And That's Why We Drink - E134 A "Quicker Than You Look" Trophy and a Threddit Rabbit Hole

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

Enter the Play-Doh aisle at your own risk this week, folks. Em's taking us on a wild ride through the stories of the unrequited ghosts who lived in a haunted Toys-R-Us in San Jose (with a bonus, equally haunted Toys-R-Us in Eugene, Oregon). Then Christine brings us to Oakland to cover the tragic and mysterious disappearance of Kristen Modafferi. Christine also shares some ghost stories and gravel thefts from her Oma she's visiting in Austria this week... and that's why we drink!Please consider supporting the companies that support us!To get a 4-week trial, free postage and a digital scale go to Stamps.com, click on the Microphone at the top of the homepage and type in DRINKFor 40% off your first month’s Lola subscription, visit mylola.com and enter DRINK40 when you subscribe!Go to thirdlove.com/DRINK now to find your perfect-fitting bra… and get 15% off your first purchase!The FabFitFun Fall box is here! Use coupon code DRINK for $10 off your first box at fabfitfun.com

and we're back and fully fed not not i'm just so hungry and sleepy and it's dark i was like let's be proactive and try to record before the food comes christ Christine and I have been doing double days. We've been double dipping. What do they call that? Two days? I'm like, I don't know sports. We've been recording two episodes per day. And wow, let me tell you. Per week.

Not like every single day. I would absolutely lose my mind. We couldn't do that. We literally couldn't. To record two episodes in one day i don't know why it is so mentally taxing but wow i just want to go home and pass out for 23 hours you just made this episode sound terrible and it won't be because we have some good stories i have a really good story actually when i brought this up when we were not recording but i also want to bring it up now while while we are recording while people have to hear it while people are forced

to listen to me so i was just telling you um i finally i a lot of people for some reason don't wrap their heads around this very well but as a podcaster i often don't listen to a lot of podcasts i also can't wrap my head around the fact that you don't listen to podcasts it blows my mind but yes okay go on and i finally found one that i actually really like yeah you haven't told me what it is though okay so uh it's i don't remember how it got recommended to me but okay this is not an ad i promise this is just like yeah a podcast that i actually like well there's also only nine episodes so far so if it were an ad i would know what it is it's called chilling worth have you heard no okay so uh. So these two, it's a true crime podcast, but it's only based on this one story. Okay. Um, of this like judge named Curtis

Chillingworth. Oh, wait, I know that name. He's in West Palm Beach. Do you know that name? Yeah. Oh, are you covering that story soon? Wait, no. So it's a fictional story. Wait, no. No, it's about a real judge named Curtis Chillingworth. Oh, there's a lot of people named that. Named what? Curtis? Curtis Chillingworth. Oh my God.

Wait. Oh, this is... Are you about to cover him? No, but I did in Florida. I was going to cover this story. It was wild. Yeah. It's bananas. And so...

Oh my God. I remember this story. It's fucking nuts. Okay. So I haven't finished it yet but this so the whole point of this podcast um is that these two guys have been working on this case for 10 years and have all this evidence that if you ever did want to cover that story i'm telling you you have to listen to this podcast i will have to because the reason i didn't was because there was so much of it i was like i can't fit it for a live show well there's so much more after this because apparently um they got a hold of his like personal diary and so they have like all of his

own information and they found like years of um audio footage from the like sheriff's county or this is a murder story by the way yeah yeah it's about his murder him and his wife's murder yeah yeah it was brutal murder like really but so there was like all this like recorded footage um from like suspects that never got like released and it's been like fifth like hidden for 50 years and so wow that's the one you go to first interesting well so i i fell for it fell for it i love it because like they lured you and tricked well the production value is so good like they, um, like 1950s music and sound effects. This podcast only has 200 ratings. Oh my God.

Someone recommended it to me. I have no, I think it was Deirdre. This is small. I don't remember who. It's really good though. Well, great. I hope we get some, uh, press for this. Anyway.

Give them some press a little bit. They've been working on it. Apparently they've been doing it for like 10 years. Wow. Yeah. So it's worth, it's definitely worth the listen. I would love to listen to this. They've been working on it. Apparently they've been doing it for like 10 years. Wow. Yeah. It's worth it's definitely worth the listen. I would love to listen to this. Yeah.

I mean, it's only nine episodes right now, but it only has 200. That's amazing. I don't even know how you found your first podcast to listen to is 200 reviews. I like the obscure. I like the obscure apparently. Yeah, I guess so. Huh? Anyway, it's very good.

That looks awesome. I'm going to look into that for sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, that was it. No, the story. I remember I knew the name because the story is freaking crazy. Bananas. And like I tried to cover it for one of the Florida shows and I went, well, too much.

It's really good. Too much. But yeah, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. So I just wanted to like announce that I'm listening to one. Yay. News. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I you thank you i get it i

get it the world of podcasting oh my god meanwhile i just like can't even keep up um yeah so okay cool what was i gonna say uh usually i know like a lot of people listen to podcasts when they're driving and i do drive a lot but that's when i'm listening to like broadway so you know like for hours every day i feel like oh man i love i love like 90s music country music 90s country music sure i just can't get enough of it so like once you put reba on i'm like podcasts who oh see i'm the opposite well no i'm not the opposite i fucking love music too but there's a certain point when i'm like two hours in where i'm like well someone tell me something interesting because i can only listen to sad breakup songs and no i think maybe there's three podcasts i listened to in total and chilling

work chilling worth is now the third wow yeah dude i'm very selective i love that it's neither mine nor Eva thank you very much I know sorry oh well um yeah that's well I'm very happy for you because you're about to enter a world of super awesome shows just like that or you're not or you're just gonna escape it again I don't know I'm probably gonna get through this one and then be like that's enough podcasts Emma come on there's so much good shit out there I'm sure there is I think I'm afraid of finding it and then having to binge. It's the best. Like you, I literally listen while I'm cleaning. I listen while I'm like working out. I listen while I'm like, uh, I don't know, journaling, whatever I'm doing. Like, it's just so cool. I think I get, I think I get bored of a lot of things. Like I'll listen to a couple. But not Reba. Not Reba. But never Reba. But no,

like podcasts. Cause like there are of the reba but never but no like podcast because like there are of the other ones i listen to like if i listen to like jim harold i only listen to like two episodes and then i can't listen to it for a little bit like i i need like constant breaks and this is only like you need a lot and you just flip them through that's a good point actually yeah all right well anyway it doesn't matter um sorry this this turned into a wild rant no yeah i'm just curious because um i have such a different podcasting world in my head. So anyway, oh, you don't listen to Wine and Crime, huh? I do listen to Wine and Crime.

I dabble. Lies! I do. In the last one, they mentioned me saying that I'm, well, I guess this is coming out later. But this week, the one that they released, they called me a clown in recovery. Oh. Because Amanda hates clowns. Yeah, so does everyone.

I know. Well, most people do. Just proving I listened. Well, so then you also have Jim Harreld. I have Jim Harreld. I have an acquired taste. And my dad wrote a porno. I haven't listened to that in a long time.

Oh, well, that's a good one. But the second I listen to it again i'm gonna like just like fly through it yeah well okay guys uh please don't let that deter you from listening to our show um even though emma apparently doesn't uh i wanted to add that a lot of people started tagging me or tweeting at me saying like well i work at pier one and i'm like oh good for you i don't why are you saying that to me did you say something in the last episode well so i'm going okay i'm happy for you a lot of pier one employees have something to say what are the health benefit health care but i don't know why you're telling me this and then someone's like rude i work at pier one and i was like aha so i said something got it my dumb ass took uh several

tweets to be like hmm what did i say and then i had to go ask because obviously i don't fucking remember what i said right and i guess we were talking about a cowboy we're doing our cowboy listener story uh-huh our listener episode cowboy ghost you know and um i guess somebody videotaped their computer or phone while i was talking and And apparently I yelled something like, why go buy some shitty Pier 1 vase with no cowboy ghost in it when you can buy a perfectly good mirror with the soul attached or something like bizarre like that. And then people were tweeting me about Pier 1 and I'm like, I own like four vases from Pier 1. So I don't, I didn't like four vases from Pier 1, so I don't, like, I didn't, it wasn't a slight, I just kind of was making a sarcastic remark

that maybe by something, like, that doesn't have a soul attached? I don't know. I think it got misconstrued. Proof of why I don't listen to it, and that's why we drink because I, we say such humiliating things sometimes, like our salt controversy. Oh my god. I just, why listen i was

already experienced we don't need to relive it right we live it already it's like actors don't watch their own tv shows it's like why would i listen to this we don't but i listen to myself talk to myself we don't uh okay we live it then we relive it when everyone tweets us about how we're wrong and then i like toss and turn all my life while i'm trying to sleep thinking of all the humiliating things i said like what year was the civil war and it's like what's a rhombus why would i go back and listen to that we get enough reminders daily on social media of the dumb things we say and do that like you guys will help it live on forever in our minds like the whale sounds christine will never escape i will never why would she go listen to episode 60 when you

will remind her every day about the whale sounds also like to be fair like yes you just got attacked by pier one employees i got mauled last week by the virgos so well that was my neck actually the next bullet yes was it what did you say about virgos because i have nothing to so what so you said something about virgos oh i know what you said i think i remember they're hard-headed no i think what happened was i said oh i don't think i know any virgos and you said i don't care about virgos you said something like really dismissive and rude and i want to be clear here we've got a lot of astrological tweets and complaints and anger i have literally never said anything m is the only one who has opinions negative opinions about astrological signs to be clear like i talk so

much shit about scorpios my favorite fucking dogs are scorpio i've like dated scorpio it's fine i don't even know the differences so like someone's like christine you don't like aries and i was like first of all i never said anything and then they're like you never mention air i'm like i don't mention any of them m is the only one and also like i don't know i didn't even know renee was of aries until like this year and i was like oh that makes sense like sorry i i don't have these opinions i'm sorry i love you all seriously i mean at the end of the like yeah like i know i shit m has strong opinions but at the same time like okay half the people are like half the the signs that i like talk shit about are my best friends at the exact same time.

Right, right, right. So everyone needs to chillax. You're being such Scorpio Virgo Tauruses right now. You know what I'm saying? No, I don't really, but I'll go along with it. Also then, so my thing that I was going to say is that I went to this wedding in Kansas City this weekend, which was a blast. Congratulations, Grace and Brent.

I hope you're having fun in jamaica um and it was so much fun and blaze's mom and i partied it was super great uh sherry blaze mom found some frosting found a two-year-old's birthday cake with blue fondant i love it and started walking around trying to make everyone lick it oh cool their tongues like doing shots of icing so we got some blue tongues. It was a... Anyway, let's just say we had a good time. And she was like, oh, I'm going to listen to your episode this week or something. And I was like, oh, don't do that.

But she does because she's such a loving... A gem. Such a warm human. A loving mother-in-law. And she texted me, hey, I'm a Virgo. And I was like, oh. And then she goes, so is Cy, Blaze's brother, and Len, his dad. And I'm like, oh, fuck.

So, like, all my in-laws are Virgos, and I'm sitting here going, I've never met a Virgo in my life. My dad and one of my best friends are Virgos, and they are both equally hard-headed, as the astrology books say. So sorry that I'm just stating facts here. Sherry said something like, we can be bossy, but we're great. Right. Sherry said something like we can be bossy but we're great right but like Blaze's parents and his brother are like three literally three of the most level-headed grounded kindest people I know so I'm like oh okay Virgos are great like I don't they're the three I know I guess until everyone else texts me like you asshole I'm also a Virgo but for now you dick Gemini how dare you I'd like

to be clear I don't have really strong opinions clear. I don't have really strong opinions on this. I don't have really strong opinions about Pier 1. So, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, employees. My furniture. I apparently do, but my furniture bags sit at first.

So, hey, what's this about? It's about Gus. I think. Also, to all the people who fucking tweet that say that my laugh sounds like Elmo. I fucking see it. Oh, I see you guys say that shit. Why did you put that in my head? Every time I get really high up in my voice and I can't control it, I sound like Elmo, apparently.

You do get that little cackle going. And you know what? I don't say shit. You know what? We love it. All right. Okay. Let's do the real thing now.

Let's pretend to do the real thing. I guess we have to, huh? This is a story I covered at a live show oh is yours also a story i covered it is and i think we've already we picked the same town yeah we did and i don't really want to pretend that we did that by accident because i'm i'm not in like a super good place to be a really good actor right now no it's gonna come off as like wow what a surprise i'm gonna act surprised no tell me the tell me the town tell me the town um brooklyn oh i am surprised no i know i'm lying

we're gonna do our san jose show because we did not get audio for that show all right so i don't even remember my story i'm trying to find the notes but i have a new laptop so let's see if i can ever find them again i'm also very interested to relearn this with you because the title is very interesting to me guys holy shit mine's a mine's a missing person i'm this is gonna be good my story i forgot that i covered this and i'm very excited purely by the title so this is the story of apparently a haunted toys r us oh my god what the fuck okay in sunnyvale and apparently a lot of i remember a lot of people losing their shit in the audience when i talked about toys i remember that so apparently it was well known to be haunted holy crap okay by the uh apparition aficionados of San Jose. Of Silicon Valley. So the story takes place in 1844.

And the first Toys R Us ever founded. They had saloon doors back then. They only sold hoops and sticks. There it is. There it is. Wow. Bringing back a total throwback. In 1844, a man named Martin Murphy and his family moved to California. Simple enough. Wow. Good. Good start.

Usually it's more complex than that. It is. I was really trying to break it down because I was having an anxiety attack on stage clearly. So I was like, when are we not? Let's make them basic bullets. Yeah. Um, they were bullets for basic bitches. There it is.

That's me. Um, so Martin Murphy and his family moved to California. They were the first to cross the Sierras and, uh, Oh, oh that's cool on a trail that would later be called the donner pass i was literally about to say i wonder if it was that one where terrible things happen yep yep yep yep they were also the first to bring oxen fun fact really very like the beginning of the organ trail some might say that's fun um during that winter martin's wife had a baby named elizabeth and she was california's first pioneer ever born okay now they're just like taking everything they really have found every superlative they can find they have the superlative record whatever their

uh their mantles just jam-packed huh with the most mediocre things yes trophies on trophies uh first oxen of cal California. That's not me. That sounds pretty cool to me. First baby. What was it? First California's first pioneer to be born. Actually, that is pretty cool. That's pretty baller, man.

She definitely used that on the schoolyard. You know what I'm saying? Oh, hell yeah. I was the first one here. Watch your mouth. Watch your mouth. That's what Elizabeth said. I own this town.

Said the ox. Inside the Toys R Us for some reason. I'm very confused by this story so far all right everyone's like where does the toys r us come in none of this makes sense uh at only a few weeks old elizabeth fell into the yuba river oh dear god okay but survived oh and was nicknamed yuba on original yeah i think you're gonna say say U-boat. And I was like, wow. Nope. Wow. Yuba. Yuba. So in 1850, they settled in the area that is now considered Sunnyvale.

And when they settled here, Martin brought their house that he purchased and designed in Maine. Oh, wait, they brought the house? They literally brought the house. Over the Donner Pass. That is correct. What? Okay. With the ox pulling?

Okay. So he arranged for the house in Maine to be built in pieces. Oh, I see. And then he shipped the pieces and built them back together. It was like disassembling a big Lego set, bringing it with him, and then building it back up. It's all playing into this Toys R Us thing. Bingo. Ding, ding, ding.

Wow. Good job. I didn't even see that coming. Oh. You're quicker than you look. Wow. Good job. I didn't even see that coming. Oh, I'm just looking. You're quicker than you look. Wow. That's so kind.

Thanks. It was the, oh, here's another fucking record for you. Oh, by the way, that's one of my trophies. Quicker than you look. See how slow I came up with that joke? It was the first wooden frame house in the region. Oh my God. It was on 4 wooden frame house in the region. Oh, my God. It was on 4,800 acres. It had 20 rooms, and they named the house Bayview.

Oh, that's nice. That sounds lovely. It does sound lovely. 20 rooms at your spot? In Sunnyvale? In Sunnyvale. Yeah. That sounds wonderful.

If you're going to found a town, you might as well name it something like that. Something happy. Can you imagine if you got to name a town, and you just picked something really awful? You were just like... Like, shithole like los angeles and 1852 their oldest son james uh-oh here we go died on the second floor of the house from tuberculosis oh no and their youngest son literally james jr they just renamed their next son oh that's like andy in the office when they just renamed their next son with the same name. Oh, that's like Andy in The Office when they just took his name away.

He's like, no, I was originally Walter, but then they thought that better fit my brother. My younger brother. Okay. So James I died on the second floor from tuberculosis, and then James II... That's a lot of pressure. Right? For the second kid. He was...

At the same time that James I was dying upstairs james two was being born downstairs okay so it was like a quick transition to just keep naming their son james soul just hopped in they never yeah bingo okay they never lost to james they just broke even just bounced out just got a new one okay so in the 1880s a swedish preacher named John Johnson, or Jan Jansson, depending on the accent. Jan Jansson. He stayed with the Murphys, and he worked on the farm as a ranch hand in exchange for living there.

While living there, he fell in love with Elizabeth slash Yuba. Yuba. And she turned him down and married a lawyer named William Taft. Wow. Fun fact. The streets Elizabeth Way, She turned him down and married a lawyer named William Taft. Well. Fun fact. The streets Elizabeth Way, Taft Avenue, and Elizabeth Avenue in Sunnyvale and Los Altos are named after them.

Oh my god. She got two streets. She got an Elizabeth Way and an Elizabeth Ave. Where's Yuba Road? Bingo. Man. That's in the river, actually. I guess the entire river is named that, so.

Sure. I get it. i guess the entire river is named that so sure i get it uh after she left the swedish preacher jan jansen he stayed on the murphy property anyway after being turned down and after she moved away he stayed on the murphy property and continued working on the farm and then one day while he was chopping wood an axe slipped no he split his leg no and he laid down and slowly bled to death no oh god that's gruesome and that was the end of yanni apparently oh sad the murphy family and this home were very involved in lots of early california history if you could not see from their mantle by now yeah i mean we get it guys

display case um the murphy family housed many people over the years helping the first residents of sunnyvale find work and their own homes. Oh, that's good. They founded and established the Notre Dame College and Clara University. Cool. Which were both the first colleges in the area. Martin was the first rancher to have wheat, orchards, and modern farm equipment in the area.

He must have been a wealthy AF man. Listen, he's just like owning the town. Seriously. He and his relatives founded the cities San Martin, Sunnyvale, and Murphys in Gold Country. Okay. And his relatives were also the first bank commissioner, state assembly, and senate members. Wow. And two of his sons were officers in the Mexican War.

So they're just nailing it across the board with the community. Man. They're those guys, you know. Listen, I'm saying. They're that family. And you can't even hate them because they're those guys you know listen i'm saying that family and you can't even hate them because they're like doing good things it's like oh well you just keep volunteering damn it volunteer too much why i oughta so the house was also quote the site of nearly every significant social and political gathering in santa clara valley during the gold

rush unquote wow okay Every single one. Every single significant social political gathering. Got it. Got it. In 1881, the Murphys had their 50th anniversary and threw a party at the home. It was and still is California's largest private party ever held. Like the party itself was and is California's largest party that was ever held. Holy crap.

10,000 guests attended. Holy crap. And the party lasted over three days. And let's beat it. Done. We gotta. We gotta. We gotta one up him on something.

And we can't bring an oxen. Like we've lost that chance. We really actually probably could break this record with all of the people who listen to us. If we all just agreed to be in one place at one time, we beat california's biggest party party i mean it would be a party i mean but it would definitely last three days but i feel like you could probably say that about like a concert yeah but we would call it a party for sure yeah but i think maybe there has to be a certain like oh we have to like pay for all the food or something we'll just a potluck party how about we just rent out a golden corral line everyone out no no let's just rent out a golden corral end of story oh

just the two of us just us i don't really handle that mac and cheese we don't need anyone else i see it that was a great idea forget the fucking party i you know i usually always i always make it on like the third or fourth thought yeah you really bring it home that's what i for both of us that's the sweet spot yep love it so this massive party over 10 000 guests last three days there were special trains arranged to come in and to come in from san francisco and san jose just for the party attendees so like you could only get on the train if you were an attendee of the party train the party train what the hell uh i want to go for the party for the party specifically they built a thousand square foot dance floor and the wood was donated afterwards to priests for their chapel.

Okay, well, all right. We're going to donate our chicken fingers to somebody. To my belly for the next six months. Sure. Thanks, priests. In 1894, one of the Murphy's relatives, Fred Hoffman, was living with them. And Fred was working on a pump in the farm well and he didn't notice the well was leaking gas it was next to a leaking gas tank

in case people like that doesn't make sense leaking gas okay i wasn't gonna question it thank you i i know what i'm doing after this golden crown percent of the time i am in and on that's the one percent your brain listen i'm in your brain so uh yeah so fred hoffman a relative in the pump in the farm well didn't realize it was next to a leaking gas tank he didn't show up for dinner and so the family looked for him and they found him in the well oh he was inside the well passed out from the fumes he had fallen down into the well and had continued breathing in the fumes until he died. Oh, God.

The house stayed in the family for 100 years and six generations lived there. Six generations in 100 years? Yep. That seems like a lot of generations in 100 years. They're doing the deed pretty early, I guess. Listen, they're having 10,000 person party situations. There's a lot of debauchery to be had. Real world Sunnyvale.

Real world Sunnyvale. So in 1953, the Murphys sell Bayview, the house, to the city. And in 1959, it becomes specifically historical landmark number 644. But in 1961, it was demolished anyway due to decay and fire damage oh so they were like you cannot be touched they just ignored that plaque let's destroy you yep okay they were like where's the plaque and just tossed it over there just like you covered it up uh in 1970 sunnyvale took the open property and on the site they built a toys r us shut. At some point. I still didn't see this coming. It still shocked me.

I was like a hospital. We really got hooked on that. Yeah. I really lost. I lost my grip. I totally forgot that a Toys R Us was coming into this. I still honest to be quite honest with you. Wasn't sure that a Toys R Us was coming into the story.

I was like a total joke. I thought maybe it was a slight mistake, but here we are. I remember at this point, the audience all had also been caught off guard or they were like just tapping their foot waiting for the Toys R Us to show up. I see. They were like, please. And at this point I was like, okay, the Toys R Us has arrived. The silly putty is installed.

There it is. We're good. There it is. So almost immediately after the Toys R Us was built in 1970, employees report strange happenings. Ugh, not surprised. So the toys would fly off the shelves. People felt phantom touches.

Faucets in the bathroom would turn on and off by themselves. Clerks were hearing their names whispered to them. Oh. And they could feel cold breezes and objects moving. Female employees apparently experienced what felt like someone invisible playing with their hair. Ugh, that's so disturbing dolls and toy trucks would fly off the shelves by themselves uh balls would bounce down the aisle just like out of a pure horror movie it's the toys that make it so creepy it's like children

and toys somehow but also like not many children died the only one i can think of is james one yeah i guess they're just pissed that they turned it into like kind of a it was supposed to be a historical landmark it's like a fucking joke yeah like a corporate uh balls would bounce down the aisle children's books would fall off the rack the playground swing displays would swing and move on their own oh straight out of a harmony and some would even hear the sound of galloping horses whoa that's cool they think is because yanni was one of the farm hands that exercised the horses and he died on the property because he split his leg remember i thought you meant exorcise them like as a priest would do yes actually um we skipped over a really important chapter he was an expert in demon he was actually a priest right hold on no so he would

literally exercise understood he would run around with the. But he was the one who also was using an axe, chopped his legs, and bled out on the property. And was in love with her, so maybe he's still his presence. He's still there waiting for her. Well, that's fucking tragic. Which we'll get to. So an employee saw Yanni, apparently. Oh. They saw a man in his 20s or 30s wearing his knickers.

And he was in a white long-sleeved work shirt and a gray tweed snap brim cap so he sounds like he has got his shit together spiffy he sounds spiffy yeah um sometimes when people see him he is see-through sometimes he's just a shadow the staff apparently have his lip like he has his leg oh well that's good for him which is fun you know side note let's make this about me my always my grandfather who died when i was a kid he before he died he had one of his legs amputated yeah and then after he passed any one of us in the family once when he died we all had like goodbyes with him he like visited all of us in some way all of us saw him and he was uh had both of his legs that's a beautiful that's like i that's very comforting also that that happens oh yeah

it's very weird it's nice to know like okay you can still move around yeah also uh growing up we could always hear someone walking up and down the stairs at night and i always told myself that it was him and we were always like well i can't be him he doesn't have both of his legs but now he's got both of his legs he's just stomping around making a point he missed walking up the steps he's like i'm gonna do whatever the hell i want with these maybe yanni missed exercising those horses maybe he missed running around on the horse yeah uh so there were staff that apparently were waxing the floor and one time a teddy bear kept appearing in each aisle as they moved through the store. Yeah, I mean, that is literally the worst thing. Like, you see it, and then you ignore it, and then you move to the next aisle,

and it's sitting in the other aisle waiting for you. It's out of a movie. I mean, it's like out of a cheesy movie. You turn your head. It's literally Lifetime Horror. Yeah, correct. Apparently, aisle 15C, there is an overwhelming smell of garden flowers. I wonder if that was where the garden was. That'd be cool. That's kind of nice.

And some female employees will not go to the bathroom alone because they're afraid of being harassed by the spirits. Well, okay, that's not so nice. One employee was quoted saying, when I go upstairs, I'll say, Johan, I'm only here to work. When I go upstairs, I say that too. Just, you know, why not? I'm only here to work, as in, like, leave me alone. I'm just here to work when i go upstairs i say that too just you know why not i'm only here to work as in like leave me alone i'm just here to do my job maybe it was yanni like it was like oh maybe that was his full name maybe because i only know johnny so it might have been johan as his full name and then yanni was his nickname or something but anyway they're like i just maybe

she's like fucking up his name and that's why he's pissed and still here it's like it's yanni how many times do i have to tell you uh so yeah she's like i'm here to work please leave me alone okay that's kind of fucked up you have to do that but all right some people feel someone this is nice though some people feel someone's studying the ladder when they're standing on it that must be so unnerving though like are they gonna throw it over like is this a trick are they being really nice right now to throw me off in a second by itself well that's good and people also hear unexplained footsteps going through the aisles and will i don't know if they see or hear this or both but doors will open and close on their own apparently a voice has shown up on the pa system that literally whispered the lord Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.

Oh my God. I'm gonna call that a firm pass. I just got like goosebumps. The bad kind though. I'm going to call it firm pass. I am going to call it goodbye. No wonder Toys R Us went bankrupt and closed. No offense.

That's the only reason all of them went out. It will blame me. Blame old Yanni. Blame Yanni. Every Toys R Us has a Yanni, Ianni i'm sure i'm sure don't we all so up to 10 of the managers quit working there i'm pretty sure i remember reading this off of one article and being like i don't know about this apparently up to 10 of the managers quit working there because they were afraid of the hauntings holy god that's a large amount of people that's like they had to work

there to get to manager too. So like they were there for a while. Maybe what if they become a manager suddenly like. Then Yanni's just like not holding the ladder still anymore. He's starting to shake it. So apparently I was looking this whole thing up on Snopes. And I one of the taglines for this page was enter the Play-Doh aisle at your own risk. It's wild. Yeah. I mean, they're not wrong though they're not if a teddy bear is following you everywhere you might as

well be careful don't enter any aisle please um so apparently they interviewed employees who had worked there for they had interviewed an employee excuse me who had worked there for 18 years and the employee said quote i don't believe in ghosts but you do feel a breeze behind you someone calls your name and there's nobody there funny things happen here that you can't explain many people have experiences not just one or two of us he's like casper nothing he does ever hurts anybody that's nice okay except at least it harasses women in the bathroom and leads people to quit except he says i don't believe in ghosts however it's definitely here yeah that's true apparently teenagers would trespass in the middle of the night of course to play with a ouija board and security had to start doing night shifts at the

toys r us i mean that didn't help i'm sure like i'm sure who knows what the hell they brought but also i bet toys r us was selling ouija boards at some point wait they definitely do so you're right i know target does i don't know if toys r us does but if they did what is the irony there walmart sells stranger things ouija boards so i imagine had at least one version at least like i mean like what are the odds that they would buy the ouija board from there just to sneak back later and use it every time they buy it they're like they do have to do like a little they have to take a photo and put it on the wall they're like shaking their head like why we why did we even sell this? Why are we doing this?

So apparently there's a Reddit thread where an employee wrote in that had worked on the same property at, so not at the Toys R Us, but a nearby Petco. They're always near Petco. Well, remember, they always are. Remember it was like 4,800 acres. Oh, sure. Oh. So it's not just the Toys R Us specifically.

It's a strip mall. It's a huge piece of property that's haunted, allegedly. Holy shit. So apparently there's also a Petco on the property and someone who works there wrote in on Threadit

on Threadit. We're a thousand years old. We still think Toys R Us exists. On Reddit, he wrote in saying weird stuff happens there a lot, such as dog tennis balls will roll out of racks and office papers have been thrown on the floor. Oh my God. If I was bringing Gio into a Petco though, and tennis balls started like chaos.

Chaos. But also imagine the ghost that's so dog friendly that just wants to hang out with your dog. That's kind of sweet. Precious. Very. I imagine it's also like a ghost dog, like Walt's dog, Gabe. Sure. Yeah.

Who lives here gabe does live here apparently him and geo are tisite yeah it would be cool if there was a little ghost dog running around offering everyone tennis balls it's like a kid being in the toys or us like the dog being in the peko would get anything i wonder if the kid haunts toys or us and the dog haunts peko and they like hang out together in the middle at night to play to play fetch that'd be so sweet stop that'd be so sweet. Stop. That'd be so sweet. Oh my. So apparently this Petco employee also says that,

he said, everywhere that was once Murphy property is haunted. So Toys R Us happens to be the most active area. And then this rocked my world. I thought this was pretty cool. So there was a Snapchat. This was a while ago, but when I,

when I was doing this story on stage, apparently the Snapchat was like more recent. It was of a guy who recorded all of the checkout lights flashing in a random sequence after the building was already closed down. So you could look in the window and they were just like all flickering on their own. Totally random. Some of them wouldn't be on at all.

One of them would be like going on and off. Like someone was switching the light. Then that one would go dark and the other one would start switching by itself. It was super creepy, but it was super cool too. Because he was like, I know I'm not crazy. And this place is known to be fucking haunted. And I'm just filming it from outside. So you could watch that?

You could like see the cashier lights. Is that online? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. That's super creepy. The store has also been used, can you believe it, for many seances over the years. The Petco? Yep. What? No, no, no. The Toys R Us. The Toys R Us. We're back at Toys R Us now. Still the Toys R Us? uh the store has also been used can you believe it for many seances over the years the petco yep

no no no no the toys are us the toys are us we're back at toys are us now still the toys yes the toys are us has been used for seances what in the goddamn world so most seances here have been led by a psychic named sylvia brown oh i've heard of her okay so she was like the toys are us psychic wait i have a book by her. Do you really? Yeah. About Toys R Us? That'd be interesting. About developing psychic ability. So one of the seances was broadcast on the show That's Incredible in 1978. I remember watching this entire segment in preparation for this, and That's Incredible. I thought you were going to say in 1978. I was like, Em, you weren't.

No, no, no. Okay, I get it. I remember watching That's's incredible like this specific segment for the show i've never heard of that show and it was like the most cheesy grainy i love it 80s show it was really it was really cool though it's literally you're just watching a whole group of people on a ghost horse sitting in the aisles of toys r us while a psychic is talking from 78 from 70 oh my god i want to watch that so the store lights were turned off this is the segment sure the store lights are turned off the production crew the psychic and spectators

are all sitting on the floor in the aisles there are two different cameras that were used during the seance one was in night vision and the photographers that night were hired specifically because they did not know the legends so it was like they won they won't have any, there won't be any bias. They're just going to take random pictures and what they find, they find. They have no idea what the hell they've just gotten themselves. They're like, why the fuck am I at a seance and toys are us?

What is going on? So Sylvia apparently has heard Yanni talking and said, his accent. He said he spoke with a mild Swedish accent and his first name was John Yon or Johan. Oh, okay. That makes sense. That Jan or Johan. Oh, OK. That makes sense. That checks out.

Yeah. She said, I kept picking up the name Jan Jansson or John Johnson. Does that make sense? It does. As he walked down the hall, apparently he told Sylvia, have mercy on me, Beth. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Oh, my God. I just got chills. Is that not the creepiest oh god oh

god oh god and then he gets the pa system i don't like that he learned have mercy on me beth for those who are forgetting he was in love with elizabeth oh my god i didn't even that didn't even cross my mind remember she turned him down and he still worked on the farm until he died hoping to have a chance with her and you said earlier like oh maybe he's still haunting the area waiting for her and now he's telling a psychic have mercy on me beth the lord giveth the lord taketh away i have full-on chills which is what he whispered into the pa system i love that he learned how to he's like does anyone hear me god he's been here for eternity he needs to do something he's trying to find his he's learning how to use the cashier lights he's learning how to use the pa system how to use the etch-a-Sketches to write out a message to Beth.

Learning how to bounce the balls, the teddy bears. So as Sylvia talks to Yanni, many people report hearing a buzzing noise inside their head. That is super. During the seance, Sylvia told Yanni, you can move on, but he said he will always wait for Beth. Girl, Beth doesn't want you sorry boy but come on now she said no he also said quote in the meantime he and this is sylvia talking about it quote in the meantime he enjoys the company in the store and playing with the children so he likes to play with the children creepy and adorable yeah i'm like i don't know where to feel

about that so far okay because there haven't been any complaints yeah i mean the women complaining the bathroom is questionable but yeah he's definitely leaving that out his who knows if that artistic license i'd like to think that's not him but if they're doing seances who knows who knows bringing in there so after the seance photos were developed and many of many were of a shadow of a man surrounded in bright light at the end of the aisle which nobody saw with their bare eyes oh my god um in the pictures the figure is leaning against the shelves and looking at the group of people sitting on the floor and i have seen this i have seen these pictures because i watched the segment i can confirm this is not like uh maybe it is maybe it's not it's a full-blown

shadow man no thank you are you serious oh no leaning against the shelves looking at the group i promise he's just like chilling he's just fucking he's like almost as if he's like curious but hesitant and like wants to approach the group because they're talking to him he also knows they can't see him he doesn't i full-blown's a bad. We should turn that EMF detector on. We should probably. Because I'm feeling like that would be going off right now. Yeah. Cause I know there's all sorts of freaking Robert the dolls in here they can play with.

Whew. I have a, something just told me to go turn on the EMF and I'm not gonna. So. I'm gonna. Oh boy. Here we go. The second I. Set it out loud.

I leave it in the middle of the table, on the candle maybe. I make poor decisions when I have low blood sugar. That's my excuse. We just want to eat our Indian food. In the middle? Yeah, yeah. Near the turkey? I don't know if it'll work now because we already had our spooky ooky feeling but well listen now they know it's there if they want to come back true seems like they

like to hang out for centuries right right right so uh let's see okay so yeah there's definitely a full-blown shadow man leaning against the shelves looking at the group nobody was standing in the hall or leaning against the shelves because everyone was specifically instructed to sit on the floor. God, that's horrible. There's a quote. They actually caught the person on film. And this was in this was in the presence of maybe 15 to 16 people who knew about it.

But the photographers didn't know. So a lot of people could, no one could see him. And yet both sets of photographers that were there, one with the infrared and one with either a digital or a film camera, both got this thing on camera. Wow. Okay. But the groups didn't know he was there. There was in the presence of maybe 15 to 16 people who knew there was no one walking down

the aisle in that particular time. No, like live person. No live person. Got it, got it, got it. So it was validated not only by the camera people that particular time. No, like live person. No live person. Got it, got it, got it. So it was validated not only by the camera people, but the people that were there. They can confirm nobody was there, and yet both sets of cameras got this.

Sure. Pictures corroborated everything that Sylvia sensed, and when she would say, he's walking from the right, the pictures would show a shadow figure walking towards the right of the aisle. Well, and if these photographers weren't like her friends that she brings up,

like they were people who had no fucking clue, then, like, what stake did they have to make this shit up? She then said, as another example, she then said, his hands are in his pockets and he's looking down. And then the pictures from that timestamp of her saying it show the shadow with its hands in its pockets. It's super creepy, man. She then, this is while it's being filmed you can the camera's on

her and she says yeah if you want to as if she's talking to him but you can't hear what he's saying so you hear her say yeah if you want to and then she explains to the group yanni asked if he could kneel so it's easier for her to see him no at the of the aisle. No. He's going to come crawling toward you. The next picture shows the shadow figure crouching down. Forget it. Forget it, dude. This is Yanni? This is Yanni.

Okay, at least we know who he is. He's not, like, demonic. The other camera was not infrared and pointed at the exact same spot during the seance, and this time that camera did not pick anything up. Interesting. So up until this seance, nobody time that camera did not pick anything up interesting so up until this seance nobody even knew the name yanni so this was the beginning of where yanni even

was validated in introducing himself here um after the seance curious employees began looking into the history of the area and that is where they learned the history of the murphy property discovered the ranch hand named jan jansen so that this they didn't know the history of it exactly that's incredible from 1978 segment was the beginning of anyone even knowing about the murphy property oh so this wasn't even like a well-known thing at the time they just knew it was haunted they were just like why are all these uh furbies flying or the at the time care bears flying off the shelves they just knew it was haunted is flying off the shelves. They just knew it was haunted. And so off the shelves, not metaphorically, physically, literally got it. And so after the seance, they heard Yanni or Jan Janssen and then looked it up and discovered all the history I told you before.

That is chilling. Yeah, especially with these pictures. I'm telling you, you can see the figure crouching down with his hand in his pocket. I am going to look it up in the nighttime when I'm home alone by yourself. We'll regret it forever. going to look it up in the nighttime when i'm home alone by yourself will regret it forever so uh the arguments for yanni being an urban legend here is one scenario the story is said to have happened in the 1880s but elizabeth died in 1875 so she would have already been gone by the time that he moved there and fell in love with her also he died in the 1880s but that doesn't mean he was

interested in her before her death so there's multiple things happening that suggest that the story doesn't line up. Sure, the timeline. And here's another one. There's no record in California newspapers of deaths by acts near the Murphy home. So that which he would have, his name would have been up in there. And the California census from 1860 to 1890 shows many Swedish ranch hands in Sunnyvale with undocumented deaths, but none by his name. Really? Okay.

So they were tracking these deaths. Yes. It just wasn't in there. Okay. Also, there's another argument that apparently Elizabeth went by Lizzie, not Beth. So for him to be saying, like, wait for me, Beth, or I'll always wait for you, Beth, doesn't add up. However, Yanni could have called her Beth. Sylvia, I read your book. I hope you're not lying to me here. You're making me feel a little

doubtful. So, oh, I'm sorry. That was supposed to be an argument that countered it. So there was no record in California newspapers about deaths by acts in the Murphy home. However, based on the census, there were many Swedish ranch hands that had undocumented deaths. okay. Okay. It's an argument for like, he could have been there. There was just no document.

The unnamed undocumented. Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. How many freaking Swedish, what are they doing? I don't know.

Okay. I don't know what was going on. And the, maybe the gold Russians, we, the Swedes were like, we gotta be over here. Sure.

I mean, they had an Ikea empire to build. So there is apparently, hang on, let me read this first. I want to make sure I get this right. Hmm. This is interesting. Is it? Please share.

It's interesting in that I don't know my own nose. Oh, good. So here's the thing. There was a guy named eugene who worked at a toys r us however i wrote eugene or toys r us so what i think that means is that there's also a haunted toys r us in oregon eugene oregon eugene oh and eugene oregon bingo see we figured it out so it takes two so and you figure out basic things so when eugene i was like is eugene or toys r us those were the two names they were throwing around before they really settled on toys r us so apparently in eugene oregon there's also a haunted toys r us that

is not as notorious for being a haunted toysys R Us. Actually, Allie. Did she say that? She knew about it. Oh, cool. Okay. I asked her about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just wanted to cover that while I was here.

So apparently there's one employee who has worked in the store since 1993 and has reported heavy banging sounds, objects moving in the stock room. You can hear magazines flipping by themselves and see them fall off the shelves on their own. When the staff is closing up you can hear strange whispers noises and music coming from the back of the store oh no and an overnight crew heard voices coming from the bathroom and when they went to check nobody was there it was also discussed on reddit because uh toys r us is attached to a kmart which is also haunted corporate america is just fucking filled with ghosts.

So Toys R Us slash Kmart and Eugene, Oregon is apparently haunted. According to this Reddit page I stumbled upon. Here's the thread title. Shit be haunted, yo. For God's sake. So millennial journalism at its finest. In the Reddit page, shit be haunted, yo. When discussing the eugene

oregon kmart toys r us haunts trust me 100 an employee said quote an unseen but clearly felt presences there night workers tell of doors opening and closing by themselves signs moving of their own accord and on one frightening night even though they aren't sound activated a 10-foot section of talking elmo dolls all started chattering away at once. It's said that workers will only go in using the buddy system. Boxes have been thrown. All the lights go out and walkie-talkies will suddenly go silent. You're in the back stock room.

Shit starts falling. The walkie-talkie goes out. I remember seeing this on, I think there was a video of it maybe. Maybe I'm imagining it. seeing this on i think there was a video of it maybe maybe i'm imagining it but i remember there being some footage that i saw of someone at the bottom of a staircase and at the top of the staircase boxes like literally were flying that might have been a ghost adventure story actually shit aaron aaron was at the top just throwing shit it all gets muddled together at some point i mean we did just talk about you sounding like elmo laughing that's true it would just be a bunch

of m's on the shelf it's just a bunch of me screaming but m on the shelf tm tm tm mench on the bench mench on the bench so that is the story of toys r us sunnyvale yay dude what the fuck i like how that almost morphed into a man named eugene who worked at the toys r us i really almost just totally made that up that's pretty funny i like it well food's still not here my turn i was like is postmates even here yet i definitely talked for a long time not quite ring doorbell says no um cool okay so i have a missing persons case love it i didn't love it hate it love it mean, I'm excited because, you know, good mystery. Sure. Nothing doesn't hurt.

This is the story of the disappearance of Kristen Modafferi. So let's just jump in, huh? Let's dive in. The food's going to be here any minute. Kristen Deborah Modafferi was born June 1st, 1979 in Danbury, Connecticut. I remember this because Alyssa, my friend, was in the audience and I went, hey, that's Alyssa's birthday. And like nobody, like everyone was like, okay, I don't know who that is. So it didn't really go over well.

I learned my lesson to not really just talk about my friend's birthday. Nobody. It's funny. People like to hear our banter until we're on stage and then they're like, okay, but get with the story. And they're like, what is this? Okay, but hurry up. Who's Eugene? Stop. Okay. banter until we're on stage and then they're like okay but get with the story they're like what what is this uh okay but hurry up who's eugene stop okay it's it's cute that we're charming and clueless until like we're face to face and then they're like you have to they're like please get

your shit together yeah until you're trapped in a room with us like i paid for tickets to this yeah right until you have to pay for it and you're stuck right right there's booze there you'll be fine exactly kristin modaferri born june 1, 1979 in Danbury, Connecticut, which is a fancy part of Connecticut, in case anyone's wondering. And Alyssa's birthday. Wow. Wow. Everyone needs to know all these weird tangential parts of my life.

The whole reason we're doing this story a second time is just so that could land. And I'm letting it happen. I have been waiting for this moment to be redeemed. But she was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. After her freshman year at North Carolina State in Charlotte, where she majored in industrial design, she decided to move to the Bay Area to study photography for the summer at UC Berkeley. Insert all the woos from the audience. Right, right, right.

She moved to San Francisco on her 18th birthday, June 1st, 97, the audience right right right she moved to san francisco on her 18th birthday june 1st 97 and used craigslist to find a house on jane avenue in oakland california with four male roommates okay uh so she traveled west was all set up out there and to support herself she got two part-time jobs one at spinelli's coffee shop which was located in a mall um next to a haunted k-mart no i'm just kidding there's no kids in a mall in crocker galleria uh in san francisco's financial district and the other job she got was at cafe musee which sounds fancy oh and it was because it was at san francisco museum of modern art there it is so she also took so in her free time she took dance classes this is like the most productive summer she elicited so many things that she's done in this summer that i it takes five years

for me to do that i've maybe done for a week and been like this is too hard dance class no right uh she took dance class in her free time i wrote summer after my freshman year what is summer after my freshman year was awful what does that mean did i take i was on weight watchers i was too sorry that was really loud we got the freshman 15 turned into like the freshman 40 it was bananas there was a time where allison as in your allison i devon and renee at au were all on weight watchers and then we all went why are we doing this to ourselves and just like quit that was i remember going on weight watchers and actually being really really good on weight watchers it worked really well i was very just yeah i lost a lot of weight i was very excited about it but i remember there being this massive pool party that

my mom threw and made like all my favorite foods and i was like why it really that yeah if you don't save up those and then it's kind of it gets really dangerous because then you start saving up points and then you don't eat to save up it like, like, it, it flirts with starvation. It flirts with some disorder eating that is problematic. If you're not consistently allowing yourself to eat the points and you're saving up for one big thing, it's, it can be damaging. I'm not very damaging. I'm not super supportive of Weight Watchers or any diet.

I'm supportive of my results from 2015. Yeah. Or 2011. Look where we are now lol i have a show where i drink milkshakes so sucked on that don't i have a show where i discuss my dependency on alcohol so wow we've come really far okay uh almost three weeks into san francisco state wait i don't know why i wrote summer after my i'm i didn't take a dance did you make a joke or something i must have but it's about taking it's never fun to do uh a story that you previously did on a live show because half the notes don't make sense because

you were trying to like you like in the moment you wrote a joke down that like now you absolutely cannot even think of what the fuck am i talking i think maybe my point was that summer after my freshman year i moved home and didn't leave the house and didn't open the windows for four months and meanwhile she's taking dance classes has two jobs that's probably the point i was getting at i see i see but like you i don't need to explain this to any of you you know this already you just did it um okay so three weeks into her san francisco stay on june 23rd 1997 kristin finished her shift at spinelli's coffee shop at 3 p.m she asked a co-worker for directions to baker beach and then left work for the day strangely enough 45 minutes

later the coffee shop manager spotted kristin still at the mall even though she left work early to go to the beach oh so it looks like she's oh okay so it's not like she was playing hooky she already got the okay to leave yes so that she So maybe like her plans changed from going to the beach to the mall. Right. So he just thought that was odd. Actually, I don't know what their gender was, but they spotted Kristen still at the mall. And they said it was odd because even if her plans had changed, it was very rare that she lingered at the mall afterwards.

Sure. She'd typically go home. Yeah. I feel like if you work at a mall, the last thing you want to do is hang out at a mall. Unless you're at the vape kiosk. Unless you like work at Spencer Gifts or something real top notch. Oh yeah. Then why would you ever want to leave?

I actually would just sleep there. I would just breathe Spencer Gifts. I feel like us in box lunch, maybe we get into a time warp situation. I'm telling you, when I go into box Lunch, I dedicate a full hour to that place. We rack up credit card bills like it's someone's business. If you are unfortunate enough to not know what Box Lunch is and you do not have a physical store in a mall near you, please go to BoxLunch.com. No ad. It's just so great.

And like every, so the spare change. Like every, so the spare change, so like if you, for example, spend $28.53, the remaining money goes toward giving school lunches to. Like to round you up to a dollar. To round you up to a dollar, right? They round up and that change goes toward lunches for like elementary schools and stuff in the area. So it's really cool. It's a great excuse to buy Bob's Burgers merch. It's a great excuse to buy anything Marvel.

And any retro Nick. They've got it all. Nick. Yeah. Harry Potter. I mean, yeah. Anyway, let's go back to this. It's like Hot Topic for the hipster adult. Millennial age.

For the millennial. The people who could have babies and be married, but instead they have podcasts and dogs. People who went to Hot Topic and now, right, want to keep going, but instead go. Anyway, correct. Okay okay people whose parents are probably ashamed of them you know we've reached the core of the problem yes uh anyway so the manager was like that's weird you know she usually doesn't hang out here also she asked for directions to the beach 45 minutes ago and asked to leave early so this is kind of weird what was even stranger is that she wasn't alone oh she was walking with a mysterious blonde woman that uh they didn't recognize but again she had

just been there for three weeks who knows maybe she had made a new friend uh the manager kind of saw this shrugged it off um for time being but unfortunately this is very sad kristen never made it to her first day of photography classes the reason reason she came out to UC Berkeley, which was scheduled for the next morning, June 24th, 1997. She also never picked up her final paycheck from the coffee shop. Shit. Her roommates had noticed she didn't come home that night, but said they weren't alarmed because like they had just met her a few weeks ago.

They didn't know her that well. She might have buddies. She might be a night owl. They don't. Yeah, exactly. They don't know her patterns. They don't know who she's friends with um they thought maybe she would have met had met someone was staying over with a friend but a couple days later kristin's father called the

house and left a voicemail answering on the answering machine so one of the roommates called him back and was like no we haven't because her dad was looking for her and one of the roommates called back and said hey we haven't seen her in three days. Like, she's not at the house. So Kristen's parents, Bob and Debbie, jump on a plane to San Francisco. They go straight to Oakland police, who reassure the Motifairies that Kristen's probably just a runaway. Right. Because she flies out there, works her ass off at two jobs to take a photography class.

To, like, just skedaddle. And then just, like, doesn't get her paycheck and doesn't take the class right no sense um by the time police came back to work on monday to take a real look at the case kristin had been missing for almost a full week shit which we know at this point i mean she's probably not alive or that she won't be found yeah it's not good 24 hours man get on it 24 hours meanwhile kristen's parents had searched her bedroom already they found so they checked her trash can and in her trash can they found a bay guardian newspaper that had a personal ad circled okay the ad read oh god quote friends

female seeking friends to share activities who enjoy music photography working out walks coffee or simply the beach exploring the bay area interested call me my first thought is that's not a girl that's someone fooling a girl murderer my first thought is that blonde lady in the mall trying to i don't know oh right lure her into something right okay yeah actually you probably know better than me i don't know i mean i have no idea but i just that's the connection i made in my head but who knows um oh oh oh oh oh it's a geo and a food it's a geo puppy doppelist delivering some non non your business blaze na na na he's over it blaze is hangry

where were we we have been fed blaze showed up with food and i blocked out i don't even remember where i don't either i'm so i was so i don't think i realized how hungry i think there was a blonde girl oh there was oh the wanted ad in the trash oh my god yeah so let's get back to this fucked up shit um right so also geo's here also geo showed up because there was food um so right they found this personal ad that she had circled so like okay fishy um in her bedroom and detectives later tried following the lead but the paper had already purged the information from their database which was routine after a certain amount of time and maybe if the police had checked a little earlier the information wouldn't have been purged just saying just saying so they completely lost any chance of following that lead like Like, completely out the window.

So they never knew if Kristen responded to the ad or if she had placed the ad herself. It could have been possible that she was looking for friends and had posted the ad. Sure. Or if it had simply piqued her interest and she had highlighted it and then never followed through. There's no way to know. Yeah, she could have either totally went with it or not at all. Or written it herself. Like, there's literally no way to know yeah she could have either totally went with it or not at all or written it herself like there's literally no way to know so police bloodhounds picked up kristen sent at a bus stop outside the galleria where she worked and um on the bus that and on the bus that ran that route

so she had gotten on the bus according to these bloodhounds whom i trust with all my heart life right and soul uh and that actually let that bus route led to baker beach where she had asked for directions earlier that day she had ostensibly been going got it um and then again they picked up so they followed the bus route the scent was on the bus and then the scent was picked up again at the end of the bus route at the beach so it seems as though she had made it to the beach. Multiple bloodhounds picked up the scent. They lost trail at the shoreline. Obviously there's water at

the beach, in case you didn't know. Listen, we live in LA. Who knows anymore? There's things we know that you might not. Peasants. On July 10th, 1997, so this was two and a half weeks after Kristen's disappearance. Did you just wave?

To Giovanni. Oh. I thought someone was, like, in the doorway. I got really... No, I was just saying hello. He was giving me the eye. I was giving him the eye. I know, he's staring directly at you, I feel like.

We were doing the smolder to each other. Yeah, yeah. I'm so happy for you. So, two and a half weeks after Kristenisten's disappearance local abc affiliate news station kgo tv received an anonymous phone call which is always fun always fun from a man who claimed he knew who had abducted kristen moda fairy so this was our first big break okay they're like somebody claims to know what happened the man gave the names of two women whom he said were in a lesbian love triangle with kristen interesting interesting twist in a lesbian love triangle with Kristen.

Interesting. Interesting twist. Love a good love triangle. Love it. He went to, unless it ends in murder. Wow. Then not really. But he went into a lot of detail about the two women going so far as to say they abducted her, killed her, then dumped her body from a wooden bridge out in Marin County.

Okay. Police immediately were like, well, fuck. Okay. This is a lot of detail. We're going to search the area, but they didn't find anything. And then they found the two women that this anonymous caller had implicated and quickly learned that neither woman had anything to do with Kristen's disappearance. However, they could tell police exactly who the anonymous caller was.

They knew him because they worked with his girlfriend. They're like this guy is 36 year old john onuma who lives about a mile from the galleria when police confronted him he initially denied any knowledge of making a call he said i didn't i don't know what you're talking about okay i don't see already i see not good stop geo geo likes giving kisses apparently but too much especially when you're sweaty. Also, big day for Gio. He learned how to open doors with his face. Yeah, it took him three years.

Good job! He finally realized he could nudge a door open. Beep beep! If a door was about a foot open, he couldn't go through it. He didn't understand he could. He was even wide enough to go through that space. Yeah, he just sat there and went, aww. Literally that noise, I've practiced, until someone came and pushed the door open for him and he waltzed right in he just

thought it was a human superpower apparently yes there was a time recently which i decided it's a game over i need to change this because i get out of bed every five minutes because geo can't decide whether he wants to be in or out of the bedroom. Yes. So Gio finally forced his way into the... So this is probably a bad habit that I've instilled in him because now he knows how to get in here. Well, too late. Okay. So John Onuma, he claimed he had no idea about this call. And it wasn't.

It's like, ooh, not me. Ooh, me. Then they pressed him and he said yeah yeah that was me i called actually now that i think about it oh that call oh that missing woman right right right oh that lesbian love triangle yeah oh come on you know how to forget you know how many i'm involved with right as a man yeah ostensibly on the side somehow tangentially related to just an aerial view apparently just somehow watching inappropriately i don't know this guy seemed to not really have anything to do with these people so he claimed he had made the call as revenge against the two women okay he so the two women were like yeah we know

who the fuck this is it's this crazy person onuma onuma is like yeah i made the call as revenge against those two women he told police he had falsely implicated them as Kristen's killer because he believed they were conspiring to get his girlfriend fired from her job at the YMCA. Okay. I can pretty much tell you that wasn't happening. Wowza. What a great excuse that was. I already don't believe him.

Listen, they're trying to get my girlfriend fired from ymca because what else was i to do right truly these two lesbians i must frame them for murder they they should go to jail anyway they should i mean how dare they how dare they at the why no one messes with the why at our why in this economy so her name was Jill Lampo, and he said, these two women were trying to get my girlfriend fired from her job at the YMCA. That's why I called the news and told them that they had killed Kristen. But police noticed something interesting when they were looking into him. Let's hear it.

She didn't work at the Y to begin with. Well, Onuma, they looked into him. They found out he had a habit of putting out personal ads in both the paper and online chat rooms in an attempt to coerce women into having sex with him well he sounds like the guy to do that sounds like a fucking winner and a half in 1999 onuma was featured in an episode of america's most wanted the show had found three women wait so let me figure out what year this had happened. Right. So this had happened in 97. Now fast forward two years. Onuma is featured in an

episode of America's Most Wanted because the show had found three women who claim they were held against their will and tortured by John Onuma. Oh no. The alleged torture supposedly included sleep deprivation and being regularly burned oh my god one woman named debbie claimed she was victimized by onuma months after kristin's disappearance great apparently he hit her over the head and said you know i'm gonna have to kill you i can't let you go now you know what happened to kristin moda fairy but end scene and scene that was the most by perfect information someone would need and the fact that this guy inserted himself into the crime to begin with also telling hello like fresh what

like it just happens coincidence i don't think so what i don't think i ever thought i would say that coincidence i don't think so me thinks now oh that what you're right that would have been worse i'll say that next time um what's more when police searched onima's apartment they found quote sizable amounts of blood sounds right but through dna testing the blood was found to be that of a cat well that doesn't make it better doesn't make it worse it still makes it it's actually really bad yeah it doesn't. Yeah.

It becomes its own tangential problem that I'm equally upset about. It's a fully separate issue. Don't kill anything. Let's be clear. Okay. Don't fucking. Any blood is bad blood. Yeah.

Yeah. You know that Taylor Swift song. Yeah. I heard it. You get it. So despite all this. It's terrible. It's terrible. I remember hoping Eva was in the sound somewhere like in

the like earmuffing herself bathroom like not hearing this when we did it humming a tune yeah just humming to herself um so despite all of this weirdness there was nothing they could do to hold onuma it's all um are you okay did you black out yeah Yeah. Where am I? Oh my. We were talking about Eva humming about how much she loves cats and not a single cat's ever been hurt. My eyes just like glazed the fuck over. It is 945 at night. We have not recorded like this in a long time.

Bellyful Indian food. You're just ready to hit the hay, man. What the frick is the word I'm trying to think of? I have no idea. It's not evidence that can be used. What is wrong with me? Come on. It's not circumstantial.

Sorry. OK, I'm so sorry, guys. I'm not stupid. I mean, maybe I am, but it's all circumstantial stuff. So there's a lot of weirdness happening, but there's nothing like, oh, her blood was in your apartment. Right. We found her phone number. There's nothing firm and in stone. Right. So it's all lot of weirdness happening, but there's nothing like, oh, her blood was in your apartment. Right, right, right. Or, oh, we found her phone number. There's nothing firm and in stone.

Right. So it's all circumstantial or long blank stare, if you're me trying to say words. Uh-huh. So there was nothing they could do to hold him. He ended up moving from his home state of Hawaii not long after. I'm sorry, moving back to his home state of Hawaii not long after i'm sorry moving back to his home state of hawaii not long after he was ultimately dismissed from the fbi's person of interest list although to this day the oakland pd still considers him a person of interest so the fbi took him off but oakland's like we keep tabs on the tabs on you so for many years police and the moda fairy family were just like didn't have anything

they had nothing to go on which is just awful horrifying um though the family came back to san francisco six times to search for her and every time so sad it's tragic and every time they went home empty-handed it's terrible in recent years and there's been a renewed focus on the case especially the house kristin lived in at the time of her disappearance so a forensic investigator offered her offered his services for free to the moda Ferries, brought a cadaver dog who had a, quote, world-class reputation. Aw, good boy. No. Or girl.

I don't know. Or they. They. Who had a world-class reputation for finding the remains of missing American World War II soldiers. Wow. Salute to that dog. I really, like, that one gets me every time. So the dog would find missing soldiers so that they could be reburied with dignity and their name and their families could be notified.

I mean, it's just dogs. We don't we don't deserve dogs go to heaven. We don't deserve them. Yeah, 100 percent. Scary movie, by the way. Yes. That movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. My first introduction to the afterlife, I think.

Yeah. yes that movie scared the shit out of me when i was a kid my first introduction to the afterlife i think yeah well i'm not mine because i was in catholic school but went hand in hand with all the depth i feel like demonic stuff i was learning all dogs go to heaven was a step worse that i just thought all dogs don't die and then all of a sudden it's like oh no they don't know they do right they go to heaven but they die oh wait and also that means we die. So hold on. I'm three. Right. Right. And also you'll never see your dog again because you probably won't get into heaven knowing the rap sheet you're going to create in this life. And also Miss Yukata told me that Jesus would bring me there and I don't see him anywhere

on this cartoon. So I'm really stressed out. It was an existential crisis of the times. Wow. I'm sweating a lot right now. Okay. Yeah. So this dog is just a beautiful soul the dog when searching the house that kristen had lived in back in the day alerted

to the presence of human remains in the home's basement all right according to one investigator and one forensic anthropologist further tests confirmed that human decomp was present in the area so this was a private search rather than being done through the police so oakland pd said they needed to do their own tests in order to add the evidence to the official investigation makes some sense but that was three years ago um as of this live show which was in march april i don't know uh so the that was three years ago and since then virtually no progress has been made so police have not made any moves like austin's we've made no moves toward doing their own testing even though this private test indicated there was

human decomp by a forensic anthropologist and oakland pd said sure we'll check on it have not done that um so let's get into some theories and of course counter arguments to all this so some people believe kristen's roommates weren't looked into closely enough remember she lived with um four men and like there isn't really much information about them whatsoever um at the time they really didn't do anything to spark police interest, so they weren't really considered persons of interest. Also, if it is Kristen's body buried under the house, why would bloodhounds have picked up her scent at the beach?

Sure. Which is kind of a weird... It's like, it's good evidence that throws off other good evidence. Exactly. So there's kind of like things that don't add up. It was later revealed, actually, that Kristen had been to a summer solstice party at that beach two days before her disappearance. So what could have happened is that the bloodhounds

picked up on, like, remaining scent from two days... Well, yeah. So she had been there two days before her disappearance. So they could have picked up on that scent of her previous trip. Got it. And could not have even gone on the bus that day. Another theory is that Kristen did go to the the beach as planned but died in a tragic accident possibly slipping on a rock and falling into the water the area is apparently extremely dangerous

during high tide rocks are extremely slippery if she had fallen and drowned under the right circumstances it's entirely possible her body would never have been recovered. So freak tragic accident. Sure. Which is possible. Yeah, totally possible. One more fact that isn't discussed as broadly and is only recently coming to light is that the house on Jane Avenue where Kristen lived and where the human remains were since discovered was adjacent to a halfway house for convicted felons. discovered, was adjacent to a halfway house for convicted felons, many of whom had been convicted of extremely violent offenses and many of whom were notorious for violating their parole.

Got it. And this allegedly wasn't disclosed to the residents on the street, even though it was supposed to, and could have proved an interesting lead maybe if they had moved forward with testing the remains near the house. Right. I think that might be an interesting lead to follow up on in the year 2000 a law called kristen's act was introduced that aimed to provide assistance to law enforcement and families in missing persons cases of those over the age of 17 because a lot of times if they're older than that

police say you know well they're an adult right, they could have just gone camping for a week and not told you. They could be out on a, you know, a binge somewhere. Right, right, right. They could be running away, whatever it may be. But so this law provided assistance for those missing over the age of 17. Oh, wow. Unfortunately, the center's federal funding ran out in 2005 when the law expired. But with the help of volunteer efforts efforts it has continued to this day so

now i know so now it's run entirely by uh by volunteer donations so that's kind of a cool thing if you're up in that area to look into so i wrote this line in here let's hope it's true quote i want to end on somewhat of a bright spot in all this which seems like maybe it's possible christine yeah good for me what did i write summer after freshman year right right who the hell knows wait watchers what the fuck am i talking about um okay and that's the story of dennis may mayhan man man who's a friend of the moda fairy family so when kristin first disappeared he felt compelled to help the moda fairies because they were just in like tragic mourning and had no answers so he joined

the search for kristin he figured he'd be gone for a few weeks uh helping assist the family in the search before heading back to charlotte what he didn't realize is that 20 years later he would still be working on the case with permission from the family dennis has become the moda fairy's own sort of private investigator he's spent more than a third of his life investigating her disappearance. He's followed every possible lead, every possible angle. And to this day, he is still hoping and believes that he'll find answers.

Oh, wow. Uh, he and the Moda fairy family run a website called find Kristen.com. So if anyone has any information pertaining to Kristen's disappearance, uh, their urge to visit the website and submit a tip, you can also see her photo and,

um, see what she might look like. And that is the story of the disappearance of Kristen Moda Ferry. Wow. That is a wild one. That is a trip. I know. Let's hope something comes up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Food coma. I think we are in a food coma. Thanks for listening, guys. It's such a shame she never found out. I guess my best bet would be that she just slipped on the rocks i think that because i i remember i went through like a thread as you like to call it rabbit hole and i remember a lot of people actually in a lot of these cases um when people go missing there are always those people who are like hey you know it's fun

to go through all the theory or not fun but it's like you know compelling and human nature to go through all the possible suspects and theories and twists and turns but a lot of times um you know the simplest explanation could just be the answer which is they injured themselves on a hike or whatever it may be like the story of the girls uh who went missing in uh panama back in the day that one um or here you know right it could just be like an accident right and people exactly and people have commented on this saying like i live in that area you don't go there during high tide it's extremely dangerous people have fallen and died there you know so if she was going to

the beach to just explore or with a friend who knows what and felt like her body could have just vanished and no one would have known which is just also so tragic because it's like her family will then never never get closer get an answer wow yeah so well on that happy note i know i know i just like to think like since 50 years ago dna wasn't even a thought maybe in 50 years there'll be something that um we don't know exists now that maybe we'll find some answers i don't know yeah for sure at least we can hope anyway yeah so that's my story and you're currently in austria yes yeah or i think it's going back tomorrow how do you think it's going um i think i'm tired um okay good i think the party was last night the one that i'm uh the wedding second wedding um no i'm

i think it'll be fun i'm really excited i'm gonna see a lot of family that i haven't seen in probably 10 years or more um blaze has never been to germany or, so he's going to see quite a different side of the world and see quite a different side of my family. Yep. And Gio is scratching his ear. I'm extremely anxious about leaving the dogs and cat behind, but take it one thing at a time. Woohoo! Yeah, but I think it'll be fun. I'll miss you, though.

Well, I want pictures of that austrian castle property meaning to look up oh god i keep meaning to look up the uh the information like the history on that because i know i kind of guessed when it was built i don't have very excited i should look it up very excited i'll tell you upon my return also oh my god i have been meaning to tell you this for a while let me let you out real quick this is like a side note uh can you hang in there for a second instead of uh letting him out christine's just feeding him bread to shut him up for five minutes it works uh it works on me it works on him um uh so i was talking with my mom recently and she just went to germany to stay with my grandma and we're staying there too in this like crazy giant house like filled with stuff from the last 100 years it's just like a really out in the middle of nowhere

bavaria i've seen your childhood home i can't imagine what your bavarian home looks like oh it's that but like add stories and rooms great and they had like eight kids and it's just like the creepiest i don't even know how to explain it to you um so i'll just send you pictures i'll show you pictures i've never been where i could like the last time i went was like six years ago so i didn't really get a chance to bananas go crazy with photos i will take photos but my mom was there recently and she's like oh yeah oma um you know she's visited every night by her brother and um all this stuff and i was like sorry what and my mom's just like texting me all this i'm like sorry what do you mean and then she goes and i was like oh okay is she all

right thinking like she's getting older she lives alone i'm like she still lives alone right what's going on and my mom's like oh yeah yeah she's very happy about it that they come and visit her now now that she's older and she knows you know she'll be with them in a few years and i was like what what and she goes she's a little upset because her dad stopped visiting her after like decades and uh he's finally passed and he came and said goodbye and i was like what the fuck is going on and then she i was like oh okay that's scary or that's scary i was like okay that's pretty wild or something and she goes listen all i can say is i couldn't sleep i heard footsteps all night every night i was there just up and down the stairs and

i was like mom oh my god my grandma can't go up the stairs so like i don't know what the hell is going on but oh my god i am a little bit nervous about that all right well if you need to bring the emf detector by all means oh god i think i should hide that somewhere far away if you need to bring your wine bra and get back into drinking for a day. That is a better solution. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, it's going to be weird.

My grandma is apparently very thoroughly convinced or is talking to her relatives that have passed. Oh, the one she's close with. And pretty cool, though. Very just like happy and confident about it. As long as they're Casper friendly. Oh, yeah. She has a Furby that she talks to. Perfect.

That I left because I was so traumatized by it that she adopted it when I visited when I was a child. And still talks to it. Still talks back. She sounds like an interesting character. Apparently, recently, she kept hearing noises outside. And, like, she lives alone. And so she kept hearing noises in the dark outside. And would go out with a knife to like see what it was and i'm like grandma what are you doing

like almost stopped and then apparently she jumped out one night she heard it and she jumped out and it was one of her like far away farm neighbors stealing her fucking potatoes this sounds like i'm not even a little bit surprised this person's related to renata wait actually i know right i'm like god damn it this is my mom well this happened well okay whatever but it wasn't her potatoes i'm sorry this time i think that happened before this time it was her gravel oh my god the guy was coming apparently like every couple weeks and he's a young guy so he was fucking taking advantage of my grandmother fuck you living alone he would take small amounts of gravel over time and then steal it and like use it as his at his house to like what the fuck his driveway and shit so he didn't have to buy it what was he

thinking was gonna happen when one day she didn't have any gravel and he had all the gravel fucking dumbass dumbass yeah so my grandma jumped out with a fucking knife all right well let's make a kickstarter for your grandma's gravel fund and like maybe a home security system and maybe more than a knife maybe like two knives and just an extra butcher knife extra furby maybe to keep her company if you leave a furby on the front porch i promise no one's gonna come near that oh for god's sake okay anyway that's my tangent but i'll tell you more about it when i get back next week all right well thanks for listening thank you guys and that's why drink and eat more indian food bye