And That's Why We Drink - E137 Satan's Little Helper and the Year of the Microwave

Episode Date: September 15, 2019

We're asking the hard hitting questions this week: which came first the Pukwudgie or the hauntings? Em follows up on their Bridgewater Triangle story with a deep dive into the history of the Pukwudgie. Then Christine covers the horrifying 2017 abduction of Elizabeth Thomas. We're also considering re-taking our SATs - what do you think we'll get? And that's why we drink!Please consider supporting the companies that support us!Get $10 off your first FabFitFun box at fabfitfun.com when you use code DRINKGo to thirdlove.com/DRINK now to find your perfect-fitting bra… and get 15% off your first purchase!Go to CandidCo.com/DRINK and use code DRINK to get $75 off!To match with your perfect therapist for a fraction of the price of traditional therapy, go to Talkspace.com and use code DRINK to get $65 off your first month!

Greetings! What's up? How you doing? Good! We're on one ep- one ep- we're not there. Sorry. What was that? I don't know. We're having a lot of struggle speaking today i don't know what's going

on i think did mercury hit retrograde again there's a website that will tell you we need to just make that i think it's called is mercury and retrograde.com i'm pretty sure i think we need to make that like our home page so we just always know immediately and that's why i drink we'll just redirect to that page and that's why we drink.com is mercury retrograde.com this is bringing you to an external source something has really been going on though i am not in my right mind today and you certainly aren't either i and then combined we're just a mess i had remicade this like on the way here so i showed up all frazzled and like with bandages on my arm and i was like are you okay and i was like yeah

i'm great i'm great i just have a bunch of mouse proteins inside of my body. Yeah, Em didn't like that fun fact. Did you know that Remicade is injecting mouse proteins into her for several hours? I really thought I would have told you that fun fact by now. I think you were trying to save me. I'm amazed that I haven't told you. I can't entirely wrap my head around it. Yeah, it's pretty foul. You're like part Mickey Mouse now.

I know. I feel like I'm kind of a lab rat sort of. Well, literally. I think literal lab rats are inside of you. Well, yeah. R.I.P. That's just so disgusting. Yeah, it's kind of sad.

Anyway, guys, welcome to our show. If you're new, I'm sorry for that. Yeah. Just walk the other way. How have you been? We weren't with you last week. We told you about our haunting for a hot minute. But since then, what's been going on? I've been in Atlanta, having a good time there.

Just got back. What have you been doing? You know, living my best life. Oh, before I forget, I recorded on Adam Ferrara's podcast yesterday. He's like this like comedian, actor. Do you know him? No, I didn't even know you recorded with someone. I'm jealous. Top Gear US. What's the matter with you? He has Top Gear US. I bet he was really fun to record with. He was. Is he a better co-host than me? Oh my god. Yeah, we're actually starting. Oh, awkward. That's why I wanted our website to redirect, so I didn't want you to find out. Our About Us page

is now just me and Adam Farrar. Right, right right right right uh yeah so we had fun that episode's not out yet but i'm really excited for it do you know when it comes out not yet no he's gonna text me and let me know just text you have his number now great did you just delete my number so his would fit in yeah i made it met his dog kona it's a whole thing did you really yeah she was damn it christine she didn't like me very much i just don't even feel like i even matter to you anymore no it was mad he can sense my stress right now they had a lot of questions for you about ghosts so i'll uh inform you about those later i'll get back to them if i feel like it um i did want to say jesus christ you he's that mad

look we we talk about you often thanks i mean are you just trying to make me jealous now no i'm just saying your dog loves me more okay Oh, okay. Anyway, sorry. Right, so I did want to also add that, like, I know this is so old news now, and, like, people are like, why are you even bringing this up again? But that episode where we talked about, like, gun violence and all that, I just wanted to, like, we never got a chance to, like, I never got a chance to kind of do a little quick catch-up. That was, like, quite a time a chance to kind of do a little quick catch up. That was like quite a

time for a couple weeks there. We got some good, a lot of good, mostly good feedback than some very much not so good feedback. I wanted to thank Claire, a listener, and Claire made a contribution to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence in my name, which like made me cry

in my bed, which was like the most touching thing and it was so nice um and then we got a message from hannah who was actually present during the dayton shooting and was hiding and like a witness to it and she kind of talked about survivor's guilt and trauma and stuff in her email i just got a lot of like very touching and heartwarming messages and then um obviously you know i'm not good at criticism or feedback, you know, backlash. Oh, we got some pretty vitriolic messages. iTunes reviews.

Whatever. If you have a problem with everything we said. Well, a lot of them called me unintelligent and uneducated. And I was like, say that to me in German or like, you know, go get a master's degree and talk to me. Like that doesn't hurt my feelings because like it's not true. It's just mean. Well, also, my take on it is if you don't like what we're saying, like, this is 140 episodes in. Why are you listening?

Yeah, and when people say, why did you make it political? I'm like, I didn't make it political. We're kind of in a space in time where if things aren't political. And we're talking about crime. And it's not political. I don't consider that political. I think just stop shooting people is bad. Sorry.

Anyway, that's my statement for the day. It's very intelligent. And I'm sure all the people who called me uneducated think that I'm very smart now. Whatever. I bet they are listening to us now. But I do want to make maybe a selfish request that we did get a lot of one-star reviews that were like oh i don't listen to this anymore because of that whole thing so if you guys have a minute and you haven't left a review would mean a lot if you wrote just a nice you know a little blurb or you know read a little five-star review to kind of counteract sure yeah but only if you have the time no pressure

that's all that's all i had to say i just wanted to because i meant to thank claire a while ago yeah and hannah but then um we had there was the episode where you found ancestry.com i went to my grandma it was such a long episode it's like a half hour intro and i was like we can't keep going for this i feel bad about when christina and i spend too much time away from each other it's it creates really long tangents on the show it's loud because it goes like exponentially it's like it's not just like one or two things happen it's like suddenly those branch off into multiple more conversations it really is hard to have a best friend who you cannot speak to face to face when like once a week we get to say everything we want into the

microphone and then eva uses her judgment to pick what stays but every time something really life-changing happens i'll text christine being like something awesome happened i'll tell you when we record in three days but remember to ask me and i'm like wait this is such a weird way to go about this or like eva will know first and then it's kind of like a horrible feeling like oh they know something cool and i'm not allowed to know for another week i know that one's that one's her head it must be full of secrets because i've told her things that i haven't told you trash is what it must be full of even knows a lot told her things that I haven't told you. Her head must be full of our trash is what it must be full of. Eva knows a lot of things coming.

Oh, what the hell does that mean? It's for you to worry about. Yeah, I will. Thank you for adding to my plate of worry. No, lots of good things. But I've said things to her and I'm like, you cannot tell Christine and her poor little head's going to break. The best part is she never does.

I don't know how she does it perfectly every time. And then it makes me mad at her. But then I'm like, well, you're so good at keeping secrets. I'm just mad that she has talents in ways that i couldn't even imagine couldn't even dream of eva you're hired eva thank you for being there um what have you been doing oh you got your remicade you got your mouse proteins got my mouse proteins how are you what are you you know what what are you doing what am i doing i'm just sitting here just chilling super i was on a plane for seven hours yesterday that sucked that's terrible especially because most of it was on the ground

yes yes that's not good um any updates about michael the ghost oh i wanted to add i got a tattoo too oh okay well sure sorry even i got a tattoo in new orleans and i wanted to wait to post about it um because it was looking pretty gnarly for a minute there. But it's kind of healing up now, finally. And we're going to post it on Instagram this weekend. But I wanted to say, what did I want to say? I have no idea. Okay, I'm going to post on Instagram this weekend.

But it is, I'm going to reveal it now. Everyone's like, oh, is it a lemon? Ha ha ha. And I'm like, I kind of wish I had done that done that that would have been i'm so glad you did it would have been a much better reveal for our listeners but um it's actually a tulip because it's my mom's favorite flower and every time i'm in new orleans i think about her and i texted her that and she's like oh well did you know new orleans is where i found out i was pregnant with you and i was like oh what that's so cool I was like I did

not know that and she was like yeah it was the best trip of my life like I was down there and I found out I was pregnant with my first kid and I got I was so happy the whole time like eating beignets and I was like that makes me imagine being pregnant and just having beignets being in the best food in the world right so she was just like said that and I thought oh my god no wonder I always think about you when I'm here and um that's so weird from the womb she's like that's where i met you and i was like oh stop it that's so sweet so she said she wants to get a matching one with me no way home for christmas but she wants to get the same one you got yeah that's so cute i'm happy about it anyway that's very precious i'm excited i'm gonna post it i one of our new sponsors called

ore i think it's called and i ordered an anklet from them so i want to post it with my cute anklet you are just something else in my robbies i can't stand you okay anyway on your burrow couch or on your casper mattress i'm confused oh maybe half and half do a little halfsies i could do a little slideshow then i'll come to your house sit on your please don't whatever i don't even want you there what was the thing called the sorry the other furniture oh article on my article couch i always get that in a way suitcase i'll do one in the suitcase and one on your article furniture it'll be super good we'll do photo shoot i can't not stand you please don't come to my home. You're right.

I won't. That's all I got. I know. I guess we just tell ghosty stuff now, huh? I guess we tell ghosty stuff. Sure. Except there's no ghost. No ghost.

So yeah, because this is a continuation from two weeks ago. Well, I'm still kind of convinced Michael probably followed us, even though I told him not to. So he might be here to listen. I have thought a few times that I felt like I was being watched in my apartment. But i'm like also walt's here so who knows oh i don't have a reason so far so i'm kind of scared oh good i was home alone last night like home alone alone like even rj wasn't there and uh i felt eyes on me and i did not like it i don't enjoy that i could have also been because i was alone i'm never alone in my apartment well that'll do it too i get scared anytime i'm in the dark and or alone all right well so i covered two weeks

ago um the bridgewater triangle oh right which was bananagrams and it was such a long story did people flip out people were i mean anyone who flipped out no one told me that they flipped out i've only seen good things. Oh, no, I mean in a good way. Oh, yeah. People seem to really like the story. People were pissed. They were like overturning tables.

No one said anything mean. Not the triangle. But I am aware that I definitely talked a lot in that last one. So I'm giving myself a little break and giving myself a shorter story. You're giving me a fucking break. Oh, my God. Just kidding. I love your long stories.

You know that. I love being stuck listening to you for Just kidding. I love your long stories. You know that. I love being stuck listening to you for two hours. I do. I know. Because I just fucking interrupt you every five seconds. And that's what I love about you. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I love that neither of us can ever finish one sentence. Look, see?

Uh, okay, so. They love our banter. They do. They do. That's what we're here for god don't check the itunes reviews later some of them are not nice i literally have not checked someone complained about the elevator music i was like we use that maybe what people are gonna find something every 10 i guarantee you if you look hard enough through all those reviews you're gonna find like 500 or just about the whale sounds there's this horrible sound there's a horrible sound episode 60 i could never listen to another one dear god all right so uh okay so and the last thing i mentioned with the bridge bar triangle which was

so i don't even know how to give a synopsis of that place it was bananas crazy and if you haven't listened to that and you're about to listen to this go listen to that one first because it's super juicy and this is gonna make more sense so um the only way i can describe it is it's this region in massachusetts um that currently is the shape of a triangle although it's kind of expanding into probably a rhombus rhombus and parallelogram into whatever your heart desires really lots of shapes and and for the last 30 episodes, we've known what shapes are, yeah. Some, some. Some of them, not all of them. Four shapes.

But so, it happens to be this one region that's an incredible hotspot for paranormal stuff, whether it's UFOs or spirits or cryptids or even it's, you know, a lot of cult sacrifices have been there. A lot of crime has been there. It happens like curses and stuff like yeah and it's literally on cursed ground spooky so um it's just a delight it's a delight as someone who is reporting on paranormal activity that was a gift to me it was a gift to me too i was enthralled so one of the last things that i hinted at but left on a uh on a cliffhanger for you is that um one of the main cryptids that seem to come from that area is this weird little creature called the puck wedgie oh yes and then christine

was like what's the puck wedgie and i was like i'll tell you later i'll tell you but you gotta wait so now here's the puck wedgie oh hell yeah so apparently it has been featured on shows such as paranormal state and monsters and mysteries in america it's also been in many books include the first time it was actually mentioned in a book was in 1855 by henry wadsworth longfellow oh that guy i know him in an epic poem called the song of hiawatha sure i'm sure i'm saying that wrong. I think it sounds right. So this is just a little excerpt. I just wanted you to... I just wanted to read it.

You're going to read Longfellow to me? You're going to orate? Listen, I'm going to read poetry to you. Like a true gentleman. Finally, I've been waiting. Listen, this is romance at its finest. It's taken two years. Okay.

1855. Oh, good start. This is very romantic. Shut up. I'm just setting the scene. My are closed i'm waiting she was making noises far and wide among the nations spread the name and fame of quassand uh which was a apparently a giant at the time okay oh speaking of giants my giant favorite puppy dog do i hear him yes i hear him every second of my life okay so quassand is apparently um a giant in native tribe folklore okay cool um or it he's

he is a giant that happens to be named quassand i don't know if that's like the type of giant or his actual name um far and wide among the nation spread the name and fame of quasson no man dared to strive with quasson no man could compete with quasson but the mischievous puck wedgies they the envious little people and i will get that gets that in a second uh they the fairies and the pygmies plotted and conspired against him. Ooh. And so it's... Drama. Listen, since the conception on print... You know Longfellow loved a good bit of drama. Love a good fairy drama, yes.

So they were mentioned again in 1934 in a book called The Narrow Land, Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod. And in that book included a bunch of native legends, specifically told by the chief of the Wampanoag tribe, which was the tribe that I talked about in Bridgewater, or on the Bridgewater Triangle. And so they happen to be mentioned in a bunch of Wampanoag legends. Cool.

So they were mentioned there too. They were also mentioned in a book called Dark Woods, Cults, Crime, and the Paranormal in the Freetown State Forest, which was mentioned in Bridgewater. Sure. And that book was written by Christopher Balzano, who is actually one of the guys in the documentary I talked about in the last episode, who is telling his own story. So one of the guys in the Bridgewater Triangle documentary also wrote a book including the Pukwudgies. Got it. a book including the puck wedgies got it um the puck wedgie apparently was also popularized in a 1980s children's book which i now need called the good giants and the bad puck wedgies oh no

so if i find that i'm gonna be buying it oh and i also left off uh at the last episode that the town had recently actually put out crossing signs near uh roads by the forest and by the triangle. Yeah. Saying, like, instead of, like, deer crossing, it was Pukwudgie crossing. I think you had said that. Yeah. Oh, I thought you said you forgot to say that. No, no, no.

I said it in the last one at the very, very end. Oh, I love that, by the way. I want that sign is what I want for my door. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would, too. Like, back in the day. I wonder what the drawing of it is. I bet it's very adorable.

It does sound like a cute little name, right? Yes. He sounds precious. So the signs that I mentioned, apparently it was kind of like a, not a hoax because the town is known to like, they're all very aware of the Pukwudgies. So it was kind of, it's just like a happy little, I don't want to call it a prank, but it was a nod to the fact that they're recognizing Pukwudgies. Got it.

So they posted them during Pukwudgie mating season, which, quote, they don't actually know what that is. So the town just saw like, oh, it'd be funny if we just put up a crossing sign of Pukwudgies, but we'll only post it during mating season. And mating season, as far as we're concerned, it begins and ends on April Fool's Day. So it ended up being like ends on April Fool's Day. Oh, my God. It ended up being like a little April Fool's prank. But I don't know if they actually took the signs down.

I think it started as a prank and then just as an honor, they kept it up. I wonder if it has like a Pukwudgie with a little baby Pukwudgie. Oh, that'd be so sweet. Like Duckling Crossing. Stop it. Make way for Pukwudgies. For little Pukpuks. Okay, so that being said even

though it was supposed to be a prank there have been many sightings that have been reported there before they ever put the signs up um and if they were to be a real creature um that motor drivers i was gonna say motors you know you know motor motor vehicle operators um we have driver's licenses and uh apparently m probably shouldn't, but I don't know how I've made it this far. If they were real, they do actually present an actual danger to drivers on the road, especially because they have been seen, like, obviously, if they're crossing the road, like anything, that's a danger as a driver. But they have been seen on this road in many instances, including the fact that if you were to ever be parked there for a reason, maybe it's calling somebody really quick or doing something on your GPS or fixing a flat tire.

There have been many reports on the road where the signs are now that they will turn around and in their mirror, they will see a creature walking up to their car late at night. And they could potentially be a very dangerous creature if they are real. Right. Which I will get into why they're potentially very dangerous. So their primary territory is the Bridgewater Triangle. They're most seen there, especially in the Freetown State Forest, which is kind of in the bottom right part of the triangle. That's where most of the activity is. As well as the area in the Bridgewater Triangle called the Ledge, which I talked about last

time, which is basically a quarry cliff where everyone happens to go there just to get a view of the area and they all have this overwhelming fear to jump. Oh, God. Yeah, we did talk. That's disturbing so last time i kind of hinted that maybe it was because it was of a ghostly nature that maybe there's a spirit out there that's causing this but it could also be a puck wedgie thing because one of their uh one of their powers or abilities is that they are known to lure people to cliffs and they are known to then push them oh oh god

so it could be a ghost thing it could be a cryptid thing yeah about why all these people are mysteriously jumping because people don't go there to jump they just get up there and all of a sudden cannot stop themselves the creepiest thing you said was like there were abandoned cars because people would just drive up for a look and then, like, jump. Yep. That's horrifying. So, just to give a quick description of these little Pukwudgies, so you know what you're thinking about when you're trying to visualize it. I'm really curious, actually. They are magical creatures considered to be spirits of the forest.

They are tricksters, and sometimes they are compared to trolls and goblins, but they are the oldest mythical creatures in North America. Fun fact. Here, the physical description. They are small and pot-bellied, troll-like humans with dog-like noses that are two to three feet tall, gray skin, large fingers, big eyes, and wiry black hair that sometimes glows. Oh.

They apparently have a weirdly sweet floral scent, and they are found in the woods and swamps surrounded in paranormal activity. So when I say that, I mean they're found in woods and swamps that all seemingly are nearby some mischief or paranormal activity. Got it. They seem to always kind of, wherever go mischief follows it seems these things are so weird that means then that the bridgewater triangle if pukwudgies are real then they might actually be conjuring the paranormal activity that's been happening in the triangle okay so

it's not just like oh there's ghosts here oh there's aliens here oh and there happen to be pukwudgies it might be pukwudgies are the oldest mythical creature in north america and they all live here so they might have somehow conjured all this their land yeah they might have turned it into their own little supernatural world the puck wedgie or the i mean that's the hauntings that's a question we'll never know the answer to we've been asking for centuries get that on a shirt chicken or the egg puck wedgie or the ghost who knows um so for example this uh the bridgewater triangle i mean obviously is a massive hotspot for paranormal activity and that's where they happen to reside they're also seen a lot in fall river which happens to be like where the lizzie borden house was so even if it's not supernatural everywhere that there has been a sighting there's been some sort of event that's

happened weird it's near the lizzie borden so they've been seen near the lizzie borden house so weird weirdly enough they've also also been seen a lot in the mound state area of indiana okay which happens to have a massive penitentiary on it so they might be causing mischief in the area around people to jail either they're sending people to jail or they're feeding off the energy of people who've already created mischief i see i don't know creating more i don't know um and then also round rock texas which happens to be allegedly where the most uh the densest population of bigfoot lives really it's not up in like washington or anything apparently round rock texas that's surprising that's at least where they hold the bigfoot festival called like Hairy Festival or something, which is kind of wild.

Let's go. So they've been seen in all these little areas where there's just some sort of report or some sort of event that's happened that everyone knows about. Got it. Or there's condensed amount of activity that they can feed off of, like a penitentiary. They potentially influence the supernatural and mischief that surrounds their habitats like i just said and they are known um there's a based on what tribe or what region or what area you're talking to um they have pretty different personality traits but the one thing everyone can agree on is that they're very

mischievous but like i said their threat level varies from region to region. So sometimes they're mischievous but helpful. Sometimes they're mischievous and violent. Oh, well, that's less fun. Not really a fun fact. But settlers, when they first came into the area, which I talked about in the last episode, too, during, I think, Philip's War, during King Philip's War, a lot of settlers came in and they were hearing all these stories about Pukwudgies from the natives in the area, and they brought

Christianity with them. And so some of the natives were being converted. Fun. Yeah. I don't know if that was necessarily by choice, but they were hearing about Christianity. So their belief systems, both people living in an area where the phrase Pukwudgie was coming up. Somehow their beliefs kind of molded together to redefine what a Pukwudgie is. And so after the settlers came in, they started being considered little demons. And they were given the nickname by the settlers of Satan's Little Helpers. Oh, it's like just like Santa's. It's spelled almost the same way. Satan and Santa are spelled with the same letters. Oh. So. It's like, just like Santa's. It's spelled almost the same way.

Satan and Santa are spelled with the same letters. Think about that. Oh, my mom has these blocks that say Santa, and I change them to Satan every year. You're a monster. She doesn't notice for days, and then she gets so angry. But it's so funny. I think it's hilarious. So because the settlers kind of changed the perception. We will never know if they were originally really friendly slash mischievous or if they've always been really violent and mischievous.

Got it. Because when the settlers came in, it just kind of got morphed into this idea of Pukwudgies are evil. Got it. And it just perpetuated the stigma of them being violent. And we don't know if that actually was true or not. Sure. So it's suggested, it probably because this their new stereotype is that they're probably violent it's suggested that if you see one it's best to walk

away to avoid them from interacting with you which i'll talk about in a little bit but here are their alleged powers if you will i don't know what else to call them so uh pukwudgies can become invisible at will so they can appear then disappear um they can shoot poison arrows oh god they can transform into a walking porcupine which i don't understand i didn't find any explanation for that it doesn't need one um it can control what is apparently called taipei wankas which are souls of those that they have killed. Oh, no. They can also shapeshift into dangerous animals, i.e. walking porcupine.

Apparently, that's like their main shapeshifting creature. Okay. Who's half human, half porcupine. But they can also shapeshift into dangerous animals like cougars or something. And they also are known to confuse and lure people into the woods potentially to kill them i mean the worst is that they can kill people and then they control their soul so it's not even like they get it's like you can't escape it's like once a puck which is decided oh my god that it wants you like even your spirit isn't safe that's so messed up and

keep in mind that is a combination of several different regions' abilities. Got it. So only a chunk of those is correct in a certain area. Got it, got it. So not all of them can take your soul away and confuse and lure you into the woods and kill you and collect your soul. Some are just porcupines. Sometimes they're just poison arrow shooting porcupines. They can also apparently create fire at will. Oh. um they can also apparently create fire at will oh which fun fact the freetown fire department and state forest fire control have literally created countermeasures no and put them in place

in case a puck waji fire ever just shows up what um what was i gonna say oh when i said shape shifting into dangerous animals that is interesting because in the episode that i did on the bridgewater triangle there are several reports of really weird animals like exotic animals that's right that should not be in the area and people report seeing them i forgot about that and so the that could potentially be an explanation for why like a cougar in an ocelot or something like why they were all just hanging out and like there was like there's some weird ones i don't remember though we'll get to it okay great several people have been assaulted by these creatures one person even got a mysterious illness after seeing one which is pretty terrifying

in a world where they're just really harmless and just like playing pranks they like to scare people they like to throw rocks they like to throw sand at you they like to push you but then sometimes they like to attack you and even steal your children oh well i was about to say they sound like mean toddlers but that added a whole new level they like to kidnap children apparently that's oh so that's just fun and mischievous that's not aggressive or violent i think their definition of mischief mischievous is different than mine yeah maybe a tiny bit if they like you they might like you too much and they might follow you home and stalk you wait what like they won't bother you in any other

way except never leaving you alone follow you everywhere yeah what in the world uh more recently this is probably not true but it has just i guess through the game of telephone it's just the rumors have gotten pretty wild allegedly in recent years it's been suggested that they also have the ability to possess people i imagine that information comes from hearing like oh they can control spirits or they lure you away so they must be possessing you to walk you away so i'm sure it's just kind of stretched into that sure if you see one there is a chance that it is trying. Oh, if you see only one by itself, there's a chance it's trying to lure you closer because

allegedly Pukwudgies are pack creatures. So if you only see one, it is to make you feel like you can approach it. And while it's luring you closer, all the other ones hiding nearby can attack once you're close enough. Oh, my God. That's horrifying. Some stories apparently suggest that to appease them and show respect, if you leave little gifts for them, they'll leave you alone. Oh, okay. What do they like?

So you can throw all of that into the forest. I'm frightened now. Do we know or no? Nope. Oh, great. That's helpful. Thank you. I'm frightened now. Do we know or no? Nope. Oh, great. That's helpful. Thank you. I have no idea.

And like I said, all of this varies based on where and who you're talking to. They could totally just be magical pranksters. They could also be little murderers, apparently. Oh, God. Wow. So this is the story of how they came to be. Okay. story of how they came to be.

Okay. Originally, they come from folklore from the Wampanoag tribe and also the Algonquin tribe. Pukwudgie translates to person of the wilderness or people in the wild. Okay. And natives used to believe that Pukwudgies actually used to get along with humans and they actually used to live in harmony together. actually used to get along with humans and they actually used to live in harmony together but then the Pukwudgies turned against humans especially particularly the Wampanoag tribe because the Wampanoags were very very uh in love some might say with this giant that lived in the area named Moushop. Okay. So apparently he was a very friendly giant they have stories

apparently of like the wampanoag people would say we're hungry and he would just go walk into the ocean and bring them whales like he would just he would just be like if you're hungry let me just here's a whale let me throw you a massive meal oh my god i love this he's like a bfg literally you called him a very fucking giant. Big fucking giant. You called him a VFG. A very friendly giant. We'll call him that. VFG.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Like a knockoff. TM, TM, TM. Or maybe the original. I can't decide. Well, apparently this story goes back like 12,000 years. So I think he's the original.

He's the original. The OG VFG. Jesus. Oh my God. The OG VFG. God, Roald Dahl. You little plagiarizer. So the Wampanoags just loved this guy because he was obviously throwing them whales when they were hungry.

Like banquets. And he also apparently created the land that's now Cape Cod. Oh, I like that place, too. So he's just got a lot of things going for him as a giant. He's kind of like kicking it. I love it. Well, that's what the wampanoags thought and so they uh they just loved hanging out with them they loved giving him presents they loved like honoring him and respecting him i think they thought he was a deity some notes were saying um it sounds like he is i would be worshiping

a massive man who could just like flick me with his finger and kill me but decides to give me whales for food instead. Oh, correct. Me too. And builds me a lovely island. Right, of course. Called Cape Cod. Of course. And so the Pukwudgies were also in the area, and they tried to be equally as helpful and friendly to the tribe, but apparently they had to compete for Malshop's love.

Oh. compete for Maw Shop's love. Oh. And the tribe was not interested in the Pukwudgie's help, even though they were trying to be very helpful, and kind of saw them as nuisances. So they're like, go away, we're hanging out with Maw Shop. So the Pukwudgie's felt really third-wheeled. Sad. They got really jealous, and they started causing mischief because they just wanted

some attention from the Wampanoags. I don't blame them, I guess. But apparently the mischief, like I said, their definition is different different than mine and so i think they were probably too rowdy just trying to get attention i think it got too wild and the wampanoag people got so irritated they could not take the puck wedgies being around anymore so the wampanoags they asked mouse shop's wife oh because of course he's married he sounds like i mean of course I should have known. I should have known I had no chance. So his wife's name is Squonet. Love it. So Moushop and Squonet.

So the Wampanoags asked Moushop's wife, Squonet, could you talk to Moushop and help him or have him help us get rid of the Pukwedgies? So Moushop just did exactly that and exiled all the P wedgies and spread them out so he could so that they couldn't find each other wait that's not very nice it gets worse he did this he exiled them not by saying you're exiled go away sure he gathered them up in his big massive giant hands and he shook them until they were disoriented oh dear and he literally because he's a giant who can just, like, dip his toe in the ocean, he just literally threw them out of the region. And so they just got scattered all across New England. What the hell?

Killing many of them. It's just, like, raining Pukwudgie. I think he meant killing many people. I was like, yeah, probably, if they're just raining. If the Pukwudgie lands hard enough on you, yeah. Oof. But, yeah, so many of the Pukwudgies die in this process because he's like, it's like shaking, well, like shaking, like you, like, you know, you can't shake a baby.

I do know that. Yep. Don't shake a Pukwudgie. Don't do that. And then don't throw them into another state line or something, you know? Don't throw them over a state border. Yeah. Okay.

So many of the Pukwudgies actually survived this and they came to kind of, were no longer disoriented, regained their memory, regained their like total functions. Sure. And they all just didn't know what to do. So they started running home. That's so sad. And when they realized when they all got together what had happened, they came back into the

area very angry and they wanted to hurt Malshop and the tribe for trying to do this to them. So the Pukwudgies then went to the Wampanoag tribe, burnt down their homes, attacked the tribe, were killing people. You okay? Sorry, my phone just made a loud-ass noise. That's nice. Oh, my God. This says trending on Nextdoor, bobcat sighting.

Uh-oh. Is it a Pukwudgie? Now I'm like, it must be. I'm not loving that notification. I'm not leaving my house today. Oh, good. Don't let their siren song lure you no seriously um so so you decided they were gonna hurt the tribe got it so the puck

wedgies go into the wampanoag tribe burn down their homes attack the tribe literally killing women and children jeez and mouse shop hears about this and he loves the wampanoags he's like i don't want them to get hurt um i thought we got rid of these things. My bad. I thought they were gone, but I apparently didn't throw them far enough or shake them hard enough and now they're here. So varying stories on what happened here, either he had went off and attended to other things and was not present in the area, or he was lazy and had other people go out for him. It's unclear. But Mo shop's five sons went out to help the tribe and they were like we're gonna go help you know fight these puck wedgies and handle things well the puck wedgies were so angry they somehow killed all five of these giant sons um and after the sons

were killed that was when mao shop and squant squant it they went out themselves and they were like you killed our five sons we're gonna fuck these puck wedgies up sure so all right insert elevator music there sorry we got a roll sorry we just turned into 50 year olds and i needed christine to go get me roll aids because i have such terrible harping right now i was like they're on blaze's nightstand in a little basket always ready to be consumed i'm about to get he takes them a lot how many are you supposed to take is this like a medication where you can only have one no it said i read you the directions clearly you were not listening i literally was not listening to you at all it said take two to four as symptoms persist oh all right well at least one more is going into my system in a little bit um i was

saying how blaze take i don't know if he's gonna love this that i'm sharing this information let's hear it he should take some for anxiety because when he was a little kid and he would get like a tummy ache from being nervous his mom would always give him a roll aids and so now he like associates that with like being nervous that's precious so he carries one like he has them on him at all times and he'll just like if you see him taking one i'm always like hey are you okay and he's like i'm just a little nervous it's the funniest thing which blows my mind because he strikes me as the least nervous person on earth. Oh, he's just full of nerves. Me too.

Well, you know that about me, right? I know you're full of nerves. That's literally, no one has ever questioned that. There's no room in this, in my relationship for him to have any outward anxiety. It makes sense now because you take up all of the time. So now when I'm like, he's been nervous before. It's like, oh, I've been so focused on you being nervous correct didn't even pay attention oh yeah if you see him a pop in a roll light something's going down i'd be like oh my god i'm gonna step out of

this room i'm like where's klonopin he's like here's a roll aids and i'm like that's probably probably smarter and safer so uh i ended with after their sons were killed by the puck wedgies uh moushop and squannet went out themselves as angry parents. They're like, we're going to kill all these Pukwudgies. Oh, dear. So there's different versions of how this happened. But the main idea is that the Pukwudgies found out that Malshop himself was coming to kick their ass.

So they tricked Malshop and killed him first. Oh. By either luring him somewhere. Some said into the deep grass, some say into the forest, some say into the water, but he got lured somewhere and then they shot him down with poison arrows.

There's another story that they lured him somewhere and forced him, somehow hypnotized him or something, to end his own life. Wow. And after that, the surviving pukwudgies ended up kind of scattered wherever they chose to wow they remained within the bridgewater triangle and

then kind of different patches of the space spread out yeah um another version that people think is that after losing his sons mao shop just left new england, but there was no death at all. But the only reason they think that he either left or died is because at this exact same time, and you know, when it comes to folklore and legends and where the natives were in the world, at this exact same time, all folklore in the Wampanoag tribe never talked about a giant again. Wow. So it's just like end of story that was just like the end of the giants wow in their folklore so they think okay well he either left or died what happened to squamit i'm sad for her she's probably so sad i don't know what happened

to her oh i hope she's all right i bet she's fine okay um so there are 34 different types of uh and i say this because apparently this is the phrasing that has been throughout the internet. I don't know if it's correct or not. I feel like, I don't know if I'd be comfortable with it, but apparently they fall under a mythology called Little People. Which just means every single tribe or region all seem to have their own cryptid that happens to be just a tiny being sure i don't think when that category name came out it you know little people was a phrase the tlc show the tlc hit wasn't exactly yeah i'm not talking about you know human beings that are little people these are apparently cryptid little people, which makes no sense to me, but okay. Sure. So in the, uh, crypto mythology version of little people, there are 34 different

types, which I will not go through all of them because I know someone out there thought that I was, and, uh, but I'm just going to say a couple of them because of the 34, somehow the Pukwudgies have a lot in common with many of them. And a lot of people think, oh, I saw Pukwudgies have a lot in common with many of them. And a lot of people think, oh, I saw a Pukwudgie. And they're like, oh, you didn't see a Pukwudgie. You saw this. So there's a lot of confusion in where the Pukwudgies lay. Okay, got it, got it.

Excuse me. The Rolades are doing their job. I'm hoping they're kicking in. Well, I just burped and I don't feel like I want to die. Oh, there you go. Round one of the Rolades. Okay, great. We got to start ordering those in bulk.

As if we don't already i was like doesn't i'm sure blaze does i just found four packs hidden in his nightstand that's precious oh boy you must have a lot of anxiety we have a lot of secrets we have fun we have fun uh so some of the things that people mistake puck wedgies for are gnomes leprechauns red caps which apparently are anti-gnomes i'm anti-gnomes i'm gonna have to cover that eventually for god's sake goblins and hobbits and apparently not only are puck wedgies often mistaken for hobbits but hobbits are often mistaken for bigfoot babies whoa because they're just hairy little people. Sure. Which in Bigfoot's a hairy big one. Sure. So.

Hairy big one. They think that all, they think if you imagine a Bigfoot and then condense it into a two foot size. Yeah. That is, it's a hobbit apparently. Wow. Okay. Or it looks very similar.

So those are some of the ones that people in like Bridgewater Triangle lore will be like, I saw like a gnome. And it's like, no, you probably saw a Pukwudgie. But a lot of people will use those words interchangeably, not knowing what it's actually called. Got it. Some of the things that Pukwudgies are also compared to, I did mention trolls earlier. That seems to be the big one. That's like the main word people choose to describe this creature as because they don't know what else to call it.

Makes sense. Because trolls happen to be two feet tall. Pukwudgies are always two to three feet tall. They have a big nose, big eyes, big ears, pretty much big limbs and accessories to their body. Big accessories. And they have wiry hair. Apparently though, I don't know who made this definition up, but according to one site on Google, trolls are dumber than Pukwudgies. Oh, I didn't say it. Em did. I didn't. Listen m did i listen i'm i'm i didn't don't come at me that panther or whatever is walking around my neighborhood is gonna come after you all of a

sudden there's gonna be like a like a lion loose in your subaru um so trolls are apparently allegedly dumber than puck wedgies but they are more malicious oh and so that's kind of terrible so like trolls have they're like reported like eating pets and like what the fuck so they're like hoarding junk and living under bridges they're like less witty and like smart about what they are calculating maybe but they're just like evil or yeah they're like they're like they're only tricksters meant for evil got it oh gosh okay like a troll is they're only being mischievous because there's going to be some sort of rise coming out of you you've seen trolls but they show up quite a

different story well have you i have not but i do know that since it's a pixar movie it probably is it's a dreamworks movie is it correct yes it is thank you for correcting me before twitter does um i don't know anything about that it's a great movie though um let's see oh yeah so the trolls are dumber but more malicious than puck waddy so a lot of people think that they're seeing a troll but they're seeing a puck waddy because maybe it's not as malicious or maybe it's like moving around kind of smart or it's smarter yeah it's not eating your cat it's not eating your cat and it is not stealing your junk to hoard okay Okay. It's not scavenging through your garbage cans, which apparently trolls do. And raccoons.

And raccoons. Raccoons and trolls. Oh, God. The other street cat. Apparently, not just trolls, but another, there's another creature out there. I think this might actually be different tribes versions of a Pukwudgie. They just all kind of have different names and a little different descriptions to them. So there's one called the Nokomo, which apparently are benevolent little people in the forest

and they bring only good fortune and assistance. Oh, I love those guys. So Nokomo, I'm down to hang with them. Please. There's apparently also something called the Memegwesi, which are little people that live by the riverbank and they like to blow canoes astray and steal your things okay that's not very nice but they like to help people who give gifts so they have a price and they are they are just child-sized hairy little monsters okay fun fact um there's also

something called a this one is the weirdest one this is called a young weed junstie which apparently is a in the cherokee tribe it's a mirror image demon oh no which is basically your two foot tall doppelganger i just got chills you know me and mirrors don't get along so it's literally it's if you're in the cherokee tribe everyone apparently has a two foot tall doppelganger that is evil oh so like you're mini me but like literally you're mini me you're dr evil and you're i am yun we the junsty is mini me wow okay and um apparently they are known to throw objects they try to trip people when they walk by them they try to abduct people who wander and then they just wander off great oh and there's a little kitty cat next to

me it's his dinner time he's gonna be whiny sorry i'm still sucking on this thing no no am i supposed to chew it yeah or you can it's is it chalky though is it like is it like nacl it's a little nacl it's a little salty yeah salty there's also apparently a young we to sun sea which is the opposite and they are the chero tribe's little people that are good. Okay. That apparently they bring back lost children. They help lost people get home. They heal the sick.

They love kids. Aw. I like to think that they're kind of like the angel versus the devil in the Cherokee tribe. Yes. They're always, like, fighting each other. They could probably stand on your shoulders. They probably could. They're two feet tall.

How fun would that be? They probably could. They're two feet tall. How fun would that be? And then the last one that Pukwudgies are often compared to when not really paying attention to which tribe or which folklore it is, Pukwudgies are often considered to be part of the Bugwudgenie. Oh, my. Listen, with the way it's spelled, you would be proud.

I am. They're apparently super similar in appearance. They're the most common thing when it comes to, like, native folklore. If you're trying to pick out what this creature is, a lot of people will mistake a Pukwudgie for this. Got it. They're playful but mischievous. They're not dangerous. They might actually be, according to some theories, they might be the Pukwudgies who learn their lesson after having to deal with the giant.

And now they behave. Wow. Okay, weird. their lesson after having to deal with the giant and now they behave wow okay they're so similar in appearance that apparently even people people don't even know if it's a pukwudgie or not you just have to go totally off of its personality okay so those are the ones that they're most likely sure okay so i mentioned chris uh christopher balzano earlier he was one of the guys that was in the bridgewater triangle documentary yes and he wrote the book cults crime and the paranormal in the freetown state forest and in it he did mention two different accounts that people had sent in of their experience with a puck wedgie neither of them are dangerous but they are kind of just interesting so i'm just gonna read them real

quick there's one woman named joan who it's interesting a lot of people will see puck wedgies when they're walking with their dog so i don't't know what that means. I don't know if dogs attract them or maybe just dogs sense them. But any story I've heard of a Pukwudgie, people are with a dog. So if you're walking your dog right now, you, in theory, are more likely to run into a Pukwudgie. So this woman, Joan, she's walking her dog along a path in the forest in the Bridgewater Triangle when her dog started just running deeper and forest um in the bridge bar triangle when her dog started just running deeper and deeper into the woods and she got pulled by the leash and the dog kind of just dragged her into the woods yeah this cat is amazing i'm trying to play it

cool that's precious he's making little nose boops on the microphone um so she got pulled in by this dog the dog stopped running out of nowhere all of a sudden, and they stumbled upon this two foot tall creature with pale gray skin standing on a rock in the center of where they stopped. Almost as if the dog was summoned, which is interesting because they say that Pukwudgies can lure you into the woods. So it wasn't like he was chasing him. It was like he ran to it. It was almost like the Pukwudgie demanded him to come.

No, thank you, sir. Uh, apparently he's described as having, sorry, Junie is fucking losing it. It's his dinner time, so he's going to be relentless.

They're described as having green eyes, hairy arms, very short legs, a dog like nose and a pot belly that is so large that it almost touches their knees. Oh, no. OK, you're trying to run with your legs. Two feet, two feet tall. No, They apparently, so this creature and Joan, they looked at each other for a long time until the dog immediately, just as fast as it stopped, took off out of the woods all over again, pulling Joan with her. Oh, my God.

So it's almost like this thing lured them in just to stare at them and then, like, released them and let the dog run away. Yikes. After that, the creature kept showing up on jones property oh you liked her looking into her windows i don't know and looking through her like just being around all the time on the property anytime she looked around it was near oh and it continued until she moved oh so there's no getting rid of it that you just have to they have to lose you that's terrible um the second one is depending on who it was it seemed like his name was either

tim or tom which are our stepdad's names uh sounds about right and they he tim and tom tim and tom uh he was walking through the forest one night uh and he saw a light glowing in front of him that moved like it was breathing um there's a quote from him i noticed a a dim light like in the form of a ball in front of me. It was white and swelled and shrunk almost like it was expanding and shrinking like it was breathing. It rose to about my shoulders and then flew into the woods. So he followed it through the woods. I don't know if he was under a trance or something, but he just followed it into the woods until

it vanished in front of him. And when it vanished in front of him, he turned and a puck wedgie was standing there oh dear he literally just took off he was like i don't have time for this i'm i'm leaving because it was a two foot tall creature that was covered in fur with a wolf-like nose and they both ran into opposite directions but okay apparently the puck wedgie ran off screaming in the weird eerie moan. Ew. I don't even know how I would have described that sound. Later, Tom was sitting in his car in the parking lot and the same creature appeared in front of his car and his eyes this time were glowing red. Oh.

Oh. And Tom was like, fuck this. He's back. And drove off at top speed and never saw him again. Woof. The third one was not actually part of the book, but this is from my story last week slash the Bridgewater Triangle documentary. And I'm just going to say it again because it was super creepy.

It is so, so creepy. So this happened in the 90s to a guy named Bill who was in the documentary Bridgewater Triangle. It's on Amazon Prime. Also, one of the directors of the documentary apparently listens to this show and reached out and said, thank you for talking about the documentary. I saw saw that that was so sweet so so we're doing it again so here we are again round two for you nice um so a guy named bill in the 90s he was walking his dog down a different path than he usually would apparently they always go down the same direction and this time they just

decided to take a different way okay they got to a road that some might call an off road or an abandoned road. Kind of just one of those roads with the phone lines. Sure. Maybe it's like a shortcut to school or something, but it's not a main access road. They're doing this in the middle of the night, so they can't really see anything past the streetlights. The dog freaks out. At the same time, they hear this high-pitched wailing sound. And all of a sudden, Bill sees a creature in the shadows.

He looks at the creature. And in hindsight, because back then, I described this to you, not having done any research on puck wedgies, so I did not know what was going on. But in hindsight, what he saw might have been a puck wedgie because it was around three feet tall, had a pot belly. It was covered in fur with big eyes. He said it looked older for its age. I don't know how he knew that. He's not aging well. Life isn't treating him right.

Also, that's kind of rude. Yeah, you could have left that out. You really threw him under the bus there. And apparently this creature wasn't advancing or like trying to charge him or anything was just standing there with its hand out nah and he did say in the documentary that if he he regrets not walking towards it i think after hearing all this i don't regret that now that i've heard all the information i'm glad he didn't especially because remember i said if you see one by itself precisely there are other ones probably hiding ready to like lurking i don't like this at all and also just like nothing good

comes from this so so it wasn't advancing just stuck its hand out and then it started saying this really weird phrase it kept saying you want to cure you want to here and he it took him forever to like he listened he heard it in his head forever and ever and ever after that and didn't know what the thing might have been saying he just turned around and walked away here probably sprinted away but he didn't he didn't go near it but in hindsight he thinks what the creature was trying to say, eon ju kyr, he thinks it was trying to speak English and relate to him and say, we want you come here. Which is interesting now, knowing that it's a pack

animal and him saying, we want you here. I just got chills. So, that was just my favorite story from the last time, and this was an opportunity to say it a second time, so here you go. The last thing I'm going to say is for people who enjoy Harry Potter. Me. So, do you know what potter more is oh for sure okay so do you and i mentioned this last time too but i'm gonna talk about it really quick i don't i mean i'm i know what harry potter is

i'm not like a wild harry potter nerd i'm too consumed with marvel and back to the future but i respect the shit out of harry potter and i enjoy a good book or movie i but i'm not like a wild fan um but like hogwarts how um it's like a school of witchcraft and wizardry there is an american-based one later on in pottermore right that jk rowling jk rolling i think rowling i don't even know what i'm saying anymore. I always say J.K. Rowling. J.K. Rowling? You're right. I don't know. So she created an American-based one called Ilvermorny. So that's the American Hogwarts. Sure. I just thought this was super interesting. So just like how in Hogwarts they have the houses Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin,

people are also sorted into houses at Ilvermorny. I'm probably saying that wrong but i don't care and these houses are named after american magical creatures oh that's so cool okay so jk i don't know her last name so i'm just gonna call her just kidding um she says this is a quote from her it It is sometimes said that the Ivel Morny houses represent the whole witch or wizard. So the mind is represented by, and then I'm going to look, these are the houses. Got it. The mind is represented by the horned serpent, which usually favors scholars. So probably the Ravenclaw.

Sure. Another house represents the body of the witch or wizard, which is the Wampus, which usually favors like fighters and warriors, as it says. Wampus? What a name for a warrior. I'll get to it. So another house represents the heart of the Witcher the wizard, which is the Pukwudgie, which usually favors the healers. Oh. And then the last house represents the soul of the Witcher wizard, which is the Thunderbird, which favors the adventurers. So one of the houses called Pukwudgie represents the heart of the wizard and favors healers.

It's probably most likely the equivalent to Hufflepuff, which is what I am. So I guess I'm a Pukwudgie in America. She even describes Pukwudgies as, quote, fiercely independent, tricky, and possess powerful magic, which is what a P so i guess i'm a puck wedgie in america she even describes puck wedgies as quote fiercely independent tricky and possess powerful magic which is what a puck wedgie is yes it does so she really did research it although she did get a lot of controversy um on using like a native tribe's story i bet i bet um but i i think her her back statement was that she wanted people to be she wanted to like help talk about the story i don't remember she got some some backlash but um it is what it is it is weird that it's like the healer though if they're like kind of they kill people so one of the i think that's because

one of the many uh creatures that they're often compared to or or um misdescribed as yeah is uh one of those creatures that actually loves to heal people and find lost children. One of the 34. I think the research for Pukwudgies, since it's all so kind of convoluted, it might have somewhere said that a Pukwudgie is also a healer, or at least is a distant relative to another creature that heals.

Maybe they could be a healer, and they just don't like to do that as much. Or maybe they used to be healers before the whole giant thing. So interesting to note that Ivel Morni's location is in Massachusetts. Uh-huh. So is the Bridgewater Triangle. Uh-huh. And all of the magical creatures that represent the body of a,

or the whole Witcher wizard. So each of these creatures that is a different house have something to do with the bridge wire triangle which i don't know if she did that on purpose but it's just interesting that she picked i bet she did only magical things i'm sure if you like search massive she probably knew i would think i would hope the horned serpent i mentioned in the last episode remember i said there was like a tree trunk sized snake or something so that's been mentioned then been reported in the bridgewire triangle wampus which are the uh favors the warriors like the wampanoag tribe oh duh okay i get it puck wedgies and i did tell you that there are also regularly sightings of thunderbirds yes yes i haven't covered thunderbirds yet but i will

eventually love they're a wild story. It's crazy. But so all of those things just happen to be in Bridgewater, which happens to be in Massachusetts, where Evil Morning is also now set. Wow. How cool. Nice one, JK Rowling. I see you. Nice, nice, nice. We get it.

And that's the story of the Puck Wedgie. Wowza. Holy smokes. I feel like I just learned too much from my brain. That feels good. At least I, you know, I did research. You educated did research you educated me thank you finally finally took 140 episodes i think we've both gotten dumber throughout the two years i think so too sometimes i wonder like i don't know who i was just saying this to but i did just have a conversation with somebody and i was like i wonder if i spent money and just paid to go take an sat yeah just to see

where my number is now take a practice one i would love to take a practice one and just be like i mean i can already tell you this my score is gonna be like that would be funny okay we can we can't study for it no absolutely not as if we're gonna like i would you think i studied for the first one blaze just took the mcat a while back i'm like i can't even just watching him with note cards was like i don't really want to look at this anymore i mean i'm not kidding we should both take one just to see what our scores are and see how stupid we are but then we're also not going to release that information you're never gonna know let's just say we we're aware of how poorly we're gonna do on that test okay all right eva go buy us some psps i've gotta go uh i got a 99 percent on my

psat i mean granted i didn't 10 years ago but we'll see i'm sure i'm sure i've dropped many i was very average but also i no one expected anything else from me on that one oh my god that would be funny though we were also in that weird weird group where the SATs made us also do a writing section. I hated that. And we were like the only ones. Eva skipped it and then everyone after us. I don't think they do it anymore, do they? I don't know.

I think it was like a weird five year. There's like a generation of us who had to do that weird writing thing. I'm literally a writer by trade and I hated that section. I'm sure it made me look worse. It's not good. It didn't help anyone. Okay, i have to go feed my animals sorry be right back want to hear my story i do it's kind of a wild ride well

that's let me buckle up i guess they always are but that's exactly what i want this one is like what the fuck is going on okay i do have a standard that i i set everything by at this point with your stories and when you did dc, you've already covered it now, I think, as another episode. But that story where the girl just like called ISIS or something. Oh, my God. She she joined. She tried to join ISIS and they rejected her. That story is killer to this day.

Probably one of the more wild buck wild. Whenever you say like there's a wild ride, I always like, compare it to that. I'm like, how wild is it to calling Isis for fun? Did Isis reject her? Or... No, Isis rejected her because I remember saying... No, I'm saying, like, on the scale of, like, how crazy. Right, right, right. Rejected by Isis.

Oh, that was the fucking... Rejected by Isis. Oh, I think that was the name of the episode. I don't know. That was what I said. I remember that was my response when you said that ISIS reject her. And I was like, how bad must you be that even ISIS doesn't want you? How sad. Anyway. She was the selfie killer who took selfies when she murdered her victim.

Well. It was really fucked up. Good job, DC. Anyway, so I'm comparing it to that. Good. All right. That's the 10 out of 10 on a wild factor so far. It's a trip.

Nobody calls ISIS in this one. Okay. But we have said it enough times that probably we're going to get tagged. I mean, absolutely. At least 15 FBI people are listening to this episode. And they're like, I regret ever joining the FBI. They're hoping to hear if there's a code that they're going to crack. I'm sure.

Based on what we say. I'm sure it'll be, what is it again? Echu... Oh, Eanchu Kier. Eanchu Kier. that they're gonna crack i'm sure based on what we say i'm sure it'll be what is it again achoo achoo oh eon choo here crack that code motherfucker you know what terrifies me is like what if everything i what if i said in the perfect cadence in the perfect order what if i said something that actually is some weird code that could be broken and it now looks like i was involved in an organized crime nobody would ever come to us to look maybe this is all front maybe we're geniuses perpetrator maybe we're athletes maybe we're going to did we win the olympics now i forget oh my god okay moving on all right moving on all right this is so I've been really into, okay, here's the thing.

Okay. We. There's always a thing. We got an AC unit in my bedroom finally after like a year and a half, two years of living here. And I don't know what we were thinking before, but we finally got one. And with that, I remembered we had like a TV downstairs that wasn't being used. So I brought it up. We stuck the Roku in and I was like, holy crap.

We have it. I've never had a TV in my room my whole life. Is it blowing your mind? It's bananas. I'm i'm like i don't don't you feel a little dirty yes i never leave you're like i should go downstairs and then i like you know have my switch so i'm like i don't leave i just don't you know anyway so it's great and i watched so i have hulu on there and i watched a lot of 2020 lately and i watched this story the other day and i was like what in the goddamn world is going on here? Oh.

And I cannot believe I didn't know about this. It happened in 2017 and like went into 2018. So it's like very recent. This is the abduction of Elizabeth Thomas. I don't know about this. All right. Me neither.

So I found the 2020 episode, obviously watched that, then found some stuff in People magazine, radar online inside edition. Um, there was just a lot. And I was like, how have I never heard of this? I don't know. We're all about to learn. So let's go.

This happened in Culeoca, Tennessee. It's this super small farming town. It only has like 5,000 people in it. Um, and it's one of those places where like, everyone knows everyone. Sure. Nothing ever happens here. That's like the ultimate foreshadowing i think it always is it always is um elizabeth thomas she had been homeschooled most of her life up until the eighth grade uh she lived in a very abusive violent household like physically abusive and otherwise and there was no way of escaping it because again she was house homeschooled yeah oh my god i know so she was like i can't even run to a teacher exactly so she was like i just was constantly surrounded by it sure um so uh one day it got so severe that

elizabeth and some of her siblings were like we've had enough they reported their own mother to child protective services and uh their mother kimberly thomas was removed from the house and was ultimately indicted on child abuse and neglect charges wow okay she denied it the whole time but then i looked it up and she ended up being indicted so it's no longer alleged not good not a good situation so when elizabeth's mom was taken away um she had to go to regular high school because her mom was one who was homeschooling her so she started regular high school which was not easy she said the first thing that happened she got there and they all called her ugly oh my god well welcome to high school seriously i was like that sounds just like how teenagers twist the knife mean mean

mean um not all of you teens just some of you mean ones not all teens uh that's what i always say not all teens so she struggled to make friends because the friends had already known each other all the students had already known each other for years they had cliques already she was like the outsider who'd been homeschooled um but finally she met someone she felt like she could trust and that happened to be her health teacher uh he was this popular well-likeded guy. He was like, you know, the teacher that everyone was like, the cool teacher. And everyone really liked him a lot and he kind of took her under his wing

and was like, she has been abused and she's entering this new school and is being bullied. So he kind of became her mentor. I lost my place. How do I always do this? I get like really wildly into talking and then I lose my place. I know you get do this? I get like really wildly into talking and then I lose my place. I know you get wildly into talking.

We have a podcast. Okay. Sorry. I'm back. So the teacher's name was Tad Cummins, Mr. Cummins. He's 50 years old and he helped her kind of transition into high school. So he's super popular. He actually had married his high school sweetheart, Jill, 31 years prior.

They had two daughters together he taught sunday school sang in the church choir and he had even done mission trips to panama so he was just like this cool teacher and good guy in the community everyone loved him so he takes elizabeth under his wing and helps her adjust her new life early on he like gifts her with a bible as like a token of like yeah welcome i'm here for you yes and uh there was a point where he and his wife actually took her to church with them when the pastor was giving a sermon on abuse so uh and his wife even jill even called her their third daughter sometimes like she really became part of their family so one day in the cafeteria things just started to shift in not a great way so her friends asked her if she's hungry and elizabeth says something silly that like 15 year olds say and like stupid shit listen me listening to fall boy definitely said

like too bad i don't have a soul or else i would eat or something dumb like right something wild like my away message you know i mean things that I probably say up until this day. Exactly. Things we're literally saying right now. Right. Because it comes so naturally. Yeah. She said something like, oh, well, I don't have a soul. If I did, maybe I'd be hungry or something dumb like that. And then Mr. Cummins heard that, walked over, pointed at her and says, my soul sees your soul and everyone else was like what the

fuck and she's like i don't know man that was really creepy like that was weird but elizabeth's like you know meanwhile i'm like oh oh in my heart i'm like well yeah if someone said that to me exactly who was maybe my age and not my 50 year old teacher yeah not as like a kid maybe i think that you know all the girls i feel like if you and i had like a deep sleepover talk somehow that sentence could easily come out of my mouth oh sure i mean if i think in a different context it's a very kind thing to say just not here it's maybe not in a high school in a school in public to a minor to a minor exactly but elizabeth was like you know what i'd finally found an adult that i can trust he's the only adult that I can trust at this point.

She said on 2020 that Mr. Cummins had made her feel like she didn't have anyone else, that no one cared for her like he did. But little did she know at this point, he was grooming her to be. Well, that sounds right. He was taking advantage of a student that he saw as vulnerable. And she had basically gone to him for counseling, said she was feeling really low and was considering going to see a therapist and maybe starting antidepressants. And he told her, no, you won't do that. Nope. Which is great start.

And he said, she's like, why? I think it would really help me. And he said, because it'll change who you are. My soul sees your soul, blah, blah, blah. Oh, my goodness. So instead, he said, well, instead, you should just come to me and I'll help counsel you okay yep i can't wait for how this is gonna go it's gonna go that shit it's gonna go to a dark and crazy place your soul's not gonna know what to do my soul's not gonna be able to see itself i think both of our souls are gonna leave and be like we don't want to be part

of this it's a long time we checked out in episode one. Our souls are like, I see your soul. Want to get out of here? Please. Let's leave the vessels. Let's just go somewhere else on an island. Leave the husks behind. Oh god. I like how you had just said, it sounds like some shit we would talk about our souls and here we are five minutes later like not able to stop talking about it it's heinous

leave our husks behind can someone put that on his shirt oh that's just so my favorite thing you've said in so long leave the husks I'm gonna text you later exactly that sentence I'm not gonna be able to stop Oh, that's just so my favorite thing you've said in so long. Leave the husks. I'm going to text you later exactly that sentence. I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about it for a long time. Keep going. You literally were just saying how you won't call me because I have phone anxiety, but you just want to say stupid shit to me.

I just do. Feel free. Call me whenever you want. I know. Here's the thing. Christine has phone anxiety. It's pretty rampant. It's actually embarrassingly bad. It affects not just her, but everyone on the other end of the thing. Christine has phone anxiety. It's like pretty. It's pretty rampant. It's actually embarrassingly bad.

Like I don't even. It affects not just her, but everyone on the other end of the phone. Correct. I can't do it. And all I ever want to do is call her and I just want to say hello. But every time I call her, she sounds like everyone she loved was in one car and the car exploded. She's just like, hello. I'm like, hello. And then I was like, hey. And I'm like, I know. I's just like, hello. I'm like, hello.

And then I was like, hey. And I'm like, I know. I'm always like, hello. I always intentionally animate it so you won't think I'm mad at you. And then my immediate response is, what's up? Yeah. I just assumed something terrible has happened.

What is going on that warrants you to call me that a text could not do? Correct. Thank you for finally understanding my point. I understand it. I just actively refuse to do it because i do call you a lot knowing about your phone anxiety it's really great for me and sometimes i just want to be like i know i'm i ate a sandwich to be fair i'm trying to get over it i've been trying to get over for a long time i've gotten a little bit better so maybe you just need to keep calling me and it'll get rid of my phone anxiety i love talking on the phone oh god and you don't even let me have it i have four parents

and they're the only ones who ever call me on the phone and i'm like that's enough phone time you know what's uh the only like trouble that we've had recently where i had to call you was right before oh no see this is the shit that you pull and then you're like why do you sound so worried yeah i called christine like a week ago now because I was leaving to go to New Orleans before they were, before her and Eva were. And here's the thing. I have my phone in military time. I had it on military time years ago because one of my friends joined the army and I just wanted to learn the times. It didn't work.

I did. Not that day. It didn't work. Nope. You have no time to stand on. i know the times and i just never took my phone off military time i just got used to it and so uh i freaked myself out because my my flight was apparently at five but i glanced at it so i thought it said 1500 which meant three so it was at five i thought it said my flight was at three and i saw that at 3 30 and i was like oh

shit i missed my fucking plane and so i called christine and all i she was like hello what's up and m's like don't be mad and i'm like well here we are exactly the place i knew we would end up someday and we're here i think my exact words were i fucked up yeah you're like i fucked up and i was like of course i was like don't worry we're you know if you're if we're fine and it was all fine and then we hang up the phone and I go I checked the delta thing because all our reservations are on there and I was like and what the fuck your flight is in like two and a half hours and then I literally thought for a while that like maybe you were just trying to get out of going and I was like you cannot pull that on me you cannot pull that because if if you're if going, you're going. I was frantic. I realized, I thought that I was a half an hour late to get to the airport, as it is,

when I was mid-eating a salad. And I left it scattered across the table. Like the house had been abandoned. I ran out with my bag. I thought, maybe I can catch the plane. And I was just going to text my roommate, like, you need to clean up this salad that I just threw all over the carpet. I left you some dinner. But yeah, so I get why your phone anxiety would happen there thank you anyway I don't know how we got into that thank you for seeing me oh

because you said the husk thing I am going to call you later I'm going to mention the husk thing to you it's it's less stressful when you call me now I think it's only when like random people call me that don't usually call me where I'm like, oh, dear, what's going like something urgent must be happening. Right. With you. I'm now I'm just like, God damn it. I made a burrito. And I just want to tell someone about it.

Time for me to know. I was like, I've tweeted too much today. I need to I need to get information out there in a different way now. Right, right, right. You need to communicate louder. Yeah, you get it. I get it. Anyway, let's go back to this horrible story.

Yep. Anyway, let's go back to this horrible story. Yep. Okay, so he said, don't go get medicated and don't seek professional help because I'm here to help you. Right, da-da-da-da. Da-da-da. He then began to lie to her about his background. He told her he was a CIA operative, an FBI agent, and a millionaire.

Aren't you a health teacher and you're telling me this in your classroom? Yeah. Okay. He also told her he was the one who killed Bin Laden. Okay, well. As a secret operative. And she said, like, in the interview, like, I mean, I knew it wasn't real, but, like, also, you know, he was, like, so kind to me and, like, just seemed to be kind of wanting to, like, make her happy. Yeah.

Whatever. So maybe he was just telling stories to entertain her exactly and so she was like well he's the only person i knew to turn to or talk to so she's like i just kind of ignored it so according to the people magazine article he would give he started giving her money to like be like oh here's some money for groceries or i think she had nine siblings and her mom had been taken away and her dad worked as an exterminator, but he worked like insane hours. Like he was never home during the day. And so he started giving her money to like help her, uh, help her outside of school. He even bought her a microwave so that she could heat up her food in his classroom. Yeah. So like they kept, so he bought

himself a microwave. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, It's like that time I bought you a mini fridge, but it's in my house. Yeah, I know. I think about that often. Oh, my God. But yeah, so he kept the microwave in, but basically as a way to draw her into the classroom to be like, oh, eat your lunch in here. Right. You don't have an excuse anymore because there's a microwave to heat up your food. Right, right, right.

That I paid for. So just a lot of pressure. He also then began pushing boundaries what a surprise i mean he's already pushed some boundaries if you ask me he's already gone to best buy and yeah that is the ultimate that's when you know things have gone to a new level first a bible then a microwave you know that's it's like those wedding gift years you know anniversary gifts each year yeah oh yeah i know about it it's the microwave microwave that's actually much more did you see okay probably not because okay so i get a lot of like info about marry people stuff

now like buzzfeed articles and shit and one of them was like oh there's a new guide to you know how it's like oh first like a new technologically advanced yeah yearly like a new like more um material year thing yeah like a more useful gift so like sure the first year's paper then it's all these other things uh china and all that and so uh there's a new one that's like the first year is like a trip or the second year is like um a household appliance like really cool i was like that's actually really handy use that one from now on i like it a lot um anyway if you guys don't i mean if you want to gift yourself China, that's fine too. Okay. Sorry. Sorry.

So he started communicating with her via Instagram now when she's at home. Okay. So they showed the post. That's a big red flag, by the way. If you're a student, if you're a minor and your teacher is currently DMing you on Instagram, call the police. And is saying, do not tell anyone. Oh, and call the police.

If you need us to be the ones to tell you to do that shit, call the police do it uh that just happened in my sister's class oh yeah you did tell me about that the guy's in jail i mean he was texting my mom said multiple people in the class um if your teacher is reaching out to you independently and not talking about academics not related to school call the police even if it seems friendly that's the start there's something wrong yep he's not texting his buddies he's texting a minor have someone look into it yep um yeah so here are the uh especially if you hear something like this which is the things that they communicated see something say something yep one of the posts was you're all my heart ever talks about and so they would be absolutely not they were like public posts but like he would be like those are for you oh my goodness like sick like tagging her in memes yes

like seventh grade good night his wife's probably like oh thank you and he's like you know this is for a 15 year old uh so he wrote you're all my heart ever talks about then the other one it was love at first sight at last sight and ever sorry i can't even say yeah why would you it's so gross there's bile coming up my throat it was love at first sight at last sight at ever and ever sight how heinous my brain stopped everyone who's listening to this go back like skip five seconds and hear my brain short-circuiting because i just heard myself like not be able to form a single word but be careful because there's also sounds of bile somewhere in there. So it's not a good, it's not a good clip maybe.

Then Elizabeth responded at one point, I look forward to going to school just to see you and I love you so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much. So things have crossed quite a boundary here. And Elizabeth says at this point he began to sext her regularly. Sext her? Yep. Call the police yep call the police

call the police please somebody um you'll get we'll get to that part how how fucking botched all that went i can't wait it's a mess so they begin to spend more and more time alone in his classroom at one point in the middle of a conversation he told her you'd look pretty nice naked in the middle of class no no no they spent time alone in classroom in the classroom classroom together oh my word i was like that is one ballsy man no i mean he is but no not not that ballsy okay got it got it you know they were in there with the microwave making popcorn and uh something or other hot pockets so he's a party hot pockets you and me uh bagel bites get it no actually wait a minute

oh boy uh so he one time literally she's like i don't even remember the conversation he just looked at me and said i look oh no sorry he said you'd look pretty nice naked and she was like and what did she say while holding the bible he gave her when they first know right um and then she said at then later on at a certain point she's like and then one day he just kissed me and she's and uh she said she was too scared to tell anyone um she didn't want to tell her parents that a grown man had kissed her she didn't want to tell her friends obviously and she didn't have any adults that she felt like yeah she could turn to of course you know the guy is saying you know you can't tell anyone or you're gonna be expelled you know he's like threatening her essentially um and then it escalated as we all knew it would

yep uh in the classroom she said and i quote he'd open up the closet door in the classroom and he'd look at me a certain way and i knew if i didn't go that he'd be upset oh no it's really bad oh oh no yeah uh she said i was afraid to see him angry and i've seen him angry and he doesn't take no well and so this guy so this is really interesting because this guy is like such a you know gem of the community and he's lived there for years and like doesn't it always go that way yeah and he like married his high school sweetheart it's the one we're like oh you never it's the one where like that's oh, you never... It's the one where, like... He's such a nice guy.

The seemingly safest one. Yes, the neighbors all loved him. So he... That's what he was considered. But they actually found a guy in this interview who used to work with him at an ER. And he basically said this, like, no, this guy was a complete bully. Like, he bullied me. He bullied his other coworkers.

He called me an idiot. He told me I was too stupid to work there, in front of everyone oh shit like he was just verbally abusive toward his co-workers um and staff and he would present himself as charming outwardly but then like bully the crap out of everyone and like he was just a very bad he's like he was a toxic bad mean person and he said if you said no to him or like gave him any sort of like rejection he would lose his mind and he's like and i've seen that and it is not pretty um and so that was interesting and he's like i don't ever want to see that guy again and then um he said the reason he thinks that he switched from working in the er where he was making much more money than being a teacher

is that like he just felt it was a more fitting role for him to have like young moldable minds. Yeah. People that are more afraid to stand up to him. Yeah. That can't say no. And they can't say no. And they can't, you know, they trust you. Like why wouldn't you pick an authoritative position where everyone has to do what you say? Yeah. Like a mentorship role where you can control people, vulnerable people. So that was an interesting kind of side note um and around this time because everyone else was like i'm so shocked you know um it is shocking but like right of all people you know um so around this time a student actually reported to school authorities that tad and elizabeth mr cummins and elizabeth were kissing in his classroom a student saw this was

fucking terror like disturbed obviously reported it to school officials the school quote investigates but elizabeth denies anything ever happened and at this point people are like well why would she not just say like yeah this is happening and it's like this is how abuse because she's terrified of him like yeah if she rats him out he is is probably going to attack her. Well, or he's just threatened her. Even if he doesn't have any power, she doesn't know that. He's like taking over her mind. And yeah, so he's like, if you

say anything, I'm going to lose my job. How would you feel if you got me fired? You know, like just guilt tripping and like saying, oh, well you know, both of us are going to be out of it would be so much worse if you told because think of your father who's working so hard right all that shit exactly and like you're going to be screwed i'm going to be screwed what's is it worth it like just really

bad manipulation yeah so it's sick um so the school and she's already being bullied like so you know she he's like your reputation is on the line and stuff. I mean, it's fucked up. So the school actually doesn't alert. This is the biggest, like, scandal part. The school doesn't alert police for a full week that any of this has happened. And they are required to report this to police. So there's, you know, not a good thing there. And during their investigation of this whole thing, they let Elizabeth go on a field trip accompanied by only one chaperone.

Absolutely not. And it happened to be Mr. Cummins. During the field trip, Elizabeth said Mr. Cummins took advantage of the free time. I'm sure he fucking did. It's a shocker. The alone time. And he propositioned her for sex. And she was like, no.

And she refused. She's like, I'm on a school trip. They're looking into us. We can't. This is the one time she's like, no, no and he backs off so um the school having done their quote investigation and you know elizabeth saying no nothing happened and mr cummins saying no nothing happened they were like okay but um mr cummins you are not allowed to speak with her anymore like you're not allowed to have contact anymore um and within like

days obviously he has her back in his classroom and so at that point right i know like shocker so at that point he's suspended from his job but uh when the police look into it he insists like no this is like a father i'm a father figure which like sick sick he's like i'm a father figure to her like she needs someone a mentor and he really played it off and he's so you know charming and everyone has his back and everyone already thinks he's one way exactly and so everyone's like no he would never um so he like i said ignored the school's warnings and they had to suspend him so they interviewed his wife during this tv show this poor woman i mean i can't even imagine uh she says he she says he told her it was either someone telling a lie or someone who thought they saw something that didn't actually

happen but of course that didn't happen and she was like we had been married for 31 years with no problems like there was no reason for me not to believe him that sucks like nothing had ever happened like this before she never had any doubts he'd never cheated on her and so um when he was like oh my god no like somebody must have just lied or made up a rumor yeah she believed him and um why wouldn't you i guess if nothing had ever happened so of course at school elizabeth's bullying problem just gets worse um of course like mr cummings is now suspended he's everyone's favorite teacher so they're blaming her or saying like you ruined his life you're the reason he's everyone's favorite teacher so they're blaming her saying like you ruined his life you're the reason he's gone um her teachers called her out in class teased her and even

called her names like being like you're the one who got him suspended it's like really bad um the whole she was not protected at all in this at this point um but at this point back at home so tad is like on leave because he's being he's been suspended and jill his wife begins to notice there's something odd with his behavior like he's just starting to act a little weird she said for example he always made the coffee for the next morning the night before like when they went to bed um for years i mean they've been married for over 30 years so so she knows him yes she knows him very well right or thinks she does at least to a certain extent. And so she's like, he's made the coffee the same way for 30 years.

And she's like, and then all of a sudden he started telling me how to make the coffee. Like he was like teaching me how to use the coffee maker. And she was like, I mean, I, she's basically her thought was, well, maybe he thinks he's going to jail. And so like, he's trying to prepare me for that. Okay. And so she's like oh god like you know and there's like so much tension in the house at this time because like the police are looking into

him he he's suspended from his job um the quote so absurd so okay they spent a lot of time together at this point it was like very tense um between them but they prayed a lot she said and cried and like tried to talk through everything he insisted nothing had happened um and then the quote the host of the 2020 said you could cut the tension in their home with a tennessee steak knife oh i was like okay i like the flair there it's like there we go so in case you needed that a little i did i'm sure a little uppity i think we all did um so tad seemed distraught but like his wife was like oh he's just scared he's going to jail um but little did she know that on the side he's actually still communicating with elizabeth

via oh no instagram oh my god anytime she says anytime so elizabeth says anytime she wouldn't post for a few hours he would go crazy and say she was cheating on him. He said if he found out she was with another boy, he would kill him. Meanwhile, at school, she's been obviously being bullied more than ever. She was being called a whore. Her teachers were in on the harassment. And then he began to contact her via phone. And he started blaming her.

He's like, look what you did to me and my life. I'm not, you know, I lost my job and there's only one way out of this whole mess that you caused. Great. He says, I'm leaving town and you're coming with me. Oh no. I did not think it was going to be that answer. Yeah. He says, if you resist, I will take my own life or I will kill someone else.

That's what I was expecting. Yes. And so she is fucking trapped. Like, who is she going to tell? Yeah. You know, she's scared. This is the guy that she's, like, trusted for, you know, however many months. This guy is, like, taking her under his wing.

There's nothing you can do because best case scenario, if he's telling the truth, someone dies. Yeah, right. Whether it's him or someone else. Exactly. Like, you think you think that like you're the reason for a death if you don't listen to him it's totally totally sick um so she's trapped she eventually is like fine i'll leave on this trip with you um if that will make this stop so she knew uh if she didn't go something bad would happen like you said yep and then one monday morning after a relatively uneventful weekend tad is like hey jill do you mind if i borrow your car i have an out of town job interview um i'll be back later today lol no you won't uh-huh and she's like okay sure um so tad Tad and Elizabeth meet at Shoney's. Shout out. I love Shoney's.

And Tad tells her to leave a note behind saying she had gone to New York to mislead investigators. Sure, of course. But Elizabeth is not stupid. She's like, okay, sure. I'll leave behind a note containing a clue. Ooh.

Basically what she did was she's like, I'm going to write this note that he's going to read that I escaped to New York. But she's like, I'm going to write it so absurdly that no one will believe it's true. So she elaborates and she writes this fantastical thing about going to New York. She's like, I know my family will be like,

that's bullshit. Something's going on. Right. And she's like the police won't believe this because they'll read it and go okay they're trying to mislead us but apparently he seemed happy with this note and was like great leave it behind so she left it behind do we know what she said so fantastically i don't know because i know they're like i like i in law and order world uh if you're on the phone with someone yeah and they need uh like let's say like you're

held a hostage you're allowed to be on the phone you like make up a random name or a fact that's like clearly not true oh so that they're like what's wrong or like i would like if i were talking to eva be like oh yeah tell my co-host like anna that i say hi and she'd be like that you're clearly not okay like yeah something's going on you're clearly not where you're supposed to be what you can do is then if they're like is everything okay you can be like that you're clearly not okay. Yeah, something's going on. You're clearly not where you're supposed to be. And then what you can do is then if they're like, is everything okay? You can be like, oh, no. You know, like, oh, no, it's not. Yeah.

Anyway, like you can. Well, also like a lot of cops like now know the pizza storyline. Oh. If like for women who need to get out of the house. Yeah. If they are telling their husband like, oh, I'm just calling and getting a pizza. If you say like, hey, I need an extra large cheese. And you're just like really consistent on that story that story, the cop will figure it out.

And be like, oh, what address do you need the pizza sent to? And then, like, they'll figure it out. Yeah. There's also apps, too, that are disguised as, like, other things on your phone that you can click and it'll send to, like, for abuse victims. Like, it looks like it's, I's i don't know something else like a pizza delivery or whatever maybe i forget what it actually is um i i in my past i have used those they're i don't know now i mine was several years ago yeah but i'm sure they have some pretty cool stuff now shoot i should look that i'll look that up later um but yeah so there's stuff you know out

there but of course so she this is anyway sorry back of course, so she, this is, anyway, sorry, back to Elizabeth. She wrote this note. Then she left another tip behind. She told her sister, Sarah, that if she wasn't home by six to call the police, fully knowing she was not going to be home by six. She's like, I just need them to call the police as soon as possible. Right. So when she got in Cummins' car, he placed a gun on the center console and she was like okay that's like a firm committed threat yeah got it like you're stuck with me yeah don't think twice about anything yeah and there's

no way out um so around 10 p.m elizabeth dad calls the local sheriff he has been driving around frantically searching for her for hours um checking all over town especially after the whole like kissing incident that had been going on at school with mr cummins he was like something is going on searching for her for hours um checking all over town especially after the whole like kissing incident that had been going on at school with mr cummins he was like something is going on and he insisted that the sheriff check on tad cummins and like ask his wife where he was so it turns out his wife had also called the sheriff to report her husband missing so now they're both missing and he immediately becomes the prime suspect in a wanted man and a national amber alert is issued for elizabeth so despite her like her clues and the clear suspect and motive elizabeth would

not be rescued for 38 days that's horrific and we're gonna go through these days now okay one by one um several by several okay uh so they get in the car he makes her turn he puts the gun down he makes her turn his her phone off then and his then he disconnects the car's gps with a screwdriver so they can't be tracked uh he steals a license plate from an abandoned van he dyes his and elizabeth's hair uh every time. So she said they didn't stay in places more than like one or two nights typically. And she was forced to share a hotel bed with him and was repeatedly forced to have sex with him, which hadn't happened up to this point. So that was like a new like there were sexual acts. She was forced to perform in the classroom, but not intercourse was. Yes.

Got it. So that that this is in the classroom, but not to this. Intercourse was. Yes. Got it. So this is the first time that had happened. So the interviewer said, was there ever a time where you thought like, oh, maybe if he's sleeping, I can just make a run for it? And she said, of course, but he actually made me sleep naked and hid my clothes so that. So she couldn't get away yeah so that if i ran like i couldn't run and he said she said he was a really light sleeper and if she ever got up to pee in the night which i do like four times a night um he came with her like stood outside stood guard outside the door until she was done because he didn't trust her exactly like he wanted

to keep tabs on her at all times um so he called her his wife occasionally when introducing her to people or if they were at a restaurant or something uh he told her they were going to get married and she'd be with him until she died that's just all right he's uh clearly not in the right mind, he's lost it. He was even controlling her diet. I mean, this guy is just every single thing. It's like bingo. Like you just write whole boards cleared. Yep.

So he forbade her from eating high calorie foods, only salads, because he, quote, liked skinny girls and wanted her to stay small. Get the fuck out of here. It's horrific. She's a small, petite teenager. She said she ate what he told her to because if she didn't, then he wouldn't feed her anything. Oh, my God. She was just forced to eat shitty lettuce. I'm not going to say from Shoney's, but from various gas stations throughout the country.

So they just drove and drove basically they like didn't stop for long uh they crossed nine states and made it all the way to california from tennessee wow it's like quite if you look at the map their route is insane um at a certain point she started like rejecting him and saying she didn't want to do things with him anymore and he didn't like that so he started buying her alcohol and forcing her to drink alcohol to keep her some dude it's really beyond sick um she took a rock okay so this is what she would do she took a rock from each state and wrote the county that she was in on the back so that she could keep a small record of where she was because she wasn't allowed a phone or anything so she kept like a little record of what counties they had been in so that if

the police rescued her, she'd be able to say, this is where we drove. And she said her goal was that he would be tried in each state separately. Wow. Oh my God. I wouldn't have even thought of that. I wouldn't even thought of that either. And she's 15. 15.

She's like, I wanted the maximum that he could possibly get. So I marked down every town where he like assaulted me. I like that she knew like the police are coming like i just gotta hold down yeah she like really held on to it there is a certain point where she's like i gave up on ever finding yeah okay so i mean yes she actually said that's literally my next bullet i'm so i'm so sorry it's fine she said she did that to a certain extent with the rocks and she's like at a certain point i was like what is even what's the point? Like, it's been this many days. How are they going to find me in Nevada?

You know, right. And so she kind of said over time, she just stopped doing that. She said, eventually, I just stopped counting. And she had no idea that the whole country was looking for her because she doesn't know TV. Exactly. He wouldn't show her. She said one time uh

she saw someone on like fox news mentioned her name and he like turned it off immediately but like she didn't know that there was this nationwide amber alert and all this stuff so she felt like totally alone and lost um his wife okay so at this point his wife jill makes a public statement asking him to please come home and bring elizabeth back safely that's like a heartbreaking thing because she just looks so distraught the wife and is like my husband like did something terrible please bring her home safely it's just really bad um so then after a while when they're kind of heading toward the west coast tad starts to feel like authorities are closing in on him he kind of knows that they're in full force tracking him. So he hatches a new plan.

He decides he and Elizabeth are going to kayak to Panama. Oh, that's rational. I can't even say that. It's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. This is 3,000 nautical miles away. Oh my god. He wants to kayak to Panama. This guy has lost his marbles the coast literally said clearly not

a geography teacher i was like oh clearly snaps to the narrator not that he's a great health teacher either sure after all this but yes the she was like clearly not a geography teacher tad purchased a kayak to travel to panama so he buys a fucking kayak and makes her get in the kayak and is like now we're going to panama and she was like um we're gonna die so they start kayaking and she's like immediately like the waves were insane she's like i'm gonna die we're both gonna die out here we're not she said that was like the most she was afraid for her life yeah um and she's like this is going to kill us and she said at one point a wave was so bad that it like tipped the whole boat and they were not very far into

their journey sure and he finally was like okay this isn't gonna work and she's like could have told you that but right okay so he comes up with a new plan and this one's also really good what he's like we're gonna join a kayak to space we're kayaking to mars there's no waves up there he uh he decides they're gonna join a commune um that is probably the most rational thing this guy has said it's more day for sure more rational than anything else so he googled closest commune shut up just whatever whatever is out there and he found one called black bear in the woods of northern california this commune is completely off the grid no tv no radio no cell phone no internet uh they basically have no contact with the outside world 2020 interviewed this guy but he only let let them

interview with like their iphone like an old school they had like one old school model iphone and he's like you can't bring camera equipment like i'll talk to you only me i'll talk to you but and you can film it on your iphone but that's it so uh they're filming it on this iphone and she's kind of talking to him and his name is april showers sure sure it is uh he said tad and elizabeth showed up at the ranch and told everyone they were 44 and 24 respectively and that their names were john and joanna uh they took them in gave them a bed fed them elizabeth said they were really welcoming and kind and they really liked her and um tad not so much according to to our friend Mr. Showers, Tad brought with him an anger problem and a, quote, perverted instinct.

So they're kicked out. Sure. The commune was like, this ain't gonna fly. We really like Elizabeth or Joanna, but, like, this other guy is just a piece of work. Sure. And he's disrupting our, as he called it, sacred space. So he, Tad, does not like being told no if we recall i remember yikes he flips out he takes out a knife he's screaming at this guy april and elizabeth at this point is

like i'm she was like i was sure he was just gonna go get his gun and kill people like i thought this was it like we were dead but he kind of made himself calm down threw the knife down took elizabeth and the two of them left with only two eggs and an orange for sustenance shit they headed toward a town called cecilville which is nearby and tad told elizabeth to stay in the car and put on sunglasses and hide your face so you're not recognized at the gas station they see this guy it was actually the same guy who had given them directions to the commune a week earlier. So he's like, oh, hey, pal. His name is Griffin Barry.

He's like this 29-year-old hippie guy. And he's like, oh, hey, Griffin. Like, remember us? Yeah, we had a great time at the commune. But we're heading out with our eggs. And, you know, we're down on our luck. He says, we had a house fire and i lost my job um and he's like me and my wife are trying to start a new life is there any way you

could temporarily help us and griffin is like a property manager for this big property and there's like this little cabin no running water or anything it's like a little shed almost like a storage shed it's like a pine shed and he's like okay yeah you guys can sleep here but like you know you have to like in exchange do some work for me and basically their job was to collect rocks river rocks for a masonry project he was working on okay so they lived in this little cabin so uh tad slept on a foam mattress and elizabeth slept on a seat cushion that they had taken from the commune there was no heat or insulation this was like march or april in northern california so it was

freezing it's just a shed uh there's no running water there's no heat or insulation freezing cold at night they didn't have any food so they ate wild flowers for sustenance that's awful uh so at one point griffin picked them up for like their rock collecting job and was like okay i'll teach you how to do this and uh he asked elizabeth what's your name again i forget and apparently she said joanna but with a southern accent and he's like it was just very weird how she said it like it just didn't seem right and he's like huh i recognize that accent turns out this guy is originally from nashville tennessee get out he's like that's so weird she sounds like she's from my neck of the woods

and he says she refuses to speak any other time i mean this reminds me a lot of elizabeth smart too like right she just is like silent yeah and he says she won't interact um like she'll respond every now and then with her like accent stuff but he she won't uh. Like, she'll respond every now and then with her, like, accent and stuff. But she won't say anything. And he's, like, just so weirded out and, like, perturbed by this that he tells his neighbor, you know, I think something is up with these guys. Like, is there a way we can look into them and see what's going on? She seems not okay. That night, like, for whatever reason, either he's searching it or like he sees it on TV.

The neighbor is like made aware of this Amber alert. I'm taking an Instagram video really quick. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I'm just letting you know before you keep talking. Oh, yeah. No. Because at this point.

Em has like summoned you. Trying to record. And he is fresh on top of me. Isn't that right, Giovanni? His eyes are bugging out. Anyway, here I am recording live. Oh, great. All right, keep going.

That's all I needed. I know he's going to freak out. He's stressing me out. I can feel him stressing out. He's kidding. Okay. There, you can stay there. Okay.

Okay. Yep, there he is. Yep. Are you leaving me now after all that okay so uh so the neighbor is for whatever reason either he's looking it up or he's watching tv that night and he sees this amber alert and he's like oh a man an older man and a young woman or in this case a teenager child he's like huh i'm gonna show griffin so he shows griffin and griffin's like yep that's the guy oh no and they immediately call police so thank god the police are like finally we have found we've like found them in northern california of all places um

and so that was late at night a couple hours later early that next morning elizabeth goes outside to wash their dishes from the night before and she notices someone on the hill Wow. She said that was the best day of her life. Yeah, of course. Even though they told her, like, get on the ground, put your hands up. She's basically being arrested too but i mean but she's but she's also becoming freer correct than she currently is she's being like rescued yeah um it was that was april 21st 2017 38 days since their initial disappearance wow finally she was being rescued as cummins is led away he

whispers to elizabeth still trying to manipulate her, and says, tell them you went willingly, tell them we did nothing sexual, and tell them I was just trying to protect you. It's just... Okay. Nice try. Now, this part really bothered me about this story. When they interviewed, like, locals in the beginning, and the victim blaming is just beyond anything I've ever seen.

You know, she had been the victim of abuse and assault by the hands of multiple people. And people still turn it on her, saying, like, oh, she just had a crush on him. She wanted to go. She was rebellious. She didn't want to, you know, she was in love with him, whatever. It's like, no, she was a child. Yeah. That's not how that works and um she told in the interview she said people think they know what happened they think

i'm a whore they think that i like old men and that's not the case and at this point she's only 18 so it's only been a couple years um but she said even her school her school just never, never took the blame for what had happened, for not protecting her. She says her family sued the school board for failing to protect her from Mr. Cummins. To this day, they've never apologized. They've never admitted any wrongdoing. And, you know, they didn't even call the police right away when a teacher was literally seen kissing one of his students. Awesome. Awesome.

away when a teacher was literally seen kissing one of his students awesome awesome uh elizabeth insists that her school knew something was going on especially after they had suspended they had proof they had a little bit of proof or at least a witness yeah um and she said they did nothing to stop it on her word on a 15 year old's word saying nothing happened well of course she's gonna say that uh so she felt that they were just extracting themselves from the situation by saying, oh, yeah, don't talk to each other. You're suspended. And then. Right. Wipe their hands clean of it.

She believes they could have stopped the kidnapping if they had intervened in a better way. So in 2018, Tad Cummins finally pleaded guilty to federal charges of transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual conduct, conduct and obstruction of justice. Okay. What man do you want to be? Because you're not that one. You're not what you think you are. Elizabeth herself gave an impact statement during the trial that was really powerful. I'm going to read it to you. Okay.

It's kind of long. I apologize. This is what she told Tad on the stand. When I started school, you picked me out of the crowd. I was just a kid who wanted to make friends, but you were someone who had a plan. You saw a broken girl who was lonely scared and traumatized you made her feel safe and loved because you saw what she needed and made her believe you and made her believe you would be her protector all you were was a man who wanted sex and you manipulated me and used me just

for that you act like you care now and that you're full of all this regret but where was any of that before where was any of that when you first had me alone in your classroom closet and violated me over and over again for months where was any of that when you spent untold amounts of time and Damn. It was very powerful um and so she said that and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison this past january in 2019 wow yep and elizabeth from what i can gather is now 18 she's happily engaged yay i know it's really sweet they showed uh her and her fiance at the local sonic so cute that's precious uh she was working at a coffee shop she has a new puppy and she's working toward her ged so very cool she's fucking a baller uh she seems extremely

well adjusted at least the way she presented herself i was amazed how wow she told the story just i don't i i can't imagine i can barely tell a story without fucking i cannot imagine losing i'm sure we just scratched the surface of what's really out there too exactly um so it's just very impressive she's a very impressive young woman and she says her she says her goal in life is to have a family and to keep them safe oh and. And that is the very long, sorry, story of Elizabeth Thomas. Wow. Wowza. It's really good, though. I mean...

It's just very... I mean, it's good in the sense that, like, I mean, she survived. That's good. You know, that doesn't happen often in my stories. Right. But, like, just the trauma and abuse, God. I did want to add real quick that as far as resources um if this is something that you feel like you or someone you love is struggling with uh the national domestic violence

hotline you can reach them at the hotline.org they have a chat if you have phone anxiety like me you can chat online which is great i think um and they have a ton of resources there too phone numbers if you'd rather call um you know advice if you have people who you feel are suffering through that and you want to help um and that website is the hotline.org and that is my story it's i mean yeah well go get help well abuse is a very very tough thing very real and a very real thing Well, on that wonderfully happy note. You know it's going to happen every week. I don't think I have any updates.

The person survived, and it's still just not a happy ending. Somehow it's not a good thing. That's the only good thing out of a very bad thing. I mean, I'm trying to come up with... Nobody ever came up with a good ending for this. I mean, we tried geoscopes. That didn't really work. We tried...

I don't know. What else are we really work we tried i don't know what else are we gonna do i don't know remember when we used to count every single patreon person in our listeners episodes and then it got we've made a lot of mistakes on this show it got to be 45 minutes and we were like this isn't working i'm just saying the name stephanie like a thousand times emily emily sarah sarah h sarah b um yeah whoops sorry about that guys uh also maybe we can like Emily, Sarah. Sarah H. Sarah B. Yeah. Whoops. Sorry about that, guys. Also, maybe we can, like, tell a pun. I don't know.

Camping is intense. There you go. There's your number one. Done. Punny ending. What's a dinosaur fart? Okay, now you're giving away all the great content for future episodes. A blast from the past.

Okay, save them. Got it. We got to have them for next week when I do it. I have a story already. I blast from the past. Okay, save them. Got it. We got to have them for next week when I do it. I have a story already. I need a worse one. The story I picked out for next week is freaking terrible.

Great. I almost did it this week and I didn't have the emotional energy. So I'm saving it for next week. Super duper. Anyway, we're going to be in Salt Lake this week. We're super excited. And that is our last show of 2019.

Oh my God. I forgot how soon that is i know it's literally next week oh my gosh i have to be back at that airport again i had the worst airport experience yesterday and now i apparently have to be back there in the next couple days we did that a lot for four months and then we stopped and we're not used to it anymore there was a i don't know how you get used to it but you really do get used to us being in the airport all literally every day for five months you're just like i live here now oh anyway it was bananas well we're starting that over i'm sure sometime in 2020 for touring so i don't even know how i'm gonna get through it again i remember having maybe one brain cell left by the end the

worst is that like for whatever reason i've gotten proportionally speaking i get recognized in airports more often i think it's because like a there's more condensed amount of people and b people are traveling either like they know we're in town maybe for a show or whatever or because they're traveling they're doing things like listening to podcasts that's true just to stay busy and then that's true hello we're right there hello fresh we're right there we're right there we're always at the baggage claim waiting for you but so like the first time two people recognized me i was like well guess i can't show up like greasy and unwashed and like looking haggard anymore because people always want a selfie i looked like trash at the atlanta airport yesterday i got recognized three times yeah it happened that it always happens that way i'm like i put on eyeliner someone

fucking recognized me just kidding um it's look the price we pay for fame i sound like such a brat i can't look like garbage anymore. Someone said hi to me. Two people said hi to me in a bar in New Orleans. And they're like, I know you hate this. And I was like, I don't. Like, I love saying hi to people. I'm just a fucking paranoid person who thinks I'm doing something wrong.

Well, the one of the people who recognized me in the airport, like there were two other people who were like, hi, I just want to, you know, I really love your show. You know, when the flight's over, can we get a picture together? But there was one guy who just came up to me and just went, um, and then I like freaked out and I was like, what? And then he just stuck his hand up for a high five. And I high fived him and I was like, what's up? And he was like, hey, I just wanted to say, hey. And I was like, oh, do I know you?

And he was like, oh, I listened to your show. I was show i was like oh that makes sense i just heard someone scream my name do i know you yeah yeah no it's really fun when people say hi i feel like i hope please say hi i hope we didn't sound like we came off that way i just saying i have phone anxiety i think the thing that people uh probably it's because when we were saying like there's nothing more jarring in the beginning yeah before we were getting recognized all the time it we it was always weird because you'd be walking on the street and someone would just go um excuse me and your gut instinct is you fucked up well i always say sorry and they're like i'm not well okay so recently a cop approached me oh and oh and so i was terrified because some he came up and was like hey excuse me and i was like oh my god what did i

litter by accident? Did I like park my car in the wrong? Did I litter? I like how your crime is that you littered. I was like, I didn't do anything wrong. Like, what could I have accidentally done? I was like, did I park in the wrong space? I bet you fucking littered.

Whatever. And so but then he was like, this is going to be a really stupid question. But are you in? No. I was like, thank God. This is like this is the kind of thing you need to call me for. Not like I ate a burrito, but like a cop recognized me. And now we're never going to get a speeding ticket again.

He was very nice. But things like that where if a cop approached you on the street, you get nervous. Correct. Yes. And so I was like, oh, okay, this is fine. Anyway, I'll just stop. Okay. Sorry.

We love saying hi. That's all we're saying. We love saying hi. Just be prepared for us to look a little nervous at first. A little scatterbrained. Yes. And I probably didn't wash my hair. Okay. Anyway, on that note, we will saying we love saying hi just be prepared for us to look a little nervous a little like scatterbrained yes and i probably didn't wash my hair okay anyway on that note we will talk to you next week and that's why we drink