Notorious Bakersfield

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Send Robert a Text! Hey Notorious Bakersfield fans,  I wanted to jump on here and explain why I haven’t released a new episode recently. A couple of weeks ago, a family member entered hospice care, and to say my focus hasn’t been on Notorious Bakersfield would be an understatement. Honestly, my head and heart just haven’t been in it.  When the time feels appropriate, I’ll share another update rega...

Send Robert a Text! In December 1988, four-year-old Deisy Herrera vanished without a trace from her East Bakersfield yard. Six months later, another young girl from Bakersfield went missing. As her family and authorities launched a frantic search, fear gripped the entire community. Support the show

Send Robert a Text! This week marks the 16th anniversary of this crime. After listening to this episode, you'll think twice before answering a stranger's knock on your door.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! This Notorious Bakersfield story unfolds 150 miles west of Bakersfield, along the coast in Santa Barbara County. But this story has tentacles reaching all the way back to Bakersfield.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! In 1908 Bakersfield, an afternoon visit to a hotel room set off a chain of events that would ripple through the town for years. What began as a quiet, private meeting quickly turned into one of the most talked-about incidents in Bakersfiel of its time.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! On a March night in 1963, two LAPD officers were kidnapped during what should have been a routine traffic stop—and driven north into the dark farm fields just outside Bakersfield. This episode of Notorious Bakersfield revisits that horrific crime and it's chilling connection to Kern County.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! In 1931, a 6-year-old boy never came home. What happened to him, shocked the Bakersfield community.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! For decades, anyone with a scanner could listen as Bakersfield police officers and Kern County deputies responded to calls in real time. Now, a massive countywide radio overhaul could encrypt those transmissions, silencing the airwaves to the public. The question is whether this change will enhance officer safety, or will it put a wall between law enforcement and the community...

Send Robert a Text! His name probably isn’t familiar to you—and that’s what makes the story of Percy Douglas so intriguing. In Bakersfield’s Wild West days, he was feared, violent, and impossible to ignore… yet today he survives only as an obscure footnote in local history.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! Support the show

Send Robert a Text! Long before Colonel Thomas Baker arrived in what we now call Bakersfield, a solitary hill rose from the valley floor near the site of today’s Mercy Hospital. For generations, that hill was home to a Yokuts village, a place chosen for both its visibility and its safety from the river’s floods.  After the Native Americans left, some of Kern County’s earliest white pioneers settle...

Send Robert a Text! Who knew there has been more than one murder on the Bakersfield College campus?  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! For years, Woody’s Toy Circus was a Bakersfield landmark—a place where childhood excitement filled the aisles and memories were made by the cartload. Built by a larger-than-life local personality, the store became more than a toy shop; it was a Bakersfield institution.   Support the show

Send Robert a Text! Today, finding out whether a convicted sex offender lives nearby takes just a few clicks — but decades ago, communities had no such warning system. Long before Megan’s Law made that information public, one small Kern County town was forced to confront a terrifying question: what happens when everyone knows a child predator is coming back, and there’s nothing the law seems able...

Send Robert a Text! In the final summer of the Roaring Twenties, just weeks before the stock market crash would shatter the nation’s confidence, a quiet and disheveled stranger wandered into Bakersfield. Within hours, that man—49-year-old Augustus Mahillon—would become the center of a baffling mystery involving hidden wealth, false identities, and a death that remains unsolved nearly a century lat...

Send Robert a Text! Support the show

Send Robert a Text! For decades, Sidney “Sid” Sheffield devoted his life to making Bakersfield a better place — as a teacher, administrator, and champion of local education and health care. His warmth drew people in, his optimism lifted spirits, and his generosity touched countless lives. That ended in November 1998.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text!  It all started with a clown, a few eerie pictures posted to Instagram, and a wave of panic that spread faster than anyone could’ve imagined.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text!  It was a quiet afternoon in 2013 in the Rosedale community when neighbors heard gunfire. What began as a family’s desperate attempt to save a troubled young man from addiction would end in tragedy.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! Nearly a decade before the murder that would shock Bakersfield, Dennis Weis had been convicted in Illinois for a brutal sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend who tried to leave him. By the mid-1980s, he’d quietly resettled in Bakersfield, where his charm and attention drew in a young mother named Cindy Carr — a woman trying to rebuild her life after a broken marriage. What be...

Send Robert a Text! Inside a charming Northeast Bakersfield Craftsman-style home lived Joe and Margy LiCastro—he, a 91-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor; she, his 84-year-old wife, known for her grace and kindness. But one cold winter morning, that home became the scene of a brutal murder that stunned the community and left Bakersfield searching for answers.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! Illah O'Malior was a divorced woman living alone in Bakersfield’s Westchester neighborhood when she was murdered in 1952.  Purchase this year's Notorious Bakersfield Halloween audio driving tour here: https://2025halloween.supercast.com/ Support the show

Send Robert a Text! I first covered this story back in 2022. Here is a much overdue update regarding that story.  Support the show

Send Robert a Text! On a quiet Wednesday morning in October 1996, the staff and patients at a Bakersfield dialysis clinic were going about their routines when tragedy struck. Within moments, a workplace dispute turned deadly, leaving beloved nurse administrator Darlene Brickey fatally shot in the clinic’s break room. Support the show