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Criminal

Like a Bad Dream

09 Jan 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.554 - 18.9 Phoebe Judge

Support for Criminal comes from BetterHelp. If you want to head into the new year feeling lighter, therapy can help. BetterHelp will match you with a therapist who can help you unload. Just fill out a short questionnaire to identify your needs and preferences. If you aren't happy with your match, you can switch therapists at any time.

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19.454 - 45.732 Phoebe Judge

BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash criminal. That's betterhelp.com slash criminal. Let's talk about the day in March of 2011. Maybe just kind of very detailed step-by-step what you did that evening, where you'd been, and then what the day had been like.

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46.522 - 70.345 Lindsey Schweigert

Gosh, I remember it so vividly. So I had actually the night before I had returned from a trip at the Pentagon where I was working on a large project with the government. I was jet lagged. I was exhausted. I'd gotten in really late. So the next day I remember sleeping in. I remember doing some things around the house. And then I went to fill my prescription.

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70.405 - 74.689 Lindsey Schweigert

After I did that, I remember making myself a nice dinner.

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75.209 - 85.708 Phoebe Judge

Lindsay Schweigert lived in a house in St. Louis. After dinner, she says she went to bed early, around 8 p.m. Lindsay's roommate got home a few hours later.

86.161 - 112.202 Lindsey Schweigert

First thing he noticed was that my garage was up and the car was gone. I never left my garage up, ever. You could get right into the house that way. It was late at night. I would never do that. Second thing he noticed, the dog was gone. And then he went into the bathroom and the water in the bathtub was overflowing. I am not a bath person. I cannot tell you the last time I've taken a bath.

112.84 - 118.088 Phoebe Judge

He thought something might have happened to Lindsay, like she'd been kidnapped. He called the police.

Chapter 2: What happened to Lindsey Schweigert on that fateful day in 2011?

119.691 - 132.931 Phoebe Judge

And when he called a second time, they told him Lindsay was in jail. Lindsay says the last thing she remembers is falling asleep in her bed. When she woke up, she didn't know where she was.

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133.953 - 139.101 Lindsey Schweigert

I remember being cold and wet. And then I remember being in the back of the police car in handcuffs.

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140.11 - 152.888 Phoebe Judge

An officer told her she'd been driving and hit another car. Apparently, she'd refused to take a breathalyzer test, and she'd fallen three times when she was instructed to walk in a straight line. It was raining.

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153.931 - 169.695 Lindsey Schweigert

I don't remember driving. I don't remember getting in my car. I was like, I just went, I went to bed. I mean, I was so out of it. I mean, if you even look at the mugshot from later, my eyes are just, my sweatshirt was on backwards. I was completely disoriented.

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169.755 - 179.871 Phoebe Judge

Lindsay's dog was in the backseat of her car. They were less than a mile away from her house, outside of a Steak and Shake she liked to go to.

180.492 - 186.942 Lindsey Schweigert

I remember being frantic with the officer because he said that he's going to send my animal to the dog shelter.

188.244 - 192.391 Phoebe Judge

He took Lindsay to jail. Who did you call?

193.272 - 203.348 Lindsey Schweigert

My brother. And what did you say? I told him I have no idea what just happened to me, but I'm in jail and Tyson is at the dog pound and we have to go save my dog.

204.971 - 228.505 Phoebe Judge

Lindsay was let out on bail. After her brother picked her up, they found her dog at the pound. They drove back to Lindsay's house, and her roommate told her what he'd seen, the open garage, the bathtub overflowing. Since Lindsay didn't remember what had happened that night, she wondered if at one point she might have had something to drink.

Chapter 3: What were the events leading up to Lindsey's arrest?

586.587 - 610.234 Ramya Nagesh

I mean, anyone who's studied Macbeth in school knows that Macbeth's wife sleptwalked, having been involved in the murder in that play, and was said to kind of wash her hands out of guilt. Quote, her eyes are open, but their sense is shut. People sort of had this idea that if you were sleepwalking, you were maybe acting out your dreams.

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611.227 - 623.445 Phoebe Judge

In 1859, an officer on patrol in London heard yelling coming from an apartment window. It was after one in the morning. It was a woman's voice shouting, save my children.

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624.326 - 632.759 Ramya Nagesh

He heard a crashing sound and realized someone from the apartment had thrown something through a pane of glass above him. They hadn't opened the window, they'd thrown something through that glass.

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633.76 - 647.089 Phoebe Judge

The woman shouting had thrown one of her children through the window, an 18-month-old. The baby was taken to a hospital with head injuries, but survived. The mother was charged with attempted murder.

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648.048 - 667.406 Ramya Nagesh

She told police that she'd thought that there was a fire. She'd been dreaming that there was a fire and she was trying to save her family. She had no previous convictions. Everybody said that she was a good mother. And her story that she'd been asleep at the time that she threw her baby out of the window was unheard of in England at the time.

668.166 - 684.866 Ramya Nagesh

So then there was a debate between sort of the prosecution and the judge as to how they should proceed. And the judge, you know, wasn't really having any of it at first. He said, well, you know, she was probably drunk. If I let her go now, he said, she might go back to her family and throw another one out.

686.108 - 700.748 Phoebe Judge

He said, if I were to allow her to go at large, it would be opening a very wide door. A man might set fire to his house and say it had been done while he was dreaming. it would be a most dangerous plea to establish.

701.85 - 714.366 Ramya Nagesh

But her solicitor pushed for there to be no charge in the case, and eventually the judge allowed her bail. Ultimately, there was never a trial in the case, and so effectively, her defense had been successful.

715.628 - 734.247 Phoebe Judge

A grand jury had refused to send the case to trial. It was the first time in the UK, as far as we know, that someone had successfully defended themselves in court by claiming to be asleep. But Ramya Nagesh says most sleepwalking doesn't involve dreaming at all.

Chapter 4: How did Lindsey's brother react to her situation?

953.375 - 976.82 Phoebe Judge

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977.621 - 992.503 Phoebe Judge

There's a lot of pressure to start the year with big resolutions, but the changes you make don't actually need to be huge. It can make a big difference for your health to start with something small that you know you can count on yourself to do every day, like taking a daily multivitamin.

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993.26 - 1012.609 Phoebe Judge

I decided to start taking rituals essential for women a few years ago, and I'm still doing it every day before breakfast. It contains nine key nutrients, like omega-3 for your brain and vitamin D, magnesium, and boron for your bones. The capsules are made with a delayed-release design, which lets your body absorb what it needs when it needs it.

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1013.109 - 1032.206 Phoebe Judge

You don't need to take it with food, so it can fit into your schedule whenever you want. Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. For a limited time, save 40% on your first month at ritual.com slash criminal. That's ritual.com slash criminal for 40% off your first month.

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1036.351 - 1044.55 Phoebe Judge

The Toronto Police started putting together what happened after Kenneth Parks fell asleep on his couch. Here's Ramya Nagesh.

1045.411 - 1064.095 Ramya Nagesh

He rose from his bed, he walked out of his house, got into his car and drove 23 kilometers to his parents-in-law's house. Once inside their house, he arms himself with a kitchen knife and he brutally attacked his parents-in-law. By all accounts, he was very close to his parents-in-law.

1064.115 - 1082.565 Ramya Nagesh

This wasn't one of those sort of stereotypical, you know, jokes where somebody has animosity with their parents-in-law. He was very close with them. And the attack was so severe that actually it left his mother-in-law dead. He'd killed his mother-in-law by stabbing and his father-in-law did survive but was very badly injured.

1084.047 - 1108.654 Phoebe Judge

At the police station, Kenneth became aware of injuries to his hands. He'd cut them very badly during the attack, severing tendons. He was taken to a hospital. An emergency room doctor who saw him noted that he seemed sad, remorseful, and perplexed. At first, doctors thought he might have had a psychotic episode or been on drugs.

1109.393 - 1131.385 Phoebe Judge

but he said he only occasionally drank and almost never did drugs, and that night he did neither. And he didn't have any history of psychosis. Eventually, Kenneth was sent to a sleep specialist. At first, the sleep specialist was skeptical that he could have committed the crime entirely while asleep.

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