Three Weddings and a Funeral | Part I

Scamfluencers

Wondery

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the late 1970s, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter leaves his small Bavarian village in pursuit of the American dream. He enrolls in high school in Connecticut and tries to impress his classmates with fake accents, fancy suits, and grandiose stories. Over the years, he spins even bigger lies and creates fake names and new identities all over the country, winning over unsuspecting women along the way. By the time his victims figure out he’s been hiding a gruesome secret, it’ll be too late.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to scam influencers add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:13.7	Haggy!
0:14.9	Hey, Sachi. Have you ever had to invent a story for whatever reason, but the details get just so unwieldy and so out of hand
0:23.3	that you literally have to keep notes so you can stay on track?
0:26.3	Honestly, I'm not that good of a liar.
0:30.6	So the lie would just fall apart, right? It would fall apart real fast.
0:34.5	Okay, well my parents listened to this podcast ritualistically, so I have to say I have never lied ever for any reason at all.
0:41.3	You're the most honest girl I know.
0:43.3	Thanks, that's so nice. They're definitely gonna believe that.
0:47.8	Well this week I have a story about someone who was really good at building crazy,
0:53.1	complex, believable lies all the way until he wasn't.
1:00.0	It's May of 1994 in San Marino, California.
1:06.2	Jose Perez and his construction crew are renovating a house, including installing a swimming pool.
1:11.5	They're digging a 36 foot pit to ready the yard for the cement and the plumbing.
1:16.1	But then the tractor's blade crashes through something hard, buried in the dirt.
1:20.7	Jose stops digging, annoyed.
1:23.0	He's found everything imaginable in people's yards, even a few cars.
1:27.9	But this is unusual.
1:29.7	When he looks closer, he realizes the tractor's metal claw has sliced open a big fiberglass box buried in the dirt.
1:36.9	And inside the box are a bunch of plastic shopping bags, including some with university logos on them.
1:42.7	And there's a bad smell coming from them.
1:45.8	Like really bad.
	...

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