Crime Adjacent

Bea Macy was born in a small town in Wisconsin but, just like Len Macy, she made her way to Ridgewood in a roundabout fashion following the Summer of Love. She remained in town until the very end.

In the 1960s, she escaped the doomed cult in the valley outside of town, grabbing on to a secretarial job at City Hall. There, she learned the ins and outs of Ridgewood. In the 1980s, she ran for school board, and then for City Council. The annual Christmas parade and Santa greeting was her idea. She fought tooth and nail to preserve the valley from development. People loved her.

On Dec. 16, 2023, Bea Macy would become the last known victim of the Rest Stop Killer. This is her story.

What's Crime Adjacent all about? Imagine what happens if your favorite character from your favorite mystery thriller leaps off the page and starts a podcast. That's Crime Adjacent -- the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly live BTS videos and our true crime profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is written and performed by Mike Adamick. 

It is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s something undeniably eerie about a parking lot. The rows of silent cars, or worse, the vast swaths of empty space. The distant echo of footsteps. The half-burnt yellow lights casting shadows across the gritty pavement. Parking lots are liminal spaces — they’re designed for movement, for transitioning from the safety of cars to the safety of places.

But for many - especially women - parking lots aren’t just transitional spaces. They’ve become cultural touchstones of heightened fear. Indeed, parking lots have become gendered terrains. Places where women and children are taken, where sex traffickers and kidnappers prowl, hunting for new victims.

In this episode, we examine the conspiracy theories surrounding parking lots and how they collide with reality. Because it was in a parking lot, under police protection even, where the final victim in this case was abducted on Dec. 16, 2023.

What's Crime Adjacent all about? Imagine what happens if your favorite character from your favorite mystery thriller leaps off the page and starts a podcast. That's Crime Adjacent -- the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly live BTS videos and our true crime profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is written and performed by Mike Adamick. 

It is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Over the span of a week in December 2023, two Ridgewood city council members were abducted and assaulted. One, Gary Pugh, had been murdered. The other, Margie Miller, managed to survive somehow, but the prognosis did not look good.

She was abducted on Friday night, Dec. 15, 2023, and by the following morning, Saturday, she would be in the hospital, fighting for her life. 

No one knew it at the time, of course, but by that Saturday morning, the killer already had their eye on the next and final victim in this case, which would unravel that very night, in that very hospital.

Imagine what happens if your favorite character from your favorite mystery thriller leaps off the page and starts a podcast. That's Crime Adjacent -- the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly live BTS videos and our true crime profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is written and performed by Mike Adamick. 

It is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

True crime is littered with cases of killers who tied to throw investigators off their tracks. These cases are also littered with the tiny, dumb mistakes these killers made that ultimately led to their demise.

The out of place pizza box. The tiny trace of DNA. The wild story of a late-night trip through a blizzard that was most definitely not an impromptu alibi attempt.

Which is all to say, true crime has grown accustomed to bizarre cases like these and the strange, unbelievable stories murderers come up with to throw police off the track.

But Detective Jones and Chief Williams both agreed: Detectives are not born yesterday. They, too, studied these cases. They knew all the ways killers try to elude capture. And they knew almost from the start. The same thing was playing out in Ridgewood.

Imagine what happens if your favorite character from your favorite mystery thriller leaps off the page and starts a podcast. That's Crime Adjacent -- the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly live BTS videos and our true crime profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is written and performed by Mike Adamick. 

It is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On Dec. 13, 2023, Ridgewood resident Mollie Miller came to one of the Crime Adjacent live shows in San Francisco. She had a message for us: The Rest Stop Killer had returned to Ridgewood. 

But more than that, she knew exactly who the killer was.

So why, then, when I returned to Ridgewood to investigate, did I find her in her main suspect's home?

I needed answers. Fast. Because during that cold winter week in 2023, Ridgewood was coming undone.

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly live BTS videos and our true crime profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

True Crime stories are riddled with serial killers and their crimes. But how do they get started? 

From BTK to The Nightstalker to the Rest Stop Killer, many serial killers begin with what forensic psychologists call rehearsal fantasy. 

That's the term for the young teen or young man outside, in the bushes, watching. Eventually, for some, these voyeuristic, Peeping Tom fantasies evolve into something far, far worse -- like break ins and eventually physical violence.

I couldn't help thinking of that term and all those killers, because wasn't I doing the exact same thing? 

I headed to the Palmer house on Friday night, hoping to find some answers. But I soon found myself outside, in the bushes, watching ... peeping.

And what I discovered turned this case upside down.

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly BTS info and profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Margie Miller spent her life trying to escape Ridgewood. But a series of unfortunate events always pulled her back home, and right back into the heart of this case.

At 18, she was accepted into the University of Chicago, but her family just couldn't afford it, and so she stayed home. At 22, she was offered a job in San Francisco, but her father suddenly died and she remained home to help her mother.

After a few years, she was offered another job, a dream job in the history department of the University of San Francisco, but then she met Bob Miller. He was new to town. And unlike every other man in Ridgewood, he liked her. They married, had a daughter, and settled in Ridgewood.

When Bob died in 2023, Margie saw her chance. By December of that year, she had put the house on the market and was packing up, looking at senior communities in Napa and Fairfield. This was, finally, her chance to escape Ridgewood once and for all.

Margie Miller was abducted just a block from her home on Dec. 15, 2023, and her body was discovered just hours later in the valley. Sort of. 

This is her story.

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly BTS info and profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On Sept. 27, 1969, the Zodiac killer donned a black hood and approached a young couple on the shores of Lake Berryessa — just a few miles north of Ridgewood.

Once he tied up the couple, he stabbed them mercilessly. 

I told you the Zodiac kept appearing in strange ways in the case of the Rest Stop Killer, and it happened again here, at Lake Berryessa. 

Because this exact spot where the Zodiac struck back in 1969 -- it was the exact same location where the body of Michelle Diaz was discovered by hikers in 2023.

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly BTS info and profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The disappearance of Michelle Diaz happened at the worst possible time in a small town with limited resources and in a media environment desperate for information about a different case altogether. 

So although her death would eventually lead to uncovering the true volume of horror committed by the Rest Stop Killer, she would, sadly, become a footnote in the larger story. 

Michelle Diaz was anything but a footnote to her family and those who loved her most.

This is her story.

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly BTS info and profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was Mollie Miller who alerted me to the death of Gary Pugh. It was Mollie Miller who said the Rest Stop Killer was back, who said the Palmer family was involved somehow, and that the police were covering for them. 

And yet, she now refused to talk. 

Something was happening in Ridgewood, and on Thursday Dec. 14, 2023, I went home for the first time in nearly 30 years to figure it out. 

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime thriller told weekly. 

New episodes every Wednesday.

Weekly BTS info and profiling group at Patreon -- http://www.patreon.com/crimeadjacent 

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/crimeadjacent

Web site -- www.crimeadjacent.com

Crime Adjacent is produced & edited by Multitude.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.