Food Criminals

The Bob’s Big Boy Massacre (1980)The Intelligence is Artificial, but the Crime is Real. Episode Overview On December 14, 1980, a mass shooting at a Bob's Big Boy in Los Angeles left multiple people dead and several others wounded in one of the most shocking yet largely forgotten restaurant shootings in California history. This case, involving gunman David Eugene Greenwood, represents an early example of modern mass violence in a public dining space. Long before mass shootings became a regular part of national headlines, this attack exposed how vulnerable everyday locations like diners and family restaurants could be. This episode explores the timeline of the Bob’s Big Boy massacre, the background of the shooter, the events of the attack, and its lasting place in true crime history. Key Topics Covered Bob’s Big Boy massacre 1980 full timelineDavid Eugene Greenwood background and motiveLos Angeles restaurant shooting historyEarly mass shootings in CaliforniaPublic space violence in the late 20th centuryTrue crime analysis of mass casualty eventsRestaurant shootings in U.S. history The Location: Bob’s Big Boy and American Dining Culture Bob's Big Boy was one of the most recognizable restaurant chains in America during the mid-20th century, particularly in California. Known for its iconic mascot, casual atmosphere, and late-night service, it served as a gathering place for families, teenagers, and workers alike. By 1980, Bob’s Big Boy locations were deeply embedded in Southern California culture. The idea that such a place could become the site of a mass shooting was deeply unsettling, contributing to the shock that followed the attack. Official brand history and background:https://www.bobs.net/about Historical overview of Bob’s Big Boy and its cultural impact:https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/the-story-of-bobs-big-boy The Perpetrator: David Eugene Greenwood The gunman, David Eugene Greenwood, was a 19-year-old former employee of the restaurant. His prior connection to the location raised immediate questions about workplace grievances, personal instability, and access to the victims. Reports from the time indicate that Greenwood had a troubled background and exhibited signs of emotional and behavioral instability. However, like many early mass shooting cases, the available documentation does not point to a single clear motive. Instead, the attack appears to have been driven by a combination of anger, alienation, and opportunity. Archived news coverage (UPI):https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/12/15/Teenager-held-in-Bobs-Big-Boy-slayings/ Los Angeles Times archives search (relevant articles):https://www.latimes.com/archives California newspaper archive database:https://cdnc.ucr.edu The Attack: December 14, 1980 On the night of December 14, 1980, Greenwood entered the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant armed with a firearm and began shooting. The attack unfolded rapidly, giving patrons and employees little time to react. Victims included both staff members and customers, underscoring the indiscriminate nature of the violence. Multiple individuals were killed, and several others were injured before law enforcement arrived and took Greenwood into custody. The confined layout of the restaurant contributed to the chaos, as diners attempted to flee or take cover in a space not designed for emergency escape. The scene quickly transformed from a normal evening service into a site of panic and tragedy. UPI archival report on the shooting:https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/12/15/Teenager-held-in-Bobs-Big-Boy-slayings/ Associated Press archive search:https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-news Investigation and Motive Analysis Investigators initially searched for a clear motive but found no single explanation that accounted for the scale of the violence. While Greenwood’s past employment at the restaurant suggested a personal connection, there was no definitive evidence of a triggering workplace dispute. The case ultimately fell into a category that would become more familiar in later decades: acts of mass violence driven by a combination of personal instability, perceived grievances, and access to weapons, rather than a single identifiable cause. This ambiguity made the case difficult to process at the time and contributed to its gradual fading from public memory. General research on early mass shootings in the U.S.:https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html FBI overview of mass shooting characteristics: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2014-2015.pdf Cultural and Historical Context The Bob’s Big Boy massacre occurred at a time when mass shootings were not yet a dominant feature of American media coverage. As a result, it did not receive the sustained national attention that similar events would garner today. However, in retrospect, the case is part of a broader pattern of late 20th-century violence that signaled a shift in how and where such crimes could occur. Restaurants, once seen as safe communal spaces, became part of a growing list of vulnerable public environments. The case also highlights how certain crimes, particularly those without a clear narrative or motive, can fade from public consciousness despite their severity. Historical database of U.S. mass shootings:https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map/ Violence Policy Center research:https://www.vpc.org/studies/massshooting.htm Why This Case Still Matters The Bob’s Big Boy massacre is a reminder that the phenomenon of mass violence in public spaces did not begin in the 21st century. It has deeper roots, often overlooked, in earlier decades. Understanding cases like this one helps build a more complete picture of how mass shootings evolved, how they were understood at the time, and how public awareness has changed. For true crime audiences, it also serves as a case study in how certain tragedies are remembered while others are quietly forgotten, despite being equally devastating. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Join our patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/3MinModernist Sources https://www.fbi.gov/history/artifacts/brick-from-the-palace-chop-house-dutch-schultz-murder-case https://losthistory.net/njhm/dutchschultz.htm https://nj1015.com/the-murder-of-bootlegger-dutch-schultz/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Schultz https://www.crimelibrary.org/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/schultz/1935_7.html https://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2021/12/blackout-at-umbertos-clam-house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gallo https://esquire.com/entertainment/a30061890/joseph-crazy-joe-gallo-the-irishman-true-story/ https://allthatsinteresting.com/joe-gallo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbertos_Clam_House This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Emporia News (Emporia, KS), May 9, 1873. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2024/10/bloody-benders/ The Lake County Star (Chase, MI), May 15, 1873, coverage referencing the Benders. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn85026421/1873-05-15/ed-1/?sp=2&st=text Archival collections, museums, and primary materials Kansas Memory (Kansas Historical Society) — portal to digitized Kansas history collections. Search “Bender.” https://www.kansasmemory.org/ Kansas Historical Society, Kansapedia (archived) — “Bender Knife.” Background and collection note for the knife associated with the case. https://web.archive.org/web/20181215120007/https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/bender-knife/10106 Pittsburg State University, Digital Commons — “Bender Crimes photographs, 1873.” https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/fa/439/ Cherryvale Museum (official Kansas tourism listing). Exhibits include Bender-related materials and a cabin replica. https://www.travelks.com/listing/cherryvale-museum/1480/ Books and long-form studies Jonusas, Susan. Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier. Viking, 2022. Publisher page. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622578/hells-half-acre-by-susan-jonusas/ Jonusas, Susan. Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier. Paperback edition details. https://books.google.com/books/about/Hell_s_Half_Acre.html?id=BYqeEAAAQBAJ James, John T. The Benders in Kansas. Kan-Okla Publishing, 1913. Catalog record with publication details. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Benders_in_Kansas.html?id=U10qQAAACAAJ James, John T. The Benders in Kansas (defense attorney’s narrative). Antiquarian listing with bibliographic description confirming first edition details. https://www.buckinghambooks.com/book/the-benders-in-kansas-by-john-t-james-attorney-for-the-defense-in-the-trial-of-the-bender-women-atoswego-labette-county-in-1889-1890-the-complete-story-facts-not-fiction-1/ Adleman, Robert H. The Bloody Benders. Stein and Day, 1970. Library catalog record. https://csu-sonoma.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?adaptor=Local+Search+Engine&context=L&docid=alma991002869589702901 Geary, Rick. The Saga of the Bloody Benders: The Infamous Homicidal Family of Labette County, Kansas. NBM Publishing, 2007. Library record. https://archive.org/details/sagaofbloodybend0000gear Articles, essays, and reference overviews Library of Congress, Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room blog. “The Bloody Benders: Homestead of Horrors” (curated links to 1873 newspaper coverage in Chronicling America). https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2024/10/bloody-benders/ Wichita Eagle. Tim Potter, “The Bloody Benders: 140-year-old crime scene still fascinates today” (Aug. 24, 2013). https://www.kansas.com/news/article1121436.html Kansas Reflector. Max McCoy, “A mysterious murder site has a new owner. He’s looking for answers about the Bloody Benders.” (Oct. 31, 2021). https://kansasreflector.com/2021/10/31/a-mysterious-murder-site-has-a-new-owner-hes-looking-for-answers-about-the-bloody-benders/ Humanities Kansas. “True Crime in Kansas: The Mystery of the Benders” (Oct. 26, 2022). https://www.humanitieskansas.org/get-involved/kansas-stories/people/true-crime-in-kansas-the-mystery-of-the-benders/ HistoryNet. “The Bloody Benders’ Grim Harvest” (Mar. 30, 2012). https://www.historynet.com/the-bloody-benders-grim-harvest/ Crimereads. “The Bloody Benders: America’s First Family of Serial Killers” (Aug. 19, 2019). https://crimereads.com/the-bloody-benders-americas-first-family-of-serial-killers/ Recent research, digs, and broadcast coverage KCTV5 (Kansas City). “Kansas’ Bloody Benders: Digging for clues in century-old murders” (Jul. 4, 2024). https://www.kctv5.com/2024/07/04/kansas-bloody-benders-digging-clues-century-old-murders/ Yahoo News video write-up, KU research effort at the Bender site (May 31, 2024). https://www.yahoo.com/news/ku-researchers-dig-deeper-bloody-234633828.html University of Kansas feature video about ongoing archaeological work related to the Benders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLF0-4E_nXQ Tourism and site markers Historical Marker Database entry for “The Bloody Benders” (notes the marker’s former location and removal status; useful for site documentation history). https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=275329 Roadside America note on the Cherryvale Historical Museum display of the three Bender hammers. https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/79636 Publisher and review references for Jonusas’s study Scribner UK edition page for Hell’s Half-Acre (paperback, 2023). https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Hells-Half-Acre/Susan-Jonusas/9781471190322 Publishers Weekly review of Hell’s Half-Acre (Jan. 14, 2022). https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781984879837 Kirkus review of Hell’s Half-Acre (Mar. 1, 2022). https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/susan-jonusas/hells-half-acre-benders/ This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Visit our Patreon patreon.com/3MinModernist The Ostrich (Colnbrook, UK) https://ostrichcolnbrook.co.uk/history.html https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1124367 https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101124367-the-ostrich-public-house-colnbrook-with-poyle https://historicengland.org.uk/education/schools-resources/educational-images/ostrich-inn-high-street-colnbrook-11673 https://mikedashhistory.com/2010/07/19/the-horrible-history-of-the-ostrich-inn/ https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-ostrich-inn The Relay Inn / Relay House (Relay, Maryland, USA) https://relaymaryland.com/about/ https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=103010 https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=8764 https://www.roads.maryland.gov/OPPEN/Maryland_Railroads_Statewide_Historic_Context_Complete.pdf (If you meant the Pennsylvania stagecoach stop often called “Relay Inn”): https://www.facebook.com/mifflincountyhistoricalsociety/posts/reportedly-haunted-the-relay-inn-built-in-1799-and-used-as-a-stage-coach-stop-le/1229519535871197/ The Bleeding Horse (Camden Street, Dublin) https://bleedinghorse.ie/ https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50110427/bleeding-horse-24-25-camden-street-upper-charlotte-way-dublin-2-dublin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bleeding_Horse https://www.visitdublin.com/the-bleeding-horse https://www.dublinbypub.ie/pubs/bleeding-horse/ https://comeheretome.com/2011/04/07/the-bleeding-horse/ Transcript Part 1 – Historical Inn Murders “Once a traveler leaves his home, he loses almost 100% of his ability to control his environment.” — Special Agent Dale Cooper Restaurant murders are nothing new. As long as there have been road trips, there have been inns. The European-style inn really started as a precursor of today’s Airbnb; people would rent out an extra bed (or even a space in the stables) and feed any traveler who needed to bunk and chow down for a night. These were unofficial, but really, they would evolve into today’s highway motels, hotels, and rest stops. They were important in enabling travelers not only to have a place to stay, but also as a way to avoid spending a night out along the trail where they might have to deal with highwaymen, local tribes, and wild animals. Now, with a clientele that was on the go as a rule, and with no way to communicate with the folks back home, it was not too unusual for an inn to be the final stop for travelers who checked in but never checked out. Thefts happened often, even at some reputable inns, but murders were not unheard of. There are three examples, of varying veracity, that show how dangerous an old-timey inn could be: one English, one French, and one American. The Ostrich Inn (Colnbrook, England) The Ostrich Inn may or may not be nearly a millennium old. It might also “only” be 500 years old. With a building that old, five hundred years may not make too much of a difference. Instead of razing and starting over with older structures, many new buyers would simply add on and remodel. Fix-and-flip was a thing even in the dim dark past. It’s certainly possible that there are elements of The Ostrich that date back to the 12th century. The story goes that it was originally called The Hospice, and while under that name it was visited by a couple of historically important folks. Of course, this could actually be a conflation with another building—possibly the hospital, or hospice, of the local abbey that might have stood on the site. There are myriad other possibilities, but those two are the most likely. All we know for sure is that the place still stands, not too far from Heathrow airport, and has a delightful menu today. In 1215, King John—aka Softsword, aka Lackland, aka the lion in Disney’s Robin Hood—was on his way to Runnymede to sign a treaty with rebellious Barons who were threatening war. The Archbishop of Canterbury drafted the original version of the Carta Libertatum, which was signed and settled some hash for a little bit. Of course, no one really took it to heart at first: there was a war between the crown and the Barons, then John died, his son used the Carta Libertatum as the basis for more laws, and they renamed the document Magna Carta. On the way, supposedly, King John stopped with his retinue and stayed at The Hospice. Whether this is true or not—or simply a story invented to draw tourists at some point in the past—is uncertain. It could be that his team stayed at The Hospice, or at the actual abbey hospice that might have stood on the spot. The building was certainly there in the early 18th century when Dick Turpin, arguably the most famous of highwaymen, stayed at the inn. The Ostrich is, and was, not the only inn to make the claim that Turpin and his gang stayed there. Looking at the areas where his alleged crimes took place, it’s possible he could have. The criminal lore of The Ostrich, though, comes from an older story. The inn was supposedly owned by the Jarmans, a couple who recognized two things: 1) since they were on the road out of London, their visitors might well be carrying goods and cash, and 2) those visitors were especially vulnerable. The tale goes that Mr. Jarman installed a bed placed on top of a trapdoor. At night, when the mark was asleep, he would pull a lever and the person on the bed would fall down a chute to the basement, where a giant pot full of boiling water would be waiting, boiling the unfortunate victim alive, while the Jarmans grabbed whatever was left behind in the room. Of course, there’s a lot in that story that makes it less than credible. The first is the claim of sixty victims—but even back then, people noticed when loved ones vanished. Also, if you’re dunked into a pot of boiling water, it takes a while to die, and it would be insanely hard to actually keep someone submerged long enough to kill them. The amount of flame needed to keep a human-sized boiler going would have made the room above stifling. The other problem is that there is no record of the story until the 17th century, in a novel called Jack of Newbury by Thomas Deloney. It is likely that Deloney’s tale, and the notoriety it gained from being attached to such a well-known inn, led to the story later being tied to Sweeney Todd. The Bleeding Horse Ireland’s long tradition of roadside inns has left more than food and lodging in memory. In Dublin, few taverns carry a reputation as grim as The Bleeding Horse, a public house dating back to the 17th century. Its name itself comes from legend—an injured horse stumbled in from a nearby skirmish, leaving the floor stained. When your business is named after a wounded animal, you’ve pretty much assured that it’s going to be a place for rough trade of varying kinds. Now, while The Bleeding Horse’s origins are fairly metal, the stories of the dangers that one could get themselves into at the inn are far harder to track down. By the 19th century, it had gained a reputation as a rough ’n tumble place. Camden Street was a crossroads for all types, travelers and locals alike. This has been a recipe for crime, as locals would sometimes try and take advantage of the travelers, and travelers could simply move on to the next inn if they committed crimes against locals. There were rumors that travelers would disappear from the inn as early as the late 18th century. That’s a possibility, but it also just might have been the fact that pub owners liked to advertise their pubs as rougher than they actually were. A town like Dublin, full of folks from all social strata, is exactly the kind of place where locals would drink wherever was close by, but the moneyed class would travel if there was a good time. And what rich person doesn’t enjoy a good night of slumming? Add to that the rumors of ghosts and you’ve managed to make The Bleeding Horse into a very attractive destination. James Joyce wrote of The Bleeding Horse in Ulysses, where Leopold Bloom visits the pub. The Bleeding Horse is one of those inns where there is no good evidence, but the reputation will always live with it, and the more fame it gains, the stronger the belief that once, it was a bully establishment. The Relay Inn Now we are in Pennsylvania and it’s the 19th century. The Relay Inn was built in 1799, and it’s a pretty standard stagecoach stop. Mifflin County wasn’t the roughest of areas; there are significant Amish communities in the county. Established in 1791, the Amish have more than thirty established groups within the county. Now, it’s not so much a crime that makes the Relay Inn an important part of the myth and mystery, but evidence of a crime—in this case, a bloodstain. At some point in the 19th century, a stain appeared on the floor. This stain was not huge, but it was evident and looked a lot like blood. Supposedly, there were attempts to clean it up, and they all ended up just making the stain more pronounced. The stain was on the floorboards in one of the bedrooms, and while many—including owners in the mid-20th century—said it was just darker portions of the wood, perhaps trying to tap into the potential for drawing visitors, the myth arose that a murder had taken place in the inn. There’s no record of anything in contemporary papers. But there have been reports of ghosts, of course, including in that very bedroom. Perhaps the stain is the ghost trying to draw attention, but more likely it was the owners trying to draw a few more customers. The building still stands today, but is a private residence. L’Auberge de Peyrebeille — “Auberge Rouge” (Ardèche, France) Now, while it’s more likely that the stories we mentioned earlier are not true, the story of L’Auberge de Peyrebeille in Ardèche, France, is certain. Once known as Auberge Rouge, it was an old inn by the 1830s and still going strong. The operators were Pierre and Marie Martin. They bought the inn around 1805 and operated it for more than twenty years. They were Ultra-Royalists, and they helped former nobles recover their confiscated lands. Pierre was a feared figure, since he was something of a henchman for local nobility. The inn prospered. Its position led many travelers to stop and stay. The going theory was they were worth about 30,000 gold francs—roughly six hundred thousand euros in today’s money. That was a lot of cash for innkeepers at the time, and there were whispers about how they’d made so much. In 1831, a horse dealer went missing: Jean-Antoine Enjolras. Horse dealers were important, and one going missing was bound to draw attention. The magistrate figured that Enjolras had been at the inn, but the trail went cold. A few days earlier, a body had turned up in the river near the inn. The head had been smashed in, and the knees crushed. This was no boating accident, and investigators identified the body as Enjolras. Quickly, they found a suspect: Jean Rochette. Pierre Martin was arrested slightly later, and Marie Martin after that, as local officials did not believe a woman could have committed such savagery. The trial was set, and it got a nickname: the Trial of the Four Monsters. The Martins’ nephew André was also charged. A beggar named Laurent Chaze testified that he’d been denied a bed at the inn, so he slept in one of the sheds on the property, which allowed him to witness the Martins and company killing Enjolras. This was as close to an open-and-shut case as you could have back in the 1830s—except it wasn’t all. The Napoleonic Code was the law of the land, and it allowed a lot more use of hearsay and conjecture as evidence. More than 100 people testified that they’d heard rumors over the years. They claimed that the Martins had been killing and cutting up visitors, taking their goods and making a living off the spoils. Others testified that Mrs. Martin had served human meat from the bodies they killed, that farmers had seen her boiling human hands, and that there were bedsheets covered in blood. That last is not uncommon in hotels even today. The defense claimed that Enjolras had gotten drunk and suffered a heart attack. Mrs. Martin had given him some herbal tea, after all. The crushed head and knees? Those came from being in the river. Rochette’s plea sealed their fate. He admitted the Martins murdered Enjolras but claimed he was not culpable because he was under Pierre Martin’s sway. This doomed all of them—except André, who was acquitted. The other three were found guilty of Enjolras’s murder, but not of any of the other crimes alleged. The judge was clearly partial to the prosecution. They were executed by guillotine, and death masks were made, as was common at the time. Were they guilty? Hard to say. Many modern researchers doubt it, but there’s the fact that they were richer than they should have been as simple innkeepers. Maybe Enjolras was drunk, got into a fight, or tripped and bashed his head, leading the Martins to dispose of the body. Who knows? At this distance, we’ll never have a clearer view. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Support Our Patreon! Get free books! https://www.patreon.com/3MinModernist Buy the Original Food Criminals (which they called Food & Crime for some reason...) - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1399063529/ Try Johnny Eponymous' Cozy Mystery series The Boulder Creek Mysteries! https://www.amazon.ca/Murder-Margins-Boulder-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0FMGMR7KK Transcript Introduction “A restaurant is not a business; it’s a passion.” — Unknown Let us go then, you and I, into your favorite restaurant. Picture the layout, the seating, the staff, the clientele. Relive the smells of the food, the sounds of chatter, the clinking of cutlery, the waitstaff taking orders. Sit in that memory for just a moment. Recall your last visit, your first. Now think of everything you don’t see—everything you don’t experience personally. The long hours of the staff. The resentment of dissatisfied diners. The anger of rivals. The dangers of preparation. The relationships that live and die in those rooms. That is where danger lives. As light as the impact might be on you, for others restaurants can be dark places, heavy places—and that can lead to violence, and even… murder. Welcome to Food Criminals: Last Seating. This is a follow-on to my first book, Food Criminals (published by Pen & Sword as Food & Crime in 2023). Here I’ll revisit some of the crimes mentioned in passing in that earlier volume, while tackling many more, broadly divided into sections that deal with the organized crime figures getting murdered, poisoning, employee murders, robberies, terrorism, and mass killings. Along with those broad views, I’ll be taking a look at individual cases that illuminate the concept and have ties further afield. Each and every one has murders that take place in, or immediately outside, a restaurant. Why only the ones that take place inside? For one, do you know how many murders were planned in restaurants? Neither do I—because I stopped counting after about a hundred. Crime syndicates have long favored restaurants as planning sites. They’re public, often loud, and the comings and goings are difficult to track. Add to this the fact that restaurants are often used as fronts for everything from money laundering to card skimming, gambling, or even human trafficking, and they become natural hubs of criminal activity. Several crime families made their headquarters in now-infamous eateries, including American giants like the Gallo crew, the Gambinos, and the Chicago Outfit. Some of these restaurants even became attractions, places where outsiders hoped to catch a glimpse of mobsters. There is also a deeper thread here. Restaurants represent comfort, safety, identity. That very symbolism makes them ideal targets for terrorists, regardless of ideology. Political and religious attacks on restaurants go back generations, particularly in occupied territories. And in recent decades, the massive uptick in mass murder—often a form of domestic terrorism—has shifted focus to schools, but some of the most brutal shootings happened in restaurants: the San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre in 1984, Luby’s Cafeteria in 1991, and others. Restaurants are vulnerable not only because they are densely populated, but because diners are engrossed in what they are eating and experiencing. This book examines these stories one by one. No two murders are the same, and no two impacts identical. I will explore the individuals involved—victims and perpetrators alike—and trace the social, political, and financial threads that explode outward from these violent events This podcast is powered by Pinecast.