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Previously on wiscrack, you had Jody catching you up digging around in the UK.

But look, I figured, since I lived through it all, I'd be better to chime in with what really happened that night, right, Jody met my two glorious brothers, Sam who insists but it couldn't be a killer, which is a choice, and Jack, who we kind of forgot to tell about any of it.

Oops.

Sorry.

Then came the trial, where it was silent for most of it until one sharp, unsettling outburst.

He was found guilty, rightfully, but here's what still shakes me.

While he was serving his sentence, two ultra religious soul mates claimed he was possessed and they decided.

To cleanse him.

They killed him.

They said it was an exorcism that they were told to do by God.

Anyway, where did we leave off?

A?

Jody is off to the happiest place on Earth, not Disneyland, stands in Mountfitchet.

God speed Jody.

For the first time in ten years, I am podcast free, which feels horrible.

I'm desperately looking for another podcast.

Really, Oh my God.

While I was in London, I made some calls to Ed's old friends, the ones who knew him best around the time of the murders.

One name I found on the flyer they handed me at Ed's Edinburgh show was the director of his comedy set, Sophie Hagen.

I actually remember exactly when I met it, because I was blown away by how funny he was.

It was at uh pup called the Queen's Head in Camden in London.

Ed was sitting there all chubby he used to be really fat, which he was so funny about it.

And he was sitting in the corner jumping up and down like a little child, saying, guys, guys, can you believe they're gonna let us do comedy?

Sophie is a force in her own right, a veteran of stand up specials and podcasts, and in fact, the year before Ed premiered his show, Sophie won Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I was hoping to get a glimpse into Ed's mental state only months after the murders.

What I got was something else entirely.

So.

The way I remember it was he called me one night and told me the story of what had happened, and, being this sort of cynical person that I am probably was, I was like, Ed, this is a show.

Would you do this on stage?

And I remember him sounding surprised, being like, really, you think I should?

He then said, well, would you want to help out with it?

And I was like, ye oh, yeah, definitely, And I told him that I had a few rules.

I had a few sort of I can only work on this if you're truthful about it, if you work hard and you tell the truth, then I'm.

Absolutely on board.

I would love to help.

So it all came crashing down around the same time.

He tells a story in the show about how, by accident, his email and number was printed on the front page of his local paper.

And I said to him the whole time work on the show, I'd said, oh, we have to see this, like this is a like we need to post it on Instagram or to show it in the show, like we need to see this because this is so funny.

And he kept saying, yeah, yeah, I will, we have it at home.

And every time I asked, you'd say, oh yeah, yeah, my brother's sending it or whatever.

So around the time when I started doubting him in general and realized he told a lot of lies, I pressed him on it and I was like, ed, can I see that newspaper now, please?

And he's got really defensive and was like, oh, you don't trust me.

And I was like, ah, that sounds like what liars do when they're caught out in a lie.

And it actually took it took some time, maybe like days, before I thought, if he's willing to lie about all these other big things, could he lie about this?

And I started googling it frantically to find any evidence of this having happened.

And I believe I did find articles about having happened, but I don't think if I remember correctly, I didn't find anything that backed up his side.

Of the story.

I don't remember any mentioning of the neighbor of Brett trying to break into another house.

There was no mention of Ed anywhere.

Then, when I pressed him on at a tiny bit and said Ed, how much of this is true?

He again became incredibly angry and like defensive and started blaming me for all sorts of things.

And I'm just thinking, Okay, do you know what.

I now don't know how much is true at all about him, his life, anything, So I doubt that this story is true and I don't know, And at that point I didn't care.

And then I basically haven't really spoken to him.

I've seen him since, so I think as soon as I realized that he told not just one, but multiple lies, I stopped because the person I loved and the person I had this very close relationship with, I didn't know how much of that was an actual person and how much of that was just lies.

Sophie's claims changed the way I saw everything.

In all my years of working in true crime, I knew to document the cleanest timeline possible, layering eyewitness accounts and police reports to build a tight play by play of exactly what happened, which I had done thoroughly.

The problem was the subject of my story wasn't at the crime scene.

He was three doors down asleep.

He's never been contacted by the police to give a statement, much less sworn under oath to anything he witnessed.

Had I convinced myself of a story that wasn't true, had I made the fatal mistake of trying to fit Ed's comedy into the cold, hard facts instead of the other way around.

What if there was a world in which Brett Rogers committed the murders but never came to Ed's house, never banged on the door.

It would mean Ed was only adjacent to the crime, feet from it, but he never once crossed Brett's mind that night.

And it would also mean that Ed has shoehorned himself into a crime that has nothing to do with him for the worst possible reason.

Fame.

I'm Jonie Tovey and this is Wisecrack, episode four.

Brett, who as Ed, picks me up outside of my Airbnb.

The only thing I wanted to do was meet his parents.

They could quickly corroborate his story and get these thoughts out of my head.

But Ed was in no hurry to get to his house.

He decided I needed a tour of the village first, so I decided to play a cool go with the flow.

If there was anything to Sophie's claims, they'd soon be a parent, and I didn't want to rattle Ed either.

Sorry, this is the entrance and it's going to take about ten minutes to drive through the entire thing.

Amazing.

This looks like a storybook like.

These homes right here are just gorgeous.

They all kind of have like that gingerbread look, and then the Tudor style with the bricks are very pretty.

That is literally a straw roof that we just passed.

I had pictured Stansted as a quiet, pastoral town, and on the surface it is.

But when it's just me and Ed, he doesn't hold back to him.

Stansted is frozen in time, filled with men grinding away at mundane jobs and their wives who sneer at the wealth in London.

I haven't seen a person, I'll be honest with you.

No, we don't have many of them.

Do you like pigeons?

They are quite noisy?

This is quite It always reminds me of Private Drive from Harry Potter.

It's just like perfect tractors, doesn't it.

Stansted might have spent the rest of eternity as a sleepy little village, but in the nineteen sixties a local military airfield was converted into an international airport serving London.

Now, on any given day that airport sees approximately eighty thousand passengers.

Airline crews from India and Africa fill the local pubs for a quick pint between flights.

But the actual village has an older, working class population of just around eight thousand people.

So now we're going into Lowest Street.

I think there's about six businesses down here.

Three of them are pubs.

We laugh at them.

A village four.

I'm not laughing, I mean I am laughing.

I am laughing.

Of the six businesses, three of them are pubs.

Oh, here's a person.

Well that's Tony.

That's a carpenter.

What do you saw it for?

That really is Tony Y.

So what this kid's doing now?

I did my entire life just on a bike with a backpack on riding somewhere and that's all we did was welcome.

As we drive through its narrow streets, watching him retrace old paths and point out forgotten landmarks.

I send something buried beneath the cynicism, something more than just a dark nostalgia.

That's a tennis club.

I'm not allowed back in there anymore because me or friends accidentally nearly set on fire.

We'll come back to that, we will.

Yeah, he's on edge too, taking easy jabs, checking the time, scanning his surroundings, but with absolutely no chance of running into Brett.

I can't figure out what has him so anxious.

I even wonder if he knows I've talked to Sophie and you.

See that place called the Mayflower.

Huh that is the least authentic Chinese er ever going to do.

The guy that owns his name is Kevin.

Get the fuck out, and you've just left anced we just.

Yeah, okay, so we're out.

I'm not kidding.

So that was maybe a two minute drive that we just drove through the entire town.

Yeah, maybe two minutes.

It's why I was so keen to leave, because that two minute drive is a five minute walk, and you know everyone like I know everything.

And then it hits me.

Ed's feeling vulnerable, exposed.

We're about to relive the worst night of his life, but this time we aren't using Ed's script, and all the characters in Ed's world can speak for themselves.

So your house is that way.

We turn off Cambridge Street and into a labyrinth of dark brick townhouses attached together in twos and threes.

From sheer muscle memory, Ed weaves us through the maze and up to a small cluster of homes before I meet Ed's parents.

There's one house he wants me to see first.

All right, so we're walking right outside of Frett's house.

Yeah, that's the bedroom window.

Oh my god, you are right next door to I mean, not adjacent, perfectly adjacent, but what like the Rogers home, a modest two story townhouse, the kind you'd pass without a second glance, And just a few feet away sits the Hedge's house.

Standing in the home shadow where so much blood was shed, I could sense a lingering chill in the air.

His voice deepens into a whisper.

Thirty seconds a second walk, that's the distance between us.

Ty.

This bench that we're standing next to right now was actually closer to your house, closer to.

My house, and also under a street light.

And that's where they found Brett.

Yeah, but just over our shoulders is a completely different vibe.

We walked just a few steps into a blooming garden, through a weather doorstep and into Ed's childhood home.

Number forty.

We go, Hello, Mom, this is Jodie.

Come say hello.

Hi, very nice to meet How you can I give you a book?

How's it going?

Yes?

Could you meet you?

Hello?

Yes?

We're greeted by Ed's mother, Carol, light brown hair, glasses and a warmth that hits instantly.

She's the picture of a British mom in every sense.

I know you.

They you've been eliminated completely.

I just want to point out it's.

Cool because there are photos of Salm and Jack around here.

And then yeah, I took him down.

As I'm shown around, I notice Ed and his mom speaking glances and smirks, like whole conversations pass without a word habit.

I imagine shaped in a house where his father's temper could erupt without warning.

And truthfully, he was the one I was mo nervous to meet John the here's the chair.

This is father, father John.

This is Jody.

Hi, nice to meet you.

At seventy years old, John is a hulking man with broad shoulders and eight fingers just as legend would have it.

However, Ed tells me his father is not the gruff man portrayed in his set anymore.

Age and grandchildren will do that to a person.

I do love the kitchen.

We all sit Ed, John, Carol and me, and after a few lighthearted stories about Ed's childhood mischief, I cut to the chase.

I ask about that night.

I came home at hop our six and I'm usually the first one hand, and it had been rough day at work and night was hot, and I just thought I can't pipoffered, and then when he came in, just as he got through the door said do you fancy fish and chips tonight?

I don't feel like cooking?

And you went over.

John often goes over to pick up dinner from one of their favorite restaurants, Churchill's, a three minute walk from their house.

And when you came back, he said, oh, I just saw Jill over there, and she was really weird.

As a reminder, Jill or Jillian is Bred's mother.

She came in but she didn't order anything.

You said, agitated, yeah, and then she left.

And then when you come back here to me, you said that you passed Brett and Brett looked weird, right, But you said she But you did say she was drunk, didn't you.

Oh, yeah, she'd had some drink.

Yeah, she was definitely under the influence.

And that's why he said it, because it was sort of like tea time, and.

Then you guys came back, had your dinner, and then what happened after dinner.

It was just like a normal night.

We watched TV, and we went up to bed, let himself in because we were in bed, and then the dogs all started barking.

I looked out the window and there was a policeman.

A policeman.

This is the first I've heard of the police in the front garden, long before any knocking.

Which window were you looking out of?

Was my bedroom window directly above him?

Well, at that point I went that way, so I have to have the window open.

Wasn't in the front garden at that point.

Well, there was someone in the somebody in the in the front garden running about.

Because theater banged on the door, went into the garden and tried to get that way.

I don't think that was a policement.

I took over for the front because I did get up, but I slept through most of it because I went back to sleep straight away and I got out here and was looking out.

Yeah, but that was because you thought someone was trying to wait.

I thought someone was trying to occur.

And also the side gate here, when that opens and swings back and hits the house, you're going to go bunk because it's right there sort of brick.

And heard that, and I thought, what's happening?

So you heard the gate slam over here?

And then where did that person go?

I didn't see anyone.

Oh I did.

I have heard the gate gone, but already had the banging at the door.

They said there was a police, he's a helicopter up there, there's policemen on the green and whatnot.

I said, well, don't worry then, because we're surrounded by the police.

So we're perfectly.

Say rewind to the banging.

So we watched TV.

We go to bed, and then when did the banging happen?

Is there a rough time or who woke up first?

I don't know what the time was because I didn't look at the clock.

I woke up first, and then I came in to you, didn't I.

So what we've just said and what we're saying, now are two different things completely.

Well, you just said you woke up, looked out the window, and back to bed, and now you.

Do no, no, no.

I went back to you in the bedroom.

So as I remember it.

Yeah, the banging happened, you heard it outside your window.

Yeah, it was on the front garden and someone who you think was a police officer.

But that story don't check out at all.

Well, I don't know who it was.

It's subtle, but I noticed that Ed is leading his mom, correcting her.

Whoever it was was trying to get an off front door, went into our garden, knew the back gate, ran to our garden and tried to get the back door.

It doesn't sound like police.

Doesn't sound like a police officer to me.

He didn't do that.

And the banging, you think a police officer is going to knock bang at that door that hot You don't think police have got the manet the thing that can get a back door open.

But we haven't done anything wrong.

That Bret might have tried to run.

You're not on the stand.

I just want you to know that you're not in trouble.

Carol is flustered.

Now her recollection is being versively challenged.

I remind her this isn't an interrogation.

I'm just trying to understand.

Wanting a clearer picture, I switched tactics, ED, why don't you tell the story?

And then John and Carol jump in.

When you remember, we'll pull it to paces.

Okay, yeah, yeah, challenge.

Me and whatever you need to.

Yeah, you get in from the gig.

I get in from the gig.

I walk upstairs.

This is about eleven eleven thirty.

I planned to come home at about eight nine that night, so the front door was left unlocked when they went to bed because they were expecting me shortly afterwards.

I walk upstairs and go into my bed to go to sleep.

While I was asleep, from what I understand, there was noise in the front garden.

Someone was outside that were banging on the door.

Then you come to my room and that's when I wake up.

You're at the end of my bed.

Well, I was going to that wall and you're looking out the window, and he said, whatever you do, don't tell the lights.

That line is quite possibly the most memorable, most chilling line straight from ed set and the way they said it in Unison Eyes locked.

It's eerie.

Is it possible she's quoting ed Set just to stick to his contrived story, or is this a shared moment of clarity in a night of chaos, the one petrifying moment that seared in both of their minds.

So I got out of bed, I got looking for Dad.

Dad was awake at this point, standing at the window, and the banging was still happening at that point.

Yeah.

I was looking at the wind drive for the grain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I started to go downstairs, and both of you basically say don't do that.

At some stage because.

I remember being on the landing with you panicking.

Yeah, pre helicopters, post banging.

That's when the gate hit.

The wall, right yeah, And then I heard they hear the wall.

So we went downside gate.

We didn't have the decking at the time, into the garden.

It was different.

They let me fresh memory a little bit, although you so look different.

He still have a gold handle.

Yes, he pulled the handle web being up.

The handle was pulled down.

Obviously whoever was outside couldn't get in.

And then they left.

Could it be the end of us?

Could have been the end of us.

John finally lets down his guard long enough to let me know his real feelings.

He too, thinks Brett was attempting to break into his house, possibly to hurt his family, Just as Ed contends in his set, his father, who was loath to show weakness, was indeed scared that night.

But I still can't quite get a read on Carol.

Is she just having trouble putting words to an indescribable night eight years ago?

Or is she withholding something from me?

I mentioned I was a little b chubby you as a kid.

My mom and my whole family were all a little bit chubby.

She joined a weight loss club and they all started taking these silly little weight loss pills and they lost loads of weight.

They lost heaps of weight.

But she was taking these weightless pills, and then she can't get the weightless pills anymore.

So she started looking and she met someone online.

She made a friend on Farmville who knew somewhere that could get these weight loss pills, and she started getting them delivered to the house.

A package turned up at the door.

My mom wasn't home.

My brother answered the door.

He looked at the package and it was covered in mandarin, and he was like, that's weird.

And so he took it inside and he went onto the family computer.

He translated it.

So he got really angry and Jack went, what have.

You been taking?

She was like, weightless pills?

He went, where did you get him from?

She went and met a man called Lee on Farmville.

He sends them to me, and Jack said, what does Lee look like?

My mom said, well, he's of Asian descent.

He's got a lot of tattoos.

And Jack went out of interest.

Is he missing any fingers?

And she was like, yeah, he's missing a finger because my dad's missing a finger.

She was like, he is missing he's missing a bit of his pinky finger.

If you know anything about the Triad gang, that's an initiation to them.

My brother googled the ingredients and my mother had been taking crystal meth for six months that she was buying off the Triads on Farmville.

That's not one of the lies.

That shit happened.

She did that.

And do you know what makes it worse is Jack was like, how long have you been taking these pills?

Does anyone else take him?

My mom was like, yeah, I sell them to the village.

I thought that was as bad as it could get.

It's not my mom was like, oh god, oh no, I'm gonna have to stop, aren't I?

And Jack was like, yeah, you can't keep taking them, and she went, no.

Not stop that.

Not worried about stopping that.

Obviously, I can't keep taking them.

I'm gonna have to stop selling them to the girls in the village.

My mother was a meth dealer in East Anglia, in London.

Just pushing myths, all these up to be fair, our house has never.

Been clean us.

On stage, Ed portrays his mother as wonderfully daffy, even gullible.

It adds such charmed ed set.

But after my sit down with the family, I was starting to get nervous.

Why does Carol seem so shaken by my questions?

So I decided to pull Carol aside away from Ed and John to see if I could get a straight answer out of her.

I asked her to climb the narrow stairs to the hedge's second floor from inside Ed's small bedroom, where she woke her son and warned him not to turn on the lights.

It all came rushing back.

It wasn't knocking, it was banging.

It was banging, and then I thought, well, what is that?

But I jumped up.

I didn't wait John up because he gets up so early.

I thought that, but it was also the dogs were going absolutely And then I started panicking because you could hear someone out there in the back garden.

There's something going on out there, and I don't know what it is.

I was petrified.

I thought we'd getting broken into.

By that time, there was helicopters and everything going out there.

There was a lot of place running up the alleyway, and that bit there was like the apocalypse.

Carol and I joined the boys back downstairs, and I think even Ed could see the relief on my face.

I try to imagine being in ed shoes, sitting across from my own parents, asking them to recall a frenzied night from eight years ago, the uncertainty, the gaps in memory.

It would probably sound a lot like this.

But here's the thing.

What they're saying does line up with Ed's version of events, maybe not in perfect order or sequence.

But they remember someone in the front garden and the gate slamming against the back brick wall.

They remember someone circling the house and trying to get into the upside down lock.

They remember the helicopters and the officers on the green behind the house, and most importantly, they remember the banging at the front door.

Then I learned something that both shocked me and completely wiped away all my suspicions of Ed's parents.

Ed is very secretive about his gigs, right, even this what he's stood now today?

Oh yeah, we know nothing.

Despite all of his success, Ed's parents have never been to one of his comedy sets.

They didn't even know Ed talks about Brett Rodgers on stage because they've never seen him perform.

They're not trying to match up with any script of Eds.

They're just telling the truth as they remember it.

We know, we know he said, Oh, they're just coming to talk to you.

That's it, just that me.

That's it.

Now that it's going through, we thought he was talking about you, but it's sort of talk everything.

Yeah, yeah, so he even this.

We know we had never seen Edward perform.

No wonder.

Carol seemed a little rattled by my questions.

Ed had prepared her to meet me, but he hadn't told either of his parents.

I'd be asking about Brett Rodgers.

As Ed drove me back to my airbnb, I could tell he was just as exhausted as I was spending the day with your parents can do that to you.

Yep.

Also my virginity in that forest.

Just so and again there's no cameras, no.

More magical place loves virginity than a forest trolls live.

But Ed had one more setting from his comedy show that he wants to show me.

This is the Carey Club.

This is where I spent pretty much every day of my childhood.

I was mad about it.

It's a lot smaller than I was picturing.

So what age?

Were you hanging out here?

As early as thirteen twelve thirteen.

And so you would just walk from your house, walk.

From my house up to hear meet a load of people.

It was the coolest place in the world because you'd have this like congregation of like men of loads of different ages, and you would be drinking.

Remind me what the legal age is minimum for drinking here?

Legal?

Yeah, eighteen, technical at fourteen.

And so you were here drinking as early as.

Fourteen twelve thirteen, fourteen twelve around that Wow, not like heavily.

Ed tells me he and Brett would spend most afternoons about one hundred yards from each other, just playing different sports.

The cricket field literally overlaps the football field.

This is where I want the ball to go.

Okay, yeah, okay, so.

I should throw the ball.

Though he hadn't pitched in over a decade, he was eager to teach me how for the comic relief.

No doubt, there is a.

Hop skip jump thing.

So you start off, you go like one, two, three, and then.

As you trusted.

Cack like do I do this?

And then well all right?

Ed is the only Hedges who plays cricket.

No legacy, no tradition.

As a kid, he just needed something that was his own.

I was like a pitch, you want to bring your own round.

So Hey, after many failed attempts, we grab a pint at the clubhouse, a small wooden shed packed with team photos stretching across the century.

I scan the walls until I spot Ed young, determined part of something bigger.

He was, in fact a great cricket player, one that found a community through his talent.

He wasn't a chubby loaner who has given a sportsman award out of pity.

I thought back to Sophie's issues with Ed.

She's right, there are things he has skewed in his set, seemingly more than just the three lives he warns his audiences about.

I've been clocking the disparities in Ed's story, and I'm starting to get concerned that he's never bothered to disclose these half truths to me before I get it.

Comedians don't swear on a Bible before grabbing the mic, but I felt like Ed owed me the full truth before I got on a plane to the UK.

It was a confrontation between Ed and I that was brewing in the background, and neither of us wanted to have it.

But that would have to wait for now.

There was one person I needed to speak to first.

He'd moved away from Stansteed all but disappeared from his old social circles.

In fact, he hadn't spoken to anyone in the media since the year of the murders.

If anyone had insight into the inner workings of Brett's mind and could tell me why he showed up on Ed's doorstep, it would be him, And if he answered the door, I'd be face to face with the man who raised a killer.

Next time on wisecrack, I mean, she says that you made a lot of this stuff up what's true and what's not.

So you're saying this isn't safe.

I personally would not go there, or please bring someone with you.

Oh gosh, now I'm nervous.

Can you please be careful?

Wisecrack is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts in association with Star White Productions.

I'm your host Jody Tovey.

The show is written by Charles Forbes.

Stand up comedy written and performed by Ed Hedges, with additional writing contributions by Charles Forbes.

Executive producers for Tenderfoot TV are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay.

Executive producers for Star White Productions are Jody Tovey and Charles Forbes.

Lead producer is Alex Vespestad, with additional production by Stephen Perez, Joe Grizzle, ja Ja Muhammad, Jamie Albright, and Jordan Foxworthy.

Lead editor is Stephen Perez, with additional editing by Dylan Harrington and Liam Luxon.

Coordinating producers are John Street and Tracy Kaplan.

Research by Jim Nally and Misty Showalter.

Original music by Jay Ragsdale with additional music by Makeup and Vanity Set, mixed by Cooper Skinner artwork by Byron McCoy.

Special thanks to Aren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Nate Ranson, Alexander Kaplan and the synerg Clubhouse, and the Nord Group.

For more podcasts like Wisecrack, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit us at tenderfoot dot tv.

Thanks for listening.

Episode five will release next week, but you can binge the rest of the season right now, completely add free by subscribing to Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot com.