Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network
Show Name: Real Cases Fictional Minds
Episode Title: Pig Farm Killers
You are listening to Real Cases Fictional Minds, the podcast with your host Jaylli Kushi.
In this episode of Real Cases Fictional Minds Podcast we discuss: Season 4 Episode 25 and 26 titled “To Hell… and Back” and how it's considered one of the most heavily real-life-inspired Criminal Minds stories of Robert Pickton.
Listener engagement: For my last episode of my podcast, I would like to thank my listeners for coming along for the scary and suspenseful ride of the criminal minds world mixed with the true crime world. If you'd made it this long and enjoyed the show, I'd love your support. Take a moment to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and leave me a review; it really helps me reach more people like you. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy this last and very disturbing episode!
The episode begins in Detroit, Michigan, with a man moving quietly through the streets of a homeless area, carrying a gun, searching desperately for his sister. His search leads him to a motel, where he impulsively grabs a random man and holds him hostage, the gun pressed to his neck. They drive toward the Canadian border, tension rising with every mile, until they crash into a toll booth and are finally stopped by border control and Detroit police. Calmly, almost eerily, the man tells the authorities, “You’re going to want to call the police. I’ve killed 10 people in the last month,” pointing them toward photographs of homeless people in the car, claiming he’s responsible for all of them. Back at Quantico, the BAU pieces the case together and identifies the man as William Hightower, a former U.S. Army sergeant who served two tours in Iraq and lost his left leg in a roadside ambush, earning a Purple Heart before being discharged just two months earlier. William has been documenting the missing people, recording their names, taking photos, and noting dates, all from Detroit’s Cass Corridor, an area notorious for drugs, prostitution, and homelessness. Agents Morgan and Prentiss take to the streets, talking to locals about William and the missing people. Some victims haven’t been seen in days, and while William is a familiar figure in the area, nobody interferes with him because he carries a gun. Meanwhile, Agent Hotch interviews William to understand where the victims went, and the situation quickly becomes tense. William reveals he didn’t actually kill anyone, but he has been tracking people on the streets because he knows many are missing. Hotch asks him about the night he tried to cross the border, and William explains that every night he goes out to do a headcount, not just for protection but out of love, searching for someone specific — his baby sister, Lee. After returning from Iraq, his mother told him she was living on the streets. He once found her and brought her home, but two weeks later, she returned to the streets. William keeps all the information he has gathered about her hidden in a spare tire in his car. The team listens in on a phone call from Lee that night — she is scared, confused, and says a man is taking her somewhere, the fear in her voice making the stakes painfully clear. Meanwhile, the unsub is introduced: an older white man on a pig farm, a seemingly quiet property hiding unimaginable horrors. He keeps victims chained in a barn, using the pigs on the farm to dispose of bodies, a method as shocking as it is methodical. Back at Quantico, the team gains custody of William to help locate potential victims. Garcia uncovers that on five of the nights victims disappeared, Detroit police reported break-ins at medical facilities, with stolen items including anesthesia,...
