The Missing Head Mystery - Boulder City, Nevada

Small Town Murder

This episode of Small Town Murder explores the bizarre and unsettling case of Perry Monroe in Boulder City, Nevada—a small desert town built

Key takeaways

• Boulder City was originally a federal company town built to support the construction of the Hoover Dam, leading to its unique isolation and strict regulations like bans on alcohol and gambling.

Main topics

• Boulder City's origins as a federal company town during Hoover Dam construction

Notable quotes

"It's over with and I've just got to walk away from it and leave it alone. If you go prying into that stuff, you get in trouble, big trouble with yourself."

Conclusion

The episode leaves listeners with a sense of unease and mystery surrounding Perry Monroe's

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) In 2010, a family of four in California goes missing, and the clues left behind send investigators on a years-long search. Is this a family on the run, or is the truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio in 2020, this is What Happened to the McStaves, coming August 11th, wherever you get your podcasts. Or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts for ad-free episodes, early access to new episodes, and so much more. Speaker 3 (0:45) Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay, choo-choo! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another crazy, wild, insane edition. Scott Peterson comes up in this and a whole bunch of... Oh, Speaker 2 (1:07) my. Speaker 3 (1:07) There's a lot of weird stuff Speaker 2 (1:08) going on Speaker 3 (1:09) in this case. The Speaker 2 (1:10) police Speaker 1 (1:10) guy or the other one? Speaker 3 (1:11) No, no, the Scott Peterson. Scott Peterson. You know, have you ever heard of him? Wasn't that police guy named Scott Speaker 1 (1:20) Peterson too? Speaker 3 (1:21) I think he was. Yeah, because we were talking about that. That was maybe an inside joke, but that's fine. It's all right. Let them. Speaker 2 (1:26) I Speaker 3 (1:27) like that. That's good. They can look for him after that. So thank you so much for joining us. Definitely head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. Check that out there. Get tickets for your live shows, everybody. They're coming up quick here. Milwaukee looks like it's sold out at this point. Wow. Zero on the thing. So thank you. The Pabst is sold out. We're very excited to go there and perform. We love that place. The next night, though, Minneapolis, September the 19th. Still some tickets left for that at the State Theater. Get in there. Come find Speaker 1 (1:56) out why the Pabst sold out. Speaker 3 (1:58) That's right. It's going to be great. And then October 3rd, Dallas. October 16th, 17th, San Jose, Sacramento. And then November 13th, 14th, Tarrytown, which is almost sold out. And Boston as well. So get your butts in there. Asses in seats and let's go. We are excited. Shut up and give me murder.com. Also, get Patreon. My God. It's so good. Patreon.com. slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get it all. Everything. As soon as you subscribe, almost 400 back bonus episodes immediately in your feed. New ones every other week. Tons of stuff here. This week included what you're going to get. You always get one crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get them all every other week. This week for crime in sports, we did old timey articles and they were glorious. They were absolutely, there were some. Crazy shit going on back in the day there. Find out about a Speaker 1 (2:53) piles pole. Speaker 3 (2:54) Just going to say a pile. What was it? A pile pipe? Piles pole. Pile or pipe? Pipe. It was a pile pipe. Then find out all about it. Then for Small Town Murderer, Love After Lockup Season 7. Oh, God, did we have fun there. Find out all about the craziness. And a lot of that was in Nevada. which is where we are this week, too, which is interesting here. So get that. And in addition to all that material you're going to get, you're also going to get everything we put out, all of our shows, all ad-free as well. That includes Crime and Sports and Your Stupid Opinions. And you're Speaker 1 (3:27) going Speaker 3 (3:27) to get a shout-out at the end of the regular show, too. So it's as much as we could possibly give you for five bucks. There you go. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports, just like the name of our other show. That said, I think it's time, everybody. Let's go. Sit back. What do you say? You want to clear the lungs here? A little bit of that here. Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Speaker 1 (3:58) Yeah. All Speaker 3 (3:59) right. We're going to Boulder City, Nevada. Here we go. Boulder City. You know where that is? Yeah. I think I've heard of it. No, I haven't. You've probably passed it on the way to Vegas because it's about a half hour outside of Vegas. South? Southeast, I believe, of Vegas. Yeah, I've definitely seen it. Kind of the place where nobody goes in Nevada. So it's about 30 minutes to Vegas, about 7 hours and 15 minutes to our last Nevada episode, which was Minden, Nevada. This was all the way back, like, the week of Christmas. It's been a long time in Nevada. It's hard to find Nevada cases that aren't in Reno or Vegas. It really is. It's one of the more difficult states. So we don't, we kind of, they're a little fewer and far farther between. That was episode 660. Bloody plot. I almost said bloody twat. Bloody what? Bloody twat twists is what I just came out of my mouth. Jesus Christ. I need to get more sleep. Speaker 1 (4:57) My God, I want to hear that Speaker 3 (4:59) episode. I don't think you do. I don't want to hear anything about bloody twat twists. That sounds awful. Holy shit. Speaker 1 (5:08) You got to see a Speaker 3 (5:09) doctor for that. If you got that, everybody, please see a doctor because that is not going to go away on its own, especially with the twists in there. That doesn't just end Speaker 1 (5:18) every three weeks. Speaker 3 (5:20) Jesus Christ. My Speaker 2 (5:22) God. Speaker 3 (5:23) All right. This is in Clark County. God damn it. I'm dumb sometimes. Clark County, area code 702 and 725. Population here, not very many, 14,868. Yeah. It's right outside Vegas, but pretty small town. Because why would it? Well, yeah. It's nothing like Vegas, too, as we'll find out. It's not really a suburb. It's weird. Median household income here is just about the national average, $69,746. Although median home cost is well above the national average. That is $417,600 to live in a small desert town outside of Vegas. That sounds awful. Vegas is booming and it's right there. Right there. Their motto, their nickname, their everything is, quote, home of the Hoover Dam. Because that's all they care about here is the Hoover Dam. Everything's this dam festival and that dam festival. Oh, boy. This is a town, a little bit of history. It originated as a federal company town. So you had these company towns with railroads and stuff like that. This was a federal company town because they were building the Hoover Dam. Speaker 1 (6:34) It's the Speaker 3 (6:34) only reason this place exists is because they built the Hoover Dam. I've heard that shit's not even dry yet. It's not dry. Oh, the cement, you mean. That's a lot of cement. Yeah. In 28, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Boulder Canyon Project Act to build a major dam on the Colorado River. So this was his project that Herbert Hoover Speaker 1 (6:55) then came in and slapped his name Speaker 3 (6:56) on. Speaker 1 (6:57) You motherfucker. That Speaker 3 (6:59) is amazing. Herbert Hoover's an asshole. That's why he lasted four years and then completely was drummed out of office because he was a dick. And then the depression started on his watch. Not good. He had a bad time. People arrived, job seekers arrived and lived in like shacks and tents and shit around there. It was disgusting. It was called Ragtown is what they called it here. It is hot here, by the way. Fucking A. Speaker 1 (7:27) Yeah. Speaker 3 (7:27) Really hot. I mean, this is where it gets 120 on the regular. It's so goddamn hot. So imagine living in a tent when it's 120 goddamn degrees outside. That sounds horrifying. All you got is rags. Man. Yeah, you got a tent, for Christ's sake. It's gross. So they built this town after that. The federal government and Six Companies, Inc. was the name of the company. It was a construction consortium with a bunch of ties to the federal government, obviously. They built, yeah, they planned a model community designed by a landscape architect. That's how they did it, with Spanish colonial revival and all kinds of tree-lined parks and fan-shaped layout radiating from the Bureau of Reclamation Administration building. So this all goes up in, like, 1930, 1931. Because this is a huge project that takes years and needs so many people to work on it. So, you know, you can't just have people living in tents for five years while they build this thing. It's not going to work. It's a federal reservation it's known as. So Boulder City banned both alcohol and gambling at the time. Is that right? And imagine you can't even get drunk after you've worked on a dam all day and watched probably four or five of your friends die in the last week falling into concrete. Speaker 1 (8:44) In the early 20s, right? Or early 1900s, Speaker 3 (8:47) right? This is the 1930s. So it's the middle of the fucking depression, too. If I'm poor, I'm getting drunk. Speaker 1 (8:53) You can't even get drunk. Speaker 3 (8:57) So what they would do is there was a checkpoint gate to make sure. This was to keep out union organizers. God forbid these guys get paid a fair wage. So they had these checkpoints, and they would also search them for alcohol and shit like that. So basically. Up to the checkpoints, there was piles of liquor bottles all the way up where people would throw the bottles out before they got to the checkpoints. So there's just piles of liquor bottles going up to the whole thing. The dam was completed in 35, which was actually ahead of schedule. I mean, if you're willing to kill half your workforce while you make something, you can put something up quick. You can build some shit. Fucking totally. It wasn't a city until 1960 is when it incorporated. The no gaming prohibition is retained and is one of the only two places in Nevada that has no gaming allowed. Only a couple of towns in the whole state. Desi Arnaz Jr. came here and built a theater. So that's interesting. Yeah, that's cool. A no-lose theater. No booze theater. That's right. No gambling. Here, I think there's booze now, just no gambling still. Reviews of this town. Here is five stars. I would describe Boulder City, Nevada as a place of comfort and relaxation. It has a small town feel with the amenities of a big city being only 15 minutes away from a big city. The traffic is light, the crime is so low, and the community feels like a family. Okay, this next guy. It's a rant, and so I'm just going to read it as a rant. Two stars. I was raised in this used-to-be-amazing town, but the city council changed everything, built more homes. Cops will stop you going one mile per hour. Very true. My friends have told me. That must be true. I saw it on Facebook, so obviously it's true. Cops used to be awesome, but the older ones retired. Now the new cops harass you because they're bored. The D.A. Morris will not look at the true story or evidence and will bring the most the most worst penalties. The most worst said written by a seven year old who's mad at their dad for putting taking their fucking PlayStation away. This town has truly gotten so bad that I'm moving my family out of the town. Even with no HOAs, the city will harass you and send you letters in the mail saying no stuff on the side of the house. Truly sad how cops and the city council have ruined this once awesome town. Yeah. You can't be a dirtbag anymore and have fucking El Camino engines hanging from your trees. Speaker 1 (11:27) Like trash around here and they don't want it. Speaker 3 (11:31) Things to do here. The best damn country jam. You bet. I had to pick which damn festival we were going to pick because there's a bunch of them here. There's Speaker 1 (11:41) a Speaker 3 (11:41) country one. The country one. Food, carnival, family crap. Your typical festival. The performers, Des Hoston, H-O-S-T-O-N, a rising star in the modern country music scene, which means they're terrible, known for his raw and unapologetic approach to storytelling in his music, with song titles like What Happened to the Cowboy, Drinking Bout You and Me, Drinking Bout You and Me. You shouldn't be here. So it sounds like he's just trying to be an old guy, but he's not. Well, he's Speaker 1 (12:18) singing Speaker 3 (12:18) songs Speaker 1 (12:19) that already exist, so all right. Over and over and over again forever. Speaker 3 (12:24) The rhyolite sound, R-H-Y-O-L-I-T-E sound. I don't know. Formed in Las Vegas, the rhyolite sound brings their own desert honky-tonk to the stage. Blending elements of outlaw, rockabilly, honky-tonk, blues, and rock and roll, the rhyolite sound are purveyors of pure honky-tonk in an impure world. Oh, boy. Yeah, they performed with Willie Nelson and then a bunch of other people that I've absolutely never heard of. They put Willie Nelson first. Whitey Morgan in the 78s. Speaker 1 (12:59) Whitey Morgan's a fucking genius. I Speaker 3 (13:02) love that guy. Coe Wetzel, Dale Watson, Blackberry Smoke, Junior Brown. See what I mean? They're Speaker 1 (13:08) all Speaker 3 (13:08) good. Speaker 1 (13:09) Yeah, these are all Speaker 3 (13:09) good. Speaker 1 (13:09) They're all Speaker 3 (13:09) good. You know these people? Yeah. The Reverend Horton Heat, Wanda Jackson, Shooter Jennings, Mike and the Moon Pies, American Aquarium, and many more. Shooter's Wayland's kid, James. Oh, that means he's great then. That doesn't help. Speaker 3 (13:24) That doesn't do anything for me. And they all say they open for the same people, by the way. And then there's also Zach Ryan and the Boys bringing an electric live show of classic country music and real rock and roll. Oh, the real kind. Yeah, covers. They perform tributes to Waylon Jennings, John Lennon, Tom Petty, and Leonard Skinner. The real stuff. Of course. Yeah, John Lennon, Leonard Skinner, same thing. Okay. That said, let's talk about some murder. What do you say, everybody here? Okay. All right. Let's go back to June 24th, 2003. Here we go. Now, this is outside of Fresno, California. Let's start there, which has nothing to do with Boulder City, but we'll talk about it. California Highway Patrol officers are doing basically on rest stops. They're going through looking for stolen cars. They're just going through looking for certain plates they're looking for for stolen cars, going through doing all that. So just kind of what they do in the middle of the night when they're fucking bored. Right. So they're going and finding and doing this. They find what they believe is a broken down car on Clovis Avenue just north of Freeway 99. It's on the side of the road outside of a rest area, but not in the rest area. So they think it might have broken down. Speaker 1 (14:40) Yeah, and as a cop, you got to be careful about running these plates and shit, because if you find out that it has something attached to it, now you just got yourself some work to do. Well, now Speaker 3 (14:49) you just made yourself a night. That's the thing. Yeah, now you got to worry about paperwork. Speaker 1 (14:53) Now you got paperwork, you dumb shit. Yeah, Speaker 3 (14:55) you probably stop about an hour before your shift's end just to not get into anything, you know? So they're looking at it, and as they're looking at the car, they realize there's somebody in the car. Okay, this is not an abandoned car because there's a man asleep in the front seat, in the driver's seat, passed out. So they find him, and they check the registration. They learn that the man in the front seat, he tells them who he is. He's got a driver's license. He's Perry Carl Monroe. He's 29 years old, and he lives in the Alameda area. So this is kind of... On the way up there, if you keep going pretty far. So they check the registration of the car just to make sure it's not stolen here. And they realize it's not stolen. That's great. So you'd think that's the end of the interaction. Let's move on. Speaker 1 (15:44) Let this man sleep. We're out of here. Speaker 3 (15:45) No, actually. They find out the car's not stolen, but it's much worse. He's actually wanted by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police on suspicion of murder. So they're like, oh, no shit. This is even more complicated than if it was just a stolen car. That would have been easy to deal with. This is now Speaker 1 (16:01) I need Speaker 3 (16:01) friends to Speaker 1 (16:02) help me tap on his window because I'm not walking up there by myself. Yeah. They said California High School or High School Highway Speaker 3 (16:09) Patrol, California Speaker 1 (16:10) High School Patrol Speaker 3 (16:11) said, you know, twat twisted, twat twisted. Speaker 3 (16:16) Said Monroe was listed as the only suspect in a homicide coming out of Clark County, Nevada. So they're like, OK, well, we got to talk to this guy, obviously. He was asleep in his car. Doesn't seem like he's in a big rush or anything. He he's not acting crazy or acting bloodthirsty or anything like that. He is taken into custody. They grab him up with no. No incident. He doesn't freak out. Nothing. OK, you got to take me in. You got to take me in. Apparently, this is like two thirds of the way between Vegas and Alameda, California in Fresno. So it's kind of this is pulling over to sleep. So they get him in there. They come in to bring him, you know, just to the Las Vegas police can come deal with them. They impound his car and, you know, they're they get a warrant and they're told to search the car and they search the car. And it's normal stuff, maps and things and stuff that you'd find in a car. Road Speaker 1 (17:13) trip Speaker 3 (17:13) shit, yeah. Road trip stuff, duffel bag, things like that. Except in the trunk, there's something that most people don't carry in their car. No? Well, I mean, I don't. Maybe you do. No? Everybody out there, I don't know. But it's a severed pair of women's hands. No, I leave those at home. Usually, I don't take them. I keep them in the medicine cabinet. He just has hands? Just a set of women's hands. It's obviously a woman's hands, and they're just in his trunk, a set of severed hands that go together, clearly. No Speaker 1 (17:43) explanation. Speaker 3 (17:44) They're like, um, what the fuck? No other parts of the body, of a body or of anything, just a pair of hands in his trunk. Are they just sitting there? Are they wrapped in anything? They're just in the trunk, just loosey-goosey-like. Just, you know, like you'd throw in a pair of shoes that you just took off after playing basketball. That's like... Tossed them in there. You make a Speaker 1 (18:06) left, they're on the right side. You make a right, they're on the left side. Just like that. Hey, Speaker 3 (18:09) yeah, go in the trunk. No, no, there's the jack, the tire jacks in there. Yeah, no, no. Next to the, between the jack and the iron, there's going to be a set of women's hands back there I just threw in the middle. On top of the, on top of the spare. That's right. Yeah. Speaker 1 (18:23) Wow. Grab the bottle jack. Watch out for the hands. Speaker 3 (18:26) Watch out for that. It's going to be gross. So they find out it's Perry Carl Monroe here. Like I said, 29 years old. A little bit of background on this guy of how a guy ends up on the side of the road with a pair of severed hands in his trunk, which I've never been caught for. Knock on wood. You never know what happens. He grew up in Alameda, which is kind of a wealthy place. Is it? Upper crust kind of a joint. Yeah. They call it here a small leafy island city in San Francisco Bay. Oh, it's up there. Yeah. That's connected to Oakland by bridges and a tunnel. Okay. Speaker 1 (19:10) Nice Speaker 3 (19:10) area there. And Perry Monroe came up and was a great kid. So how do you go from there to there? He went to Alameda High School. He graduated in 92. He was a – an actual really great athlete. He held several school records for swimming. Several of them. Speaker 1 (19:32) He's Speaker 3 (19:33) also the captain. Now, you know it's a very leafy, rich suburban environment because he was captain of the water polo team. Speaker 1 (19:41) My Speaker 3 (19:42) high school didn't have a water polo team. I Speaker 1 (19:46) think every California school has one. Speaker 3 (19:50) Man, it's... water polo team that is fucking crazy um he's the captain of the water polo team so he's respected among his amongst his peers and his teammates and his coaches and you have to be kind of a tough kid and a you know the captain of any athletic team everyone has to respect you but he's a tall he's real Speaker 1 (20:09) good in the water he's Speaker 3 (20:11) great in the water yeah he takes to it like a like a fish or like a like a horse in a polo environment you know Horses take right to the water. They're great. It's real easy for them. It's amazing. It's something you throw like a golden retriever and you're like, look at him. He can swim. I didn't even teach him. Should see those horses go. So he's very popular. His classmates all think he's a hot shit kid. He is prom king for senior prom. Oh, all right. School records, captain of a team, prom king. He's doing great. Speaker 1 (20:46) It's great. He swims, so he's got that fucking great upper body. Probably looks amazing with tux. Speaker 3 (20:52) Yeah, he's thin and lithe. Yeah, it's Speaker 1 (20:56) a Speaker 3 (20:56) swimmer's thing. This is the type of person that I would have just hated in high school. There's no way he didn't have a good life. That's the way I would look at it. This fucking guy has a good life. Fuck him. He's always in a Speaker 1 (21:12) speedo. He's always this close to getting a blowjob. Speaker 3 (21:15) He came to the prom in a Speedo. It was crazy. That's why he was prom king. His quads were popping and people couldn't take it anymore. So he goes to college at the University of California, Davis, which is actually a very good school, Davis. It's not Speaker 1 (21:32) a bad school at all. UC Speaker 3 (21:32) Davis is beautiful, yeah. Very good school. And especially, apparently a lot of people go to