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Previously on Wisecrack.

I'm going to tell you a story, right, and it's gonna be one story all the way through.

Everything I'm going to tell you is completely true apart from three things.

There are three lies in this story.

So on twenty second of July twenty and fifteen, about half past ten, I leave the gig.

I go to my parents' house, wake up about twenty minutes after I fell asleep, and at the end of my bed there is someone standing.

It's my mum.

She's scared, she's really scared.

She says the words to me.

Whatever you do, do not turn on the lives.

Whoever's in the front garden whatever's in the front garden.

At this stage, I don't know how many people, how many things, what it could be, but my dad is looking at it and he won't go downstairs.

Doesn't make sense, so I think, all right, I'm gonna call the police.

I find out what's going on.

I call the police.

It rings a couple of times.

Someone answers.

I said, Hey, my name's Ed.

I'm calling from forty Benfield Avenue.

Someone's banging on our front door.

I think it's a drunk but my parents are acting really weird and it's kind of shaken me up.

Could you send an officer down just to check this out.

On the other end, the phone says, I'm sorry, where.

Did you say you were calling from?

I said forty Bentfield Avenue, just in sophrom Walden, and the officer says, mister Hedges, we're very aware of the situation.

Please barricade yourself inside the house and do not engage with anyone you meet.

And then they hang up.

I'm like, rude.

Fuck.

That first night in Edinburgh, my head was spinning and I wasn't alone.

Ed had just started his set like any other stand up comedian, but suddenly we were all side eyeing each other in the audience.

Should we laugh or brace ourselves.

I walk into the hallway back with my parents and I said, guys, I've just called the police, and the acting kind of odd, and my mum does this.

I go quiet, and I listened, and the banging has stopped, and it's been the rep by the sound of footsteps going down the front of our house and then the sound of an old iron gate getting pushed open.

I know the iron gate because that's the iron gate I used to use when I come back from the pub drunk with the cricket team.

I pushed the iron gate open.

I'd walk down the side of my house into the back garden and I would go into the back door because the back door is always unlocked.

The back doors always unlocked, and we can hear them through the windows.

They go down the side of the house into the back garden, walk up to the back door.

They put the hand on the door handle and they pull it down and it doesn't go And the second it made that chunk noise, my dad to my mum went, that is why I did that.

I'm Jody Tovey.

And this is Wisecrack Episode two who's there.

There was an incident at this When I was a kid, my dad took me to the fair.

I've never been before because I didn't really have any friends, and he took me, my mum and him to the local fair.

They're not like your fairs.

I've seen it.

Your fairs you fry everything.

Can you throw people in the air.

We don't.

We don't do that.

We like to have fun.

And my dad was driving us to the fur.

I was so excited, and then we pulled over.

In front of my aunt's house and my cousin, Jasper, walked out.

And I was livid because I hate Jasper.

We all hate Jasper.

I need you to be on board with me.

We hate Jasper.

Right, He's such a weird kid.

He was the kind of kid that would sit on the bottom deck of a double decker right live a little twat's so it's so weird.

I can't explain it.

He's he got into the car and he was wearing a three piece suit to go to the fair.

Oh.

I hate him so much, it makes me stronger.

We went to the fair.

I'm only a couple of years older than Jasper.

At this point, I'm like turning.

He's like a and we're looking for something to go on, and my dad's getting more and more annoyed.

He's like, I've taken a day off work.

I've bought these kids to the fair, not going on anything.

What's the point in this.

I've had a day of work.

I'm losing a day's money.

What is going on here?

And after a little while he kind of erupted.

He was like, kids, get on a ride.

Now, we're going right home.

And Jasa was like, we'll go on the dodgems.

And you don't know what the dodgems are.

You call them bumper cars, right, cool?

Because you like to bump into them, but we like to dodge them.

We're so similar.

Which had just stop stop fighting your silly gooses, Ah, were called dodgems.

I got on.

I sat down in the bumper car.

I was actually quite excited.

Jaspa setting next to me.

He wasn't allowed to drive because he's wearing a suit.

And the second I sit down, I see in front of me is Ryan Goddard.

Ryan Goddard is Ed's childhood bully who relentlessly tormented him all throughout grade school.

Now, at this point, Ryan Godard has been bullying me for about four years.

I'm terrified of him.

He's already like good at sport.

I am shitting my pants.

I'm so scared.

He sees me and starts heading straight for me and me and Jasper and I didn't know what to do.

So I've realized I had two options.

Either I bend down, I press the pedal and I still around Ryan, or I hit him straight on.

I know my dad would prefer My dad would prefer me to hit him straight on, to do the manly thing to be, to be a man, to tackle.

The problem head on.

But I wanted to go around him.

I just didn't want to have the conflict, and it was an internal struggle for me.

I was tossing up between hitting him and going around him, Option A, Option B, Option A, Option B.

In the end, I went for option C, which was undo my belt and leave the vehicle.

There is not a reality that exists where I can describe how hard Jasper got hit by that car.

And on that day, Jasper lost all of his front teeth.

He also broke his nose.

My dad grabs Jasper, he pulls him out of the car.

He turns to me, and he goes, you're a coward, and he said get in the car, and I went right cool.

We got in the car.

He was angry.

He was angry than he's been for a long time.

I could feel the heat coming off the back of his neck, that kind of anger where people are like radiating energy.

I sit in the car.

Jasper's next to me.

His suit is now read.

My mum sits in the passenger seat.

Does it's in the driver's seat.

I'm sitting behind.

We start driving.

We're driving at about eighty miles.

Now.

My dad's angry and he was mumbling under his breath.

I could hear what he was mumbling.

But he was like, why can't he just be normal?

Why can't he be like the other kids?

And my mom said, John, stop it, and he said, why can't he be like any of the other kids.

Tony's boy was there, Ian, he was playing sports.

Jackie's daughter was there, she was going on the slide.

Susan's daughter was there.

Ran he was like, he was there.

They were all there, all the normal kids were there, and I've got this one.

I was like, ah shit.

When you see his set live, you quickly realize Ed is actually performing three shows at once.

The first show is Ed's endearing comedy side splitting stories about growing up chubby, dyslexic, asthmatic, and just kind of strange in a small town outside of London.

The second plot is Ed's retelling of this terrifying night when he returned to his childhood village for the first time as an adult, years after leaving to pursue his dreams of stand up comedy.

After Ed finished his show, he had a few pints with old friends, walked back to his childhood home and passed out in his small bedroom until he was awoken by his parents and the violent knocking of an intruder trying to get into the front door.

And then we hear them walk back up the pathway into the front garden and it goes quiet.

But there is a third show going on.

When he's on stage.

It's what Ed is not telling you.

He's already warned us that there are three lies built into the show, and at this point in the set he's only divulged one, but you can sense there's something yet to be revealed.

And my mom tells to my dad and she says, I think they've gone, And as she starts to say, like the g in gone.

The sound of someone drop kicking our front door comes.

First kick smashes the glass, second kick, the wood starts to break.

My mom grabs me and my dad and pushes us into the toilet, shuts the door behind us, she locks it.

She's fully crying.

At this point.

She turns around to me and she says, Edward, promise me you won't leave, promising you'll stay here.

This is the only room that has a lock and running water.

We'll be safe if we're just saying here.

The sound is getting louder.

The wood is breaking.

We can hear it.

Whoever's outside is breaking down the door.

We can hear it falling to pieces.

My mum is crying, HI am panicking.

My dad is sitting on the floor.

And then I realize it.

I look at my dad and I realize it.

Why I couldn't get a grasp on what he was doing.

He was scared.

How fucked is that?

It's like twenty three years old, and I just realized that my dad was scared the first time in my life.

Here's this unit of a man.

I'd never seen him scared before.

He is terrified.

He can't control the situation.

He's lost control completely.

He is so scared.

And this wall of a man, this thing that used to terrify me, covered an eggshells.

I had to step around for the first time in my life, showed a bit of weakness, and I can't think of what's outside because I'm just looking at him, thinking, you're like a human man.

The noise is getting more and more, and Mum's having a full panic attack.

She has a condition called angina.

Her heart is going to brickly.

And just before the door gets broken in, we hear a helicopter and then we see the lights of police cars pulling onto our street.

The banging stops.

It goes quiet again in the village, and then a polite knock comes from the front door.

It's the creepiest thing.

All this banging and then just a polite knock courtesy freaked me out.

We didn't answer it, and then Mom gets a phone call.

She stands up, she unlocks the door, she goes downstairs.

My dad stands up.

He follows her.

I stand up and I walk into the bedroom.

I tell my parents it's because I'm tired and I can't be asked.

In actual fact, I'm having a full panic attack for the first time in my life.

I go and lay down in my bed.

I shut my eyes and I start to count, just to try and make yourself go to sleep.

And then I wake up.

I wake up.

It's a beautiful day, Sun's out, birds are chopping.

I'm happier than I've ever been because I realize it's just a dream.

And then I hear my mom crying downstairs.

I think, fuck, that's not.

So.

I get up.

I walk downstairs.

The blinds are down, all the doors are shut.

I can't see anything at all.

I can't see the front door.

The TV is off, Mum and Dad are on the sofa, Mum's crying, and on the coffee table there are pancakes.

And I started eating the pancakes.

And I turned to my dad.

I said, what was all that last night then?

And he didn't answer me.

He just picked up the TV rote and turned on Sky News.

And on Sky News is my house.

My house is covered in police tape, and on the street there are a few police officers.

And that's how I learned about what happened on the night for the twenty second of July twenty fifteen, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, the twenty three year old man named Ryan Goddard, my school bully, had killed his family.

He stabbed his mother forty two times his stepfather fifty six, using seven different blunt knives from the kitchen, and they identified him by the shape of his shoeprint left on the side of his mother's skull.

And then he came to my house.

Things didn't go Ryan's way after I left the village.

He broke his hip and he couldn't play football anymore.

He was playing for a semi professional team and he had to move home with his family, became a milkman, had to knock on people's doors every day.

This local celebrity is now ankman.

And I knew Susan.

She was good.

Susan his mum was a good person.

And it's yeah, it's I didn't know what to say.

I sort of sat there.

He wants something so bad you can't look left or right, and you're just soaking it in.

And I wanted to make it better.

I wanted to to fix it, and I couldn't.

I couldn't fix it.

But my dad, John, the hero of the house man, he saved the day, as he always does.

He put his hand on my shoulder.

He put his hand around my mum, and he said, it's fine, Okay, we've got each other still, We're alive.

We're safe thanks to the Titan seventeen windows.

Now here's a second lie of the show.

He did not say that, And while I'm at it.

I'll tell you the third lie.

The third lie, just so you're aware, is that I've changed the names and the places and the people's names just.

Out of respect for the dead.

I thought I was right.

I think to do.

We all sort of processed it in different ways.

That was really interesting to see.

So my mum was really healthy.

She talked to people and like she sawt of support network.

My dad buried himself in his work, and I immediately started gigging again.

I buried myself in my work, and then I realized I was doing what my dad was doing.

So I did this.

They just kind of pretended it never happened.

Was I don't know if you've seen hot files, but it was genuinely it was like that.

They were like, don't talk about it, don't report it, lock this shit down.

And then you'd walk up to me and be like, did you hear about the murders?

And they'd be like, lovely day we're having.

All right.

One thing I do know, because I'm eternally grateful to you all for coming tonight.

My name is A Hedges.

Thank you very much.

Listen to my story say, and just.

Like that it was over.

Ed got a standing up, but he didn't stick around for the applause.

His face lost all expression as he left stage, like he had somewhere to be.

It was the strangest mic drop I'd ever seen.

The audience quickly gathered their belongings and slipped back into the rain, casually chatting about what they'd just seen.

But I stayed seated, stunned.

Had I really just heard a true story of a double homicide wrapped in a comedy set, told by a comedian who was almost the third victim?

Or did he make the whole thing up?

I had to know.

I ran out to the stage door to introduce myself, but Ed Hedges had long left the venue.

The stage manager advised me to return the next day to catch him before his performance, but I didn't want to wait that long.

I grabbed a coffee and scoured my phone for any trace of Ed Hedges.

Most budding comedians have big so social media presences, but not Ed.

He had a single Twitter account and his last post was weeks old.

I dmmed him anyway, but nothing back.

When I googled him, I found a lot of promos and press releases, but nothing about his hometown.

When he was only twenty, Ed won the So You Think Your Funny Contest, a British comedy competition.

He had a few runs at the Soho Theater in London to great reviews, but his career had slumped since then.

I searched for the village he mentions.

And you wouldn't have heard of.

It's called Sophomoreton.

It's a real town, but no double homicide and more curious, Ed never specifically says where he's from in interviews, like he's going out of his way to keep his past unclear.

You're not going to be able to google this one.

I've hidden it well enough that you won't be able to find anything.

Despite trying for hours, I couldn't find anything.

So the next day I went back to his show, and this time I recorded it on my iPhone seven.

Apologies for the sound quality, but this is the first time I ever captured Ed's performance.

Red Blooded Colored Comics is going to be like, Hey, wasn't it drue to come?

I'm not, how answered.

The show was almost identical to the night before.

Some names changed, but every sharp line written and performed with an intentional vagueness.

That night in twenty three year old Whale and Christian Gotd had killed his.

Family, And this time I darted to the stage door when Ed's set came down.

In fact, I think I scared him a little.

I stuck out my hand told him I was a television producer specializing in true crime, and I would like to talk to him about his show.

Immediately Ed became dismissive, eyes down, shuffling his feet, looking for an excuse to leave the conversation.

Ed said he needed to prepare for his next set, but perhaps intrigued by something I said, we exchanged numbers and planned to meet for a drink after his last show.

As he reached for the stage door, I lobbed one last question, Hey, can you at least tell me the name of your bully?

He glanced around to see if anyone was listening, looked back at me, and quietly said Brett Rogers.

That simple name unlocked everything for me.

They found the lifeless body of Gillian Phillips fifty four, slumped on the sofa and covered in her own.

Repeatedly stabbed and caused a fatal head injury to David Oaks, who had stayed with her overnight.

Since the death of a woman and a man in stanced at Mount Fidgett had been opened.

With the name Brett Rogers, I could almost confirm everything that happened that terrible night, not in Saffron, Morgan, but in a small town called Stansteae, Mount Fitchett, thirty five miles northeast of London.

Even more fascinating, everything that Ed said on stage about the murders themselves was true, verifiable, right down to the amount of stab wounds found on Brett's mother's body.

Missus Phillips suffered at least forty one stab wounds to the head, neck and torso, plus fourteen blunt force injuries and defensive wounds.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The number of articles published in the wake of the murders were in the dozens, but they all reported the same scant superficial facts.

Since Ed had moved away from Stanstead, Brett's life had fallen apart.

With few job opportunities, Brett took a job as the local milkman, delivering fresh dairy to lifelong neighbors, who were all aware of his downfall.

He was constantly in trouble with the law, everything from drug use to violent fights, and eventually landed himself in prison for three years.

When he was released, he had nowhere to live except his mother's house, his childhood home, the one three doors down from ed.

Then came the night of July twenty second, twenty fifteen.

The terror started at nine pm.

Both Brett's mom, Jillian Phillips, and her friend David Oakes, had been heavily drinking.

There was no way either could have fought off the attack.

Their thinned blood would account for the red soaked couch and floor where Gillian and David were found, respectively.

Both their heads were bruised and fractured, consistent with violent blunt force trauma.

Once they were incapacitated, Brett repeatedly stomped on their faces, leaving a bloody footprint from his Nike air trainer on his mother's cheek.

A forensic scientist later confirmed that the butchery Brett committed that night would have taken him at least one hour or longer.

At eleven pm, Brett Rogers left his house and wandered onto the Common Green, a small shared outdoor yard with pinches.

There, Brett called nine nine nine.

For some reason, either the call was dropped or he hung up.

Brett did not speak to an officer.

Inexplicably, Brett returned to his house while the victims bled out downstairs.

Brett climbed upstairs, tracking blood on the treads.

He changed out of the blood soaked size eight Nike trainers and into size nine shoes.

Approximately thirty to forty five minutes later, Brett calls nine nine nine again, this time requesting help.

Around midnight, a lone officer arrived to find Brett in a side alley beside Ed's house.

He was clutching a white plastic bag, His arms and hands were slick with blood, and he was grinning laughing to top it all off.

On the way to the station after his arrest, Brett turned to the officer and asked if they could swing by McDonald's first, but the crime scene had yet to reveal Two of the most baffling parts of the murders.

The following day, during a methodical search of Jillian's overflowing kitchen trash can, the murder weapons were discovered.

Inside.

Seven knives were found, four black, ones, one red, one yellow, and one blue, indicating that Brett went back and forth over the course of an hour or so, randomly choosing a new instrument every time a knife broke or dulled.

Some of the knives were missing handles due to the violent force used to thrust the blades into the victim's bodies.

Investigators also found Brett's discarded nikes, his gray sweatpants, several towels, and a pillowcase, all soaked in blood.

He had also thrown away cash, two hundred and twenty pounds in twenty pound notes, and a pair of women's animal print underwear.

But perhaps the strangest discovery lay outside in another trash ben, evidence of a different side to Brett's breakdown.

Sometime during the murders, he had scrawled a message, a letter of sorts three words written over and over at least thirty times, I and love and much.

Then he destroyed the message, tearing it into three hundred small pieces.

I kept pouring.

Over the articles because one question kept nagging at me.

Why what sent Brett over the edge that night?

I couldn't wait to ask Ed?

But it turns out i'd have to Ed stood me up.

I waited in that pub for two hours.

I sent him a message on WhatsApp, nothing, not even a courtesy text, saying I can't make it.

I crawled in bed that night, bombed and frankly a little pissed.

Young comedians come to the Fringe Fest for one reason, to show their talent to the world, to find new collaborators and expand their audiences.

I thought Ed and I might make a great team.

Why would he not show Maybe he's already working with someone else, or isn't interested in a wider audience, or maybe he's decided that I'm not the perfect fit for his ambitions.

After all, I'm a crime producer and he's a stand up.

And that's when it hit me.

Despite what Ed said on stage, a double murder in a small town, the killer coming to his house, all on the one night in four years that Ed happened to be back home.

He had no idea though I was there.

This was just my questionence a coincidence that's certainly possible but probable, or maybe Ed was trying to convince himself of that narrative.

That's a story, thank you.

Whatever the truth was, Ed was going through it for his audiences, cackling through his forty five minute set.

This was just another comedy.

Routine for Ed.

It was trauma therapy with dozens of people looking on.

The Next night, I waited at the stage door again, and this time I didn't hold back.

I told Ed why I thought he was avoiding me.

I told him why I think he changes all the names and places in the story, and then I told him why I think he performs this set in the first place.

He too, wants to know why Brett did what he did and if his presence in town that night had anything to do with his bully's meltdown.

Ed was speechless, and then he unloaded his thoughts on me, telling me that Brett never mentioned him by name after he left, that he already had mental problems, and that Brett would have never known that Ed was in town for one night only.

Rather than pushback, I simply asked Ed a question.

I asked if he would like to explore everything that led up to those murders in hopes of unearthing Brett's motivations that night, that maybe a deeper understanding of Brett might unshackle him from any of his darker feelings.

He got very quiet, shook his head and told me he would think about it.

And that was the last time I talked to Ed Hedges until two years later when he called me pis drunk.

He told me he'd been considering my offer for years.

It had always stuck in the back of his mind.

He said, if I was still up for it, he was in.

Why now?

I thought, what's changed?

Then he said one thing, though Brett's dead.

Next time on wisecrack.

In most cases they swing their fists around.

Yes, plausible, it's believable, and you've had a fight, but you don't kill your mum.

The forensic scientists took a huge number of photographs, not all of which we showed to the jury.

Some of them were just too horrific to do so.

The thing that struck me most about it was the sheer quantity of bloodshed.

It literally was a blood bath.

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

I'm the 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 Orren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Nate Ranson, Alexander Kaplan and The Sinner 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 three 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.