And That's Why We Drink - E163 The Valedictorian of Space Camp and an Alien Princess

Episode Date: March 15, 2020

Welcome to the epicenter of Clorox! We're staying in this week and reporting from rainy Los Angeles. We're also so sorry for having to reschedule all of our March live shows - we have more detailed info below for you. We hope you're all staying safe and healthy! This week Em covers the supposed curse of the Poltergeist movie franchise. Then Christine takes on the gruesome and graphic story of Jesse Pomeroy aka the "Boston Boy Fiend". And don't ask Linda to send you toilet paper... and that's why we drink! LIVE SHOW UPDATE: Portland and Seattle have been rescheduled for the following dates! Portland - 10/22/20Seattle - 10/23/20All previously purchased tickets for both shows will be honored at the new dates. Both venues will be the same, please double check the event sites for show time listings. Tickets for the Portland show are back on sale for the new date now! Seattle is still sold out but we'd suggest keeping an eye on the ticket site if you're interested in purchasing tickets. Please contact the venues directly for info on refunds. We're working on confirming rescheduled dates for DC, Philly, NYC and Boston now. So sorry for the inconvenience! Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Get 25% off Cleancult now through May 30th at Cleancult.com/DRINKTry Scout from Warby Parker for just $5! Visit warbyparker.com/DRINKGet a 4-week trial PLUS free postage ANDa digital scale without any long-term commitment from Stamps.com! Just go to Stamps.com, click on the Microphone at the TOP of the homepage and type in DRINKUse coupon code DRINK for $10 off your first FabFitFun box at www.fabfitfun.com

welcome to the epicenter of huh clorox we are we should talk about that huh the midst of uh a national crisis apparently what has become a national crisis and we were like oh we'll be fine and then all of a sudden we're like i guess we won't be though yes um and i'm so sorry i hope everyone's doing okay um and feeling safe and healthy and trying their best to wash their hands yes we unfortunately had to um cancel all of our march shows yes if by now you know this but it is it is probably good to say in case you were not following us on instagram or facebook or anything like that but uh we planned on powering through we did we were like we're gonna go to these shows you know a lot of people wanted to see us and then a lot of governors started making a lot of calls. All these governors decided they wanted to tell us what to do.

So that, I mean, at the end of the day, it was probably obviously a very good thing. People probably wouldn't have actually come to the show anyway because maybe some of them were too afraid to come out in public or were afraid of catching something. Plus, Christine does have an autoimmune disease that we like to neglect often. I constantly neglect it. And then my doctor was like, like just so you know you're a high risk patient and then he said that and i went oh i don't like those words yeah um so it's for the best that we didn't and like for me we were just gonna keep i was like i'll just fist bump people like i was more i think we're more worried about the people in the audience like we wouldn't be as much in contact with everybody but apparently um whatever it was

we didn't even get to decide everyone chose for us so i'm so sorry about that we're pretty actually very bummed out we had a lot of people coming like from our own families to new york and boston and um dc so uh they're being postponed they're not canceled canceled like they're being rescheduled right they're being rescheduled probably near the fall yeah but we have nothing confirmed yet so please don't take our words as like a sure gospel right um but we hope everyone's doing okay uh toilet paper is oh my god scarce our dumb ass has tried to buy toilet paper five minutes ago um hand sanitizer obviously is just like something that doesn't exist anymore it's amazing it's like a black market product all of a sudden it's really crazy and today happens to be like really rainy outside and it's yeah in la which is like ultra weird it's very it's a very weird time it's kind of

feels a little bit like the morning after the election like everyone's off the street everyone was just kind of yeah like like just a little extra on edge and a little afraid and a little concerned about what the fuck's coming up. Yeah. Vulnerable and like not sure what to do. And I mean, like M earlier was like, well, and tomorrow, apparently there's supposed to be all these thunderstorms. I was like, tomorrow's also Friday the 13th. So like, yeah, we're in this weird doomsday situation at this point. It's it's a very odd feeling and like we're trying to like i mean it's gotten to a point where like i don't know what the

rest of the world looks like but i've i've had my mom sending me toilet paper because it literally just doesn't exist anymore like yeah in the stores that i've looked i've looked at costco i've looked at target i've looked at ralph's i've looked at truer joe's i've looked at walmart i've looked at target like everywhere i've looked like there are just like aisles that are turned over and like stop they're not restocking right and like I mean there's obviously there's more issues than toilet paper there's a lot of like racial issues happening right now oh yeah it's honestly things like this I think bring out the worst in a lot of people or like just fear like this brings out a lot of negativity in people and and like the the dark parts of humanity sometimes come out um so yeah uh not great i

also you know like cincinnati schools i found out were closing for at least three weeks starting to monday and like you know there are a lot of people who depend on school lunches and that kind of thing and so and some people are like it's not a matter of like like it's nice to think like oh some people don't even have to go to work but it's like some people are living paycheck to paycheck and need that they have to go right so it's it is very scary for a lot of people a lot of um specifically like chinese establishments are losing a lot of business because a lot of people out there are just decided decisions suddenly they're chinese who's going to give them coronavirus as if that's a thing uh so there's a lot of people out there who are desperately hurting also uh i found out that our old campus boston university all schools in boston have apparently like just

stopped for like the whole semester and there's a lot of people who are international students in boston university and so i don't know how where they plan on moving because they just got kicked off campus but they can't fly out of the country and so it's it's getting kind of pretty wild yeah it's uh definitely pulling in all different directions uh yeah so i just on that i hope you're doing okay i hope you're okay uh reach out if you need help or if you know someone who needs help yep everyone be kind to each other just yeah be kind uh wash your hands wash your goddamn hands um i don't yeah it's weird i so it's a weird feeling that's going on because i feel like now we have to have like a comedy show but everyone's scared for their

lives i just it really sorry you go first no no no you go i just have a lot of feelings i when don't we though uh but no i was telling christina i was like this does like for all the shows like the walking dead or like any apocalyptic based show you never really see like what the initial very gradual like signs like what those small small signs might be of like the beginning of the end of the world yep but now it's like of course toilet paper would be the first thing to run out and soap would be the first thing to run and like people it seems like tiny little things that you wouldn't pick up on but it's like the beginning of a real issue yeah and also it just happens to be raining and it literally never rains in la and so it just it added to the ambiances off yeah it's

uh it's feeling a little dark so i i just thought it was worth mentioning just so get it out of the way we know what's going on we are very sorry about having to cancel our shows we really didn't want to do that um it's not ideal and we we know this is like messing up a lot of people's travel plans and um yeah we tried we really tried yeah avoid it but unfortunately those governors are always making decisions bossing us around. Like, who do they think they are? Realistically, I'm sure there is some silver lining that we haven't found yet in this.

And not to say that that's for everybody. But. Right. I'm sure we'll make do with what we've got. So. Yeah. Also, I think that, like, special, special patron of the week is going to feel so honored that their episode is the Corona episode. Right. Our patron of the week is gonna feel so honored that their episode is the corona episode right uh our patron of the week is z baits z baits z all right is for zika remember that let's think

about that and how now we're all okay so that'll happen too sure that's in in enough time everyone will be okay even though this is like our version of like scarlet fever also like not everyone will be okay but not unfortunately fingers crossed at least tom hangs is okay yeah poor tom but yeah so i just wanted to um say sorry about that and uh hope everyone's doing okay and thank you z for your patreon support yes we're thinking of everyone and we hope everyone who at least everyone who has like maybe even just older family relatives that they're worried about or anything like that we hope everyone's at least everyone who has like maybe even just older family relatives that they're worried about or anything like that. We hope everyone's doing OK. Absolutely.

And I also wanted to. Can I make like a little promo talking about shows real quick? Sure. So you do whatever you want. It's your goddamn show. I know. Well, OK. So my brothers and my podcast has a beach.

Oh, it's your other goddamn show. My other show. Beach to Sandy. Water to Wet. We have our first shows ever. And we're like kind of terrified we're not going to sell any tickets. So the Cincinnati show is the day after the In That's What You Drink Cincinnati show. So if you want to double up and see me twice in one weekend, go for it. Or maybe spot Bernie in the crowd.

And we have a show in L.A. in May, as far as I know, until further notice, the show is still on. But so yeah, if anyone wants to come, we're trying to sell tickets. So what if it wasn't because of the coronavirus is just because you're so bad? I mean, that's literally my fear. So bcsandy.com slash tour if anyone wants to come. If you're sad that you can't make it to our Boston show. I'm just using this to my advantage i'm sorry that's fine it's your platform i'm just desperate that we're not selling too many tickets so we're trying our best i think it it just is a very unlucky time to start selling tickets that's a very fortunate timing it's not you it's a pandemic but fortunately it's also houdini

probably it's not me it's not houdini it's just this damn pandemic a global pandemic it's all these governors um i so anyway i just wanted to uh give that a little shout out because uh that's in may and i'm looking forward to hopefully in may remember how trump said that all the warm weather will stop the virus okay so let's do that let's just pretend that's real and then and then you'll go see bichu sandy yeah yep that'll be the way we celebrate i think so um so that's that great other than that how have you been good oh good thank you very much how have you how have you been good we uh had a little treat for eva this weekend yep uh i don't know how much you you let me know how much i'm allowed to say oh no this is no no this is a joint effort so uh eva is obsessed with i didn't know this until we had a show in alabama

but eva's obsessed with uh nasa and rockets and space and the galaxy her dad worked for nasa for a while so like legit and has like a cool coin from nasa and so eva's birthday was this weekend and uh we had said we were trying to figure out what we were going to do for our birthday and we legitimately thought about actually sending her to space camp in alabama truly googled it to find out and it just ended up not logistically working and so i wonder why and so we were like i wish we could just maybe make i think my exact words were like knowing how extra we are we could probably just make our own space camp here and then christine was like okay let's do that i was just like reading my face and i was like yes so we made eva space camp and so we got to play a

whole bunch of games god it was so cool i walked in and then put up all this so em and i both brought space stuff but like somehow found like different space stuff so it was quite a combo it was quite an accumulation of galaxy themed things yeah em had planned all these activities and like arts and crafts i mean it was so much fun um and And we filmed. Christine was a bar master for the day and made like galaxy swirl constellation drinks. Em called it Christine's drunk kitchen. I did. I will say too, we filmed it and we are, I'm working on editing it now. And I guess now that we're off for a month, I can find the time to edit it. And that's going to be kind of like our Lemonscape I can find the time to edit it.

And that's going to be kind of like our Lemonscape video is going to be on Patreon for our patrons. Yes. Trying to make some more like long form content for you guys. And it was super fun and really cool. And Eva's just a gem. Yes. If you haven't said happy birthday to her yet online, go do it. Oh, yeah. Go do it.

She's a goddamn gem. She is a goddamn delight. She is. I love that. By the way, she graduated from space camp, in case you were wondering. Oh, she did. She's our favorite little no longer cadet. I think she's actually valedictorian.

She was. One out of one. Summa cum laude. It was amazing. One out of one. So. I failed. My story this time around is a, has been requested by many.

I'm not going to shout out names because it would take too long so many people have asked for this okay um i thought it was a fun little change of things because it's kind of haunted kind of conspiracy theory kind of just one big fun fact i know so uh this i don't know if you've heard of this but this is the story of the poltergeist curse movie the movie oh i feel like i've seen people suggest it but i don't really know much about it so i knew all i knew about it was that um there so if you have you seen the poltergeist i have not okay or the poltergeist so if you've seen we're like old people like have you listened on the spot i went down to the wally world and

there's no more toilet paper i'm sorry no more tp so um so if you have not seen the movie it's about this family the free they move into this house and then i don't mean to spoil it for you but you've had like 30 years to watch it there's like the statute of limitations has expired so basically they uh they move into a house and then they find out later that it was built over a cemetery and all these bodies are buried underneath it. And so the youngest girl, I don't know if you know the reference, but the creepy little girl voice that goes, they're here. That's like a famous scary movie catchphrase. That came from Poltergeist because the little girl, basically all the spirits are trying to talk to them through the TV set. And then near the end of the movie the girl the daughter the youngest daughter just goes

missing and so the family has to reach out to this medium to help them find the girl and get the girl back from the ghost so it's a good it's a really good movie um it's one of the classics produced by steven spielberg oh there you go fun fact also it was um so it came out in 1982 and mgm released it it was the eighth highest grossing film of the year and had three oscar nominations wow wow and i feel like that's rare for like a horror movie right or scary movie right yeah i think so to get like high high brow high caliber awards so the curse which is where i i i lost my tangent but I was going into this thing like why you'll find it I'm back on my groove so the uh the curse that I understood was that the little girl the one says they're here I knew like after only a couple months of filming the movies she died like in real

life like unexpectedly died oh shit and so that's what i thought the poltergeist curse was where it was like after making a movie and like inviting all that kind of like bad energy all of a sudden she died and so if they like sounds like a curse to me it could have like obviously just been like a freak accident that people associate with the movie but i always thought that was the curse of like oh this little girl who's so important and crucial in the movies then just died randomly yikes so like of course they're gonna make it like a little curse sure what i ended up finding out though is that the poltergeist curse is that pretty much like i'm not gonna say all but a massive chunk of the cast

and crew after or like throughout and after filming these movies all died in weird ways what and so they think that it's like if you worked on the movie it like you cursed yourself oh god and either you some people to be fair just died of like a natural cause but i am going to mention those deaths just so you can see like how many sure like the body count oh my god um so anyway and also poltergeist it's a trilogy just so oh okay also like does that mean we're screwed because like all we do is talk about this stuff honestly at this point if i don't die in a freak accident it will be kind of odd oh my god i hope it doesn't happen for a long time but you

say in the midst of a corona pandemic right if i'm the only well please don't let me die from the coronavirus i won't let you die if i do though that funeral better be fucking popping i'm just saying oh don't worry okay don't you even worry we all know my ghost is gonna be there i'm gonna be counting every single person who actually shows and see who i was important to you're gonna have a checklist at hand i know a thousand percent so um here are some of the weird events we're just gonna jump right into it so during the production of uh the first one in 1981 there's so there's a famous scene in it where like a mechanical clown doll like attacks the little boy in the family okay so uh the mechanical clown while filming uh it attacks the son named robbie and the crew actually thought

that the the guy who played robbie oliver he was like a nine-year-old boy and they thought he was giving a great performance but they actually found out after the fact that the mechanical clown had fallen on him and he was literally choking to death what so they had to pull he ended up so they were like yeah good work they were like wow that guy knows how to act like he's dying that's horrifying so there is an urban legend that goes around every now and then that says that Robbie was actually the first cast member or crew member to die on the Poltergeist set. But that's an urban legend. They pulled the mechanical clown off. He survived.

He was fine. What a way to go. I mean, truly, that would have been bad. How do you tell people he was choked by a mechanical clown? While everybody watched. And applauded. Yeah, applauded. But yeah, so people say he died.

He did not. He's still alive. Or he's still alive or he was still alive after that oh okay got it then um so joe beth williams was the actress who played the uh the matriarch of the family okay um she was also kind of the main one of the main characters the whole family was uh the main characters but she had played a big role in the show in the movie she did say that while they were filming this movie, she would go home every night and all of the pictures in her house would be crooked. Goodbye. And she would fix them and then she would leave and then come back the next day and they'd be crooked all over again.

And then she would set the house on fire and run, run far away. Yeah. And she said that that happened during the second Poltergeist movie, too. So it was like she almost had like this weird feeling of like should i even be doing this movie so um oh god and isn't that very poltergeisty right like to literally poltergeisty to be like messing with your shit and put it in like weird angles and stuff yep yucko so also some of the crew got mysteriously ill during filming and during uh this is actually kind of a not only a fun fact but also a theory as

to why this curse even exists is because during the climax of the original film basically the matriarch of the family she ends up in this pool and all of these skeletons are coming out like because the it's basically like the ground is flooding and so she ends up in this like hole and all of the skeletons buried under the house are like coming to life and okay coming after her so obviously you would think as an actress like oh these skeletons are fake but don't even the prop master even for especially during this time period it was very common for the skeletons to be real you're kidding with me i'm not so okay apparently the prop master for uh the poltergeist the i don't know it doesn't matter poltergeist i don't even

notice so you can just keep doing it uh the prop master's name was bruce casen and he said that the skeletons came from carolina medical and at this time just like a fun fact altogether is that back in the 70s and 80s real skeletons were used so much more often than prop skeletons and that's just not in movies that's in like mini golf displays and like universities and then you're like mini golf no like anywhere where like a skeleton like a pirate display would be the skeletons were real yeah that happened what was that story where the they were on a ride or something and there was always a skeleton and then they found out later it was like a murder victim?

I think it was Pirates of the Caribbean ride or something? No, it was like from a fair in like the 19-somethings. Oh. It turned out to be a murder victim. I don't remember what. I think it was, I listened to it on Lore or something. But yeah, then they thought it was like, oh, cool, a prop. And then it turns out someone had literally hid a body there and like nobody fucking noticed oh my gosh well apparently uh skeletons at that time were

a lot cheaper to use and they were also so not only were they more cost effective but they were also just more available because a lot of props that are made with like plastic or silicone started in the late 80s oh sure so up until then it was really hard to get access to fake skeletons. So they just would just get them from medical places. So and also keep in mind, like Jo Beth Williams, who played this actress, she thought they were fake skeletons. Oh, they didn't tell her? They didn't tell her. And so she was she was doing there was like four to five days. I watched her in an interview saying there was like a good week where they had it was such a big scene and it was such a messy scene that resets took forever so she did this scene over

and over for a week and she was just covered in skeletons and now she like looks back and she was like they were real but dead bodies dead bodies and like she had to obviously look scared and she was like had i known they were real skeletons i would have absolutely been really scared i was gonna say wouldn't have been more effective to be like oh by the way these are real bodies like in the middle of the scene i know to get like real fear on her face so the use of i mean this goes without saying but the use of genuine human remains has often been cited as the cause of the poltergeist curse why some speculate that uh a spirit could be attached to some of these skeletons and it doesn't like that they're using like their human remains are not being respected they're being thrown around

in mud and like being propped up against actresses and i could you could argue like oh well they donated their body yet to science probably right not like to hollywood but so yeah so a lot of people think like oh the curse happened because they were literally disturbing human remains which is ironic because the whole point of this movie is that they moved into a house on top of a cemetery and they're disturbing like the resting place of these bodies so anyway after the film's release the writer who was actually going to do like a novelization of the movie his his name was James Caan, and his house in the middle of him working was struck by a lightning bolt. What?

And the weird part beyond that, which is like probably like a one in a million thing of happening. He is quoted talking about it later, saying the lights went out in my house. The facing on the air conditioning unit blew off, flew across the room and hit me in the back. And after about a minute, the lights flickered and went back on by themselves. And all of the video games in my house started playing by themselves. No. So he apparently also collected like arcade games and all of them started

like going on and off and with all that, like tinny music. Yeah. So that happened right after the film releasing. Then just after the premiere, Richard Lawson, who played the character Ryan, he nearly dies of a cocaine overdose, but he survives. Five months after the movie's premiere. This is like the worst one when it comes to the original movie. Five months after the premiere, actress Dominique Dunn, who played the oldest daughter of the family, she was attacked by her ex.

So in 1981, she was in a relationship with a guy named John Sweeney, who was a chef at a restaurant in L.A. Apparently, he was super abusive and jealous and they fought constantly. John was known for regularly beating her up. And one night he even tried to, like, jump on her car to stop her from driving away. And so that was the night that she moved out. like jump on her car to stop her from driving away and so that was the night that she moved out but that halloween i don't know if this was his way of trying to win her back or something but he carved a chocolate mask he like carved a chocolate mask to look like her oh and then he delivered it to her door what a way to win someone back right but then after a brief argument

he strangled her into a coma and he even told the police he thought he killed her. Yeah. But she was just unconscious. In a coma. Holy shit. And five days later, she never woke up from the coma and died at 22 years old. That's so fucking tragic. 22.

And he was found guilty of second degree manslaughter and only served three and a half years. Great. And when he got out, he changed his name and no one knows where he is. Great. So she was the first official death what a piece of shit um so the second movie comes out in 1985 and the main cast all reprise their roles obviously except for dominique where they explained her absence as she like went off to college oh sure um but so the parents or the people that play the parents craig nelson and joe beth williams both reported that the second they got on the set, it like was really uncomfortable.

It was almost like any energy that was played with or messed around with from the first movie had come back because like, I mean, the same crew and the same cast are all together against the like that energy probably felt it. Sure. Showed up on set. They all said it felt really uncomfortable. They also now knew at this point that they had been fucking around with human bodies right and and the worst part is like reportedly allegedly the same prop master came back and brought more fucking real skeletons to the set to film the second movie so they were like absolutely not so then the cast and crew were like

so we're gonna mess with like adding more more souls to this yeah we're gonna mess with more body remains this is so fucking wow okay so will sampson who played a um native american shaman in the in the movie he also is like apparently in real life also a shaman um he was fucking uncomfortable with it he was like i didn't know had i known the first time around that those were real skeletons i wouldn't have even fucking like done this job it's amazing they didn't tell anybody yeah especially when you're like a fucking shaman is on set and you're gonna not tell them especially someone's like drowning in them and you're like no they're fake don't worry and so uh legal i don't know if they ever like specifically lied but definitely danced around

the truth until after the fact sure but so will sampson he was like i'm not coming back on a set to mess with more bodies like now that i know that's what the plan is i'm not down with it and so he actually apparently came in onto the set after filming one day and like requested that he was in on the set by himself and he performed what people call an exorcism but apparently another article called it a muskagee blessing i don't know which one it is but even the cast and crew in an interview were calling it an exorcism so i don't know if because they knew him that actually was what happened like muskige muskige is that how it's pronounced i think so but i'm not i don't want to i don't want to make a claim but i think maybe a m-u-s-k-o-g-e-e-o-g because i know like muskegee airmen but i don't know how

that's spelled okay i don't want to be offensive i'm just wildly ignorant and i should have looked um but a blessing from i am imagining like sure whatever what tribe he's from very brave to be like i want to be on set by myself he was like nobody else is gonna fuck with us i know what i'm doing and get out muskogee maybe sorry it's with an o i don't know i feel like i keep thinking i know it and then i say it out loud and go i'm i have no idea so sorry muskogee sounds wrong to me i don't know you let us know and i'm just sorry by the way i'm just sorry don't let us know because it's just gonna be eva going i didn't i didn't do this i'll look it up i promise but anyway he went in and performed some sort of blessing or

some sort of ritual and he didn't ever really explain to anyone else what he did he just said he was going to cleanse the set and people actually did come in the next day for work and they did say that there was like a lightness and everyone felt really relieved and it felt different on set good and for the rest of filming there was no incidents oh that's great okay so thank you will samson it worked but this is also where i'm just gonna throw in some additional deaths that did happen i don't know if it's like i personally think it's kind of a stretch to consider them part of a curse but um there did happen to be deaths pretty close to filming this where Julian Beck, who played Preacher Kane, he died from stomach cancer just before the movie's premiere. So at the very least, it's this franchise is building a reputation of like, not everybody makes it out alive.

Yeah. After like, if you're on this set, someone's not going to be alive by the end. Right. Like even statistically speaking. Yeah. one's not going to be alive by the end right like even statistically speaking yeah so after the film's release will sampson he died too from complications from a lung transplant no so then he's also dead so that's two movies three deaths and also like some freaky like uh like mechanical clown and bolts of lightning shit yeah yeah right those kind of normal normal freak accidents right so then uh

poltergeist 3 comes out in 1987 and the only two people to reprise their roles are uh zelda rubenstein and heather o'rourke and heather o'rourke played carolyn she's the little girl that goes we're here or they're here um so she comes back for the third movie she had just ding ding ding christine she had just been diagnosed with crones oh and was given regular cortisone shots before filming and after principal photography wrapped she was showing flu-like symptoms oh no and she collapses and is rushed to the hospital oh no and goes into cardiac arrest oh my how old is she? She's 12. Oh God. The doctors find out that she was misdiagnosed and did not have Crohn's. Oh God. She had a congenital bowel obstruction.

And so when they went in for emergency surgery, she died of septic shock. That's just so awful. And not that this is any, this is like definitely not the worst part of it at all. But the movie happened to be a total flop because they decided that since she had just died right before the movie was going to premiere, they prohibited the stars from doing any promotion for the movie because they didn't want to look like they were exploiting her death. Yeah. So since they didn't do any promotion, the movie never really, like, got paid attention to. And so the movie ended up flopping. Oh, my God. On top of it. Horrible.

Horrible. Yeah. So now that's a fourth death. And, I mean, she was 12 years old and literally just, like, dropped dead. Baby. And her parents did sue, saying that, like, had she been properly diagnosed, she might be still alive. And so there was all that mess heavy heavy heavy um so in 1992 this is after the trilogy has been made in 1992 richard lawson who was the guy who

uh survived the cocaine overdose and during their first movie still some weird things happen because they think okay well we're not making any more movies but like you know there are still people who are alive sure that worked on this and like let's hope that like like they all knew about the poltergeist curse and they were like well let's see like even though we're not making movies maybe because we were associated with it at all we might still not be in luck all right and so in 1992 richard lawson he got on a flight to cleveland um flight 405 and the plane crashed into a bay oh god 27 people died 24 people survived he happened to be one of them but he was stuck in he got uh stuck in his lap belt oh my god

underwater oh my god okay and somehow survived oh he did this is some but the the reason he survived is because he ended up getting upgraded last minute and the row that he was gonna sit in everyone died so he just survived because he got moved last minute last minute, and the row that he was going to sit in, everyone died. Jesus. So he just survived because he got moved last minute, but he was still, in some freak accident, survived. Yes. He should have not survived.

That's terrifying. In 2004, the director of Poltergeist 2, Brian Gibson, he dies of bone cancer, and in 2010, Zelda Rubinstein, who was also in the third movie, died of natural causes. Isn't she the one who's the voice of that creepy show? Oh, maybe. I'm pretty sure that's her. At least a similar name. Sounds right.

Yeah. So those are two, again, like they could be considered stretches, but it's just I'm just adding to the putting all the deaths in one show for you. Sure. So in 2009, this is the weirdest one to me. you sure so in 2009 this is the weirdest one to me in 2009 uh lou perryman he played a small role in the original movie as the construction worker named his name was pugsley now he's 67 years old he lives in austin texas hanging out at his house and he gets a knock on the door and a man named seth tatum opened the door and witnesses saw them uh have a conversation on the front porch and then

lou lets seth into the house and then later seth is seen leaving the house alone at some point i guess people hadn't seen lou in a while and so they called the police and police show up to lou's house and found him hacked apart with an axe what and talk about a freak accident because seth was recently released from prison and was apparently not taking his medication he was reportedly wandering aimlessly for three miles and then at random chose lou's house yeah not knowing who he was oh no and then knocked on his door went and killed him and left shit um yeah that's like the definition of just like just like out of nowhere yeah and so i mean imagine being like

knowing about this poltergeist curse and being like at any second something fucking wild can happen like lightning or a murderer or a plane crash i mean anything it's like final destination truly and again a lot of people theorize that because all these people were somehow involved in messing with body bodily remains all of those spirits are like almost after them and trying to like get them back for disturbing their their afterlife so there was a reboot in 2013 of poltergeist um from 20th century fox and mgm they announced that they were going to do a reboot and in 2015 the director gil keenan he actually did a reddit ama about like you know ask me anything from us filming this reboot and someone asked like has anything strange or unnecessary happened while

you're filming and so this was uh this was gil keenan's response it's kind of long but okay okay so he says the location for the house during shooting i chose it because it had a strange and unnecessary field that the houses of this particular community were built around and we found throughout production that we had persistent and repeatable equipment failure only on that strange plot of land for instance lights would turn on anywhere else in the neighborhood but would blow out the second you try to light them on this plot also i used a lot of aerial drone photography in the film and the drone pilots were never able to lock in the gps signal on this field we would have to move 10 feet to

launch the craft and i was too afraid to find out what that land used to be we filmed outside toronto somewhere between buffalo new york and toronto ontario in a town called hamilton also the house that i rented during filming was straight up legit haunted by a female spirit dressed in black okay and i became aware of her within the first few days of staying in the house that i rented during filming was straight up legit haunted by a female spirit dressed in black okay and i became aware of her within the first few days of staying in the house and only after i left did i receive a call from the previous owner who had moved back in who was terrified by the goings-on in the house and wanted to see what i had done and if i had experienced any of it so like oh i only did did a little thing called poltergeist i only filmed something that's notorious for having a curse of people being surrounded in bad energy afterwards it's like quite an air and b&b review

to leave behind yeah so it was an incredible real life inspiration for filming that followed me home it didn't follow me back to la but it definitely followed me back from set to wherever i was sleeping during filming and then uh last thing i have to say about this is they are rebooting it again and why stop it it got announced last year that the russo brothers who are notoriously in my heart known for the marvel cinematic universe aha they are apparently going to be involved somehow in this franchise and i swear to god if the russo brothers if they die and the marvel cinematic universe is not completed i'm gonna lose it first tom hanks now this not

the russo brothers what are we gonna do so anyway that being said that is the poltergeist curse wow the poltergeist curse i mean even the fact that like child died that's just the odds of that like especially all the actors i think the the heather o'rourke like the little girl who died i think the only reason everyone knows that one is because it's a little girl and so innocent and just happened out of nowhere and she happened to be the main character of a haunted movie right where they were fucking around with skeletons that are real right right so like everything else kind of falls to the wayside but like i didn't know about like the oldest daughter being strangled to death i didn't know about lou perriman and the the axe like i mean that those alone and a plane crash. I mean, it's just a lot.

Yep. Especially all the actors. It's not even just like random people associated. Right. Somewhat. It's like the main people involved. Wow. Okay.

That's quite a story. Yes, I think so. So anyway, that is the, that is that. And a lot of people have asked about it. So I hope that I did it justice.

I'm sure you did. That was creepy. What do you, if you got for me christine a tall tail just a short tail really fucked up tail how's that a puppy dog tail i wish i had that to offer you okay after this you can have some puppy dog tails this is the story oops sorry everyone this is the story of jesse pomroy the boy fiend of boston oh boston okay boy fiend props to boston i'm sorry that we won't be seeing you as soon as we had hoped damn i was so excited to be back in boston me too we were like our hometown show at the wilbur i called my friend and i was like listen i'm so sorry because we had so many plans there was a we we had gotten a tiny house we had gotten like uh we were'm so sorry. Because we had so many plans. We had gotten a tiny house. We had gotten, like, we were going to go to Salem.

We had a lot of plans. Yeah, I feel bad because my soon-to-be sister-in-law and my mother-in-law both called off work months ago to make sure they were there that day. And I'm like, oh, sorry. I feel bad. But, God, I hope we can. We will reschedule, and we'll be back. But for now, please just take this horrible story. Okay, so Jesse Pomeroy.

So this is kind of an old-timey story. It's from the mid-19th century. I love it. Very New England-y. Love it. So Jesse Pomeroy, he was born in November of 1859. Oh, a Scorpio. I already hate it.

In Charleston, Massachusetts. Oh, a Scorpio. I already hate it. In, uh, Charleston, Massachusetts. Is that a Scorpio? No, that's Sagittarius, isn't it? Well, if it's early November. Oh, sorry. I didn't say the date. November 29th. Oh, that's Sagittarius.

My bad. My bad. Damn. Okay. I really wanted to hate him. I shouldn't have even corrected you. I'm sorry. It's fine.

It's fine. Um, to, okay. To two parents, Thomas J. P pomeroy a civil war veteran who worked at the dockyards and a woman named ruth ann pomeroy whose uh maiden name was snowman shut i think it's probably pronounced snowman but it's spelled like snowman oh my god wait so what was her what was say her full maiden name ruth and snowman i didn't even see that ruth and snowman snowman oh ruth and the snowman ruth and the snowman so sweet okay so she was a dressmaker um like santa claus's dressmaker she was like um okay so jesse had like a typical upbringing um he had one older brother named charlie and

he had a typical upbringing except there was uh according to most sources abuse of physical abuse um from his dad of both him and his older brother um so when he was little he was very sickly he was quote unquote strange looking to the people at the time who were not very obviously you know necessarily open-minded to things like that he had a cleft palate uh he had cataracts uh which caused one of his eyes to be kind of white and so he had these constant headaches and had like seizures pretty regularly throughout his childhood so he was kind of regarded as like a freak or like different sure from the people around him back in the day back in the day right is this sorry go ahead no

no i was gonna say was this around the time where like freak shows were a thing is that part of the storyline it's not but i didn't know i don't know if he's even that freaky enough to be in a freak show as terrible as it sounds i didn't i don't know if that was the storyline we're heading down no that's a really good guess but no um unfortunately it's not it's just probably a lot worse i see okay not that freak shows were not bad but things just go downhill really quickly here um but he was like ridiculed for his um cleft palate and his eye uh by the boys in his neighborhood and the the person who was most revolted by the way he looked was his father oh yeah so uh one day he jesse like uh skipped school and his father uh blew up in anger stripped him naked uh behind the outhouse and whipped him

um and that was like the that became kind of just the regular occurrence um he was regularly beaten and his older brother was occasionally as well but jesse got like the brunt of it and people now think it was just because his father was so like disgusted by him shit okay yeah um and so around this time uh like when he's probably like seven or eight he's caught torturing a neighbor's kitten oh boy this is where things just go really south really quickly i do want to also say like i mean all my stories are disturbing you know equally on different in different directions but this one is rather trigger warning maybe if you you know maybe if is it animal stuff it's not animal stuff is it sexual assault stuff not even really it's just disturbing i mean i don't even know what to say because it's like

i don't want to say oh this one's more disturbing than right a normal case of someone getting murdered i'm not saying that at all it's pretty graphic okay let's put it that way okay because i don't want to give obviously varying levels to like whether one you don't want to compare one trauma yeah exactly especially because it's just like this one just happens to be a little more detailed than it's it's pretty detailed um and that's kind of how the story is has to be told for for clarity's sake so i just want to right yes maybe don't be eating lunch or maybe. We know you're not an asshole. You just kind of have to tell the story. Got it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yikes. So things. This is one more pet thing. Ruth's pet canaries were then found dead with their heads ripped off. Oh, my God. Yeah. Wow. OK.

So this is just. I see now where we're heading. Yeah. Got it. This is just the start. And there's no more. I mean, to be clear, there's no more animal stuff, there's people stuff which equally if not worse right correct in the graphic department yes so her mother never like uh outright blamed him i'm sorry his mother never outright blamed

him but people think that she at least suspected it was him because she never allowed a pet in her home or near her home ever again i see although she said of course that wasn't him but you know actions speak louder than words sure so uh one day thomas um jesse's dad beats him so badly that ruth uh his mother chases him out of the house with a knife and he never returned and at this point according to contemporary sources they divorced and he was out of the picture so j Jesse kind of eventually graduates, quote unquote, from torturing animals to other boys. He starts, what he would do is he would take, convince a friend or a neighborhood boy that he was going to go take him to see an errand with him or a chore or whatever it may be and would then lure them out to various locations, often outhouses along the marshlands or the railroad tracks, just very isolated spots.

So here we go on a timeline of that. Great. December 22nd of 1871, William Billy Payne, a little boy, follows Jesse up to an area known as Powderhorn Hill, where Jesse forces him to strip off his clothes, then ties his hands to a beam, and then beats him up until he falls unconscious, and then leaves him there to freeze, basically. Oh, my God. And he does survive. He was found nearly frozen to death. He did recover. I mean, you know, to the extent that you could after something like that. He did recover, but he was

unable to identify who his attacker was, except to say he was older. And that was all he could really like tell adults. Okay. So two months later, February 22nd tracy uh hayden who's seven years old is discovered in the same area tracy's uh assailant beat him uh knocked out his front teeth black in both of his eyes and threatened to cut off his penis but did not um and so when they discover tracy kind of also stuck like uh chained up and frozen out there right and beaten up tracy says yes he was older but he also had brown hair so now they're adding okay piece by piece to this description of who this who's wreaking all this havoc um a couple months later may 20th of 1872 eight-year-old robert mayor walks up with an older boy up to powder hill and he's seen walking with this older

kid uh jesse who strips him of his clothes again and this time forces him to repeat curse words as he's, like, beating him. Okay. Which apparently sexually excites him. So he's kind of developing his MO, basically, and is, like, increasing the violence in specific ways that excite him.

So Jesse eventually releases robert but threatens that he'll kill him if he tells anyone and leaves him out there so around this time people are like holy hell this is happening over and over to our children this is terrifying um but sort of like at that point i'd start having someone like on alert at that rock. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. So they were like, what do we do? But the problem was like these descriptions of of Jesse became like tainted or like telephone almost like turns out people started looking for a teenager with red hair, a wispy beard and pointed eyebrows which an elf literally mrs claus uh

assistant elf mrs snowman's assistant the one who wants to be a dentist yeah oh yeah so so uh basically like people were looking in the complete wrong direction for the assailant and so let's just say he's not gonna get caught right it's just making things worse because he's like trying to get away with it right they're looking completely in the wrong direction um so then two months later july 22nd 1872 um an older boy jesse is seen leading another child seven-year-old johnny up to an outhouse on powderhorn hill he He is stripped, bound, whipped, and beaten as Jesse masturbates. He tells Johnny that he will kill him if he leaves the outhouse and tells anyone what happened. Now at this point, it's just every two months this is happening over and over and getting almost worse and more violent.

So there's actually a $500 reward put out for the capture of the quote, inhuman diabolical scamp who's torturing little boys. Oh, okay. And it's right at this time that Ruth, his mother rents out a dress shop and apartment in South Boston and moves her boys out of Chelsea where they were living. So it's theorized that she kind of suspected maybe her son was involved or behind the assaults.

And I can't imagine being a parent and thinking, no, like assuming that your kids probably involved or having that like nagging feeling where you don't want to believe it. But right. Yeah. Which is pretty much what they think happened. And there were a lot of vigilantes that emerged in the area looking for this five hundred dollar reward. in the area looking for this $500 reward. And so she was like, they theorize that she was taking her boys away from the area to keep them away from harm of the vigilantes, basically, because she knew it might be her son. Yikes. However, she didn't say outright that she thought it was her son.

Right, it's presumed. It's presumed. So August 17th, again, two months later uh 1872 george pratt a sickly seven-year-old little boy follows jesse away from the south boston shore this time and into the marshlands uh this one is rough uh george is stripped bound and beaten with a belt jesse bites a chunk of flesh from his cheek then he he goes further, stabs him with a needle. And before he leaves, he also takes a bite out of his butt and leaves him there. And he's alive still?

I believe he was left alive. Yes. I'm not positive, but later on, people, the victims are not necessarily left alive and i think gotcha those are very specific how the bodies were found so i'm not sure okay it was not clear i mean a lot of these older sources but i believe he survived oh my god also i mean as his mom though it was probably a smart strategy of like oh if all of a sudden the stuff starts happening over here where we moved then i know for real if it's my kid yeah yeah that's true or it's just like oh no my worst years have been confirmed really hoping it would stay in chelsea yeah um and i think just the fact that the kid was like that it was clear that he'd been stabbed with a needle and all this

stuff i think that was his he i think he had survived and was telling like the order of what happened and all that. I'm not, I'm not, I'm like 95% around that. So September 5th, 1872, so only a month later this time, Jesse kidnaps a boy named Harry Austin and takes him up to the railroad tracks where he is stripped bound again, beaten with a leather belt. However, this time Jesse takes out a pen knife and stabs him four times. It's getting so much worse. It's just getting more and more brutal. Jesse attempts to cut off Harry's genitals, but he hears people nearby and is scared off. And so once again, he just abandons this child.

Only days later, it's like a week later. So now it's getting like closer and closer together. It's like every day someone else is gonna get us yeah 10 worse than the last one right right so a week later september 11th 1872 this time jesse lures seven-year-old joseph kennedy to the marshlands along the bay once again he strips spines beats him but he also forces him to his knees and tries to make him recite a profane version of the lord's prayer which again he's finding these ways to kind of like excite himself with curse words and like profanity and okay blasphemy and forcing people to do things

right just being in power exactly yeah so he tries to make him but apparently the the kid joseph sorry joseph refuses refuses to blaspheme the Lord. He, like, refuses to commit blasphemy. Poor guy, a seven-year-old. And so Jesse gets pretty mad, slashes him across the face with his penknife, then drags him to the saltwater creek to force him to, like, wash the wounds in saltwater. He did survive as well, so that's how we know that that's what happened jesus oh my god but just like twisted torturous stuff uh developing

so a few days later again less than a week now september 17th 1872 five-year-old robert gould follows jesse up to the railroad tracks where he is tied to a fence post and beaten jesse slashes robert's head with a knife then presses a blade the blade to his throat but railroad railroad railroad finally something funny happens railroad workers oh god railroad workers okay uh are approaching like walking up the track and so interrupt the attack and he runs away and so finally robert gould is the first victim to add like an actual helpful piece of uh identifying evidence to this case and that's that his assailant had a milky eye okay and he comes helpful it is yeah and he compared it actually apparently there was a

marble you know people played fun games like marbles back then. Right. And, you know, pre-TikTok era. As I'm getting older, by the way, I will take this moment to mention, like, I'm kind of getting into, like, the billiards kind of thing. Oh, yeah. And, like, the old people. The, like, classics? Like, I'm kind of, like, I'm trying to learn jacks and tiddlywinks right now.

I just learned jacks in Missouri because we were there. I'm, like, kind of into it. I kind of like i'm trying to learn jacks and tiddlywinks right now i just learned jacks in uh missouri because we were there and uh i'm like kind of into it i kind of get it now it's fun now i'm like what age am i because i'm totally like it is a twist i'm like where are the where's the tiddlywink gang like i'm about to crush them oh my god yeah i'm sure marbles is also very fun i feel like marbles is fun i don't really know i feel like i maybe played when i was little uh but probably got bored but yeah jacks is fun where you'd like have to pick them up and it's hard i mean i'm a pickup sticks i'm very good pickup sticks that's been a while too so anyway marbles i'm ready to learn all about that well apparently there was a really popular marble called milky and it was like the way it looked so he described

this boy's eye as looking like that marble and so that's how they kind of got the newest description of what the assailant looked like so what they did next is they took joseph kennedy um to all so that was an earlier victim to all the schools in south boston to see if he could identify his attacker but roberts one of the other victims mother would not allow him to go because it was only three days after he had been attacked um and he wasn't well enough and she was like i don't want him involved in this he needs to get better so unfortunately it was just joseph being taken around and he didn't recognize or perhaps didn't notice uh anybody who matched the description of what his uh attacker looked like so jesse pomeroy once again escaped detection

but luckily i don't know if that's the right word later that day uh for kind of an unknown reason jesse walked straight into the police station where joseph was being questioned and like you know about okay walk straight in the police station and uh joseph is like that's him that's the guy who attacked me and so jesse runs out of the police station but officers catch him like a block away okay and he's arrested oh wow so he's why on earth was he there so i mentioned it later but they think it's because he was getting off on like this like cat and mouse like he wasn't caught like they always say like you can't like scene of the crime you always have to come to the scene of the crime yeah like you want to be

involved in in it to an extent and also you want to know like what how well you're doing getting away with that's true yeah well so he apparently they think he walked in there because he had they he had they'd gone through all these classrooms and he had not been recognized and he was like oh they don't even know what i look like and they think he just walked in to see if he could get away with it obviously he did not so um he was arrested and he was questioned but he denied everything uh he's shows no remorse what a shock and is put in a cell until midnight as the police try to get a hold of his mother ruth his poor mother uh at midnight investigators take him out of his cell and they threaten a 100 year jail sentence if he doesn't confess to his crimes whoa so he's like

yeah i did it okay and here are all the lurid details i'm gonna tell you everything great so the following morning they bring all of jesse's victims in and they all individually identify him as their attacker um as they presumed and he is taken before the magistrate and ruth so his mother like almost to a pathological sense defends him this entire time oh she's in such denial total denial and basically despite all the actions of like i think she knows to some level that this is she doesn't want to admit it yeah she can't bring herself to admit it and uh she said that all the other boys are liars and that jesse is a good boy he's honest he's obedient he's hard working he would never do something like this so the whole time she's defending him however jesse is sentenced to the house of reformation in

westborough until the age of 18. And he is led away. His mother is distraught, still claiming he hadn't done anything. But he was basically being sent to this reform school until he's 18. So weirdly enough, or maybe not that weird, he like thrives at this reform school because it's a very barbaric environment. And like he could kind of take over and take advantage of other kids i see i thought you meant for a second he was actually like reformed absolutely not okay i see unfortunately thriving in his own way got it right you know what you're right thrive might not be the best word he was uh doing the best at what he does best yeah Yeah, he was crumbling further into... Devolving, some might say.

Ugh, yeah. So most of the boys were there for non-violent offenses like truancy, shoplifting, and apparently stubbornness could get you sent there. Wow, my ass would be there. You and I would be screwed, and we also wouldn't survive. No, not at all, especially if this guy was in our fucking cell. Absolutely not. and we also wouldn't survive no not at all especially this guy was in our fucking cell absolutely not so um jesse because he's so sadistic basically becomes like the top of the social pyramid and has all of his ways of violence and um sadism and that kind of thing and he's able to kind of get all these other non-violent boys under his own control so while so this whole time jesse is like quote unquote thriving

developing his whole shtick his whole evil evil shtick yikes uh and it's just getting worse and worse and meanwhile his mother is outside of jail and she oh jail reform school and she is petitioning anyone and everyone she can find to help pardon her son because she's like, it is not him. Like, this is a huge mistake. So she's like doing all this. This poor woman. I know. It's awful.

It's awful. Doing all this like activism, quote unquote, to try and get him pardoned. But pretty quickly, Jesse learns that if he wants to get out, he needs to show good behavior. And that's the only way he could be released early. Great. So now he's fake thriving. Yep. Exactly. I see. And that's the only way he could be released early. So now he's fake. Yep, exactly.

So as someone who is so good at manipulating and controlling and like clearly has no remorse whatsoever. He's extremely good at like being what people want him to be or seeming like he's what people want him to be. So he becomes like a dorm monitor, which is like an RA basically. And or like a prefect in Harry Potter basically god damn I always wanted to be a prefect I was always scared of them I was like I would get in big trouble I feel like my whole life I always thought it was called a perfect because I couldn't I could not in my brain yeah it's a tough one around so I would always read them as perfect so I was like okay I get it I always thought it was perfect for a long time.

I know it's not, but I still in my head at 27, I have to like manually remind myself that it's not a perfect. Like override your brain. But also it makes sense because you have to be like pretty perfect for people to trust you to be a perfect. Yeah, it must be a plan words. I think too, like there's so many words in Harry Potter that she used that like I feel like since we read them growing up, there were so many words in harry potter that she used that like i feel like

since we read them growing up there were so many words that like we read a certain way like i remember like reading hermione at nine years old the big one again in my head i still think of her as like hermione yeah and like then i saw the movie and they're like hermione granger and i was like what the fuck who the hell is this where's hermeline where is hermeline where's my little ween yeah renee weenie granger renee used to call her uh hermione hermione yeah i mean how was a nine-year-old to know that yeah i don't think any of us really knew it at the time um thank god for hollywood telling us how to pronounce things thank god years later thank god for movies and tv to teach us to teach us all of our intellectual information okay uh right so he's basically a perfect uh he's an ra and he regularly reports his fellow students to the teachers

so he's basically a tattletale um such a hermoween am i right such a hermo ween am i right such a hermo ween such a ween weenie hut juniors oh yeah so jesse's exhibiting this like model behavior according to authorities and meanwhile ruth on the outside is like saying he's so innocent and he did nothing wrong and so that combined actually worked and oh no yeah he was released 18 months into his seven-year sentence so i mean job well done but fuck you also think about it if he was there till he was 18 and it was a seven-year sentence that means he was 11 when this all happened he was sent away at 11 and now he's getting out at like 12 or 13 wow did not even process that i knew he was like young but i didn't know that's really little um so yeah he's released 18 months in so he is probably about 12 or 13 at this point he now starts working at his brother so his older brother charlie has a newspaper shop

and his mom still has a dress shop so he starts working at both um and apparently even the local south boston police were like amazed at his reformation his thriving that he's thriving yeah all his thriving and um obviously the neighbors in the town were like oh hell no like what the fuck we know what's going on yeah like we're not letting our kids walk around if you're letting this guy free but the police were like i don't want a newspaper from you thank you no right i don't want to buy my address from miss mrs claus uh so basically he's returned to his previous environment pretty quickly um the townspeople are pissed but the police are like no he's changed you know um so guess what let me guess he's not a perfect anymore he's not a he's not prefect anymore he's no longer a

perfect prefect he uh yeah i mean it's exactly what everyone expects things get worse quickly does he start ruining other people's lives again oh pretty much immediately so six weeks after his release there it is and it's really bad, y'all. March 18th of 1874, six weeks after his release, a little girl named Katie Curran vanished. And her mother, Mrs. Curran, immediately began searching for her daughter and is horrified to learn first that Jesse has been freed from jail because she hadn't realized this yet. Oh, shit. hadn't realized this yet oh shit and second that her daughter had gone to it's called tobin's general store and she wanted to buy some notebooks but the store was out of notebooks so mr tobin suggested she had to mrs pomeroy's dress shop to buy some notebooks well there it is where jesse worked also if you're 12 years old like i'm imagining this girl was missing for a while

so like how do you how are you a 12 year old and like you have to come home too and have dinner where are you hiding another person? I'll tell you. Unfortunately, we find out in lurid detail, quote-unquote, what happened. So, yeah, it's twisted. So Captain Dyer of the South Boston Precinct, who is, you know, the precinct that's convinced he's changed, quote-unquote, assures Mrs. Curran that jesse is reformed but he said you know what we'll send an officer to check in order to calm the distraught mother and make sure

that her daughter's not in harm's way so ruth is at the dress shop the police come and they're like we want to check check and see if you know this little girl's here and ruth is pissed because she's like no this is not my son why do you keep harassing us yada yada but she's like fine take a look around and they look around briefly she kicks them out and they see nothing so they're like it's listen it's not he's she's not here but there is another 14 year old named rudolph core who works at the shop and he tells police hey i saw that little girl with jesse earlier but captain dyer says this this little boy, Rudolph, is a known liar. Oh, my God. And because Jesse is reformed,

there's no way that he's telling the truth. Oh, my God. About seeing them together. So a witness apparently at this point tells police they saw Katie being lured into a wagon. And so the case goes from missing child to a kidnapping case. And it leads the investigation away from the child to a kidnapping case and it leads the investigation away from the shop however unfortunately little did they know that jesse

had lured katie to the cellar underneath where they were standing that makes so much sense yep and so they didn't spot anything they were told hey we saw her getting in a wagon over in town so the police leave and leave jesse to his ways in the cellar underneath uh they wouldn't find her for several more months oh no months yeah oh my god yeah she was dead for several months though right she wasn't tortured for several months yes she was dead for several months not i mean you know yeah all bad yeah our catchphrase it's all bad uh it's all bad um april 1870 but yeah she wasn't like kept there for sure between the two i'd rather her not be tortured right now right right right if it's gonna go one way or the other yeah um april of 1874 jesse tries to lure five-year-old

harry fields to a secluded area but a teenager spots them together, knows about Jesse's reputation, stops them, thank God, and Harry's able to escape. So only a few days later, April 22nd, Jesse escorts four-year-old Horace Millen, a child who is described as beautiful and angelic, to a bakery. They purchase some cake and they share it, and he convinces him to walk toward the bay with him. Where are these children's parents? Like, was this at a time where four-year-olds just walk around the bay with him so where where are these children's parents like was this at a time where four-year-olds just walk around the city to get by themselves or like what i don't know maybe maybe it's after school i'm not sure i mean think about it if he's 12 or 13 and he's working at a shop you know like what was the year again or the 1874 okay yeah yeah this was probably before like neighborhood watch i still think about like whatever the era was where i like i think about like old-timey like newsies new york where like

eight-year-olds are like smoking cigarettes like sitting on the back of newspapers trying to get nickels or like bumming rides off the trolley or something i mean so i guess four-year-olds it makes sense by like one of them would be wandering around and you wouldn't think like oh people are dangerous there's no stranger danger yet at this point really so weird and like i mean it wasn't until the 80s that people started getting that like stranger danger fear so it was a long time it was like over 100 years till people would even i i wonder what the stats were at that time compared to now of like i mean like four-year-olds it's not like they were developmentally smarter or like more capable of being on their own back then but like why weren't there just four-year-olds like

getting hit by cars all the time and shit like why are we here many cars oh that's good that's true because i'm like i i can't even imagine letting a four-year-old just run around and hope it knows how to get home yeah i mean i guess if you think like i don't know i don't know anything about it to even make a call but from from my pure ignorance i can't understand yeah i mean if you think it's like out in a suburb of boston and you know kids are employed and i'm sure parents are i don't know i don't know i don't know if anyone happens to be from 1874 let me know please let me know yeah i'd love to i'd love to understand how four-year-olds were just fucking hanging around. Even, like, ten-year-olds, like, with jobs and, like...

Yeah. Anyway, sorry. I guess they depended on it. But also think about, like, the lifespan was so much shorter back then, too. So, I don't know. I think people just matured, quote-unquote, much faster. Like, they were expected to do things. I mean...

Maybe. People were getting married in, like, their teenage years. You know, people were just... It was just a different... It's just bananas. It was a different time. I wish I knew more their teenage years. You know, people are just... It's just a different... It's just bananas. It was a different time. I wish I knew more about that time. You know, it is interesting because it's such a different social...

But, I mean, even nowadays, like, you know, kids get kidnapped and... Yeah. People terrorize towns and... I just always... I never understood how, like, Hey Arnold could walk around New York. Oh, yeah. And he was a nine-year-old. That one was always fascinating.

And you just trusted he like wouldn't get hurt. I feel like I got, I was, I was wandering around town by then. By age like 11 or so, I started being able to walk up to like the grocery store and like. Nope. Yeah. I don't know. Not a million years for my Jewish mother. Yeah.

Not a million fucking years. I'm still not allowed to walk by myself when I go home. I wasn't allowed to be on the highway until i was like 20 oh my god i'm like there was my mom is convinced i'm gonna die from the coronavirus by the way she called me today and she was like if you need to come home for a month absolutely you can come home and i was like why how would that be more helpful get on a plane exactly why don't you and come to dc she's absolutely convinced that at any second I will just drop dead. Em was like, yeah, you can help and send me some toilet paper. And she's like, OK, here's four rolls.

Yeah. So my mom likes to do this thing where she's wildly, like, stereotypically a helicopter parent when it's not asked of her. And then when all of a sudden I legitimately ask for help, which you would think that's the moment that my overprotective mom would go into hyperdrive she that's when she like doesn't give a shit it's no fun anymore it clearly isn't one time i literally had salmonella at one point i called my mom and i was like hey mom the one who has always warned me that one day i would have salmonella and then die from it i literally have salmonella and then die from it. I literally have salmonella. And she went, you're fine. And then hug up the phone because she was at a horse race. She was like, excuse me, I'm at a horse race. How dare you? You're getting in the way of my free time.

And then one time, like she would literally would not let me get on a highway until I was 20. But then she brought me to Boston and 20 minutes into living there. She was like, I have I have a meeting in Connecticut. I'll see you there tomorrow. tomorrow and I was like how the fuck do I get to Connecticut and she was like I don't know figure it out and then left I love that that was grad school too you were like what do I do I didn't she I was so sheltered I was so and like then when I need to learn my mom's like I don't know how like I don't know how to teach you just figure it out but then I'm like oh I probably won't get the coronavirus and she's like no you'll die here's four rolls of toilet paper she tries her best to like she's always nervous the best

way i can describe it is she's always nervous i'm gonna die but when the time comes that i am probably going to die she does not know how to be a nurse she just wants to warn me so that she never has to get to the point there's no guilt there's no guilt there she can just be like i told you she'd be like you shouldn't have eaten that raw chicken then what did i tell you yeah moving on sorry i just i'm thinking of my mom raising me in 1874 and at 30 000 years old she'd still be like you are not stepping out of this building okay it's making a lot more sense yeah because i feel like for me it's not that weird that kids would walk around. I mean, especially in the 1870s. But like, I don't know.

We ran around a lot as kids. I mean, I'm going to be that. I'm not going to be that way because I'm too paranoid now after doing this podcast. But I def and also like I don't trust my genetics to pass on to a child to be like a survivor in any scenario. So but I mean, I definitely we got to run around with our friends and like you know no my mom's still like where are you going who are you going with when are you gonna be back what are you doing i'm confused are you hungry like every every single question that could be solved with like leave me alone you'll find out in an hour listen to my podcast

i'll tell you there yeah well so anyway unfortunately um a four-year-old named Horace was somehow talked into eating a piece of cake and walking to the bay with Jesse. If someone offered me a piece of cake, I'd probably do anything they wanted to, to be fair. Remember clothesline cookies? You were like, I would have come running too. Episode two. Episode two. So several people actually later had said they had seen Jesse with Horace walking along the marsh. Apparently they stopped in a secluded area of the marsh. And this is where things get graphic.

I just want to let you know now. Jesse pulled out his penknife and he slashed Horace across the throat. Shit. But Horace survived the initial attack and Jesse got so angry that it didn't kill him that he stabbed him over and over 18 times in the chest oh my god and pretty immediately killed him that way uh once horace had passed jesse stabbed him in the eye yeah oh my god and begins to cut at his genitals uh and this at this point it's not even a torture thing because he's already died. But this just goes to show how, like, graphic and mutilating he was. And how much anger he had.

How much anger, exactly. So violent. To a child, yeah. And he was a child. I mean, it's just so twisted. So Horace's father, around lunchtime, realizes his son's not home. And so, I mean, I think it wasn't even just, like, the kids were necessarily wandering around. Because, I mean, their parents knew, like, like hey there's this person on the loose right you know i mean if if

you can i'm sure you can talk a four-year-old into like no no it's fine like i'm another kid just walk to the store right like i don't know how he but his father noticed pretty immediately that his son was missing um from their house or their shop or wherever they were and so uh unfortunately right around the time he was reported missing, he had actually just been killed. So around 4 p.m. that day, two boys stumbled upon a horse's body and called police. And obviously, there's one suspect that everyone's like,

hey, we know who the fuck it is, guys. It's pretty obvious. Remember that kid who literally left out or got out of jail uh so the boston chief of police and the news reporters were like no no isn't he locked away in reform school and then south boston precinct was like oh no yeah like we we took him out of there he's roaming free again and i was like well fuck we're like god damn it are you doing yeah so despite his mother's protest she's still saying he's innocent jesse was immediately picked up by police and taken in to be questioned at first he denied

everything he said he didn't even see horace that day however there is blood on his shirt uh marshmallow on his shoes blood on his pen knife and scratches all over his hands and face and they were like hmm likely story something's happened he's like i was just working in the dress shop all day it's been fucking wild over there you have no idea i have not quite figured out how to use a sewing machine and it ended badly to be fair that is kind of how i use a sewing machine so sure i wouldn't blame him so they confiscate the knife compare it to horse's wounds immediately get matched they know this is the knife that stabbed him they take his shoes they had these like a new form of investigation which were these plaster imprints of shoe prints at this in the mud and they matched

perfectly to his shoes um and at this point jesse was like you can't prove anything and so they took him to the mortuary to be like hey you want to see his body here this is what you did and apparently at this point he confesses he's like yeah i did that wow and i don't know if it was like a guilt thing or pride right i don't think it was a guilt thing because it seemed to be that in every other scenario there was never any remorse um but maybe they scared him into it you know with a threat of like 100 years in jail right um this time j mother, Ruth, insists that her son has attorneys. Again, Jesse starts denying the charges. He recants his entire confession.

And he says he was somewhere completely different on the day of the murder. But despite all his new, like, tales, he's indicted on first-degree murder pretty quickly. And a month after his arrest, Ruth, mother and charlie his brother are forced to close their businesses and move out of town which doesn't surprise me that the town was like get the fuck out of here uh so the neighboring shop owner was like i'm gonna expand into their old space and in the process of cleaning out the cellar they discovered the body of katie curran who had gone missing in april so or in march so mrs curran was brought to the scene to identify the body but they only showed her the clothing because the body had decomposed so badly

and mrs curran was beside herself with grief but confirmed that yes it was indeed her missing daughter katie and then ruth and charlie are arrested as accessories to murder because this had happened underneath their shot shit so jesse confesses to the killing of katie and he says he hid the body in a pile of ash and stone but he says his mother and brother were not involved so that's nice of him yeah how sweet yeah so before the trial um jesse is examined by two alienists do you know what an alienist is no an alien princess yep no it's uh it's like a word for psychologist in the 19th century they was like the the first incarnation of a psychologist or a psychiatrist i've never heard that basically so i looked up why it was called that apparently

this is what it says on psychology today it was the alienist job to study understand care for and assist patients in overcoming their mental alienation or mental oh okay which is why they were called alienists um oh alienists with a t i thought you said alieness and i was like an alien princess i don't know yeah that that one you're right on. Yes. I see. That one is correct. That one is correct. Alienists. Okay. Right. Okay.

That checks out. Yes. So his defense was not that he didn't commit the crimes, but that he didn't have the capacity to understand that he was wrong, like morally wrong in committing the crime. Then the defense. So the defense was going basically for an insanity plea. And the alienists on his side were arguing that he was insane. But then under cross-examination, they did admit that, yes, they think Jesse knows what he was doing is wrong. Like, he's not incapable of understanding you are not supposed to do this.

Right. Whether you feel guilty or not. He should at the very least know to stop himself from it. Right. He knows he's not allowed to do this. right he knows he's not allowed to do this um so one thing that all three of the alienists who are on the case agreed upon is the fact that jesse pomeroy was an irredeemable incurable threat to society and should be kept away from people at all costs that's what i call christine oh my god yeah that's why i call you an alienist um the debate became at this point like whether jesse so they

were like well he's guilty but like, like, what do we do? Should we execute him or should we put him away for life? And so it didn't take long, like, to render a guilty verdict. But he was so young that people were like, we don't know if we want to, you know. Execute. Execute. A child, right? Exactly.

But it was a punishment under Massachusetts law for first degree murder. And so the judge apparently said the law is the law and in february of 1875 he passes down the sentence of death on jesse pomeroy wow this whole time ruth is like nope he's innocent and she blames she actually blames katie and horse's parents for jesse being in jail and they're like yeah because what because your kids look so killable like what right exactly exactly it made no sense but she's still to that day was still arguing on his behalf so it took two years he was languishing on death row and two governors came and went and um jesse's sentence was eventually commuted to life in solitary confinement and he was taken off a death row so he actually spent 41 years in solitary confinement he learned languages he wrote

books and poetry yuck i don't want to read that uh he denied any and all responsibility for his crimes whole time said he had nothing to do with it great but then as soon as he's put back in the general population rather than solitary confinement he begins bragging about his crimes and he like loves the attention from all the other inmates and he loves to be like the scary right awful one and so he so this is kind of where it comes back to like him walking to the police station because he acted this way like he was so he bragged about his crimes and he loved to talk about him that's why they think maybe he was excited about the fact that like he was so he bragged about his crimes and he loved to talk about him that's why they think maybe he was excited about the fact that like he hadn't been recognized and wanted

to walk into the police station that one day to like see how far he could push it and like see the actual result of his crime like a cat and mouse game almost with the police yeah so basically the biggest punishment to him of all was that the public just kind of lost interest in him and his case. You know how like some of these murderers just like get off on like the attention. Yeah. And no one cared. No one cared anymore. And so according to guards and wardens at the what do they call it? Criminally insane institution. Sure. So apparently, according to the wardens um as soon as the people in the general population like of the prison didn't or the center didn't know much about him or he wasn't

like nobody knew offhand who he was or anything like that he became really withdrawn depressed like just stopped participating with other people and like his whole thing that he gained energy and like self-importance from was just gone. Gotcha. Because, like, nobody cared. Like, no one was validating anything that he wanted. So he tried to escape jail many times and failed every single time. Cal surprise.

According to the Boston Globe, he made 10 to 12 escape attempts, often creating tools in his cell by himself. A prison warden reported finding rope steel pens and a drill uh that he had a drill how do you smuggle that in i don't know i guess he had like 50 years to do it uh according to the globe pomeroy lost an eye after attempting to destroy the side of his cell by redirecting a gas pipe oh shit and blow a hole in the wall so he like literally lost an eye over it um didn't escape obviously according to a 1914 psychiatric report pomeroy had shown the greatest ingenuity and a persistence which is unprecedented in the history of the prison so good job huh so jesse died on september 29th32, still incarcerated. And he is considered an organized slash lust serial killer, which is sort of like Ted Bundy and Dahmer.

Like he did it out of just a want, a desire to, a need to. So no one with any familiarity with the case has any doubt that like if he hadn't been caught when he finally was, his body count would have just continued. Sure. There was no stopping him. Yeah. He was described as manipulative, methodical, demonstrating no remorse or acceptance of responsibility for even the most minor of infractions. Prison psychologists noted how he manipulated his mother over and over during the over the years. And she continued to proclaim his innocence.

And he could always convince her that he had nothing to do with it. But that ended in 1915 when Ruth passed away, still professing her son's innocence to the day she died. And after that, no one else bothered to visit Jesse ever again. Wow. That's the story of Jesse Pomeroy. It's a big one. I'm sorry. Wow. It's one I want to do for a long

time but it's just a lot well yikes boston sorry we won't be seeing you glad we're not going actually a little bit now what the fuck boston what's the matter with you yikes no uh yowza thank you for that you're welcome welcome. It's doozy. You're welcome. Is everyone thanking me? Everyone is pleased. I'm sure. Everyone feels really good about themselves. Well, great. I don't know where to go from here. Do you have anything? I'm just going to say, I'm not going to say come see us live because that's not seeming to work right now.

So just check us out. And that's Ra seeming to work right now so uh just check us out and that's raiderink.com also i mean if you want you can follow our social media that's where we're posting like updated dates and that kind of thing so if you are concerned check there first because that's where we'll post anything at wwd podcast is our handle yes sir all things for all things uh check it out and soon we're gonna have our space camp video up on patreon yes and there's a little kitty cat doing some stretching over there. That's right. Right underneath Skylar. Oh, so sweet.

On that note. And that's why we drink. Oh.