The tweakers rose from the broken shards of battery acid and Sudafed tablets in the filthy bathtubs of the Central Valley of California. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in Fresno.
Tonight…
We take you back, Dear Listener, to the genesis of this podcast, the city that is widely considered to be the Mos Eisley of California: Fresno.
Some people call it “No-Town”, because no one there gives a fuck. An allegedly corrupt police force? Check. Strange unknown cryptid creatures running across people’s front lawns? Check. An apocalyptic amount of tweakers? Duh. CHECK.
According to CNN, In Fresno’s meth hell, there’s no antidote.
National data shows that deaths from methamphetamine were up 48% in 2020 alone, making meth the leading killer in Fresno, above murders, suicides, and car accidents combined.
Rumor has it that there’s now a newer, more potent version of meth that has hit the streets recently, so some of the older models of tweaker which were known as the T-800’s have been upgraded to the T-1000 model, which apparently is a more advanced prototype that showcases increased agility, less pain, pity, fear, and remorse, and there are unconfirmed reports that they have the ability to steal copper wire from utility transformers without being electrocuted.
However, dear listener, we know that you didn’t open up this podcast to listen to a huge spiel on Fresno, so if you’d like to learn more about it you can go back and listen to Episode 1 of our podcast.
Tonight, our main focus will be on the story of one John Lang, a man who tragically lost his life in his central Fresno home in January of 2016. Officially, his death was ruled as a suicide. However, many people believe that he was murdered by the very police department that was sworn to serve and protect the great people of Fresno, due to his meddling in some possible shady business going on in the Fresno Police Department.
Tonight, we get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all. Did John Lang really commit suicide, or was John Lang Epstein’d by the Fresno Police Department?
John Lang, a longtime resident of Fresno California, was originally born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was married to a woman named Alma, whom he had a daughter with. However, the two broke up in 2012, per records found. Little is known about his life. However, at the time of his death, he was employed at Payless Brakes & Tires Inc.
Many rumors about John Lang swirl on the internet, including that he was a Marine, but this is due to people being fucking stupid and not doing their due diligence – he had the YouTube username of ‘Lang Marine’, which was probably based on a business that he created in 2010 called “John’s Marine Service”, which clearly by the name of it would sound like something boat-related. We here at Super Mystery Bros could not confirm whether or not he was actually a Marine, but it looks highly doubtful.
However, despite the lack of information about John as a person, what IS known is that as far back as 2009, he had a bone to pick with the Fresno Police Department, regarding their alleged schemes involving running license plates in retail store parking lots in lower-income neighborhoods, waiting for the owners of the vehicles to come back out to their cars, before then pulling them over as they began to drive off.
To put it into other terms, he was trying to expose the police department for shooting fish in a barrel so-to-speak, and preying on the most vulnerable members of society instead of pulling people over the more honorable and manly way. This was an extremely lazy and underhanded method for the police to generate ticket money and meet their quotas.
We take you now back to the year 2009, when John’s story began.
In an online diary entry from that year, he wrote the following:
I was having trouble in my marriage. Then I was ticketed two blocks away from the Home Depot on West Shaw in Fresno, where I had just visited. I later learned that Fresno Law Enforcement had a “pattern of practice” of unethically scanning license plates on private retail parking lots. They then pull the unsuspecting drivers over a block or two away from said parking lots. This was meant to optimize ticket revenue at a very minimal expense. Millions of dollars of revenue has been generated in this questionable manner by Fresno area Law Enforcement agencies. A “pattern of practice” that is still in use today by Fresno area Law Enforcement agencies. The added financial stress related to this incident crippled what was left of my marriage. I was devastated, angry, and upset. I thought the parking lot license plate scanning was abusive and simply designed as a revenue generating scheme for the City of Fresno. So, as an expression of peaceful protest I voiced my opinion on the Fresno Bee, which I now realize was a mistake. I thought I was anonymous, but an employee at the Fresno Bee, “Jody Murray” was “feeding” a known Sheriff Sergeant who used the alias hikerdude67 or hikerdude1967 website log data containing identifiable ip address information that Fresno LE used to track down Fresno Citizens who were posting comments critical of Fresno LE and the City of Fresno. Preliminary identification identifies hikerdude1967 as Jared L McCormick, a Fresno County Sheriff Sergeant. Within weeks I was vehicle “tailed” by undercover Sheriff officers who were routinely waiting on the street near my home. One individual I recognized by his very unique hair and facial features was the same Sheriff personnel who a few years later followed me into a Save Mart grocery store located at Clinton and Blackstone. The details of this later incident are listed in the 12/01/14 “Time Line / Notes section”, which can be found below. Fresno PD was also occasionally following me as well, although their harassment participation was exponentially growing. In 2013 and 2014 I was being followed very frequently by Fresno PD and Fresno Sheriff personnel. The frequency was so high that both agencies had obviously gps’d my car or my phone, they seemed to be “popping up everywhere”. I also believe that Fresno LE (both PD and Sheriff) was also “tapping” my phone and my ex-wife’s phone, either illegally, or by obtaining a warrant under false premise and or claims. I later learned from other commenters on the Bee, that other posters who were known to be critical Fresno LE and the City of Fresno were also targeted by Fresno LE. I learned Fresno LE including Fresno PD and Fresno Sheriff personnel had a pattern of “harassment and intimidation” against citizens who criticized Fresno Law Enforcement, Fresno Government, or Fresno Public employees. There were many posters discussing this problem of Fresno LE retaliation for speaking out about Fresno Police abuses.
According to John, the scheme was generating millions of dollars for the local government.
There are many, many excerpts from John Lang similar to this one, but in the interest of saving time we’re not going to dive into any others – but if you’d like to do some reading for yourself, you can check the sources for this episode in the show notes and click on the one from “fresnopeoplesmedia.com”, which has a ton of entries that he wrote which are similar to this one. But in a nutshell, John Lang had a fairly large online presence, constantly posting on Facebook, as well as on his blog, for years leading up to his death, complaining of the Fresno police department and other allegedly corrupt local government officials, and trying to get the attention of local reporters.
He began posting surveillance footage from his home security camera on his YouTube channel, typically with descriptions of how the police were stalking or harassing him for his so-called “activism”. We will get into a video-by-video analysis later on in this episode. But starting in May of 2015 up to January 16th of 2016, he had posted 17 such videos. And by the 20th of January, 2016, he would be found dead in his home under suspicious circumstances.
His death would officially be ruled as a suicide – but, to many people, the probability that John Lang committed suicide matches the probability of Jeffrey Epstein committing suicide. In other words, he didn’t. But since nobody can prove otherwise, you, John Q. Public, can suck it. But what’s the truth in the matter of John Lang?
As we just mentioned, John Lang had begun posting clips from his home surveillance camera in the months prior to his demise onto his YouTube channel, which is still up, and the link can be found in the sources section of this episode.
He began posting videos of suspicious activity happening outside of his house, anything ranging from police activity, carpet cleaning guys, random pedestrians, to garbage trucks, with video descriptions explaining why he believed that these were all evidence of him being stalked and harassed by the Fresno Police Department and/or the local Fresno government.
On January 14th of 2016, John posted a message on Facebook which read “Just wanted to give you guys the heads up. If anything happens to me in the next day or two it will be the result of Fresno PD, my neighbor and employee at my job Payless Brakes and Tires.”
Then, the very next day, he posted another message on his Facebook, directed to Corin Hoggard, a local Fresno reporter for ABC30.com.
The 2nd and final post on January 16th was posted at 10:48 PM and read as follows:
And then, on January 20th, 2016, at around 3PM, John’s neighbors noticed that his home was on fire, and quickly ran to flag down a fire truck which was coincidentally right down the street from his home, on an unrelated call.
Firefighters had to break through his wrought iron gate in order to gain entry into his yard, only to find that the home itself and all of its entrances were barricaded from the inside with 2 x 4’s. When the firefighters were finally able to bust down one of the doors and gain entry into the home, they were shocked, and horrified, by what they saw.
John was laying on the floor in the kitchen area, completely unresponsive.
The first responders noticed blood on his chest as they were carrying him out of the home. He had no pulse, and despite CPR being performed on him while en route to the hospital, he would be pronounced dead on arrival with multiple stab wounds and apparent smoke inhalation.
And so after nearly 7 years of crying wolf, it seems, John Lang was dead. Apparently, the police or whoever was stalking him had finally made good on their threats. So-called conspiracy theorists and “activists” joined forces to condemn the corrupt Fresno Police department for murdering him, while many other folks chose to accept the coroner’s determination, that John Lang had committed suicide. And in the years since, his story has slowly been covered over by the sands of time, no longer in the forefront, but not quite a forgotten memory either. It’s a case that’s been argued over by internet neckbeards on Reddit since it first happened, with many still rejecting the official narrative.
Websites emerged in the aftermath of his death, including “wearejohnlang.wordpress.com” which is a website that is apparently dedicated to him and the journalism he engaged in prior to his death. Many hold him up as a martyr, a freedom-fighter who chose to fight against local law enforcement tyranny. But to others, he was just a local eccentric with some loose screws, or even a tweaker, who had a permanent fixation with the police department due to some kind of mental illness and/or grudge.
ABC30 reported:
Police say a man who had been stabbed was found inside a burning Central Fresno home. He was pronounced dead at the hospital and the neighborhood is in shock. The smoke was spotted by neighbors on Van Ness, just north of Belmont around 3:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday and firefighters just happened to be a few doors down on an unrelated call. Battalion Chief Todd Tuggle said, “While the 911 call was going in, neighbors were flagging down our engine company.” The home was heavily secured with a gate so firefighters had to force their way in. After a quick search, they found a man in the kitchen, unconscious and bleeding from several stab wounds. He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. Lt. Joe Gomez with the Fresno Police Department said, “Unknown if the stab wounds caused the death or the smoke inhalation, it’s too early to tell.” Investigators call the death suspicious and they believe the house was intentionally set on fire. Tamara Olivarria who lives across the street said, “He just got those lights fixed and the gate is locked so I’m not sure how anyone would have got in even, but it’s kind of scary.” Police haven’t confirmed it but neighbors say the victim is a man in his mid-40’s– a man who lived alone and worked on boats at the home. Theresa Fuentes says he was a friend and she’s not sure why anyone would want to hurt him. “If it’s a random thing, that makes it much scarier…cause the neighborhood is getting better, we thought,” Fuentes said. Olivarria added, “It’s sad, you know, I hope he didn’t experience a lot of pain.” At this point, there are no suspects and police need help solving the case.
(LISTEN TO THE EPISODE FOR BREAKDOWN OF THE AUTOPSY REPORT)
Contrary to initial reports, the coroner determined that no stab wounds were present in his back. Initially, there had been some confusion about the wounds, which was the result of incorrect information which was released by Lt. Joe Gomez.
Lt. Burke Farrah, head of the homicide unit, in regards to the incorrect information which was released by his colleague, said “Joe made a mistake. This is an aberration. Typically, we are very careful.”
He continued “When you start from a false premise, that’s what allows this to spin out of control.”
However, online activists and “conspiracy theorists” (for lack of better word) point to this as another reason not to trust the Fresno Police Department, and use this to support the theory of an alleged coverup.
In the immediate aftermath of his death, the story had gone viral on Reddit, with many users demanding justice for John Lang, and some trying to spread the word to “make his story undeniably famous”.
Did John Lang kill himself? or did John Lang "kill himself"? Tune in to the episode to find out!