And That's Why We Drink - E118 A Demon in the Drain and Pentagrams on the Golf Course

Episode Date: May 5, 2019

Shalom in the home! Christine's childhood home to be exact! We're recording in the wild this week which is a treat and a curse (sorry in advance for the audio quality, we're testing out new equipment and also recording from Christine's bed). But on the bright side we've got some wild tales about every crack and hole of her graveyard-side house. Em also brings us the ghosts of the Biltmore Estate this week while Christine covers Dana Sue Gray a serial killer and shopaholic to boot...and that's why we drink!Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale when you go to stamps.com, click on the microphone and enter code DRINKGet 25% off your entire Liquid IV order when you go to liquidiv.com and enter code DRINK at check outTry Zip Recruiter for free when you go to ziprecruiter.com/drinkGet 10% off your first 3 months of Ritual when you visit ritual.com/drink

and this guy's gone all right so we're recording okay hello after over a hundred episodes welcome to our first travel episode we're on the road and by on the road i mean in my childhood bedroom it is by far the creepiest place i've ever seen, even the second time around. My mother decided to give the tour today, which I'm sorry. Oh, I demanded it, I think. I'm pretty sure she could sense my desperate need for it. And then on the way here, Christine was already here. And then Eva and I were meeting her here.

And the car ride on the way here, I was like, Eva, I cannot wait for you to experience the weird beast that is Christine's 1865 house with several haunting beings in it. My mom heard me say that it was built in 1891 on the episode and she called me and was furious. And she's like, it was built in 1865. And I was like, okay.

It's older than you think and worse than you think. Worse than you think. And I kept going, so what's the deal with that? So what's the deal with that? My mom had a story for every stupid little, like, crack and hole and cranny and fireplace. That's all I want to, I just want to know all the things about cracks and holes. As usual. I can never get you to stop talking.

As usual. Just love talking about those cracks and holes. I do love when Eva pulled up and goes goes i really like your graveyard in house they go together i texted christine when we were on our way and eva was like can you let her know i'm excited to play in the graveyard yeah he did tell me that and then we uh we almost uh recorded in the graveyard i thought that would be a great there's a little bench the aesthetic sounds like a great idea but it also just rained so it's kind of wet it's very moist and that's your favorite word i love it and uh things are moist especially cracks and holes i uh also had thought that and then i was like people might yell at us on twitter for being disrespectful but i'm there's a little cute

park i take geo and walks there oh so sweet oh and christine did show us the tiny little window that chris that geo likes to look out of yes to watch the driveway anyway we are in Cincinnati and we're sorry that the audio is probably not what you're used to but this is our first time testing out some travel equipment yeah we're in my bed so if anything Christine's bed talking about all right who knew we'd end up here when we met way back in boston it's exactly where i was envisioning it to go our friendship really has evolved the way we'd hoped also it is uh in my mind because i'm dramatic sweltering hot it is and humid as hell and then christine told me some interesting story about her parents having been on the news at some point because this is the only

house that does so they were the first house to do geothermal heating and cooling in Cincinnati and they were on the local news but my mom didn't tell me and then like that night I was like watch my mom was like watching tv and then all of a sudden she's like there we are and I was like what the and they were like wandering around my house and like what on earth is geothermal it's like when they dig into the ground I hope my mom doesn't listen to this again she's gonna going to call me. From downstairs. They dig into the ground and use like the energy from the earth to power, heating, cooling. It's like very eco-friendly, but it's like very expensive up front, but then it saves money over like decades. Interesting.

Anyway. Well, it's not working right now because I'm hot. Well, we don't turn it on, Em. That's the point because this is a very eco-friendly home. I was not raised to be so friendly. We just melt. My mom very proudly told us the paint from 1916 did not have lead in it. So yeah, at least there's that. Oh, but then we did find a creepy closet in Christine's room where there's like a dresser that's been left over from the past family that lived here. Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of the furniture here. And I was like, what is that? How old is that piece of furniture? And your mom was like, from the 50s. lived here. Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of the furniture here. And I was like, what is that? How old is that piece of furniture?

And your mom was like, from the 50s. Definitely has lead in it. Wait, she said that? What the fuck? That's where I keep my clothes. I was like, you're definitely breathing that in at night. Well, that's where we found cocaine in the lining of those drawers. Well, good. It's got a whole lot of different ingredients in that little dresser. I was saying

there were 16 kids that lived in the family for us. Irish Catholic. Well, duh. you didn't have to say i know living on a jewish cemetery very interesting oh um yes thank you you're welcome this is me pretending to understand shalom shalom in the home i haven't learned much since my they haven't taught me much over there in the in the jewish Well, they're dead. So it's kind of hard for them to explain. I did bring my Ouija board over there, but then I had this really Christian friend who said he would never speak to me again.

So I stopped doing that. Oh, I see. Also, it was probably a terrible idea. So before all of you yell at me, I stopped doing it. Oh, good. We did almost record there today. So like the ideas don't stop coming. But we could have gone cool like, like EMFs.

No. Oh, we could have. Is like like uh emfs no oh we could have is that emf yeah on the zoom oh that would have been way fun what if what if we just took this zoom from eva and started using it as an emf as a spirit box and she would just plug in the sd card and it would always be like if you're here say hello and then i'm screaming we would love a signal to show where you are it It would be just us screaming every five minutes. Did you hear that? It would just be Renata crying out, this house is from 1865. Do you guys want to see another hole and a crack in the wall? It's very moist in there.

Anyway. So we are here because we're actually in the middle of doing our Ohio shows. Yes. We're in the middle of our little Ohio tour, main tour just in columbus last night that's right and tonight so as we're recording this we have already finished our notes right yep for our tonight show in cincinnati thank the lord which is by the way if we weren't recording this episode right now like if we weren't talking i would easily have procrastinated last night i know i made myself do it in advance i was so nervous that i wouldn't yeah yeah so i we did our for once we for once prepared our notes i was like i know my dad is gonna want to like i don't know attempt to take me golfing or something so i need to prepare so and i did and then tomorrow we're in cleveland

yes yes and uh pittsburgh and then the day this comes out we're in Cleveland. Yes. Yes. And then Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. And then the day this comes out, we're flying home. Yes. So. Oh, there's still tickets for Madison, which is in a few days when this comes out. Okay. Wisconsin. Please come to Madison.

Yeah, we'd love to. And that's that. And that's our last leg of our tour at all this spring. Well, we still have New York. But that. Oh, yeah. Right. I guess that's true.

But it'll be like the same. Oh, yeah. We'll be on the same trip. Oh, yeah. I hear you. same trip oh yeah i hear you yeah but uh you know it's weird being uh it's weird talking into this equipment i've never been this close to you recording our faces are so close and i'm like i probably haven't brushed my teeth since i drank coffee i didn't know what color your eyes were until just now what if we just hadn't ever looked at each other closely i don't think we have i'm really learning a lot about the features of your face right now. Oh, no. I haven't done my eyebrows. You have a birthmark on your cheek.

I do, yes. I didn't know that. I do. I have one dimple. I have a vampire birthmark. Oh! A little double birthmark. Well, you just had to one-up me. I get it. I have two. Yeah, I have one and you have two. Anyway, so we're learning about each other. You're learning about us, unfortunately. I learned that Christine's

eyes are hazel about five seconds ago. Oh, what? My mom always told me when I listen to that Kelly Clarkson song, I would always sing it like- Behind these hazel eyes. In my room and she'd be like, your eyes aren't even hazel. They look kind of hazel. Oh.

They look very light brown. Well, she used to, she used to, well, I'm not going to say that. She's going to scream at us about your eye color. She always tells my sister she has dirt eyes. Her eyes are dirt eyes. She's like, they're not as beautiful as your sister's. I'm like, you used to say horrible things about my eyes. And now that my sister's little.

Like the color of poop. My sister will be like, are my eyes nice? And she's like, no, they look like dirt. Your sister has nice eyes. Oh, my God. Just kidding. She loves us sometimes. And your dirt eyes.

Your weird dirt eyes. Yours are mud. Hers are dirt. Yeah, they are. See? eyes your dirt eyes yours are mud hers are dirt yeah they're see um behind these dirt eyes i used to think that song was about me well i'm here to confirm today that it is apparently thank you finally hazel is your color finally um so we are covering stories from live shows just purely because right since we're're doing individual stories for each of the shows we're going to, we didn't want to have to do another story on top of that. Because I know we do get a lot of questions.

It seems like on every Facebook Live or any Twitter feeds that we're on, we regularly get the question of how long does one story take? And it's pretty much like minimum six hours. Oh, to prepare. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To like research and prepare a story and get it all done. and so we didn't want to do an additional six hours of work while we're traveling we have 10 shows in the next couple so that's like already 60 hours yeah exactly but these are stories that like we've done in past cities that like neither of us remember so yeah and they're like a bit older stories yes yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And different cities. So if you were at one, then you can hear a new one from me and vice versa. Correct.

Cool. So we, I am obviously going first because that's how this seems to be happening. We're not switching things up that much today. So mine is the story that I did in Charlotte, which was only a week or two ago. But I'm telling you, I've already forgotten the story. I was like, I don't know what the hell story this is but okay uh that was the one where my uncle and my cousin were there and then uh yeah allison's brother was there with his girlfriend so and uh is this adulting was there is this adulting was there so we've had fun it was a big uh whole bunch of people we knew were

in the audience which was surprised me because i had never been in north carolina so it was cool to like have so many... You haven't been to the whole state? Nope. Oh, wow. Oh, wait. No, Myrtle Beach is in South Carolina. Yeah, correct.

Outer Banks is North Carolina. I had not been there. I have been there often as a Virginian. I was not sporty enough to do that. Well, you don't have to be. That's the fun of sitting on a beach. So anyway, I am doing my Charlotte story. I've already forgotten it, even though we did it maybe a week ago, I think.

Fantastic. That means I definitely have forgotten it. Right. We're just we're just covering so much ground these days. Look at us go. So my story is the Biltmore Estate. Oh, shit. I'm excited. I remember you told this, but I usually blackout on stage. So yeah, we all we we always go backstage and then we ask Eva if we even performed yet. So we really don't remember our stories. We're like, did we talk enough? Did people laugh at all? Did we say anything?

Did we say full sentences? Did we go up there and just stare at you? My mom was like, I loved Em's story last night. And I was like, what was it? Like fully unironically. That's nice of her. Really? That's nice.

She didn't like mine. Mine was dirt and mud. Right. So mine's the biltmore i i know and i think i said this on stage too where i was like i know people must know the biltmore because even i've heard of the biltmore right from north carolina same um so i'm just gonna jump right into that also biltmore sounds like a house that like someone in the gilmore girls should have lived oh for sure gossip girl yeah oh yeah i mean i knew what you meant like blair waldorf should have lived in the biltmore just very uh it sounds very preppy yes like they only wear like chubbies there you know

god love a good chubby by the way jesus um i tried to never mind let's hear it i bought their bathing suit one time because i bought their bathing suit like it's so flattering and it looked terrible on me i did not here's the thing i love a good chubby on other people yeah that's what it is i certainly can't i tried it really didn't work and they were really cute but i had to return it it was very depressing so the biltmore estate is the largest privately owned home in the united states um it's built by the vanderbilt family which is a very prominent family. Right. Super rich. I think they're actually the real Waldorfs.

Right. The OG. The OG Waldorfs. So Blair Vanderbilt, maybe. That actually sounds pretty on the nose. So it was built by the Vanderbilt family. They were prominent elites until the mid-1900s. So I think it was around the 1950s. That's when they stopped being prominent

elite socialites. Yeah, that's sort of like us prominent elite. I mean, that's what I call us for sure. That's what my mother calls this house. And it's like, really? No, that I we don't even pretend. I'm not gonna agree with entirely. I bet there are some prominent elites buried on the property, though. Oh, yeah, probably their ghosts are still here for sure with their muddy eyes yeah all right be careful and so don't anger them what the very first vanderbilt to have all of the money in the world it seems because at the time they were some of the richest and in the land right was cornelius vanderbilt what a name so he worked in the steamship and railroad businesses which is where he got all of his money uh except he was not well-liked because he did not have manners.

Which, by the way, I don't either. For a prominent elite, I feel like that's pretty rare. Maybe things were different back then, but if you're a prominent elite now, if there's anything you know, it's manners. You have to. At least pretend. I mean, I'm not saying I have manners, but I did at least go to Cotillion. It's instilled in me. What's wrong with us? To have manners, I just did at least go to Cotillion. It's instilled. Me too. It's instilled in me. What's wrong with us?

To have manners, I just choose not to use them. We like chubbies and Cotillion. I like Cotillion and manners and chubbies. I feel like everyone's like, who are these people? This is not what they seem like at all. And then I had my rebellion year where I went to clown college. Oh, my rebellion year was just like falling in love with the neighbor boy that broke into my house. Falling in love with boys with eyeliner was your rebellion.

love with the neighbor boy that broke into my house falling in love with boys with eyeliner was your rebellion so uh as we lay under my fallout boy poster by the way truly wow we should start like just doing more travel episodes yeah this is a new setting just describe the entire place because this is bicing it up this is the first time we've never recorded in a studio yes wait that's true huh yeah ew how weird it is i didn't think it would be in my bedroom well you know what's interesting it's three different oh hey eva taking a picture well she realizes about the fallout boy poster i saw her eyes light up well you know what's you know what's interesting is uh we also have only ever recorded in now three of your homes oh yeah like let's go to my dad's later my stepmom's on

vacation oh good break and then we should go to your like weird castle like school where probably the vanderbilt's oh and then we can go to austria where my ski my dad you've lived in too many interesting places i just said where my ski home is i need to maybe delete that line this is terrible you're where you winter where we winter uh at uh my second wedding we can record there and then it'll be a another one another house so he had no manners he was uneducated he cursed and spat a lot he really does sound like me um oh boy and he was also very disrespectful to women that is not me me. Yeah. I love a good woman. You spoke too soon.

Cracks and holes. Cracks and holes. Oh, no. I'm sorry. See, that's me having no manners, just like a Vanderbilt. Don't spit anywhere because I'm too close to you. Oh, and also just like a Vanderbilt, him and I are both filthy, stinking rich. Just kidding.

Oh, I thought filthy, stinking. I was like, yes. Yes. That part's true. Those two words, not rich. Only because my geothermal heating is, cooling is non. non that's uh i'll vision board the rich part later he also this is a part that i do not identify with as a vanderbilt he married his cousin so oh my his cousin was 43 years younger than him oh my and i don't know if this was with said cousin or if it

was uh with another woman but he did have a son named william okay so i don't know if this was with said cousin or if it was with another woman, but he did have a son named William. Okay. So I don't know if he's a product of being with the cousin or a previous lover. Okay. Oh, because he was older at this point? Right. Okay, got it. So Cornelius had William.

And then at the time of his death, Cornelius actually had more money than the U.S. Treasury. Oh, my God. Can relate on that one. more money than the U.S. Treasury. Oh my god! Can relate on that one. That one, spot on. Yeah. But he did think that his son William would be a failure. Well, that's not very nice. But then William proved his dad wrong and

actually ended up doubling the family fortune. Shit! Which means that he, at the time then, was making enough money that is now considered $300 billion. What?! So he had, for his time, $300 billion. How

can that even be possible? How can that possibly be legal? That's what I'm wondering. I feel like at some point the government's like, uh, no, that's ours. You literally have more than us. Right. It's like, oh, you kind of run the country i mean it happened with our taxes they just are like that's ours now lol do you know how much do you think their taxes were if they made 300 billion dollars 240 billion oh probably sounds right based on our

taxes uh so somehow it didn't take long for the family to actually spend all of that money what it took like only three generations six continents i don't know how you would spend that money buy a planet buy the planet but truly they like within like three generations all the money was gone holy shit that means a hundred billion dollars per person honest that's incredibly impressive i'm like yeah i'm kind of like you have to just look at everything and be like one of each ten of each a hundred of each and where do you even put it like truly just to get rid of the money, I guess. Yeah, geez. So William had many sons, and the youngest was George. And George is the main character that I'm talking about today.

So he is the grandchild of Cornelius Vanderbilt. So he was born in 1862 in New York, and by his mid-20s, he had already inherited a cool $12 million from his family. Oh, geez. he had already inherited a cool 12 million dollars from his family oh geez um in 1886 he visited ashville north carolina which is where this story is set um and he decided that he would build a vacation home there one because he probably had so much fucking money and two because he was like ashville's amazing which it is which it is um and it was a cool place to have a little, Oh, I love Asheville. So he decided that he wanted to build a mansion there and it was so big, this building that they actually, the blueprints, the original blueprints, they measured it in acres.

Oh, of the home. Yeah. Like not in square feet. They were like, okay, so this is going to be like nine by 11 acres. Oh my God. I was thinking the property, but like the actual house was in acres. That's crazy. Yeah. So when they had like an architect and designers working with it they had to measure everything in acres got it so in 1895 it was if we're going off of square feet

it was around 180 000 square feet originally holy crap casual with 250 rooms including 35 bedrooms 43 bathrooms 65 fireplaces three kitchens and a 12 000 foot carriage house how many cracks and holes were there um probably zero zero to begin with zero and then renata moved in and they're just like and then this well first there was like 16 children that lived there in between right then renata waited like 300 years and was like now i'm happy here make sure now it feels safe and broken in like a nice pair of jeans put the line the dresser with cocaine and we'll and lead and we'll just move right on in for those of you who don't know i i feel like christine and i talk about it often enough but i don't know if it's ever been recorded but before christine moved into this house uh there was a family of 16 children 13 boys and three girls and on the third floor where somehow all of them managed

to fit in like three bedrooms uh they pretty much lord of the flies took over the entire third floor and then the parents were too old to climb up the stairs so there's an elevator to the second floor but it doesn't go to the third floor it's like an an old school elevator, not like a cool new fancy elevator. Like you might as well pull it with like a pulley system. Yeah. It's like a dumbwaiter, but people size. My mom's like, it's safer than all elevators today. I was like, I don't know why you got that statistic.

I guess that's true in that like worst case scenario, you fall like 10 feet. 10 feet. Yeah. Onto like some stuffed animals that my sister left out. But like truly, it just looks like such chaos up here because the parents couldn't get up here to say don't do it or clean it or anything or even know what it looked they also gave up because they had 13 sons and they just honest to god like the ceilings and walls are just like painted and drawn and like cigarette burns and it's really wild it just looks like you live in a house that hasn't totally figured itself out yet like it's still in its

own rebellion well like my room's nice and done like my parents made sure my room was painted and clean and like but your room happens to be on the third but then you walk out and it's like oh my i forgot i forgot what happened out here um so that's not what this the biltmore looked like oh okay what a surprise uh and then oh yeah so the my favorite part of that list was that it had 65 fireplaces. And I did text you the morning of, and I was like, why on earth would someone need 65 fireplaces? And your response, though, was for 65 s'mores. So I'm very impressed. That was at like four in the morning where we were both just kind of in our own little world.

That was me frantically doing my notes, and then I just like spiraled out of control. So the house also had an art gallery and a two-story library over 10 000 works oh shit um some of them were super priceless so one of the books that was there was a first edition of origin of the species by charles darwin holy first edition first edition oh jesus okay like first print everything that's pretty wild so there were some pretty awesome things in that library and george loved his library oh in fact he stayed there uh whenever there was a storm coming in he liked to watch the storms oh he watched them not like hid from it no like he was watching this oh that's kind of cool from uh from the library and he also would hide there whenever his wife threw parties oh see i remembered hiding at some point the parties are scarier than

the thunderstorms yes okay i see social parties are scarier than the thunderstorms. Okay, I see. Socializing is scarier than rain. I would agree with this, yes. And his wife, Edith, was known to go find George and chase him down to the library and remind him that he needed to go entertain the guests. Go talk to your friends.

I did not invite everyone here for nothing. Oh my God. The building, and keep in mind, this building was built in the 1890s, which by the way, makes it younger than your house. God, how sad is that? By 30 years.

Oh my God. It's literally one Vander, your house is one Biltmore and one Eva and it equals your house. Oh my God. You're 30. Oh, you're 33.

I always forget. It's close enough. You're 25. Yeah. She's younger enough. You're 25. Yeah. She's younger and yet wiser than all of us. I refuse to believe that Eva is a day older than us. Yeah.

Let me think. Edith. Oh, yeah. She would chase down her husband to make him join the party. So the building also had a gym. And on the second floor, the 1890s had a heated illuminated swimming pool holy crap and one of the heated pool a heated illuminated pool like had lights underneath and everything oh aluminum i thought you said aluminum oh lol i was like they heated it that seems dangerous it was foil it had foil i literally pictured a tinfoil pool um no that's at my house

i would not be surprised that's your geothermal pool so it also had one of the very first private bowling alleys in the country that's cool and it was one of the first properties to have electricity indoor plumbing refrigeration heat and hot water that's pretty cool and they had its own intercom system throughout the estate and its own fire alarm system. Ooh. So they also, by the way, because it was so big, they even built a private railway line so that families and guests could directly go to the Biltmore. Oh, my God. What was that story told where they would, like, fly people in or not fly, like, railroad them in for some party?

I feel like that happened back then. They would just, like, casually take over a railroad and, like, railroad everyone in. I feel like that happened back then. They would just like casually take over a railroad and like railroad everyone in. I wonder if that was like on the invite. It was like, oh, just take my personal railway line. Oh my God. Like instead of a private jet nowadays. Like all aboard to the party zone. That's probably a fun train ride though.

Can you imagine? Oh yeah. Like a party bus. Everyone's pre-gaming, like getting fucked up on the train. What's that song about a train? Oh, what? There's a few of those. I'm sure. i'm bobbing my head you know the one crazy train yes that's the one wow i was like party train it's something like ozzy osbourne or something yeah maybe that's

the one i'm going off the rails on a crazy train no see that's not what i'm thinking oh that's what i was thinking i mean i think i thinking oh that's what i was thinking i mean i think i thought that that's what i was thinking about i wrote a song about train chattanooga choo-choo no that's the one uh maybe i'm thinking of love shack never mind i'm confused i got me a christ lord the size of a whale that one chattanooga choo-choo it's about 20 all right anyway remember when we were like let's make this extremely efficient right we were like oh let's record this really fast and now we're googling chattanooga train of love wait that's i wrote that for you thank you i love it um okay getting back to this all night all night train hate train that's what metallica hate train

oh that's the one no okay okay i'm sorry it was about a train never mind we're uh is there some sort of pun about us like going off the rails right now or i can't think of a pun about going off the rail we're going off track oh i thought the pun i thought was off the rails maybe like the railroad rails we're not doing this well off the track off track oh i thought the pun i thought was off the rails maybe like the railroad rails we're not doing this well off the track off track off rail people are very like slowly turning down the volume oh god they're like sorry honey i thought maybe this was the episode to introduce you to but clearly we need to start on a less insane episode i can't handle this okay moving on from the train there was a railway line let's just put it it like Tesla where I scream it in like four hours.

You'll scream it on stage during another episode. That audience is going to be like, what the fuck are you talking about? My dad's going to be like, you'll be like, listen on Monday. You'll find out. Okay. Sorry. Go on. The building was also designed to have secret passageways and hidden rooms.

Shut up. And it was designed to blend in with the walls and decor so you wouldn't even know that they were there. Very secret. Which gave me a lot of ideas because I have told Allison if we ever get a house together. By the way, she's from a family of three architects. Right, that's true. And I have demanded a minimum of two secret passageways in our house. Sure, of course.

So this just gave me a list of options. I'm going to start calling all the cracks and holes secret passageways. That house so this just gave me a list of options um i'm gonna start calling all the cracks and holes secret passageways that makes it sound better yeah for ants they are a little secret i thought you meant like for because i have seven ants on my mom's side i was like yeah i meant for the insects shove them all in there uh so the secret rooms uh used to provide added privacy but they were also used to keep the servants hidden while moving between rooms so that everything's rude i mean that was not the best aspect of this house but it was just so like guests wouldn't feel like they were in the mix of like behind the scenes chaos got it it was to make everything look very neat and formed and

right right um so there was a breakfast room which I will also have in my house. I'll also have a second breakfast and a third breakfast and first lunch. Obviously. All the way through third dinner. Third dinner. And then many midnight, 2 a.m., 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. Well, there's also, like, at least 10 snack rooms. Right.

Snack room. So the breakfast room is also considered the informal dining room for them. Oh, sure. And there was a door actually hidden in the wall there leading to the butler's pantry. The library had passageways to guest rooms, a hidden hallway, and a tiny reading space called the den. That is adorable, and I want to have that. I think it's really, like, to have a little crawl space for your nook. To, like, read books in there? That's so cute.

I love that. I would love that. I hope it doesn't get scary i've truly forgotten these notes so i hope the den doesn't become a haunted space oh got it i hope so too that would make me sad there's also a billiard room that uh had a secret door by the fireplace that led to a smoking and gun room i hope i have one of those too where the men on sundays would use that room for drinking brandy and smoking cigars and then... They're shooting their guns.

So the billiard room was a secret door, had a secret door to the smoking room, and then the smoking room had a secret door to the gun room. Holy shit. They're like Russian nesting eggs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The estate also had a trap door on the floor to store extra plants in the garden. Okay. What? Okay. So they would switch out the plants based on the floor to store extra plants in the garden. Okay. What? Okay.

So they would switch out the plants based on the seasons. Oh, my God. And they also had a secret closet in George's bedroom specifically. So we had a closet and then a secret closet. Why not? For all of his extra secret clothes. I mean, yeah. There is also an underground tunnel connecting to a dairy barn, which is now a winery.

So it's even even more fun i'm gonna have all of this allison i know maybe i'll marry allison okay make her build me a house i'll marry i'll marry blaze and then complain about all of my headaches and i'm gonna die in five seconds can i eat this etc etc and it smells like vinegar i truly i've so there are times where i don't even ask christ's permission. I just immediately text Blaze. You don't need my permission to text Blaze. Well, I feel like Blaze is later going to tell you my like my psychotic brain. Like, I basically I know it. Don't worry. I reach out to Blaze whenever I think that there's a minimal chance I'm going to die. Right. And so which is often are all of our entire text feed and all that I've known him is

just me asking ridiculous questions about my health. But like are not emergencies, but I treat them like they are. I love it. And I'm just always nervous that he's going to like one day meet up with you and be like, so this is what Em told me today. This is what Em thinks is going to kill him today. You usually tell me before he does.

Anyway, last time I texted him, I was taking Excedrin that tasted like straight up vinegar. Yeah. And I was like, Blaze, I that tasted like straight up vinegar yeah and I was like blaze I think I'm gonna go throw these pills up unless you tell me not to and then he didn't text me back quick enough and I was like I think I have to throw up pills and then he was like please don't he was like please don't they're fine he texted me like please tell them to not make themselves throw up please I thought well because then I did my own google basically web md thing yeah where they said that if they taste like vinegar, it's because some part of the drug is now starting to decompose.

Oh. And that made me think that I was going to eat. Decompose and die. Yeah. I was like, I'm eating decomposed chemicals. I think I'm going to die. Okay.

So, uh, anyway, so there was an underground tunnel connecting to a dairy barn, which is now a winery. Got it. And George and his wife, uh, like it was suggested earlier but george and his wife often hosted lavish parties for socialites near and far um clearly george was not a fan since he was always running away from the

guests exactly very smart but in 1914 george died in the home from complications during appendicitis and edith was convinced that george could still hear her and so she would uh sit by the fireplace oh no one of 65 by the way oh yeah and make s'mores make s'mores and she would talk to him each night oh um as if he could still hear her and when she died later the biltmore was passed on to their daughter cornelia aha aka romane poella poella s un poella nomine cornelia took over the house yes and uh i see i am i am a i'm a polyglot you are a polyglot many languages many many upon many uh and then cornelia passed it down to her son so in 1930 the building was open to the public during the Great Depression to help the city make money.

So they funded tours. And in 1942, it was temporarily closed to house rare artwork, but then opened again in the 50s. And then by 1964, it had become a historic landmark. And today it is now owned and operated by a descendant of the vanderbilts named also william and uh the estate has been in many films including patch adams and forrest gump oh and today it is a shopping district with a vineyard like i said plus restaurants and it is one of north carolina's biggest attractions with over a million visitors per year that's cool so these are now the ghosts okay all right so remember when i said george loved being in his library correct so people have

reported a shadow figure in the library uh usually when a storm is coming oh my god oh my god that is cute and when he died and edith began take began talking to him every night by the one of the 65 fireplaces right um. The servants started then noticing feeling presences around the house. So I think that was the beginning because she might have accidentally opened a portal. Oh, shit. Okay. And they sensed that

the spirit was mostly in the library, which is where George lived to be, and also in his favorite sitting room. Okay. Okay. After Edith died, they still heard her in the library talking to him oh but what's cool is sometimes they would hear a one-sided conversation of her talking to a george out there in the world and sometimes they heard a conversation between her and george stop it so it was like they were finally talking to each other again they're

reunited uh and it feels so good he's like come back she's like come back and talking to each other again they're reunited uh and it feels so good he's like come back she's like come back and talk to your friends i invited all your friends don't hide we have an eternal party going on forever now his poor nightmares uh many people have also reported hearing a woman's a woman whispering george near the library as if she was chasing him to like get him out of there to go play with his friends oh my and uh people have heard sounds of an ongoing party aka glasses clinking laughter and music it really is like a never-ending party truly he's like just rolling his eyes right now poor guy people have also heard laughing and splashing in the pool even though it's now empty and unused the aluminum one the aluminum pool got it and people feel someone staring at

them from the top of the stairs and guests and staff have also felt someone bump against them on the stairs quote as if someone lost their footing and sagged into me for a second and then continued down someone had too much champagne someone is getting fucked up someone is having a blast that never-ending party they were really pre-gaming on that train they're not hiding in the library the train the hate train the hate train they were really getting wild on the train oh my god uh so there's an apparition of a man in a striped suit and he's seen sitting at a table in the sitting room with his back turned to you oh god um many have also seen him uh sitting there and then realized that the chair was actually roped off and nobody could have gotten to the chair oh and so when they approach it wondering how

someone got there they look in the chair and he's already vanished and yeah i'm practicing how some new sound effects i don't don't stop is it working it is i wrote that for you thank you and then uh there's also apparently on only on sundays near the smoking slash gun room there is intense cigar smells that seep through the building and you can like try to find where the smell's coming from and it always leads back to the smoking room but nobody's there oh um apparently employees have also heard furniture moving above them and when they go check nobody's there that's creepy it's common for people to report that they feel nauseous or in danger as they get closer to the pool. Oh.

And once they reach the pool, their sickness turns into a full blown panic attack. Oh, God. But once they leave, the illness slowly starts fading away. So it's like basically the closer you get to this pool. It's like contact. Yeah, yeah. Like the more you're like vibing off of its angry energy or something. Oh, God.

Okay. Weird. A lot of people have also seen shadow people walking in the empty pool. contact yeah yeah like the more you're like vibing off of its angry energy or something okay weird a lot of people have also seen shadow people walking in the empty pool uh what and they apparently these shadow figures glide faster than living people can run fuck that so hard no thank you so get out of here with that apparently the shadow figure when she's gliding as fast as she possibly can she's also scream crying what like oh your sound effects are uh good too i'm i haven't practiced as well as you that's terrible there's one guest i remember during the show you said something about like oh forest gump and patch adams in the pool would be terrified if they saw the thing and then i said run forest oh that's right yeah yeah yeah anyways don't you like when we retell jokes

that we already said I remember it was funnier definitely when it with the delivery then when it happened I just remember as soon as I saw Forrest Gump on my notes I was like oh yeah I said a run Forrest run joke it was uh relevant at some point in the next page and a half people clapped don't worry they thought we were funny then you had to be there trust us you don't think we're funny right now someone did at some point it was hilarious eva told us later when we were like what happened she was like you were so funny so you're so funny uh she would never lie to us not even a little bit so uh other accounts near the pool uh are basically people say that they feel like they are drowning while just standing by the pool well

no thank you and they've also been able to recall past lives oh my god what but what's interesting is if you've never been able to recall your past lives before it's like are you really recalling your past life or someone else's life you're just like seeing flashes of something of like someone who died there yeah oh spooky okay many people have reported splashing sounds and sometimes they are accompanied by a diabolical laughter coming from the drain what that sounds like a like a bad halloween movie it sounds like the shower scene in it yes oh my god how weird so staff and guests have both heard heavy footsteps and then seen a tall shadow figure around the corner. Nah. People have reported

icy cold spots in rooms and feeling gusts of wind hit their neck in closed rooms without drafts. People feel dizzy and they feel paranoid that they're in danger in Edith's room and they also feel water dripping on their arms. Oh, you can go. No,

we can go. Fine. Eva's like like fuck you guys oh no i i didn't see her get up i thought for sure though like the house was just screaming at me um so blah blah so oh yeah water dripping on your arm sounds like an awful experience is it and there's actually water no oh it just feels like it just feels like something't... So you can't even get it off or anything. Or like even when you walk away, it's still dripping on you. No, that's disgusting. Also, people have felt something tug on their shirts and pants with a strong force. So it's definitely not the wind.

They feel something moving on them. Oh, yeah, no. And employees have heard a girl at night crying and allegedly found a diary of a woman. The diary was there and it was of a woman whose children had died on the property. Oh my god. There are reports of unexplained screams and a little girl giggling or speaking directly to you. Uh oh.

Either is awful. Both are terrible. People hear chatter, they try to follow the sound, but the voices can never be found. And the creepiest thing I've ever heard of is that apparently in the gardens are headless cats like ghosts of headless cats oh no so apparently they just all scamper i forgot about these stupid things christine said something during the live show

like about are they dead and you were like yeah they're ghosts and i was like oh i thought maybe it was like a breed i had never heard of like they're headless cats in the garden i was like like they were just like chickens that run around with their heads off. Well, like Hemingway's house in Key West, all the cats have bred and have six toes. Six toes. Yeah, yeah. And so I was like, maybe it's just a weird breed that's new to me. A weird thing without a mouth or eyes or a brain or a consciousness.

A spinal cord that just somehow exists. I don't know. But yeah, apparently there's ghosts of headless cats that just scamper about. I don't like how that may have come about. I don't like how it came about at all. I don't know. But yeah, apparently there's ghosts of headless cats that just scamper about. I don't like how that may have come about. I don't like how it came about at all. I don't like that. But I do like that they seem to not give a shit. Be having fun? Yeah, they're having a blast. Sure, yeah. I mean, you can't tell. They don't have many emotions. Only, I guess, it's true.

You can't tell by their facial expressions. I hope they're having fun. Their body language suggests that they're having quite a time. I'm going to accept that as the answer. So there's one episode of, there's a podcast called Laughing in the Dark Podcast. Which is us. Which is us, basically.

I had never heard them before, but actually I gave them a listen for this episode and I really, really liked it. Okay. There was a guest on the show named Kelly who worked at the Biltmore. Ooh. There was a guest on the show named Kelly who worked at the Biltmore and told employee stories about a little girl there that is supposedly a ghost named Olivia. I love employee stories. I love employee stories. Yeah.

Except Eva's employee stories. Yeah, don't listen to those. They're all lies. So basically, there's a ghost girl there named Olivia. And so all of these stories are about experiences with Olivia at the Biltmore. So Olivia was a little girl that used to go to the Biltmore with her mom who worked there on the dairy farm. And when the mom worked there, Olivia would play in the fields while her mom worked. And one day there happened in the field to be a small stampede and uh cows crushed her so no baby she didn't make it but uh that was the beginning of

her journey as a ghost and she is apparently very well known to mess with people and likes to play around on the estate um people find little child footprints on the ground after the floor has been cleaned and the building's locked up. One electrician actually got into an empty elevator and then the doors closed, pressed the button, and behind him heard a little girl say, going down. That was so scary.

We should try my little elevator later and see what happens. No, thank you. And then we'll hear the ants and their little secret passageways. Going down? Oh, God. One worker was in the basement when he was done. And when he was done working, he looked back to make sure that the room was clear. And he saw what looked like a light moving around. I guess when he was looking out, there was a window or a barrier separating another part of the room.

Got it. Two sections to the room. So he was in room one and then was looking and saw through the window into room two that there was a light wandering around. Got it. And so he thought, oh, that must be the security people wondering if I'm still down here. So I'll just go find them and tell them that i'm down here only five steps in apparently the light had already flown over a hundred yards down the corridor around a corner oh god so it was just like zooming past it's that lady gliding around i know he was back i thought that was a fucking ghost

you didn't hear her come in no oops no i just dropped everything i literally saw eva and then that happened and i was like it's the lady the ghost lady that's why you said that shadow person i thought you thought that like the ghost i was talking about might be the lady no that is what i was talking about but then i heard a crash and went and she's here oh god sorry uh wow i like how we can be frightened in the daytime in our own watch i'm watching what's happening in your childhood bedroom my childhood bedroom so uh so anyway he thought okay i'm gonna go find security and drop the cuts work they're the ones that i got when i lived in berlin and i went to the soccer match and they gave me glue vine

like the hot mulled wine in these little cups with these weird soccer players on them and i collected them and oh shit they're really cool and he even just said i had to look at them i had to throw them on the floor so uh he was like okay i'm gonna go like let security know that i'm here so he's trying he's trying to turn the corner and then like the light just flies down the course like much faster than a human should be but i was thinking of a gliding lady yeah yeah yeah and uh the the light's flying down and so he can't get to in time so he shouts down the corner and goes hello fresh i'm sorry i know i did that on stage because i remember going someone else is gonna do it i have to beat them to the punch i'm at your own game and uh then a second later after shouting hello he heard

a little girl giggle and shout back mama oh who oh oh and giggling giggling grotesque which means like she knew it wasn't yes that's what she fucking knew going down and going down and then uh and then finally i said that her footprints get shown a lot in closed rooms. So one time they were opening up the gift shop and they found one little child footprint, but it was wet as if it had been in a pool or something. Oh my God. And it was by itself in the center of the room, which means it just like touched down and like it touched down.

And then like, she like hopped away on her dry left foot or something. She just like leaped like a spring heel Jack, like one foot in. That's, that's dangerous with a wet foot very fright that is true oh she's okay she's living on the edge man that's i mean clearly it sounds like she's having fun in the pool though that's good yeah maybe finally someone's

having a good time in that pool demon in the drain maybe that's her giggling in there oh yeah down in the drain diabolical laughter anyway that is the belt morriston oh my god that was one of my favorite favorite stories oh really yeah i really like that one oh awesome it's just so wild and like different and random and creepy i don't we can go there well i haven't been but i want to go we can go i also i think my mom and i might be visiting ashville soon really oh my gosh you should go for sure she wants to have she wants to do like a getaway and ashville is on our list okay i don't know i hear wonderful things you've been right uh yeah yeah i have i like that sounds lovely can't wait to go with you you want me to hold this sure um cool well that was fun now i'm

gonna tell you a story this is the one that i one of the ones that i told in san diego oh yay which was feels like a long time ago that was like january like centuries ago i definitely don't remember whatever you're about to tell me good i don't really either so good luck yay to me okay so this is the story of dana sue gray um okay this is just a wild ride so buckle up cool let me readjust oh yeah please do let me get comfy my bed is very creaky and old, so. Surprise. What a surprise that is, huh?

This is definitely not the way that we are usually positioned. To be fair, it's not that much less professional than usual. Oh, no, it's definitely not. It's not any more or less professional. The setup is definitely different. It's usually, there's just a lot less ambient sound. That is true. Unless Gio and Oliver are around.

Oh, beepy. Oh, I miss them. Okay, so on Februarybruary 16th 1994 oh by the way i just sometimes check that because i get paranoid that's okay so okay i'm just paranoid okay do you guys like that we're talking about this is our first time using this so we're nervous that it might not that it might just stop halfway you have to teach us how to use it it looks very fancy which by the by the way, has happened before. There have been episodes before Eva where all of a sudden we were recording. And then we realized after we did our entire stories, like the entire episode, that we never pressed record. And then we were like, um, time to do it again.

So remember how, just forget everything I just said. I want to tell it again. Yeah, now Eva comes over and goes, you're making me nervous. She says it's going, so we're fine. I feel like one day when Eva writes a tell-all about being our assistant, it's going to be called, you're making me nervous. You're making me nervous, comma, every other bad emotion you could think of. Oh, God.

The Eva story. The Eva story. Okay, so Dana Sue Gray. On February 16, 1994, in a gated community called Canyon Lake, about an hour outside of San Diego. Okay. Oh, that's where it takes place. Oh, good. The way that I write my love show notes, like, I talk in a different way to myself.

Uh-huh. I don't know. Anyway. Because I'm expecting the audience to, like, yell about some place that I said, so it doesn't matter. I do have a question. Yes. Since we're talking about the recording. Is there a reason why this says 47 minutes and that says 29 yes because this thing uh you're making even no this thing uh after a minute I accidentally hit

add flag or I did something and then it was like continue recording and then I like but it's been recording yes there's two it's split into two separate yeah we're good Eva we're good we're good I also realized that this good. We're good. I also realized that this entire time we're recording, I've just been like totally just like mooning Eva with my booties. This is like definitely not the position Eva's used to. To be fair, I've seen her face and she didn't seem phased. I think she's seen worse from both of us.

She's like, that checks out. You're like, there's a crack in a hole and don't worry we're all a little moist because of the geothermal ac not working the geothermal did i tell you about my dream that i had that i had um i had a snuggle fest with geo did i tell you i don't think so oh wait maybe i think i woke up and read it and fell back to sleep oh well we had i we did another snuggle fest. And then this was like a couple weeks ago. Oh, then I don't know.

And he was so sleepy the whole time. And so I named him Yanni Giovanni. That is right. I did tell Blaze about this. He's like, that's really clever. I was like, it's M subconscious. So look at you go. I was thinking about him.

Anyway, we're in the Grand Canyon slash California. So we're called, it's called, we're not in the Grand Canyon. You're in the Grand Canyon. We're in the, a gated community called Canyon Lake. Canyon Lake, okay. About an hour outside of San Diego. So a woman named Alice Williams, who lives there, begins to grow concerned about her neighbor, 86-year-old Norma Davis. Okay.

Alice has not heard from her in several days and knows that she lives alone and she's older, so she goes to check on her. She enters the house, climbs up to the loft where norma likes to sit in her lazy boy and watch tv that's right in her little afghan her crocheted afghan girl and she finds norma dead in the armchair oh no she has been stabbed 10 times and two of her own kitchen knives oh shit are plunged all the way to the hilt in her neck and her chest get the fuck out i know it's terrible oh my god i'm adding more detail now that it's not live so yeah i was gonna say this is like very i would have remembered that on a live show i left out the to the hilt part in the live show uh yeah we try to keep them a little more tame a little

during live shows because we just don't want to trigger anything to be too yeah yeah this you can pause and stop a live show is less less controllable you don't get to like really walk off and like breathe for a second you could but yeah it's a little more difficult um okay so her phone cord had also been ripped out from the wall and wrapped around her neck like to strangle her holy shit other than a broken fingernail though she had no other marks i know i know you don't like fingernails just as bad to me i know they're all bad oof i know how much you hate fingernails um so it was like insanely brutal especially in this like gated community with older people like it didn't it just like shocked everybody um now as we know at least i think we know typically the

more brutal the attack the more intimately the killer may be the victim. It's like hands-on, kind of. Because it meant more. Yeah, exactly. Like more passionate crime. So the documentary I watched explained that and then had a super helpful reenactment. It's from like... Actual helpful? Nope. It's from like 1998 or something.

Oh, shoot. I wish I had written it down. It was something on YouTube, I think. But they have this reenactment and then a man says uh it's it's like two detectives and the one turns to the other and goes with this much violence it's probably someone she knew and then there's a pause and the other guy turns around and goes definitely oh good and i was like this is what i'm taking notes on that just took 15 seconds that was forensic psych 101 exactly definitely so these are

actually they were meant to be two detectives that were actually on the case and the actors were reenacting their experience got it um and their names were greco and bentley which i wrote here sounds like it sounds like brazillian aisles yes because i said sounds like a cbs procedural or a comic book about dogs because i was like hmm it sounds like it could be also yeah you're right like either dog names or like cheesy crime show names but that was that was actually their names um so greco and bentley discover that the killer left a clue in the entryway it was a shoe print of a nike sneaker oh and so they search for evidence and uh as they're looking around the crime scene a 61 year old woman named helen niles arrives at the scene and in the reenactment the woman rushes up and greco turns to her without

any prompting she's just a lady runs up to the scene he turns to her goes there's been a murder oh just warning her straight off and she's like i mean i'm just like this seems very realistic yes there's been a murder there's been a murder in There's been a murder in Savannah. And then she goes, oh, no, who? And then he says, the lady who lives in the house. Good. Quality acting. So obviously I'm not going to tell this story as well as the reenactment did, but I'll try. So Helen is beside herself because she says she is Norma's daughter-in-law and caretaker.

So the woman is her. so the woman is, sorry, this lady, Helen, is Norma's daughter-in-law. Right. And she also helps take care of her. Got it. So despite being distraught, she raised the detective's suspicions, running to the crime scene and everything,

especially because she arrived on the scene wearing Nike sneakers. Oh. Da-da-da. She told police she'd been there the night before to drop off some groceries but since then but she hadn't talked to norma she heard the tv upstairs and assumed she had fallen asleep in her lazy boy um but they thought this was odd because she had said she was the caretaker and they were like well wouldn't you have gone up and just sit below or check on her um so they were like let's keep tabs

on this lady meanwhile they add other suspects to the list including gardeners maintenance workers anyone who had access to the house or kind of knew the neighborhood, but nobody really stood out as suspicious. Meanwhile, the neighborhood was in total panic. Like I said, everyone's kind of like gossiping and trying to figure out who it could be. Obviously, Helen is getting a lot of flack. Then less than two weeks later, a woman in Canyon Lake, not the Grand Canyon, decides. That's for me to decide. Maybe in your version. A woman in the Grand Canyon.

In her lazy boy. Hundreds of miles away. A woman in Canyon Lake decides to go check on her 66-year-old friend June because she had not shown up for their lunch date. And she was worried about her. So now here's the reenactment the lady just shouts into the door and goes june did you forget about our card game oh god uh way to really set up the entire scene in five seconds flat oh yeah so she yells that into the door and then she's like huh and gets no response so she walks into the house and finds June dead. She had been killed with an item from her own home, like the first murder, just like

Norma had with the knives. But this time June had been killed with her own wine decanter. Oh, that's just sounds like that's awful. That's awful because glass. So it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she had also it's a wine crime. Wine crime. Like our good friends.

Yep. Oh, it's made for them with her own wine decanter and blasphemy, by the way. Right. And then she had also been strangled with her phone cord. So they were like, well, this is obviously the same person. Yeah. Same area, same MO. But the weird thing that was happening is that there was no sign of forced entry at either house.

So they were like, well, this person knew how to get into the house or was a friend or had access. However, this time police did find a new clue. And that was that June's purse was open in the laundry room with the contents strewn all over the place except two credit cards were missing. So the person had taken two cards. So if the neighborhood hadn't gone crazy after the first one, they went absolutely batshit this time around. Everyone is like, oh, my God, we're all going to get killed. There's a murder on the loose. To be fair, I'd probably act the first one. They went absolutely batshit this time around. Everyone is like, oh my God, we're all going to get killed. There's a murder on the loose. To be fair, I'd probably act the same way, so I shouldn't judge.

Police actually created a special tip line just for those two murders because they were getting so many calls from all the neighbors being like, it was so-and-so. It was so-and-so at the card game. That just sounds like my neighborhood growing up. It's just covered in gossip. Well, who it was someone someone down down the street i they were

looking they were looking funny the other day they were looking funny i saw them at the grocery i saw them talking to x y and z's husband they were flirting with i was about to say the ultimate crime right that's why tim always says like oh we love our neighbors they're super quiet about the cemetery i'm like that's the love our neighbors. They're super quiet about the cemetery. I'm like, that's the worst dad joke ever. He says it all the time. They're super quiet about the cemetery. We have such quiet and calm neighbors. Yeah, he loves the bed.

He wouldn't even know they're there. Yeah. Yeah. God. The ultimate dad joke. He loves it. So, anyway, one tip stuck out to investigators. So, most of the tips were, like, completely innocuous and, like, flirting with neighbors at the grocery store.

But one tip stuck out, and that was that a satanic cult was operating in Canyon Lake. Oh, thank God. I know. Or Satan. Something. Yeah, don't bring God into this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

They found, believe it or not, they were like, what a bullshit, weird thing to call in about. Like, I'm sure that's not true. Then they found pentagrams on the golf course. No, LOL. Okay. This does sound like some shit I did back in high school, though. Also, it does sound like, I mean, I grew up on a golf course neighborhood, too. My dad did, too, and I would literally go on.

Oh, shit. No, he doesn't listen to this. We would literally go on the golf course and, like, fuck around. And then they put out in the newsletter, like, somebody's been messing with it. Well, Selina and I would put anarchy signs newsletter like somebody's been messing with well selena i would put anarchy signs everywhere well i love it well the best funny the best part of living on a golf course in an area that snows is that you just had sheets of like yeah blanketed untouched snow and like just like wavy to like draw all over or like go down a bunch of hills and stuff yeah it was so

easy to draw pentagrams on golf course now so So easy. So easy. So easy. God. I know I sound like such like a little satanic prep right now, but like. I know. I mean, not to brag or anything. Not to brag, but like I definitely learned how to draw pentagrams in my golf course probably better than you. Oh my God. Well, I was drawing anarchy signs. So like, fuck off.

We'll compare notes later. I'm sure on my old digital camera, there's some photos. Right, right, right. Oh God, my poor stepmother. Okay. So, anyway, right. They're like, oh, my God, pentagrams on the golf course. Obviously, there are pictures in this documentary I watched.

I mean, fake pictures. Right, sure. So, police are now thinking, oh, my God, maybe they're victims of ritual satanic slayings. But, again, this is, like, the early 90s, and it's, like, that was such a hot topic. Right. It was just itching to be an option. Old people. Sorry, that's rude.

The elderly. The adults in the world love to blame. The wisest of our generations. The wiser ones like to blame teenagers for being Satanists. And yeah, anyway. I'm pretty sure my grandparents think I probably am some version of a Satanist. I mean, purely on having this podcast alone. They're not that far off i

guess i know like well i do talk about you literally just said you put pentagrams on a golf course actually you know what i think my grandparents are right they are the wisest of our generation they are wise oh my god they knew i'm just gonna believe them i probably we should have done that a long time ago just trusted them they know us better than we know ourselves um but then investigators learned that pentagram the pentagrams are merely quote the handiwork of local teens em and christine yes experimenting with goth when i heard that when i heard that line in my hotel room i literally started screaming i was watching that documentary experimenting with goth if that isn't you i

shriek laughed so hard because it was like they found pentagrams it was a satanic ritual slaying and then they're like then they found out it was just teenagers and experimenting with goth holy shit that was funny anyway all i can imagine is like the thickest eyeliner on the surrounding your entire eye and then you crying on purpose so it dripped a little bit i did do that that was you practicing i did do that and And then my stepmom found me on the golf course and was like, put your Lily Pulitzer dress back on. God help me. Anyway. So that lead was a dead end.

I do not know why they included it in the documentary. However, I did think it was funny, so I included it in my notes. I love it. So Helen, remember Helen who had the Nike sneakers who showed up? So she's still on the suspect list, and then they

find out she lived also uh just around the block from June who was the second victim so they're like okay so now she's close to both of these people um and it turns out she knew both of them very well so she wouldn't have had to gain entry into their homes and suddenly she stops returning their phone calls so Greco and Bentley our dog friends are convinced it's her um but she cooperates so ultimately they get a hold of her and they're like listen we think you did it you need to step up and like give us an alibi or else so she finally steps up and um she gives a convincing alibi and pretty soon they're like well then we don't have anything to hold her right so they cross her off the suspect list very uh uh what's the word slowly yeah but like uh like dramatically

well probably like uh god i'm so sorry that he is getting to me um like they don't want to do it oh begrudgingly begrudgingly sure yes sure yes begrudgingly good enough until then until the real world hesitantly yeah okay what's the word resistantly it starts with an r resentfully reluctantly thank you eva jesus everyone on there i knew everyone was screaming so i was like i have to figure it out because otherwise people are going to yell at me on Twitter. Reluctantly. Reluctantly. Reluctantly.

Reluctantly. I was like, slowly? I was like, literally slowly going like this. Oh my God. Okay. Yes. Anyway. So they were like, we think it might still be her, but we have to cross her off.

So they're back to square one. And then three weeks after Norma's death and one week after June's death, police get a call from a local antique shop owner named Dorinda Hawkins. course she really sounds like a 90s uh sounds like an art teacher yes miss hawkins my art teacher's name was miss hawkins oh that's why wait a minute i was like huh that doesn't really sound like that to me but oh well no dorinda dorinda does sounded like you're got to be an artsy person i mean it makes sense that she owns a local antique shop dorinda yeah dorinda's antiques uh so antiques by dorinda that's better yeah in cursive yeah yeah for sure teal cursive yeah yes you and i were thinking the exact same thing we've been in l.a for too long i know oh god in the grand canyon yeah right uh so dorinda says she was working alone at the shop

when a woman came in to buy a picture frame for a photo of her deceased mother and she said she needed a a beautiful ornate photo so the woman dorinda goes and turns around and as soon as she turns around uh the woman attacks her and strangles her with a telephone cord and uh dorinda told police that while this woman was strangling her the woman told her to just relax and let it happen oh shit dorinda uh completely blacked out um she said all she remembers is thinking about her children before blacking out and thinking like this is the last thing i'll ever see is her face uh when she came to she had survived the attack obviously and they think it was because she was wearing a dorinda was wearing a very thick turtleneck sweater oh Oh my God, that's so Dorinda.

I know. That's so Dorinda. Can you believe it? So Dorinda survived because the police literally wrote because she was wearing a very thick turtleneck, so. God bless her. Let's bring back the turtleneck. Anytime Blaze makes fun of my turtleneck sweater from now on.

You're like, um, excuse me, this isn't an artisanal turtleneck by Dorinda. By Dorinda. Also, I don't want someone to take my landline phone and strangle me with the cord exactly we're currently in your mom's house that does have a landline has a rotary phone it literally has a working rotary phone so like i was like does this work i was like i don't know when i picked it up and i heard a dial tone i was like yep so i'm pretty sure like you actually are saving yourself that's actually true well at least here around a landline oh my god i also my spongebob landline That would be the ultimate crime. Oh no.

Okay. Anyway, the attacker had taken $5 from Dorinda's purse and $20 from the cash register. Sounds right. After all that. Okay. So this at the very least confirmed police's suspicions that the killer was a woman because Dorinda said a lady had come in and attacked her. Dorinda gave police a description, but it wasn't enough to identify her and then greco got a lead so a credit card company had

alerted june roberts family of suspicious activity on one of her credit cards turns out the killer had gone on a shopping spree oh oh have fun treat yourself uh several purchases had been made at department stores restaurants health spas and the purchases totaled thousands and thousands of dollars so obviously the company was going to call and be like this does not seem right for this 66 year old lady yeah um so greco followed the paper trail to temecula which is still outside of san diego i remember everyone going like oh my story was outside oops um and it followed the paper trail to a hair salon that the stylist described um and the stylist at the hair salon described the credit

card holder as an attractive blonde woman in her late 30s and they were like that's weird because helen is older and doesn't look she's not blonde and she didn't look like that um and the hairstylist he said the woman had come in for an eyebrow wax and a perm so fashionable love it perms by dorinda curl up and die by yes oh god um and so she said or he said that she had come in for an eyebrow wax and a perm and had had her hair cut and dyed from blonde to red he said she also had a five-year-old boy with her and bought him a fashionable haircut a fashionable perm a fashionable bowl haircut bowl cut i mean if it was the 90s if we're talking fashion that was the ice tip era frosted tips man frosted tip bowl cut with the middle part with them obviously um the description did not match helen obviously

like i said um but the description did match the woman who had attacked dorinda so greco comes crawling back to helen who he's been like harassing this whole time and he's like okay i know it wasn't you now i know you said it wasn't you but now i know it wasn't you and now we need your help oh great now you need my help okay right it's. Oh, great. Now you need my help. Okay. It's just funny. It's just funny. You need my help now. But she agrees to help and they said maybe because you know both of the victims and maybe you know the killer.

So at first Helen says she doesn't recognize the composite sketch, but the next day Greco gets a phone call. And for some reason the phone call was also reenacted. Essentially the phone on greco's desk rings so he walks to the desk but instead of sitting at his chair he turns and leans casually against his desk god and then answers the phone very naturally and says oh helen hello and like for literally 15 seconds of my life that is what i had to watch so then i made everyone else listen to it for 15 seconds of their life um apparently helen was calling to backtrack she said she did know who the killer was based on the

sketch and she didn't call or she didn't tell them before because it was her stepdaughter her stepdaughter is a 36 year old unemployed nurse named dana sue gray uh at first she didn't fit the description she seemed to be pretty well adjusted had no criminal background but then helen was like you know i just found out helen had recently dyed her hair red so greco immediately orders a surveillance team to tail dana secretly and get a search warrant of her house and only a few hours later dana is placed under arrest when greco arrests her he says instead of giving the miranda rights in the in the um reenactment he just puts handcuffs on her and goes i think you know what this is about oh my god it's just like that's not how police works it's literally not how police work oh anyway in

dana's home they find june roberts credit cards oh uh as well as receipts for all the charges she made on the credit cards they also find a horde of recently purchased merchandise, including rows of brand new clothes, thousands of dollars of clothes, bottles of expensive perfume, toys for children, and more than 20 pairs of Nike sneakers. Oh, that'll do it.

That'll do it. At police headquarters, Dana calmly denies any involvement. She says she has no idea what they're talking about. She said she simply found June's credit cards on the ground and decided to go shopping. Well, to be fair, Christine, you leave a lot of your shit on the ground. I do. People could just be picking up.

Someone found my social security card, like, at the bar. Or, like, your health insurance card. Oh, I could use this. That's actually a really good point. It's not like it's impossible that someone dropped their stuff. So basically, if I get murdered, like, they're never going to find my killer because everyone in la has a copy of something exactly exactly i'm screwed so she's very cool under pressure she gave no sign she was shaken by the arrest they're like very thrown by this um but dana also adds that she found another purse near the albertsons that day they're like

okay so you found two credit cards and you found another purse. She's like, yeah, the purse on the ground had the name, I looked in the wallet and the name was Dora Beebe. And they were like, huh, we were expecting her to say like the purse of the other victim. And they're like, who the hell is Dora Beebe? So they decided to check her out and see who she is. Turns out that in Riverside County, so a different set of detectives have been working on a murder that just occurred that day, that morning. Oh, wow. Of a woman named Dora Beebe. And so it's the same MMO.

She was an 87-year-old woman who was killed with an object found in her own home. In this case, she was bludgeoned with an iron. Oh, God. That's awful. Yeah, it's really bad. And strangled with a phone cord. And this had only been hours before. So Dana literally just walked in and was like, weird, I found a purse on the ground with dora bb's name in it that's interesting that she would like have that

information exactly i said like well she obviously had something to do with this so while they were surveying her earlier that day they had no clue that she uh that she had already killed dora only minutes before oh no tailing her and they were watching her cash dora's checks at the bank when she was running errands she had she just had taken all of oh my god and then went shopping with um the little boy with dora's credit cards oh i haven't told you who the boy is you'll find out okay he's a mystery boy it seems that way our favorite um so it's obvious that dana had chosen easy prey they were all elderly victims who couldn't really fight back a lot of them were sick couldn't like move too well um and the fact that she was a young friendly woman uh made it easy for them to let her in their house which is just terrible she took advantage of that uh she would enter the home under some sort of ruse like

she needed to use the phone it was an emergency and then when the victim turned around to get the phone she would grab whatever item she could reach any heavy item and just smash the woman before grabbing the phone cord and strangling her until she was dead oh shit she would then take all the credit cards and cash you would find and go shopping that's literally all this boiled down to um she explained just to go shopping yes okay she explained she committed the murders to support her overwhelming need to shop oh well well okay now well now i get it you should have said that before honestly now i'm on your side honestly now we get it we understand yeah we've all been there we've all been there i'm currently in it after all this like avengers

endgame shit is on sale he was like you're making me nervous um so she was so like cool calm and collected that during june roberts murder uh dana had brought her five-year-old stepson along and left him in the car while she went inside to kill june oh my god she said hold on i have to go chat with my friend for a minute went inside murdered, murdered her, and then took her credit cards. Holy shit. And then went back in the car with the boy. And it was like, now who wants ice cream? Then she took him out to lunch on June's credit card.

Shut up. Ordering so many crab cakes and shrimp scampi that she couldn't eat it all and had the waiter pack it to go. Oh my god. Wow. And then probably got ice cream. That makes the most sense, yeah. You'd think so at that point. Obviously shrimp scampi followed got ice cream that makes the most sense yeah you'd think so at that point um obviously shrimp scampi followed by ice cream so among her other purchases were a 500 so sorry the five-year-old is her stepson is also the point that i'm making um among her other purchases

were a 511 black suede jacket and several pairs of cowboy boots 161 dollar diamond drop earrings dog treats i don't believe she had a dog so they didn't understand that i mean she might as well just buy whatever she wants right oh yeah it's not her got the money they're dead yep dog treats a toy police helicopter uh irony very yeah very uh telling and a one oh a one thousand dollar mountain bike lol okay then something i would not buy look you people ride those during the grand canyon oh that's true go like uh mountain biking up the oh my god um a purple boogie board also good for the grand canyon obviously there's so much water there it would be good for the snowy golf course. Oh, that's a fact. So, right.

$1,000 mountain bike, a purple boogie board, and two bottles of Smirnoff vodka. Okay. I don't know. For the train at the Biltmore to start pre-gaming. Oh, my God. The crazy train. Yeah. With her purple boogie board.

She was like the eccentric one for sure. Oh, yeah. She and Dorinda would have gotten along if she didn't try to murder her. I know. Among her. Okay. Blah, blah, blah. Sorry.

When given the opportunity by psychologists to express remorse, Dana appeared unsure of what the concept was and remained, quote, submerged in her own feelings. But the case against her was ironclad, obviously. She made a deal to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty to two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. Dorinda. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and apparently adapted very quickly to jail, calling it her. What? Her country condo.

Where she summers. Yes, where she summers. She summers, falls and winters. Actually, it says county condo. Sorry. County condo. Where she jails. Where she jails. Where she lives. She summers, falls, and winters. Actually, it says county condo. Sorry. Oh. County condo. Where she jails. Where she jails.

Where she lives forever now. Where she eats only Jell-O. And she harassed the... I don't know what... That's a hospital. I don't know what they eat in jail. Maybe they eat Jell-O. Maybe.

I hope not. I hate Jell-O. Okay. That's besides the point. Calling her county condo. Unless I forgot the R r who's to say and she harassed the staff to provide uh and maintain her high maintenance civilian lifestyle for example she insisted on vegetarian diet bemoaned the absence of a mirror and demanded visits from her chiropractor regularly oh sounds like a country club it does right yeah what a country condo or county

what was it county condo oh yeah you forgot the r yeah country condo county condo i don't know uh so this is where it gets weird apparently that's what i wrote i think it's already been pretty fucking weird but yeah i wrote that let's see where this happens i don't know uh oh well yes it does in jail she liked to draw clown faces as a hobby what she needs to stop drawing me she's like hmm i see in my mind my next victim oh god wait till you're elderly right uh so i wrote she liked to draw clown faces a la john wayne gacy making paint out of the candy coating of m&ms cherry drink mix blue eyeshadow lipstick and baby powder when her family brought her a new pair of nikes that she had insisted they bring she refused them and demanded the

more expensive models that she was accustomed to okay if they're not air mags yeah i don't want them the either the dragon ball z one blaze wants or the uh back to the future ones you want um but simultaneously she felt very sorry for herself she regularly said things like i am a 36 year old little girl with a broken heart lost in a system that's hell-bent to destroy her i am vulnerable okay idiot vulnerable she literally murdered elderly women yeah to go shopping right right right for mountain bicycles and boogie boards that's the the log line of this story. Too long, didn't read.

That's what happened. So anyway, Dana Sue Gray is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California. And that is the story of Dana Sue Gray. Oh, damn. Damn. The end. That was the laptop closing, guys.

The end. I love that. Anyway, so thanks for listening laptop closing. The end. I love that. Anyway. So thanks for listening guys. Thank you. And sorry again for this audio quality, but we sure hope the story quality was a plus. We wanted to do one of them,

right? Yeah. Hard to do both. Thank you guys for listening. We will be back with our regular programming next, next week. Thanks to viewers like you. If you would like to listen to other better quality episodes,

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Oh, yeah. Albany, New York. And then we're also still going to Long Island and Huntington, New York in May. Yes. Long Island and Albany. Check those out, too. Please, please, please come to those. They're our last shows?

They are our very last shows. And so we're excited to see you guys there. Yeah. We also have merch. We've got our personal Twitters and Instagrams if you'd like to follow our journey traveling country. Our journeys, yes. Our globetrotting, if you will.

Our globetrotting. And then you can also, like, check out Eva's, too. You can check out her personal EW gross with three S's. And then you can also follow her podcast, normal cat tivity if you'd like to see her in like morse code tell you to come save her from us there's like hidden messages um and that's it i guess i think that's it guys thank you for listening and that's why we drink oh no it didn't record