And That's Why We Drink - E142 The Buffalo Plaid Anniversary and a Sweaty, Sweaty Witch

Episode Date: October 20, 2019

Funcle Em strikes back! We're drenched in buffalo plaid and Canadian cheer this week - Christine is back from Halifax and has brought Em an entire souvenir shop's worth of Canadian swag. Em then takes us to their home state of Virginia for the story of the Witch of Pungo, Grace Sherwood. And Christine brings us back to Canada to convince Em there are, in fact, Canadian murderers. And, boy, does Bruce McArthur prove that point. PS. Does anyone want to do some dark magic involving artisanal peanut butter with us? ...and that's why we drink!Special thanks to @y0universal (https://twitter.com/y0universal) and Elise of Rabbit Holes podcast (https://www.rabbitholespodcast.com) for their contributions to Em and Christine's stories today!Please consider supporting the companies that support us!Try ZipRecruiter for free when you go to https://www.ziprecruiter.com/drinkFor 20% off your first Native purchase, visit nativedeodorant.com (https://www.nativecos.com) and use promo code DRINK during checkout!Get a 4-week trial PLUS free postage AND a digital scale when you go to Stamps.com (https://www.stamps.com) , click on the Microphone at the TOP of the homepage and type in DRINKThis October take the scariness out of buying life insurance with Policygenius. Go to Policygenius.com (https://www.policygenius.com) , get quotes, and apply in minutes!

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 What? 🎵 What is going- 🎵 What is going...

I would sing, but I don't know the words. What is happening? I see a lot of buffalo plaid. I'm freaking out. That was really smooth, I thought. what is happening i'm officially canadian well welcome to the club i've joined your clan don't you just love it welcome to the great side oh it was a blast i got you this backpack wait that's mine it's full of canadian shit here you go i got a whole can i open it oh yeah please i figure now that we finally have a video uh element to this it's less annoying for people it's been two years and people have never

been able to watch me open anything and somehow they still deal with all our gift exchanges i don't know how or why well we're gonna find out i want to adjust this so everyone can see my my face the right way all right the best version of my reaction i remember what the hell i put in there i do want to say there's nothing i love more that i call i'm sure i've said it on the show before but i have a specific um aesthetic that i like to call nature cozy and pretty much if it if there's buffalo platter at all it fits oh yeah the number of times i told blaze everything was nature cozy and uh he caught on to the fact that even I invented

funeral chic when we were in New Orleans. Love funeral chic by the way. A combo of the two is just bananas. It's just like dead in a cabin that's funeral chic and nature cozy. That's actually one of my stories I feel like. Oh wait good wait okay so here we go I already appreciate this backpack I'll wear it everywhere. So just open it up i don't know yeah this backpack says canada on it too does it yeah so i mean i figure it was pretty on brand and it well how nature cozy is this not to sound like ida garden but it's printed on leather it is so that makes it extra nature cozy um yeah so it is a buffalo for those listening who just want to kill us right now this is a buffalo plaid backpack entirely but there's not

like not like a like a like a smattering of buffalo plaid the whole thing is a big fucking checkerboard next i see a little moose oh yeah he's a nova scotian moose and it's okay so it's a little moose it's got a another checkerboard buffalo plaid bandana love it um i already i already love everything about it and one of his antlers says halifax nova scotia which one is where christine was and two most importantly i have the reason i'm in love with canada and i don't want to explain the reason why but i'm going to because otherwise people are going to ask there was a video a long time ago on youtube when i was 12 and i thought it was hysterical. And it was all

about Halifax. And I watched it every day for my entire 12 year old life. And that was when I decided I was going to move to Canada one day. And before you judge, we all watched that video of someone saying badger 40,000 times and that got a million views. So I I was really into the video. And I wish I could remember the it was the same people who did that viral video when we were in high school called Power Thirst. They did... It's called Halifax. That video made me fall in love with Canada, so I really don't like the reasoning behind it, but I still... I love the reason.

It's so random. The fact that the antler says Halifax on it is just like a little stamp of approval that I've made full circle here. Yes, I went pretty wild in all the here. I'll hold it. Okay. Yeah. Next, I already see what I love. Right. My Canadian ruffles. Oh, yeah. The all dressed, which the Canadians hate that Americans say this. It does taste like barbecue to me. It does. But it's really tasty. I'm gonna eat the hell out of it. We'll love barbecue. Apparently, it's like red pepper and an onion and it's got a whole bunch of things going on. They also have ketchup flavor, but I was feeling that. The all dress is the Canadian way.

Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you for that. I'm going to eat those not on the show so people don't complain. Can you imagine? Oh my God. There's so much stuff.

I'm sorry. There's a lot of shit. Oh, what is going on? Oh my God. Do you know about this? No. Holy crap. I was like, I wonder if Em knows about the Titanic.

I know about the Titanic. In Halifax. Oh, no. That's where all the victims of the Titanic are buried. You didn't know this either? Blaze and I were like, why are they so obsessed with the Titanic? And then we went on a ghost tour, obviously. And they were like, oh, yeah, all of the victims.

It was the closest port. So they were all brought here some of them out some of them like were buried at sea some of them were brought back home to wherever they were from and a lot of them the remainder were all buried in cemeteries in halifax get out of here and so this is anyway it's a titanic times in the halifax or the times of halifax which also they had an explosion it was the largest man-made explosion before hiroshima oh wait that was in the halifax or the times of halifax which also they had an explosion it was the largest man-made explosion before hiroshima oh wait that was in the halifax video on youtube so they talk about that but not the titanic probably so but yeah so 2 000 people died it was insane so is this like a copy of the paper from like the day yeah the day wow it does the it's the times of halifax and then the um the headline is titanic sinks four hours after hitting iceberg it was like

the closest to halifax isn't that wild i had no idea wow and also kind of i mean fucked up slash ingenious marketing to keep selling this yeah because i absolutely would want they seem pretty popular they were low on stock so uh i bought one obviously there's a lot of fucked up people out there i'm included you're included Thank you for spending your money on that. I'll enjoy it forever. What's next? This little box that says... Oh, that's a... Oh, it's from Starbucks.

Been There series. Oh, yeah. Open it. Across the globe collection ornament. It's super cute. It's a little baby Canada mug. Oh, you know I love things that are proportionally not accurate. You know, I was going to buy the real big mug and I was like, no, this one's cute because

you can just hang it wherever you don't need to feel like you're lugging around it's got a little mousse and it's got uh it's got syrup on it it's got mittens it's got hockey stuff it's got it's got poutine on it it's got a oh it does and it's got a a little beanie and a ski mask and a mounties hat yeah yeah i thought it was just kind of cute i was like i have to i mean i'm gonna drink i'm gonna do a lot of shots of chocolate milk out of this bad boy espresso for the people watching on youtube this is how tiny it is i feel like the hulk when i carry it that's another reason why i'm in love i can't ask for more except i can and it's probably in this bag oh god there's so much

in there i'm sorry i'm gonna have you hold that yep guys this is truly this is like and then i found the backpack and i went hell yeah just put it all in uh loving this is this an eyeglass oh that's definitely from the canadian dollar store i had to buy some stuff at the canadian dollar store why wouldn't you this was the i think one of the about two things that was one of them it's just an eyeglasses case i just thought it was funny oh no i'm gonna put my glasses on this for sure i don't know if you hid something in here you know i should have but i didn't that was my last stop so those are i love that you went to a dollar store although is it usd or is it canada dollars canada dollars all right good to know so that was what oh on the outside

on the so on the outside of this backpack i learned is big buffalo plaid and on the inside is little buffalo plaid i did not know that look at that double entendre if you will definitely what that word means exactly here are coast these are fun plaid coasters so that's the nova scotian plaid specifically stop do you know what nova scotia means new scot new scotland but yes all right took a guess latin for new scotland and so um they are really into plaid i'm because of scotland listen and that's a local and those are coasters but they're the local nova scotian plaid because of Scotland. Listen, Christine. And that's a local, and those are coasters, but they're the local Nova Scotian plaid. I'm sweating. This is really- I'm also sweating because I put on this Canadian sweatshirt and it's hot as hell.

I saw you come in here with a sweatshirt and I was like, that's a rookie mistake. So they have this brand there called Roots, which I'm sure all you Canadians are like, duh. But we don't really have this here. And apparently I looked it up and they're opening three stores in LA. So I was like, I better get in on the ground oh my god before i go a hit but so can i be weird and touch your boobs area because that's fuzzy looking the first time yeah touch it oh that's nice it's a little beaver he's just like a little faulty beaver touch my

i thought it i wasn't gonna say it i felt you feel it so i thought i'd throw it out there just announce that i touched your the beaver on your boobs. Everyone on YouTube comments. Oh, my goodness. All right. So I appreciate the shit out of these. They're a very lovely plaid. Is this like the trademarked Nova Scotia plaid?

Yes, that is there. So like Montreal has a different plaid. Get out of here. This is the Nova Scotian plaid. I'm going to be that weird grandpa one day that just collects plaid swatches. Oh, please. I almost bought you because we were at the airport in Montreal and Toronto toronto and i was like what if i bought do they all have their own trademark yes man get the fuck out i know i was losing it well now i found something

i'm gonna start collecting and everyone's gonna hate me for it i'm glad i started i'm gonna love it because it feels like it's an easy gift easy thank you and next um i see more buffalo plaid are these just napkins oh those are just fun napkins with a moose. I love it. Is this the dollar store? No, that was actually the touristy store. Oh, I'm down. So there's a white silhouette of a moose, and in cursive, it says Canada on buffalo plaid napkins. I just figured. I don't know.

Well, what's interesting, actually, is that these come in perfect timing because my birthday this year, Christine surprised me with my lumberjack nature cozy birthday party where i took home all the buffalo plaid napkins and last week i finished out that pack of napkins and now i have more buffalo plaid napkins you literally mentioned that and subconsciously i think i remembered because i was like em needs napkins why the fuck would em need napkins i need plain paper napkins i'm the messy one in this relationship. I see some chocolate coins. Oh, those are loonies. Those are chocolate loonies.

Those are the other dollar store purchase. I don't know what that is. A loonie. Oh, gosh, you have so much to learn. Okay, a loonie is their dollar. Oh, really? And a toonie is their two dollars. So, coin.

A loonie toonie. Uh-huh. You've got to be kidding me. I'm not. So, is their dollar store called a loonie store? No, but it should be. It certainly should be, and they should have Bugs Bunny just selling these. It was called a Dollarama, but I saw chocolate loonies, and I actually brought you a loonie

and a toonie, but they're downstairs somewhere. Oh, I love a good loonie and a toonie. I had to do it. How did I not? As someone who loves things that rhyme, and cartoons, and Canada. And also claims that they are a local of Halifax. I'm such a local, I don't even have to know the culture, you know? But so, yeah, you don't need to like touristy stuff.

Yeah, I stay away from the touristy stuff. You don't need to know about Titanic. Ignore my giant bag of touristy stuff right in my lap. And here it is. Oh, yeah, there it is. I knew one was coming my way. Oh, I did not know this. Oh, wait, there's more stuff in here.

Oh, there is. There's another pocket. Okay, well, in the last big part of it, there is a sweatshirt that looks like something I'm going to wear for the rest of my life and nothing else. I see patches of buffalo plaid everywhere. It's a zip-up. It says Halifax, Nova Scotia. There's a nice little trimming on the bottom.

Look, we can match. Look at my trimming. Stop it. It literally is the same trimming. We match trimming. Is this from the same store? No. Oh. This nice little trimming on the bottom. Look, we can match. Look at my trimming. Stop it. It literally is the same trimming. Is this from the same store? No. This is from the Root store. That's weird because it's literally the same trimming. I know. Maybe it's a Canada thing. I think they just like

that there. I will be... I'm not going to wear it now because it's so fucking hot. I walked around with it with two different sizes trying them on. Which size did you get? Oh yeah, it'll fit. You're good. And if it doesn't fit, i'll fucking make it work an x it's actually an 8x double xs all right thank you for by the way i have not thanked you no oh my gosh i'm just i'm glad that i'm just blacking out actually now this is the front pocket a little jug of maple syrup

had to get the local which i'm out of canadian maple syrup you canadians get the local maple syrup. Which, I'm out of Canadian maple syrup. You Canadians, by the way, I know you're stereotypically nice, but you guys really are bananas nice. When we had my show, by the way, in Canada, not our show. You were in the pajamas. Listen, we know who was steamrolling who on that stage and it was me. I was silent.

When we had the show that Christine guest starred on in Canada, so many of you brought me canadian syrup and i have blown through all of it canadians are so nice with gifts like you guys mail us gifts and i'm like these are international like it's expensive but you somehow mail us syrup all the time so we have a lot of keep it coming because wow do i fucking love your syrup all right next up is something i've never seen in my life so So that's a local candy too, a Canadian candy. It's called Eat More. So I looked up the most popular candy in, or most common, like, Canadian, most Canadian candies.

Sure. And a lot of them were, like, from Cadbury or, like, British companies, but this is one of them. I've never seen this, ever. Dark Toffee Peanut Chew. Sounds right up my alley. I don't know. I was just at the groceries. These are from...

Why were you in so many random convenience stores in canada had a conference and i was in seven i went to seven four tourist stores and three like a grocery store for the chips and the candy on christine's anniversary by the way oh yeah it was all this was on her wedding day i'm gonna consider this your annual thank you for literally marrying you and blaze literally texted me like this better become a tradition. I was like, God. Every year I would like something as my thank you for making it all possible. Thank God it's only the paper anniversary this year because the diamond one is going to be a riot.

I would like a diamond the size of Canada. Yeah, you said I would like a diamond the size of Canada or... Or a diamond in the shape of Canada or something like that. Or Canada the size of... I don't know what the fuck you said. It doesn't make any sense, but I loved it. This is something from Jennifer's of Nova Scotia. Yeah, that's another store I went to. Is that a common thing?

I don't know. It's just like a local handmade store. Okay, calm down. In Halifax. Where are we going with this? This is the first thing I bought. I don't even remember anymore. Oh, it's a little ornament. With the Nova Scotian plaid, but read the little thing. So it's a little Nova Scotia plaid stocking ornament. And there's a little bear in there.

He looks way, way happy. Way cozy. Nature cozy. Nature cozy. And the sign says, I am a Nova Scotia bear, here to bring you lots of cheer, to wish you well in all you do so happiness will follow you. Listen, you're from Canada. You're going to do nothing but good wishes for me. But I love the reminder.

Thank you. This little bear is so sweet. I know you don't need like a million ornaments, but. I'll find a reason for them. Allison's going to hate me. And I don't care. She's going to hate me. You got me two mugs for my birthday after we vowed to never buy each other a mug ever again.

We have. Both of our partners have made it very clear we're not allowed to buy another mug ever again. Same with Eva. And yet all three of us always come home with new mugs. Listen, I bought a mini one. That doesn't count. I'm just grabbing all these at one time, but I'm just going to look at them individually. Okay.

So this. Oh, perfect. It's just like a little decal of Hal halifax which will be on my car today i figured like laptop car or whatever you want car if you want to know what my car looks like it'll have this on the bumper people seem to find your car because it literally has the most m shit on it yeah a lot of people have literally found my car and taken pictures of it and then dm me on instagram saying i found your car that means you're nearby right and it's terrifying posted your license plate on the internet lol um a little decal, which will be going on my suitcase.

That is the Canadian flag. I thank you. I love a good box of Smarties. Yeah, that was... These are the... AKA Canadian slash European M&Ms. Better M&Ms, dare I say. I love Aero.

So these are the most Canadian candies I saw on a list. Aero is some good ass chocolate and it's got the popping sensation. I love a good arrow. Love a good arrow. Now this is something that I found in a store in not in Halifax. It was in, oh gosh, Mahone Bay. And there was this little ribbon

and I was still pretty bitter that I haven't been verified on Instagram and you have. So I bought you this ribbon. It says most likes on Instagram. Hashtag no filter. It felt like I was being followed around by my shame. so your canadian shame i couldn't escape it it was just me like my canadian spirit just following you around being like truly i am verified and you're in canada truly you yes and i

literally kept checking because i had requested a few days before i left by the way in case you guys are wondering i got rejected for it like five days after Em got approved. And so nobody seems to... A lot of people have been saying, why isn't Christine... It's not because we're not trying. It's not... And then they're like, Christine, you have to request it. I was like, oh, what a novel idea. I'm like, I got the podcast

verified, but I can't get myself verified. No, you just gotta be cute, Christine. That's the problem. You haven't succeeded in that part yet. I can't do it. It's too much work. So, here we are. Well, thank you for all of this.

I am at a loss of words. I was like, I know there's a lot of things you probably don't need more of, but I figure at least you can use the napkins and the coasters. I needed all of it. And I'm sure Blaze was like, this is what happens when I leave you alone in your best friend's favorite country on our anniversary to go to a conference. Yes. I'm glad that I was on the forefront of your mind on your wedding day. He was learning how to intubate people, which, by the way, I had to learn about over dinner.

So that was my punishment for all of this was that I had to learn how to put tubes down people. Your punishment? You really did. Your punishment was a gift to me. This is just bananas yeah I love this little moose I brought an empty suitcase for the very purpose of buying presents so that makes me happy I it's like you're on tour all over again it is when we uh when we were on tour Christine would always bring an empty suitcase because we would get so many wonderful wonderful gifts from people and everyone would be like Emma and I was gonna say Eva but it was just I'm being like, how many bags do you need?

And I'm like, this one's literally empty because I'm the one who I said, bring everything home and nobody else will help me. But this is what happens when we decided on day one that your house would have the studio. That's true. That was my fault. You have to drive down. That's your punishment. My punishment is to love. Yeah, you're right.

You're right. I just get to bring home the canadian stuff we also do the gift videos here so we really just uh load up in this house of uh stuff this is what happens when you when you get a house guys stay in an apartment in a small small space and you won't uh end up with extra suitcases of things it's true because you'll move in somewhere and you'll go oh this is so much space we can't fit it and to be fair all of our the things that we get one we're super grateful for but sometimes you get things like a haunted horse that brings in demons yeah and that's why you should keep the apartment so that your co-host has to that's what it the haunted

horse because there's no reason m should have it i have a spare closet that now has ghosts in it so that's the truth it works that's the truth you fill it you have an empty house you fill it with ghosts it's just how logic and mathematics work. My dad's an engineer. Trust me. I'm very jealous that Christine gets to like have all the candy and stuffed animals and cool books and paintings from everyone. But I would easily trade all of that for not having the haunted demon horse.

And the hilarious thing is every time Em leaves, I'm like, hey, do you want? I was like, no, you hold on to it. It's already been tainted by the environment here. Yeah. Yeah. So when I move out. I'll come here and look at it and admire it and then you house it with your demons. And then if I ever want it, I'll just come borrow it.

That's like the idea. And then never give it back. That's what you do with Gio. I'm like, I sit around like having to deal with walking him every day and then you come over to like play and then leave. It's like the perfect. That's why they call me Funkalem. It really works out for your favor.

So one day you'll be Aunt Christine and I'm going to get such a punishment back karma's really gonna kick my ass that day i'm gonna it's gonna be a good you're gonna ruin my fucking dog roaring time anyway thank you for everyone watching and experiencing that yes anyway so i just wanted to give you some canadian cheer but i had a great time in canada thank you it It was cold for me. I mean, it was like in the forties at certain points and raining. But it was really lovely. And I feel like I finally got like fall, like it was beautiful and the fall leaves and everything. It was just a little chilly. It wasn't totally prepared. I don't know what that means anymore. I forgot what chilly feels like. I packed for chilly and then I showed up and realized I had not even a little bit packed for chili i was like why on earth did i think this would be enough

layers well it's like 80 degrees today and i saw someone leave their apartment in a jacket because it's just has not even been that quote cold and so long like we lived in boston like we understand what cold is it's just like you lose it you really do i feel like i used to have tough skin like i used to walk around we were there during the blizzard in 2014 yes and i feel like i had really tough skin then but if i were to go back there and experience it now i would be such a little baby it's really sad how how quickly you lose it but um anyway thank you for all of this i'm surprised there was no fruit along i don't even know what that is remember when i freaked out the first time i saw canadian fruit by the foot oh no oh yeah no I didn't even look for that lost my mind I expected that a little

bit but it's okay I ate literally like two boxes of it they don't have a foot there they have a meter fruit by the meter that would be way more fun they uh I remember when we went to Vancouver I easily ate one to two to three boxes just on principle because it looked i and my brain told me it tasted better too i am a mess probably does though anything in canadian in canada is better sorry i'm not i'm not what the fuck was that as if you are uh yeah anyway i feel like i wrote some things down that i have to say before we get started otherwise i'll forget let's hear it um okay so did it up oh i wrote down can i just tell you what blaze got me for anniversary because i thought it was nice yeah okay so we had our anniversary in canada because blaze had

conference and i just followed him there um and it was really nice so it was technically our paper anniversary we didn't know what to do with that so um he got me the vinyl of like our first dance song by Kit Moore, which was really sweet. And then, he got me VIP tickets to this music festival called Innings Festival in Tempe, Arizona next year, where three of my favorite bands of all time are performing. I didn't even know about

this. Death Cab for Cutie, Weezer, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise. Oh my god. You know I've been following around the country all year. We i've been following around the country we've literally been following rainbow kitten surprise for some it's not to gloss over how wonderful that gift is but for people to understand for some reason we must have the same booking manager or something because every single time we've gone to a venue rainbow kitten surprise was either just there or they're gonna find a poster or like they're gonna be there the week after us i just was like dying because i missed their whole fucking tour because

we were on tour and i was like god damn it and so i missed their whole tour and i was so bummed about it so blaze found out they were doing this uh festival festival yes thank you and he bought like the like platinum tickets and i was like oh my god what does that mean and it's like front row and all this stuff and i was so excited and i guess to see death cabin weezer and the struts and oh my gosh that's gonna be great anyway when is that um when is that do you know i mean to march march march march march um yeah i'm very excited anyway so that's awesome yeah it was fun i like how for him like the paper years like tickets or paper yeah tickets tickets he's like well i try he actually tried to order tickets and they were like oh yeah you have to

pay extra for hard copy tickets that's weird how the world's changing and they don't mail them until after the festival so he's like i just gave up and like printed it out instead here's um and then i got him um oh a giant book of our wedding photos, which took me way too long to put together. I can confirm every time I've seen Christine put together a scrapbook, she gets bananas intense with it. I want every photo to be in it, but there's like 1100 photos. So it's like, this is never ending.

So that was my fault. And then, um, what else? Oh, and then you already saw the other one. It was like one of our wedding readings i had framed yes the one lisa read so lisa literally never escapes our house no what a surprise um anyway so it was really good and i was really happy and i wished you were there i missed you the whole time so instead i just went shopping trust me i wish i was in canada no i felt bad we didn't bring you but i think blaze probably wouldn't have

you know been super on board for that part but he would have been fine he would have actually probably been way fine you really should have just i mean you were going without him inviting you you just jumped on i should have done it too he wouldn't have been surprised by that addition no i would just shown up i would have been actually folded into that empty suitcase that you brought for me that's true you would have said i'm bringing a 4m but he didn't have to know it's because i was there and then i just unwrap the buffalo plaid and there you are. I just pop out like in a cake or something. It's the buffalo plaid anniversary.

That is exactly what it is. Yes. And also I wanted to add that I was just recently on Adam Ferrer's podcast where we talked about, he and his wife are super great. We talked about true crime and ghosty things and he's obsessed with forensic files. So we had that in common and he's friends with lisa so we talked about how his friend uh who's another host on the show has like a ghost who stands over his bed at night perfect we talked about that it's really spooky but it's called adam for our podcast and um i was on that and then real quick i just wanted to add that discover pods is seeking nominations for their 2019 podcast awards

they have a kids and family podcast section. Last year, CK, Classic Kevin's show, Merce and Monsters, got to the finalist section, but didn't win. So I'm hoping maybe we can get him further this year. Voting ends like this Tuesday when this comes out. So I already voted, but I urge you guys to go vote because it's such a good show and he's such a good friend of ours. And it would be just so awesome to get him further than the finals this year.

And that is at awards.discoverpods.com. Boom. Boom. Sorry. Help out CK. Help out CK because he helps us out so much and does all our bonus shows on Patreon and like has just been a listener since like episode one probably. Like really one of our first listeners ever where we were like, do you know this person? No.

Do you? No. So anyway. One day he just followed both of us on were like, do you know this person? No. Do you? No. So anyway. One day he just followed both of us on Twitter and we didn't know what was going on. He's like, love your show. And we're like, who are you? Your best friend and your worst nightmare and you just don't even know it yet. And he touched the chair, remember?

The haunted chair. Oh. And he's around. That's why we have to stay on his good side in case he gets possessed or something. He carries a curse. Well, is that all? That's it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to like just no word vomit once again for the next like month don't get to complain about anything with all these gifts in front of me um let's see what to talk about today

oh yeah my notes okay so uh this is a fun story that someone recommended to me damn it i forgot to write it down actually hang on a second. Maybe I have it in my backpack. I thought you meant the Canada backpack. I was like, how could you possibly have it in the Buffalo plaid? No. Oh, my God. Hang on a sec.

You know what? Em's just going to tell me. I'll put it on the YouTube. Yeah, I will. Well, because I wrote it down and then it doesn't matter. Oh, Em. Okay. Well, I'll just have Eva put it. Someone recommended it on Twitter.

Tell Eva to put it in the show notes. I'll put it on the YouTube. Okay, Eva. I'm texting you in the next 45 minutes. Okay. So this is a story that's actually close to where I went to school. For those who don't know, I went to school in a town of Virginia called Newport News. Just look at M's car. You'll find out. You you will that's how a lot of people have found me um

actually wait and now i have a thing that i want to say now that you've mentioned that okay i actually made two friends this week oh and i've already hung out with them twice what's that like i it's new um but i've met i've hung out with both of them for several hours at a time, both times. And we never like lost conversation. And we have like really bonded because I was driving through L.A. I won't say where, but I was driving through L.A. And I saw your post. Yeah.

And I and someone I went to a school called CNU. If you are not from Virginia, you probably don't know what that school is. It's fine. But I was driving by and there was this car parked on the side of the street that had like four different like cnu decals on it and i like halted my car and i had to pull over to be like what is going on i've never seen another person from cnu out here and had he still had his uh decal from when he uh was a student there and so it showed the year that that like decal was valid for parking.

And it said class of 2014. And I was like, I'm class of 2014. And this school is not large. Like I was like, if I don't know him, I at least know 20 people who know him. So I wrote a note and left it on his windshield saying like, let's be friends. And then I left my Instagram handle. To be like, I'm verified. Are you?

No. So he could reach out to me without me giving him my number and uh he ends up reaching out a couple hours later and that night we hung out and he was like oh i'll bring my girlfriend she also went to cnu and is from our year and i found them on facebook and before i even met them i like was creeping on them and found out that we had like 60 mutual friends 60 60 holy and uh what are the odds of that very very you don't know them yeah i didn't know them but we knew so many people in between us and i found out that we actually we were in some of the same classes together we went to the same restaurants

all the time on the same days together that's bizarre like we were definitely in rooms together and and never met and um but yeah so it's very weird. It's still a new friendship. So I'm afraid like as I'm manifesting this into the world that they're going to ghost me tonight. But so far so good. And we've like had really good hangouts. And I've got two new friends, all because of some CNU decals on a car. Now I have two new friends. So so don't make fun of my decals. Maybe it'll get me somewhere. Does someone want to be my friend? No, not even me. I'm just stuck at this point. We pay Eva to be your friend.

I was talking about something and I was like, yeah, oh God, I was so nervous. And you were like, yeah, for someone without social anxiety. And I was like, it's no wonder I have no fucking friends. No, no, no. We were talking about something where like anyone with social anxiety would have probably had, would have been nervous in that situation and i don't suffer from social anxiety and i remember telling you as someone without social anxiety i was freaked out so you definitely i stopped hearing you after that first you just decided it wasn't i went what i just i don't understand what that means but okay

no i was saying anyone would be uncomfortable in that scenario well maybe that's why you're verified maybe that's why that's verified. Maybe that's why. That's exactly it, actually. I called Instagram since I don't have social anxiety. Christine 2020. No, I did not call Instagram. Nobody asked me what their number is. Okay, so.

Call Instagram. Yeah, actually ask me because I'll give you like a random, I'll give you Em's number and be like, here, call Instagram. Don't you dare give anyone my number. So anyways, so back to CNU slash Newport News, Virginia. It's in the Hampton Roads area, where if you are from Virginia, you already knew that. But it's near Virginia Beach. And so this person on Twitter reached out and said, hey, there's this urban legend of a witch in Virginia Beach.

So can you cover that? So I said, of course i can yeah so this is the story of the witch of pungo pungo pungo it's now virginia beach but it used to be called pungo fun fact should never have changed that never ever no love the sound of it that's a good one so it's like i said it's now virginia beach but fun fact used to be called pungo also be called princess anne county which is interesting because I, as someone who grew up in Fredericksburg, Virginia, one of our main streets that everyone

knows is called Princess Anne. So it was just kind of a little nod where I was like, oh, I've heard that before. Also, there's another fun fact about Fredericksburg coming up at the end of this story. It's only fun for me and anyone who lives like within

30 miles and your new friend and my new friend i know his name or no his name's ed ed and his girlfriend's name is hayley ed and hayley and both of them are wonderful and they found out after hanging out with me that i had a podcast and um hayley was like so i listened to one of the episodes and she meant it in a good way before anyone gets all up in arms. But she was like, I don't think I'm going to keep listening. And she meant it in like, I want to get to know you organically, not find out about you through the show. Oh my God. No, tell her to never meet with you until she catches up. Well, it's probably for the best. Can you imagine if you just became friends with me and then find out through another avenue that I was a fucking clown and a reverend? Yes, I can imagine because that's

literally what happened to me. But thank you for reminding the world of it. But so she she was like, I don't think I'm gonna listen to it anymore. Because I feel like I learned a lot about you in that and like you weren't there to like help break down the context of it. And I was like, that's a fair argument. And also the other girl was just shrieking the whole time. And I just I could feel her sweating. I can't get past it. Yeah, I bet. So, The Witch of Pungo. It is set in the early 1700s in Prince Anne County slash Pungo, Virginia, which is now Virginia Beach. Our main character. Her name is Grace White Sherwood.

She was alive from 1660 to 1740. And this story takes place where she's in her 40s. She is believed to be a witch in Virginia. And this was around the same time as the Salem witch trials. But Virginia was much different than Salem during these times. Virginia was much more conservative about claiming people were witches. They believed in like having some sort of like structure before just claiming someone was a witch. That's nice. Yeah.

Go to Virginia. Novel idea. someone was a witch that's nice yeah go to virginia novel idea so in for example in virginia courts the accuser someone like saying christine's a witch i would need proof just by example just as an example like if i told you christine's a witch but she obviously sweaty sweaty witch um i would need in a virginia court to have proof before i they would even take it seriously fortunately you have plenty of that i look in this room. There's so many pentagrams and spell books. I literally have haunted dolls. You have a haunted horse hiding in your closet right now.

Literally, once again, Funklem strikes back. I can't win. Wait, someone make a movie cover of that. Just me being defeated. I don't know. Just on the ground. Just you in the corner, Crank. Just on the ground.

So I would need proof but all but in salem courts you that actually the person who was being accused of being a witch had to have proof of otherwise for it to be taken seriously okay well that's nice that's more than normal i feel like so like if in virginia i would have to have proof that you weren't a witch or that you were a witch in salem you would need proof that i was right right right so very different systems defendant is suddenly not innocent until proven yes yes yes yes yes and also in virginia evidence is quote obtained oh sorry i did these notes a week ago so excuse me while i'm trying to like act like i did this recently um in virginia evidence quote obtained supernaturally was ignored while in salem courts would convict based solely on it.

So. Wow. OK. They were like, if all you have is paranormal proof. Sure. That no one else can, like, confirm, then we can't do anything about it. OK. They were kind of like using their brains.

Yeah. They were a little bit logical. Yeah. Fun fact. In Virginia alone in the 17th century century there were 19 known witchcraft cases okay but all but one of them ended in acquittal and there were no executions for witchcraft oh in virginia that's good so a very different a very different story than kind of incredible how different it is no killings really um i say that though with a of salt, because even though there were no executions, there was...

You'll find out. There was attempts. It wasn't all good. Okay. But at the end of the day, no one died from being accused of witchcraft. I don't know how good of a statement that is. I mean, it's better than what you can say for sale. It's better than there being death.

Yeah. So Grace, Grace Sherwood, she was born in the 1660s to john and susan white in virginia probably in pungo because at the time people didn't really usually leave their county um in 1680 grace married a farmer slash planter named james and would help him on the land they grew their own herbs and she specifically was really into gardening to heal animals and people okay oh so like what people do now in la yes exactly it's a resurgence artisanal peanut butter for geo's treats so she was just ahead of her time geo eats trash off the sidewalk so i mean we'll make him like only the finest organically sourced foods and then he eats rocks i literally pay

for i like how you say we will do it but i mean truly you feed him french fries but yeah i will literally pay for a stupid food because i'm like i want him to be healthy and then he'll eat a snickers bar a full snickers bar off the ground i will panic and he won't even have a stomach ache and i'm like you are he has like an iron stomach it's very creepy it's very maybe he's a witch you know what wait a minute wait a minute It's very. Maybe he's a witch. You know what? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're onto something.

Maybe he's a familiar. Oh. So. Ba ba ba. So Grace. Yeah. So Grace was helping her husband James on the land. She was known to grow her own herbs to heal people and animals.

They had three sons named John, James, and Richard. And she was said to also be a midwife. This is how she's described to people. Attractive, me. Tall, me. Had a sense of humor, me. Wore trousers instead of a dress, me. LOL.

Wow. Which apparently was unusual for the time, which is also what people say about me. Fed artisanal peanut butter to their friend's dogs. A thousand percent. Also him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So actually we're talking

about usual though like to for someone to wear pants back then no woman to wear pants well also it's unusual apparently because people said that she was wearing pants but also was attractive and ah so people she a lot of people didn't like that they liked her because she yourself she wasn't socially acceptably so So something is wrong with you. She threatened a lot of people. So actually in Harper's Magazine they wrote that she was a quote secretive maid and her neighbors were they told envious stories of her. So her looks and personality were known to have attracted

local men and threatened their wives while also threatening the men at the same time because they didn't understand why they were liking a woman in pants. Which was I got that from only one article, but I thought it was whether or not that's true. I thought it was an interesting perspective. Apparently, she just was threatening people left and right. Who actually knows why? Allegedly, she was threatening everybody in some way but specifically the wives in town and so they started um rumors so that their husbands wouldn't be attracted to her anymore i feel like that's how a lot of those witch stories start though like yeah you just don't like someone and say something young beautiful

women and then they yeah so it's ideally where all of the accusations came from they were all from threatened wives sure there were at least a dozen lawsuits, either of people accusing her of witchcraft or her suing the accusers. The first allegation was in 1698 when a neighbor named Grace or a neighbor claimed that Grace bewitched his crops. Basically, he was a shitty farmer and his crops didn't grow. And he was like, it's Grace's fault. You can blame anything and somehow people will find a way to make it work and do witchcraft. Yes. And basically that allegation created a huge slew of more allegations to come through for the next decade. So accusations kept coming at her. She eventually was charged with witchcraft

several times. She was said to have ruined many people's crops she was known to have bewitched or killed livestock she was known to conjure up storms she was accused to have quote assumed the form of a black cat enter a neighbor's home jump over her bed whip her and then left through the keyhole oh my. So a shape-shifting, angry, aggressive cat. With a whip. That can fit into a keyhole. Jesus. Okay. So Grace and her husband tried to sue these neighbors for slander, but lost every time.

So they ended up having to pay the court costs every single time. What? So she would kind of get out. I don't know. They, it never worked. People kept siding with the slander. One of the rumors about grace was also that um and this part actually became a town legend that apparently is still something people

talk about um i haven't heard it before but i guess different parts of virginia beach have a lot of rosemary everywhere and one of the reasons is because there's a legend or a rumor that grace actually brought rosemary over from england and stowed it all in a hollowed out eggshell and now parts of virginia beach especially princess anne county nowadays has rosemary everywhere because she must have planted it when she was involved with all of her herbs okay even after grace's husband died later accusations from neighbors continued and courts uh just kept claiming that she was a witch there was she couldn't get out of this it was yeah clearly

clearly a rough time for her and it happened after her husband died so she wasn't always able to even pay off the court costs anymore that's shitty then she's more vulnerable right and because she was there were so many allegations the courts were getting annoyed with her because every single week it was just like we just went through this and now you're a fucking witch again. She's like, I'm not the one doing it. So according to an article, by this time, by the time her husband had passed, quote, Princess Anne County had obviously grown tired of Mrs. Sherwood as a general nuisance. Oh my gosh. Because they were like, how many more times do I have to do goddamn paperwork because of you?

Oh my gosh. many more times do i have to do goddamn paperwork because of you oh my gosh so in december 1705 grace got in a fight with a woman in town named elizabeth hill over something and grace ended up suing her for assault and battery and won oh she finally wins a court case not necessarily defending herself but beaten up first right so elizabeth hill is now sued for assault and battery and the next month elizabeth hill's husband who's still mad about it, accused Grace of bewitching his wife and causing the miscarriage between the couple. So, right. So he's now saying, oh, well, she only beat you up because you bewitched her into beating you up. Sure.

Is that what's happening? Basically, it sounds to me, with a few pieces of information I had been given or found, Grace and Elizabeth got in a fight. Elizabeth beat her up or was at least charged with assault and battery. So I think in spite or in retaliation, the husband then found a way to accuse her of a witch again, just to give her more trouble in courts and said, like, well, we just had a miscarriage. That must have been her fault. Oh, it was like a literal miscarriage? had a literal miscarriage oh i thought you meant like the miscarriage of justice of her oh no no like a like a oh i see okay pregnancy miscarriage understood and so they ended up conveniently after a month later of elizabeth having been

charged with a salt and battery the husband then decided to press charges okay on grace for causing the miscarriage got it okay so that was the only time that grace was actually brought to trial for witchcraft she had kind of gotten a slip through the cracks um yeah beforehand but now her husband also wasn't there to defend her so now she's going to trial so the court decided that she had been accused so many times of witchcraft that they just had to be suspicious at this point um they're like it's been like 10 years and people keep saying shit all these people can't be wrong yeah either they all hate you or you're a witch oh my god um and the county justices had two juries during the trial the two juries were only of women um but some of the women had been people who had previously accused her of witchcraft

so the juries were biased and they were like well we already think she's a witch so there was a lot of we didn't allow men into the jury when like i feel like later centuries it was like oh all men on the jury right exactly oh my gosh only women but also only women who think specifically one thing right for a reason so the first panel was ordered to go to Grace's home and look for any items suggesting there was witchcraft in her house. Again, she's an herbalist, right? Right, so they found a whole lot of stuff. Or they could have found a whole lot of stuff. And the second panel was ordered to examine her body for, quote, demon-suckling teats.

What? Because they assumed that she was breastfeeding the devil or something. These, I'm telling you. Both juries, nicely enough, refused to carry out the searches. Oh, that's good! But the woman did look for markings on her body in general that might have been brands of

the devil. So they, like, checked her out, I guess. Just like an up-down. Yeah. Um, they did find two quote marks not like theirs or like any other woman and i don't know anything shocking i don't know what else that means they found a birthmark exactly they didn't have they found some wild freckles right um so they did find that but they'd never looked for any witchcraft items they never looked at her boobs i guess her demon suck demon-suckling teats. Which is what everyone should start calling them, by the way.

I mean... Just body positivity. Third love? Are you listening? Third love for your demon-suckling teats. No matter how many you have. If you have eight, that's great. Eight is great.

I'm not going to check, though. So the county justices,ices again believe there was a great cause of suspicion and decided that she must prove her innocence so on july 5th 1706 this was probably six months after her trial began the justices ordered a trial by ducking to take place what's that so oh no oh i know what this is so if you don't know what ducking is it was a way for back then women to prove their innocence of witchcraft um it's believed that because water is considered pure it would reject witches so if they were to throw you into the water um you would float to the top if you were a witch it makes no sense it is ass backwards because they're pretty much deciding no matter what you're

dead because if they throw you overboard and you float well now you're a witch they have to burn you at the stake gonna kill you but if you sink you're not a witch you're now just a dead human because you're drowning so oh how sad so ducking is not any way of proving your innocence you just there it's just a way to kill you. It's truly beyond. Without saying that's what they're going to do. I remember learning that when I was little and just being like, I don't understand. This is the moment I just realized humanity will never make sense.

Right. Exactly. Oh my goodness. So ducking is being tied crossbound. So basically they take your two thumbs, they cross your arms and they cross your feet and then they tie your thumbs to your big toes. Oh, I didn't know that. So that way you're kind of like in a weird cannonball situation but not quite like front

ways hog sure sure sure um and then they just drop you in the water so that's what they did to her again if she sank she would drown but be innocent hooray they'd all be so sad but the the promise of at least being buried on consecrated ground if you were innocent oh well worth it but if she floated she was a witch do you think you could like i wonder how you could float i wonder if anyone they must have some of them must have floated right i mean so oh well ironically the ducking was postponed until five days later because they feared that the weather might harm her health, which was. Oh, well, you wouldn't want that.

The real irony of that. It's like, oh, we wouldn't want to harm your potential definite drowning. We wouldn't want you to catch a cold before we drowned you. Before you can't breathe underwater. Dear God. Five women on the shoreline examined her body for devices to make sure she wasn't escaping or trying to. She had like a trick up her sleeve to get out of it they covered her with a sack they tied her thumbs to her toes and six of the justices rode in one boat 200 yards out to the river um and in another boat there was a sheriff

the magistrate and grace herself it's really bad uh the sheriff tied a 13 pound bible around her neck oh my god and pushed her overboard into the lynnhaven river near witch duck point which is named witch duck point because of this story it sounds so cute until you know what it means it's like oh little witchy duck nope little duck with a hat on nope grace was almost murdered here oh so she didn't die somehow she untied herself and survived and she was pulled out of the water. And interestingly enough, as soon as she got out of the water, people said that there was this massive downpour that started and drenched everyone. And they thought that she must have done it because she was already accused of conjuring storms.

Oh, my God. And so they think like, oh, she survived and now she's having her last laugh because now she's making everyone get wet. I don't like on the east coast blaming someone for the weather is like the most absurd like maybe if in la if it just blizzarded all of a sudden here i'd be like that's a witch for sure christine is definitely doing some christine is meditating too hard dark magic with that artisanal peanut butter but if in fucking virginia it rains i mean god so uh there the there's a quote that says evidence proved that grace was a witch just evidence in general of like okay well she survived the drowning so evidence proves that she's a witch if we're going off of that theory and witches were to be burned but to burn women was a thing unknown in virginia so this was the only i don't know if this was the

only time but this was one of the few times where there was a someone survived a ducking also since there were no executions in virginia i don't know if that means nobody else was ever drowned or no one else was ever ducked she might have been the only one i guess they don't consider that execution though right i guess it's just a trial i don't know maybe i wrote about it later we'll find out who's to say i love half the time you trial. I don't know. Maybe I wrote about it later. We'll find out. Who's to say? I love half the time you're like, I don't know because I wrote this last night. And then half the time you're like, I don't know because I wrote it a week ago.

Yeah. There's no way in which I know the information. Trust me. I'm the same way. I just think it's funny. Time, you would think, would be the factor. But it's really my neglect of my own information. Our brains will make any excuse we can.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, I'm too tired. Oh make any excuse we can. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I'm too tired. Oh, I'm too awake. Oh, yeah. Which that's one I've never used, by the way. It sounds like this ducking thing all over again. You can't win either way. So evidence proves that Grace was a witch.

So witches should be burned. But Virginia had literally never burned a woman before. And they were like, we're not a fucking bout to. So which is bravo to Virginia. I know. Wow. That's off. Congratulations.

So Grace was then ordered to be brought to a future trial however there is no record of another trial so there's a chance that the charges were just dropped because they didn't know what to do with her they're like we tried to drown her they're like we did all that we know how to do we can't sit on fire now i like how they're like we can't burn a woman but we can drown her you can put her in the lake and see what happens we'll just if she survives that's her call put a sack over her head exactly so exactly fucked up um sack no okay oh i didn't know what was happening i thought you lost you thought i just like your sense of english for a moment you would know all about that to my world so uh a lot of people say that she ended up just

going to jail um for several years but there is like there's no real proof of that there's no records that she was in jail okay um they say that if she was in jail then she was in jail until the national like witchcraft hysteria kind of died down so which would have been like a decade or so um if she did go to jail she got out sometime before 1714 because there are records as of 1714 that she paid back taxes on her property. So if she went to jail, it was only for so long. Fun fact. Oh, this is the part where I think the part's coming up about Fredericksburg. A fun Fredericksburg fact.

Can't wait. So her property that she inherited from her husband was temporarily given to the county before 1714 which is another reason people think that she might have gone to jail because no one was there was no records of anything going on on her land at the time so while the county took the property for that certain amount of time she was able to recover her property by 1714 with the help of virginia's lieutenant governor alexander spotswood who is the namesake to the county that I'm from. Spotsylvania County. So I love that you know that about me.

Of course I know that. So I live- It's one of my favorite words of the second language of mine. It's one of my favorite words too. So I grew up in Fredericksburg, which was the town I grew up in, but I grew up in Spotsylvania County, which is just like the most like- It's just the best. Redneck thing I've ever heard.

I love it. Also, I remember, so the only redneck thing I've ever heard. I love it. Also, I remember. So the only two things I've said this probably before, because I say to every person who is willing to listen, but the only two things like famous things to come out of Fredericksburg are Danny McBride. He also grew up one street over from Princess Anne, by the way. Oh, and he went to the same high school that Deirdre went to. And the other thing that came out of Fredericksburg is Chick-fil-A sauce, the special sauce.

Those are the only two things to ever come out of Fredericksburg, Virginia. And the other one is M-Shop. And me. We're the trifecta. Verified on Twitter. One day, I'll manifest this now. Me and Danny McBride eating Chick-fil-A sauce together. That should be like in Town Hall at Fredericksburg.

Oh, yeah. Town Hall. Danny McBride, are you listening? Actually, Danny McBride's little sister went to CNU also, and she went to school on the same floor. Or her dorm was on the same floor as mine. So he actually did come to CNU a few times to visit her. And he still goes to Fredericksburg a lot, and people see him walking down the street all the time oh so anyway danny mcbride what's up um but there's just crickets well he he i bring him up at all because he was on i think jimmy kimmel

and oh yeah i remember this and there's in i guess during one of his interviews on jimmy kimmel they did a bit where they like showed him his old high school teachers and he had to figure out, he like, he tried to remember their names and Jimmy Kimmel was like, you grew up in Spotsylvania County. What the hell kind of word is that? And I was like,

yep, that's right. So anyway, and wasn't it like Deirdre's teachers too? It was your, yeah. Cause they all went to the same high school. So Deirdre can confirm those were not actors.

They were real teachers. That's pretty funny. So, um, so anyway, her property was, so deirdre can confirm those were not actors they were real teachers that's pretty funny so um so anyway her property was she was able to recover it from the county because governor alexander spotswood of spotsylvania county one day um helps her recover her property i like how they didn't name it spotswood county they literally just made up spotsylvania apparently spotswood i wish i wrote it down but i was like oh no one will want to know this i mean here i am

apparently spottsylvania is latin for spots spottsylvania spots wood or oh it's literally latin for spots wood yeah i was gonna say because silva means forest so that makes sense so there you go so spots wood he just made his last name latin and it became spottsylvania so you want to make it fancier so i wonder what schultz in latin would be and that's the name of the town i'll create one day schultz is nice and german don't worry about it it's not gonna happen so in 1740 grace died at 80 years old oh wow but she lived out the rest of her life on that farm as a midwife rumor has it that her sons quote put her body near the fireplace and a wind came down the chimney and her body disappeared amid the embers with the only clue being a cloven hoof print.

Oh, my gosh. So up until she died, people still thought that she was potentially a witch and that the devil took her body. She was still like midwifering. Midwifing. Right. If you think she's a witch, but you also want her to be the first person that helps you with your baby.

I mean, she has all those teats. She has a lot of demon suckling teats in case you're birthing a demon. It's entirely possible. Or maybe there was just like somehow even more progressive people in Virginia who like were down with the witch thing. They're like, ooh, I want a midwife who's a witch. I just feel in 300 years, this will be really on brand. It'll be really on brand. And then that's why we drink. We'll cover it it's internet show also stories about the devil

taking her after she died unnatural storms loitering black cats came soon after so all these random disasters began happening after she died which only further perpetuated this rumor that she was a witch because there were a lot of storms that showed up and loitering black cats everywhere a disaster that is a lovely lovely time it's it's gonna hurt your feelings in a second you're not gonna like this okay eva plug your ears because there were so many rumors that she was associated with the devil because there were so many storms around and so many loitering black cats it became a trend in the town for locals to kill every cat they could find i'm sorry how do humans come up with this shit you would think they were so progressive about not killing or not burning a woman but they're gonna kill every cat i mean

it's just like they find a way to put their stupid human toxicity into the world so every black cat that the townspeople found for that year they killed and this ended up leading to princess anne county's 1743 rat infestation because all the cats were gone shocker so you did it to yourselves guys um since then her house uh ended up standing for over 200 years it was just bulldozed in 2002 what um she is thought to be buried somewhere under the trees near the intersection of pungo ferry road and princess anne road wow or she's and actually so i couldn't i didn't understand it very well either it's thought that she's buried on those roads or she's buried on another property or that road might be on the property i'm not sure if it's the same thing said two different ways or two different

places, but what I could understand was she's either buried under some trees at the intersection of Pungo Ferry Road and Princess Anne Road and, or she's buried on the property of the Ferry Plantation, which is Virginia's most haunted building. And in case you are either, you haven't listened to back episodes or you're new here and this is your first episode um my best friend deirdre who went to the same school

that danny mcbride went to she was on our show episode 19 and that was the story that she covered oh so she talked about the fairy plantation and she went there yeah so she talked about the fairy plantation and that is a rumored area where the witch of pungo is now buried such a fun episode um so go listen to that hi deirdre um 19 oh we were such babies and many people who live in the neighborhood still report that you can see a woman with long wet hair walking the banks of the river wet hair oh gross like the ring out of the lake is so it's actually samara wait the witch of pungo is pulled pulled out of the well it's all very mixed up so her story is also the namesake to locations in the area including witch duck road which duck point which is where she was pushed overboard sherwood lane and um just

to name a few and grace was also um this was the stat that i was trying to remember earlier um so to answer our earlier question grace is the only convicted witch ever tried by water in virginia so she's the only one that they ever potentially were going to be ducking they literally named that witch duck road just because of her wow okay and she is the only deceased person in virginia history to ever be exonerated so afterward yes so belinda nash who is the founder at flare at fairy oh my god uh belinda nash who is a founder of fairy plantation she's been petitioning for over 20 years to have her exonerated and exactly 300 years after the incident like to the day to the exact day of her ducking um governor tim kaine pardoned her and in 2007 a statue of grace was put on the

lawn at bayside hospital calling grace one of our first healers oh wow and the statue is near the old prince and county courthouse where grace was tried and it's only one mile west of her ducking point at witch duck bay um so you're kind of close to all of her history when you go see her statue the statue of her is her carrying a basket containing garlic and rosemary for her knowledge of herbal healing and she on with her on her statue is a raccoon for her love of animals oh that's like a real raccoon who just sits there he just gets paid to be there just feed him there's a statue of a raccoon next so cute i don't know how they pick the raccoon you'd think they pick like the like like a virginia black cat oh maybe whatever anyway i like the raccoon i feel like kind of random yeah anyway that's the story of the witch of pungo yay so wait so she was the

only person to ever be exonerated only deceased person so they've never like exonerated anyone else not according to google good job virginia sort of me and i'm sure someone's going to be able to like i that doesn't sound right to me i feel like that's probably not accurate but the um that was the stat that i found maybe for like at the time maybe like oh maybe i mean it was i listen i believe you i've never claimed to know exactly what i'm talking about so let's not make that the thing that we're assuming today. You got that blue check. We all trust you.

I'm verified on Instagram and I have a bag of all dressed ruffles right next to me. My life's pretty fucking good. Our lives are in your hands. Yes. All right. So this is a different thing that I'm doing here a little bit. Oh. So before we went to Canada, we were trying to find time to record we didn't

we released a live episode but i had started this story um knowing i was going to canada and i figured it was still fitting because it is a canadian story it's always fitting as i was just there and brought a moose so i actually found this email like really randomly. I didn't like search for Canada or anything in our email, but I found this email. Excuse me. Harper. Oh, no. I just stopped breathing and I forgot how. Are you OK?

I'm back. Oh, by the way, I'm having heartburn. So if you see me making weird faces. Oh, no. It's fine. I hope it wasn't as ruffles. No, it was. I ate an entire fucking pizza by myself today we also

were stress eating we have a lot going on we've got a lot going on no comment um so nothing bad you have to worry about only good things that we can't discuss all good just a lot let's put it that way but that always means good things because that means we're setting up all sorts of fun stuff um so i found this email randomly from like february of this year it was from um a woman named elise who hosts who co-hosts uh the rabbit holes podcast i guess they go down different rabbit holes wow i don't know what that means at all can't relate continue moving on so she literally took the time to like whip up some notes on this canadian serial killer and i was like holy crap i haven't heard of this guy and she had sent me all these

notes and i was like okay this is great timing i'm going on an anniversary trip i was just in cincinnati for a wedding i'm home for 24 hours i don't have time to like do full research so thank you elise for sending these notes what i did was okay i'm just gonna read it she says i've taken the liberty because i'm old timey like that to prepare some show notes for christine's consideration as you may have heard canada has been dealing with a serial killer for the last decade i had not heard i refuse to believe it because everyone's perfect in canada that is not entirely except for this person apparently there are some issues especially after i learned on my ghost tour some questionable things but every place has them i

think there's darkness in every place and you guys maybe executed some people but you stopped earlier than we did so you already have us beat i do the ignorance is bliss thing and just pretend everything is like moose the number of emails we get that are like i'm like you just don't get canada like we don't i don't have to have that i don't have to they're like i don't want to hurt your feelings but like we have a lot of murderers i've already decided that i'm obsessed and i'm just like i have my blinders on i mean you can be obsessed but like you know i mean people you know i'm sure spotsylvania county has some murderers yeah well we're no canada we're no canada okay fine so anyway she says you may have heard canada

has been dealing with a serial killer for the last decade and the arrest slash court date court case is set to wrap up tomorrow so she literally oh wow the day so i was already like super topical it was and i was super invested in this and then i was like wait a second i'm literally going to canada in like three days so i got very excited about this and she had sent me these notes but they were like from february so then i went and basically took her notes and then just kind of like went down her rabbit hole rabbit hole into this and like found some other stuff and it's very punny it is very bunny of the rabbit hole, if you will. Oh, help me. Send me back to Canada.

Okay. So anyway, this is the story of Bruce MacArthur, the serial killer of Toronto's gay village. Oh, no. Yes, it's very bad. So just saying. Yikes. But so I, so thank you, Elise, for your notes. I took your notes and I ran with them and fell down a rabbit hole.

Okay. As you do so just to uh give you a little background uh in 2010 gay men started disappearing from the church and wellesley area of toronto and church and wellesley are known as toronto's gay village police were not at first convinced there was anything odd going on shocker uh there was no evidence of any crimes being committed so there wasn't much they could do and it took about 10 years for things to finally happen. And this year they wrapped up. So I'm just going to give you kind of the story of that. Okay.

All right. So Thomas Donald Bruce MacArthur, or as we call him, Bruce MacArthur. Sure. Was born October 8th, 1951 in Lindsay, Ontario, outside of Toronto. But he grew up in farm country north of Oshawa. He had a sister. His parents took in troubled foster kids from Toronto. He had a reputation at school for being a teacher's pet.

He didn't really fit in with other kids. He was known for ratting out the other kids. He was also known for his singing voice. He often won singing competitions. And he was kind of like bullied for being different and being kind of a tattletale. Okay, got it. So his parents were Irish Catholic and Scottish Presbyterian,

what's the word, respectively, which created some tension in the home. You know, Presbyterian and Catholic. Listen. You know how that is, you Jew. Well, between my dad being a catholic my stepdad being presbyterian my mom being a jew and my stepmom being wiccan wiccan is the really the kicker that's the topsy-turvy one that's the one that really and now i've got another catholic

stepdad so i listen tm tm tm for my sitcom right at this point it's just like a house of random religions yeah yeah it's super fun uh and then yes i can relate here's m just like saying that our father to him here i am identifying as jewish but also like saying the lord's prayer the second i'm scared of anything okay and here i am just watching blindly just with popcorn don't tell my godmother okay so uh right so there was some tension in the home macarthur would often side with his mother and his father did not like that. And also later MacArthur said that his father was super strict and he felt that he may have sensed his lack of masculinity or his homosexuality. And that was why there was this kind of hatred going on from his father. MacArthur had trouble accepting his sexual orientation, which would have been seen as abnormal in rural Ontario at the time. Got it. orientation which would have been seen as abnormal in rural ontario at the time got it um and being gay uh with very religious parents was obviously extremely difficult he married his high school

sweetheart whose name was janice campbell when he was 23 they had two children a daughter and a son and in the early 90s mcarthur came out to his wife but he and his wife decided to continue living together kind of um just under the same, until 1997 when he finally decided to leave her and move to Toronto and begin living openly as gay. Got it. And this is when he started having a four-year relationship with another man, and he also started work as a traveling salesman,

a retail worker, and a landscaper. Okay. And this is where things go down. Get haywire. He'll get it. He's a landscaper. Okay. is where things get haywire hill get it he's a landscaper okay yeah that one's not good at least i'm not gonna blame you for that that was all me um i should have blamed her that would have been better nope okay any future puns that are not funny are elise's fault okay right and no one else is not even mine not even m finally finally they're not i've been waiting at least thank you 140

something episodes down the road you finally got here you got escape bunny it's so bad i'm sorry i'm not listen i may have put some gin in my drink i may have watched christine take like a very large shot of vodka earlier or something telling you we had a really long day we had a really long day and i don't really drink anymore so sometimes it's just like i was mid-sentence and christine was just like grabbing for a shot glass i was like she's like don't just let me hang on just finish the sentence in a second thought i've also been a while i've also been watching a lot of arrested development like blaze and i watched it the whole time we were in canada like every night we'd watch a couple episodes and just the amount that lucille bluth drinks is so funny and her like

martinis every day and i was like i'm just craving some martini man fun fact the the picture for my mom my mom's contact id and my phone is the story in the last episode i don't care i don't care i'm just saying because your mom called remember and you were like oh lucille bluth oh yeah yeah the picture of lucille bluth drinking a martini and one of her eyes is half-cocked. The wink. Not implying that my mom is such a lush, but my mom and her definitely pull a lot of the same one-liners. Em likes to make some comparisons there. Yeah. And I like to make comparisons.

My mom says a lot of the same things Lucille Bluth says. And sometimes I forget who said what. Yeah. It's whatever. It's all fitting when Lucille Bluth calls. So anyway anyway that's why i've been kind of feeling the vodka lately anyway i'm sorry this is not about me anymore okay so let's see so the first crime is called the halloween assault and i'm sorry i didn't even think that it was also october but i guess it's fitting in that way too sure uh so let's see macarthur met a sex worker on a chat line around halloween and uh they had sex on the afternoon of halloween october 31st 2001 a few

weeks after his 50th birthday macarthur was invited into the man's apartment to see his is the lucille bluth to see his what ha? Halloween costume. Okay, I see what this is. Sip of martini. Right, right. I'm telling you. Cue the half eye being open. The like horrible. I do that at Blaze all the time.

Christine, you also do it when you're just drunk. I know. I do it when I'm sober too. It's just a bad habit. No, my favorite thing is when Christine does drink a lot. It's impossible for both eyes to be open at the same time. That is true. She's like one of those

like dolls that you have to lift up and the eye has the eyes open and one gets stuck but it's like been thrown down the stairs too many times so one of its eyes just never really fully gets there that's like shockingly fitting yes correct and you're like no no christine the other eye has to be open and you're like oh and then like switch them out you gotta like tap me in the side of the face a few times so then the other one will open it's so fun to watch just like unglue the eyelashes from the bottom maybe that's why one's always closed because like your your eyelashes like weave together it's possible let's do let's say that's the reason okay okay so anyway the guy was like come see my halloween costume and uh oops i just deleted the entire bullet that's good i got really worked up about that okay so he was invited to the man's apartment to see his halloween costume

and uh for whatever reason macarthur struck the man several times from behind with an iron pipe that he quote often carried oh i guess you could say at that point it's my halloween costume this pipe but uh sure just struck him on the back of the head it's my Halloween costume, this pipe. But sure. Just struck him on the back of the head. That's my costume. A guy with a pipe. Yeah. Isn't that clever?

He's a plumber. Sure. The victim lost consciousness, but ultimately woke up, called 911 and was taken to the hospital where he required several stitches on the back of his head and fingers as well as physiotherapy to resume normal movement shit for several weeks mcarthur turned himself into police saying he didn't remember attacking the man or why he did it he pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to almost two years in prison and it's said that mcarthur's unexplained behavior may have been due to the combination of his anti-seizure medication that he was taking uh with what they call poppers a muscle relaxant

called amyl nitrite which is sometimes taken recreationally before sex so they were kind of saying his defense was saying like oh well this medication might have made him black out and behave erratically um and so the crown prosecutor agreed with psychiatric reports uh which claimed that he was unlikely to reoffend and he was safe to be released back into the general population. I see. That was not true. And this is, oh, I will also add, Elise and I believe her co-hosts are both from Canada. So this is like one of their hometown things?

Sort of, yeah. Like they know kind of more about the legal proceedings and all that so she kind of makes some notes here and i want to say that's not me that's kind of her take on things so also the puns are her right entirely her every horrible joke oh there's so many too uh also all the ones from episode 1 through 141 were also yeah every single thing that we've ever done wrong elise thank you for really taking the blunt on that you know what at least i i held it i held my tongue for the first 141 episodes i can't hold it in any longer this is all your fault okay um so as she says in true in true canadian fashion though he never went to prison he was put under

house arrest had a curfew had three years of probation was ordered to stay away from male sex workers and his victim had a restraining order put against him so okay there was that punishment quote unquote he was also prohibited from going to the toronto gay village community for the length of a sentence didn't really work because it's hard to prohibit someone from i guess going to an entire neighborhood night scene i hear you i hear you um in 2002 while the assault case was still before the courts macarthur registered with recon which was a get uh i don't know if it's still in existence but it's a gay fetish site for men into bdsm where his profile noted his interest in submissive men he was active on so this is all during like while his case is still going through

the court oh okay and he's still you, prohibited from a lot of activities, etc. Under house arrest, etc., etc. He was active on numerous gay dating websites, including... Now, I'm going to read these to you because these are... There's a lot of them. Okay. And I don't know how many you've heard of. I've only heard of a few.

Okay. I don't know if these are Canadian or whatever. He was active on numerous gay dating websites including silver daddies monjom grinder ding ding bear 411 no i love that one bear 411 bear forest oh scruff yes i've heard of scruff daddy hunt no i can't tell if i like bear 411 or daddy hunt more they both sound like they could be really interesting video games the next one's not it's called squirt that i've not heard of and growler which oh yeah i know growler yeah growler grinder probably uh competing apps maybe um he had also become a regular at the gay bars and clubs throughout toronto and was well known

in the gay community despite being banned from the gay community sure um additionally while his case worked its way through the courts he purchased a 2004 dodge caravan okay and that is uh important to note good to know his lawyers appealed based on the stay away from male sex workers part of the sentence and the conviction was completely expunged from his record in 2014. Like it never happened. Like it was just completely erased despite the conviction and the two-year sentence. House arrest sentence completely erased. His defense team got it completely expunged from his record.

So he had a fully clean record after that. Okay. Wow. Yeah. It's not good uh so in 2012 a post appeared on a website called zambian meat okay m-e-a-t oh okay it was a cannibal website okay and a man posted that he had killed and eaten a man from toronto's gay village in response the toronto police set up a project

houston a task force to investigate the claim thinking the poster may have been referring to the disappearance of a man named skandaraj or skanda navaratnam and this was a disappearance a crime they'd never been able to solve so they were like oh my gosh maybe this is related we're gonna look into this got it apparently they even at this point looked into luca magnata which um oh whom i covered in the cat guy right 32 the guy with the animals that he did really horrible things yeah he did bad things to animals yeah that was one of the tougher ones probably not a good advertisement for episode 32 but that was if you are really into like the more fucked up stories that's that's one for you it's a cannibal-ish story so i mean check it out it's it was a good story it's a fucked up story

yeah um in june 2013 the task force identified two other missing men from the gay village that they thought were similar to skanda's case and those were the cases of abdul bazir faizi and majid hamid khan so they had the same ethnic background. They were around the same age. It just seemed like it was around the same time. And all three unsolved. They also all disappeared between 2010 and 2012. All South Asian immigrants.

And two of them, Faizi and Kayhan, were both married and hiding their sexuality from their wives. So they were closeted. And they just seemed like a lot of coincidences. han were both married and hiding their sexuality from their wives so they were closeted um and they just seemed like a lot of coincidences so in 2013 police actually did link bruce mcarthur to the two men through his use of dating apps like he had actually matched with both of them but they interviewed him and he checked out so he was dismissed and remember he had a fully clean record so got it that was not in the background. Project Houston concluded with no evidence to link the disappearances that any crime had been committed.

They never identified a suspect. And according to a 2016 case summary, there was still nothing to explain what had happened to these three men. So another Toronto task force, I guess they like their task. Love a good task force. Wow. I know. I think they just like to name them because this one was called Project Prism. Oh.

I know, right? I like that. Sounds like a club. Yeah. Project Prism. You could do a lot of like rainbows like refracting through it. I was wondering if that's maybe where it came from. Oh, wait a minute.

I think probably. It'd be fun. I mean, we get. I'm going to allow it. We get to rainbow later so like is there a rainbow task force because i thought that's what the whole queer community was called oh we're getting there yeah there is a rainbow something or other someone make a shirt called the rainbow task force well let's find out if it's something bad first and

then never mind maybe make it once i remember what the hell is in here because i see remember that time that i said like the like something really bad about the devil yeah that was fun i said something i said something that was meant to be a compliment and came off the exact wrong way like burning the rainbow flag yeah yeah but it was meant somehow it was meant in a good way really positive comment it was how like hell like hell is at least inclusive it was really awful it came out bad the more you explain it the less it makes sense that's what happened in the last episode too it happens in every episode the more we explain anything the less it makes sense in case you guys

don't know i am an ally it just doesn't show itself because i'm a i'm terrible at talking that's why i have a podcast that's why we blast our voices into your anyway i promise i'm part of the the good task force danny mcbride are you listening do you still want to talk to us no never did never will another toronto task force called project prism was created in july 2017 following two more missing persons cases and was tasked with looking for connections between these two current cases and the three that had been unsolved by project houston so we saw those three that were installed unsolved now there were two more and they were like okay now we have five let's see if we can connect all five of these the first man to disappear around this time was named

salim essen who vanished on april 14 2017 he arrived in canada from turkey only a few years earlier and was active on social media dating apps and in the community itself then in late june 2017 a man named andrew kinsman disappeared from another toronto community called cabbage town okay the day after pride toronto uh his friends gained access to his apartment and found no sign of a disturbance except that his 17 year old cat was out of food and water oh no i think she was still alive. She sounds like she's a familiar. She's kicking.

I don't know if she's a she, but the cat was still alive. The cat was somehow making it at 17. So the one difference is that Kinsman was openly gay. He was a local bartender, longtime volunteer with the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation, superintendent of his building, was extremely involved with the community. Very well known, very popular.

He was also known as stable and responsible. His friends had noticed really quickly that he was missing. And his friends were like, he would never leave voluntarily, especially without his cat, his familiar, his 17-year-old kitten, and his prescription meds, which were all still at the apartment. He was also six foot four and 220 pounds oh wow so he seemed like an unlikely candidate of random violence sure it just didn't really make it didn't add up why he was missing and it didn't seem like something he would have done on his own at this point toronto's gay community is like okay enough is enough uh we're gonna start pressuring toronto police to recognize that there's likely a serial killer working in our midst so the notion that there was a serial killer targeting gay men

had been suggested by the community before but now the media was kind of picking up on it and saying um okay this is you know you know how the media likes to be like serial killer exactly could it be um and so a friend and colleague of kinsman named Greg Downer founded and moderated the Facebook groups. The first one was called Find Andrew Kinsman. And the second one was called Toronto's Missing Rainbow Community. That's where the rainbow came in. Got it. So they actually, so they shared information.

Each group had about 600 members. And in the groups, they shared information about the missing men. They organized volunteers for search parties. They released missing persons flyers and photos on social media and paper flyers. Just everything everywhere. Yeah, trying to raise public awareness, saying, like, you know, we're going to try to get the police's attention, essentially. Downer even, this is pretty crazy crazy he appealed to dating apps to provide an option for users to consent to have their data released to police if they went missing

so basically if you sign up for this dating app um you could check a boxing if something happens to me i consent to my oh wow information to be released so they don't have to wait months because otherwise you know they'd have to wait oh i love that to get the permission i mean it's a shitty situation but that's very smart no it is really smart because you know it they'd have to wait months to get the permission. I mean, it's a shitty situation, but that's very smart. No, it is really smart because, you know, it's hard. It takes a long time for them to get data and all that shit from whether it be a mobile company. What's that company called? Or what's the thing that you're...

What's the company called? Yeah, well, the thing where you can consent in advance. I don't know if it was i don't think it's called anything okay um he just basically uh asked several gay dating apps to be like can you make it an option that people release their information got in case they go missing so the investigation was criticized oh sorry they also opened hotlines um for people who were reluctant to talk to police but maybe had some information so the investigation itself was criticized for victim blaming on part

of the authorities uh on february 27 2018 for example a news article ran with the headline toronto police chief says civilians failed to help investigation into alleged serial killer which is like that's not the people's fault like it's your job it's not their job to find the serial killer but it seemed like they were doing a lot and there was a lot of miscommunication on that front too where the police chief said like no i'm very thankful for the community's involvement and then the mayor got involved and it was a whole thing and there's that got it so controversy uh because kinsman oh there it is okay because kinsman's disappearance was reported so quickly so

within 72 hours his disappearance was reported by his friends and thus the task force was created so quickly police were able to gather some really crucial evidence that they probably wouldn't have gathered if um his disappearance had been delayed and he had been reported much later than that one of the pieces of evidence that they found was a calendar entry on june 26th in um andrew's calendar it was the last day andrew kinsman was seen alive and the calendar entry just read bruce so they're like who is bruce this is the last day he was seen alive that's the calendar entry just as bruce interesting so they found surveillance footage from outside kingsman's apartment showing him that day

approaching a red minivan and while you couldn't see the license plate you couldn't see the driver in the front seat uh the side chrome on the car was identified by someone as a 2004 dodge caravan that i see yes so then they're like huh we got a 2004 dodge caravan we got the name bruce let's cross-reference those right see who the hell's named bruce in toronto who owns a dodge caravan so there were 6 000 dodge caravans in toronto but only five were owned by men named bruce and just like that they made the connection to bruce mcarthur got it so now they were like pinpointing all their energy on bruce mcarthur it made a lot of sense that this was their guy uh policy policy police were getting search warrants on circumstantial evidence or what they identified as the disappearance for god i can't read i'm sorry we got this ring light in our eyes

and i'm i keep looking at it and then looking down and i'm blind but we figured out the lighting we just haven't figured out our eyes yeah we haven't figured out how to cope with the lighting but we're very happy that now we will have constant or not consistent lighting and go blind in the process yes um i'm gonna zoom in like you did that's smart okay so all their evidence or all their energy was now going into mcarthur because it made sense he was their guy uh police were getting search warrants uh for what they identified as the disappearances of five men including andrew kingsman so now were like, all five of these men we think are connected to Bruce MacArthur. As part of their investigation, police tracked MacArthur's patterns and whereabouts.

He didn't know they were surveilling him. And they realized he had been doing landscape work for a homeowner in a nice area of Toronto in exchange for storage space in their garage. I see. For his landscaping gear. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Quote, unquote. In October, MacArthur took his van into a car parts shop and sold it.

But luckily for police, when they got there, it had yet to be processed and was still sitting exactly as it was when he had sold it. Oh, cool. So they were able to look at it just as it was, pristine. In the van, police found trace amounts of blood it matched andrew kinsman's blood got it and the other guy essen which allowed them to get into mcarthur so they got the search warrant for mcarthur's apartment and they went in while he was not home and secretly cloned his computer hard drive oh wow isn't that wild to think like

what if you had a ring doorbell and you were just like oh my hello fresh has arrived and then you open your app and it's like all these men just who have a key to your house and are going well also i wonder what what having a ring or like one of those camera systems has now done for people when it comes to not being home like like now you really can't if someone has that you can't do a. Like, they know that you're on to them and they now have more time to run, right? You'd think so, yeah. I imagine it's going to go that way at least once in the world. I don't know how often I've heard of, like, police going secretly into someone's house and then leaving and then not. I don't know.

I've never really heard that before. Maybe that's a Canadian thing. Maybe. I don't know. I've never heard of people going into the house without telling the person, then leaving, and then letting them live their life like they never knew. i don't know i've never heard of people going into the house without telling the person then leaving and then letting them live their life like they never knew i don't know i guess i've just never really i've never just thought about it for all i know it happens a lot more or a lot less than i'm imagining come up in any of my stories you know no i'm trying to think of all the law and order law and order episodes like i've never really seen where

they're just like like i've seen where they go in but never like without the person there yeah or like they're looking for them they're not like okay let's wait till he's gone right pretend we were never here i wonder i wonder if there's at least one case yeah i'm sure there is i mean there is one right here i guess so i mean and it was recent so it's not like he couldn't have had a ring doorbell anyway in elisa's words quote now shit was on uh police had mcarthur under surveillance and on january 18th 2018 they witnessed mcarthur and a young man entering mcarthur's apartment concerned for that man's safety they entered the apartment they found the young man restrained to the bed in the apartment he was shaken but not hurt he also

fit the profile of the other missing men so he was middle eastern he was young he was married and in the closet and he was active on gay dating apps he told police he had met mcarthur through the dating app growler and said they'd met for sex several times he had agreed to keep his relationship with mcarthur secret and let himself be handcuffed to macarthur's steel bed frame but he did not agree to the part where macarthur put a black bag over his head and tried to tape his mouth shut and this was happening as police officers came in what are the odds that you've already met this guy so many times and the one time he tries to do it is the time that you're saved thank the lord i know that's perfect christ so they're watching him and they're like this guy

could be in serious trouble they walk in and he's like taping his mouth shut with a bag over his head so thank he's so lucky that he was thinking i'm in trouble and then please just walk in yeah he literally got thank god saved from that uh from that hell so they arrest mcarthur obviously this guy's like i did not ask for that um after his arrest january 18 2018 police executed search warrants on five properties where mcarthur had not had been known to do landscaping work at one of the properties cadaver dogs signaled on 12 large planter boxes uh the planters were frozen to the ground but were released and were transported like in their entirety to the toronto coroner's office so they literally just like removed these giant planters from the ground but were released and were transported like in their entirety to the toronto coroner's office so they literally just like removed these giant planters from the ground

and transported them to the court like we already know we just let's just take it but they're like not even gonna look into them there they're like it's too cold take them inside so um they looked inside them inside two of them were the skeletal dismembered remains of at least three people and this allowed the police to charge bruce mcarthur with three murders majid kaihan a project houston subject sarush mamoudi who disappeared in 2015 and dean lizawick a homeless man who had never actually been reported missing at all in the coming weeks and months the remains of seven more men would be found in those planters including andrew kinsman the problem was that macarthur worked all over toronto for decades the manpower required to find the other victims wasn't massive it took hundreds of officers and they searched over 30

different properties looking for bodies but they were able to remove planters from several properties where macarthur had worked as a landscaper and because cadaver dogs were having trouble detecting scents due to the cold weather and frozen ground instead of this time taking the planters and physically removing them they would put these like large tents up with heaters and like thaw the frozen ground in the yard like they would like put a tent around all the planters and then just like heat interesting ground until they were able to dig it up got it interesting yeah so forensic investigators spent hundreds of hours searching every inch of mcarthur's apartment where they suspected some of the murders had taken place it took them several weeks before they even got to his bedroom that's how like wow they're really with a fine tooth comb exactly um where that and in his bedroom is where they expected a bulk of their evidence would come from.

So the search concluded on May 11th, having occupied 10 forensic officers for nearly four months. That's how long just the apartment took, four months. I mean, bravado to the police department for like really doing it. They were like in it and on it and around it um they took more than 18 000 photographs within the apartment and collected over 1800 items wow detective sergeant hank idzinga explained that the intense thoroughness was required as the first murder was believed to have occurred in the apartment eight years previously so they're like this could have occurred eight years ago we're gonna look so right so evidence could be anywhere exactly and like could be so small that you wouldn't even

notice it otherwise um the case was actually spread around the world uh with tips coming in from different countries that macarthur had visited in his travels or like worked in so he was all over the world um a police source actually told the national post that macarthur had covered his tracks using aliases online using pay phones instead of cell phones and this is like 2015 20 like this is recent it's like he was somehow still possible to just scathe by i found a pay phone in halifax i was like wow working pay phone one time in uh when i still worked at the prop house there was a gas station nearby that had a pay phone and i called my mom on it just to say that I could.

And then she didn't answer. I had to leave a voicemail. We're such youths. I was like, Mom, I'm calling you on a payphone. Anyway, I'll talk to you later. Oh, it says I'm out of dimes. A nickel. Yeah, I feel like we're such wannabe youths.

The youths nowadays are like, we played Oregon Trail on floppy disks. The youths now are like, literally, what's a payphone? Exactly, yeah. How do you use this? This doesn't make any, what's a nickel? Right, right. I have a bit, bitcoin. Okay, sorry.

You're nailing it. I'm truly a thousand. Okay. We'll check you back into the retirement home after this. Please, God, just take me back. Okay. So he, right, he used aliases he used pay phones he actually knew where the surveillance cameras were in toronto so he would avoid those i mean

he was even able like at that guy's apartment he was able to hide himself and his license plate they just happened to see what kind of car it was and the bruce um so the source suggested the same source suggested that marthur had targeted vulnerable men who a did not have a fixed address or b which seemed to be a common thread is that they hadn't told their families they were gay so their families wouldn't even know and they would never have an alibi or they would never yeah their families they would they would have kept this relationship secret so he had no risk of people finding out that he was involved in all of these storylines exactly and so that just seemed to be a common um thread between his victims so all in all mcarthur was charged with a first degree murder of eight different men and was

brought to trial in january of 2018 uh the court actually ordered a publication ban on the proceedings which limited what could be reported in the press so basically the general public only knew that he was in custody and was charged with eight murders but then they were kind of cut off from future information until the trial was over on january 28 2019 so this year mcarthur pled guilty to eight murders which he had committed between 2010 and 2017 he claimed only five were sexual in nature but all of them were committed Oh my god. He kept trophies from his victims, including jewelry and a notebook. DNA from four of the victims had been found in MacArthur's van. He also had, quote, post-offense rituals, including taking hundreds of post-mortem digital photographs of his victims.

Oh god. Which were recovered forensically after he tried to delete them off his hard drive. So that was part of what they found. He took staged post-mortem photographs, typically with ropes around their necks or with them nude in a fur coat or a hat. Some photographs had them with their heads and beards shaved off like he had shaved them. And then he kept their hair in ziploc bags in a shed at mount pleasant cemetery oh wow that's a lot of that's a lot of a lot uh one photograph actually showed a rope around a victim's neck that showed kind of how he

did did this how he killed them. He had a rope twisted with a metal bar wrapped in tape so he was able, it was like a mechanism to control the strangulation with the bar. Gross, got it. Yeah, the bar also...

That gave me chills. I know, it gave me chills too. Oh God, even saying it. The bar was found in MacArthur's van and contained both the DNA of Kinsman and Essenin on the bar itself. So he didn't even hide that well. He was just hanging out.

But somehow he was able to avoid. He even was interviewed in that earlier case and was let go. I mean, it's just horrifying. So Elise's email that I mentioned came in the week of the sentencing. And she actually said, like, tomorrow we find out what happens. Wow. Which is really crazy. I, like, had never even seen it until now.

And then I actually searched and she had sent an update, like, a week later. Oh. Thanks, Elise. Thanks for the update. You're really on top of it. You really are. Except for your puns. They suck.

Yeah, your puns are terrible. You really got to work on that. Listen. Everyone, I use your puns all the time and no one ever laughs so what's the problem here it's not my fault it's just crickets left and right um you mean rabbits i knew you were gonna say that and i was gonna start my sentence but then i had to burp so i don't know you're like i might as well just let this happen i might as well let you take this one um i so like i said i believe elise and her co-host are both

from canada so they have their own take on things um so the updated email included a tweet oh her co-host i believe is named andy so the tweet uh is from tracy tong who i believe is a reporter from the area it says breaking news judge sentences mcarthur to life with concurrent periods of parole ineligibility MacArthur will serve 25 years before being eligible for parole okay 25 years I mean I'm gonna shrug that off it's not because there's nothing else I can do so uh what she says is not great news but par for the course in Canada's justice system even if he's 90 before he's eligible for parole this is going to make a lot of people justifiably unhappy so the mandatory sentence he basically received like from what i can tell the minimum

mandatory sentence for first degree murder which is life imprisonment with no parole for 25 years so like as long as he lives he's going to be paroled which is horrifying i mean this man admitted to murdering eight people via strangulation, and he could be paroled. Super. The Crown Prosecutor asked that the parole eligibility be pushed back to 50 years, which would mean he would die before that, but no go. Okay. He got the minimum sentence. Gotcha.

So, obviously, we all know, this is Aliciaicia's line but it's true we all know serial killers can often have higher body counts that they're held legally account than those that they're held legally accounted for police are actually still looking to see i mean this happened like a few months ago so this is like still very active police are looking to see if a series of cases some of which date back to the 70s may actually be MacArthur's crimes. They've also searched almost 100 properties associated with MacArthur across Toronto. And because he didn't select victims from just one demographic type, it makes linking missing persons cases difficult, especially because, I mean, if you think about it, if a lot of them weren't out, like it's hard to say who was considered like a missing member

of the gay community if they like weren't publicly right right and so it just seems like especially if people are immigrating from different country it's just very hard to track who his victims might have been got it and i mean even that one guy who was homeless and had never been registered as missing like yeah that dean guy they just happened to find him so former homicide detective mark mendelson said the investigation would become quote the largest toronto has undertaken wow criminologist and western university professor michael arnfield said that the alleged method of disposal suggested a sophisticated killer who had developed his craft and as most serial killers begin in their 20s the crimes could go back several decades and represent the longest

run of a serial killer on record wow so odds are eight isn't the actual yeah the victim count toronto crime journalist james dubrow said the allegations suggest mcarthur was the deadliest known serial killer in toronto and the most prolific gay serial killer in canada's history and that is the story of bruce mcarthur i guess there's one bad apple in canada only one yeah i'm sure but after that y'all are peaches also elise sent a horoscope oh i know wow elise i know she's on it she's gonna take my job you want it um so this is from the globe and mail which he says is a very canadian publication from the day of his allocution which is like his statement uh prior to being sentenced so he's a libra it's also libra season i know wow this is really on

brand all of a sudden it really is and i found it from like february i don't know what happened okay it's god in this building i can feel god here sure. God left a long time ago. Yeah, the devil is only with us. On our teats. Okay, sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Okay, so this is the horror scope. Self-belief is the one thing you have never been short of, Libra. And that's good, because with so much cosmic activity taking place in your opposite sign, you are sure to be challenged in some way today.

Don't try to avoid the challenge go ahead and meet it head on oh yep and so that was actually the from the day of a sentence or of his uh statement before his sentencing wow so that's kind of wild that she's able to find that so thank you to elise and rabbit holes podcast um the sources were wikipedia vanity fair and the globe and mail and that's that yay so dark i need to eat uh eat more i was gonna say don't even fucking mention trying to eat some of my all dress ruffles you know how hard it was to spend all week with that thing in my bag and not touch it i'm surprised you didn't take like a shot of the maple syrup. I might've. I bet you did. It looks like there's some lipstick on there. Uh,

thank you guys, uh, for listening. Uh, do we have any updates? I don't think we do. We're good. Like we're J chilling.

J chilling. At least on the forefront. Yes. On the back, on the back end, we're, we're doing big things. We're doing shots of vodka.

We're doing shots of maple syrup. I'm not sharing my food per usual no nothing has changed and i guess that's that's it for me if you want to check out our stuff we've got oh our camera says battery abandoned so i'll just put in a little note so if you're listening our camera literally just said battery abandoned as in like not a nice fucking i told you god left the building now the cameras left the building soon satan himself is gonna walk out of here um okay real quick if you are listening and you want to go check us out on the interwebs the cybersphere if you will um you can find our social medias our personal ones are the m schultz and x teen chief or you can also find our call

instagram for me please whoever has the the connection please get us both verified on twitter and please yeah twitter will be good too and someone get christine verified instagram because even i'm losing my mind now poor em has to live with me i just get texts all the time saying why am i not verified that's like because i'm better my text literally just say i quit over and over and somehow i'm still fucking here so uh you can also follow our podcast at atwwd podcast on twitter and instagram you can also go um donate at our patreon where we're putting out some new goodies um you can watch us put up this stupid ring light which m took some lovely videos of today yep you can also watch our youtube since we're talking only to the people who are listening

through their ears right now you get the secret stuff yes youtube is youtube.com slash c slash and that's why we drink and you can do all that stuff we also have our website and that's why we drink.com and we have our email and that's why we drink at gmail.com where you can submit your personal true crime and paranormal stories ideally in the subject line you will write down that it's a listener story so it's easier for eva to find um and we post our listeners episode on the first of every month and uh maybe we'll read your story yes this will be the day after halloween so something spooky uh and that's it uh happy libra season i'm not looking forward to scorpio season but i'm hanging in there with the libras right now oh boy i'm looking forward to scorpio season well it will be geo's's right. So I guess we can all celebrate with some artisanal, organically sourced peanut butter.

And? That's why. Drink. Drink. Bye.