McLiam looks a little too happy to have the young and beautiful Joan Freeman in his home, and almost immediately offers to adopt her. John McLiam and Phyllis Coates play the family that gives shelter to Freeman. Eventually Freeman wanders into a home that takes her in. Freeman never got a look at them, and that proves to be fatal to her new family later on. Joan Freeman is the daughter of the 'nesters' and she avoids getting killed because she was away when the Strunks came by. The cynical remarks between them illustrate how evil they truly are. Then they burn the wagon with the bodies inside. They start out by riding over to a wagon with a couple of 'nesters' and immediately killing them off to steal their horses and their money. Each one is a cold-blooded killer in his own right. All five of them put together have no humanity, compassion, or morality. In this episode of Gunsmoke, she plays the sociopathic Ma, Phoebe Strunk, of a gang of four psychopathic killers. I often wonder what kind of person she was in real life. Virginia Gregg had an incredible talent for playing cold-blooded women and evil killers.

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