then he left and he closed the door. So in the meantime, Detective Robert Stalwell of the Illinois State Police was tracking G. Daniel Walker. It had been three weeks since he'd escaped from custody. The real Taylor Wright had identified Walker from a mugshot as the man who had beaten him in a hotel room in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

hope was tied up in complete darkness and she wondered if she'd been hallucinating this whole strange night but then the man came back into the bedroom and he sounded very agitated but kind of less violent and wild than he'd seemed before hope asked him if bill was really dead and why would someone kill bill the man told hope that bill had been killed because someone wanted her dead he said he'd been given the contract by her ex-husband remember tom masters and he said he had taken out a large insurance policy on her life so the man said that she was supposed to be killed in a sharon tate type massacre along with her two older children but not the youngest of course because that was tom master's son so hope begged him to let her go back to her children and she promised she would never identify her rapist he warned her that if she ever identified him the organization would have her picture and she and her children would be killed then he left the room so when he returned to the bedroom hope could tell by his voice and his silhouette that this was actually the reporter taylor wright she decided to keep talking and try and be entertaining and befriend him

and as she talked nonstop about her life and her children and anything that came to her mind he talked to her too he seemed to be wavering about whether to kill hope or not he told her that he had a code of ethics and he did not believe in killing a mother with young children especially when they didn't have a lot of money he said he would have to think about what to do then he set down his gun put his head on her shoulder and fell asleep Hope said she blacked out then, feeling momentary relief, but still in a lot of shock. And you know, we don't fully know if Hope told the whole truth either. That's the interesting part. But it was light outside when Hope woke up, and Walker woke up too and tried to kiss her. Hope said she had to brush her teeth, and he laughed about that. He warned her again that if she identified him, she and her children would be killed. Then he talked about killing Tom Masters so Hope could collect his social security.

He also talked about burning down the ranch house. He wanted to cook breakfast for her. But when Hope refused to walk through the living room because of Bill's body being there, he dragged the body into a back bedroom out of sight. So he was really flirting with Hope. He got her dressed and took her up the mountainside to take pictures. Then he put her in the front seat of his Lincoln and drove her to her house in Beverly Hills. And this is where it gets really weird. He told her that her children were still in danger from the people involved in this contract killing and that the police could not be contacted until he had time to fix everything. Until then, though, he said that he would protect them.

And she seemed to believe that, which is just outrageous. Yes, it is. So she remembered being afraid, but he only seemed angry and dangerous when she showed her fear or told him she was in pain. So she tried to appear cheerful. It started to seem to hope that he wanted to take Bill's place, and he really wanted her to act like she was his wife. So for two full days, she did that. Okay. Yeah. Now, meanwhile, the police in Illinois, trying to trace the steps of escaped prisoner Daniel Walker, were being taunted in letters that came through his lawyer. Walker wrote that he was playing a cat and mouse game and winning.

So he wrote, skied Loveland Basin this a.m., and then on over to Vail and the big monster lion's head this afternoon. but i ruined a new pair of sixty-dollar ski pants tell the boys at illinois state police to look for a fugitive with a limp then in another letter he not only named the dining room at a hotel where he was staying the oak room but he itemized his dinner for them a series of martinis oysters on the half shell turtle soup and sherry steak beaten with pepper on both sides and cooked to medium rare with mushrooms plus four irish coffees now detective stalwell was familiar with walker but he didn't know what to make of the ending of one letter in which walker after describing the comforts of one of his hideouts the tv the food the liquor the women the pipe tobacco having a tailor and a barber struck a kind of contemplative note. He wrote, one might suspect I'm happy, I am not. This carries a price tag, one you never get to see until it's too late. So the detective didn't know that Walker had found a woman either, Hope Masters, whose lifelong insecurities really conformed to his situation. So there was something about these two people that made this happen, right? It wouldn't happen with just anyone. I would think not, although I don't know how he fixated on her. Well, she was very beautiful. Pictures I've seen, very beautiful woman for sure.

Plus, she was well off. She'd been to good schools. And he was definitely into that kind of thing, the finer things. Yes. But how did he know about her? Had he seen her someplace or read an article? Yeah, that we don't really know. I can see why he'd consider her a good mark. Right. But I don't know how he figured out it was her. Well, he must have known that she was with Bill somehow. Yeah. Well, he did research. That's obvious. He did. He figured Bill would be a way to get him in. And he was good at doing research because there were a lot of things we'll find out that he knew that he wouldn't necessarily think he would. Okay.

so he said to hope i would like to sit here by the fire with you forever i would be your protector and take care of you and the children forever put the kids to bed and sit by the fire with you he set his wine glass on the coffee table and walked around to the back of the sofa leaning against it and facing her can you ever forgive me he asked yes i forgive you hope told him i do forgive you so he smiled and he seemed very happy as he had since they got back from the ranch that sunday he'd actually been playing with the children cooking their meals and over hope's protests he even drove them to school now she knows he's a murderer so it's really strange that she didn't call the police he said that things have to appear normal he washed the dishes and tucked the children into bed and sipped wine in the living room listening to music with her and he talked dreamingly about getting out of the killing business i can stop doing this you know he told her i can go out to-morrow and get a job as an attorney and never harm another person If I do that, if I stay out of trouble for five years, will you marry me? And Hope answered, well, I think it would be fine if you became a lawyer, but I honestly don't know how I'd feel in five years. So I think that was a pretty smart way to answer because I think if she'd been too readily going along with it, he would have seen through that. He might have smelled something. Yeah, he wasn't stupid. So by Tuesday afternoon, Hope convinced Walker that they had to do something. Somebody's going to find Bill's body. She told him it's been three days. So reluctantly, he agreed that they would go down the hill to her mother's house nearby. But he warned her again that if she veered from their planned story, everyone would be killed.

so when they arrived hope's mother honey was appalled at her daughter's disheveled appearance hope kept thinking of the gun in walker's waistband under his leather jacket as he sat on the sofa in her mother's elegant living room helping her tell their story and this was that bill had been killed by an intruder and that taylor had arrived on sunday and he had moved bill's body and he had rescued hope so honey was impressed by him who seemed obviously intelligent and well educated but she just couldn't comprehend what they were telling her so after you released hopey and left the ranch why didn't you drive straight to the police station she asked and i think that's a reasonable question so he said because your daughter told me what had happened and she was terrified for the safety of her children she said the killer had told her that if she notified the police before he said she could he would kill her and her children and then he gave a very serious look at honey right in her eyes and said you and your husband too he said you are all still in terrible danger and i am sure there is someone on the roof of the house across the street now with a telescopic rifle there also may be a bomb under your house he said so honey tried to steady herself and she asked now when you got back to la and got the children safely together why didn't you go to the police then and now he said because i'm not an american national walker said i have removed a material witness from the scene of a crime and i have disturbed the evidence of a crime this could cause me trouble with my passport this killer he said has been very clever he has arranged to always have one child away from hope

so she couldn't contact the police. He's got an answer for everything. He does, and Hope and her mother seem to be kind of buying it. But things changed when Hope's stepfather got home from the office and heard this story. He immediately reached for the phone. He said, I'm 63 years old, and I've never broken the law in my life. I'm calling the police. At last, a voice of reason. Right. But Hope threw herself in front of the phone. You're not just risking your own life, she screamed. You're condemning my children, and they haven't even had a chance to live. So as Hope and her stepfather argued, Honey cried, and then Walker stood up. He said, I'll call the police, but not from here.

This phone is tapped, he said. I'll use the phone at the Beverly Hills Hotel. So he gave Hope a smile, and just like that, he was gone. So that was it. The Phantom. He's there, and he's not there. That's right. So over the years, various psychiatrists at various prisons have attempted to analyze Daniel Walker. At least one probation officer had been impressed by Walker's friendliness and his ability to relate easily to strangers. He described him as intelligent, very articulate, and under the circumstances, cooperative. The officer had quoted Walker's stated goal in life, apparently verbatim and deadpan.

to convince people that material things are not the most important in life, but acceptance. So that's just real bullshit, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. He's got this probation officer believing him. Right. Well, six months later, a prison psychiatrist had a much less positive opinion.

he called walker manipulative and pointed out that a significant aspect of this man's personality is the ease with which his emotions are stimulated and the extent to which he acts out his feelings in an impulsive manner because of his drive in addition to a manipulative ability he has experienced occasional brilliant success in the business world however this performance has not been consistent over the years and it's doubtful whether this performance can be consistent unless there was a basic change in personality structure within the individual there's an underlying element of rage and anger within the inmate which occasionally surfaces and results in impulsive and aggressive overt behavior. This individual is potentially very aggressive and perhaps homicidal. So Detective Swalwell's words were much plainer than this, but along the same lines. He said, an evil man, a man who would shoot you, then sit down and have lunch beside your body. And if you think of what he did with Bill and other people, that's absolutely true. Heartless. Spot on. Yeah. So as soon as Taylor left, or Walker left, however you want to refer to him at this point, Hope quickly wrote out her will, and her stepfather brought guns he kept in the house out into the living room.

So they were scared. Yeah. Within an hour, two Beverly Hills policemen arrived and Hope told them her story about an unknown intruder, a murder contract, and that she was rescued by a man named Taylor. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the police from nearby Porterville had found Bill Ashlock's body. So poor Bill, he didn't do anything wrong. The Porterville police called the Beverly Hills police and Hope Masters was arrested on suspicion of homicide. So they weren't believing her story. They weren't. Nope. So Bill was pronounced dead on the scene at 1030 p.m. Tuesday, the precise time that a white Chevrolet Impala

was being rented at the avis desk at the la airport by a man who presented a credit card and signed the slip william t ashlock so he had stolen bill's credit cards now after two days and two nights in county jail hope was released on fifty thousand dollars pending a preliminary hearing so even the valium and prescribed sleeping pills could not help her sleep she lay awake at night in the guest room at her mother's house with her children clutching on to her in bed hope and her stepfather argued a lot with honey often stepping in and sobbing honey had considered hope difficult and rebellious since late childhood and hope resented her mother's attempts to control her life hope often cited her mother's personal allowance from her husband which was three thousand dollars a month not including car maintenance and lunches at the l a country club in contrast to her own precarious financial situation when the murder and hope's arrest made headlines flowers and gifts poured in for her parent hope was really annoyed by one note that read when our children are little they tread upon our feet and when they're grown they tread upon our hearts

so hope said that she was afraid of so many things she couldn't sort it all out in her head an uncancelled murder contract a bomb under the house some one waiting watching somewhere with a telescopic rifle she kept hearing footsteps outside of her bedroom window the family hired a private detective who sometimes stayed to watch over them so when the first tape from walker arrived by messenger hope's stepfather called the attorneys he had arranged for hope tom breslin and ned nelson as well as detective tinch so a large audience heard what the man still known to the family as taylor wright had to say I do not want any member of your family listening in. I do not want any of your lawyers to listen in. I will stick by you to the bitter end, and I will get you out of this mess. I will not leave the country. I will not leave the area until I know all the charges against you have been dropped. I have kept track of the kids. I know they are staying home from school. I am not far away, dear. I am going to stay close. I'll see you out of this one. Mr. Fix-It will get you through. And I found a stunning white dress, size 3. Then he read an affidavit outlining the events at the ranch, which detailed his arrival on Sunday to find Bill dead, and Hope found in a way that she could not have accomplished herself.

so he declared himself willing to answer any and all questions however he said this must be done outside of the united states besides the affidavit the business-like portion of the tape contained the information that a man recently found dead in a motel room on the sunset strip was the killer originally hired for the hope master's job but because this man had not carried it out after being paid he himself had been eliminated so he wrote telling hope he would not leave her in this trouble she had committed no crime and was not involved in any one's death he wrote that he was willing to tell any one that she had been under his control and in his custody the entire time they were together after they left the ranch and he ended the note with i would love to come home to you give the kids a kiss so creepy i know so as attorney tom breslin listened to the long tape he felt a shiver he had never heard anything so obviously evil the caressing voice the romantic nostalgia and the way he brilliantly exploited hope's deepest insecurities and needs especially her need for a strong caring man to fix her life for her-a lover father protector and friend yet breslin and his partner ned nelson and detective jean tinch suspected immediately that this man who called himself taylor wright was not a prince and a white lincoln who had rescued hope

They did not believe that Hope had shot Bill, but they didn't fully believe her story of a mysterious intruder and then another mysterious hero. Hope had held to that version of the story for days after she was released on bail, and Detective Tinch had expressed confusion. She's away from him. She's free from him. Why does she continue to take the rap for him, he asked. So the morning after the tape was played, the FBI called Tom Breslin, and within an hour everyone gathered in Honey's living room. Hope stared at the picture, a mugshot, of a long-haired man with a twinkle in his eye. Her mother and stepfather identified him.

but another picture flashed through hope's mind hand in his pocket gesturing with his pipe thick wavy hair golden tan polished boots warm smile and she was conflicted the fbi agent was talking but hope hesitated to respond then she closed her eyes and finally hope opened her eyes and said yes and did identify him as daniel walker now that morning march sixth detective swalwell was reading the letter that walker's lawyer had just received i am enclosing a brief story from the front pages of the s f s f paper which tells a bit of what is up in the fast-moving life of run dan run next i am enclosing a picture of hopey her name is hope but is called hopey and i took the picture in hopey's garden in l a walker recounted his version of the events that day and how the police arrived and hope and her children refused to answer any question and hope elected to go to jail to give him enough time to get away hours later when detective swalwell heard from the fbi that hope masters and her parents had identified walker's mugshot he grabbed a change of clothing his weapon and he was on the next flight out west you are the only means we have of catching this man the fbi had told hope it's important that you keep him on the phone when he calls you must keep him around so when the phone rang soon afterward hope's hands shook as she answered

how are you walker asked and without waiting for her reply he said i know you're very bad i will stick around and see you out of this mess oh please do hope said shakily i'm so scared i'm going right down the drain it's looking real bad for me they took me to porterville but they've removed everything up there like the fact that i threw up they're just not buying it and they think i'm some sort of sex freak well that's a bummer walker said and she doesn't even kiss until she brushes her teeth and he laughed well i've got to get off now will you call me later hope asked trying to sound casual sure he said take care of yourself give me a kiss love you and in his last of several calls he asked hope have they shown you any pictures hope said no in a very quiet voice walker sounded relieved and said then they don't realize you don't know who i am listen take care of yourself hope blurted out i don't want you to get killed on account of me i don't want anybody to get killed on account of me any more Well, that's neither here nor there, Walker said. I must enjoy what I'm doing. You know, you take for so many years, and all of a sudden, it's your turn to give. So it's just craziness. Hope's idea that Walker's capture would clear her was quickly disproven when he was surrounded, disarmed, and arrested at 1025 in the morning Sunday, March 11th, after an all-night stakeout by Detective Swalwell and 16 more armed men at the Howard Johnson's Motel in North Hollywood, where he'd registered as Taylor Wright.

the headlines were salacious and attention-getting one example is the socialite and the convict yeah hope and daniel walker ended up standing together at the preliminary hearing to determine whether there was probable cause for a trial even when a second tape in which walker declared her innocence not to mention his own was leaked to the press county investigators told the local paper they had no comment on who they believed fired a gun into bill ashlock's head at the hearing the prosecutor relied mostly on what he said was the complete implausibility of hope's story and on the sworn testimony of hope's beverly hills maid who said she'd seen hope on the living room floor with walker giving him a massage the hearing judge decided that there was more than sufficient evidence that a crime of homicide had been committed that each of the defendants were present and that the court felt that the probative value to be given to the evidence should be done by the trier of fact in supreme court so on april eighteenth hope masters and g daniel walker were charged with first-degree murder so even though she was free on bail hope spent her summer in distress as legal motions went on prior to trial but walker was having a great old time

When he was granted the right to function as his own co-counsel along with a public defender, he was given two cells in the jail, one with a picnic table for his workspace. The women trustees in their section of the county jail even got together and made him a quilt, because he said he'd been chilly in the cell. I wonder, he's not still married to the former warden's secretary, is he? No, but he does remarry. Yes. So Hope's attorneys move that charges against her be dismissed because of insufficient evidence. And in Walker's case, the evidence did seem very sufficient.

the list of items taken from his car the day he was arrested covered eleven pages and included lots of car keys and hotel room keys lots of other men's clothing credit cards and papers and this included bill ashlock's w two form and a pair of surgical gloves the car itself had been rented with bill's bank america card but still walker was smiling and dressed beautifully as he spoke and gestured with his pipe he moved that all the evidence be suppressed basing his argument on a concept called the fruit of the poison tree now walker argued that his letter to his lawyer in chicago which the detectives had used to link him with bill ashlock's murder had been illegally intercepted and everything that came from that his identification his arrest the seizure of incriminating evidence and his indictment were therefore also illegal so walker's fifty two page motion was discussed with amazement by some observers but even skeptics were impressed by his performance along with the court which did grant this motion in its entirety So that's pretty amazing. Well, legally he's correct. Yeah, all of that evidence was ordered suppressed. So without that evidence, the case against Walker really seemed to come down to one person, and that was Hope. But she was his co-defendant. So the solution to the legal question on how the state could get Hope to testify was not arrived at without some debate in the courtroom. And it resulted in the state's willingness to trade dismissal of the charges against Hope if she would testify against Walker. And the prosecutor wasn't thrilled. He said, we can't just dismiss. How about guilty to a lesser charge, like not calling the police?

but hope's attorneys who were good ones said no thanks dismissal and the court interjected and said as i see it the thing that will convict hope masters is your proof that she knew mr walker before he arrived at the ranch do you have any evidence of that and of course they didn't they had to admit that so hope masters case was dismissed then ninety-eight witnesses were called in the case of the people of the state of california versus g daniel walker the trial lasted nearly two months among them was tom masters who denied ever knowing or meeting walker or ever having anything to do with any kind of plot against hope the real taylor wright testified as did hope's thirteen-year-old son walker testified in his own defense and he took two days to tell his very detailed story then hope was confronted by the prosecution about her lies she said she'd only lied about one thing the identity of the person up at the ranch but she said she was not absolutely certain that mr walker was the first person who attacked her so on january eleventh nineteen seventy four g daniel walker was convicted of murder in the first degree and he was sentenced to life in prison

It really came down to the question of believability, as it usually does. It was a tangled question involving Hope Master's credibility and the ramifications of her own belief, despite the terror he had inflicted on her, in Daniel Walker. So the question was whether the jurors believed Walker, and they clearly did not. Neither did the trial judge, who even told the jury that in his opinion, Walker was guilty. That must have come after the jury voted guilty. I hope so.

hope remembered walker saying on the night they sat in her living room listening to music and sipping wine how do you think you will feel about me in five years hope had not gone back to the ranch but after honey threatened to sell it unless hope showed some interest she and her children drove up for a weekend in july of nineteen seventy eight she swam in the river and she slept in the same corner bedroom and she felt peaceful then back home she locked herself in her bedroom and cried for several days she cried for herself for bill and even for walker she knew walker had hurt her but by hanging around and helping her he had risked going to jail forever And he did basically go to jail forever. But still, that's a very naive belief. He wasn't hanging around to help her. No, he wasn't.

so afterwards hope and walker corresponded a friend of hope saw walker on tv talking about prison conditions and said he looks terrible can't you do something so hope sent a mailgram to him in prison life is hell how are you she started out and then she ended with there's always hope walker wrote back your mailgram opened unsaid unvoiced unadmitted things so they began to write back and forth certainly over the objections of her mother and tom breslin and jean ting and even her son keith keith was angry at what he called his mother's love letters to that guy hope denied that they were love letters she said she sent jokes a star wars comic book and a packet of romantic greeting cards for him to send to his women friends walker sent jokes and clippings and he sometimes referred to the song she played that night that monday night Yeah, but Hope became unnerved over time because Walker seemed to know everything that was going on. Like, not long after Hope had lunch with friends at a little restaurant near the farmer's market, Walker wrote to describe that lunch, and he was able to give the exact place and time. So he had someone watching her. Must have. When Hope's daughter got her own phone in her room as a birthday present, Walker called on that phone, even though it had been installed less than 24 hours before, and the number was unlisted. Then for months after that call, Hope's son Keith kept a 12-inch knife by his bedside. Hope was even more frightened by some little things in Walker's letters.

like he told her to expect him to stop by for a martini and when he referred to a book on her living-room shelf the other side of midnight hope felt like he was telling her he'd killed bill after midnight that saturday he talked about crowded visiting days at the prison saying weekends are murder and when he wrote ominously that prisoners were now allowed to marry his old question came back to her will you marry me So Hope decided she had to see him to settle things, and she visited him at San Quentin. She stayed overnight in Fresno and went back to see him for a second time the next day. Then she went home. Hope said, everyone thinks Walker let me live for one of two reasons, sex or money. Either we were sexually mad for each other or my parents paid him off. It never seems to occur to anybody that maybe Walker let me live because he thought I was a good person, a useful person, a valuable human being. But of course, that whole idea just falls flat when you think about the people who were killed. What would make them not valuable? Bill Ashlock was a good person, a valuable human being.

So it's kind of ridiculous. A bit self-serving. A bit. So three months after Hope's visit, Walker married a prison dietician. On February 14th, 2023, at a virtual hearing, prosecutors secured a three-year denial of parole to Walker, who was 91 years old at the time. Yeah, can you believe it? So this was his 14th or 15th paroled hearing, depending on the source you use. Walker is still alive and continues serving his life sentence at the California healthcare facility in Stockton.

Yes, I couldn't find anything online that he had died. So I'm pretty sure he's still alive at the health care facility. 94 or 95 at this point. Yep. So just a remarkable story. It is a remarkable story. It really is. It strains my degree of belief. Well, yeah, sure. But just an unusual criminal. And I don't say that as a compliment because I think he's an evil, horrible person, but he was an unusual criminal.

Oh, yes. Quite unusual. But a lot of what he pulled off would just not fly today. Of course, you can't go around using people's credit cards. It's all tracked now. But back then, you could take a credit card and use it for a few days before anyone would even be able to get the report through. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe even not until the person gets a bill. Yeah. From the card company. Pretty much. I think it works that way. Yeah. I didn't charge these. Well, although the people whose cards he took were either dead or beaten. So the police probably looked into that sooner than they would if you just found a credit card. Right. But of course, still, there's no cameras, no cell phones to track. So in some ways, it was easier to get away with things back then.

Yeah, and you can move around easier. Absolutely. Without being tracked. That's true. Okay. It's time for listener feedback.

So what have we got for feedback today? We have a few voicemails and a few emails, I think three of each. So the voicemails first, Tammy. Okay, let's listen to Tammy's voicemail. Good evening from Pocatello, Idaho. Jill and Dick, I have a really good suggestion for one of your podcasts that I think would almost have to be a two-part. It is James Wood in Pocatello, Idaho. June 1993, he killed a young girl named Gerald Lee Underwood while she was delivering papers.

But it led to several investigations for several murders that started all the way back to 1967. And his crime spree spread from Idaho to Louisiana. And he had a terrible early upbringing. And when he got out of prison in Louisiana, he was supposed to check in with this probation officer. And that was in 92, late 92. And he made a beeline to Pocatello, Idaho. And on his way to Pocatello, Idaho, he stopped in St. Louis, Missouri. He had kidnapped, raped, and shot an 18-year-old lady, Jamie.

in the head and left her in the forest to die. And she ended up surviving and testifying against him in the Underwood case. And there was a book also written called The Eye of the Beast. And it was co-authored by one of the detectives, which is quite interesting. And then there's a little twist of the Mormon religion from his attorney. And I'll just leave that as just kind of a secret. So when you see it, and I think this would be a fascinating case. And this was way before Idaho got all popular with Daybell and the U of I murders. This guy here, I think, is one of the worst too. And it's interesting. There's not a lot about James Wood.

So that's my suggestion. And my beer suggestion, we have a great little brewery here in Pocatello that is called Jim Dandy's. And they have a beer that's awesome. It's called the Ambitious Blonde. And it's really, really good. And I enjoy your podcast. I've been listening to you guys for eight years and mostly when I'm driving for work and on long road trips. So thank you, Jill and Dick, for keeping me awake on the roads. Take care. Well, thank you so much, Tammy. We really appreciate your input. And that case does sound really fascinating. I'm kind of shocked that I haven't heard of it before. But a paper girl, that's really sad, huh?

Yeah, you used to be a paper girl, didn't you? I did, when I was like 13 and 14, I think. Maybe even younger. Of course, this was in the old days, and I would either pull a wagon or ride my bike. Well, this was in 1993 that Gerald Lee Underwood, as she was delivering papers, was abducted, raped, killed, and dismembered by this creature. And this is a little 11-year-old. Yeah. Now, it wasn't too long into the investigation that Wood was arrested when they took him to jail. He readily confessed to killing little Gerald Lee, but at the same time, he also confessed to having had done two rapes and several robberies. And then while awaiting trial, he confessed to three other murders.

Now, the police had a little bit of difficulty believing that he had really killed that many people, and the investigation was ongoing. He probably did do the killings, but he died of natural causes in 2004 without divulging much more than he already said. So there's a lingering question of whether he is a serial killer, or is he just trying to get more notoriety for him? Okay. Well, it's kind of a sad state of affairs for Idaho that it's popular for these...

murderers, right? Yeah, they have some high-profile crimes there. They really have, yeah, yeah. And I can't wait to find out what the Mormon Church or LDS has to do with this. So I'm on it, Tammy. I'm going to get that book, Eye of the Beast, and give it a read. Maybe I'll sip some Jim Dandy Ambitious Blonde as I do so. Yeah, I don't know if we get that down here. Nope, but we can find it. Okay, sounds good. And the relation to the Mormon religion, I'll save. Oh, you know that? I thought you didn't know. I thought it was a mystery.

That she was letting us figure out on our own. No, it was just something she wanted us to mention. Oh, so you found it online? I did. Okay. All right. Sure. Okay. Let's see what else we have. Who's next? Bex. Bex. Good old Bex. All right. Let's hear what Bex has to say. Probably one of the top three. Yeah. Absolutely. Hey, Dick and Jill. It's your old friend Bex and I'm calling with another podcast suggestion. I just heard about this one, even though it goes back about four years.

So four years ago, this couple was shot in their home. The husband died. The wife was shot but survived. And there had been an intruder hiding in their home to ambush them when they returned to the house. So it took two years, but the police finally figured out it was their son-in-law who did it, who was also an ex-major league baseball player, Daniel Serafini.

Like there's a lot of details out on this and I'm surprised I never heard of it. There's a long, long article on people, but I haven't heard about it on any of the true crime podcasts I listened to. So I thought you guys might be interested in covering it. There's so much information out there, but not too much. And you guys had to do a good job with cases that involve family relationships. And there's things going on between the son-in-law and the parents, his wife's parents, between him and his wife, between his wife's best friend and him, if you know what I'm saying. And when, you know, other.

relationships start happening in a marriage and money is also involved, things like this do happen. And I'd be very interested to hear your take on it. Hope you're having a good summer and I'm looking forward to your next episode. Thank you, Bex. Much appreciated. We never get tired of hearing from you. So what do we know about this one, Dickey? Anything more than what Bex shared? Oh, just a little bit. This is a pretty up-to-date case, which I'll talk about. Serafini is basically a junior man baseball player. He'd been playing for several major league teams and also has been in Japan for baseball there. He's all he knows how to do.

Now, the motive for killing his in-laws, or killing the father-in-law and attempting the murder of his mother-in-law, the motive appeared to be money because he was deeply in debt, up to his eyeballs, past his eyeballs. Now, he was convicted and was to be sentenced this month on August 18th. Oh, really? So this is fresh news. Fresh news. But there was a continuance because there's been an appeal, and it looks like there might be a retrial. Okay, great. Well, thanks a lot, Bex. And we have another voicemail. This one's from Penny. Hello to you both. I should know your names, but I don't. I know that Dickie's diggy.

And I can't remember your lovely wife's name. I really enjoy listening to you both, however. And I love the way you discuss things. Anyway, I would like to say that I really want to hear the one about his name, Craig, what we call him. Okay, in Australia, you say Craig. In America, you say Craig. Also, you guys say Megan, and we say Megan. So there's a bit of a difference there. But I would love to hear the one about Craig James and his poor wife Angela, who he, from what I understand from the basic.

synopsis you guys gave us was just a horrible individual who deceived gaslighted and eventually murdered his wife but yeah do that one that'd be good with hydrant medication how horrible uh i love your show i've been listening to it for about three years and i'm about to become a tie grabber i just listened to the one you don did on the australian case with you know the mushrooms that was well done it was a big to do here yeah love your show thank you very much and i'm glad to subscribe very soon in fact i'll try to leave this voicemail see you Okay, well, thank you, Penny. Yeah, that James Craig case is a fascinating one, and I think we'll definitely cover it, don't you think? Oh, you already told me we're going to cover it. Well, he has been convicted, and I think it'd be quite easy to get all the information. The problem with the trial was it wasn't televised, which was a huge disappointment. But we were able to get quite a bit of information from people who were allowed to look in or actually be there for the trial. So let's do it. I thought we were required to do it. By whom? By you. Oh, okay. Yeah, sure, we are. Sentencing is this month or next month. It's pretty soon. Yeah, well, it's going to be life for sure.

Okay, so the first email is from Tom. He says, Dear True Crime Brewery team, I'm a huge fan of True Crime Brewery and your knack for unraveling complex true crime stories with heart and death. Thank you so much, Tom. I'd like to recommend the 1992 murder of Corey Winnicky in West Liberty, Iowa, a case especially meaningful to me, as Corey was a friend of my cousin, my flag football coach when I was young, and the woman who provided the key tip was my childhood neighbor. So on October 13, 1992, 22-year-old Corey Winnicky, a well-loved bartender and former high school football star, was found bludgeoned to death with an aluminum bat in his rural West Liberty home. The case sat cold for over 25 years until 2017, when a woman who grew up near me recalled overhearing a confession as a child, leading to Annette Cahill's conviction in 2019. Amazing. So this case is perfect for True Crime Brewery with its small-town mystery, a decades-long investigation, and the jaw-dropping breakthrough of a childhood memory unlocking the truth.

That's amazing because I was actually looking at another case where a girl had a memory of her father killing her friend. I can't think of the name right now, but that's one we're going to be covering as well. That's pretty eerie. It's really, really something. So Tom goes on to say Corey's vibrant presence in our community. It's an emotional layer that I believe your listeners would connect with. Absolutely. So you can dive into details through sources like the Oxygen article, Annette Cahill convicted in Corey Weineke's murder 27 years later, the Des Moines Register, or an NBC Dateline episode, The Black Candle Confession. That title actually sounds familiar. I'm sure we've seen it.

Haven't we seen every? I think we've seen every single Dateline there is. I think so too. I don't know if everybody has this. Probably in the United States they do. If you have cable, they have a Dateline channel. Or Peacock has it all too, but they just replay episodes of Dateline over and over again. So every time we see it, we say, oh yes, we've seen that one. Yeah, we haven't had any yet. That we haven't seen. I said I can't recognize it. Yeah, I don't know what that says about us, but it's true. So Tom says, thank you for considering Corey's story. I'd be thrilled to hear your take on this unforgettable case. Thank you. Also, he's recommending a beer. I would recommend a beer from Field Day Brewing Company in the close by.

North Liberty, Iowa. They specialize in traditional Czech and German beer styles, but also have some nice barrel-aged beers. I have worked as a brewer there this past year. Wow. Yay. That's really great, Tom. And I've been doing a lot more European beers. German, nice pilsners, Czech pilsners, Oktoberfest, good lagers. So good times with the beer. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And then we have an email from Nate. And of course, we all know Nate. Nate writes a lot. He has some great ideas for us. Yes, he does. Yeah. So Nate says, I have an update on the case of Kelly Lane.

She was denied parole in 2024 because she refused to reveal what happened to Teagan. Remember, that's her baby. So she was remanded back into prison until 2028. Nate says, I hope all is well. I guess New South Wales has a no body, no parole law. Fair enough, right? Yeah, I think. Yeah. I didn't know what was going on, what that meant. Well, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know that was the reason she was remanded back into prison. Well, yeah, she just refused to say anything. Yeah. So if you don't tell us where the body is, we're not going to let you out. Yeah. Like I said, I think that's fair enough.

And we have one more email. This is from Melissa with a case suggestion. And Melissa writes, hello, I found your podcast about six months ago, and now I listen every day on my commute to and from work. Well, thank you, Melissa. That's just excellent. I'm really flattered that you do that. I enjoy the beer reviews, Melissa goes on, because having a beer flight at our local brewery is my favorite thing to order so I can try new things. I live in a small town that is known as the cowboy capital of the world, Oakdale, California. We have two breweries, Last Call Brewing Company and Dying Breed Brewing Company, and both have great selections, and I'm sure they would have something you'd like.

I also have a case suggestion. I was employed with Lane Bryant at the time that the Lane Bryant murders occurred, and it was chilling to find out that a man had gone into one of the locations and ended up taking the employees and guests into the back room where he shot them execution style. My God, why would anyone do that? Miraculously, one of them lived, and it was said that the man had ties to one of the workers. Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it? It would. I would love to know more and know that through your research, we might be able to find out more information and share an update. I'm so glad that I stumbled upon your podcast and look forward to listening to it each day.

Well, Melissa, we are thrilled that you came upon our podcast and we'd like to welcome you to The Quiet End. We really enjoyed your input. Yes, we did. And she says, thank you for keeping me company on my commute. Well, you're welcome. It is our honor. I mean, when I think about people listening while they're working or driving or I just, I'm really kind of humbled by it. I think it's really nice. It's not a big deal. It's just a podcast, but it's just nice to know that we're making someone's day maybe 1% better with a little entertainment, right? That's right. So thanks everybody for your feedback and keep it coming. I mean, like I've said a million times, feedback's my favorite part of doing the podcast. Okay.

Well, thanks, guys, and we'll see you next time with some more True Crime Brewery at the quiet end. Bye-bye. Bye, guys.